by Lynsay Sands
“The hell you will!” Justin protested, grabbing his arm and hauling him back.
“Then kiss her,” Dante growled. “Bring on her passion and her fangs.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not really necessary,” Holly began to babble at once when Justin turned grimly toward her. Beginning to back away, she added quickly, “I mean, no offense, but I’m sure he can’t bring on my passion. I’m married, and I love my husband, and mummph mmmm mummph—” The end of her protest was muffled by his mouth when it closed over hers. But it stopped entirely when he took advantage of her attempt at continued denial and sucked one of her flapping lips between his own.
Good Lord, what the hell was he doing? She wondered faintly as his arms slid around her, his hands moving down to cup her behind and urge her up against him. That wasn’t kissing. That was . . . oh dear, she thought weakly as his tongue thrust into her mouth and she felt not just a flutter of passion, but an entire damned tsunami of it washing through her body. Dear God, the man was devouring her. He was . . . he was . . .
Not caring what the hell he was, she gave up her thoughts and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck as her mouth opened wider in welcome. Holly had never been kissed like this. James had never kissed her as if his very life depended on it, as if he was desperate to explore every nook and cranny of her lips, teeth and tongue. As if she held the secret to the universe somewhere in her mouth and he was determined to find it with his own. His body was giving off so much heat she felt singed, and there was a hardness growing between them that she was quite sure was not expanding foam someone had shot between their groins—although she would have understood if they had, and the insulation would have been appreciated. Holly was quite sure she was about to burst into flames down there and the hardness growing between his legs was hot enough to curl her hair.
Tasting blood on her tongue was enough to shock these ridiculous thoughts right out of her head. She’d bitten him, Holly realized and pulled her head back with alarm.
“I’m thorry,” she lisped around the fangs protruding from her jaw, feeling horrible about biting the man in the tongue.
“Good job,” Dante said gruffly and slapped Justin on the shoulder.
He’d still been holding her in his arms, a pained expression on his face, but now eased away from her. He didn’t just let her go, though, but turned and walked out of the kitchen.
“Ith he o’ay?” she asked, the words garbled around her fangs. God, it was hard to talk with these darned things out.
“He’s fine,” Gia said reassuringly. “He’s probably going to rinse his mouth.”
“And take a cold shower,” Dante added with amusement.
“Definitely,” Tomasso agreed, grinning from ear to ear.
Gia gave her cousins a look and then stepped up next to Holly. “Now, let’s concentrate on getting your fangs back where they belong. Shall we?”
“Idiot, idiot, idiot,” Justin chanted, banging his head repeatedly against the ceramic tile of the shower wall as cold water poured down over the back of his black T-shirt and jeans.
Getting undressed before the cold shower he was suffering would have taken too long for him to bother with. Especially since he’d been battling mightily against the insane urge to march right back to the kitchen, pick up Holly, carry her up here to his room, rip off her clothes and ravish her.
He banged his head against the wall again to remove the images that thought brought to mind. What had he been thinking? How had he let those two big buffoons goad him into kissing her? That had been the worst possible thing he could have done at this stage. Now he’d had a taste of what he would lose if he didn’t win her over, and . . . dear God, nothing he’d experienced before had prepared him for the way his body had reacted when he’d kissed Holly.
Justin was no virgin. Nor was he an ancient immortal who had given up women ages ago and couldn’t remember sex. He’d had more women in the last century than he’d care to admit. And he’d had some damned fine sex too. Hot, sweaty, knock your socks off, unforgettable sex.
And every one of those experiences faded to nothing next to a simple kiss from Holly.
“Holy, fuck a duck,” he muttered, banging his head again. If he’d known . . .
Hell, if he’d known what the others had been experiencing with this wave of immortals finding their life mates . . . well, he might just have kidnapped Marguerite at sword point and demanded she find him his mate. That or blow his own head off with envy.
