“Where did you go?” Isaiah asked. His hand on her cheek pulled her mind from thoughts of the danger she was in.
“I was just thinking about how crazy it is that I’m letting you tie me up,” she admitted.
“Do you trust me?” he asked, and she sensed he was asking about more than just their bondage games.
“Yes,” she replied honestly. “I do trust you.”
“Good,” he said before leaning forward to brush his lips against hers. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”
Without waiting for her reply, he slid down her body and settled between her legs again. Spreading her open with his fingers, his tongue stroked from her opening to her clit in light, teasing strokes.
“More,” she moaned, but he ignored her pleas, swirling his tongue around her entrance and placing his hands on her hips to hold her in place again when she tried to move against his mouth.
Isaiah didn’t seem to be in any hurry as he slid his tongue inside of her, slowly exploring her, while she moaned and tried desperately to rock against his face. When he removed his tongue, she nearly cried out in frustration until he replaced his tongue with two fingers and began to work them inside of her body. She was a little sore after their activities from the previous night, and that somehow intensified her pleasure as his fingers thrust in and out of her body more urgently. His eyes were locked on hers, watching her reaction as he brought her close to the edge.
“You’re amazing,” he said in awe. “Especially like this. I love seeing you desperate for my touch. Do you want my mouth again?”
“Yes, please give me your mouth,” she panted out, and he rewarded her by sliding his tongue along her clit.
Isaiah’s entire focus shifted to moving his fingers inside of her while his tongue swirled around her clit. When her arousal became so intense she didn’t think she could take any more, he sucked her clit into his mouth and flicked his tongue across the most sensitive spot twice, sending her spiraling over the edge.
“Isaiah!” she screamed, shutting her eyes tightly as pleasure washed over her body.
His fingers gentled as her spasms subsided, and when she opened her eyes, Phoenix found Isaiah watching her with a lopsided grin. Pulling his fingers from her body, he licked them before resting his head on her thigh. “We should get some more sleep since you don’t have to work. In a few hours, we can shower, and then I’ll take you out to breakfast.”
“Don’t you need me to take care of you?” she asked, which earned her a laugh from Isaiah.
“Not this time,” he told her, moving up her body to untie her. “I wanted this time to be all about you, Nikki.”
She cringed at his use of the name that represented one more lie between them.
“Don’t pull away from me,” he murmured. “I’m going to make this work. I know I said I couldn’t start anything, but after last night, I can’t give you up. Let me help you.”
She nodded. “I’ll try, but give me time.”
“We’ll talk after we have breakfast,” he told her and then gently brushed his lips against hers. “Sleep, and trust me to be here for you.”
Her body relaxed against his. She wanted more than anything to believe she wasn’t really alone.
Chapter Twenty
So far, this had been one of the best mornings Isaiah had experienced in a long time, and he’d meant every word he’d said to Nikki about finding a way to make this work. Whether she was psychic or not no longer had any impact on his decision. He’d rather have only fifty years with Nikki than let her go.
They were just finishing breakfast at nearly noon because he’d been wrong about his ability to resist having Nikki again before getting out of bed, and while they’d showered. Then he’d had to take her on the couch in the living room, which had resulted in them ending up back in the shower. Honestly, he wanted her again already, but they needed to eat, and then he needed to take Nikki back out to San Francisco to get her car. That part really sucked since he got the impression Nikki was planning to use that to put some distance between them. She definitely didn’t want to talk about what was going on, and he could tell she didn’t completely trust his ability to keep her safe.
“Do you have to work today?” she asked, and that’s when he realized he’d lapsed into silence.
“I can take the day off. I’m pretty much done with this job, except for a few minor details,” he replied.
“Minor details like breaking and entering?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Yeah, those would be among the details I still need to handle. I do want to research a few things on that end. Last night wasn’t my choice, but Sam was impatient to get things tied up quickly. Now that he’s in Houston for a week, I have plenty of time to take care of the last of my research and work on my final report.”
“Does that mean I won’t see you at the coffee shop anymore?” She was trying for a light tone, as if his answer didn’t matter, but Isaiah heard the hint of hurt in her voice, and he took that as a good sign that she felt the same as him.
“I’m not sure I have the willpower to stay away from you. How about if you drop your car at your house while I head home to change clothes, and then I can come back to pick you up?” he suggested, not mentioning that he’d have two of his people following her while she took her car home.
“You don’t want me to see where you live?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those messy bachelors with takeout boxes all over your living room.”
“No takeout boxes all over the living room,” he assured her. “While I have an apartment, I haven’t stayed there in months. I live with family,” he began, picking out the pieces of the truth he could actually share with her in a crowded restaurant. They’d have to talk about his family soon, but now wasn’t the time. “To be honest, I don’t want you to meet them quite yet. My family can be a bit much to take.”
“That, I can understand,” she assured him.
Isaiah’s phone buzzed, and when he pulled it from his pocket, he saw that Drew was calling. “Damn,” he muttered, before choosing to ignore the call. The last thing he needed was Drew ruining his morning.
