by Zoe Chant
Stop that, she told herself, and turned her attention to the sight of JP about to demonstrate a sword kata.
Oh, yeah. That was a perfect distraction. JP was tall, elegant, his smooth brown skin glowing with his exertions, a soft lock of his blue-black hair falling on his forehead as he spun, snapped, kicked, and leaped with breathtaking precision. God, he was so sexy when he did martial arts.
He was sexy all the time, she amended, as he bowed, and the five teenagers lined in a neat row along the mat clapped enthusiastically.
“Okay, let’s see how far you get,” JP said.
The five, more or less adopted by JP and Jan, had all been runaways recruited into a criminal army by an evil dragon-shifter. After his defeat, his army had scattered to the winds, the younger members totally abandoned. There had been no loyalty, just force.
But force was all these kids had known, so JP had brought them into his studio, saying he was recruiting them as town guardians, but they had to demonstrate self-discipline in training and out of it.
At first Jan had worried, but to her amazement it seemed to be working. Between those first few awkward weeks and now, several months later, the five kids had come up with the name Sentinels. No one else was to hear it. They worked hard with tae kwan do and Shotokan karate when in their human forms, and in their animals forms, they roamed the expanse of the LaFleur land, and beyond into the small town of Sanluce. The rest of the time they were to go to school, and think about future careers.
As JP began to lead the five slowly through the steps of the sword kata, stopping to demonstrate details of form, she turned away and retreated through the old rose garden some past LaFleur had established generations ago.
The house was a low, rambling hacienda-style mansion, with numerous tiled rooms. Archways that made the most of breezes, and deep-set windows on the south and west sides kept it relatively cool in summer, and kept that captured warmth as winter began chilling the nights.
It had felt intimidating first, to go straight from her old apartment in a mingy part of L.A. (with two roommates) to living in a mansion that she actually got lost in the first couple weeks she was there. All her belongings had only fit into a small part of her walk-in closet—and her room was one of the smaller guest rooms.
Had been. Part of the enormous number of chores facing them this week had been moving things around in the house. She and JP had lived in separate rooms, as his mother was somewhat formal and a stickler for what was proper, though Mrs. LaFleur officially didn’t notice that Jan and JP seldom slept apart. At least appearances were kept up.
The wedding itself hadn’t actually taken that much organizing on Jan’s part. Mrs. LaFleur had done most of it, except for the things relating to the bride.
The thing is, Jan thought as she paused in the room they called the office, and glanced up at the big white board next to JP’s desk: sometimes she felt like she wasn’t marrying a man so much as marrying a town.
Jan ran her eyes over her list again, though she’d done it an hour ago, and first thing after breakfast. Everything seemed ready: shoes (her one guilty pleasure) perfect, the dress now fit, hair and makeup arranged, and on the far table two stacks of expensive, engraved thank you notes waiting. Though their invitation had said no gifts, gifts were arriving anyway, and Jan had bought two etiquette books about writing thank you notes to people you don’t know, for gifts you would probably never use. She still hadn’t read the books yet . . . she kept putting that off.
“You look tense, darling.”
She whirled around to find JP standing in the doorway, looking delectably tousled, with his gi hanging open, affording a tantalizing view of his lean, muscular chest and abs.
Jan realized she’d been standing there with her arms crossed, and tried to relax as JP came inside, arms extended. She walked straight into them, slid her hands inside the gi, and clasped them around his waist.
“I’m all sweaty,” he said apologetically.
“I find that very, very hot,” she replied, her voice muffled as she kissed his bare chest.
JP chuckled, his breath stirring her hair on the top of her head. He was normally so very put together—and she loved that about him, too, as she was inclined that way herself. Somehow that made him sexier when he was mussed.
“Something go wrong?” he asked. “Or is there too much left to do? You can always delegate. Including me.”
“Just mental review, nothing more,” she said. “Everything else is done.”
He bent his head, his thick-lashed black eyes studying her face intently. She stood on her tiptoes, and pulled his face down for a kiss. “I was also thinking about . . . you-know-what.”
