by Kristie Cook
Before I could get a word out, Blossom sprang out of her chair and threw her arms around my neck. “Alexis! It’s so good to see you!”
Then she jerked out of my arms and started mumbling apologies for her behavior as she dipped into a curtsy.
“Oh, stop that,” I growled, grabbing her arm and pulling her into a hug. She let out a joyous laugh.
“Don’t worry, Heather’s all right,” Blossom whispered in my ear. “I’ve been watching her.”
I gave her a squeeze of appreciation.
For some reason, I’d expected Heather to immediately jump all over me about helping her sister, but she didn’t. Rather, she acted quite mature for her age, making small talk about my trip and how she and Dorian had spent the day. After a while, she and Blossom left.
“I thought you said Heather hadn’t left since you’ve been here,” I said to Tristan after we put Dorian to bed, grimacing at the accusatory tone of my own voice.
Was I reading too much into the fact that she finally decided to leave once the wife came home? She certainly had a crush on Tristan, the way she looked at him. But was there more than that? Sure, Tristan was way too old for her, but then again, I’d been only eighteen when he came looking for me. Stop being petty! Totally different situation.
“Don’t worry—she’ll be back tomorrow.” His annoyed tone reassured me.
“You don’t like her?”
“She’s a good kid. She’s been really helpful with Dorian. But she’s, well, very persistent.”
“Persistent with what?” Ugh. There it was again—that tone of suspicion.
A smile danced on his lips. “About her sister.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” I nodded. “She didn’t say a word of it to me, though.”
“Because Blossom threatened her life to give you time to settle in.” Tristan came up to me and lifted my chin with his thumb. His eyes were alight, the gold dancing beautifully, a stark but nice contrast to how they’d looked earlier. “Do I sense a little jealousy, ma lykita?”
I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against his chest, unable to look into his eyes. “Stupid, I know. I … I feel weird in my own home, I guess. Like it’s not even mine. I just want to get back to normal.”
“Normal?” he asked with curiosity as he wrapped his arms around me.
“Heh. Yeah,” I said. “Whatever that is.”
Except having his arms finally around me was the best normal I could ask for. I pressed my hands against his ribs and slid them around to his back, pulling him closer, wanting to eliminate the last millimeters of space between our bodies after the thousands of miles that had separated us for the last two weeks.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” he said, his voice thick.
“Me, too,” I whispered, my hands wandering southward to the hem of his shirt, and underneath. His muscles tightened under my touch. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”
A low growl rumbled in his chest, but he didn’t let go of me. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“But Char and the rest got away safely, right?”
“Yes, no thanks to you. Or me, since I had to go searching for you.”
Before he changed his mind and decided to talk about it now, I lifted his shirt to his shoulders and ran my mouth across his chest. The growl turned into a hum of pleasure as I made him forget his anger with me. In a flash, we were in our room, and my jacket and Tristan’s shirt were tossed to the floor.
“You’re so damn sexy in that,” he said, his heated gaze traveling down to my breasts that nearly spilled over the top of my bustier as they throbbed with need.
In one swift move, he grabbed my wrists, lifted my arms above my head and shoved me against the wall as he planted his mouth on mine. His tongue pushed its way in and moved urgently, hungrily, leaving me breathless and weak-kneed. He brought my hands together over my head and clasped my wrists in one of his hands as the other trailed shocks down my arm. I squirmed under his touch, and he pressed harder against me, grinding his pelvis into mine. My thighs quivered, ready to open up and let him in.
“Do me a favor and stay right there,” he murmured against my lips. I nodded.
He stepped backward, and my arms began to slide down the wall, but his hand returned in an instant, holding them up.
“Right there,” he said.
“Um … okay.”
What was he doing? If he wanted to play our favorite game, he could have held me in place with his power. I wasn’t about to ask, though. I could either cooperate or ruin the fun. No way would I ruin the fun.
It hadn’t just been two weeks, but over eight months since we’d truly been able to be together the way we preferred. Being in the woods on the Amadis Island, with so many creatures who could easily encroach into my telepathic range, wasn’t nearly the same as being home where I could truly let go of all my inhibitions. Any nearby humans wouldn’t understand that I blasted orgasmic feelings into their heads and, so far anyway, Dorian had no clue, as if his child’s mind blocked it out.
