Willow felt a wave of desire and goosebumps broke out on her skin. “I’m sure we can find some way to entertain ourselves,” she said, turning in his arms.
“What did you have in mind?” Taylor asked, slipping his hands into her hair and pulling out the pins that held it in place.
Willow reached up and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Well, we could start with taking this off, and see where that leads,” she said, running her hands over his bare chest.
“I can tell you exactly where that will lead,” he said, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her over to the bed.
***Taylor***
The next morning when they emerged from the hotel, the street looked a little less seedy to Taylor, but he noticed that everyone was looking at them. “Why is everyone staring at us?” he asked, following her across the street.
“Because we clearly don’t fit in down here; we need some different clothes,” Willow said, pushing him towards a thrift store.
Taylor looked down at his clothes, then over at hers. “What’s wrong with our clothes?”
“Look around you,” she said, pausing in front of the store. “It’s not so much what we’re wearing as the condition of what we’re wearing. Down here, most people only have a few changes of clothes, and everything gets worn until there’s no wear in it anymore.”
Taylor looked a little closer and saw that Willow was right: most everyone’s clothes showed wear, the kind of wear that only time could cause. He looked up at the sign above the door to the store they were standing in front of, then back at Willow.
“I see what you mean,” he said. “Lead the way.”
Half an hour later, they left the store in new old clothes, theirs left behind as payment for the new outfits. Taylor still wasn’t sure it was going to help, but when they walked out, no one even looked at them.
“Should I go get the car?” he asked, looking up and down the street.
“Not unless you want to stay with it all day; besides, the address Maxine gave me isn’t that far away,” Willow said.
Taylor took her hand when she held it out, but he wasn’t sure about being out on the street, so he kept as close to her as he could. They walked for several blocks, the sounds of the city calming him as they navigated the crowded streets, stopping every once in a while for Willow to get her bearings.
“Sorry, it’s been a while,” she said, looking around her, then taking off again.
When they finally got to a decrepit apartment building with the door hanging slightly off center, she stopped and said, “This is it. Maxine said he’s in apartment 602.”
Taylor looked at the building skeptically. “I can’t believe anyone lives there,” he said, suppressing a shudder when he realized that this had been Willow’s life for a long time.
“Not everyone is as lucky as you are,” Willow said, a bit of admonishment in her voice. “We have to do what we have to do to survive sometimes.”
Taylor felt bad. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking; it’s just, well I didn’t know that people had to live this way,” he said, wondering how he’d become so sheltered.
“Lots do,” Willow said, shrugging her shoulders, “most are happy with what they have.”
Taylor followed her up the stairs, wishing he could do something to change things, but couldn’t help the shudder that passed through him when she opened the door and the smell of urine greeted him. He kept his mouth shut and followed her up the stairs, only glancing at the elevator when they passed it.
When they got to the apartment, Taylor gently pushed Willow out of the way and knocked on the door. “He might remember me,” he explained when she shot him a questioning glance.
They heard some scuffling noises from behind the door, and an eye briefly appeared in the peep-hole, then there was silence. Taylor reached up and knocked again. “Professor Miller, are you in there?” he yelled.
“Go away, I already paid my rent this month,” a voice yelled from the other side of the door.
Taylor looked over at Willow, then knocked once more. “Professor Miller, it’s Taylor Carlson; remember me? I was your student a few years ago. We used to have lunch together and talk about dragon shifters.”
There was silence and then the eye appeared again, then they could hear the sound of locks being undone, and the door flew open. The man on the other side of the door looked like he hadn’t shaved or had a hair cut in months. His eyes darted from Taylor to Willow and then back again.
“What are you doing here? What do you want?” he asked, nervously looking over his shoulder into his apartment. “I’m very busy.”
Taylor tried to look past him into the apartment, but it was shrouded in darkness, the only light coming in through two small windows covered with several layers of grime. “Umm, we wanted to talk to you about something. Could we come in?”
Professor Miller looked at them again, then ran his hands through his long scraggly hair. “I’m very busy,” he repeated, then stepped back to let them in.
When he stepped into the apartment, it took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness, but when they did, what he saw made him reach out and take Willow’s hand. The smell reached him next, and it was all he could do not to step back out into the hallway.
“What happened here?” Willow asked in a small voice, her face wrinkled with distaste at the smell.
Professor Miller looked around the room. “I’ve been trying to fix it for days, but it’s all ruined, and the smell, it won’t go away,” he said, looking more agitated than when he’d opened the door. “I just don’t understand it; one minute it was all here, then it was gone, and when it came back, this is what I got.”
Wishing it was lighter in the room, Taylor stepped deeper into the piles scattered around the room. “Did you just say that it all disappeared?” he asked, carefully picking up a book from the top of a pile.
He recognized the title at once but waited for an answer. “That’s exactly what I just said; my entire library disappeared one night, and it came back just a few days ago, but look at it. It’s no good to anyone now, and the smell is driving me mad.”
