by Aimee Laine
Should I call first? No. Lily said to just go. Maybe I should text him. No, that would be obvious.
Day had changed to dusk with the twinkle of stars overhead beginning their celestial display.
What am I going to say? What if he rejects me? Too many stop signs, blinking lights and ten roads later, she found herself at his gate. “How do I get in?”
Her cell beeped. She flipped it over and read the text : six-five-four-three-two-two.
Charley typed in the code, and the gates ground open. She inched toward them as they separated, impaired by a lack of patience.
Lily said to just go.
She whipped around the circular drive toward the expanse of the house, dark beneath the cover of ancient trees. Outdoor lights popped on as she strode to the door and rapped the lion’s-head knocker once. She hit it three more times with no result.
She rapped again and heard, “Coming!” from a female voice.
He hooked up with someone in the hour since he left?
As the door creaked open, Sheila peered out. “Can I help you?”
“I need to see Wyatt.” Charley’s tone took on a dangerous edge.
Sheila cinched her robe tighter. “I’m sorry, but he’s not here.”
“Bullshit.” Charley pushed the door and knocked Sheila to the side. “Where is he?”
“Where is who?” Wyatt asked.
• • •
Wyatt had heard the gates as they opened, Sheila’s rush to the door, and the metal clang that resonated each time the hammer hit the lion’s head. He’d only had time to change into his draw-string pants and a T-shirt before Charley’d waited at his door. Why she sought him out, he didn’t know. She stood, framed by the doorway, her fists at her sides.
He offered Sheila his hand as she staggered back up from Charley’s forceful entry. “Are you okay?” He directed his question to Sheila.
When she aimed a warning glare in Charley’s direction, Wyatt smirked. A little taste of your own medicine, perhaps?
“I’m going … away.” Sheila waved a hand in Charley’s direction and marched away from the foyer.
“I didn’t make a very good first or second impression, did I?” Charley asked.
“I think … no. Why are you here, Charley?”
She took a step, hesitated, and stood again in the middle of the door.
“You can come in if you’d like.” Wyatt motioned her forward.
She did but by no more than a foot. “I came to tell you that you’re a moron.”
He laughed. He’d planned to remain civil and impassive when he returned the next day. “That I know. I’ve known for sixteen years, in fact—through all the time I searched for you but couldn’t find you. In all the places I went hoping—maybe. The assignments I took that proved dangerous and difficult, just to see if you might be there. I had high hopes, loads of dreams—and then you showed up on my doorstep one day, all but gift wrapped, and I nearly missed you.”
He stood, waited. When she said nothing, he continued. “And then I see you with James. You love him. I get that. He’s right there. He’s of your kind. Did you want to rip out my heart and feed it back to me?”
Her eyes grew wide.
“So you know I saw. Stuart told you, I presume.” Wyatt moved to the edge of a chair and rested one hip on its arm.
Charley remained in the doorway.
“Do you want to stay and chat or are you going to leave me again for … what would that be? A third time? No, maybe a fourth.” He tapped his cheek with his finger. “Fifth, now? I lose count.”
Charley closed her eyes before she turned back to Wyatt. “James is my lifelong friend. He’s been with me and will remain so until either of us passes from this world.”
“I don’t think he thinks that,” Wyatt said.
Charley raised an eyebrow. “Oh … I can promise you he does.”
“You’re wrong.” He’d hit the mark.
Her lips firmed, struggling with what he assumed to be outrage or denial? When she turned around, his own heart skipped a beat.
She placed one hand on the door, shifted to the side and slammed it. As soon as the latch clicked into place, she spun back to him. “You know nothing. We haven’t had but a moment to ourselves to chat, so everything you think you know has been an assumption, and you know what that makes you.”
“Touché. So why don’t you make up some pretty little story, and then go back to James, have a few kids, and live happily ever after?”
“James and I aren’t a match,” Charley said through clenched teeth.
Wyatt realized he’d driven the arrow deep. The phone in his pocket vibrated. He opted to check the message to calm himself down. ‘She’s stronger when her true self—Stuart.’ Wyatt turned back to Charley, dismissed the message.
“Why … are … you … doing … this?”
He shrugged. “Doing what?”
Charley took a step toward him. “I came here to talk.”
“You have an entire family who you can keep with you forever.” Wyatt moved a little closer. “Why add some stupid human who will die in another forty or so years?”
Her eyes blazed, the color of a sunrise, nothing like he’d ever seen before. Within arm’s reach, he wanted to touch and take back half—or most—of what he said.
“Chase was dropped on our doorstep eight years ago. He was abandoned, like Lily. My entire family took him in and called him our own without going to the authorities or adoption centers. That makes us the very core of the human population you seek to rid yourself of—child launderers, I believe. You were working to eliminate them in Montreal, right?”
“Whatever. It’s all a load of bullshi—”
Her left hook came at him without warning. It smashed across the bridge of his nose and added a wallop the likes of which Wyatt had been privileged to avoid during his career. Stuart’s punch didn’t come close to Charley’s. His entire body swayed as he landed with a thud on the hardwoods.
