“And that would simply make her a bad person, right?”
“She’s not a bad person,” she said automatically, meeting his gaze again. This time, neither of them looked away. His expression was understanding, sympathetic almost. A deep need curled in her chest, and in that moment, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. Comfort from this vampire? A warm touch?
Yes.
Silence descended on them for a few moments, and finally he cleared his throat and shifted back on his heels, hands going into his pockets.
Worry hit her. What if she’d done the wrong thing by airing her sister’s dirty laundry with Charles? There were so many ways this might bite her in the ass.
“So your sister never lets go. And you don’t bother to try to date at all. What, I wonder, made you both so screwed up when it comes to men?”
She gaped at him. “What the—I’m fine. And Kristen isn’t messed up. She’s just…confused. Brent has her fooled.”
“Uh-huh.” He crossed his arms, light eyes watching her, studying her. She fought the urge to squirm. “Let me guess—”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare try to analyze me. My life—my sister’s life—is none of your business beyond the boundaries of our agreement. In fact, I want you to get out.” She waved at the door. “Now.”
“I’m not ready to leave yet, Lady Blackmailer.”
“Fine. I’ll leave.” She strode past him into the hallway, not allowing herself to limp and reveal how sore her ankle had become between dinner and their discussion. It was only when the door shut behind her that she realized she didn’t know where to go.
Mind foggy and body shaking with adrenaline, she found herself back out near the Dumpsters where she’d made her deal with Charles. Where she’d blackmailed herself a vampire.
None of this was working out as she’d hoped. Kristen was still enamored with Brent. Her tame vampire wasn’t seeming very tame at all. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that Charles wasn’t really trying to get Brent into a compromising position. Sure, his excuses made sense, and granted, they had most of the week left before they headed back to their normal lives, but still. It didn’t feel right.
Not to mention, her sister wouldn’t listen to a single thing she said on the subject of her fiancé. When had the gap between them grown so wide?
She sniffed and wiped fiercely at her eyes. The sound of snow crunching behind her made her whip around, and her heart jumped into her throat.
“Are you all right?” Charles asked, voice low, as if he didn’t want to disturb the relative silence around them.
“I need to put a bell on you or something.”
“I didn’t mean to push.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Okay, I did. But I didn’t realize it would upset you like this.” A frown creased his face, and worried lines surrounded his eyes.
“I’m not upset.”
“You’re stubborn as hell, you know that? I think you’d argue with me if I said it was cold out here.” Counter to his tone, he grinned. “You don’t have to confide in me, but I did need to know some of it—at least a bit—if I’m going to have any hope of helping you with your sister.”
Cold air filled her lungs, and she let it out in a poof of steam. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“You don’t sound terribly hopeful.”
“At this point…I’m not sure anything will work.”
He stepped closer, edging into her personal space, but she didn’t step back. “You’ve tried to break them up before.”
“Nothing like this. I just…nudged.” Repeatedly.
“Getting your sister free of him is important to you.”
His scent seemed to fit the mountain. Woodsy and natural, yet somehow smoother than the real nature surrounding them. She wanted to lean in just to inhale more of his smell, breathe him into her lungs. Just barely, she resisted. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll help you.”
A thank-you was on her tongue, but she bit it back. He’d already agreed to help her, right? But somehow, this promise felt more real. Solid.
“Good,” she murmured, staring at his chest.
His finger slid under her chin, and he tilted her face up.
Icy blue eyes met hers, and her skin tingled where he touched her. It didn’t seem like she should be able to see the color so clearly under a single, half-snow-covered lamppost, but she was able to, just barely. A woman could drown in eyes like that. Especially a woman who wasn’t used to swimming.
A tiny part of her mind told her to look away. That danger lay ahead. But she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze from his. Was unable to summon her normal defenses.
His hand slid up to cup her cheek, and he leaned closer. His mouth only a breath away from hers, he murmured, “I swear to it.”
Then his lips touched hers, so softly. A sizzle of recognition arced through her body, and a need coiled inside of her. Then just as quickly, he stepped back. She could have almost convinced herself she’d imagined the press of his lips against hers, if not for the slow, clear wink he gave her.
She touched her lips, unable to form a thought, let alone speak one aloud.
With vampire speed, he was gone.
Chapter Four
Rachel woke up feeling determined. Determined to get her sister alone. Determined to convince her sister on her own that Brent wasn’t good enough for her. Determined, above all, to avoid a certain vampire however much she could manage.
He’d kissed her. Kissed her. What the heck had that been about? Okay, sure, it wasn’t exactly a passionate embrace. It had been a peck. A small touch of the lips. Not much more than the kind of kiss a person might give a relative. Like maybe something someone from a more huggy-feely country or family might do to say hello.
But it had felt like more. Like a connection between them.
No. That was all in her head, and she wouldn’t allow herself to be drugged by her emotions. She wasn’t her sister. She wasn’t her mother. She was strong.
Kristen had decided they’d all go ice-skating today after Rachel convinced her that her ankle was fine, but the rink didn’t open until ten o’clock. Two hours left before they’d have to head out. It was still early, so Brent would be in bed since they weren’t skiing—one of the only things that seemed to get the man up early. But Rachel knew exactly where she could find her sister, and it wasn’t sleeping in.
