Last night she hadn’t been able to let the angel comment pass, so she’d pressed him into some half-assed explanation about how he’d died and his mission on earth: save her and save Segue. Seemed to her like he was making it up. If she hadn’t seen his first clash against the wolf with her own eyes, she’d have never believed him. His fair eyes, dark blond hair, and olive-gold skin pretty much defined angel, but the way he moved—which in Annabella’s opinion said more about a person than anything else—told a completely different story. His smooth prowl and tense bearing suggested a brute strength of sweat, blood, and violence. Not angelic.
She knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
Now he was bent on ridding the world of her wolf. The one who’d killed Rudy and almost made Talia lose her babies. All because of her. She couldn’t let anyone else get hurt.
The insanity of the situation burned through Annabella’s body, scorching her dreams, destroying her hopes. This wasn’t happening.
Reality was worse than her nightmare. Shadows were everywhere. In most light, she cast one herself.
Annabella dragged a twisted ponytail out of her hair to cover the return of her shakes. “I have to make a call so the director can make a substitution.”
The gala was at seven. There wasn’t a whole lot of time for the company to run through Serenade. Thomas Venroy would be angry she was ditching Giselle after she swore she could do it, and that would be the end of her time at CBT. The company would say she cracked under pressure. That she hadn’t been ready. That she wasn’t cut out for principal.
Principal.
Her dream of dancing Giselle evaporated. She went as dry and bare as a desert inside.
Dance. Ballet. Joy. All gone. She couldn’t breathe.
Custo shook his head, as if reading her thoughts. “Annabella, you’re thinking about this the wrong way.”
“No, I’ve got everything straight now.” His explanation last night had cleared up her questions about the Shadowlands, the origin of the wolf, and the role of her talent in allowing him to cross over into the world. Only one thing had gone unsaid, though she figured it out just fine for herself: Her debut as Giselle didn’t matter when lives were in jeopardy. Therefore, she couldn’t dance.
Custo nudged her chin up, and she reluctantly met his gaze. “What is our goal?”
Annabella shrugged a shoulder. She had no idea what he was getting at, and she was hurting too much to really try. Her decision was made, and she didn’t want to think or feel anymore. Both were excruciating.
“Our goal is to return the wolf to the Shadowlands,” he said.
Not at the expense of another person’s life.
Damn. She needed a distraction before she broke, a way to disconnect her head and heart and be all body. A way to shut Custo up.
Her gaze traveled along the flexed length of his forearm to where it disappeared inside the bunch of his sleeve, to the bulge of his biceps, over the boulder of his shoulder to where the muscle met his collarbone. She went warm and liquid inside.
A life without dance was hell. Why not dive in headfirst?
“Annabella? You have to dance.” He’d gentled his bossy tone, but she didn’t need his pity. She was too close to falling apart as it was. Why couldn’t he just leave it alone?
“Annabella!”
Annabella watched his mouth move, the flick of his tongue on the la of her name. She’d never had sex with a near stranger before, but she was in the mood to be reckless. The wolf would probably kill her soon anyway. She had nothing left to lose.
She brought her gaze back up to Custo’s eyes, now dark and slightly distracted from his original train of thought. He paused for a moment to take a controlled breath, his intensity doubling, but then continued, “Instead of isolating you, waiting for the wolf to track you again, I suggest we make you completely accessible. Perform in the gala.”
She wasn’t going to listen to this. Was he trying to hurt her?
“Dance. Allow the wolf to come close,” he continued. “Lure him back into the Shadowlands.”
He had to see reason, or he’d never stop. “You can’t actually think I’d perform? That I’d go onstage with that monster after me? What if he hurt someone? Talia almost lost her babies. He killed Rudy.”
“Not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
Easy for him to say, but she wasn’t buying it. He didn’t have to live with the consequences.
“And the rest of the dancers, my friends, all the people in the audience! You can’t actually think—”
Custo shook his head. “The wolf wants to get back himself. That’s why he has followed you to Segue, isn’t it?”
“What if he hurts someone to get to me?” She could not live with another death on her head. No. She wasn’t going to change her mind. All this arguing was just making her hurt more. Why couldn’t Custo shut up and kiss her? He’d been angling to do just that when he woke her. Why not now?
Now, damn it.