“Holy shit!” Wyatt yelped as blood spurted.
He covered his nose with his hands only to see the red liquid drip from them. It hadn’t been more than two days since his altercation with Stuart; the combined one-two hurt like bloody hell.
“Oh my god! Wyatt!” Charley leaned over him. “I am so sorry!” Her breath hitched. “We need to get you to a hospital. I am … oh … I’m so sorry.”
She started to open a cell phone, but he grabbed her wrist with one hand and tugged her down to him; the other kept pressure on his nose. “You have one hell of a hook. How did I not know you’re left handed?”
She leaned her head onto his chest. “I don’t know. I might have been right-handed before … as—”
“Ambidextrous?” His head spun in a dizzy array of colors as he moved to sit up. “That is so hot.”
“Let me help you.” From behind him, she pushed him to a seated position. She whipped back around and straddled his lap. “Lean toward me.” In one swift move, she pulled off her shirt, pressed it to his nose.
“Ow …”
“Oh! I am so sorry, Wyatt. I never should have done that. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s so unlike me. I—”
“It’s okay.”
“No! It’s not. I lost control over my emotions. I’ve worked very hard to keep them in check even when not necessary. You don’t know everything, and I’ve had one chance to tell you and we didn’t get far. God, this is all my fault, as always.” With her free hand she palmed her forehead.
“Any more coming out?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.” She pulled the bloodied shirt away and waited a beat.
“Anything?”
“No, but we should get you some ice. I think that’ll help.”
“Can I have a kiss first?”
“You … what?” Charley’s rapid eye-blink suggested she didn’t understand.
Wyatt chuckled, though pain radiated through his cheekbones. “On my boo-boo. You put it there … you ought to
make it feel better, right?”
Her eyes grew wider than they had in the doorway. “Have you lost your mind?
He had, sixteen years before when she’d left him the first time. Their entire conversation had been a stupid, pride-induced tirade. “Yes.”
“You want me to kiss your nose?” She cocked her head at him.
“Yes, please.” Wyatt grimaced as searing pain shot through his sinuses.
She dropped a feathery kiss on his bridge, sending fireworks straight to his groin. Whoever would have thought a kiss to a broken nose would be erotic?
“I want another, but before you give it to me, will you answer one question?”
She nodded.
“Do you wear matching panties?”
“Huh?” she said.
He pointed to her bra, which, without the cover of her shirt, left little to the imagination.
“Oh. Oops.” Her head turned left and right, but other than the bloody shirt, she had nothing for more cover. She criss-crossed her arms over her chest.
“One more question?” he asked.
“Okay.”
“Do you love James?”
“Yes.”
• • •
“But not the way you think,” Charley said when Wyatt’s eyes grew wide. “He’s like a brother to me.”
“But I saw you.”
“You saw what you wanted to see. Did you hear us?”
Wyatt cringed when he shook his head.
Charley touched the side of his cheek. How much do I admit? “The first thing he said is that you were right, and I was wrong about Chase’s kidnappers and—”
Wyatt winged up an eyebrow.
Charley giggled. “Don’t get too many ideas, ’cause I’m still right no matter what the two of you say, and that’s totally not where I wanted to go with this.” She leaned toward him, laid a soft kiss to the side of his nose. “But I am sorry for telling you to leave. It was uncalled for. I’m just—” She hung her head. “I kissed him in thanks, Wyatt, not because I wanted to make mad, passionate love with him.”
“Who do you want to … make love … to?” He smirked at her before he flinched.
“I’d say you, but you’re not lookin’ so good right now.” She pointed to his nose. Wyatt’s laugh warmed her. “Can we please put some ice on it?”
With his hand free, he pulled his shirt over his head and handed it to her. “You might be more comfortable in this.” The muscles she’d wanted to touch at the car didn’t disappoint at the second glance. The man stayed in shape, rippled from his pecs to his abs.
Charley grimaced at the state of the fabric. “Gross.” She pulled the cleanest spot across her chest.
“A little blood is gross to a woman whose bones can shrink? Do you ever watch what happens?” Wyatt rose from the floor.
“Yes, I’ve watched. Many times. It’s not pretty.” Charley followed Wyatt into a part of the house she hadn’t seen when she’d first visited. “This place is lovely, Wyatt.”
“Thanks.” He smiled behind her soiled shirt.
She cringed until they walked into the completely modern kitchen with stainless-steel appliances, cherry cabinetry, and a table made for six but set for four, adorned with flowers and a bottle of wine.
“Expecting company?”
“What? No.” Wyatt dug through the freezer for ice. He wrapped a few cubes in her shirt, laid it against the side of his nose. “It’s decor.”
Charley replaced his hand with hers against his nose.
His hands found their way to her waist.
“I could wash this stuff for you.”
He waved the thought away. “Sheila will do it.”
Charley bristled, the hairs on her arm standing on end.
“Don’t like her much, do you?”
“I think I’ve made a bad impression, that’s all. Does she live here?”
“She does. Does that bother you?”
“I don’t know.”
Wyatt hesitated. “I could toy with you on this, but if you promise to give me the truth straight-up, I’ll do the same.”
