by Tamara Hogan
He looked steadily back. “That can’t change, Scarlett. Not if I’m going to keep you safe. A situation could arise where the only thing that saves your life is you following my orders.”
She tried to wrench herself away, but he wouldn’t let go. “How do you even know I was this guy’s target? Sasha was sitting right beside me. For that matter, so were you and Jack. Maybe you were the target.” She smirked. “You pissing someone off isn’t outside the realm of possibility.”
He acknowledged her point with a single nod of his head. “Okay, at this point we can’t know for sure who the target was. But this asshole won’t get another clean shot at you.” Lukas’s gaze flicked to the bandage on her ear. “What happened today is inexcusable. I… we almost lost you.” He hesitated before dropping a gentle kiss onto the bandage, touching its edges with his big, rough fingertips. His hot breath heated her cheekbone as he slowly, unerringly—finally—lowered his head to her mouth.
“Lukas.” No doubt about it; that was pleading. For his mouth, for his touch. For everything he could give her.
His lips cruised over hers, a wisp of sensation. A soft flick of his tongue over the center of her lower lip teased her unbearably. The softness of his lips contradicted the coiled strength of his body, barely leashed. Too soft. Not enough. Grabbing at his hair, she tugged his head toward hers. She wasn’t going to let him treat her like a fairy tale princess cocooned in glass.
She almost heard his control snap. Holding her head in place, he crushed his lips down on hers, and plundered. His dark taste swam through her like heady wine. When his teeth joined his tongue in a game of nip and smooth, she wove her fingers into his tabby cat hair—and bit back.
Cupping her butt in his hands, he lifted her off her feet, rubbing her dewy core against his groin with frank hunger. She wound around him, clinging like a monkey on a tree. He used the freedom to caress and fondle, tracing a torturously slow route down the back seam of her jeans, between her cheeks and beyond. When he finally palmed her humid center, it was all she could do to hold on.
A moan slipped out of her throat as she rocked against his hand, driving for the resolution that was just beyond her reach. She buried her face in the crook of his neck as the tension built. Where was her pride, her embarrassment? She was riding him like a prize stallion, but he wasn’t complaining. And she couldn’t stop, not now. Not when she was so close.
Then his clever fingers shifted and pressed—just enough for her to shatter and break apart in his arms.
After a while, he kissed her on her forehead, walked over to the couch, and gently set her down. Her now-seated position gave her a front row view of his massive hard-on. She half reached for him, with thoughts of finally getting her mouth on him again filling her brain.
Suddenly his mini-comp vibrated and pulsed at his waistband. Lukas growled and gave her a ferocious kiss. “I’m late for a meeting with Gideon.”
Scarlett sat back on the couch. They just couldn’t seem to catch a break.
“Why are you so sad all of a sudden?”
She grabbed the afghan off the back of the couch, wrapping it around her protectively. “Stop trying to read me! Because I can’t read you.” She stared at the cold fireplace, at the wooden floor. At anything but the rock-hard bounty in front of her. “I always feel like I’m at a disadvantage when I talk with you.”
Lukas crouched down. “You’re so wrong,” he said quietly. “I can tell you’re sad, but not why. I can tell you feel guilty, but not why. Even after you fly apart in my arms, you feel sad and guilty.” His chest expanded and contracted with the heaviness of his sigh. “That’s no advantage.”
She matched his sigh with one of her own. “We’re going to be living here together for awhile. For starters, why don’t we do what parents tell toddlers to do—use our words?”
Lukas rested his forehead against hers. “Okay, I’ll start. If I didn’t have to meet Gideon right now, I’d carry you over to that bed and bury myself in you. Repeatedly.” He stroked a rough finger along the line of her jaw. “I want to make you feel good.”
Taking nothing for yourself? Typical.
He reluctantly stood. “Gideon wants to talk about what he found in the parking ramp across from Crackhouse. It shouldn’t take too long. Why don’t you unpack and get settled in while I check on a few things downstairs?”