The lodge gym was empty save one attractive brunette running on a treadmill. The morning news jabbered quietly in the background from a television hanging on a wall in front of where Kristen ran.
“Hey,” Rachel called to her.
Kristen glanced at her, then slowed her treadmill to a stop. “Hey yourself,” she said, breathless.
“Can we talk?”
Kristen grabbed a small towel hanging from the treadmill bar and wiped her face with it. “You are relentless.”
“It’s one of my few redeeming qualities.”
Kristen grinned. “I’d say the opposite, but whatever.” Her smile faded into a hard expression. “You’re not talking me out of this. I think you know that.”
“He isn’t worth—”
“Stop it.”
“I know that you have this romantic view of him in your head, but he’s never going to make you happy. You deserve better.”
Her sister suddenly looked exhausted, and for the briefest of moments, a glimmer of something—recognition, maybe—flashed in her eyes. Then they were hard again. Closed off.
“You say that I’m the one with the romanticized view, but you’re the one who doesn’t have a handle on reality.”
It felt like she’d been slapped. She’d known to expect backlash, but she hadn’t expected this. “What?”
“Real relationships are tough, Rachel. They’re not always fun and they’re not always clean.” She swallowed hard. “You don’t get to live the dream unless you’re willing to work for it. That’s as true in love as it is in everything else in life.”
Rachel g
aped, not sure how to counter an argument she almost agreed with. “It shouldn’t be that hard. And both people should be working on it, not just one.”
Kristen squeezed the towel, her perfectly manicured fingernails digging into the fabric, and shook her head. “I’m done talking about this. Leave it alone. I can’t have someone in my life who is always trying to sabotage me.”
Her chest tightened and she couldn’t get enough air. “But—“
“Do you want us to be the kind of sisters who only see each other at Christmas? Who like each other’s pictures on Facebook but never talk about anything real? Never go to lunch or talk about the men in their lives? Never connect?” Her voice broke and she glanced away. “Because that’s what you’re pushing us toward.”
She had to get a grip on this. Reach her sister somehow. The idea of never seeing her—of not being part of her life—wasn’t something Rachel could wrap her mind around. If she didn’t have her sister, she didn’t have anyone.
“I know that Dad—”
“Enough!” Kristen stalked past her, then stopped at the door, but didn’t turn around. “Enough, Rachel. Please.”
The door shut almost silently behind her.
She sat heavily on the end of the treadmill her sister had just been running on. Tears pushed against the back of her throat, but wouldn’t come. Numbness settled over her.
And that was how the vampire found her.
The door to the workout room clicked shut behind him, and he approached her slowly. She didn’t look up from where she cradled her jaw and stared at the floor.
“You have the worst timing ever,” she muttered. Why did he always have to find her at her most miserable? God. It was like he sought her out at her weakest to bother her.
He squatted in front of her so they were the same height, balancing on the balls of his feet, a position that most men—most humans, she mentally amended—would quickly find uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem to bother the vampire.
“You want to talk about it?”
Mind your own damn business was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit back the words. He was being nice—even if she couldn’t be sure whether it was an act. Biting his head off for it felt wrong. And it would be for the wrong reasons, anyway. Because he’d confused her with that kiss.
“I’m a good listener.”
She wouldn’t bet on it. But he was an impartial listener, wasn’t he? Maybe that was even better. “She just—” Her voice caught and she swallowed hard. “Kristen made it clear how she felt about my meddling. God—it is meddling, isn’t it?”
Charles rocked on his toes in a way that appeared horribly uncomfortable, but he looked only lost in thought. “There is an argument to be made for minding your own business.”
Her chest tightened. Why had she thought he’d understand? Sure, she knew minding her own business was the safe way to go—heck, maybe the wiser path. But something in her wouldn’t allow it. Why had she expected a stranger to understand something about herself that she didn’t entirely get?
“However, I don’t think that’s necessarily the right path in this case.”
“You don’t?” Maybe it showed how little belief she had in her own position with Kristen, but she wanted his approval. She wanted someone to tell her she wasn’t being totally unreasonable. That she was doing the right thing.
“No. I think that any woman unlucky enough to be stuck with Brent Strub is in for a lifetime of regret and pain.”
The vampire’s putting a voice to her fears suddenly made it all the more real. “Yes!” If a stranger could see it, then she wasn’t crazy to interfere. She stood, a surge of energy bolting through her and a slight head rush making her sway.
“But.” He stood in one clean motion and took a step toward her, crowding her just a tiny bit and gripping her elbow to keep her balanced. He smelled like he’d already been outside—like snow and pine and fresh air.
She leaned in just a bit to catch the scent better, before catching herself and jerking away. And finally his last word hit her. “But what?”
“You need to decide if her happiness is worth the risk to you.”
He didn’t have to voice what that risk was. And he didn’t
“Aren’t we supposed to go ice-skating?” he asked instead.