Though no one was around, it just felt wrong to talk about certain things in the office.
His brows lifted in question, and wordlessly he stepped back so they could walk out together. They crossed the Spanish tiled hallway and headed toward his suite, where her stuff would be moved by other hands the next day.
The truth was, sometimes she felt a bit like Cinderella. The LaFleurs were all but a royal family, having been mayors of the town since the mid-nineteenth century. JP’s mom was Indian, from a high status family, and was cosmopolitan in a way that Jan had only seen in movies and on TV.
Only instead of becoming a princess, Jan was being groomed to become co-mayor with JP. Because one day, when Mrs. LaFleur retired, most of the mayoral duties would fall to her, as JP wanted to continue being an A&R scout for talented musicians the world over. He was good at it, he loved music—as did Jan—so she was stepping up.
Yet another new role. But oh, that was not all.
As they walked into his bedroom, he said, “Mick called me this morning, sometime between the park planning thing and the school board session. It looks like we might not be coming back here the night of Mick’s premier.”
“What? Why not?”
“Dennis wants to propose to Mindy, and he wants to do it in L.A. at her favorite place, the Huntington Gardens tea room, on Christmas Eve. We can return that night, if you’re all right with it, and we’ll all be back here for Christmas morning with our families and the Sentinel kids, as planned.”
Jan grinned. Maybe it was weird to wait a week before going on their honeymoon, but Mick’s grandparents were old and frail, and it seemed better to give them and the Sentinels a real Christmas before they took off. “I’m fine with that,” she said. “Of course.” Then she stopped him. “Tell me the truth. Do you think it crazy, the bride and groom performing at their own wedding?”
JP lifted his hands. “All I know is, I love hearing you sing. And this is our wedding, so we can damn well do what we want.”
He had asked her to sing “Il doce suono” from Lucia de Lammermoor, which had been her senior project when she graduated from UCLA.
“Singing at our wedding couldn’t be your you-know-what,” he commented as he shut the door.
“No,” she said, turned, and faced him. “I’ve been thinking. And I’ve changed my mind. About trying to get pregnant. I want to do it now.”
JP stilled. “Are you sure, Jan?”
“Yes.”
“Unlike normal people, it’s pretty much a given that we’ll have success on the first try, if we want that,” he said in a low voice. “That’s the nature of being a phoenix shifter. As a phoenix, I fly and the land is fruitful. As a man I don’t have that power, but I do have this particular one.”
“Good,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Yes, I know I said I wanted to wait, because everything is changing so fast. But Shelley is definitely pregnant—she saw a doctor this morning, and got the green light. And I want our kids to grow up together, and, well, suddenly it just seems right.”
His smile illuminated his face, then turned mischievous. “So . . . are you in the mood for some more Torture of the Hundred Kisses?”
“Mmmm, as I recall I won the last time.” She smiled up at him.
“No, you lost count. And moved. I’m ahead by t
wo.”
“Ha, ha, ha. I don’t believe it,” she said, as they undressed each other. “But I’ll defeat you anyway—I dare you to do your worst.”
She stretched out on the bed, closing her eyes as she breathed deeply. Her nipples tightened with anticipation in the cool air as the bed wiggled. JP was somewhere nearby. Her senses heightened in a delicious way as she tried to listen, and feel, where he might begin.
A soft kiss, light as a butterfly, landed on the knuckle just above her right toe.
She concentrated on lying perfectly still. Slow breathing. She was not going to move, no no no, not so much because she wanted to win—in spite of their teasing talk, whatever they did was a win—but because she wanted it to last.
Another kiss, this one warm and lingering, on her left hip. The bed shifted, and his lips nipped her left ear. A mild surge of warmth kindled in her belly—she loved it when he nibbled her ears. But it was getting her too hot too soon.
She gulped a breath of air.
Another butterfly kiss in the hollow of her right elbow. Then soft lips closed around her forefinger, and his tongue touched the tip.