She nodded. She needed some time to think, to get her equilibrium back. To consider what Sasha had revealed about her brother, and what she was going to do about it.
“I’ll bring some dinner back,” he called from the door.
“That pizza smelled really good.”
“Sold. Later,” Lukas said as he left.
Later. Scarlett looked at Lukas’s orgy-sized bed. She couldn’t let herself think about all the things she and her new roommate could do… later.
Chapter 16
“Why did you stop?” Stephen asked.
Antonia stood in front of single snare drum, her sticks in the air. “You know, when I asked you for drum lessons, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
I know exactly what you had in mind. Her slim body positively quivered with frustration and desire. Trying to ignore her luscious scent, Stephen said, “You have to learn the fundamentals before you can do anything behind the kit.” He indicated the set of drums he’d detached the snare from, a decent backup he kept here at Scarlett’s recording studio at Underbelly.
The crime scene techs were done with the room, and the cleaners had been in, so he and Antonia had decided to meet here for the drum lesson he’d promised to give her back when he was in the hospital.
Her sense of rhythm was crap. Was there a metronome around here? “Just a sec.” He searched the room, avoiding the area where the soundboard used to be. In his mind’s eye, Annika was still spread across it like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
No metronome, no soundboard, no computers. The crime scene techs had removed so much equipment that the room hardly looked like the same place. What could he use…? “Ah.” A synthesizer stood near the window—one of the few items he hadn’t touched or damaged. He plugged it in, flicked a button, fired it up. Finding a simple click track, he manipulated the pace and tone.
Approaching Antonia again, he explained, “You can’t just sit down and start flailing away. Each piece is an instrument in its own right, with its own technique,” he said. “Snares. Hi-hats, bass drum, cymbals. The only tools you have at your disposal are two arms and two legs, moving simultaneously but each playing a different rhythm—everything in time to the beat—” he indicated the click track “—playing in your head. Which had better be damn accurate, because you’re the only thing keeping everyone in the band playing at the same speed.” He pointed to the lonely snare. “And it all starts there, with stroke work. I still do stroke work, every day. Gotta stay limber.”
“Stroke work? Every day?”
The innuendo in Antonia’s voice hit him like a Jäger shot. His eyes flicked to the closed door. He had all the privacy he would need to— “Let’s get back to work, brat.”
He could tell that the “brat” reference annoyed her, but damn it, he had to do something to keep her at a distance. Surely he could handle a teenage succubus with a crush.
“Can you show me how you like to… grip the sticks?”
And touch you again? I don’t think so. “What you’re doing is correct. Start again. I’m listening.” Good thing this was just a lark for her, because her hands, wrists, and arms were really too delicate to hold up to the pounding for long. As she started playing a slow, single stroke roll, he gazed around the room. He hadn’t been back since the night Annika died.
“Stephen?”
She thought the spike of lust was for her. Shove it down. “Hear that?” he said, ignoring the question in her voice. “One, two, three, four,” he called aloud, clapping his hands for emphasis. “Hear it?”
She banged on the snare with more enthusiasm than skill.
“Kick those boot
s off. They’re fucking with your balance.” And with my concentration. She plopped on the floor and unzipped the boot down the length of her calf. It sounded too much like she was undressing. Thankfully, when she stood back up in her stocking feet, it seemed like she’d shed several crucial years along with the boots. Now she looked a lot more like a tween cruising the mall than a succubus with every right to flex and test her burgeoning sexual skills. “All right, now we’re talking,” he said aloud. “Let’s try it again.”
She started again, a hopeful look on her face.
Nope. Didn’t help at all. But he nodded and smiled encouragingly. “Better. Keep going.” Roaming the room while she played, his thoughts wandered. When he’d agreed to teach Antonia to play drums, he thought it would be a distraction, a good way to kill some time—and to pay the Fontaines and Sebastianis back for the care and hospitality they’d lavished upon him while he was recovering from his injuries. Did he need groceries? Groceries appeared. Did he need to talk to a faerie therapist? Referrals were proffered.