“Christ on a cracker,” he muttered, slamming his head again. His entire body was still vibrating with his response to their kiss. It was as if the millions of nanos in his body had turned into sparklers and were doing little “Whoopee” dances from his head to his toes.
“Whoop-dee-fucking-doo!” Justin growled, hitting the wall again. How was he supposed to act natural around her after this? How was he supposed to keep his hands off of her? And why the heck wasn’t she up here, crawling all over him like flies on shit?
That thought had him growling under his breath with frustration. Holly hadn’t seemed as affected by the kiss as him. Sure, she’d kissed him back almost desperately, but the moment she’d tasted a little blood, she’d jumped back with a sort of horror, as if she’d mortally wounded him.
“Screw the blood,” he muttered, banging his head again. She could have bitten his tongue clean off and he wouldn’t have stopped kissing her. Who cared? It would grow back, for cripes sake and kissing her was worth losing a lot of body parts over and having to grow them back. Sex with her, though . . . he thought he might risk his life for that. How could they not have told him what he was missing?
“Bastards,” Justin growled, but instead of banging his head again, he turned in the shower and let the cold water hit his front. It certainly hadn’t been doing much good on his back. He was still hard as a damned flagpole . . . for all the good that did him. He was a flagpole without a flag, a tent pole without a tent to cover him, a fishing pole without a—okay not a fishing pole. They were bendy and—
“And why the hell am I having this conversation in my poor muddled head?” he asked himself with disgust. But the answer was obvious enough. Because he was muddled. He was a muddled, horny dog who presently couldn’t think of anything but getting Holly naked and planting his flagpole in her sweet wet ground.
“All right, Bricker, old boy. You’ve lost your ever-loving mind,” Justin told himself grimly as he took note of his own thoughts. Fortunately, he’d also lost his erection with the shame of spouting such nonsense. Sighing his relief, he turned off the shower and stepped out to drip all over the bathroom floor. A mess he’d have to clean up later, Justin realized. Man, he really was an idiot.
He began to strip off his soaking clothes, removing his T-shirt first and tossing it back into the shower before setting to work on his jeans. That was a mammoth task. Wet jeans did not come off easily and he struggled with it, banging against the wall repeatedly as he nearly toppled over. Once off, those joined the T-shirt on the shower floor, then Justin grabbed a towel and quickly dried himself off.
He was in his bedroom, standing in front of the closet, donning a fresh pair of black jeans when a knock sounded at the door.
Snapping the snap, and doing up the zipper, he called, “Yeah?” and wasn’t surprised when the door opened.
Gia stuck her head in, glanced around until she spotted him and then seeing him, smiled and stepped into the room. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Justin growled, snatching a fresh T-shirt off a hangar, and tugging it over his head. “What’s going on downstairs?”
“Holly has mastered bringing on and retracting her fangs,” Gia told him with a smile.
“What?” he squawked, stilling with his shirt half on. “Already?”
Gia nodded. “She’s a very fast learner, and your kisses helped. All she has to
do now is think of you kissing her to make them come out.”
Justin grunted and finished pulling the shirt on, not sure how to take that. Was it good that thoughts of his kisses brought her teeth out? It meant just thinking of or remembering their kiss turned her on. That had to be good, right?
“You even helped her with retracting them,” she added and the amusement in her voice made him suspicious until she added, “She just thinks of your fish dinner and they go away—Poof!” she said and laughed at his expression. Moving forward, Gia gave him a motherly hug, cooing, “Oh, do not be sad. She appreciated the effort. And you definitely got her attention with that kiss.”
“Did I?” he asked dubiously.
“Of course, you did,” she assured him.
“Well, she sure pulled away in a hurry,” Justin complained.
“She thought she’d hurt you,” Gia said solemnly. She hesitated, and then added, “Of course, now she feels just horrible and her guilt is twofold.”
“Twofold?” he asked with a frown.
Gia nodded. “She feels bad because she fears she hurt you, and she is experiencing a great deal of guilt. One, because she feels that she was unfaithful to her husband by responding to your kisses.”
