by Lauren Dane
“He’s not here. I called when we landed. He’s out playing cards. I’ll see you both tomorrow when Rowan and I come for dinner. Please don’t wear any colors that hurt my eyes.”
“You’re very saucy.” She looked him over.
“I’ll get my own way back,” Clive told the driver as he escorted his mother to the door. “You’re going to need to tell him about this before we come over tomorrow. I’m sure you didn’t inform him you were at my home, poking my wife with a stick.”
“I did no such thing!” She protested so fast he knew he’d been right.
“Good night, Mother.” He bowed his head to her and stepped back.
Her laughter danced on the breeze as he rose and headed back home.
Betchamp took his things as he entered. “She’s still in the mews house.”
Clive nodded his thanks as he walked past but Rowan wasn’t in the mews house as Betchamp had thought. She stood in the center of the garden, her face tipped up to the night sky. Her power—not Brigid’s power, but Rowan’s own, essential being—shone around her like a halo.
Tough as she was, it still took a toll. Meting out the sort of justice she routinely did came with edges and blood. Rowan faced that without flinching. She made no excuses for what she did, though she did nothing without reason, however ugly.
“I didn’t expect you to return so quickly,” she said quietly.
“They only live ten minutes from here. I flew back. I apologize for what she did. Her silly test. You need no such thing. I chose you and that’s what matters most.”
Her laugh was genuine enough for the short moment it existed. “She’s a total whackjob and I kind of love her even if she’s one of those clichéd Vampires who got imprinted on a Wham video.”
Clive shuddered. “Every fifty or so years she shifts to something else. Rest assured she doesn’t normally dress that way, though she does have a terrible fondness for the music of the time.”
“Not everyone’s favorite band was Beethoven.”
“Having been to many of his performances personally, I can attest most truly that he is better than Wham.” Clive sniffed just to hear her snort in reply. “I’m also sorry I assumed you’d wrangled her into something. She’s as stubborn as you are. I never should have forgotten that.”
“We’ve already agreed I’m a bad influence. Anyway it’s fine. It’s over, unless your father is also going to be weird?”
“He’s strange in his own way, but he won’t pantomime someone else to get a rise out of you. We’ll go to dinner there tomorrow night, if you can give me the time?”
If he’d told her they were going, she’d have seized up and rebelled for the sake of being contrary. So he asked, because he did respect her job and he knew she’d hear it better that way.
“It’s unavoidable I suppose.” She paused but he didn’t pursue it, waiting as patiently as he could for her to give him the rest. “Have you eaten?” she asked.
Clive knew that wasn’t what she’d been thinking.
“I’ve fed. When did you eat last?”
“Your mother showed up before I could even have my tea. I’ve spent the last day wondering just how the fuck you could have come from her. It was a relief to figure out she was just toying with me.”
“Do you need help with Chester? Did you get what you needed?”
She sighed. “Yes. I wish it wasn’t so cloudy tonight.”
He worried that they’d never get to the end point. Never reach a place where they were done and everyone was safe and they could live in peace.
Centuries of experience had only reinforced his tendency for concern. His entire lifetime there had been war.
One human war after the next, all the while the Vampires fought with the human precursors to Hunter Corporation and the magic wielders of all stripes carried on in the shadows, spilling into humanity from time to time.
Things had been simmering for some time and it looked like they’d only continue that way. That was a great deal of weight for his woman to bear.
But she would. So he’d protect her all he could.
“We should eat. Elisabeth was in the kitchen when I arrived so I’m sure she’s made you something good. You can fill me in on what you’ve learned.”
“I need to shower first. Then I’ll meet you in the kitchen to eat.”
He followed her upstairs and into the living room that connected her space to his.
“I’m fine, Clive. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“If I did that I’d miss the sight of you in the shower. Which seems rather silly of me, don’t you think? Who’d want to let go of that opportunity? Certainly not an intelligent man, and I’m very intelligent.”
“Modest too,” she said as she shucked her clothes. “That asshole got blood on my blouse. David is magic with that sort of thing and I suspect Betchamp knows a few things about blood removal. The pants are in better shape. This is why you shouldn’t buy me nice stuff.”
“I know we’ve covered this before, darling.” Clive didn’t bother to get annoyed. Complaining was Rowan’s way of letting go of whatever shit she carried around all the time.
“How do you have so much money when you throw it away on chauffeur salaries and silk blouses for your wife who promptly gets blood spatter on them because she has to torture dumbasses she asks nicely for information?”
Naked, she stomped into the huge shower stall and he after her.
“Getting blood out of clothing is something most people who work for Vampires know how to do. And I’m quite sure David has it all in hand. Because that’s what he does. Now stop talking about that damned shirt. You’re naked and slippery and I’m about to ravish you.”
She looked up at him through her lashes. Not coy in a deliberate sense. Maybe even a little shy.
Her anger was her shield and he wanted to tear it from her so he could have total access to her. All of her.