“No fair,” she gasped, stiff with the effort not to move. “You used tongue!”
“You . . . don’t . . . want . . . tongue?” JP asked in a slow, provocative voice.
She groaned. “Yes I want tongue!”
He closed his lips around her finger, ran his tongue around it, and as her breath stuttered in her throat—he sucked. Heat zinged through her, scorching hot. She pressed her lips against a gasp. She was not even going to make it to twenty unless she got a serious grip here.
Another kiss, on her inner knee. More heat—argh, had she lost count already? No! Breath slow, that’s sex, no, six. Six! Come on Jan, not even ten yet, you can do better than this!
A slow, contemplative kiss just below her navel made her belly quiver. His lips opened, and his tongue darted into her navel. She froze, not letting herself gasp, though a flame shot straight down to her core.
A whispering kiss over her right rib. She smelled the salty, masculine scent of his hair as the mattress gave beside her shoulder, and he kissed the hollow between her collarbones, and once again the tongue—with a lick.
Her toes curled. But she stayed still . . . oh God the count? Nine, that’s nine.
Ten was a kiss with a graze of teeth on the curve of her neck.
“Not teeth,” she hissed through locked jaw.
He gloated, “Really? No teeth?”
“Okay, yes teeth, but I am going to so re—uh!”
He nipped, sending another jet of heat straight to her core. Only ten and she was never going to make it. Lava was already boiling deep inside, her she was desperately wet, and they’d only reached ten!
Then number eleven landed on the tip of her breast, the softest brush of lips. Her nipple tightened excruciatingly, yearning for more, and she dug her fingers into the duvet as she fought to lie still.
Two more kisses, on her opposite hip and on her chin, making her inadvertently smile. She could hear a smile in his soft breathing, and knew he was going to get serious, and oh yeah, his lips brushed the other breast, then opened, and his tongue slowly circled before his teeth closed gently on the nipple. The heat in her core pulsed insistently. Her toes scrunched as she tried not to yelp, to grab him . . .
And the next kiss was on the inside of her thigh. Then the other thigh, even longer and more lingering. Her breathing came faster, her fingers twisting in the duvet. Was he going to cheat and go right there? No—the bed moved—the next kiss was on the inside of her ankle, but by now her entire body had become a gigantic erogenous zone.
A whimper escaped her, and her knee bent, widening outward.
“What? Not even twenty,” he breathed.
She moaned. “I can’t stand it . . .”
His response was a last kiss directly on her mound. By now she so wet she was wild for more and he laughed in triumph, obviously very ready to oblige.
He settled between her knees, which parted as his tongue explored her soft folds. Game over—she’d lost—and yet she won as he lapped everywhere, then stroked deep and long and leisurely, the pulses building to a brain-frying insistence. When at last he came to her clit, one touch of his tongue—a graze of his teeth and her brain exploded into a shower of stars. He sucked with the pulses, intensifying them into mind-blitzing length, until she landed, gasping, and yet still hot.
“Now,” she breathed.
“Now,” he said, and his cock touched her opening. She tipped her hips to draw him in hard and tight. She moved with him so his thrusts rubbed over her still-throbbing, sensitive clit, shooting her right back up to the heights again.
He came first, sliding his hand down between them to thumb her into a second orgasm, and they clung tight as the pulses wrung through them, each sensing the other’s, which echoed the pleasure back and forth.
“I am so going to get my revenge,” she murmured, when she could finally speak. “I’m going to have you begging by ten.”
“I can hardly wait,” he murmured, and she could feel his silent laughter trembling through his body. “But we’ve Mick and company arriving in three hours.”
“Right,” Jan said. “And yeah, we shouldn’t meet them looking like we just got out of bed.”
She gave him a last kiss and rolled up, loving how relaxed she felt—all the little stresses of the day smoothed out like silken ribbon.
And then she remembered what had started them, and looked down at herself. Had their lovemaking sparked a new life? How long did it actually take, anyway?
