Tall, Dark and Paranormal: 10 Thrilling Tales of Sexy Alpha Bad Boys

by Opal Carew

  She laughed and embraced my shoulders. “Hi.”

  “Oh, dolcezza.” I reveled as always in her sweetness and continued to hold her tight against me, all the while pressing small kisses against the scar at her right temple.

  She laughed. “Are you going to put me down?” She smiled against the side of my neck.

  “I haven’t decided yet.” I enjoyed the feel of her feminine curves pressed against me for one more moment. “Do you have a preference?”

  “Um, maybe put me down.”

  I loosened my hold and placed her back on her feet, although she kept her hands on my shoulders and her body close to mine. Her smile was so genuine and affectionate I didn’t need to be an empath to read her feelings. “I couldn’t do this when you were holding me so tight.” She reached up on her tiptoes and brought her lips to mine. She cupped the side of my face as we kissed. I tightened my arms around her back and waist.

  I kept my eyes open; I wanted to watch her give herself to me this way. Between soft kisses, I whispered, “Open your eyes, Samantha.” Her desire smoldered. She moaned as our eyes met, and we continued to kiss. I caught her chin with my fingers and planted a last kiss on her lips. “I missed you,” I murmured as I let my eyes roam over her. She looked lovely dressed simply in a teal blouse, khaki shorts, and flat sandals.

  She smiled. “I missed you too.”

  “Shall we go get Ollie?”

  “No need.” She smiled mischievously. “Dad decided he wanted some quality time with her so they’re going to the zoo today. They just left.” She looked down again, then back up at me. “Thank you, though, for thinking of her, for wanting to include her.”

  I took her hand and raised it to my mouth, kissing the back of it gently. “How could I not? She is part of your life. I would always include her. Although I am, of course, thrilled to get to spend the day alone with you.”

  “Me, too.” She bit her bottom lip. “Oh, and thank you, by the way, for the flowers.”

  “You’re welcome. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you.” Her smile brightened further. “Is there anything in particular you would like to do today, Sam?” I tucked a strand of honey behind her ear.

  “No, not really. I just hoped maybe we could just do something low-key, just to hang out, be together.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” I squeezed her hand and led her in the direction of my car. “What would you say to being tourists in Detroit today?”

  She laughed and nodded. “I’m game.”

  “Come on then. I have some ideas.”

  A short drive later, I pulled up next to the Detroit Institute of Arts. “There is a great show on right now,” I explained. “Paintings of the modern masters. I thought you might enjoy it. We can walk around here before lunch.” Art museums had long been a favorite pastime of mine. Catherine and I once spent years traveling and always made time to visit museums.

  “You know, in two years of living here I’ve never been. It sounds great.”

  We entered the exhibit, which began with a section on landscape painting. Samantha studied each work. She seemed taken with the pieces by Monet and Van Gogh. As we moved through the sections featuring Picasso and the Cubists, she felt my eyes on her. The gallery was relatively empty, but she still whispered as she leaned over to me. “I think you’re supposed to be looking at the paintings.”

  “I am. I’m just looking at them through your eyes.”

  She flushed brilliantly and rolled her eyes, though she smiled as she turned away to look at another painting. Of course, she couldn’t know I could feel how she responded to the works of art on an emotional level. She stopped in front of Modigliani’s Portrait of a Woman. Her emotions clouded.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” I asked as I came up behind her.

  “She looks so sad. Her eyes are striking.”

  I kissed her temple and after a few moments we continued along. She was remarkably intense in her study of the images, like she was soaking them in. I asked her to tell me what she thought of each painting that caught her attention, interested in any insight into how her mind worked. Finally, we came to the end of the exhibit.

  “That was great. I haven’t taken the time to just wander through an exhibit in so long. I used to do some painting in college, but I haven’t in a long time. So, this was a nice idea.” She looked up at me just as her stomach growled. She chuckled. “Sorry. I skipped breakfast this morning helping Dad get Ollie ready for the zoo.”

  “Well, then, let’s head toward lunch.” I took her hand and led her through the large lobby. “I’m glad you enjoyed the exhibit. And I would love to hear more about this painting you used to do.”

  “Okay.” She smiled and nodded as we walked outside. “Where to next?”

  “You’ll see,” I said as I helped her into the car. Within a few minutes, we pulled into a parking garage at the waterfront.

  She looked at me curiously as we crossed the street to the sidewalk along the river. Then she glanced ahead of us and guessed our destination. “We’re going on the riverboat?” She looked incredulous.

  “Yes. Is that all right?”

  “No.” She snorted.

  I stopped.

  She took an additional step before she noticed. “Kidding! It’s great! I’ve always wanted to do this, but my dad thinks it’s too cheesy.” She pulled my hand. I shook my head, smiling, and started walking again.

  We had to wait briefly until the huge white boat boarded. Within a few minutes, we came aboard. Samantha headed right for the staircase. “Let’s go up to the top so we can get a good view.”

  “You lead. I’ll follow.”

