by Cat Devon
“I’ll be fine here,” Damon said. “You don’t have to stay.”
“So you trust the witches now?” Nick asked.
“Enough not to think they are going to call up more demons for the time being,” Damon said. “They are both too wiped out tonight to create any more trouble.”
“I hope you’re right, for your sake,” Nick said. “And for Vamptown’s.”
Chapter Eighteen
Zoe was glad to see Tanya flounce out of the house without saying a word to anyone.
But she was sad to see Daniella preparing to go. Nick was leaving with her.
“You’re in good hands,” Nick assured Zoe.
“You’re sure you don’t want to stay a little longer?” she said. “Or we could do something normal like play Boggle? Or Go Fish?”
“I’ve got to get up before dawn to make cupcakes,” Daniella said with a yawn.
Now Zoe felt guilty. “You’re right. You need some rest.”
“So do you. You’ve had a hectic day. Possessions at the funeral home and then a visit from the Hounds of Hell,” Daniella said.
“Not to mention all that Latin today,” Damon reminded Zoe.
As if she could forget her arm around his body or the press of his erection against her.
While saying her good-byes, Zoe told herself that there was no cause for alarm. She’d been alone with Damon all day. And Gram was still in the house.
Her inner panic was merely the result of a horrific day. As Daniella had pointed out, Zoe had had one thing after another happen to her today—most of it involving demon possessions. Then there was Damon and his possession of her mouth and her sanity.
That’s what was throwing her. The overwhelming power of the attraction she felt for Damon. She’d always discounted the Adams legend that Adams witches fell in love at first sight. It certainly wasn’t true in this case. She hadn’t fallen for Damon when she first met him and if she had an ounce of sense she wouldn’t fall for him now, either.
She needed to deal with finding the Book of Darkness and getting rid of the demons. Then she could get back to her soap business. That was where her passion lay. Not with Damon.
“You promised you’d show me,” Damon was saying.
Show him what? Her need for him? Her naked body? Her fear for the future? Her vulnerability?
“Your mother’s talisman,” he said.
“Right. Of course. Wait here. I’ll go my bedroom and get her jewelry box.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No!”
Great. Now she’d done it. Damon was looking at her with suspicion.
“Why not?” he demanded.
How could she explain that she didn’t want him in such close proximity to her bed? He’d already slept in her room, albeit on a chair and with Daniella present.
But that was before he’d kissed her this afternoon and she’d melted into him.
“What’s the problem?” he said.
“I’ve had a rough day,” she said.
“So?”
“So I need some alone time.”
“You can have as much alone time as you want when we find the missing book and the demons are decimated. Until then I’m coming with you to get your mother’s talisman.”
She could do this. She was an Adams witch. She refused to be controlled by a hot vampire.
“Fine.” She wondered if Damon had seen the meme on Facebook explaining that whenever a woman said Fine the man was in trouble.
But then she wasn’t a normal woman and Damon wasn’t a man. He was a vampire accustomed to getting his way. And he drank blood in her kitchen with a female vampire. That alone should have shut down any attraction Zoe felt for him.
She was aware of him behind her as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She could practically feel his eyes drilling into her back. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught him eyeing her butt. She deliberately sashayed the rest of the way, adding some hip action worthy of Beyoncé herself.
“Can you take it off?” he said huskily.
She almost stumbled over her own two feet. “What?”
“Your bangle. Can you take it off now?”
“Oh.” She tried but the bangle stayed put. “No.”
She headed for the small jewelry box in the top drawer of the dresser.
In addition to her mother’s talisman, Zoe had her mother’s wedding ring and a necklace with a large amethyst crystal in the center plus amethysts along the side that her mom loved wearing. She used to tell Zoe that amethyst would bring her calm and bravery. She said it was her protection stone. After her mother’s death, Zoe had put the necklace in the box and left it there. The stones hadn’t saved her mother’s life.
Tears threatened, but Zoe bit her lip and held them back. She couldn’t afford to break down now. The box also held a few silver items her mom liked—an abalone pin she got from a trip to Mexico, several Native American turquoise rings from a trip to Arizona, and a floral ring from an Israeli designer she’d met at a Boston art show.
“I have some silver stuff in here,” she warned Damon.
“Only remove your mother’s talisman. It’s gold like yours, right?”
She nodded.
She removed the talisman, still on its golden chain. “My mother’s has the Adams family Phoenix rising plus her father’s crescent moon in the top left.”
“Show me yours again.”
She fished it out from beneath her T-shirt. Her mother had warned her never to remove it so she had to stand close to Damon while he bent his head and studied the differences between the two talismans.
As he did so, she noticed the silky darkness of his hair and longed to thread her fingers through it.
“Yours has the Phoenix rising and the star.”
“Right.” Her voice sounded rusty.
“And my tattoo has—” He started unbuttoning his shirt.
“Stop!”
“Why?”
