Wadding up the ruined shirt, she moved to throw it in the wastebasket, listening to the running of the shower while taking a moment to collect herself. She was still rattled, not only by the dream and that beautiful, compelling tattoo, but also by the kiss he’d laid on her when she’d opened her door.
He’d kissed her as if he was starved for her, and need had exploded through her system like a cataclysmic event, while he’d explored her mouth with a raw intimacy that made kissing feel like something so much more. Wicked and wet—like the actual act of intercourse, of sex itself.
She’d been kissed. And she’d lost her virginity years ago, before she’d decided to give up on the idea of a healthy, happy relationship with a man who could accept her as she was, crazy voices and all. But what Ian had done to her mouth was more intimate than anything any other man had ever done to her body. He’d possessed it, possessed her, his hands rough and shaking as they’d clutched at her jaw, and then her body, his taste as wickedly delicious as in her dreams, hot and rich and impossibly male.
Amazing, to think that after the shocking intimacy they’d shared the past two nights, that kiss was the first time his mouth had actually touched hers.
The shower stopped, and a moment later, Ian opened the door, steam billowing out around him, a white towel wrapped around his lean waist, powerful arms crossed over the muscled width of his chest. The rugged angles and hollows of his face seemed more pronounced, accentuating his masculine perfection, storm-blue eyes even darker beneath those thick black lashes. For a moment Molly was speechless, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She’d seen him undressed in the dreams they’d shared. Had felt his body covering her, penetrating her. But she was still unprepared for the incredible beauty of his dark, powerful physique.
Her heartbeat fluttered like a flock of startled birds, the moment stretching out endless and long as they stared at one another across the distance of the shabby motel room. Outside, the storm continued to rage, violent and vicious and loud, and then he finally said, “As impossible as this all seems, I really don’t have a choice anymore. I wish like hell that you weren’t involved, but I guess I’m ready to believe you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“YOU BELIEVE ME about Elaina?” Molly whispered, staring at him as if she’d never before set eyes on a man wearing nothing but a towel. “About your mother? The things she’s told me?”
Ian glanced down at the raw slices slashing across his rib cage and snorted. “Yeah, I believe you. You know, when my mother started talking about how the Merrick were still alive, she’d always say that one was right under my nose. That when the darkness called, I’d find him. Guess I should’ve listened to her.”
“Well, the important thing is that you’re listening now,” she murmured with obvious relief, before heading toward one of the suitcases stored in the corner of the room. “We can talk while I get those cuts cleaned. You don’t want to risk getting them infected.”
“You’re not going to ask why I came here? Why I came to you?” he questioned, watching as she pulled out her first-aid kit.
She didn’t look at him as they moved into the shabby kitchenette, as if purposely avoiding his mostly naked body, her intense stare focused on the supplies she was setting out over the small table. “I heard what it said about Kendra in your dream. Heard it threaten to go after me, as well. I imagine you came here to make sure I was all right.” Gesturing toward one of the rickety chairs, she said in a soft voice, “You can tell me what happened while I work.”
Sitting down in the chair, Ian tucked the towel between his legs and leaned back, feeling remarkably well, considering the events of the night. The hot shower had helped, but more than that, it was the woman. There was just something about her—something he’d noticed when they first met. Something that eased the tension he’d carried inside for so long, calming him, at the same time she made him feel insatiable and out of control, ready to fight to protect her, defending her to the death. Odd, unsettling sentiments for a man who had always prided himself on detachment—on never caring about anyone but himself.
Releasing a rough breath, he ran his fingers through his wet hair, slicking it back from his face. He’d have given a limb for a cigarette at that moment, but he’d left his pack back at his apartment and he knew from the taste of her mouth that she didn’t smoke. “When I woke up from the dream,” he told her, getting on with his explanation, “I knew something was wrong. I could feel…Hell, I don’t know how to explain it. It was like there was this thing inside of me, and it wanted out. And unlike the nightmares I’ve been having, it was damn painful.”
Her brow knitted with concern. “It hurt?”
“Like a bitch,” he sighed, watching as she went to the sink and washed her hands, then came back to the table and opened an alcohol swab.
“You fought the change, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, grimacing at the first touch of the medicated swab against the deepest of the cuts on his arm.
“Maybe that’s what accounted for the pain.”
He grunted and drew in a deep breath that smelled of Molly and the lemon hand soap she’d used to wash her hands. “Maybe.”
Ripping open a fresh swab, she asked, “What happened then?”
“I remembered that it’d threatened you in the dream, and the next thing I knew, I was running out into the night, into the forest. I ran through the woods like a friggin’ madman, until I heard it. I stopped, and it was there. Waiting for me. Calling me. Who the hell knows?”
Her hand stilled, the expression in her eyes hidden beneath the thick fringe of her lashes. “Was it…Did it look the same as in the dream?”
“Oh, yeah.” His mouth twisted with a bitter smile. “Scared the ever-loving hell outta me.”
Working her way down the shallow wounds, she paid meticulous attention to her task as she said, “And yet you fought against it, faced it down. You didn’t run like most people would have.”