  She climbed all the way to the top deck, delighted to find a large outdoor viewing area. She moved toward the stern of the ship where rows of benches filled the deck. She picked a seat nearest the railing, and I sat down beside her. “Too bad it’s not a sunny day, although then it would probably be pretty hot.” She turned in her bench, looking over every part of the ship we could see from our vantage point.

  “It would be impossible to perfect this day,” I said as I stroked her cheek and brushed a tendril of long hair behind her shoulder.

  She placed her hand over mine and leaned her face into it. “I’m enjoying myself, Lucien. Thank you for spending the day with me.”

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you. The pleasure is mine, Sam.”

  “So, I suppose your work allows you a flexible schedule?”

  “Yes. One of the benefits of self-employment.”

  “Oh. You own your own business?”

  “I do.”

  “Wow. I mean, you just seem so young for that. It’s really impressive.”

  I smiled. Young was not something I’d felt in a very long time. “I’m not so young.”

  “Twenty…?”

  “Seven.”

  “And when do you turn twenty-eight?”

  I smiled but was getting less comfortable with the topic. “November second.”

  “Ooh, a Scorpio.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her. She laughed.

  “My mother liked astrology. She always read our horoscopes in the morning.” A faint blush colored her skin. “She was a big fan of fortune cookies, too.” I chuckled. She smacked my arm with the back of her hand. “Don’t laugh. Your sign says a lot about you.”

  “Is that so?” My tone was all teasing, but I loved her a little bit more for helping distract me from the memory of the last time I’d celebrated my birthday as a human.

  “Absolutely.” She feigned a pout.

  “And what does my sign reveal about me?”

  “Hmm, let’s see,” she mused. “Scorpios are old souls, very sensitive, intense, and a little dramatic. They have difficulty finding happiness and are very loyal.”

  I stared and didn’t know how to respond. So I turned it around on her. “And what does your sign say about you?”

  She smiled. “Well, my birthday is April 14. That makes me an Ari
es. We are supposed to be outgoing and adventurous, but we’re sometimes impulsive. We are also very trusting, resilient, and tend to believe the world’s a magical place.” She looked up at me as she bit down on her bottom lip. She was smiling, but her feelings revealed her uncertainty over how I would react to her interest in astrology.

  “Well”—I picked up her hand and pulled it to my mouth to press a reassuring kiss to her knuckles— “with you the world is a magical place, Samantha, so I am now a believer.”

  She rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Shut up.”

  I laughed and, when she tucked her hair behind her ear, my eyes landed on the scar that ran from the edge of her eyelid, through her eyebrow, and into her temple. I wanted to know every last thing about her. “How did you get this?” I asked quietly as I traced the line of it with my finger.

  “Oh.” She reached her right hand up, and her fingers joined mine in touching it. She grinned sheepishly. “It’s stupid, really. When I was eight, I tripped over some toys on the living room floor and fell headfirst into the corner of the coffee table. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much blood.”

  I winced—at the idea of her being hurt, at the thought of her blood. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. And it left me with this lovely scar,” she said as she fingered the leftover crease. Then she dropped her hands back in her lap.

  I grabbed her chin lightly in my hand and tilted her head to look up to me. “I find absolutely everything about you to be lovely, Sam.” The blush that blossomed over her cheeks mirrored the embarrassment and affection that washed over me. I leaned forward and pressed my lips first against the scar, and then her mouth. I sat back and rubbed my thumb over her cheek before dropping my hand. “So, how much more schooling do you have left?”

  “I’ll be done at the end of the fall semester. When I got pregnant with Ollie, I had four semesters left to complete. I’m so ready to finally get my degree and get a job. It feels like I’ve been in school forever.”

  I was curious about what I knew to be her relatively recent move to Detroit, but didn’t want to reveal I’d found information about her online. “I imagine school and a child weren’t an easy balance.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” Her hesitation prickled my gut, and then flared into a short but intense torrent of pain.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  “Yes. Sorry. It’s just…I don’t usually talk about this stuff, but for some reason I always seem to spill everything to you.” She smiled at me sideways, pulled her leg up on the bench as she faced me, and fingered the strap of her sandal. I didn’t push. Finally, she took a deep breath. “It wasn’t just that I had a child that made it hard. It’s that…well, what really made it hard to get the motivation to go back to school was my mom died in the middle of it all.”

  I took her left hand in both of mine. “I’m sorry. Were you close?”

  She smiled. “Yeah. My mom and I did everything together when I was growing up. We used to go to football games every weekend in the fall—I grew up in Ann Arbor, and my mom was a huge Michigan fan. She came to all of my high school events and meets. We got especially close after my dad left. Then it was just the two of us. When Ollie came, she was so excited to be a grandmother. She was so good with Ollie. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there to help me after Jensen left and Ollie was born. Ollie had just turned three not long before she died. Car accident.”

  An announcement by the captain over the loudspeaker interrupted our conversation. She met my eyes and forced a bright expression.

  I squeezed her hand. “So then you moved here?”

  She nodded. “After Ollie was born, my dad really started making an effort to get more involved in my life. He had tried when I was younger, but he was still working then—he was a professor at Wayne State. So he was busy, and I was busy, and after a while we were only seeing each other once every three or six months, despite the fact we lived relatively close. When Mom died, he asked me to come to Detroit with him. At first I didn’t want to leave Ann Arbor, but I was all alone there. And I wanted Ollie to have what little family she had around her. So I moved here almost two years ago. But I couldn’t go back to school that fall after everything that happened, so I took that semester off and then my dad encouraged me to start back the next spring.”