“I’ve already seen your tattoo. It’s hard to tell but I think yours has a shooting star instead of a star.”
“Do you know the meaning of the Phoenix?” Damon said.
“Of course. It’s a famous legend of the magical bird rising from the ashes to live on.”
“Which is why it became a symbol for Atlanta as a sign that the city would be reborn from the ashes of its destruction in the Civil War.”
Zoe didn’t ask but she suspected that Damon had been there then.
“Why does it apply to your family?” he said.
“Because burning witches is a violent part of our history. Out of those dark times we rose and became stronger than before,” she said.
“Kind of like vampires.”
“I guess so.”
There was a moment of shared silence that she found to be surprisingly emotional. Or maybe it was just the aftereffect of the frantic and dangerous day she’d had.
Exhaustion suddenly claimed her. “I think I’m going to go to bed early. You can go ahead and play your Words with Friends.”
She returned her mother’s talisman to the jewelry box and closed the lid. She wished she could close the lid on her feelings for Damon with equal ease but doubted that would happen anytime soon.
* * *
Zoe was surrounded by darkness. She was trapped with no way out. Beady red eyes glared at her while millions of hands touched her. Sharp claws tore at her skin, ripping it to shreds, while spikes drilled into her bones.
Screaming, she leapt out of bed, disoriented and distraught.
Damon was instantly there to comfort her. “Hold on. You were just dreaming. You’re okay.”
The only way she could be okay was if Damon was kissing her. So she pressed her mouth to his. Or maybe he did the mouth-pressing thing. They were certainly both actively involved in the tongue-on-tongue thing.
Her body rose as she stood on tiptoes to increase the angle of their kiss. As she did so, the hem of her nightgown rose to skim the tops of her thighs.
>
Some small lingering semblance of sanity made her say, “This is a terrible idea.” She spoke the words against his lips.
“I agree.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said.
“Probably not.”
She looked at him. He looked at her. Zoe’s heart was practically jumping out of her breast. Could he hear it? Her lips still tingled from his kiss. Her body, pressed tightly against his, was alive with passion.
The moist heat between her legs indicated the rising level of her arousal just as the feel of his impressive erection indicated the rising level of his. She wanted him with a force that was hard to fight. Impossible to fight.
She saw his hunger darken his eyes and an instant later they were kissing again. Only this time they did pause in between kisses to murmur to each other.
“A witch and a vampire.” Damon’s voice was husky. “I mean, come on.”
“Come on what?” Her voice was husky, too.
“Not a good idea.”
“So you already said. Then why are you still kissing me?”
“I’m going to stop,” he promised before circling her lips with his tongue.
“Mmm,” she purred. “You’re mmmm going to stop? When?”
“Soon.”
Zoe placed a string of kisses along his jaw and tightened her arms around his shoulders before lifting one hand to slide it through his dark hair. He responded by fondling her nipples, first one, then the other.
“I’m stopping soon,” he murmured against her mouth. “No more kissing.”
“And your hand on my breast?” she whispered.
“I’m going to move that soon, too.”
“Move it a little to the right so your thumb is over my nipple.” Zoe was about ready to go up in flames. “Yes. Oh yes! Mmmm.”
“Good?” he said.
“Mmm. But we’re stopping. Soon. Very soon. Right?”
“Mmm, right.”
“Because we can’t just have sex,” she said.
“Right.” He nibbled her ear as he continued to caress her breast. “Tell me why again?”
“Um, because you two are being filmed,” a voice from the security camera announced.
Zoe leapt away from Damon. “Is that Silas?”
Damon sighed. “No, it was Neville.”
“You mean he saw everything we—” She sputtered into silence, unable to form more words as the realization sank in.
“That would be an affirmative,” Neville said.
Looking directly at the surveillance camera, Zoe warned, “If that ends up as a sex tape on the Internet I will turn you into a toad.”
“Don’t worry. That won’t happen, right, Neville? In fact, he’s going to erase it right now.”
Zoe was pacing the room, embarrassed beyond belief. She paused in front of Damon. “What were you thinking of making out with me like that when you knew the cameras were on?”
“What were you thinking?” he countered.
“Clearly I was not thinking or I would not have allowed any of that to happen. I was still groggy and frightened from my nightmare.”
“That’s as good an excuse as any, I suppose.”
“It is not an excuse,” she said.
“Chill.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Excuse me? Did you just tell me to chill?”
“You’re not familiar with the term?”
“Not coming from a vampire, no.”
“What does my being a vampire have to do with it?”
“You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t. I’ve never had a man make out with me and then tell me to chill.”
“Because you had sex with them.”
“You make it sound like there were tons of men. And Neville, you better not be recording this!” she said.
“Temporarily suspend surveillance in this room, Neville,” Damon ordered. Returning his attention to Zoe, he drawled, “You were saying?”
“That I haven’t had sex with tons of men. Unlike you.”
“I haven’t had sex with any men,” Damon said. “You’re confusing me with Pat and Bruce.”