He’d declined the therapist—probably a good indication that he needed one—but visiting with Madame Bouchet was just as good. It distracted him, gave him something to do.
So, yeah, he needed a distraction, but he hadn’t factored in that Antonia Sebastiani might have plans of her own. She was luscious, leggy, and barely legal—the stuff of intergalactic fantasies.
He had to stay away from her. There were some lines even he wouldn’t cross.
So, it’s okay to kill someone, but not to have sex with a succubus over the age of consent? Who wants you? How ironic. He shook off the thought. “Stand up straighter, Antonia.”
She complied, her raised eyebrow letting him know she’d noticed the bite in his voice. Looking at her was a mistake. Her nipples poked at the softness of her vintage INXS T-shirt, and his dick came to life with a languid stretch. Even wearing South Park socks, she was absolutely fucking lethal. What delusional thought process had ever convinced him that he could handle this? That he could handle her?
“It’s stuffy in here, isn’t it.” Rubbing at his breastbone, he tore his gaze away from her chest and opened the door to the studio, looking up and down the empty hallway. Where was Elliott Sebastiani? Where was the parental supervision on a school night? Right now, Stephen wanted the president’s steely gray eyes pinning him to the wall like a bug.
“Stephen, are you okay?” Antonia put down the sticks and approached, biting her bare, vulnerable lip, her hips swaying in invitation.
Who the hell did she think she was teasing? Did she think her actions wouldn’t have consequences? And why was he thinking like a judgmental, puritanical human? He looked at the sensuality softening her face, the desire glittering in her eyes, inhaled her frank lust.
Antonia placed a soft hand on his forearm. “I’m so sorry. When I suggested we have our lesson here, all I was thinking about was that, with Scarlett at Lu—” She stopped herself. “With Scarlett not using the studio right now, it would be empty. And there was a set of drums here. I didn’t consider that the last time you were here, you were nearly killed.” She stepped closer and gave him a hug. “Why don’t we pick up the snare, bring it upstairs, and work there?”
Upstairs in my bedroom. The unspoken words taunted him. Stephen winced as the thing in his chest nibbled his ribs. The arms holding him were so soft and delicate, yet threaded with firm muscle. Her concern felt like stepping under an awning in the driving rain.
Step back. Get away.
But he didn’t. Instead, he returned her hug, let her concern bleed into him with her body heat. She was obviously aroused, but her desire to comfort him was genuine. He tried to speak past the lump in his throat. “I don’t know if I’m… up to this today, Tonia.”
“You’re the only one who calls me that.” Her eyes glowed. “I like it.”
He rested his head on her delicate shoulder, smelled the light, cucumber-melon body scent pooling in the crook of her neck, so innocent and fresh. He wanted to roll in it, cleanse himself somehow. The sensation in his chest changed from nips to sharp scratches, but instead of backing off, he tightened his arms around her slim body, bringing their hips closer together. She shuddered, and then pressed her lips to his.
Such innocence. Was this her first kiss? Whether it was or not, her lust prowled through the room, and the beast was licking its chops. He smelled her salty-sweet arousal, tasted the bubble gum she’d been chewing.
She ate at his mouth like she was starving, but kissing Antonia brought out protective instincts that he didn’t know he still possessed. “Slow down,” he whispered.
She complied, giving the roof of his mouth a wicked little lick that buckled his knees. Their noses bumped as she twisted for a better angle.
And it was his startled laughter that saved him.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“No, I’m—”
She pushed him away. Hard. “You dick.” The desire misting the room shifted from embarrassment, to hurt, to flat-out mortification so quickly he could barely register the changes. Her lower lip quivered—once—and then she whirled and left the studio, leaving her black boots and bubble gum behind.
“Antonia!”
Inside his chest, the beast howled its disappointment. A hard kick to the underside of his sternum drove him to his knees.
“Run, Antonia,” he gasped. “Run.”
***
Lukas’s stomach rolled as he was awakened by the rancid taste of ashes creeping onto his tongue. “Shit,” he muttered, shoving back the blankets comprising his makeshift bed on the couch.
