by Gaja J. Kos
“Maybe he’s just trying to get me on edge before he strikes.” Aric rubbed his chin. “The women could be some kind of bro-taunting.”
“Bro-taunting?” I arched an eyebrow and, although this whole situation really didn’t call for it, couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle.
Aric smiled, and damn if it didn’t light up the whole fucking room. “You know what I mean. A reminder of our bro times when we went out to get girls together. A way to keep me thinking about him. The past.”
“That’s plausible. I still think something’s missing, though.”
In our understanding of Milton’s angle, I meant, but the thoughts I’d entertained before Aric had called, thoughts of him shielding certain information about his life in the States from me, rose just as well.
With a pensive hum, Aric stretched out his legs in front of him. “The more I consider it, the more I believe Milton was the one who sent those articles to you.”
“Then he’s been watching you for a while,” I said, not liking the picture it painted at all.
“It would make sense, though.” Aric pushed off the counter and stood in front of me, the heat of his body playing with mine. “Having you by my side makes it a lot more difficult for him to get his revenge. He had to try to isolate me from you.”
“He almost succeeded, too.” I sipped my coffee just because having Aric so close, feeling the low rumble of his voice against my skin at the indirect reference to how our relationship had deepened during that particular time…
The bathroom door swung open. Breathing somewhat more heavily, I swiped the second cup of coffee off the counter and shimmied past Aric into the lounge room. Caro sat on the couch, and I handed her the cup that she accepted with a gentle smile.
“You mind if I ask you some more questions?” I eased myself into the armchair.
A thread of hesitation entwined with her scent, but Caro said, “Go ahead.”
Grateful I’d gone with my gut earlier instead of pressing her, I started another recording on my phone. Caro settled more comfortably on the couch, and, as Aric joined us in the room, I waited for her to get a few sips of coffee in before diving back into the interview.
“First off, did you see anyone else with the vampire? A witch, maybe?”
“No.” Caro lifted the cup to her lips. “It was just him.”
“You sure?” I asked gently, just in case her conscious mind had put on blinders.
But there was no split-second freeze in Caro, signaling the subconscious had a different account of the events to offer.
“Yeah, there was no one else around when he approached me.”
Aric perched on the armrest beside me. “Where was that?”
“Behind the club I work in. I was on my break and went out for a smoke. That’s when he showed up.”
“Which club?” I asked.
Caro dragged her teeth along her lower lip. “Stoker’s.”
“I’d heard of the place.” I set my coffee on the table. “You’re a daytime club catering to vampires, right? Offering drinks from the vein?”
Caro nodded. Again, there was nothing illegal in that, but it explained why Milton had approached her. Why she wasn’t more freaked out about it too.
Sometimes blood waitresses took clients on the side. If Caro weren’t a stranger to the practice, she’d probably worked out a system to separate harmless vamps from those with ill intent on their mind. And for all the fucked-up scheming Milton was doing, he hadn’t actually hurt any of the women he was involving in his games.
Just as I heard a car pull into the parking lot in front of the studio, Aric slid off the armrest and asked, “Jorn?”
I nodded, and he hurried off to greet the half-Fae while I thanked Caro for her cooperation, saved the recording, then escorted her outside. Jorn locked his gaze on mine and dipped his chin, then opened the car door for Caro, who quickly climbed inside. As I watched them drive away, I sucked in some of the summer air and let the afternoon sunlight caress my skin. My brain churned over too many theories with too few facts to back them up.
“What’s on your mind?” Aric’s voice coiled around me.
I spun and glanced up at him, ignoring just how breathtaking he was with the golden light caressing his features.
“Milton’s stepping up his game,” I said. “Those three women who came on to you on Friday night…they were inebriated. Milton saw his chance to fuck with you and took it. This, heading over to Stoker’s, waiting for one of their employees to come out—this was premeditated. Milton had probably picked out the place beforehand, then, when he saw you were at the studio, he sprang into action.”
“We already knew he was keeping tabs on me,” Aric pointed out. “It was only a matter of time when I’d show up here alone.”
“Yeah, but there’s a huge leap between taking the opportunity of a situation when it presents itself”—I raised my left palm—“and”—I did the same with the right—“waiting for the right time to put predetermined steps into motion.”
At least my firsthand experience dealing with criminals went along that vein. If Milton wasn’t just driven by anger and resentment, taking shit out on Aric when he felt like it, but actually constructing a plan to take him down, we needed to up our game too.
I dragged my gaze along the road, the trees that brushed against the clear sky.
“I don’t like this, Aric.” I looked at him. “If Milton really did send those articles in an attempt to isolate you from me… It did almost work.”
A smile touched the corners of his eyes and warmed their entrancing brown shade. “But he also made the mistake of underestimating you. You weren’t about to let things go.”
He tipped his head toward the studio, and we headed inside, dropping onto the couch side by side. Aric moved Caro’s half-drunk coffee to the edge of the table, then propped up his feet.
Lured in by his casualness, I did the same, resting my hands on my thighs. “Okay, so Milton miscalculated. I didn’t leave you alone or turn on you just like that. Maybe he thought he’d succeeded when you left the country, but his plans went up in flames once you returned.”