  The ship’s engines came to life and the deck vibrated. Moments later the horn blasted and the ship got underway. The captain made another announcement.

  “I’m sorry, Lucien. I don’t mean to be so depressing. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s a part of you, and I’m interested in getting to know all of you, not just the happy parts.” I was reassured by the sincerity of my words. It was no longer just her emotions attracting me. “But, by all means, what would you like to talk about?”

  “How about your family?”

  I choked out a laugh.

  “What?”

  “That story is just as depressing.”

  “Oh. You don’t have to tell me.”

  I pulled her hand up to my mouth and kissed it. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  She leaned into me involuntarily as my eyes held hers. A breeze picked up as the ship hit its stride. Samantha blinked and slipped her hand away to gather the hair blowing around her face. “Hold on a minute.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bright pink band. Deftly, she worked her hands behind her head to create a thick braid of golden hair, then looped the band around the end to hold it in place. “Now I’m glad Ollie refused to let me do her hair this morning. Sorry.” She turned her head so I could see the back. “Does this look okay?”

  “More than okay. It looks very nice.” Lena’s practice of braiding her chestnut hair for bed flashed through my mind, although the memory didn’t bring the crushing grief it once had. Just a pang that left me glad Samantha’s hair was blonde.

  “Thanks. And, yes, I would like to hear about your family.”

  “Okay.” I hadn’t told this story in decades. Forcing the words out of my mouth was difficult. But I wanted Samantha to know me. I wanted to share myself with her, however much I could. But now that I was in the moment, I found I wasn’t sure how to begin.

  Samantha took my left hand in both of hers, just as I’d done for her earlier.

  I looked down at her small warm hands around my big hand, and then glanced up at her eyes, which were brimming with understanding and encouragement. “Okay, well…my…I…” I shook my head. She squeezed my hand and let me take my time. “Sam, I was married when I was very young, and we had a daughter.”

  A whirlwind of emotions erupted from her, although her expression remained unchanged, frozen by the revelation.

  I took a deep breath and let it out with the painful words. “They were murdered.”

  “Oh God, Lucien. I’m so sorry.” Her eyes immediately watered. I tasted the salt of her sympathy as a tear spilled down her cheek on one side. I reached up with my free hand and wiped it away. As I rubbed the moisture between my fingers, it occurred to me Samantha’s was the first and only human tear ever shed for my family. I had cried—so many times—but I was incapable of such clean, pure tears. I closed my fist tightly around it.

  “Thank you.” There was simply no other way to communicate how much the grief she was feeling for them, for me, meant.

  “Lucien, I’m sorry, you don’t have to talk about this—”

  “No, I want to tell you.” I looked up at her. She nodded as she took a deep breath. “My wife’s name was Lena. We were childhood sweethearts. We grew up on neighboring farms. I think our families always knew we would get married, so they weren’t surprised when we did. Isabetta was born less than a year later. She was three when she died.” As much as I appreciated Samantha’s tears, they were hard to watch. “Please don’t cry, dolcezza,” I whispered. I leaned in and kissed her softly on the mouth.

  She kissed me back and clutched at my face. The urgency of it
communicated the sympathy and understanding I could feel within her. She pulled back and wiped her face with both hands. “Did they catch who did it?”

  I checked myself before answering, making sure all hints of my rage on this point were well secured. “No.” I shook my head. “Afterward, I moved from New York City where we had lived to Upstate New York, where my brothers live.” After brainstorming with Griffin and Jed, this was the story we decided was best. “And then I moved here a while ago.” I was trying to stay as close to the truth as possible. If she would allow it, I would keep specifics like dates vague.

  “Well, that explains why you’re so good with Ollie. It didn’t occur to me you had a daughter. But seeing you with Ollie, it makes perfect sense.”

  I was stunned by the easiness of her compliment. I opened my mouth to respond, but wasn’t sure what to say. Finally, I found my voice. “That’s very kind of you to say, Sam. Thank you.”

  “No, I mean it. You’re a complete natural with her. You know she couldn’t adore you more. And what’s so amazing is, after my mother died, Ollie kinda shut down for a while. I was really worried about her and even took her to see a child psychologist. Between her absent father and the loss of her grandmother, she had real abandonment issues. She’s doing so much better now, but before we met you, I hadn’t seen her so alive, so lively since my mom was with us. Just how she hugs you…she just doesn’t do that with people.”

  Just then, the loudspeaker came to life again and announced lunch was about to be served in the dining room.

  “Ah,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood. “Now, back to taking care of that stomach.”

  She smiled as we stood. Then she threw her arms around my neck and squeezed. She planted a few soft kisses under my ear. I shivered as I pulled her tight against me, feeling the lushness of her feminine curves against my body.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt,” she whispered, her voice a salve to my wounds.

  I nodded my head against hers. “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt,” I said softly with my lips against her ear. It was her turn to shiver.