“They’re gay?”
“Yes. Do you have a problem with homosexual vampires?”
“No. I only have a problem with you,” she said.
“Why is that?”
“I wish I knew,” she muttered. “You shouldn’t be able to get to me this way. You kill witches.”
“One witch.”
“A relative of mine.”
“Apparently a distant one.”
“That’s no reason to kill her,” Zoe said.
“I already told you that she betrayed me.”
“Were you hunting demons in New Orleans?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know she betrayed you?” Zoe said. “Maybe you wrongly suspected her the way you wrongly suspect me.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?” Zoe said. “Because you’re never wrong?”
“Because she stood beside the demon as he ambushed me.”
“Maybe she was forced to do that against her will. Maybe the demon made her betray you. Did you ever think of that?”
“I was rather busy at the time trying to avoid being decapitated.”
“So maybe Eve didn’t really betray you.”
“Oh, she betrayed me all right.”
She could tell by his stony expression that she wouldn’t get any further information out of him on that subject. “What happens to demons when you find them?”
“You saw what happens.”
“You knife them—”
“It’s a dagger,” he interrupted.
“There’s a difference?”
“Yes, there’s a difference. And it’s not just any dagger, it’s a Demon Hunter dagger.”
“And then what happens?”
“They disintegrate,” Damon said.
“They don’t go back to hell?”
“No.”
“Then what’s to stop them from suicide by Demon Hunter?” Zoe asked. “They taunt you into killing them as a way to escape hell. They simply cease to exist, which might be a better outcome for them than staying where they were.”
At his look, she said, “What? You’ve never had anyone ask you these questions before?”
“No, I can’t say that I have.”
“It’s because I’m a former librarian. I’m logical that way.”
“You’re logical for a witch, you mean.”
“I was born a witch,” she said.
“So?”
“So you were born human. What was that like?”
“What was it like being born a witch?”
“I didn’t know I was a witch when I was a baby. It’s more a process or an apprenticeship. I know the other kids in school whispered about me behind my back. They’d call me a pagan and say my birthmark was the mark of the devil. That was pretty rough.”
“What birthmark?” Damon said.
“My mother came up with a cream to make it disappear but it took her a while. She was good with that sort of thing. She didn’t flaunt her magic in front of others.”
“Unlike your grandmother.”
“Gram doesn’t flaunt her skills. She likes using them and is accustomed to doing so. But she can be discreet,” Zoe said.
“Just not where Dr. Powers is concerned.”
“That’s true. But even there, she didn’t turn him into a monkey or a donkey or anything. Hopefully we’ve heard the end of the Powers people.”
“What about your ex-fiancé?” Damon said.
“What about him?”
“Are you glad you won’t be hearing from him again?”
“Absolutely.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she whispered.
His deep blue eyes darkened. She saw her own desire reflected in his gaze.
She leaned closer. So did he.
Then he abruptly stepped away. “Neville, turn camera back on.”
“Okay,” Neville said through the surveillance system.
“Get some rest,” Damon told Zoe. “We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
* * *
Damon faced the new day with resolve. The demons were toying with him and that aggravated the hell out of him. He was a man of action. He’d killed that cable guy demon yesterday morning and felt good that he’d taken care of business.
But this sitting-around-figuring-out-puzzles was not his idea of a good time.
Is having sex with Zoe your idea of a good time?
The answer was yes.
It shouldn’t be yes. He was a vampire. He should be able to control things. Vampires didn’t have emotions. Some took that to mean they didn’t have souls. Damon didn’t know about that. He only knew that he was in Vamptown for a reason.
Damon had spent much of the night trying to figure out what was real and what was legend when it came to the Book of Darkness. In between he’d played a few games of Words with Friends on his smartphone. A new player had challenged him and he’d welcomed the mental stimulation.
Because Damon sure didn’t need more physical stimulation. Holding a half-naked Zoe in his arms and kissing her welcoming mouth had given him a hard-on that had lasted for hours.
He’d seen the TV ads about calling a doctor for an erection lasting more than four hours. That might be true for humans but not for vampires.
He was sure Tanya would have been all over him in a flash had he contacted her. But he hadn’t.
Pat’s knock on the front door was a welcome diversion for Damon. Zoe was still upstairs, in her workroom. She hadn’t come down for breakfast yet. Not that he cared about such matters.
“I’m here about what happened last night,” Pat said.
“Which part?” Damon asked. “The Hounds of Hell?”
“The part that took place in Zoe’s bedroom.”
“She had a nightmare.”
Pat nodded. “That’s understandable given the recent events.”
“I agree,” Damon said.
“What’s not as understandable is what happened after that. Come on, don’t give me that blank look. You didn’t think Neville would tell me what happened between you and Zoe?”
“I’ll kill him,” Damon growled.
“Calm down. He erased the recording like you told him to. But you didn’t tell him not to report what happened to me.”