So I stood there with my arms crossed high over my head, trying not to squirm too much from anticipation as Tristan knelt before me.
After removing and discarding my boots, his hands went to my hips and his lips to my stomach. As he kissed the exposed skin between the bottom of the corset and the top of my pants, his fingers slipped under the tight leather and slowly slid to the button. Then his hands pushed down, taking my pants with them, and his mouth followed close behind, kissing and sucking my inner thigh, the inside of my knee, my calf, all the way to my ankles. I pulled one foot free from the tight leather and then the other, and he pushed my pants to the side. Then he placed insanely high, hot pink stilettos in front of me. I raised an eyebrow.
“Humor me,” he said, his voice husky, as he slipped the shoes onto my feet, raising me several inches higher.
He rose to his full height, his eyes never leaving my body, now clad in only a black leather custier and five-inch heels. He cocked his head and a slow smile spread across his stunning face. Then he reached out and undid the top buttons of the corset, freeing my aching breasts.
“Hmm … that’s what I’m talking about,” he murmured.
“You like?” I asked with a small smile, enjoying the power I had over him.
“Very much.” His smoldering eyes lit a fire in my belly. Well, the fire had already been lit, but now it blossomed into a heat that was both pleasurable and agonizing at the same time. My muscles clenched as if he were already inside me.
“Your turn.” I glanced at the bulge in his pants.
“Don’t move,” he said with a grin, then he proceeded to unbutton his pants and slide them down torturously slow, teasing me the whole time.
But at some point, he must not have been able to stand the torment himself because he was suddenly naked and pressed against me. One hand held my wrists again and the other grasped my jaw as he kissed me deeply with a desperation I felt all the way to my toes. His hand slid from my face, down my neck and glided slowly to my breast. His fingertips trailed circles of current around my nipple as they spiraled their way in. By the time they reached the tip, his mouth was pulling my other breast in. His teeth grazed one nipple as his fingers pinched the other, stretching them both long and tight. I moaned and arched my back, pushing my breasts against him, begging for more.
His mouth moved to my other nipple and licked, sucked, rolled, and bit as his free hand moved down my side, to the back, over my bare cheek. He pulled my hips into him as he pressed his erection against my belly. The heels made me nearly the right height to match us up.
“Ah, Lexi,” he groaned against my breast, “I need you.”
“Take … me,” I panted.
In response, he spun me around so I faced the wall. His hands grasped my hips and pulled them back, forcing me to lean forward. He massaged my cheeks and my thighs then pushed my legs outward.
“Oh, God,” he moaned, and he slid inside me from behind. I cried out as he p
ushed deeper in, slowly until he filled me completely. “You feel … so … good.”
He took my wrists in one hand again and held them to the wall as his other caressed my breasts, then splayed across my stomach, holding me still as he thrust in and out. His fingers inched downward until they touched the nub of raw nerves, and a jolt of ecstasy shot through me. I succumbed to the first wave of an orgasm. He continued to move back and forth, in and out, each stroke harder, deeper, faster, and wave after wave wracked through me until I could barely stand on my shaky legs.
He pulled out and freed my arms, and I turned around. I pressed my hands to the sides of his face and pulled him closer for a kiss, all wet and sweet and tangy. His hands glided over my hips and to my butt, and he lifted me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he entered again. But after three magnificent thrusts that sent me to the verge of another orgasm, I realized this could be a mistake.
“We’ll knock the wall down,” I gasped.
With me in his arms and my legs still around him, Tristan moved backwards to the bed. When he hit the mattress, he fell back, putting me on top. His chest was hard but smooth as I pressed my hands on it and rocked my hips, feeling him pulse inside me. I rode him hard, making him groan and pant, until he bucked against me and then suddenly sat with me in his lap.
