But I should have known when Lindon resembled Sylvester that I was just romanticizing him as someone who reminded me of the people in my books.
I reach up to wrap my hands around Lock’s neck and offer my lips for a kiss. Make me forget.
His lips take mine, more aggressive than before. His hands stay gentle but his teeth take my lower lip, dragging it slowly through them and then releasing with a little nip that has me gasping. His tongue sears into my mouth and his hand cradles my head, pushing me up against him. My hands press his chest, not sure how else to react to this assault on my senses as his other hand sweeps down my body and over my stomach, pausing to thumb my belly button lightly as he invades my mouth, pleasuring every inch with his tongue.
My body is heating, warming, wet from more than just the water, so I guess he got his wish. He lifts me in the water and puts my legs around his waist. He puts one hand under my butt, holding me easily, and I admit the feel of my thighs against his taut abs is hot. He walks me to the side of the pool and presses me to it as he comes to take my mouth again. His tongue goes deep, nearly gagging me, but pulling back to stroke and love. I feel utterly filled, and can sense an ache in a certain part of me that wants to be filled also.
Despite a little heart twinge at the thought, I know that it’d be easy to let him go all the way and just have this whole thing be over. And it’d be too late for the murderer to get me before someone would have the pack inheritance. There’d be no point in killing me.
But I pull my mouth back and look up at Lock. His amber brown eyes are glowing and happy, his mouth wicked and slanted, and from the intent look on his face, I can tell he’s ready and wanting more. I offer my neck and he comes back, licking and kissing the skin there, but as much as I try to get into it, I don’t think I can right now.
My body is still responding, like it was with Jack, but something isn’t right.
Maybe I’m just too tired.
Lock seems to sense the decreasing passion and pulls back and sets me down. Then he notices tears on my face. His expression falls and he reaches out and pulls me against him, and just holds me, rocking me in the water gently.
This is what I needed, and I wrap my arms around him and just relax.
I know what I need to do when I get back tonight. I need to read my book, get back to feeling like myself, and figure out how to do all of this without depending on Lindon. I need to figure out how to give people like Thor, Lock and Jack an honest answer about what I want. And I need to start getting to know them.
“Lock, tell me about your family,” I say, pulling back slightly.
He smiles and scratches his head. “I would sweetheart, but honestly, the last few minutes have just wiped my thoughts. You’re so…”
“So?”
“Confusing,” he says, laughing and hugging me again. “The minute I met you I knew we’d get along. But then it’s been more than that too. I find myself wanting to touch you, wanting to comfort you.” He gives me a guilty grin. “I’ve always been the player, the one who didn’t care. I admit I’m a bit baffled.”
“You, a player?” I ask, leaning back against the pool wall to get some much needed space for my body to calm down. “But you’re so nice.”
“That just makes it easier,” he says, shrugging. “Women come to me, I don’t say no. But I never seemed to want it as much as others, either. I’ve never been the type to want more. With you, I think I want more.”
I laugh. “Why would you have come if you didn’t?”
He studies me with a side glare. “To protect Thor. I mean, I wanted to make sure the mate he was competing for was good enough for him, not someone who just wanted to use whatever male she could find however she could.”
“You protect him a lot, don’t you?”
He nods. “I always have. It wasn’t easy for us, being twin alphas without parents. There were always people who wanted to hurt us.”
“Somehow I would have seen Thor as the protective one.”
“You’d think so, but he wasn’t always tough like this. Back when he was Thornton he’d hide behind me.” He grins at me. “I’ll have to show you a picture. Baby Thornton is super cute.”
I smile back at him. He seems to have something of a brother complex. “I’ll have to see that. So is that why you haven’t really been competitive?” I ask. “But then why were you just trying to get me to do things with you?”
He flushes slightly, something that’s rare for the calm shifter. “Well, the pheromones, for one thing. And there’s no reason you couldn’t make out with me and mate my brother. I doubt he’d mind, as long as he wins in the end.”
“You’re incorrigible,” I scold.
He just shrugs and grins guiltily. “But yeah, I don’t like competing against him. It’s always been him and me against the world, and I’ve wanted to protect him. I thought I’d do anything for him.” He takes a step forward, reaches for a lock of my hair and takes it in his fingers. “But the longer I know you, the more I question that.”
I swallow. That’s intense. “I…”
“I know, you can’t answer now. You’ve got a long way to go. But maybe you should know that choosing a mate in our world is a little different than choosing in the human world.” He lets my hair go and stands straight. I can smell that enticing vanilla and burnt sugar smell that is entirely his and sexy in its own way. “You can let your intuition tell you what you want, and be confident that you can get to know them later. So don’t feel like you have to know everything about each of us.”
“But what about love?” I ask. “How does that develop?”
He tilts his head. “Interesting. I’m not sure, I’ve never felt that. Certainly there are many successful matings without that. I’m not sure anyone except fated mates ever feel that.”
“Fated mates?”
“Um, maybe someone else like Lindon should explain that. I think Rowan, his dad, had one.”