Justin ran a weary hand through his hair and shook his head. He didn’t like the idea that she was feeling guilty about the kiss. She hadn’t chosen it. They’d pretty much forced it on her. Actually, it had been pretty much forced on both of them since there was no way in hell he would have stood by and allowed Dante to try to build that kind of fire in Holly, and Dante had known it.
“Yes, Dante was very naughty,” Gia murmured, apparently reading his mind. “He wanted you both to have a little taste of what you could have together. Holly so that she knows what she is missing, and you so that you understand just what you are fighting for here and take it seriously.”
“He told you that?” Justin asked with surprise.
“No. I read his mind,” she said with amusement. “Dante and Tomasso are easy for me to read.”
“Right, well Holly won’t think about what she could have with me so long as she’s suffering guilt over what she considers being unfaithful to her husband,” Justin said grimly and was quite sure it was true . . . although he couldn’t say how he knew that about her. “And I could be in trouble for it. Kissing her and rousing the life mate passion could be considered undue influence.”
“Dante forced you. It wasn’t your idea,” Gia argued.
“I could have let him kiss her.”
“Few immortals could stand by and allow another immortal to kiss their life mate. Nor would they expect you to.”
“I hope you’re right. Otherwise, my favorite body part might be in peril.”
“I thought you had decided her kiss was worth losing body parts and growing them back?” she said with amusement. “I’m pretty sure I read that from your mind when she stopped the kiss.”
“Stay out of my head,” he snapped and then, sorry for snapping at her when she was just trying to help, ran a weary hand through his hair and admitted, “Yeah. I thought that, and still do. But having to grow back a body part once is a different story than having your dick shredded over a hundred times. With the healing time in between, it would mean agony for—Hell I don’t even know how long,” he muttered, fighting the urge to cross his legs and cover his groin protectively with his hands. “Besides, I don’t want to lose my job.”
“Why would you lose your job?” she asked with surprise.
“The council tends to frown on having Enforcers who break our own laws,” he said dryly.
“Oh.” She bit her lip briefly and then said, “There is another reason Holly feels guilty, you know.”
Justin’s eyebrows rose slightly. The comment was so out of the blue . . . and he’d thought they were done with that part of the conversation. It seemed not, he thought and asked, “What reason is that?”
“Because thoughts of your one kiss bring on her fangs, while memories of all of her husband’s kisses do not,” she said quietly.
Justin’s head jerked up at these words, his mind whirling. This was good, wasn’t it? Not the guilt, of course, but that his kisses did what her husband’s couldn’t. At least the memories of them. Of course, as her life mate he’d known his kisses would have more affect than her mortal husband’s, but it surprised him that her husband’s kisses didn’t stir enough passion to bring on her fangs. That was rather interesting, actually, and telling.
“Well,” Gia headed for the door. “I came to tell you that we are ending lessons for the day and taking Holly shopping.” Pausing at the door, she glanced back and added, “And to see if you want to join us. The boys want more food and Holly needs clothes.”
Justin considered the matter briefly and then shook his head. He wasn’t going to get to woo Holly with Gia and the twins along. But their absence would give him the chance to move his wooing campaign ahead in other ways.
“You go on,” he said now, a smile pulling at his lips. “I have things to do around here.”
Gia peered at him curiously. Reading his mind, no doubt, he thought when concentration filled her face. After a moment, she smiled faintly, and nodded. “Buona fortuna amico mio.”
Justin merely grunted as she closed the door to his room. “Good luck, my friend,” she’d said, but he didn’t need luck. He had a plan.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and change into your new clothes?” Gia suggested as she followed Holly into the house from the garage.
“I was going to help bring in the groceries,” Holly said uncertainly, glancing back toward the loaded SUV. Dante and Tomasso were bigger shoppers than Decker, Anders, and Justin put together. But then they were also bigger eaters. In the two short days since they’d arrived, the twins had gone through nearly half the groceries the other men had bought.
