by Lynn Rush
He must have found a ticklish spot because her hand twitched. She flashed her violet beauties at him, sending a shiver through him he’d never felt before. Sure, he’d had other girlfriends, but nothing like this. The intensity of his connection with Emma startled him, yet made total sense. There was something bigger going on here that brought them together.
“So, you two cozied up pretty fast,” Ava said.
“Ava, can we say ‘filter’?”
“Filter.”
“Jake, never mind her, she’s got no filter on that perfectly painted mouth of hers.”
“Hey!”
He felt a smile fill his face. Watching them banter with each other was interesting, but he’d rather be talking with Emma about what they’d discovered in the last twelve hours—and more training. He definitely enjoyed training with her, and he’d only had one, very short, and interrupted session.
Emma flicked her blond hair from her face, as she leaned forward smiling at something Ava said. He checked his watch. Two fifteen. He really should get at least some of the paper due this week cranked out soon.
“Hey, Em,” he said. “I should get going. I have a paper I’ve need to get working on.”
She raised her hand at Ava, as she leaned in toward him. A sweet strawberry scent washed over him. Her golden locks fell forward, and the smell overwhelmed his senses.
Must be her shampoo. Dang, it was intoxicating.
“I’ll go with you.” She turned back to Ava. “Hey, girl, we’re gonna head up to the library, wanna come?”
“More studying, right?” She piled her used napkins onto her plate. “Naw, I’m good. You guys go ahead.”
Jake pushed his chair back. “Here, I’ll take these in.”
“But you two didn’t even touch your food,” Ava complained. “You’ve got to be hungry with all that studying you’ve been doing.”
He smiled as he picked up the trays, then bee-lined to the trash. It was true, he’d rather be at his house with Emma studying, and maybe would have been, if Ava hadn’t interrupted. The need for Emma to do this weekly ritual with her roommate didn’t make sense.
Unless it was important to Emma to try and be somewhat normal. He understood that. Maybe after getting some work done on the paper, she’d come to his place. He’d show her normal, healthy relationship activities.
“Jake. Hey, where were you, buddy?” Greg sided up next to Jake.
“Oh, hey. Sorry, I forgot. Study group this morning, right?”
“Dude, you’re the TA. What’s up with that?” He lifted his chin toward the table Jake had come from. “You found Emma I see.”
“Thanks for the tip, man. I owe you big.” More than Greg would ever comprehend.
“No problem. Glad I bumped into you at the party last night. Emma’s cool.” Greg followed Jake to the trash. “Keeps to herself, though, but I see her in the gym quite a bit.”
“The gym, huh?”
“Yeah. But hey, about Abnormal Psych. I’m glad I ran into you. I need help on that whole Sybil-thing going on.” Greg shrugged his backpack from his shoulder.
Jake dumped the trays and set them on the rack above the can. “I’m heading to the library right now with Em. Paper due, I’m slacking on it. Can we meet tomorrow?”
Greg stumbled to the side, mimicking a knife to the chest. “Dogged for a chick.”
“Funny.”
“I’m kidding, man. Sure. No sweat.” Greg cleared his throat and shifted his focus to beside Jake. “Hi, Ava. How are you?”
Jake spun around to see Ava standing behind him. Her thin brows came together. Emma sat at their table, alone, digging through Ava’s bag.
“Need to steal Jake a minute, okay?” She smiled at Greg and dug her fingers into Jake’s bicep as she tugged him away. Not that they’d break skin, but it still didn’t feel great.
“See you tomorrow, Greg.” Jake stumbled past the trashcans toward the corner of the cafeteria.
“Okay, Jake. So…it’s my duty as the protective best friend. I know it’s all cliché and stuff, but it’s got to be said.” She cleared her throat. “Em is my best friend, right?”
He nodded.
“And, in the almost two full years I’ve known her, she’s never had a boyfriend.” She tilted her chin down and looked up at him. “I can tell she really likes you, so, you know I’m going to have to kick your ass if you break her heart, right?”
