Dark Power Untamed (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Book 50)

by I. T. Lucas

  She handed it to him. “At least cover your face, and don’t forget your ears, your nose, and the back of your neck.”

  22

  Cassandra

  “Yes, ma’am.” Onegus popped the cover and squeezed out a small dollop into the palm of his hand.

  Thankfully, he was still smiling after her idiotic tirade about his paleness and sunscreen. Had she put her foot in it again by bringing up a taboo subject?

  And then she’d made things worse by lecturing him about it.

  Cassandra was socially inept on most days, but the impact of seeing Onegus with those powerful muscles of his on display had scrambled her brain, making it much worse.

  He’d looked amazing in a tux, and when he’d taken his jacket off, she’d seen the outline of those biceps through his dress shirt. But the white short-sleeved button-down that was open at the throat was much more revealing. He looked good enough to eat in it, not to mention the jeans, which were lovingly hugging his muscular thighs.

  Distracted by her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the strange way he was going about smearing the sunscreen on his face until he asked, “Am I doing it right?”

  He had a big white spot on his nose and two more on his cheeks. The rest of the sunscreen was still on the palm of his hand, and he was using it by dipping a finger in it and dabbing it on his face.

  She chuckled. “Do you mind if I do that?”

  “Not at all.”

  Leaning over the table, she gently spread the sunscreen all over his face, including behind his ears. The guy didn’t have any wrinkles or dark spots, and his skin was smooth and soft, as if he got daily facials.

  “How do you manage to have such great skin when you don’t even know how to put sunscreen on?”

  “I spend most of my days in a windowless office.” He smiled, and her core clenched. “I guess I live like a vampire. Usually, when I leave the office, it’s already dark outside.”

  She arched a brow. “A billionaire working in an office with no windows? How come? Are you afraid of someone spying on you through the glass?”

  As his smile faltered, Cassandra wondered whether she’d committed another faux pas. She was so bad at simple social interactions that it was pathetic.

  Perhaps she should hire a coach.

  He leaned over the table. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m just an employee, and I don’t own the family business empire. Are you disappointed?”

  Actually, it was a huge relief. If he was just a regular guy, working for his family’s business, there was a chance that they could have a normal relationship. Provided that she didn’t blow it up, that is, figuratively speaking or literally.

  “I’m terribly disappointed.” She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, pretending to be mad. “I finally meet a billionaire who looks like the ones on the covers of romance novels, and he turns out to be just a poor schmo, whose office is in the basement.”

  Onegus’s left brow lifted. “I didn’t say that I was poor. I’m not a billionaire, but I’m quite wealthy. And as for my office, I choose to work underground for various reasons.”

  Bummer.

  Uncrossing her arms, Cassandra let out a sigh. “That’s a shame. I was hoping that you were an ordinary person like me.”

  “There is nothing ordinary about you.” He reached for her hand and clasped it in his much larger one. “You are radiating with inner power, and I find it sexy as hell.”

  Yeah, sexy, until things started exploding.

  So far she’d been lucky, but if he kept looking at her like that, she wouldn’t be able to contain that energy for much longer.

  Perhaps a quick trip to the ladies’ room was in order?

  Gross.

  Besides, how did he know?

  The most anyone ever suspected her of was being a jinx. Kevin often joked about the office gremlins who caused pottery to crack, or the phones to malfunction, and all the other small damages that her temper had been responsible for.

  “What’s that grimace for?” Onegus asked.

  “What did you mean by power?”

  “I can sense it. It’s like your body is humming with an electric current. Can’t you feel it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Liar.” He smiled and lifted her hand to his lips. “Remember what happened when our hands touched last night?”

  She shrugged. “It was static electricity. It’s not happening now, is it?”

  He eyed her from under his dense, blond lashes. “I can still feel it, and it turns me on.”

  Cassandra scrambled for a quick change of topic.

  “By the way, I didn’t forget your jacket. I have it in my car. Remind me to give it back to you before we leave.”

  “There is no rush.” He lifted his hand and motioned for the waiter to come to their table. “You are mine for the entire day.”

  She pulled her hand out of his. “What if I have other plans?”

  “Do you?”

  “No, but you shouldn’t assume.”

  He dipped his head. “My apologies. It has been a very long time since I last dated, and I’m out of practice.”

  With his admission, a warm feeling washed over Cassandra, which was very strange since she could think of only one reason a gorgeous man like him hadn’t been dating. He must have been married, and it had ended recently. But she was comforted by the fact that he was also unsure and fumbled with social rules.

  “Apology accepted. God knows that I have no right to preach about etiquette.”

  23

  Onegus

  Onegus was enjoying himself way more than he should.

  After a couple of drinks, Cassandra had loosened up, her smiles were coming in more easily, and she’d become less guarded.

  Other than getting upset over the slow service and the waiter’s dismissive attitude, Cassandra seemed to be enjoying his company as much as he was enjoying hers, but she was still far from trusting him.

