by Reina Torres
True arched her back against him, eager for more contact, but he wouldn’t let her have it. “Hey,” she complained, “you started this.”
He leaned over her shoulder and nibbled on the edge of her ear. “And I’m going to finish it too. Come,” he turned her back around, “sit down so I can show you what I had in mind.”
She didn’t even hesitate. Didn’t even worry about the clock ticking away the minutes until the opening of the bar. True let Xavier sit her down at one end of the oversized tub and followed his instructions.
“Lean back and lay your arms on the edge.”
She watched him and felt every inch of her skin come alive. With every move he made, the water shifted and lapped at her skin. It was heaven, but it was only a precursor to what he had planned. She could see that in his eyes.
He knelt down on one knee and then lowered the other. She almost felt like a queen sitting on her throne, waiting for him.
Waiting for him to-
“Oh…”
He parted her legs and moved closer, slowly gliding his hands up the inside of her thighs. It felt like she was drunk. That sweet, happy, giddy drunk that made her warm all over. And Xavier, his hands melted her, spreading her wide open before him.
She felt her muscles clench, felt the rush of heat between her legs that had nothing to do with water.
“You want me to stop, True?”
She didn’t understand how he could ask such a stupid question, but at least he could speak. All she could do was shake her head when he looked up at her, his mouth inches away from the water and her pussy.
“I didn’t think so, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.”
And she agreed. She would have even told him how thoughtful he was, but then his mouth was on her. His lips against the soft rise of her belly that she hated so much.
As she tensed, he looked up and instead of saying anything, he opened his mouth and licked his way across her belly from hip to hip.
The sensations were incredible, and she lifted her hips, begging for more. He gave it to her and more when he put his palm down between her bellybutton and his incredible mouth just as she felt his teeth lightly graze her skin.
“Oh fuck.”
His smile rubbed against her skin as he looked up into her eyes. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, True.”
Before she could ask what he meant, Xavier reached his hands under her ass, lifted it up almost to the surface of the water and slid his tongue into her folds.
If her arms hadn’t been on the edge of the tub, she would have slipped down the side and gone completely under. Thanks to his instructions she was able to sit there and feel the dizzying heat of the room and the deep sweep of his tongue inside of her.
It was incredible. Wonderous.
His tongue wasn’t just tasting her. He was consuming her, and she wanted him to have his fill.
“More.” She leaned heavily against the wall of the tub, letting her legs open wider, begging for him to come closer, deeper. “Yes…”
Xavier drank from her body, swallowed her whole, and sent her tipping over into oblivion, all the while holding her securely in his hands.
When she came back down from the heights he’d taken her to, he held her against him as they soaked in the heat of the water and each other. It was insanity, she knew that much. She’d never been loved so much, nor had she loved someone else as much as she loved Xavier.
The realization hit her square in her chest, radiating a sharp pain chased by euphoria.
She loved Xavier Salazar. Loved him more than she’d thought possible. Growing up in a family where she was always the one left out, she’d worried that her heart had shriveled each and every time she felt the hurt of isolation.
But at that moment, with Xavier’s hands gently drying her body and carrying her to his bed, she knew that even with all of the damage done to her heart over the years, all that mattered was that it was living now.
Thriving under his care.
And when it was the right time, when they didn’t have the bar opening looming over her head, she’d tell him. She just didn’t want him to think she wanted… that she needed to hear it back.
She could wait until he was ready, but she needed him to hear it from her.
When he curled up behind her on the bed, she almost expected him to slide inside of her and bring her to another orgasm, but instead, he just wrapped his arms around her and pressed a gentle kiss on her mark. “Sleep, True. I’ll wake you up in an hour.”
The entire event was perfection.
The front desk staff had been nearly overwhelmed but managed to keep things running with smiles and good nature. The crowd that had to wait for any amount of time were offered seats in the lobby with food service.
The waitstaff seemed to be on their third, second wind and still enjoying every minute. It was as if the whole community that had come together to make Mystic Mountain’s resort a reality were also dedicated to make it a huge success.
True couldn’t help but smile as yet another customer walked up to the bar to ask for one of their signature cocktails. She loved putting on a show, and when one drink was ordered, she always made three, because as the patrons watched her craft the drinks, they spoke up, wanting their own.
Locke was at his flirtatious best acting as a bouncer of sorts. They didn’t anticipate any fights breaking out. This was a vacation spot for shifters, and no one wanted to ruin the rush they were all enjoying, but no matter what, there was always a possibility that someone would drink more than they could handle. Shifters had brought their mates looking for a fun alternative to vacationing amongst people that might frown upon their relationships and their natures. While the bartenders were careful to make sure that the alcohol content was matched to the tolerance of their customers, it was always a possibility to get carried away and forget how much alcohol a body consumed.