Filled with wonder, she followed him to the shower, where they soaped one another with long, tender caresses and a lot more kissing.
As she dried off, the overwhelming sense of gratitude made her throat tighten and her eyes sting. Life with JP was such a miracle.
Her thoughts shifted from JP to wedding to Dennis, and the briefly-met Mindy. She remembered Shelley’s doubts, and thought, whoa, in three hours all six of us will be together.
Hope this isn’t the disaster I’ve been dreading.
Chapter Six
I hope this won’t be a total disaster, Mindy was thinking as they drove to the Santa Monica Airport, where Mick’s plane was waiting.
She was about to leave L.A., and wondered what Sanluce would look like. But first this meeting with Mick and Shelley. Six people spending a lot of time together—with a wedding in the middle—five of whom are really tight . . . And then there’s me.
“I love Christmas lights,” she said, to get her mind off that road.
“Yeah, me, too,” Dennis said as they glanced out the windows at the wild variety of Christmas decorations, punctuated here and there with beautiful strings of blue and silver or white lights, for those who celebrated Chanukah.
Mindy had been away from L.A. in December for so long that she hadn’t seen the new styles in Christmas lights. Many of these were shaped like icicles, some even with LED drips. “It’s strange,” she said. “How many of these decorations are winter themed. Icicle lights. Gigantic snowflakes with bows tied around them. Snowmen made out of plastic and Styrofoam. Flocking of trees, and window frames.”
Dennis cracked a laugh. “I know. I remember thinking one year, what does a snowman—even a real one, actually made out of snow—holding a present actually have to do with Christmas? Or a candy cane with a green bow tied around it?”
“Especially in Los Angeles, where it never snows, ever,” Mindy said. “But I actually kind of like the creative mixture of ancient pagan and actual Christian nativity scenes, and these present-holding reindeer and snowmen that don’t seem to fit anything.”
Dennis chuckled. “It’s crazy, just like L.A.”
“It’s more than crazy, it’s . . . inclusive. That is, if you want to celebrate Christmas, it’s big enough to include everybody. That’s what my great-grandmother said once. She was a Christian.”
Dennis sent a look her way. “Your
family is religious?”
“Only her and my great-granddad. Oh, my grandmother was a big churchgoer, but I don’t think she ever got the memo about what it was supposed to be about. A bigger snob it would be impossible to find—except my mom. That was the only thing they agreed on, was you had to belong to the right church, and the right crowd within that church.” She forced a laugh before she could get too bitter, but inside she was thinking: And their supreme commandment was, “What will other people think?”
“Well, I like the lights, whatever they mean,” Dennis said easily. “They counter some of the sheer marketing push and greed with the idea of making an effort to brighten things up for strangers to enjoy. I used to love putting up lights as a kid.”
“I wish we could see them from the sky—it’s got to be fantastic.”
“I’ll bet JP’s seen them,” Dennis remarked. “I know he sometimes flies to L.A. in the middle of the night.”
Mindy remembered that house, way up high in the Hollywood Hills. A dragon shifter could easily come and go from that rooftop. Wow. The world really was stranger, and more magical, than she had ever dared believe.
After they parked, he hauled out his go-bag, plus his new suit-carrier. Mindy took out the suitcase full of new clothes she’d just bought—she’d spent all her time since their arrival in a frenzy of shopping, as if all new clothes could guarantee this would go well.
They walked into the airport lounge, and Mindy, anxiously scanning the crowd, instantly picked out Mick Volkov. At six-foot-six, he towered over everyone else, his pale blond hair instantly drawing the eye. Mindy looked to his left and right for the usual blond supermodel.
There wasn’t one. Standing next to him was a very tall woman—she had to be six feet—built on Amazonian lines, her brown hair worn in a plain style, just brushing her shoulders. She had straight brows and a plain face, without any hint of makeup. Not even lip gloss, which Mindy herself wore.
Dennis went straight to Mick, giving him a man-hug, then turned his tigerish grin toward Mindy, and she could feel his pride as he introduced her.