She grinned. “Deal.”
“Prove it.” The gleam in Wyatt’s eye added to his challenge.
Charley ran her hands up his chest, banked the inward sigh she wanted to let slip from her lips. “I—” His muscles contracted under her palms. “I can’t be anything but a fully grown human female. Cael’s the only male I know who can be female.”
His grin sent internal fireworks off in her body.
“We’re all marked with a particular trait. Would you like to see?” Her fingers roamed up to his shoulders.
“Like a tattoo?”
She shook her head, closed her eyes and opened them again. “This is it.”
His eyes ranged across her body. “Did you change something?”
“Look closer.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, that’s what wigs most people out.”
“They’re a weird purpley and … holy shit!”
“Freak you out yet?”
“No more than watching that silver-blue lingerie thing fall off your body when you changed from Candie.”
“Ah, yeah. That.” She patted his chest, but wanted to grab hold and smother herself in him.
“Candie’s breasts or yours?”
Charley giggled. “Hers.”
“And after you did your shift-change-thingy?” One eyebrow raised.
Heat rose from the depths. Mixed with desire, Charley prepared to self-implode. “Mine.”
• • •
“So you, Lily, Cael and James? All shape-shifters? Do you all have a photographic memory, too?”
“Lily, Cael and James are mimics, too, yes, but we each have different strengths and abilities.” Charley nodded at him.
“You looked really different before. Normal but not the same as today. Except,” Wyatt paused. “I think Cael and James were bigger.”
Charley’s chuckle warmed him. “They were.”
“I’d like to get a new shirt. Care to join me?”
She nodded him forward and followed him up the stairs and through a short hall to a set of double doors. The room held a bed the size of the ocean and a dome-shaped ceiling painted like the night sky.
“Like it?” Wyatt dropped the blood-soaked, ice-filled shirt to the floor. He pulled Charley against his bare chest, and swung his hips in a slow, seductive dance. “I fell in love with you on the night of our first kiss. Do you remember? Out on your balcony?”
“I remember,” Charley’s voice barely reached a whisper. “I don’t forget anything. Ever.”
“I don’t forget much either.” He caught Charley’s hesitation. “So, who else have you been?”
Her smile reached into her eyes. “Are you really interested? I thought you’d hate me by now.”
Wyatt sighed. “I could never hate you, Charley.”
“Even though everything you know about me is a lie?”
“Is it, though?” Wyatt kept them moving, relishing her touch on his skin. “You had to protect yourself. You thought what you did was the right thing. You know? I get that. I do. And, well … you don’t look all that different than you did before, now that I think about it.”
Her head continued to rest against him. “Probably because I didn’t change my shape much from my time as Mira.”
“Candie was six feet and you’re what, five eight? What’s your norm?”
She pulled back, her eyes penetrating his. “I am, in fact, five-eight. This supremely black hair, the legs and the breasts … they’re all my birthday suit, to put it in the most natural of terms. I got really tired of the forced transformation on my birthday, so since Mira, I’ve kept to the real me as much as possible, or at least when I’m not working.”
He ran his fingers up and down her arm, like the wave he’d made of the silhouettes that graced many of the walls of her home.
“So, to get back to your question, I’ve been a number of famous peop
le. Since I can literally be the person and understand what they do, I get called up a lot.”
“You know, that’s impressive. People always say they want to be the President or Marilyn Monroe, or Elvis.”
“And that’s exactly what I do, though I can’t be Elvis. I know someone that plays him in Vegas, though. His act is superb.” Charley winked.
Wyatt stepped closer, brushed a hair away from her shoulder, leaned to her ear, and nibbled. “I like the black. Liked that gold color, too.”
“I could change into Mira if you wanted.” Her voice held a faint hint of guilt mixed with anxiety, topped off with a dollop of lust.
“No. I like this you the most.”
She arched her neck as he traced a line down it. A shiver raised the line of soft hair.
“And I want all of you.”
20
In one quick move, he unhooked her bra. Charley gasped as he spun her around, and wound his arms around her front until they fit against her hips. She pressed back against him but let the lace fall to the floor. His hands traced their way up her sides. His palms cupped her as his thumbs flicked across pink tips. Tingles of need shot straight to her core.
His tongue flicked against her lobe. “I wondered what it would be like to make love to you in your bed that night. I’ve always had this dream that I’d find out one day.”
Charley raised her arms, wrapping them around Wyatt’s neck, her breasts exposed except for the tease he added between his fingertips. His moan matched hers as his tongue caressed the edge of her ear. He nibbled his way around as they continued their dance.
Charley turned to face him, replaced her hands around his neck, and pressed against his solid form. Her fingers walked up his skin, sliding toward his shoulders. His biceps contracted as her hands brushed them. Wyatt’s hands found her butt and gripped, pulled her against him as she looked into his eyes.
Dammit! The rust of blood below his nose zapped the arousal he’d created. “I think we should clean you up.” She wiped away a spot with her thumb, wanted to wipe away the blue and purple that painted his nose, too.
“Will you help?” The seductive undertones left ‘help’ to be redefined.