But to do that would strip her of the defenses she’d had to build from the earliest in her life. So he reminded himself of that and resolved to continue slowly chipping away at her walls. He didn’t need her to open up to the world, just him.
He maneuvered her under the shower spray and a tight knot in his belly loosened when she sighed, letting out all her tension as he began to massage her scalp. She often did the same for him when he’d had a particularly hard night.
The feel of her under his hands, against his body, so lithe and real, full of power and strength, was enough to catch his breath. That she was so vibrant and yet fragile in places only made Clive love her more.
Want her more.
It drove him. Even when he wasn’t around her he wanted her. With his hands sliding all over her body he still knew he’d never get enough of her. She was his weakness and his greatest strength.
When he took her breasts into his hands, thumbs brushing back and forth over her nipples, she made a sound, one of his favorites, a groaning snarl that was more more more. He loved that sound.
“Just a quick one now,” he murmured, letting some of his glamour rove over her along with his hands. “You’ll eat after and then we’ll resume where we left off.”
“Goddess, I’m a mess. I should not find it sexy that you even have orgasms scheduled. But I do.”
Surprised laughter filled him. “I’m glad I can amuse you.”
“Make me come and amuse me. That’s even better. Fuck me already.”
Her lazy command hardened his resolve even as he ached to be inside her. “Magnificent,” he said as he slid one hand down her belly, loving the way her muscles fluttered in his wake.
It was the word he thought of most often when it came to her. She did nothing in half measures. No matter the weight, she bore it with a ferocity that seemed to burn just inside her.
She
arched into his touch, not shy about what she wanted. He loved that too. Loved that she demanded what she needed.
“More,” she said as he teased a fingertip over her clit.
“I have this under control, darling.”
Her laugh was nearly a giggle, which made him feverish to have her. He’d wanted slow. Wanted to seduce every inch of her, savoring, treasuring. They’d been apart only eight days, but it had been too long when before he’d had her every day. Gotten used to her presence in his life in far more intimate quarters.
He’d lived alone for a long time. It suited him. He liked his space and his autonomy. Rowan hadn’t been part of his plans. She’d broken windows in his life and rumpled all his sheets and left crumbs in his keyboard.
He’d known she was it for him when all that prickly, chaotic energy she brought with her made his life better. Less predictable in a lot of ways, but in the most important he had total surety.
Rowan was the balance he’d never known he’d needed. He’d happily brush crumbs out of his keyboard to have her.
She tipped her head, exposing her throat, letting him have her vulnerability. He tasted the salt of her skin, absorbing her.
She spun in his arms and climbed him, wrapping her legs around his waist. “Now.”
He cursed, backing her to the tile to hold her in place. She writhed as the head of his cock brushed over her clit several times.
“Missed you,” she said quietly as she kissed his neck and along his jaw.
He held her tighter.
He’d come home.
He teased around the entrance to her body, hot and so very slick. Rowan bit his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark, however temporary. Unable to resist any longer, he thrust up into her.
Her nails dug into his sides where she urged him on, urged him deeper. She’d break the skin if she kept on and he wanted that so bad he shook with it.
Levering up his body a little, she kissed him hard and fast as he began to fuck into her slow and deep. It wasn’t until he tasted her blood that he realized she’d deliberately drawn her bottom lip against his incisors.
That she’d give him her blood brought him to his metaphorical and physical knees. Water pelted them both as he sped. She tightened around him in response. Close, so close.
Slow seduction would have to come later, because right at that moment he had to have her. Her blood, so damned powerful it spiced the taste, seemed to arc through his system, connecting with him on even deeper levels.
She’d given him access to her emotions on a level he was certain she’d never done willingly before. Letting him take her blood made his link to her far stronger, even in just tiny sips.
He slipped a hand between them, finding her clit, stroking it just the way he knew she needed. Her pleasure seemed to wend through him in little flights of sensation and he realized she probably took in some of his emotion as they had sex too because his blood had kept her from dying more than once.
Deeper connection, indeed. This was his present and his future. Nothing was going to stand in the way. He knew they could be something amazing together and that was that.
“Go on then, Hunter. Take your pleasure,” he told her.
She groaned as her inner muscles fluttered around his cock, her pussy going superheated. Even centuries of practice couldn’t prevent his tipping into climax after her, unable to resist the lure of her body.
* * *
They took their meal in the small table in the kitchen. Bloodwine waited for Clive, while Rowan had a hot cup of tea.
“I told David to go to sleep, but he said he’ll be here in five minutes,” Rowan said as she put her phone down. Naturally he just did whatever he wanted too. Men.
“Dare I ask what happened to Chester?” Clive asked.
Elisabeth pulled the cover from Rowan’s plate, which held the chicken salad she’d planned to eat before Antonia burst in and dragged her out to an art gallery.
“Don’t tell David, but I don’t know what I’m going to do without you when I go back to the United States.” It wasn’t fancy, but it was what Rowan wanted and Elisabeth managed that with a nearly psychic accuracy.