Chapter Eighteen
***Willow***
Willow could only stand and stare at the piles of books and papers scattered around the room. She was breathing through her mouth, hoping the smell wouldn’t make her gag, but the professor’s words made her suck in a big breath through her nose. She felt her heart begin to pound when Taylor picked up a book she recognized and held it up for her to see.
“This is your library?” she asked, still not sure she understood what was going on.
“It was,” the professor said, “but now it’s all ruined.”
Willow pulled off her backpack and, with shaking hands, pulled out the notebook. “I think this belongs to you,” she said, holding it out to him.
He stared at the notebook for several long minutes, then let out a huge whoop of joy. “I thought this was lost, my whole life’s work, gone. Do you know what I’ve sacrificed for this? My job, my wife, my kids,” he said, falling to his knees.
Willow knelt down in front of him and held the notebook out. “This is what we wanted to talk to you about,” she said.
He took the notebook from her hands, then looked at her. “No one was supposed to see this; it’s not ready.”
“But we have, and we want to know if you have the research to back it up,” she said softly.
“It’s someplace safe,” he said. “I couldn’t risk it getting into the wrong hands. Thank you for bringing it back to me.”
He got to his feet and looked around the room again. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”
“But we need to see your research,” Willow said, standing as well.
“It’s important, Professor Miller,” Taylor said, then seeing that he was losing the man’s interest now that he had his notebook back, he asked, “Do you know about the prophecy?”
The professor turned back to them. “Prop
hecy?” he asked, suddenly interested.
Willow nodded. “I think it’s something you should hear,” she said. “Maybe we can take you out for some lunch and talk about it a little more.”
The professor looked around the room. “I don’t know, I hate to leave all this; someone might come and steal it again.”
Willow smiled at him. “I promise that won’t happen again, and while we’re telling you about the prophecy, there are a few more things I want to explain to you,” she said.
The professor looked like he was going to refuse, but then Willow took his arm and said, “Come on, a good meal and some nice conversation will be good for you. I promise everything will still be here when we get back.”
Willow was never so relieved to step outside as she was that afternoon when they left Professor Miller’s building. They’d found him, but she wasn’t sure that the man was capable of rational thought. But after he’d eaten a huge lunch and downed several cups of strong black coffee, he began to become more balanced.
It took them most of the afternoon to explain to him about the prophecy and its connection to his research. But when they were finished, it wasn’t hard to miss the smug look on his face.
“The council tried to tell me that I was crazy, that my ideas were all off,” he said, his eyes full of a clarity Willow hadn’t seen before.
“If you have the research to back this up, you’ve got something, professor,” Taylor said, not sure what it meant for his own life, but seeing the future changing for dragon shifters.
“It’s in a locker at the bus station,” the professor said, then asked eagerly, “What are we going to do with it?”
“First, we’re going to call my brother, and then we’ll go to the bus station,” Taylor said. “After that, I think a visit to the council might be our next step.”
“And we’re going to get you out of that apartment, and away from that smell,” Willow said.
“But my books and papers, what’s going to happen to them?”
“Let me take care of it. I know the perfect place to store them until we can figure out how to clean the demon off of them,” Taylor said, then wished he hadn’t put it quite that way.
Willow grimaced. “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but I think Michelle might be able to help with that.”
It was dinnertime before the foul-smelling library was packed up and hauled to a safe place. The professor insisted on watching as every book, journal, and stack of papers was packed in boxes and sealed closed. Willow could feel the stench clinging to her and wanted a hot shower more than she’d ever wanted one in her life.
As they walked down the six flights of stairs, Taylor said, “I think we should stay somewhere else tonight. Maxine’s is fine, but I’d feel better if we were out of the neighborhood.”
Willow had been thinking about that too; as remote as the possibility was, someone could have been watching them today. “As long as it’s not the Ritz; they’d probably throw us out.”
Taylor laughed. “No, I had something else in mind,” he said.
They made their way out of the seedy neighborhoods and into the nicer part of town, finally stopping in front of an old mansion in the historic district of the city. Willow looked up at the majestic building and sighed with pleasure.
“Oh, Taylor, it’s lovely,” she said, jumping out of the car.
“The entire top floor is ours for as long as we want it,” he said, then turned to the professor. “I got you your own room on the second floor.”
As soon as they came through the front door, they were ushered up to their rooms, where Willow found fresh clothes and toiletries in the bathroom. She headed straight for the shower, not missing the wrinkled nose of their hostess when she stood next to her.
When she got out of the shower, she found Taylor freshly showered and waiting for her on the balcony of their room. He was staring out at the city, a distant look on his face, but when he saw her, a smile appeared, and her heart skipped a beat.
“You look refreshed,” he said, pulling her into his arms.
“And I smell much better,” she said, burying her head in his chest and taking a deep breath of the scent she was coming to know so well. “So do you.”