“Oh,” I say, disappointed.
“Hey, don’t look sad. I can explain it as well as I can. Some shifters can find any mate and be happy, and some, some find one and fall in love deeply, nearly instantly, and then never again after that. Once that bond is formed, the shifter doesn’t tend to feel anything for another one again.”
My heart shudders at that, wondering if that’s what happened to Lindon, why he says he’s not looking for a mate. Hawes was saying something about that to him in his room.
Lock puts a hand in my hair and rubs it good naturedly. “Try not to think about it too hard, sweetheart. I don’t think you have to worry about that. If you already had a fated mate here, you’d know it. So would he.”
I blink up at him, biting my lip and wondering how much he’s really telling me of the truth. And wondering if it has anything to do with the way Lindon keeps appearing in my mind, from the first moment I saw his picture when Rowan came to visit me in the human world. Truly, that picture and the promise of the meeting was what made me come here.
But we can’t be fated mates if he already had a fated mate, can we?
I shake my head and get out of the pool, wrap myself in a towel, and let Lock lead me back to my room. When we get there, he gives me a small, short hug that warms me from head to toe. When he leaves I stay at my door, staring at Lindon’s.
I don’t even know why.
Chapter 6
After Lock dropped me off I was tired and went to sleep, assuming things would be better in the morning.
I was wrong and right about that.
My mind feels slightly rested, and my body is sore but in a good way, like I slept so deeply I didn’t move at all during the night.
But on the other hand, a new day and a better level of comprehension just makes it easier for the full gravity of my predicament to sink in.
And my conversation with Lindon.
I growl and bury my face in the pillow, hitting my hand on the soft mattress next to me.
Why can’t I forget how good it feels to kiss h
im?
My Sylvester book is on my nightstand, back from Hawes. The temptation to just sink away into another world is too strong, so I reach for the book and prop it on my lap while I squish the pillows against the headboard for the perfect sitting position for reading.
Then I open the book where there’s a bookmark made of a post-it note, presumably left there by Thor.
I thumb a few pages forward to make sure this is a scene I want to read, and then go back to the page I opened to.
After a deep breath with closed eyes, I begin to read.
Eva paced the library, throwing anxious glares at Sylvester as she considered their predicament.
“I do not wish to marry your brother,” she said. “Nevertheless I must do as my family expects of me.” She gave him a glance filled with the sadness of a thousand lifetimes, and a sigh that was filled with the promise of forever.
“I won’t let you,” Sylvester insisted, crossing the room to take her small hand in his.
“You can not stop him,” she said, trying to draw her hand away.
He reached for her again and then stopped, hand frozen in the air. “I can. He will not force you.”
“It is what I was sent for,” she said sadly, shaking her head and blinking tears from her sad blue eyes. Eyes like a lonely sky.
“No,” Sylvester said, closing the distance between them to take her hand again. “You were meant for me. Sent for me. We both know that. Can you not feel it when I touch you?”
Her blush was evident on her delicate cheekbones. “What I feel has no bearing on my responsibility.”
“Then we will run away.”
“You have responsibilities here as well. To your mother, your family. If we were to leave, we would simply not be the people that we fell in love with.”
“Then you are in love with me,” he said eagerly.
“Of course,” she replied, lowering her eyes demurely. “But does that matter?”
“Of course it does. If we’re fated to be together, then nothing else matters. I can explain it to my family.”
She shakes her head. “You’re too young now. None of them will listen. As long as he is the one destined to be duke, I will be the one to marry him.”
“Then I will be the duke, Eva. I swear it.”
She put a hand on his heart, beating rapidly with hope beneath her fingers. “You can no more change your birth than I can change my future.”
“Nevertheless, for you Eva, I can stop the world from turning.”
I swallow and turn a few pages. This part of the book is painful, but I love the love between Eva and Sylvester as young teens.
As the younger brother, Sylvester doesn’t have any power. But that changes later when he becomes the duke instead of his brother. Thank goodness.
I flip some more pages and stop at another well worn section of the book.
“Eva, don’t die, you can’t,” Sylvester said, pacing the bedside like the desperation of his strides could decrease her temperature or ease the fever in her veins.
“I don’t want to,” she said weakly, wiping sweat from her brow and gazing blearily at him, like she couldn’t focus in front of her. He paused and then came to sit on the edge of the bed. Tenderly reached for her pale, wan fingers, and gathered her hand in his.
They sat there like that for a moment. Just waiting, listening to the faint effort of her breathing, the slight wheeze, the rustling of the window drapes, letting in fresh air.
Sylvester stood and went to the window to close it, considering for the hundredth time whether heat or cold would be more dangerous for someone as ill as Eva. But nothing they had done so far, nothing any doctors had done, had had any effect on the raging virus that had already claimed his mother.
A little choking noise came from the bed, and, steeling himself, Sylvester walked back to the bedside of the woman he loved. The woman he knew he would always love.