His head tilted a fraction to the side as he studied her, wanting to reach out and hook the fall of her hair behind her ear, just so that he could watch the shifting angles of her expression. Maybe then he’d be able to understand her. Get a read on her motivation, since it was clear by now that this wasn’t a con. He wanted to find out what made her tick—made her willing to risk her life by coming there and delivering her strange little messages from beyond, though it was still hard to get his head around the idea that she talked with his mother’s ghost. “How do you know I didn’t run?”
Pausing, she gave him a quick, soft smile that melted something in the center of his chest, making it burn with a slow, sweet fire. “I just know. No matter the odds, I can’t ever see you just giving in without a fight.”
Ian rolled his shoulder, aware of an odd heat climbing up the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, it did a pretty good job of kicking my ass.”
“So you didn’t change then, either?” she asked, carefully rubbing a slick antiseptic ointment over his bicep, her fingers cool against the heat of his skin. “Not even when you fought it?”
“Something happened,” he grunted, working his jaw as the cold salve seeped into the wound. “It threatened you again, told me it was coming after you, and after that, I was pissed enough to let that thing…to let whatever the hell’s inside of me have a go at it. But then it seemed to pick up on something else in the woods.”
Frowning, she met his stare. “Like what?”
Ian shrugged. “No idea. Maybe it was an animal. Bear. Mountain lion. Whatever it was, it scared the bastard off.”
“And then you came here.” The words were hushed, almost solemn.
“Yeah. I…” His voice trailed off as she placed one hand low on his side, holding herself steady while switching her attention to the ugly cuts on his rib cage. Ian noticed that her fingertips were now smeared with his blood, and the jarring intimacy of that strange, unsettling sight slammed into him like a physical blow. “You don’t have to worry about th
at,” he murmured under his breath, jerking his chin toward her fingers. “I’ve been tested.”
Her hand stilled, and then she resumed her task with a gentle touch, hiding behind the fall of her hair again. “Thanks,” she whispered. “With everything that’s been going on, I wasn’t even thinking about that.”
Ian grasped her wrist, waiting patiently for her to look him in the eye. When she did, he asked, “What about you?”
She ran her tongue over the sleek swell of her lower lip. “What about me?”
“Been tested?” he drawled in a quiet, husky rasp, as her gaze grew deeper, making him feel as if he could fall into those warm brown depths and find her soul.
She arched one slender brow in a cynical lift and pulled free of his hold. “That’s a pretty personal question.”
“These are pretty personal circumstances,” he shot back, his breath suddenly hissing through his teeth as she returned to her task, applying a fresh swab. Ian took advantage of her absorption with his injuries to lose himself in the study of her features, lingering over the individual details that when put together, created a face that if not the most beautiful, was certainly the most fascinating he’d ever seen. Soulful, big brown eyes. Pink, full mouth that somehow managed to look sinfully angelic. Feminine nose and jaunty chin. Masses of thick, silky curls that begged for the touch of a man’s hand.
The details were pretty, delicate, sweet…even innocent in their purity. She could have been a Sunday-school teacher. A college student going for her master’s degree in humanities. The kind of girl who married a high-school sweetheart, raised 2.5 kids with a white picket fence and a flurry of schedules to coordinate, from gymnastics to soccer practice, living the Norman Rockwell equivalent of the American Dream.
And yet…the way she made him feel was none of those things. Dark. Edgy. Desperate. The explicit things he wanted from her, wanted to do to her, wanted to make her do, they had no business in that world of innocence and happily-ever-afters.
“I had blood work done when I went on the Pill two years ago.”
“What?” Ian shook his head, trying to find his way back to the conversation, his body buzzing, head foggy, reminding him of his drug-hazed days. Molly Stratton was that potent, like a narcotic, jacking him up, making him crave a fix. He’d fought so hard to get beyond that kind of need—that kind of dark, addictive craving—he almost could have hated her for dragging him back there.
“I said that I had blood work done two years ago, when my doctor put me on the Pill.”
“That’s a long time to go without getting tested,” he managed to mutter, shifting in the chair.
“Not if you haven’t had sex,” she replied casually, gaze still focused on her task.
Ian went completely still for the span of ten seconds, then cursed something hot and foul under his breath. “Are you telling me that you haven’t had sex in two years?”
“Well, I had the test done two years ago. But I think it’s been more like three since I’ve been to bed with anyone.” She flicked a quick glance at his face. “You know, it’s not like being celibate is a crime.”
“It should be,” he grunted, unable to get his head around it. He’d known, instinctively, that she wasn’t very experienced, but three years! How was that even possible? “Abstinence or celibacy or whatever the hell you want to call it isn’t natural. If it was, we wouldn’t have been given all the working parts that make fucking so much fun.”
“That’s such a guy thing to say,” she snorted, shaking her head.
“Thank God,” he drawled, completely deadpan. “If I start sounding like a chick, do me a favor and shoot me.”
“Can’t,” she said lightly, and he could just glimpse the grin she was hiding in the corners of her mouth. “No gun.”
“Me, neither. Don’t believe in them. But we could always borrow Riley’s.”
