by Amie Gibbons
“Explain it to me.”
“You wouldn’t understand. You aren’t ready yet.”
“Carvi!”
He snorted. “Finish up. We still need to talk.”
“Carvi!”
No answer.
I finished my shower and climbed out.
I looked around the bathroom for a robe or something, but nothin’.
“Ariana?” The call and tap at the door made me jump and gasp. “Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. “I have something for you to wear.”
“Really?” I asked.
I secured my towel and unlocked the door, opening it slowly.
He grinned and held out a guy’s dark blue button up shirt and a pair of silky black boxers.
And he was dressed too, thank goodness.
I can only take so much hot, naked vamp.
He was wearing jeans and a button down gold shirt.
They looked wrong on him. Too normal.
“They’re clean,” he said. “I haven’t worn them yet.”
I clutched the towel tighter to me. “You brought your suitcase?”
“Of course. What, was I supposed to leave it?”
“No, of course not. I...”
His eyes traveled down to my towel covered body and I stepped behind the door.
“Stop it!” I said.
“You’re really that modest? You don’t feel modest.”
“It’s not modesty, it’s a... I don’t know you. Okay? I don’t, so I’m not gonna be naked in front of you.”
“That is modest, lea.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“You said you are a leo. Lea is the female version of that. I know you said you were a Taurus after that, but cow just doesn’t fit you. Lioness does.”
“Astrological nickname. Why didn’t I get that?”
Okay, maybe that was a little sarcastic. I held one hand out for the clothing while the other stayed firmly on the towel. He handed them over with that same darn little smirk.
I stepped back to shut the door in his face, lockin’ it again.
“You do know that won’t keep me out, right?” he said through the door.
“It’s habit,” I said as I dropped the towel. “You’re gonna stay on your side and act like a gentleman.”
I was telling a two thousand-year-old vamp what to do. Now that was pretty darn funny.
I held back the laughs while I pulled on the boxers. Carvi wasn’t a big guy, maybe five nine, and he had that perfect build of broad shoulders and slim hips, so the boxers were only a bit loose on me. The shirt fell just above the bottom of the shorts, almost long enough to be a dress.
I brushed my teeth and rinsed out my mouth with mouthwash.
I looked around for a comb or brush, but there wasn’t either to be found.
I opened the door, clean and dressed, and ready for some answers.
And ready to fib my little butt off when he asked for his.
“Did I say thanks for helping me back there?” I asked.
He shook his head as we headed out to the living room and I followed him through an archway into a more lived in lookin’ dining room and kitchen.
“Thank you, Carvi,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Yeah, didn’t mean to scare you. I was trying to get your attention.” He walked across the cheery yellow kitchen and grabbed the coffee pot. “Coffee?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
I hopped up. “Can I ugh, this is rude, but can I raid the fridge?”
“Of course.” He waved a hand behind him as he washed out the coffee pot. “I can cover the cost of anything you take. I doubt my renters will notice, but it is only right.”
That was strange comin’ from a self-proclaimed “bad guy.”
I put together a sandwich while he made the coffee and scarfed it so fast I was surprised I didn’t make myself sick.
He filled two mugs and I riffled through the cupboards.
“What are you looking for now?” he asked.
“Sugar.” I stood from looking in the bottom cupboards and turned to find him leaning against the counter, staring at me. “What? I like sugar in my coffee.”
“I’m not complaining. I like your ass.”
I immediately looked down. “Stop that!”
“Why?”
“Cuz, it’s... you don’t just... I can’t... Just stop it.”
“You can not be so easily embarrassed. Please tell me in this day and age that no one is still so fucking flappable.”
“Look here, buddy.” I glared at him, meeting those impossible eyes. “I’m not flapping. I do not flap.
“Thank you, for everything. For the help and the getting me here and the shower. Thank you. Now, stop flirtin’ and start answering some questions.”
I gasped air and ran with it. “You were out in the sun. How?”
Carvi just stared at me, then suddenly pulled out his phone. He smirked.
“What?” I asked.
“Your boss is persistent. He didn’t like me telling him to shove it.”
He tossed it to me, still ringing.
I caught and answered. “General?”
“Ariana!”
The relief dropped me to my butt on the kitchen floor and tears sprang to my eyes.
The last few days hit me, really hit me, with my name.
“Hi.”
“Are you okay?”
That tone undid me right there. Tears flowed and there was no stoppin’ ‘em.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m safe.” Well, kind of. “Truck’s... I got away. And I was in the woods. He was chasing me with a gun. I hid and...” I sniffed. “And you’re never gonna believe it, Grant. I was trying to project to you guys. Trying to get Jean or someone else to kind of sense where I was. And... oh, I knew you were looking for me cuz of visions.”
“Ariana!”
“Yes, sir?”
“Where are you?”
“Some place halfway between the Smokies and Nashville. A farm Carvi owns. He’s not inclined to let me go either, but at least I’m not locked in a room or handcuffed.”
“I would love to handcuff you,” Carvi said.
I shot him a glare and stuck my tongue out at him.