…
Ice-skating was tricky business. A sport that Charles had never dabbled in because the images it evoked were always ones of family, and his family wasn’t the type that went skating together. And he imagined that whoever his human family had been, they hadn’t been the skating type either.
“Are you sure your ankle is up to this?” he asked. Her ankle was really the least of his worries at the moment. She’d been upset in a way he hadn’t suspected the tough woman could be only an hour earlier. And seeing her on the floor in the gym, so dejected, had stirred something in him. Anger. Helplessness.
He didn’t like it.
Strong ties to people were dangerous, and Charles had made avoiding such emotions—such ties—one of the few rules he lived his life by. His bond with his brothers was the only one he allowed himself. And that was only because he owed them his life.
Real attachment hadn’t come easily to him, and he couldn’t even pinpoint exactly when it had happened. The emotion had sneaked up on him slowly, over decades. So why was he now feeling protective of his brother’s woman, Alice, after less than a single year? Even odder, he worried over a near-stranger in Rachel simply because she intrigued him?
Rachel pulled him from his difficult thoughts with a clipped response. “My ankle’s fine.”
He gave her a pointed look and she blushed.
“Okay, so it’s fine-ish. I’ll survive. The Tylenol will kick in any second. Maybe you should concentrate on chatting up Brent. Or charming my sister. Good thing this place is indoors, huh? Awfully bright out there today.” She sounded nervous; maybe he wasn’t the only one affected by their time in the other’s company.
A sheaf of hair slid into her eyes as she tied her skating boots, and he clenched his hand at his side to keep from brushing it back for her. Bad enough that he’d kissed her last night. Sure, it had barely qualified as such, only the slightest brush of lips, but that hadn’t seemed to matter. Need had rushed through him so quickly and forcefully that he’d had to make himself leave right then, or be faced with the very real possibility that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from kissing her again. From doing a lot more than kissing her.
He hardened at the thought, and took a deep breath to clear his mind. That he was attracted to her was a given—and it shouldn’t worry him. He was attracted to a lot of women—if not quite so acutely—and he followed through on that attraction plenty. The bigger worry was that he wanted to help her. Had promised to help her save her sister and meant the words. Meant them even now in the painfully bright day.
That wasn’t part of the plan, and he didn’t need the distraction. Making sure Alice was safe was his priority. Showing his brothers that they could rely on him to get the job done was his priority. He couldn’t afford the very attractive distraction that she offered. Nor the time and concentration he’d need to help her break her sister away from Brent.
But he’d given his word.
Hell. How much time could it take, really? Getting Brent into a compromising position shouldn’t be terribly difficult. He was, after all, doing his best to get an “in” with Charles, not the other way around. Sure, the scumbag was doing it in a standoffish way that saved face, but the need was there. The wanting. Just below the surface. Charles didn’t need to be a vampire to sniff out that fact.
As for Kristen…well, it wouldn’t be difficult. Kristen fancied herself in love, but it wasn’t the real thing. Charles had avoided women threatening to fall in love for nearly a century. Kristen was a woman in love with the idea of love.
He’d just have to help her see it. And ignore the fact that he’d much rather be charming her sister. Actually, it was probably the best thing he co
uld do. Hell, screwing her sister was one sure way to make sure Rachel never let him near her again.
Something pinched his chest at the thought, but he ignored the sensation.
“Ready?” he asked. At her nod he helped her to her feet and they stepped carefully in sync the short distance to the ice.
“Oh, jeez.” Nails digging in even through the thin gloves he’d donned for show, Rachel gripped him as though her life depended on it.
Careful to go slowly, he shifted so he could face her and hold both of her hands, skating backward. “How long since you’ve been ice skating?”
A grimace twisted her features. “I’ve managed to avoid it until now.”
Brent buzzed past them, followed by a laughing Kristen. Cole was, once again, nowhere to be found. For a man who was supposed to be enjoying a wintry vacation with his friends, he was missing from the group an awful lot. Could it be that he had a hard time seeing Kristen and Brent together? Or…hell. Maybe he was working with Brent. Making phone calls. Sending letters. He needed to get a timeline from Noah.
“You should really be with them,” she said, cutting into his thoughts.
“This kind of thing takes time. Subtlety. I don’t want Brent to think I’m too eager to spend time with him. He’ll think he’s got the upper hand.” And he didn’t want to let go of her—very firm—grip. Moving slowly together, compensating for the other’s movements, the awkward skating almost felt like a dance.
Suddenly she slipped, a small cry escaping her as she almost escaped his grasp. He cursed, and pulled her into a tight embrace to keep her upright. Only his vampire reflexes kept them from landing in a heap.
Heaving in a few quick breaths, she held him as tightly as he held her. “Holy crap. I’m so not cut out for winter sports.”
Her balance returned, but he couldn’t let her go just yet. Warm and sweet-smelling, she felt perfect huddled against him. What would she do if he kissed her now, in front of Brent and her sister? Would she pull away, flabbergasted and hissing obscenities at him under her breath, or would she sigh softly, and lean into the kiss like she’d done the night before? He wondered if she would open her mouth for him. Let him slip inside to taste her.
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