There was a question in her eyes, but she didn’t comment, and he didn’t bother to explain. Instead, he caught one of her curls, twining the honey-colored strand around his finger. “Seriously, no sex for three years is just…wrong.”
“So says the man who confesses to sleeping with women he doesn’t even like, just so he can get his rocks off.”
“Careful,” he murmured, studying her through his lashes. “You sound jealous.”
She rolled her eyes, smoothing on the antibiotic ointment. “Of nameless women you’ve used for meaningless sex? Hardly.”
Ian shifted in the chair, not liking where this conversation was headed. “It’s been a two-way street, Molly. They’ve used me as much as I used them.”
“If it makes you feel better to believe that,” she murmured, frowning as she stuffed the swabs and empty packets into a small plastic bag, “then go ahead. But I think you’re selling yourself, and them, short.”
She started to step away, but Ian reached out, grabbing her wrist again, careful to control his grip. “Speaking of selling people short, I should have listened to you before,” he told her. “It would have made a difference. If I had, Kendra might still be alive.”
MOLLY COULD SEE the sincerity in his eyes, the pain, and knew his regret was genuine. Knew that though he might never admit it, Ian was mourning the loss of the woman who’d been so brutally murdered. It’d been all over the local news that day, speculation rampant as to what could’ve carried out such a brutal attack. Pulling out of his hold, she kept her tone soft as she said, “I’m just glad you’re willing to believe me now.”
Leaning forward in the chair, he braced his elbows on his spread knees, the rugged angles of his face hard with tension, the mouthwatering muscles beneath all that dark golden skin attesting to the power, to the strength, that few men could claim. He drew the eye like a fascinating, provocative work of art, making it impossible to look away.
“So talk to me,” he said. “Tell me what you know.”
She tossed the bag of rubbish into the trash bin, washed her hands again, then turned, leaning back against the counter, arms crossed over her chest. “I almost don’t know where to start.”
“You said you came here because you didn’t have a choice,” he prompted. “I assume that was because of my mother. That you couldn’t ignore her…requests that you come and find me.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Elaina is definitely stubborn, as well as persistent.”
“And you just believed her?” he questioned, the lingering shadow of doubt still visible in his eyes.
Shaking her head, Molly quietly said, “I gave up the luxury of disbelief a long time ago, Ian.”
“So something like this has happened to you before?”
She nodded, hooking her hair behind her ear. “I can talk to spirits—to ghosts, as most people call them—when I’m sleeping. Or rather, they can sometimes talk to me. But this, what’s been happening here, between us these last two nights. This is way out of my league. Way beyond normal, even for me.”
He absorbed that for a moment, then quietly asked, “When did you first talk to Elaina’s ghost?”
“A few months ago, not long after her death. She made contact then, but it took a while for her to come through clearly enough that I could understand her.” She paused, and the attentive look in his eyes encouraged her to continue. “It’s difficult to explain how it works. Most of the time, it just sounds like someone shouting at me through water. But if they’re persistent, the messages become clearer with time. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I finally understood what Elaina was trying to tell me. That she wanted me to find you, warn you about the danger here, and find a way to make you believe. The bad news is that that was the easy part. The hard part, now that you do believe, is going to be learning how to survive.”
“And just how am I supposed to do that?” he grunted, scrubbing his hands down his face.
She blew out a shaky breath. “Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t even know why this is happening or what’s caused it to happen now. All I can te
ll you is that that monster won’t stop hunting you. Not until one of you is dead. That’s one of the things Elaina wishes she’d been able to tell you before she died. I guess she began to fear this might happen—that those creatures, the Casus, might return. And she believes that’s the reason why the Merrick is finally awakening inside of you. Because of your bloodline, it’s always been there, dormant. Lying in wait. Now that one of its enemies is near, it will want to protect you from it.”
“What about my brother and sister? Are they awakening, too?”
“Elaina believes they will, with time. But for now, you’re the one that it wants. You’re the beginning, but of what, she hasn’t told me. I’m not even sure that she knows.”
He leaned back in the chair, watching her. “And is this…this thing, this Merrick that’s inside of me…is it evil?” he rasped out of a dry throat, the words scratchy and raw, and Molly knew what it cost him to ask her that question.
“No,” she answered softly, honestly. “But…”
“It’s not good, either,” he said flatly, cutting her off. “They may be enemies of the Casus, but they’re still killers. Predators.”
“I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say that they’re not…tame,” she argued, frustrated with him for putting words in her mouth. “They’re more primal than humans. More visceral. But they’re inherently good. There’s no way you would ever do anything to hurt anyone unless they deserved it.”
Shaking his head, he rubbed one palm against the scratchy surface of his jaw, his expression saying that he wanted so badly to believe her, but was afraid. “Do you honestly believe that?”
“Yes.” But Molly understood the power of his fear. Self-loathing worked in much the same way. Like acid in your veins that slowly consumed you from the inside out, leaving nothing but a rotten skeleton in its wake. She knew all about that kind of torture. She’d been living, writhing, within its cold, clammy grasp for years. “You could never hurt anyone, Ian,” she said in a gentle voice, wishing he’d believe her…trust her.
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