If what he thought was going to happen really was about to happen, then he didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to watch. But he couldn’t leave Eva to face it alone. No, when she went over that dark bridge to the other side of never, he wanted to hold her hand. He stroked a thumb over her cooling hand.
“Wait for me, sweetheart. When you get there, just wait. I’ll be following soon after. So if you get lost, just look back and wait.”
Tears pricked his eyes and he was glad his brothers were not here to see. Glad for once that they had the responsibilities he did not, and were busy making funeral arrangements for their mother, and paid as little attention to Eva as they always had.
It was just more proof that she should have been meant for him.
The hand under his moved, and her eyes flicked up to his. “Sylvester, don’t be mad at your brothers,” she said quietly. “It is not their fault.”
He knew that logically. That the virus had been brought in by one of them, even if it made them barely ill but struck the women much harder.
But he blamed them. Blamed them for taking her, blamed them for not caring, blamed them for leaving him all alone with his love and his hate and the grief that was soon coming.
When Eva left.
It couldn’t be long now.
He slumped over the bed, covering her body with his, afraid beyond anything he had ever known. “Don’t leave me, Eva. If you do, I don’t know what I’ll do. You’re my best friend. I was made for you. If you leave me, I’m doomed.”
Her eyes flickered open, and there was comprehension briefly in them, as if she understood him. She held his hand and fell back to sleep, and Sylvester collapsed into tears. Praying for an impossible outcome.
“If you leave me, I’m done. Don’t go.”
I sniff and swipe at the tears in the corners of my eyes. This scene always gets to me. It feels so real. And it also makes me think, what would it be like to be loved like that? What would it be like to make someone that desperate? To make Lindon that desperate.
I sigh and turn a few more pages, hoping to get to a happier part. The part where Eva makes a miraculous recovery, Sylvester’s older brother dies of a virus, and Sylvester and Eva grow old together, happily ever after.
But a knock on the door interrupts me. “Yes?” I call out.
“Can I come in? Are you decent?” A low voice asks. Lindon. I can scent him faintly. That wonderful, indescribable smell that is totally him.
I set the book aside and draw the covers up around me, even though I’m in pajamas that cover me. I have to admit I’ve missed him. If he gives me any excuse to make up, I’ll probably take it.
My heart is stupid like that. It wants to think there’s an explanation for everything. Like life is a romance novel and any fight is merely a misunderstanding for the sake of drama and can be explained away after a few soul bearing conversations.
“Come in,” I say softly.
The door is locked but I know Lindon has a key to it. It clicks open and he’s there, perfectly composed by the door, as if he’s been up for hours. Maybe he never went to sleep. Just the sight of him takes my breath away.
His soft blond hair is tousled into little windblown tufts that look styled just so. His skin is looking happier, more rested, and the circles under his eyes aren’t as prominent.
“You look good for someone who should be wracked with guilt,” I say, unable to keep a sneer out of my voice.
He sighs and looks to the side, giving me a look at his sharp profile, perfectly straight nose, sculpted, full lips with that deep cupid’s bow. That dimple. That smooth brow. He’s beautiful.
I clutch the blankets tighter. He’s also a jerk.
“I guess the burden of keeping a secret from you was worse than the burden of knowing I’ve disappointed you.”
I sniff and look away.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Misty. It’s not like me to behave in such a juvenile manner.”
I glare at him. “You call what we did juvenile? Juveniles don’t do what we did, Lindon. What we did over and over.”
<
br /> “Juveniles don’t kiss?” he lifts an eyebrow. “My, I feel bad for your childhood, Misty.”
I scoff, trying to hold onto my anger in the face of his easy teasing. “Ha! You know what I mean. They don’t kiss…like…that.” I wave a hand, sure I’m blushing madly.
“Like what?” he asks, folding impressive arms over his chest and taking a step forward, face impassive. Gosh, he intimidates me.
“You know…”
“Do I?” Another step forward. A flash of something in those golden eyes. Then he seems to realize we’re headed straight toward another disaster and shakes his head and takes a step back. “I’m sorry. Of course I do. It was inappropriate, and I can promise it won’t happen again.”
It’s my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh, can you?”
His lips tighten into a line. “I can.”
“Hm.”
“What?”
I shrug. “I just don’t believe you, is all.”
Chapter 7
“I’ll prove it to you, then,” he says, crossing the room to go to the window. He pulls on it and then nods in satisfaction.
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, just checking on the window locks I had installed while you were at your swim lesson. I had no idea anyone was crazy enough to scale the walls here, but now you shouldn’t be disturbed anymore. The men have been informed that that particular route is no longer accessible.”
I flush. I guess that will save me from having to open the window to prevent people like Thor from falling to their death. I blush slightly. “Thank you.”
He nods coldly, trying to keep the distance between us.
“Lindon, why do you care so much? Why are you doing all of this?”
He bites his lower lip and looks in my direction, eyes flashing as his mind works quickly on an answer. I love how transparent that look is. I may not be able to guess what he’s thinking, but I sure know when he is thinking.
“I told you. My father asked me.”
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