How events would have unfolded if Finn hadn’t pushed me to go to the concert and, consequently, make me run into Aric, I didn’t want to even think about.
“So, when I kept getting in your face and pushing you for the truth, Milton and Shelby kidnapped me.” I rolled my neck against the backrest, facing Aric. “Why not just kill me? Or smack me with the curse?”
Aric traced a thumb down the side of my face. “I’m not sure about the killing part. But from what I saw of how this particular brand of magic operates, any spell of a larger magnitude, which a curse definitely is, can’t be crafted on a whim. It’s possible that was what Shelby was working on while you were locked in the basement.”
No wonder Aric had been in such a rush to get me out of there. If he’d recognized the magic that had hit me in the alley, he would have understood the magnitude of the danger I was in.
“Thanks again for coming that night.” I pressed a tentative kiss to his thumb. “I would have probably tried to face off Shelby and Milton if it wasn’t for you.”
Which, now that I had a lot more information, painted a very different picture of what my chances against the pair would be.
“I never should have let you run off at all.” Aric’s gaze turned hooded, and he shifted his body until it was almost covering mine.
“Why did you?” My voice came out breathless. “Why hide the past from me?”
Aric shifted more of his weight on top of me, gently easing us down on the couch. “I know it was a long time ago, but… I don’t like the person I was back then. I wanted you to see me for who I am now.”
“Mm-hmm, because a vampire who’s keeping secrets from me is so much better than sharing your shadows,” I said dryly, though the gentleness with which I wound my fingers through his hair spoke a whole other story. “I have my fair share of them too, you know.�
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“Well, then”—Aric’s lips brushed over mine—“I can only hope you’ll find me worthy of meeting them someday.”
My breath hitched.
“What do you say?” This time, the caress of his lips could hardly be considered just a touch. Aric ran his fingers down the side of my body, watching me with those bedroom eyes that had my head spinning. “Give me a chance?”
Chapter 18
I kissed him.
I kissed him long and deep.
Kissed him like I’d always craved to.
No holding back. No doubts. No fears. No self-imposed limits.
Just the absolute fucking amazing surrender to the forces propelling me after the godsdamned dream Aric most definitely was.
His taste intoxicated my senses and ensnared me in velvet ropes I wanted nothing more than to be bound in.
Groaning, I pulled him on top of me until the strokes of his tongue and the weight of his body became all I knew. The scrape of his fangs as our kiss worked into a fiery storm delivered a sublime touch of pain that made me hunger for the sensation of them sinking into my neck.
With a soft grunt, Aric pulled from the kiss. “Is that a yes?”
His gaze was hooded, lips parted in a display of pure fucking sin. I raked my gaze along his dark hair that fell in messy strands my fingers were responsible for.
Aric Sutter.
Staring at me like a man whom I meant the world to.
My throat closed up, my chest too fucking full and tight with unfettered fire. I started to nod, the words climbing from my heart to my tongue, when the wall of Aric’s guitars caught my attention.
The sigh crashed into me like a jolt of electricity.
“Shit,” I rasped, “the gig.”
Frowning, Aric straightened into a sitting position, then helped me up. “Not the answer I was expecting, but okay…”
I bit my lip and closed my eyes, cursing inside. Couldn’t my brain have waited a second longer?
With a forceful exhale, I scooted onto my knees, then brought my lips to his. Warmth engulfed my core as Aric’s mouth moved against mine, but I broke off the contact before it could consume me. It was enough. I just needed him to know that I wasn’t running from him.
Aric seemed to have understood the message, because the tightness in his scent morphed into faint uncertainty—and a whole lot of hunger.
I put some distance between us even as every atom in my body violently protested the separation.
Aric was the damn match to my gasoline.
Tremors raking through me, I let out a shaky laugh. “Yes, Aric, my answer is yes. But,” I added as his entire face lit up while descending into a delicious, sensual darkness at the same time, “we have something else to handle first. Milton. The gig.”
Confusion threaded through his scent.
I entwined our fingers and squeezed gently. “If Milton’s escalating his threats and taunting you with the good old times, there’s more than a chance he’ll try something during the show.”
Aric cursed, and in the moment, I knew I was right.
Whether it had been Aric, too, who’d given in to abandon of drinking concert girls back in the States or not didn’t even matter. Because Milton had. And Aric had been right beside him.
“Bro-taunting.” Aric sighed, then searched my face. “But you’ll be there, right?”
I unfolded my legs from beneath me and glanced at our interlocked hands. “I’ll be there, Aric.”
“So…” A boyish smile tugged on his lips. “You’re really my girl, huh?”
I rolled my eyes and snorted, but Aric—Aric actually poked me in the ribs.
Laughing, I batted his hand away. “Oh my gods, how old are you!”
“I was born in 1934, so pretty old, I’d say.” He flicked up a brow.
My jaw dropped. I hadn’t expected him to actually answer the taunt, damn.
Aric let out an easy laugh and swiped his thumb along my lip. “Anything else you want to know?”
Was he serious?