He was at it again.
Lukas went to his desk to check the Hot Sheet. A slice of light glowed under the bathroom doorjamb. Scarlett was in the bathtub—again. Scarlett spent almost as much time in the bathtub as he did in the basement workout room. The gym was his sanctuary. Perhaps the tub was hers.
He didn’t blame her for needing one, because the tension between them stretched as taut as a zip line.
He could hear every shift of her weight, every splash and eddy of the water. Imagining her nude body lying a mere twenty feet away was torture. And how the hell was he supposed to sleep when she was singing a raunchy, cheerful song about all the men she’d had?
Jesus.
He flicked on the desk light and woke up his monitor with a stab of a finger, trying to block out Scarlett’s voice. There was nothing on the Hot Sheet, but hundreds of unread emails sat in his inbox, the bolded number glaring at him accusingly. His Council workspace was flooded with items requiring his review, his feedback, his sign-off, his vote. The latest racist screed from the Genetic Purity League still sat open on his desktop, and Krispin Woolf had fast-tracked a proposal that they RFID tag all their citizens “to ensure their protection, safety, and security.”
He reached into the top desk drawer for the liquid antacid and swigged a big mouthful straight from the bottle, perversely enjoying its chalky, cherry flavor.
Hell, he was as frustrated as Krispin was with how little progress they’d made finding Andi’s assailant, but there was a line—and apparently Krispin couldn’t see the irony of his request. Lukas remembered many Council meetings after the attacks of September 11, 2001, at which Krispin had held forth, with a great sense of theatre, about the absurdity, the epic stupidity, of people blithely giving away their civil liberties in the name of a security which wasn’t achievable in the first place.
Krispin was letting his personal issues cloud his judgment. Lukas clicked no to both proposals, sending his votes into the digital ether.
Scarlett’s voice wisped from the bathroom. Lukas took another slug off the bottle of chalky antacid.
Mentally consigning Scarlett’s iPod to the seventh circle of hell, he called the hospital to check on Andi’s condition. No change, still in a medically induced coma. There was nothing from Gideon in his email or text message pile. Still nothing on the Hot Sheet, damn it.
*ping*
[ESe
bastiani:] Saw your votes coming through. Couldn’t sleep either?
Lukas cast a look back to the bathroom. What the hell was she listening to now? He wished she would switch to some mindless, bubbly pop, or hell, even go back to singing about dicks, because the pain in her voice jabbed like a knife to the gut.
[LSebastiani:] Thought I’d get some work done.
[ESebastiani:] Me too. Ready to have some of the work taken off your plate?
Lukas stilled. Was his father finally ready to name Antonia as the Incubus Second?
[LSebastiani:] Do NOT kid me about this.
[ESebastiani:] Antonia signed the Succession paperwork. Once we get your sig, we send it to Valerian for his, and then it’s a done deal. I didn’t want something this important to show up in your queue without giving you a heads up first.
Lukas leaned back in his chair. It was finally happening. Once Lukas signed the paperwork, the smallest slice of his official workload would shift from his broad shoulders to his sister’s delicate ones. Delicate, my ass. He couldn’t wait to see Antonia going toe to toe with Krispin Woolf.
[LSebastiani:] Sure, send it.
Several seconds passed. When the Sebastiani Succession Plan showed up, he opened it and carefully reviewed its contents, parsing the language for loopholes, logic lapses, any possibility of a less-than-precise interpretation, because this update to the succession plan introduced a unique twist, which Lukas hoped to Jupiter would never have to be enacted: If Elliott Sebastiani died within the next ten years, Lukas would hopscotch up the Incubus succession line so that he, not Antonia, would ascend to the Council Presidency, finishing out his father’s term until the next regularly scheduled election.
The provision, unfortunately, was a political necessity. Krispin Woolf would never accept a teenager as Council President, no matter how precocious she might be, so Lukas and his father had cooked up this transitional plan, both to protect Antonia and to reduce Council chaos.