“What’s wrong,” she asked.
“It’s one of my cousins calling,” he explained, sending the second call from Drew to voicemail. The text came through next.
Call me now or I’ll have Aiden track you down.
Letting out a sigh, he knew there was no way to get out of calling Drew back. While Aiden hated Drew, he’d still track Isaiah down just to get Drew to leave him alone. “I’m going to step outside to take this,” he explained as he stood. “I don’t get along with my cousin, but he’s not going to leave me alone until I find out what he wants.”
Nikki waved him off. “No worries. I’ll finish my breakfast so we can get moving.”
On impulse, he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek before walking out to the sidewalk to call Drew. Even his psycho cousin couldn’t ruin his day—or so he foolishly believed.
“What the fuck took you so long?” Justin demanded when he answered Drew’s phone. The fact that his brother was using profanity was a big clue of how bad things were with Drew.
“Why are you answering Drew’s phone?” Isaiah asked his brother.
“After he messaged you, he kind of lost it. Trish and Caitlin are trying to calm him down,” Justin explained. “Roman and Lyd are on their way to see if they can help. Hell, I can’t even get a hold of Sofia, and Drew needs her. I’m about ready to sedate him.”
“What does any of this have to do with me?” Isaiah demanded. “I’m not exactly on friendly terms with Drew, so why call me to calm him down.”
“They found Andrei’s body this morning,” Justin replied, sounding exhausted, probably because he’d spent the morning dealing with details regarding Andrei’s body. They could not have Andrei end up on an autopsy table since blood work would reveal that he wasn’t human. The fact that Andrei still had his retractable fangs was enough to draw attention t
o that fact.
“What happened?” Isaiah asked. Andrei was Drew’s father, and he hadn’t been the same since his serial killer wife’s death. Isaiah had always thought Andrei was crazier than his wife. It was a well-known fact that his wife had tried to kill him on a regular basis, yet he’d still defended her and fought the family when they’d wanted to kill her. That wasn’t the craziest part of it. Andrei also had a history of cheating on his wife, which had always struck Isaiah as suicidal. In the end, Drew had killed his serial killer mom to save a son he hadn’t known about. Andrei hadn’t taken it well and had refused to talk to Drew after that. That was part of the reason they were all being so nice to Drew, despite the fact that he was a major pain in the ass.
“I don’t have many details yet, but there is no doubt he was murdered, and someone fucked with the security system. You know Andrei had video in every room of that house, but there’s a huge blank spot in the room his body was found in.”
“Someone messed with my security system?” Isaiah asked, before feeling bad that he was more worried about that than his uncle’s death.
“Give me my fucking phone,” Drew demanded, and Isaiah was surprisingly relieved that his cousin had calmed down. Based on the hoarse quality of Drew’s voice, he’d been screaming at one point.
“I’m getting him here now,” Justin told Drew.
“Just give him the phone,” Isaiah said, and the next voice he heard was Drew’s.
“When are you going to get here to find that missing video feed?” Drew demanded as soon as he had his phone.
“I need to run some errands first,” Isaiah told him, trying to figure out how long it would take him to drop Nikki at her car and make sure he had security following her.
“No,” Drew told him, sounding calmer than Isaiah would have expected. Then again, Drew was used to being crazy, something Isaiah could relate to.
“Listen, Drew, I have a woman with me, and I need to take her out to San Francisco to get her car first.”
“Bring her here,” Drew said. “Before you argue, we’ll all be on our best behavior. Trish and Caitlin can distract her while you hack the system. I won’t even talk to her.”
Isaiah hesitated because he had his laptop with him, so, theoretically, he could help without going back to the house. That is, if the charge held up. He’d been so distracted yesterday, he hadn’t grabbed a charger.
“Please,” Drew said when he hesitated too long.
“Fine,” Isaiah relented, hoping this wasn’t going to be a huge mistake. He’d have to introduce Nikki to his family if she was going to be part of his life, but he’d been hoping to put that off at least a little longer since scaring her off wasn’t his intention. “I have one condition.”
“Anything,” Drew assured him.
“No messing with her mind or anything like that,” Isaiah told him. “I won’t bring her there unless you can promise me that.”
Drew was silent for a moment before barking out the order to everyone in the background. “Isaiah’s bringing his woman. No one tries to fuck with her mind. When will you be here?” he asked Isaiah, and Isaiah knew by the murmurs in the background that there would be plenty of questions about Nikki later.
“Twenty minutes,” he told Drew.
“Thanks, cuz.” Drew ended the call, but Isaiah hadn’t missed the almost choked quality of his cousin’s voice.
Tucking his phone into his pocket, he was annoyed to see Nikki paying their bill at the cashier.
“I was going to buy breakfast,” he insisted.
“You bought pizza,” she pointed out.
“I can buy two meals,” he argued.
“Too late, I already paid. Let’s go get my car.”