His cheeks flamed. “No heart breaking. Got it.”
“She’s my best friend. You better be for real with her.”
“Don’t worry. I care about her as well, Ava.” He had to respect Ava’s notion. “I’m for real.”
“Good. And don’t expect to get all up in her bed, either. She’s not like that. You two were pretty hot and heavy when I found you guys.”
“What do you mean—?”
“Hey guys. You ready to go?” Emma’s gaze danced between Jake and Ava. “What’s going on?”
“Nothin’, just giving Jake a few pointers about campus living since he’s a newbie.”
Pointers, right…
Jake reached for Emma’s hand. “Let’s go.”
“See you later, Em.” Ava spun around on her heel and strutted away, leaving a trail of thick perfume.
“What’s going on?” Emma asked as they strolled out of food service.
“Ava’s a good friend to you, huh?” The sun bounced off Emma’s smooth skin.
“The best.”
“She was telling me to take good care of you.” Jake tightened his grip. “And I plan to.”
***
“Time for a study break, yet?” Jake whispered across the table as he grazed his fingers over Emma’s tattoo. He couldn’t get enough of her cool skin.
“That tickles,” she said.
“How can you concentrate? I feel like jumping out of my skin sitting so close to you.”
“I’m faking it really good.” She twirled her pen on the pad of her middle finger.
“Ready for a break?” he asked.
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Anything but this hard library chair. We’ve been here for four hours.”
“You’re right.” She slapped the book shut. “This stuff stopped sinking in an hour ago. I think my brain is mush right now.”
“If I’m a Hunter, too, I wonder why my mark is so different than yours.” He touched her tattoo again.
“Good question. And why don’t I have impenetrable skin like you? Or why don’t you have cool skin like mine?”
“You think some of the documents in that trunk of yours will have answers?”
“Might.” She pushed her chair back. “Let’s check it out.”
Jake stood and shoved his book in his bag. “I’m game.”
They strolled past rows of empty tables toward the front of the Library. The scent of stale air, dust, and books overwhelmed him. A sudden barrage of whispers slammed into him, and he stopped. The voices weren’t completely decipherable, but he heard them.
But where were the people? He scanned left, then right. One person occupied a table up front. Maybe people sat at another section of tables behind the towering rows of books hemming in these empty ones.
“What?”
“You hear that?”
She stopped and held her breath. “Nothing. What’s up?” She glanced at her wrist.
“Nothing.” Might be time for another little relaxation session. With everything that had happened recently, he needed to clear his mind. Difficult with Emma so close, though. Her scent. Her beauty.
He reached for her hand. “Come here once.” With a quick motion, he hauled her between the last two rows of books. Empty, thankfully.
“What are you—”
He swallowed her words. Cold fingers curled around his neck, tilted his head, and her tongue dove in, as if needing to taste him as much as he did her. Her now familiar scent infused his pores. Strawberries…and something else.
He inhaled deeply.
“You smell good,” he said, grazing along her jaw to behind her ear.
“I do?”
He nipped at her earlobe and buried his face in her hair. His pulse roared through his mind like raging river rapids. His mind rioted. In the quiet of the library, it seemed that much more amplified.
Her hands traveled over his shoulders. As her fingers caressed where his mark was, it burned. Pulsed with a separate heartbeat.
“We’ll never get to the trunk at this rate.” Her sweet breath tickled his temple as she feathered kisses along his skin, and it sent another tidal wave of desire colliding with his spine.
He did want to go see the documents, but maybe a little later. A step into her brought him flush with her body. Her curves molded to him, igniting a heat storming through his stomach. He’d been with other women, but this—no, Emma—was something entirely different. Primal.
His shoulder flamed. That was new. She gravitated to his neck, and he sucked in a breath, trying to calm himself, but the ache pulsed.
