A dangerous look of want filtered in over his eyes, darkening them into pools of sin, as though his mind had jumped ten steps ahead of us and was already basking in our inevitable reunion of soul, body and blood. And frankly, my mind was right there with him.
“I need you to make me forget.” I needed it more than I needed air right now.
He straightened his shoulders and shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, angel.”
“I know,” I said, meeting his eyes as I wet my lips again, starving for his cure. We’d already had this discussion numerous times during the summer. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take my memories away—make me forget the pain, the agony of what I’d been forced to do. Of what I’d lost. It was that he wouldn’t. “That’s not what I meant.”
His eyes dropped down to my mouth as he pulled in a sharp intake of air.
The way he looked at me, the way he turned every gesture into something sexual, like he had to work painfully hard just to stop himself from pouncing on me; it made me feel powerful. Desired. Alive.
It was the small taste of heaven I lived for now. “Make me forget the other way.”
5. FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
The Huntington Manor sat dauntingly in the shadows, trails of fog hovering around it like an army of fallen soldiers waiting dutifully for my return to the manor. It had been months since I’d been here—months since I’d been back in this town—and somehow, this house felt like the only place that still made sense to me.
The only place that I still fit.
Inside, the manor smelled exactly the way that I’d remembered it. Like pine-scented cleaning products and burning firewood. It smelled warm, and familiar, and safe. Oddly enough, it kind of smelled like home.
The sound of the door locking behind me snapped me out of my nostalgia. I turned and met Dominic’s gaze, holding in a breath of air as I watched his eyes dust over me, predatory in every way. The sight of it reminded me once again of where I was and who I was with.
Dominic was a lot of things, but safe wasn’t really one of them, though that never really seemed to bother me. If I was being completely honest with myself, it was one of the things that drew me to him, even if I didn’t fully understand the reasons behind it. Being with him always felt as though I were about to embark on a new adventure. One that had no map and no destination and nothing but endless thrills and possibilities.
He lifted his chin towards the den, his way of suggesting we move our party elsewhere, and of course, I followed like a babe in the woods. The adventure forever calling my name.
“Would you care for a drink?” His pillow soft lips hiked up on one side. By the looks of it, he was almost as happy to be asking me that question as I was to be hearing it. It felt strange that after all my time away, after all the road I’d covered, I’d found myself right back where I’d left off.
“Don’t tell me you’ve given up drinking?” he asked when I didn’t answer, pressing his hand to his chest as though I’d just speared him with the idea.
I couldn’t help but crack a smile. He could be so dramatic sometimes. While I may not have chosen to follow in the footsteps of my hellish granddad Lucifer, I certainly wasn’t living the life of a saint either.
Underage drinking was still very much on my go-to list.
The truth was much simpler than that. I hadn’t seen Dominic in weeks—not since our last motel Rendezvous in Raven Falls—and at this point, there was only one thing on my mind, and it didn’t include wasting time sipping on a drink with him at his makeshift bar.
Then again, it couldn’t hurt to take a breath and slow myself down. Heaven knew, nothing good ever came from throwing myself at this man.
“I’ll have a double shot of Jack.” I dropped my bag by the sofa and then made my way around the room, taking it all in again. Everything looked just the way I’d remembered it. And I mean absolutely nothing had changed. Not the house, or the décor, and not even Dominic. He was exactly the way I’d left him, right down to his age.
“I see not much has changed around here,” I noted, my lame attempt to make casual conversation. I might as well have brought up the weather at this point.
“Well, I spent most of my time in Aspen this summer. But you already knew that,” he said, throwing a pointed glance my way. “I saw no point in being here since the only reason I stick around these parts was off on a summer road trip.”
He picked up our drinks and met me where I stood by the fireplace, handing me my glass and then taking a small sip from his own.
I followed suit and tasted my own drink as I rested my arm against the mantel. “It sounds like you’re in desperate need of a hobby.”
He grinned at my jab. “I’m in desperate need of something, but it isn’t a hobby.”
“Is that right?” I asked, my cheeks picking up color. “Dare I ask what that might be?”
The fire dashed across his eyes, making them look ruddy as he leaned in closer. “I think you know exactly what I’m referring to.”
Memories of the last time we were in this room together immediately flooded my mind, spiking my temperature and heart rate as I remembered all the ways he touched me then. The way he had commanded me.
That was months ago, and even though we’d had numerous encounters since then, I still couldn’t seem to get enough of them. Of him. Especially not when he was standing right there in front of me, just within my hungry reach.
He closed his eyes momentarily, and I knew he was basking in it. In the fact that I was wanting for him.
He’d told me on more than one occasion that he could feel it. That he could feel me…my emotions, the sound of my heart racing, the charge of my adrenaline pumping. He could feel everything, right down to a change in my body temperature, and he loved every single moment of it. Of knowing how badly I craved him.
I realized a long time ago that there was simply no point in hiding my desire for him anymore. We both knew he could feel every aspect of it anyway.
Not that I was hiding it tonight. Tonight, I had only one thing on my mind.