He twisted us around and laid me on my back, then pounded into me with hard, beautiful thrusts. I covered my mouth to muffle the scream of pleasure from the deep penetration. My back arched on its own, and his mouth latched onto my breast, his tongue flicking over my nipple and then caressing it as he sucked. I closed my eyes, losing myself in the bliss, and met his rhythm with my hips. But right when I was about to explode again, he growled.
We both froze. My eyelids flew open. His face twisted in a mix of heated passion and … agony? Then I saw what I hadn’t seen in so long—a flicker of flames in his eyes. What the hell? Before I could even finish that thought, the spark was gone.
He closed his eyes and exhaled the breath he’d been holding. He still throbbed inside me. I flipped us over, wrapped my hands over his forearms and pushed them against the bed, holding him in place as I rode him again, looking into his eyes the whole time, mind-sharing everything I felt right now with him. His eyes filled with love. And intense desire. And then rolled back.
“Oh, fuck, Lex,” he groaned as he came inside me.
We silently lay in each other’s arms afterwards, not mentioning what might have happened. I told myself nothing had happened. It was the heat of the moment. He loves me. I felt his love flowing from his warm, strong embrace now. At least, I thought I did. Once he drifted off to sleep, it really came pouring out of him. And that bothered me. Why would he be inhibited while we made love? Afterwards, when it was only him and me, basking in the beautiful moment we’d just shared?
Something was changing between us. Hadn’t we already been through enough?
***
Tristan was right about Heather. She knocked on our door bright and early the next morning, which wasn’t a bad thing because it distracted Dorian from the fact we’d broken our bed. Again. We’d also left an indentation in the drywall from my head and torso, and Owen wasn’t here to fix it all for us, forcing me to make an embarrassing request of Blossom.
“So where did these come from?” I asked Tristan as I picked up the stilettos to put them away before going out to greet Heather. I certainly never owned shoes with these kinds of heels. “Did you pick up a new hobby of women’s shoe shopping while I was gone?”
He shrugged casually, but his face remained smooth. “I guess you could say I’ve developed a new fetish.”
I stared at him for a long moment, not knowing what to think or say, but mostly fighting hoots of laughter at the thought of big, powerful Tristan—Mr. Beautiful—browsing the women’s shoe section. But if this was really his new thing, I didn’t want to laugh in his face. He could develop worse fetishes.
“Um … well, okay …” I stammered.
Then he was the one to burst into laughter. “Joke, ma lykita.” He pulled me into his arms and whispered against my ear, “Just like any part of you, I’d rather see your feet naked.”
I sagged against him with a bit of relief. I couldn’t help the thought of there being something wrong with the “ultimate warrior” having a thing for women’s shoes.
“So where did they come from?” I asked, the shoes still dangling from my fingers.
“Blossom.”
The sense of relief disappeared faster than a warlock could flash. What the heck were Blossom’s sexy shoes doing in my bedroom?! I stiffened in Tristan’s arms.
“She said she accidentally bought the wrong size, and she thought you might like them,” he explained.
“Seriously?” I asked with a forced chuckle, trying to cover up my idiotic reaction. What was up with all the unwarranted jealousy? Sure, Tristan had been acting strange lately, but not in a way that made me suspect his faithfulness to me. But something had apparently crawled under my skin and gnawed on my nerves. Perhaps the depleted Amadis power made me so cynical. “She thought I’d like these? To wear around town or something?”
Blossom knew me better than that—flip-flops or combat boots were the only things that went on these feet. Then again, this was Blossom. She’d probably bought them for the same purpose we’d used them for: in the bedroom.
“Yeah, I didn’t think you would, but, well, a guy can’t help but wonder how his girl would look in those.” He finished with a wink, and my brain glazed over.
He took the shoes from my hand and tossed them into the closet before giving me a kiss that made me forget everything. Then he took my hand and pulled me out to the kitchen.
Blossom must have given Heather a serious threat, because the girl still didn’t dive immediately into the subject of her sister. Rather, she showed up at our house every day for a few hours and watched Dorian for us while Tristan and I took care of Amadis business, which mostly consisted of finding and purchasing (on behalf of the Amadis) a mansion to serve as the new Captiva safe house. But every day before she left, she’d mention something about her sister, or vampires, or the Daemoni, or the Amadis. This went on for several weeks, and although I could have called her out—I already knew what she wanted from the letter she sent me—I was buying time.