“While I was hiding in the woods,” I continued, “I found Collins, ya know, the snake?”
“Actually, I found you.”
I ignored Carvi.
“He is a shifter, sir,” I said. “At least a type of one. He’s a vamp that can turn into a snake and apparently walk in the sun.”
Carvi growled and I stood and turned.
“That’s not for you to tell, lea,” Carvi said.
“He saw you,” I mouthed. “Sir, his name’s Carvi. He’s from Miami. I got a vision telling me that. I’m not exactly clear on what he’s doing up here, but he said something about looking for someone. He said he needs my help so he’s probably not going to eat me.”
Hopefully Grant got why I was tellin’ him what he already knew and told Quil where I was.
“I would love to eat you.” Carvi rested his chin on my shoulder and I tensed up. He took the phone in a two-finger grip that could’ve squished a bar of steel and slid the phone from my ear.
He stepped away. “Hey, you’re that big, growling man, right?”
I couldn’t hear Grant’s answer.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Carvi smirked that arrogant smirk again. “Ohhh, feisty. Alright, I’ll try you. I’m a sensitive. I can sense psychic powers.”
Sensitive? Yeah right. He had more power than that.
He was playin’ things as close to the vest as we were.
“You can threaten all you want, Grant, she’s helping me first,” Carvi said.
Grant said something and Carvi laughed.
“Good luck with that,” he said, pausing. “Then you should let us work quickly so she can get back on that. I’ll even help. But I need some answers from her and for her to agree to my deal fi
rst. That shouldn’t take too long.”
Grant said something.
Carvi nodded. “She’s not tired anymore, trust me.” Pause. “Oh, you are a quick one. And that was me just being nice. Don’t worry, doesn’t happen often. She’s eaten and I’m getting some coffee into her now. She’ll be fine to work, and with that blood in her system, she’ll be a hell of a lot more powerful. So give us an hour or so, and we’ll drive out to join you to continue your search, probably get there the same time you do. To start you off, why don’t you go to where he was holding her in the Smokies? Last we saw him, he was running away from her in the woods since she got his gun.”
Carvi gave him directions and Grant must’ve said something else cuz Carvi rolled his eyes and hung up.
“He’s difficult,” Carvi said. “I cut him off.”
The phone rang and Carvi swiped around on it. “And now he’s blocked. He’s probably not used to be hung up on, huh?”
I shook my head. He hung up on Grant? Wow.
“You… you need my help with something?” I asked. “Can we hurry work this out so I can get back out there? Truck’s still on the run.”
I slapped my forehead.
My God, I was a scatterbrain.
“Gimme your phone,” I said, holdin’ my hand out.
“No.”
“I forgot to tell Grant that Truck’s workin’ with a demon, that’s where he got all the money, and that he’s sellin’ the souls of his victims.”
“Not my problem,” Carvi said.
I growled at him and he smirked.
“There’s my blood talking,” he said. “I think most went to healing you, but there’s enough left to make you nice and spunky.”
“I’m already spunky.”
“Maybe, but it’s making you more stubborn too. I can read certain things off people. You are a bender. Whatever happens, you go with it. I suspect it helped you with your Mr. Truck. But now, throw a little of me into you and suddenly you’re digging in your heels. Want to put some more of me into you?”
I blew out a breath and grabbed my coffee, taking a sip of it straight black.
It was bitter but not nearly as bad as most coffees. It was at least drinkable.
“What do you want?” I asked. “I’ll make your deal right now and we can get goin’.”
He shrugged. “Your hair’s a mess. It’s going to dry that way.”
“You change subjects like me.” I put my mug down and pulled my hair over a shoulder, workin’ my fingers through the bottom. “I looked for a comb, there wasn’t one.”
“I’ll do it.” He picked me up and took me to the living room so fast my stomach needed a minute after he set me on the coffee table in front of the couch to catch up. He went back for the cups of coffee, and had them over, along with a small baggie of sugar, in a few seconds. He set them on the coffee table next to me.
“You have some kinda hair fetish?” I asked.
“All vampires like hair.”
I actually knew that.
Without waiting for my okay, he scooted behind me and sat on the couch, his legs on either side of me as he inched the table in.
He ran his fingers through my hair, extremely gentle for someone so strong. He went for the ends first, working the knots down there out so he could get higher up.
“So, you,” I said, “sunlight, spill.”
“What do you mean?” Somehow he made his voice thicker, more suggestive.
The air clogged with that voice and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
“Stop, whatever you’re doing.” I jerked away from him. “Remember, if you want my help, you have to behave. Now, come on. You have no problems with sunlight. And you’re tan. Not just like you have a more olive complexion, but like you actually see a decent amount of sun. Explain.”
“You are demanding.” He pulled me back to the edge of the table by my hips and kept finger combing my hair.
“And you’re evasive.”
It’s hard to be tough when you’re being groomed like a puppy, but I was tryin’.
I wanted to say I’d get a vision to see how he did it. But I didn’t want to threaten if I couldn’t carry it out. And I still hadn’t gotten anything off him.