One desire.
I brought my glass to my mouth and tossed the whiskey back quickly, reveling in its familiar burn as it washed away the last of my troubles. I set my glass down on the mantel and then took his own glass from him and set that down too.
One goal…
“Would you like another?” he asked, knowing damn well that wasn’t what I wanted.
“No,” I said and took a slow, calculated step towards him, breathing in his chocolatey scent.
He slipped his hands into his pockets as though he had absolutely no intention of using those hands on me. He looked down at me with a frown. “Angel…” he warned.
“Don’t angel me, Dominic. You know what I want.”
He clenched his jaw, probably because he could feel the savage want coursing through my veins. “You’ve only just arrived,” he pointed out.
“And?” I flattened my hands against his chest, slowly moving them up the length of his body, feeling him flex under my touch as I rounded his shoulders and went back down the same way.
“And you’re avoiding.”
“So?” I moved to unbutton his shirt, not even bothering to deny it.
He caught my wrists and stilled my hands. “So, I won’t have you that way,” he said, looking down at me with hard, determined eyes. “I won’t take advantage—” He craned his head toward me and dropped his voice. “No matter how much I may want to.”
God, he smelled good.
A blast of heat shot down through my belly. “What if I want you to take advantage of me?” I whispered, pushing on my toes so that my mouth was as close to his as I could get without making actual contact. There was no use denying it: I was addicted to him—to his touch, his body, his blood—to the way my own blood rushed whenever he was near me.
He groaned at my advance, a deep, delicious rumble at the back of his throat. “You’re making it very hard for me to be the better man here,
angel.”
“That’s kind of the point.” I erased the gap and eagerly pushed my mouth against his.
He immediately kissed me back, almost on instinct, as though his lips couldn’t possibly conceive of any other response. My mouth danced against his, eager for an opening to taste him. And then, as quick as it had started, he broke off the kiss and pushed me back down on my feet.
Fucker!
“You’re playing dirty, angel.”
“And you’re freaking killing me, Dominic.” I growled out my frustration like a wolf in heat.
Obviously, we’d entered that alternate universe again. The one where I was throwing myself at him like a street walker and he was shooting me down at every turn.
Oh, how the shitty tables have turned.
“I have something for you,” he said as he let go of my wrist and then slid one of his hands back into his front pocket. He was trying to change the subject, but I wasn’t about to make it easy on him.
“Does it involve fireworks going off in my head?” I asked scathingly as I reached back to pick up his glass from the mantel before finishing off the rest of his drink in one swift gulp. “Because if not, I’m really not interested.”
He clicked his tongue at me. “When did you get so crass, angel?”
“About the same time you got a conscious,” I shot back.
“Touché.” He smiled, looking wholly pleased with himself as he brought his closed fist out in front of me and then opened his hand. A leather keychain hung from his index finger.
I took a step back and crooked an eyebrow at him. “What is that?”
“What does it look like?” he responded flatly.
“It looks like car keys,” I said, making zero attempt to take them from him.
“There’s that quick-witted girl I love.” He dropped the keys into the open space between us.
I caught the keys without looking and immediately tossed them back at him. “You’re not giving me a car, Dominic.”
That was for damn sure.
“I just did, angel.” His voice smoothed out like dripping honey. “It’s bought and paid for and all yours.” The look on his face was of pure delight, like he was mighty proud of himself.
“Well, that sucks for you because I’m not accepting it,” I said fiercely and then turned back for the bar. I was going to need another drink to deal with this. Maybe two.
“Why in heaven’s not?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused, a little offended even.
“Why not?” I spun back around, flabbergasted that he wasn’t getting how completely inappropriate of a gift this was. “Because I’m not some call girl that you can just call over in the middle of the night to satisfy your urges and then reimburse with lavish gifts. It’s completely inappropriate and offensive as fuck.”
His eyebrows shot up, and I swore they were mocking me. “That’s hardly what’s going on here, angel,” he answered while trying to stifle his laughter.
“I’m glad you think this is funny, Dominic, but it still doesn’t change the facts.”
“Firstly, if I may,” he said as he sauntered over to me, his hands crossed behind his back. “You asked me to come here.”
“As if you didn’t want me to come,” I muttered.
“Secondly,” he continued, ignoring me, “you came onto me and I respectfully declined your advance.”
I rolled my eyes at him because while he was right, he was so damn smug about it.
“Thirdly, when it comes to urges,” he drawled, his eyes running down the length of my body, “yours are the only ones I’m concerned with satisfying, and I’m quite sure you can attest to—”
“Okay, thanks. You made your point,” I cut in, waving my hand in the air to shut him up. “Regardless, I’m not taking the stupid car so you can just bring it back.” With my back to him, I grabbed the Jack Daniels from the bar and poured some into a tumbler, filling it all the way up to the top.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way.” He moved behind me, placing his hands against the counter on either side of me and then leaning in by my ear as I took another extra-long swig of JD. “I’ve already purchased the car, angel. It’s yours if you want it. If you don’t, then don’t take it. It’ll just stay in the driveway.”