“The boys can handle it,” Gia assured her. “And you aren’t terribly comfortable in those clothes of mine.”
Holly grimaced at the comment and glanced down at herself. She had got up this morning, redonned the sweater and tights Gia had given her the day before and then opened her bedroom door to find another outfit neatly folded and set on the hall floor. Relieved that she wouldn’t have to wear the same clothes twice, Holly had scooped them up and backed into the room to change. But the moment she’d realized how short the skirt was, and how see-through the top, she’d nearly changed back. Gia’s style was definitely edgy/sexy, while Holly’s style was . . . well, just not. She was more the jeans and T-shirt kind of gal when she wasn’t dressed up for work. And yes, she had been terribly uncomfortable in the other woman’s clothes.
Mind you, she hadn’t been any more comfortable at allowing the woman to pay for the clothes she was now wearing. Even when Gia had explained that she wasn’t buying them, the Enforcers were. Apparently, since Justin had turned her while on an Enforcer job, they were footing the bill for everything from the food they were eating to the clothes on her back.
“You’re right,” Holly said finally. “I guess I’m just not brave enough for your clothes. But they are beautiful and I do appreciate your letting me borrow them.”
“Bah.” Gia waved away her words. “I knew that. I can read your mind,” she reminded her and then urged her forward. “Come, let’s get these up to your room.”
Nodding, Holly turned and led the way upstairs. She had to do some juggling once they got to her door to open it, but then she stumbled in, headed for the bed, only to pause after just a couple of steps.
“What the—?” She turned slowly, her gaze moving over the flowers on every surface in the room. Flower arrangements sat on the bedside tables, crowded the dresser and covered every inch of the sitting table in the corner of the room. There were even flowers strewn on the bed and petals on the floor.
“Ah,” Gia said, and that was it. Just “ah.”
Holly shook her head with bewilderment. “Did someone die?”
Gia choked on a laugh and moved past her to the bed. She started to set the bags down, then paused to brush some of the flowers out of the way first. Setting the bags down then, she turned to survey the room and said, “I think maybe this is Justin’s idea of the romanticismo.”
“Romanticismo?” Holly echoed blankly. “What the devil is that?”
Gia frowned briefly and then offered, “The romance?”
Holly groaned at the suggestion. Decker and Anders had warned her that he might go a bit over the top in his desperation, but this was . . .
Well, it was kind of sweet, really, she supposed. Or would be if she hadn’t developed such an aversion to flowers since working at the funeral home. Prior to that she would have welcomed such a gesture. From James, she added quickly to the thought. She would have welcomed flowers from James before working at the funeral home, but they had both been as poor as church mice since getting married and hadn’t been able to afford the extravagance of even a vase of flowers let alone a whole bloody store’s stock, and that’s what it looked like to her. There were so many she was quite sure Justin must have left the store he’d bought them from completely barren of flowers. They’d probably closed shop the moment he left.
Shaking her head, she carried her bags over to the bed and set them next to the ones Gia had put down. She then glanced worriedly at the pale blue carpeting, concerned that the crushed petals might be staining the carpet.
“I don’t suppose you noticed if there was a rake in the garage, did you?” Holly asked, surveying the floor with a frown. For some reason that made Gia burst out laughing.
“I will go see,” Gia said, heading for the door.
“Oh, no,” Holly protested at once, turning to move after her. “I didn’t mean for you to—”
“I know, I know,” Gia said, waving her to a stop. “I can read your mind, remember? You change. I shall get the rake.”
“Thank you,” Holly breathed sincerely and watched her go before returning to the bags that held the clothes she’d bought that day. She quickly dug through them in search of underwear, a bra, jeans and a T-shirt, and then paused, unsure what to do. Gia had told her to change, but the woman had also left the door open. She wasn’t changing right there when any passing person might see. On the other hand, she didn’t really want to risk crushing any more color into the carpet by walking anywhere again.