“Don’t we need to do this quickly?” I asked.
“No,” he said, then whispered, “I love foreplay.”
Everything from my stomach to my thighs tightened.
“Carvi,” I said very slowly, “if you want help, I’m going to have to know what’s going on. Please.”
“Oh, all right.” He sighed as though it was the greatest burden in the world. He sat back and went back to my hair. “I’m old. The older a vampire gets, the more powers we accumulate. I don’t know if you know, but vampires get groggy during the day; after about a hundred years we can be awake during the day without bad side effects. A little longer after that, and we can start to see sun.”
What!
No! That went against everything I’d ever learned about vamps.
He kept going before I could get over my shock enough to think, let alone speak. “Not many are old enough to do it, but I can. It’s bad around noon or so, it’s like I’m too close to a fire, but I can tolerate it. Other times, when it’s not quite so bright, I’m fine.”
“How long is ‘a little longer’?”
“A few hundred years.”
He was lying. He was lying big time.
“You know I’m lying?” His hands froze on my hair. “Vision?”
I nodded. “You’re at least two thousand. And I’m guessing the day-walkin’ is fairly new. But I didn’t get that out of a vision, just guessing. How did you know I knew?”
“I’m good with body language, lots of practice.”
Was it just me or was that a little more suggestive then it should’ve been?
“So, day-walkin’, that’s pretty new to you?”
“I’ve been able to do it about a hundred years now.”
“And do other vamps know?”
“That I can day-walk, or that it’s even possible?”
“Um... both.”
“No to the first. The second’s more like a no, but there’s rumors and myths, so not a solid no.”
So Quil wasn’t hiding things from me, he didn’t know either.
“Can you do other things?” I asked.
“I can do many things.” There was that voice again.
And I thought Quil had a good voice. Carvi’s was plain obscene.
I rolled my eyes. “Stop making everything dirty. What are your mental powers?”
“I’m a sensitive. I can sense things, get into people’s heads, even read minds if they’re loud enough, like yours. And I know when something bad happens.”
Like his brother dying.
Did he know the moment Milo was shot?
Man, I hoped I didn’t think that too loud.
“I’m good at working with psychics,” he said, still workin’ through my hair. It felt really good. “I can block them sometimes, but it takes concentration, and I can focus and send visions.”
“Whoa! Send them? Like you could think at me and I’d get the vision?”
“Kind of.”
It felt like he was done with my hair as he ran his fingers through it without much catchin’.
“You have such thick hair.”
I could hear him taking in long drags through his nose.
“Not changing the subject on me that easy,” I said.
He ignored me and dug his fingers through my waves to massage my skull.
The air charged.
He wasn’t in the mood to answer any more questions. No, he was in the mood for something that didn’t require talkin’ at all. Something happened. He’d been breathing heavy.
My scent triggered this?
How did I stop it?
I made a small, vulnerable sound in the back of my throat and he seemed to take that as an invitation cuz suddenly he was standing, pressed up against my back. He
looped his other arm around my waist and used that to lift me.
“Knees,” he growled.
My knees slid into place, takin’ my weight.
I’d followed his command without even thinking about it.
He yanked my hair to the side and my middle burned with excitement as he tightened his arm around it.
I wanted him.
Wanted him as surely as I’d wanted Quil when we first met.
But Quil and I had both fought against our attraction for the sake of the case until we both broke and went over that edge together.
Carvi wasn’t askin’.
He knew he was attractive, he knew pretty much anyone who set eyes on him wanted him, and he just assumed that meant he could take.
His lips landed on the side of my neck, brushing so lightly I was half convinced I’d imagined them.
He said something I couldn’t understand. Latin? “... lea.” He shook his head next to mine, making my hair dance. “You smell wonderful. You smell like a psychic, and human, and not, all at once.”
He moved his hands and I was on my feet with his hands on my hips. He turned, carrying me out in front of him, my back still to him, and put me on the couch. He had my wrists in his hands before my feet registered the change in location, and he had my hands planted on the wall, my body bent just as I thought I’d lose my balance.
“Too fast.” I didn’t realize I said the thought out loud until he chuckled. It made me groan.
“I’m slow after this, just wanted you in position.” He pressed against me, rubbin’ his front against my butt.
“Legs out.” He took one calf in his hand and pulled it out, bringing me lower as I bent my knees and pressed them into the back of the couch. “Ah, perfect, mei lea.”
I needed to think, and I couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything but let him direct me.
One hand went back to my hair, draggin’ it to the side, and he held me close again as he breathed down my neck.
I wanted him in me.
Never mind that I’d just been held by a psycho. Never mind that we’d just met. Never mind that he was in town with intentions of hurting Quil, and me if he found out I was why his brother died. Never mind that I was with Quil.
I wanted Carvi to pull down the baggy boxers and take me. To bend me over and shove into me so hard I’d be afraid he’d suddenly go out the other end. To tear into my neck, using that orgasmic bite while he fucked me.
Whoa!