“How is that any better?” I asked as I whirled around to face him, practically landing myself directly in his arms and spilling my drink all over myself in the process. “It’ll just be there, gawking at me with its implications every time I leave the house.”
“There are no strings attached, I assure you,” he said, his voice low and even.
“You say that now, but something like that always comes with a price tag.” I brought the glass to my lips to take another sip but realized it was just about empty. “And I’m not talking about the dollar amount either,” I said as I turned back towards the bar for another refill.
“You’re being impossible.”
“Because I won’t be bought?” I snorted with my back still turned to him.
“Because you won’t listen to reason.” He let out a frustrated breath from behind me. “Would you rather I hired Henry to take you around?”
“What? No!” I snapped, growing more irritated by the second. How was he not getting this? “I’d rather take care of my own travel arrangements,” I said and then turned around to face him again. Even though I’d made sure to be more careful this time as to not spill my drink again, the room was definitely spinning at my too-fast movement.
He paused to eye me. “Perhaps you should slow down,” he suggested, gesturing to the glass in my hand.
“I’ll slow down when I’m ready to slow down,” I said and then pressed my back against the bar to steady myself. As soon as I caught my bearing, I went on, “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I’m not your responsibility, Dominic. I can take care of myself. I can get my own ride and I can decide how much to drink.”
“I’m aware of that, angel.”
“Then why are you acting like my dad right now?”
He grimaced, pulling the glass away from my mouth. “I thought I was acting like a boyfriend.”
“You’re not that either,” I fired back as I pushed his hand away and brought the glass back to my lips. The minute the words sounded back to me, I’d regretted them, but it was too late to take them back.
Silence pressed between us, opening a chasm as big as the odds that were stacked against us.
“Yes, well, you’ve made that very clear to me as well,” he said lowly and then straightened his shoulders. I could see the hurt and frustration written all over his face. It was in the way his eyes shuttered, the way his jaw line hardened.
Dominic wanted more of me. I knew that, but what he wanted from me, I didn’t have it to give.
Not to him, and not to anyone.
I was like a mosaic; beautiful and put-together from a distance but upon closer inspection, nothing more than shards of raw materials and broken fragments of a girl that used to be.
I’d seen and done too much to ever go back to that normal, carefree girl. And a part of me didn’t want to. The darker part of me—the Slayer part of me—wanted no part of it. I was no longer haunted by the shadows that had forever loomed in my peripheral. I was at one with them now. I lived and breathed that darkness because if I didn’t—when I didn’t—it hurt too damn much to breath at all.
I wasn’t about to rock the boat now. Not when I’d found a new way to exist amid the treading water. I’d found a purpose. A goal I could orient myself towards and never have to look back again. And when the darkness got to be too much, I had my dark angel who was always ready and willing to infuse me with a ray of light when I needed it. It wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t the life I’d dreamed of as a little girl, but it was more than good enough.
“Please don’t do this, Dominic.”
“Don’t do what?” he asked tersely, his jaw muscle still clenched in frustration.
I gently touched the side of his face a
nd watched as his eyes slipped shut. “Please don’t ruin this,” I pleaded softly. “Everything was fine the way it was. We’re both getting what we want.”
His jaw ticked under my palm. “Yes, well, forgive me for wanting you to have adequate transportation for school,” he said as he opened his eyes and met mine. “I certainly didn’t mean to cross the line,” he added derisively.
“Why does it matter to you so much?” I asked, ignoring his last comment. “I’ll figure something out. I always do.”
“It matters because I can’t be there for you like that,” he answered as though it were painfully obvious, as though I were a fool not to see it. “Not in that capacity. Not in the way I want to be. And it kills me to have to admit that.”
I withdrew my hand as his words sunk in. He wasn’t trying to buy me or turn me into his call girl or worse, his girlfriend. He just wanted to make sure that I was safe. That I had a reliable ride to and from school.
Because he couldn’t be the one to drive me.
Because he was a Revenant...
Well, dammit. Now I felt like a complete asshole. I dropped my head in regret as he took the glass from my hand and tossed back whatever was left of it.
“I only wanted to make your transition back home a little easier on you. But if it makes you that upset—if seeing the car in the driveway is a reminder of all the things you don’t want from me then I’ll get rid of it,” he said and then moved beside me to refill his glass at the bar.
Okay, so, maybe I had overreacted a tad. I mean, it wasn’t like he was proposing to me. He knew where I stood—that I wasn’t ready or capable of anything more than what we had going on—and he wasn’t trying to overstep the line. This gift (if you could even call it that) didn’t have to mean anything if we didn’t want it to.
Still, I couldn’t accept a freaking car from him. What the heck would that say about me? Besides, it’s not like I needed him to provide for me. The entire Blackburn estate had been left to Tessa and me. We’d never have money problems for the rest of our natural lives.
“How about a compromise?” I suggested, eyeing him from the corner of my eye.
Incarnate: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Marked Saga Book 5) Page 4