“About that,” he began. “Would you mind if we made a stop first? There’s something I need to help my cousin with. I tried convincing him to let me take you to get your car first, but this is pretty urgent.”
“I don’t mind going with you,” she assured him. “Unless you want to drop me at home first.”
They were at the car, and Isaiah hesitated. It was tempting just to keep her away from his family, but there was no way he could get security to her apartment this quickly. Besides, after Drew’s announcement, his family would be pushing him to meet her soon.
“Please don’t tell me you have a wife.” Nikki sounded concerned and a little angry. “Is that why you said you couldn’t have a long-term relationship with me when we talked last night?”
“It’s nothing like that,” he assured her. “The only reason I’m hesitating is that I don’t want you meeting my cousin, Drew. He’s got serious issues on a good day, and this is not a good day for him. Unfortunately, I can’t take the time to drop you at home first. This is pretty serious, so just promise not to hold anything he says against me. Remember, you can’t pick your family.”
“It’s okay,” she said with a reassuring smile. “If we were anywhere near my family, I’d probably be nervous about having you meet them. Believe me. I know all about crazy relatives you don’t want anyone to meet.”
Isaiah bit back his reply. Nothing in her family tree could compare to what he had to deal with, but Drew had promised to behave. He opened the door so Nikki could climb into the passenger seat before walking around to his side and sliding behind the steering wheel. His eyes were itching like crazy, and he had no idea why he hadn’t just taken the contact lenses out at Nikki’s. He made a mental note to drop them in his room before he left the house.
Chapter Twenty-One
Phoenix had been lucky that her anxiety hadn’t been a big problem recently. The breathing exercises she’d learned in her yoga classes had really helped her deal with it to some extent. Still, she’d expected all the stress she’d been under recently to set things off. What she hadn’t expected was to feel like she was on the verge of a panic attack as Isaiah drove through the canyon toward his family’s home.
“Where exactly are we going?” she asked in a strained voice, barely able to force the words out with the tightness in her chest.
“Are you okay?” Isaiah asked, sparing her a brief worried glance.
“Of course,” she lied.
“Close your eyes,” he ordered, and then he laughed when he looked over and saw her annoyed expression. “I’m just trying to help.”
There was a long hesitation before he continued, and he sounded somewhat embarrassed when he started talking again. “I had a mental breakdown, and I found that closing my eyes and concentrating on my breathing helped when I was really losing it later. I still need to do that sometimes.”
“I have problems with anxiety,” she admitted, having trouble getting the words out when she was struggling to breathe.
“Close your eyes,” he repeated, and his voice soothed her some as her eyes closed. “Breathe with me,” he encouraged, taking her hand and placing it over his heart. “In,” she took the deep breath. “And out.” They continued this way for several minutes as the butterflies settled down, and the tension in her muscles eased.
“The gates are just up ahead,” he told her, and she opened her eyes to see they were pretty far into the canyon. She couldn’t make out any houses from the road.
“Your family must like their privacy,” she remarked.
“My cousin, Nathaniel, owns this place. He bought it because it’s close to a lot of trails where he can ride his horses,” Isaiah explained. “I suppose it also has something to do with how much he likes his privacy. Since he usually has several family members living here, there isn’t as much privacy as he’d hoped for. He’s out of town on business, so you won’t meet him today.”
“How many people live out here?” she asked.
“It varies,” he replied. “My family is complex. I promise to tell you all about them later, but it’ll take hours.”
“You don’t have to tell me about them if you don’t want to,” she insisted, knowing she needed to end things with Isaiah soon. When they reached the front gate to the
property, Phoenix suddenly realized Isaiah was much farther from a struggling college student than she’d expected.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Isaiah rolled down the window to enter the security code. As a new feature, they each had their own codes so he could keep track of who was on the property. There was no denying he was a bit of a control freak when it came to security, but his family had dealt with enough problems in the last year to justify him being overcautious when it came to their safety. This was also the one thing he was really good at.
“From the looks of it, I should have let you buy breakfast,” Nikki remarked.
“Are you going to use me for my money now?” he teased.
“I think I’ll just continue to use you for your body,” she returned, and he laughed.
“I like the sound of that,” he told her.
Since he was planning to take his own car when they left, Isaiah parked Caitlin’s old car in the detached garage. They got out of the car and were making their way out of the garage when Isaiah saw Drew step out onto the front porch and look around. “Great. Drew is waiting for us. I want to apologize in advance for anything he says to offend you.”
Nikki laughed. “He can’t be that bad.”
“He’s worse,” Isaiah assured her.
They were about ten feet from the front porch when Nikki finally looked at Drew. He was turned slightly, so they only caught his profile. Drew pulled his ear buds out of his ears, and Isaiah was about to call out to him when he noticed Nikki’s reaction. The color had drained from her face, and she was visibly shaken by something. It looked like she was about to have another anxiety attack.
“You’re a vampire,” Nikki accused in a shaky voice.
Isaiah was having trouble dealing with his own shock when she made that accusation.
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