“Hold on a second, Em.”
“You okay?”
“My arm’s burning.”
She yanked her head up. “Where? Is it the one with your mark?”
“Yeah.”
He began rolling up his sleeve, but his shaking fingers muddled with it. The pain was distracting.
Emma squinted, but what worried him was the gasp she sucked in.
“What’s wrong?” Did she see something? She leaned to the side and surveyed the area, then took hold of the fabric at the seams and ripped.
A soft red glow reflected in her pools of violet.
She stepped back, her mouth agape. Her stare scorched a hole through him. “We need to get you home.”
TWELVE
“What does this mean, you think?” Jake asked, as he leaned against his kitchen counter, watching her.
She cranked open the freezer. Empty. “No ice?”
“Don’t drink or eat, remember?” Jake flashed his breath-stealing smile and rubbed his shoulder.
At least the glow was beginning to subside, but Emma didn’t know what the whole glowing-mark-thing meant. Not even a clue. Her wrist hadn’t flared. No Vamps attacked, so why did his arm light up?
Emma took the three long steps separating her from the sink and turned on the water. “Does it still hurt?”
“Not so bad. Initial burn.”
“Is this cold yet?” she asked, pulling his hand under the stream of the water pouring out from the faucet.
“Yeah, cold.”
She snagged the towel hanging from the cabinet door handle above the sink and stuck it under the stream. “My mark burned a little at first, jarring until I got used to it. But, yours shouldn’t be doing it now since there aren’t any Vamps nearby.”
“You’re the expert, not me.” He inched toward her, still leaning against the counter.
She wrung out the towel with shaking hands and pivoted to him. “Here.” She dabbed at the dull pulse of red emanating from the inner circle. Damn if that skull wasn’t disconcerting. Like it glowed at her with purpose. A dark one.
“So maybe I’m a different type of Hunter.” Jake coughed into his free hand. “And my mark isn’t a detector like yours.”
“Possible.” Why hadn’t she gone through Gabriel’s stuff sooner? She might have found something on this. On Jake. “Let’s get this annoying red glow snuffed out then we’re back to my place to do some research. This thing’s never glowed like this before?”
“Sure hasn’t. Hey, how’d you find out what your mark meant and that it was a Vamp detector?”
“If you believe in luck, then it was a lot of dumb freakin’ luck. My mark kept flaring around a certain set of people. Tall, lanky, pale. We didn’t know what it meant, so we didn’t do anything.”
“I thought the glow wouldn’t stop?”
“If I’m too far away from the Vamp, I can’t sense it. Because think about it…if I could feel every Vamp all over the U.S., I’d never get any peace.”
“So, you have to be within a certain proximity. How far?”
“I’ve been able to gauge it better up here, since the campus is so small. Down in the city, though, there were so many people it was hard to tell. But from what I can tell, it’s about a mile.” She thought. “Anyway, my wrist went nuts one time when we weren’t around a ton of people. The Vamps showed their fangs and their eyes morphed into red, glowing marbles. We figured it out.” She shrugged. “Gabriel started putting things together. Researching and tracking.”
“When your wrist glowed, you searched them out.”
“Yep.” She dabbed at the mark. “Gabriel started writing down everything that happened to me. You should start doing that, too. Have this be your first entry. Who were you with, where were you, when did it get better. Things like that.”
“Why?”
“Important to see how things change. To find common denominators.”
“I think it got better when you started taking care of me. I kinda liked that. And ripping my clothes off. That was fun, too.”
On cue, her heart took off again. With only a look, he could melt her into a puddle of goo. She both loved and hated that. It made her feel so out of control, which she really hated. She stopped patting his skin with the wet cloth and held his gaze. He cocked his head to the side and leaned in, as if he was waiting for her to whisper a secret.
“You okay?” She combed her fingers through his hair.
“Yes. Why?”
“You looked really…focused there for a minute.”