Aaron had wisely kept Xavier in the lobby for most of the evening, and True was grateful. As much as she loved the growly panther, their bond was still relatively new, and the last thing they needed was Xavier taking off the head of a shifter who looked past the mark on her shoulder and tried to get lucky.
In fact, given the venue, True had worn a blouse that looked black, but in the lights, it had a glimmer of emerald green. Oh, she’d known the effect it would have on Xavier, and he’d been on his best behavior to not even suggest that she might play a backseat role at the opening party. She knew that later on he’d still be hard… and she’d let him press her up against any hard surface of his choice. So, with that promise, they’d made their way to the resort.
Standing in front of the crowd, she knew the choice was the perfect one. Anyone who had seen the dark-eyed panther in the lobby and her mark knew who she was with.
It was nearing ten in the evening when a ripple of excitement passed through the already enthusiastic crowd. As True worked through six orders of a Viper Martini, Georgia Huang stepped up to the side of the counter and waved for her attention.
“True! True!”
Turning toward the older woman, she greeted her with a bright smile. “Hey, Georgia, come on in! I’ll find you a chair!”
The older woman shook her head. “Can’t! I have to go upstairs!”
A wave of energy passed through True, and she felt her shoulders tingle with excitement. “What’s going on?”
“Wren just arrived. Celeste is having her babies!”
“The twins?”
“Yes, I’m going up to help.”
Quickly finishing off the drinks, True handed them out to the customers and turned back. “You want me to come up too?”
The two women swept their gazes around the room filled with patrons, and True shrugged. “Maybe not. Besides, I’d have no idea what to do besides stand there and look awkward. Come down later and tell me about it!”
The orders kept coming, and True found herself in a groove that she loved. Making drinks, interacting with customers, all of it was a
joy. A rush of energy. What she was made for.
Another person stepped up to the bar and she was grateful that she’d invested in top of the line shoes and insoles. She didn’t look at the clock, but she was sure that she’d been on her feet for more than eight hours, slinging drinks. “Good Evening.” She wiped the bar clean and then looked up, stunned into silence.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’d like to drink?”
It took everything inside of her not to tell him the words that were poised on her tongue. She shook her head. “You’re not welcome here.”
His smile made her sick. “And you’re being inhospitable, girl. I might need to complain to the management.”
She lifted her chin and stared at him. “I am the management, Uncle. And you can leave. No one will serve you in this bar.”
He leaned his arms on the edge of the bar, and she glared at him. Knowing that Xavier had crafted the elegant countertop only to have someone so horrible defile it with his touch, twisted her stomach in knots. When he spoke, she couldn’t block out the sound. “Well, you were always a little nobody.”
“Leave.”
She looked up, searching the room for Locke, but she couldn’t see him. His place at the door was empty.
True fought down the fear gnawing at her spine, but when she saw the two men who walked in through the open doorway, she had to use her hands to grip the counter and hold herself upright.
Two of her cousins, Lorna’s older brothers, stared at her with smiles on their faces that were little more than razor-thin curves etched against their pale skin. She’d forgotten how powerful they were. While Lorna and her uncle were the brains of the family business of glamouring wealthy people into parting from them money, those that somehow managed to work themselves free of the magic that had them in thrall were threatened with a much more physical threat.
While the boys were surrounded by shapeshifters, True had heard stories of the people that had suffered at their hands. And shapeshifters were among the number they had claimed to kill.
Their magic wasn’t like the ability to change or shroud minds, they used the magic like pile drivers or those horrible things that crushed cars into paperweights. They were brunt force in human form and there was no telling how much damage they could do to the patrons at the bar.
True felt the color draining from her face. She could ask for help, but that might cause a well-meaning patron to be hurt or worse. She couldn’t do that and bear the responsibility for another’s pain.
“You’re coming home, True.” Her uncle stood and held out his hand. “You’ll come like a good girl, or you’ll suffer the consequences.”
Passing her apron off to one of the other bartenders she told them she needed to step outside for some air and bless his heart he waved her off. “You deserve it, True, you’ve been working so hard!”
She fought down the disappointment. She couldn’t expect him to read her mind, and she didn’t want him to get hurt either, thinking he could step in and save her.
True knew her uncle was still watching her every move, so she put on a smile and walked around the bar. She tried to skirt around him and walk out on her own, but he wasn’t that kind of man.
She realized that her uncle had never been any kind of a man. Not with the hate he carried inside of him.
As she walked, he clamped a hand down on her shoulder. It felt like a yoke for beasts of burden, holding her at his side, marching her out through the lobby in front of everyone.
The lobby was strangely empty, and while there were customers enjoying the elegant furniture and the amazing piped in music, all the main staff were gone, including Xavier.
Celeste. They were all probably upstairs with her.