  So far, she’d refused to acknowledge the swirling energy he sensed in her, flat out denying that it even existed. One explanation could be that she wasn’t aware of it, the other that she was afraid to admit it, which raised the question of why.

  It had intensified when she’d gotten angry, leading him to believe that it was connected to her emotions.

  As the waiter dropped their bill on the table and left, Onegus pulled a couple of hundreds out of his wallet and put them inside the folder.

  “Are you ready for a walk on the beach?” He rose to his feet.

  She was still eyeing the money he’d left. “We need to wait for the waiter to bring you the change.”

  “That’s okay. He can keep the rest.”

  She shook her head. “That’s a very generous tip, and it wasn’t earned. The guy did a lousy job serving us, and he was cranky.”

  “True, but it wasn’t his fault. He was the only waiter up here, serving all the tables by himself.” He offered her a hand up.

  “I don’t think it’s right to reward a subpar performance.” She took his hand reluctantly, and just like the day before, the current arced between them.

  “Did you feel that?”

  She waved her other hand in dismissal. “Static electricity again. We must have opposite charges or something.” She glanced in the waiter’s direction. “He didn’t even ask if we needed anything else before dropping the bill on the table, and you left him an eighty-dollar tip.”

  “How do you know that? You didn’t see the bill.”

  “I didn’t have to. I estimated how much our lunch and drinks cost given the prices on the menu.”

  He chuckled. “Let it go, Cassandra. It’s not worth getting upset over.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” She sent another baleful look at the waiter before lifting her bag and slinging the strap across her body.

  As they started to walk away, someone dropped a glass, cursing as shards and liquids spread over the floor.

  Onegus
slowed his steps, but Cassandra ignored the incident as if nothing had happened and tugged on his hand, pulling him behind her.

  “I want to see if anyone got hurt.”

  “It was just a glass. Nothing major.” She kept walking.

  For some reason, he had a feeling there was a connection between the drop of energy he sensed from her and the shattered glass.

  Telekinesis?

  He’d never met anyone who actually possessed the talent, and those he’d heard about sounded like charlatans. That didn’t mean that the talent didn’t exist, though.

  Could Cassandra have somehow caused the glass to fall?

  Only that didn’t make much sense. If she wanted to get back at the waiter, she would have directed her power at a glass he was holding and not at some random customer. Then again, her intention might have been to create more work for him.

  After all, the waiter would have to clean up the mess.

  In all likelihood, she’d had nothing to do with it, and it was just his wishful thinking. A paranormal talent was a possible indicator of dormancy, and Onegus would have loved Cassandra to be one.

  If she was a potential Dormant, he would be justified in seeking another date with her, seducing her, making love to her.

  Fates, how he wanted to strip the hellcat naked, grab her succulent ass in his hands, and have his way with her. He had no doubt that she would be magnificent.

  As they left the boardwalk and neared the waterline, Cassandra pulled the tube of sunscreen out of her purse. “You should reapply the sunscreen. It has been more than two hours since you applied it last.”

  Remembering how it felt to have her gentle fingers smearing the lotion on his face, he nodded. “Sure, why not?”

  When she offered him the tube, he shook his head. “You’d better put it on me. You’ve seen how bad I am with that.”

  “Okay.” She flipped the cap and squeezed a dollop into the palm of her hand.

  Cassandra was tall, but without the stilettos she was still half a head shorter than Onegus, and as she looked up at him, her eyes zeroed in on his lips.

  Did she want him to kiss her?

  24

  Cassandra

  Damn, the guy had the most kissable lips. And those aquamarine eyes of his beheld her with such stark need that Cassandra found herself tilting toward him and parting her lips.

  “You keep looking at me like that, and I’m going to kiss you regardless of who’s watching.”

  Yes, she wanted to say. Do it. But that was such a bad idea.

  After what had happened at the rooftop bar, some of the excess energy built up had been released, allowing her to breathe freely, and she would be a fool to let it accumulate again.

  Except, they were on the beach, with nothing that could fall or explode in their vicinity.

  Eh, what the hell. She only lived once.

  Lifting on her toes, Cassandra quickly closed the distance between them and brushed her lips over his.

  Sparks exploded, and she took a step back, quickly glancing around to check if anything had happened.

  “That’s it?” Onegus reached for her waist and pulled her against his rock-hard body. “That wasn’t a kiss,” he murmured against her lips. “That was a tease.”

  His mouth slammed over hers, and as her arms wrapped around his neck, she stifled a moan. Unapologetic, his tongue pushed past her lips, and she allowed it, leaning into his firm body and opening for him with a ravenous hunger that had roared to life once she released the leash.

  Long minutes passed, and still he kissed her, and she didn’t make a move to pull away or stop him, not until she was out of breath and it was either let go or pass out from lack of oxygen.

  Someone behind them clapped, then whistled and made a lewd comment, but for once, Cassandra ignored the taunting, her eyes holding Onegus’s gaze.