They stood in his kitchen, near the sink, but all of her surroundings disappeared. She saw only his face. Smooth, pale skin, except the small scar along his left jaw line. Only a quarter inch long, but there.
She leaned in and traced the old injury with her lips. “If your skin is impenetrable, how’d you get this scar?”
His jaw muscles twitched, and he tensed. “That happened a long time ago.”
She worked her way to his mouth. Once connected with his, all was right. He deepened his kiss, and she twined her arms around his neck. His essence wrapped her in a warm, electric blanket. Her body tingled in places she’d forgotten about.
His steady hands wove around her waist and up the back of her shirt. A moan spilled from his lips, as they moved from her mouth, to her cheek, to her ear, then down to her neck. Closer. Need more. She straddled one of his legs to erase what little distance remained between them.
His hands cupped her butt and brought her flush against him. There was no hiding his desire. His hard body pressed all the right places, both scaring her and turning her on even more.
They should stop. They had to figure out what was going on with him. The Vamps. The…
His tongue swirled with hers, disintegrating her line of logic. She’d never been more tempted to break her oath of celibacy than at this moment.
Reality came slamming back to the forefront. She was in Jake’s house, probably only a few doors from his bedroom. They were both more than ready, physically. And she wanted him. Badly.
“Jake,” she whispered with a ragged breath. She willed herself to lean back and draw in some cleansing air. “Jake.”
He moaned.
“Slow down a second, k?” She couldn’t believe she actually got the words out between her lack of breath and the thick, heady desire to keep doing what they were doing.
“I’m moving too fast, aren’t I? You’re not ready yet. You feel so good, Em.”
She rested her hands on his chest. “You do, too.”
“But…” He skated his fingers along her spine.
His lips, shiny and swollen from their last kiss, lured her back in for more. His mouth opened, inviting her in to explore. And she did.
Every inch.
His hand navigated to her hip again. She might as well have been naked for how thin her clothes were and how much of him she felt pressed against her body.
“I’m sor
ry. I can’t…” Emma’s shoulders slumped, as she peeled away from him.
She had to calm down or she’d hyperventilate. His soft, gentle touch ignited something in her body no guy ever had. But everything about them was happening too fast.
He nudged her chin with his forefinger. “What’s wrong, Em?”
“It’s so strange.” She snatched his hand, turned it, and kissed his palm.
“What?”
“We’ve only known each other a couple days. How can this be happening so fast?”
“You’re right, it’s fast. I don’t understand it either. It makes no sense. Let’s talk about it.”
“Boy, you are a psychologist in the making, aren’t you?”
“Did something happen? Did someone hurt you?” The muscles around his jaw twitched, and his lips pressed into a thin line.
Already, he was so protective of her. It was nice having someone watch out for her again, instead of her watching out for everyone else.
“No. No. It’s not that. Nothing happened.” She walked over and slouched onto one of the four chairs surrounding the massive oak table in the center of the kitchen.
For someone who didn’t eat, his kitchen sure was nice. Stainless steel fridge, stove, microwave, and oak cabinetry.
“Em?” He leaned back against the counter top.
“I’ve never been with anyone before,” she said.
A smile filled his beautiful face, sending her body into a riot again. No judgment in his eyes, only concern. A brush of pink dusted his cheeks.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to be shy.”
“It’s not so much that.” Well, it was a little. Nobody, besides Ava, had ever seen her in her undies. But she was her roommate and her best friend. Emma tugged at her hair. “It’s so intense. So fast. It’s a little scary to tell you the truth.”
“Scary?”
“I’m scared to—” She scrubbed her face. Images of Gabriel’s bloody body flashed in her mind. “What if—well—what if you get hurt, or worse—die? I don’t think I could handle that.”
“Like Gabriel?”
“He and I weren’t ever together in that way, but not because I didn’t want to be.”
Jake crept toward the kitchen table and eased into a chair across from her.