I needed to follow orders and rebuild my Amadis power before making any promises that I could help her. And even fully rejuvenated, I didn’t know if I could keep such promises. The best way to help Heather and her sister, if she was indeed a Daemoni vampire, was to convert her. But I knew too little about the process of conversions, and Charlotte hadn’t started my training yet. I’d hoped the warlock would be here by the time Heather stopped circumventing the issue, but I ran out of time. She finally popped the question—specifically asked for my help—one day as we sat on the beach, watching Dorian ride his skim-board over the low waves of the Gulf of Mexico.
“Hold on,” I said. Up until now, I’d simply listened to Heather’s remarks and comments with little acknowledgement, but I could avoid the subject no longer. I had questions of my own before I answered hers. “Before we really get into this, how do you know all these things about us? You’re not supposed to.”
She was a Norman. Someone had to have disclosed our secrets. She gnawed on her bottom lip and watched her fingers as they weaved in and around several yarn anklets decorating her foot. She always wore a bikini under her tank tops and shorts, and with her sun-streaked hair, natural beauty without a hint of makeup, the friendship bracelets adorning her arms, and all of those anklets, she looked like the typical beach-town local teen.
“It’s your fault,” she finally said, looking up at me. “Yours and Tristan’s. Mom came home every night for weeks swearing that she knew her new clients from somewhere but couldn’t figure out how. And then the day after the sale finished, she completely forgot she’d told me that and only said you two bought a house from her. But I saw you once when you stopped by her office
to drop something off, and I recognized you immediately. Because of you, my dad stopped beating the shit out of my mom. You don’t forget the faces of the people who finally scare away the real monster in your life. Well, not unless someone wipes your memories.”
I cringed—she’d guessed what Owen had done to her mother.
“But that doesn’t explain how you figured everything out,” I said, avoiding her accusation.
“Look at you. You’re like … exactly the same as you looked before. Well, not you. You’re a lot more … well, more everything. Prettier, sexier, stronger. But still you, as if you’re frozen in time. And my sister …” She drifted off, her mind going somewhere else as her fingers returned to twisting in her anklets. When she spoke again, her voice came from a distance. “She looked almost the same as the day she disappeared, too, but it’d been four years. She’d barely been nineteen then and she should look older now. At least different. Instead, she just looks … paler. Her hair’s exactly the same—same cut and everything. She’d told me once, after reading your books for the sixteenth time, that she wished she could be a vampire. Then one day, not too long after you got the restraining order against her, she said, ‘I know they’re out there. I’m going to go find them.’ And we never saw her again.”
Guilt tugged at my heartstrings. I hadn’t personally obtained the restraining order. My publicist had because Sonya seemed to be a crazed fan, with a little too much emphasis on the “crazed.” She’d never bothered me, though, and perhaps if that restraining order hadn’t been issued, Heather wouldn’t be sitting next to me, asking for my help.
I swallowed the lump in my throat before encouraging her to go on. “But then you did see her …”
“Yeah, I did. The first time I saw her was nearly two years ago, and I totally freaked. I couldn’t believe it, and even convinced myself that I saw wrong. When I looked back to be sure, she was gone. A few weeks later, I was at the skate park with some friends, and I saw her again, and that time I approached her. She told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, she didn’t know me, and I’d better leave her alone if I wanted to live. But something in her eyes, Alexis … she wanted to tell me something. She looked so … scared.” A tear slid down Heather’s cheek as she stared out at the horizon. “I had to do something for her. There had to be something that I could do. I stalked her for a while, following her as best as I could, but keeping my distance because she’s, well, pretty effin’ scary now. Some of those vamps aren’t very smart or secretive, especially lately. It was so easy to creep on them and listen to their conversations. They lie all the time, even to each other, but I learned some things that were true, too. Like last summer when they were pissed at not being able to attack some kind of colony on Captiva. Because of you. And Tristan. They were so scared of you guys!”