“You need someone to cook for you, Ms. Summerwaite. Otherwise you’d waste away or eat too much junk. We’ll go wherever Scion Stewart needs us to be.”
“I’m not that bad. I know how to cook, I just don’t take the time to do it as much as I should. I make a mean sandwich and David keeps after me to eat fruits and vegetables so my teeth won’t all fall out or whatever he says to keep me in line.”
Clive had half a roasted chicken with some fancy sauce and a vegetable side with a French name. The sort of thing he loved.
“Why don’t you have a cook in Las Vegas?” Rowan asked him.
“Or, we could discuss Chester? The gentleman you brought home earlier?”
“Oh yeah, him.”
David walked in, heading straight for the table. He’d gone for the roasted chicken too.
Clive said, “Elisabeth, please do head to bed. We’ll clean up when we’re done, but there’s no use you staying awake.”
She thanked them, told them to leave their dishes in the sink and headed off.
Rowan approved of the Clive he was in their home. Especially when it came to getting nailed in the shower. Though to be fair, he really liked shower sex, so she got nailed in a lot of showers.
“Whatever are you smiling about?” Clive asked.
“Sex. Okay so Chester is really Edgar Fitzwilliam. You can’t even make this shit up. He’s been in the employ of some sorcerers for a few years. Mainly petty stuff. Not very smart.”
David interrupted. “He hates women with a zeal I’ve rarely seen.”
Rowan shrugged. When they were extra horrible, it wasn’t nearly as hard to hurt them to get them talking.
“The woman-hating thing seems to be the thread that got him the assignment to tail me. His contact doesn’t like meddling bitches either. I had to explain I didn’t meddle.” She sighed. “He doesn’t know much. I think that’s why they sent him out. If I catch him and he talks, what’s he really going to give up?”
“Is Edgar still among the living or shall I have him disposed of?”
Rowan beamed at him. “You’re so totally handy. He was still alive when I handed him off.”
“Handed him off?”
“I have a friend who might be able to get more information out of him than I can at this point. She took him less than five minutes before you got back.” Rowan realized it had been easy to call Genevieve her friend.
“More than you can? More than I could by snatching the thoughts from his head?”
“She’s a powerful magic wielder and a member of the Conclave Senate. If he’s used magic, she might be able to help identify it. I can make him tell me all sorts of things, but that knowledge is valuable too.”
“You have so many tricks up your sleeve, Hunter.” Clive gave her a mild look, pride at the edges, before he went back to his wine.
“It’s nice when the person from my past isn’t trying to kill me but instead feeds me breakfast and helps me try to crack my case. Anyway, she’ll let me know what she finds out and whatever she does with Edgar/Chester I don’t care. It’s his bosses we need. I need that connection between these magic users and Roth.”
Chapter Eight
When Clive opened his eyes the following sunset, the first thing he saw was Rowan. Tucked into the corner, she’d been perched on a chair, her laptop set aside as she rose to join him.
He smiled, made drunk by love. “Centuries I’ve awoken each day and never are the moments sweeter than when you’re what I see before anything else.”
Shyly, she placed a large, wrapped box on the bed between them. “So it’s not a house with a butler and a cook
. We already talked about you being better than me at the present thing.”
“Primarily, you’re not supposed to start lowering expectations the moment the gift comes into view.” He sat, reaching out to pull her to him. “Stay there while I open it.”
She was so warm. He loved that about her too. His circulation would never be like hers. A Vampire’s system was far slower—which was one of the reasons they aged so slowly—and so their core temperatures were lower.
He basked in the heat flowing from her skin, knowing it would mark this room, liking that a great deal.
“I didn’t wrap it. The dude at the store did it.” She pointed and he took her hand, kissing it.
“Hush now so I can open it.”
Once he’d tugged the ribbon free and peeled the paper back, he found a box he knew very well.
On top lay an envelope and inside were tickets to a piano concerto featuring Beethoven.
She smiled and fought a blush. “New York City in the fall is pretty romantic if you like that sort of thing.”
“As it happens, I do, yes, like that sort of thing.” He wanted to kiss her slow, but he knew she was anxious over the present so he let her keep her space as he began to pull back the layers of tissue paper neatly folded around what appeared to be several custom cravats.
“I think they’ll go with a lot of your shirts. If you wanted to do that. Or not. It’s fine.”
“Rowan, stop. This is.” He stopped, indicating the opened box. Carefully now, so as not to scare her away. “Perfect. How did you decide on cravats?”
“So, the thing is. I was going to give you some as a joke, but then I started to look around and realized you’d look pretty sexy in one. They’re making a comeback, I guess. I asked Alice where you shopped in London for things like cravats and she got me in contact with your tailor.” She rolled her eyes. “Naturally the place has a name that sounds like two butlers. Said they’d made clothes for generations of Stewart men. And then when I went to pick up the cravats I ended up with the ties and some more of your shirts, but that’s not a present really because I like to wear those too.”