  He smirked. “Now, that’s what I call a kiss.”

  She lifted her sunscreen-covered palm. “I smeared it all over your neck.”

  He laughed. “I won’t get sunburned there for sure.” He took her hand. “Let’s keep moving, or I’ll go for another one. That kiss just whetted my appetite for more.”

  Hers too.

  Cassandra had never been kissed like that, with such passion, such raw need, and she’d responded in kind.

  She was tempted to drag Onegus back to that hotel and rent a room, tossing her rule about no hookups and caution to the wind.

  “I should put some sunscreen on your face,” she murmured.

  “I don’t think it’s safe.” He didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes on the shore meandering before them. “Tell me more about yourself. Distract me.”

  Cassandra had a feeling that she needed distracting more than he did. Besides, she wanted to find out more about him, not the other way around. She still didn’t know much about him other than his family owned the conglomerate he’d represented in the charity gala, and that he was just one of many owners. The quick internet search she’d done this morning hadn’t revealed anything more than she’d already known, and curiously, there had been no stories about him dating heiresses or movie stars or hobnobbing with politicians. It seemed like he emerged once a year to attend the charity gala and then disappeared again.

  “You know more about me than I know about you. Tell me something about yourself that you haven’t told me yet.”

  He cast her a sidelong glance. “Only if you tell me something that no one else knows about you.”

  She laughed. “There are many things no one knows about me, and for good reason.”

  “Tell me one.”

  “I have a temper.”

  He chuckled. “I bet that’s not a secret.”

  “It gets worse if I keep it bottled up. That’s why people sometimes think that I’m rude.” She looked up at him. “Your turn.”

  “I’ve never been in love. Have you?”

  She nodded. “Twice.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got disappointed. My mom thinks that my expectations are too high and that I’m picky, but that’s not true. I have had requirements that I wasn’t willing to compromise on, and when they were not met, I preferred to end things and move on. It kind of soured me on the whole dating thing. Besides, I don’t have time to go out and meet people. I often work sixteen-hour days.”

  “What about the people you work with?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Most of them are snowflakes a decade younger than me, and I have nothing in common with them.” She sighed. “Frankly, I don’t feel like I have a lot in common with anyone other than Kevin and Josie. Both of them are ambitious, hard-working, and nothing has been handed to them on a silver platter. They worked hard to get to where they are today, and they sacrificed a lot. More than I did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They gave up on having kids. They are both in their late forties, so I assume it’s no longer an option.”

  “Do you want children?”

  “Very much so. How about you?”

  He nodded. “With the right mate, of course.”

  She arched a brow. “A mate?”

  “Significant other, wife, life-long partner. I’m tired of being alone.” He smiled sadly. “I live with a roommate, even though I don’t have to. I’m damn grateful to have a good friend who welcomes me home and asks about my day, but that’s not the same as having a mate.”

  Onegus sounded even lonelier than she was. How was it possible? The guy was gorgeous, successful, and rich. Did he have some heinous hidden flaw she wasn’t aware of?

  “You must have women throwing themselves at you left and right. Why are you alone?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “In my case, that’s kind of obvious. I’m opinionated, uncompromising, demanding, and I scare men away. I’m also all work and no play, and I live with my mother.”

  He laughed. “For someone with a natural knack for marketing, you are not doing a great job at selling
yourself.”

  “I don’t want to sell myself. You either like the package, the good and the bad, or not. I don’t believe in false advertising.”

  Onegus lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “I like the entire package very much. What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Working.”

  “I want to see you again.”

  “I want that too. What do you have in mind?”

  He smirked. “I can come to your house, introduce myself to your mother, and then take you out on a date.”

  “Are you trying to knock out the items on my list of demands as quickly as possible?”

  “Busted.” He let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her. “You are the boss, Cassandra. You decide the when and where. I decide the how. Just don’t torture me for too long.”

  What did he mean by I decide the how? And why had his words excited her, making every female part of her tingle?

  25

  Vlad

  “Hi, everyone.” Wendy walked into Stella and Richard’s home with two large bags in each hand. “I had a great time with Sharon and Tessa.” She lifted the bags. “There was a huge sale at the outlet, and I went a little wild.”

  “The important thing is that you had fun.” Vlad kissed her cheek and took the bags from her.

  “What did you get?” Stella asked.

  “I got three pairs of jeans, size four, five T-shirts, size small, and two dresses, also size small.”

  Vlad wanted to say that she was losing too much weight, but they’d had that discussion so many times that he’d gotten tired of bringing it up.

  Perhaps he should ask Vanessa to intervene.

  “I also got two pairs of shoes and a gorgeous pair of boots.” Wendy lifted one of the bags. “Do you want to see?”

  “Of course.”

  As the two grabbed the rest of the bags and ducked into the master bedroom, Vlad sat down on the couch next to Richard. “I talked with Brundar earlier.”