***Taylor***
Taylor looked down at Willow, love making his chest feel like it was going to burst and his head swim. He wanted to tell her how he felt, wanted to say the words, but something held him back. Instead, he lowered his head and kissed her until they were both breathless.
“You taste good too,” Willow said, grinning up at him.
A sharp bolt of desire raced through him, and he suddenly wasn’t very hungry anymore. He leaned over and began softly biting her neck, then whispered, “We could skip dinner and go right to bed.”
Willow gasped, then sighed, “Mmm, that might not be a bad idea, but what about Professor Miller?”
“He can entertain himself. I’m not sharing,” he said, nibbling on her neck again.
Willow was about to give up; her little moans of pleasure were enough to tell him that. But a knock on the door interrupted them, and she slid out of his arms, blowing him a kiss as she walked away.
When she opened the door, it took him a second to figure out that it was the professor standing on the other side. He was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt, his face freshly shaved and his hair neatly slicked back.
“I was wondering if you’d like to join me for dinner?” he asked.
It was impossible to refuse him; he was clearly pleased with himself. “We’d love to,” Taylor said.
Willow beamed at the professor. “Thank you, professor; we’d love to.”
“I think it’s time you started calling me Steve. I haven’t been a professor for a long time,” he said, holding out his arm for Willow.
“Okay, Steve it is then,” she said, throwing Taylor an amused smile over her shoulder.
Dinner was just as good as he remembered from his other visits, but he was so distracted by Willow that he hardly noticed what he was eating. When they sat down, he immediately began to tease her under the table, sliding his hand between her legs, brushing his hand across her breasts.
She gasped each time and squirmed in her chair just a little, but then she began to tease him back. Sliding her hand between his legs, rubbing her breasts against his arm until it became a contest to see who could get the biggest response. No one seemed to notice as conversation flowed around them, but by the time dessert was served, Taylor had only one thing on his mind.
Willow’s cheeks had turned an attractive shade of pink, and he could see the desire in her eyes as huge pieces of chocolate cake were put down in front of them. Deciding to step up the game, he used his fork to cut off a piece of his cake, then leaned toward Willow to feed it to her.
He brought it up to her mouth, then stopped, leaned forward a little more, and said, “I’d like to smear this all over your body and lick it off.”
Her eyes widened a little, but then she opened her mouth and licked her lips, waiting for him to feed the cake to her. He slid the fork into her mouth, and she closed her lips over it slowly, her eyes locked on his, her hand sliding between his legs.
Pleasure and desire competed for top position, and he couldn’t help the little groan that escaped from his mouth. When Willow’s pink tongue slipped out of her mouth to lick the last of the frosting from her lips, it was nearly his undoing. Groaning because he knew that game had gotten out of control, he set down the fork and pulled his eyes away from Willow.
Everyone was staring at them, but thankfully, their hostess broke the silence. “I guess chocolate really is like sex,” she said, letting out a huge sigh and putting her hand over her chest.
Willow blushed, and everyone laughed, but dinner couldn’t be over soon enough for Taylor. Their little game had left him more than a little turned on, and all he could think about was Willow naked in his arms in the huge bed upstairs. No one was surprised when they got up not long after that
and headed back to their room.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Taylor pulled Willow into his arms and slammed his mouth down on hers. She threw her arms around him and opened her mouth to his kiss, moaning in his arms as he ravaged her mouth.
He slid his hands down her body, then between her legs, rubbing her until she broke the kiss and tipped her head back in pleasure. Nibbling on her neck, he slid his hand up further, cupping her breast in his hand, his thumb brushing across her nipples until they hardened under his touch.
His body was hard and throbbing, and for a moment, he considered taking Willow right there in the middle of the room. But before he could, she pushed him away and said, “I’ll be right back. I have a surprise for you.”
It was almost painful to let her walk away, but he took advantage of the time and lit a few candles and turned down the lights. He opened the doors to the balcony and stepped out, looking up at the stars twinkling above him. Silently thanking whatever had brought Willow to him, he took a deep breath, and hearing the bathroom door open, turned to go back inside.
Chapter Nineteen
***Willow***
Taylor was standing on the balcony when she came out of the bathroom, his shirt unbuttoned, and for a second, she couldn’t breathe. Love washed over her, leaving her heart pounding and her head fuzzy. She’d never imagined that loving someone would mean that she would feel so many emotions.
Of course, there was the love itself, a feeling impossible to explain to someone that had never felt it. Then there was the pleasure and passion they shared, but all of that was laced with just a smidgen of fear. Fear that she’d lose Taylor someday, fear that he’d leave her, fear that what they’d started would end badly.
But all she had to do was look at him from across the room, and the fear vanished, replaced again by the love she felt for him. She walked toward him, smiling when she saw his eyes sweep her body from head to toe, knowing that the lace gown she was wearing hugged every curve of her body.
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