And they should be.
The last person she wanted to be hurt by her cousins, or her uncle, was Celeste and her precious babies.
Before she could ask where they were going, her uncle walked her up to a sleek sports car. Another high-end European model that seemed to fit his exacting tastes. When he released her from his vice-like grip, he lifted his chin toward the passenger side of the vehicle. “Get in.”
The cousins got into an SUV that cost more than everything she owned, twice over, and followed behind them as her Uncle drove them along the dirt road that wound around the mountain.
“Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t answer at all, he just kept driving until the car wouldn’t continue up the ever-increasing angle of the road. If he’d put them both in the SUV, they could have gotten higher, but she wasn’t going to point that out to him.
No, at this point all she could do was pray for time and that someone would notice she was missing. When Lorna had failed to come into the bar during the opening, she’d stupidly let down her guard. Goodness knows that Lorna knew exactly how to get under her skin, so True had expected trouble from her.
And then when she was blissfully absent, True had put all of her focus into her work.
Frustrated and at the end of his patience, her uncle shifted the car into park and unlocked the doors. “Get out.”
For a moment she thought of resisting or ignoring his order all together. Until someone knocked on her window, and she saw one of her cousins outside, smiling.
She opened the door and stepped outside, moving as slowly as she could get away with. The last thing she wanted was to make her uncle angry.
She wanted to live.
She needed to live… for Xavier.
Fourteen
Ever since Xavier had stepped onto the elevator, he felt an unsettling scratch between his shoulder blades. He wasn’t one of those people who could even pretend to be comfortable with this, but this guest needed help to their room, and he was the only one available.
He knew Aaron was beside himself with Celeste in labor upstairs, and he couldn’t blame his friend. The man had more than a century under his belt, and while he already considered Celeste’s college aged children his own, the babies she was bringing into the world were the first of his children that he would witness their birth.
So, with Locke stationed at the door of the bar, he was left to help guests with their bags.
The trip to the third floor seemed to take an age, and by the time the doors opened on the floor, Xavier had to hold himself back from running to the door of their room so he could get back downstairs. As the guest put their key in the lock, he struggled to keep quiet instead of trying to rush them on.
The door swung open and closed and Xavier straightened to look at the door before him. “Sir?” Xavier looked down at the floor, ready to pick up the guest’s bag and knock on the door.
But the bag was gone.
Turning back around, he headed for the elevator, and then bypassed it to take the stairs down to the ground floor.
Something was… wrong.
The walk up the mountain felt almost like déjà vu for True. She’d walked up here before in the daylight, and while the night air was cooler, and the walk less strenuous at that hour, there was only dread in her stomach.
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t recall giving you permission to speak.”
She fought down the words she wanted to say. She’d made the mistake of contradicting him at the start of their climb, and her cheek still stung from his response.
“Just know that when this is all over and done you won’t have any ridiculous questions, and I will have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
Well if she wasn’t already freaking out, that did it.
She wanted to ask a whole slew of questions, but that wasn’t going to work, not in the mood that he was in. It was, thankfully, something she had been away from, even for a short time.
“I don’t understand why you thought you could just leave and not let us know what your plans were. All of your life, you were told to stay where you were put.”
When he cast a look at her, she guessed he actually wanted her to say something. She just didn’t know what.
“What did you think was going to happen when you left your family?”
“You’ve always made it very clear that I wasn’t a part of the family in any way that counted. I thought,” she shook her head, “I actually thought you’d be happy when I left so that you didn’t have to try to run my life.”
The instant the words were out of her mouth she cringed and tensed. She’d been hit before, and she knew how to swallow her tears. Here, walking beside the mountain, if she fell to the ground it wasn’t going to just be bruises, it was going to be rocks and branches tearing at her skin.
She walked alongside him and waited for him to strike out. And waited.
And just as she drew in a deep breath of relief, he shoved her hard and she fell against the mountainside.
His hands were like manacles, cold and metallic against her arms, caging her against the rocks. “I’m not your family. I never was.”
True shook her head trying to understand. “What are you talking about? My mother is-”
“My sister owed me a debt, like everyone else. And the hold I had on Elizabeth’s soul was weakening. She wanted to be free, and then it came to me. I needed a vessel, so I found one. A child so young and void of life experience that I could safely store Elizabeth inside of its mind. I had high hopes that you would look like her grown, but you failed at even that.
“But I had chosen to forgive you for that shortcoming. I was nearly ready to set Elizabeth free and you… you left.”
He pulled her away from the rocks and pushed her back, letting her head snap back against mountain.
“Why couldn’t you stay where I put you?”
She struggled against the crippling fear she felt. In the dark. Alone with this man who she thought she had known, only to find out that she didn’t know anything about him other than what he carried inside of him.