My mind spun, and for a second, I blanked, unable to pull out a single coherent string of letters. Amused, Aric just watched me, and there was something so fucking gentle in his gaze that made me want to preserve this moment forever.
“How about a question for a question? And maybe we take it one date at a time?” I suggested.
I wasn’t even sure why, but after all this time of him being so private about his past, it just didn’t feel right to gather up the information without giving something in return. And, okay, a part of me jumped at the idea of spending more time in his company. A Q&A session served as a perfect excuse.
Not for actually seeing Aric, but for my fish-out-of-water mind so that it wouldn’t tangle itself too gravely in this new reality Aric and I had just stepped into, but rather ease into it.
Aric stretched out across the couch, regarding me for a few heartbeats longer. “All right.”
I sat up straighter, grinning like an asshole.
“You already had one, so my turn.” He winked, then dragged his teeth along his lip. “You never told me what brought you to our first show. Not the one we met, but the one before…”
Memories coursed through me, a sweeping tumble of emotions—good and bad, but most of all, gratitude for whatever fate had been at work that night for the events to have unfolded as they had.
I propped my arm on the backrest of the couch, partially mirroring Aric, then leaned my cheek against my fist. “I was having a really shitty night. You already know that I lost my parents during the War, but what I never told you is that for a long time, I wasn’t even able to talk about them.”
That period of my life seemed so long ago it was almost hard to comprehend that person had actually been me. Okay, a version of me, but still…
Thinking back on myself, I was thankful I couldn’t relate any longer. That the dampening weight that had suffocated my essence to the point I hadn’t even been able to tap into it was gone.
“There was this fight club I used to go to. Idis. That night, I was so fucking eager to blow off some steam. It’d been way too long since my last visit, and I had a lot of pent-up shit to work through. But instead of letting loose in the ring, I ran into a friend of my parents. I should never have gone over to meet him. Basically, the second we started talking, he broke the godsdamned primary rule of not bringing up the loss that drove us to be there. I was pissed, and I stormed out.” I smiled at the bittersweet memory. “Then I heard your music. It… It silenced that storm inside.”
My cheeks burned at admitting that last part. Like it was shameful, the impact Aric’s voice, the band’s music, had on me.
I knew it was ridiculous.
But it was also such a fan thing to say that in the context of our budding relationship—I suppressed a mental squeal that wasn’t at all wolfish—it seemed…pathetic.
The way the corners of Aric’s lips softened into something close to wonder, though, spoke he didn’t mind at all.
“Anyway”—I cleared my throat—“the music lured me to the club. I didn’t even think twice about going in. And that was it for me.”
Aric traced his fingers up my arm. “You don’t ever have to be ashamed of liking my music. Being a fan doesn’t discredit you as a person or make you unsuitable.”
“The world certainly doesn’t think like that,” I commented dryly.
“Fuck the world, Gina.” In a flash, he took my face between his hands. “We can choose our own reality, the rules we play by. We’re creators, not serfs.”
His gaze turned so intense, my blood simmered.
“Gina, I like that you enjoy what I do. That my work touched you. I like that you own all the records and go to all the shows that you can. I like that you see me, actually see me, both on and off the stage. But most of all, I fucking like you.”
With my heart pounding like it just got hit with a shot of magic and adrenaline at once, all I could do was kiss Aric’s gorgeous face and lose m
yself in his caresses that felt so good, so natural even in their exhilaration, that it was impossible to think there ever existed a time when Aric and I weren’t together.
Maybe it was all the pinning for him I’d done for so many years. Maybe it was our energies, so different yet complementary, working in our favor. Maybe it was just the simple fact that Aric and I clicked, our souls vibing on the same frequency.
But when he laid me on that couch, determined to make the most of the time we had before the rest of the guys showed up for their rehearsal, I could feel what Aric had been saying earlier.
What the world thought of us didn’t matter.
Prejudice and made-up beliefs about how something should be had no place here.
I broke the kiss and looked into his eyes, saying what I should have confessed from the start. “I’m in love with you too.”
I should have known date night with Aric would be anything but standard. After he took me to a small, western-style club I hadn’t even known existed, and we’d spent nearly two hours enjoying some live country music over beer and ribs—well, me eating, mainly, and Aric stealing a bite or two—we ended up in Spreepark.
Broken in was probably the better choice of words given the hole in the fence we’d climbed through to get into the derelict amusement park.
Walking side by side, so close our fingers continuously brushed against each other, we strolled among the graffiti-painted dinosaur statues and rusty rides. The wild touch of nature that had claimed the abandoned park for its own should have come across as creepy, even more so with the night’s shadows painting the sight with their ominous brush, yet all Spreepark stirred was an odd kind of contentment within my wolf.
Alone, I never would have thought to come here. But with Aric…
Being surrounded by the eerie vibe of the relics and untamed nature felt right.
Neither of us spoke as we explored the park. Our energies did the talking for us, teasing and entwining themselves even as our bodies maintained that modest, though undeniably intimate, distance. It was as if everything sharpened in this dilapidated oasis. I sensed Aric clearly, and I didn’t doubt for a second the experience was the same for him. The way we matched, the way we fit together—the way we were drawn toward each other…