“Segue will be there to keep everyone as safe as possible. You dance. Give the performance of your life. Use your talent, your magic, to draw him into the Shadowlands. And then leave him on the other side. I will be there to give him a little extra incentive to go where he feels most in control.”
“Onstage? For everyone to see? The audience will all run screaming…”
“Not necessarily. The Shadowlands are pure magic, pure possibility. Its inhabitants keep to darkness and illusion by nature. The public nature of the event is actually in our favor. It is more likely that the audience will see what they want to see—a spectacular performance.” He raised a conciliatory hand. “But if the gala is ruined, Segue will take responsibility with a plausible answer. Your reputation will not be tarnished.” Custo sighed. “The wolf may not even show up.”
He made it sound so reasonable. But…“No. It’s much better to set some sort of trap with me as bait and then kill the wolf away from people.”
Custo’s brows drew together. “I thought you understood.”
“Understood what?” She couldn’t take much more.
“Annabella,” he said, voice lowered, “the wolf is a creature of Shadow. He is immortal, elemental. There is no way to kill him.”
Annabella’s heart lost its rhythm; one hard beat followed three rapid, skipping ones.
Custo placed a hand on her shoulder. “Without Talia, you’re the only means we have to attempt a cross. You have to dance, open the way, and then we can force him back into Shadow. If you think you can manage to open the way at another venue, I am willing to find a stage—”
To dance her best?
No. It had to be Giselle and with CBT. A different venue would be too distracting; her dancing wouldn’t be the same. But with her company behind her, with Jasper as her partner, she might just be able to get to that strange moment where music and movement came together to create magic. Anything else would be too forced, too artificial.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” she said, sighing.
Annabella needed a minute to think, to process this new information.
She looked over at the paintings on the wall. Talia’s? Had she glimpsed what lay beyond her shadows and put them on canvas? No. Each was signed Kathleen O’Brien.
“Her mother,” Custo said.
“What?”
“The paintings. They were done by Talia’s mother. Talia’s father is…from there.” Custo paused. Annabella glanced back to find he’d lost a bit of color. “From the Shadowlands.”
Talia, the banshee. Right. Annabella had seen that with her own eyes, too.
Custo lifted his hand off her shoulder and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “So what time do you need to be at the theater?”
Could she really dance? Was it right to dance?
“And what if you get hurt?” she asked.
“Angel,” he said with emphasis. He relaxed, at ease on the bed. “I already died; there’s not much he can do to me.” Custo gave a fierce smile.
“Oh, right,” Annabella mumbled. Her guardian angel looked less angelic with each passing moment.
But…She had to be absolutely, brutally honest, just in case something did go wrong. “Custo, I want this chance so bad that I’m afraid I would do anything to hold on to it. I don’t trust myself.”
“You need to,” he said, stroking her cheek with the back of his fingertips. “I don’t think the crossover would work if you didn’t embrace the dance with everything that you are. If you have reservations, the magic of your talent might not shine through.” He frowned. “I am curious why it never happened before. Why do you think that is?”
Good question. It had been bothering her, too. “I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve been pushing myself harder than I ever have.” Her life was falling apart because of it—no dates, no girlfriends, no fun. “Maybe because I’m finally in the spotlight. That sounds bad, I know, but when you are in the corps, you always need to be watching others, keeping your lines—you’re not completely free.” There were times when she wanted to let go, jump higher, interpret the music her own way, but couldn’t because she had to hold her place. “Or, maybe because Giselle is a ghost. She rises from the grave to dance in a dark forest, which sounds an awful lot like the Shadowlands to me.”
“Maybe it’s a combination of the three. Maybe with this performance you’re coming into your full gift of talent.”
She’d dreamed of this moment her whole life.
“The time?” Custo prompted again. “When do we need to get going?”
Okay…She would dance. Dance! The wild, careening spin of her world suddenly righted itself on its axis. Wolves might jump out of the shadows, angels might fall from the sky, but if she could dance, then she would be all right. She could breathe. She could live. The circumstances were far from ideal, but she’d take whatever she could get.
It was impossible not to smile. “Four o’clock would be good. I’m going to need a good breakfast. Or brunch. Starving here,” she added with a huff. The choco-brownie mush hadn’t lasted long with her athletic metabolism. “And we have to run by my place for my stuff.”
“Good,” Custo said, a devilish grin flashing. “Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s return to another train of thought…”
His eyes lowered to her mouth, mimicking her earlier suggestion.
Oh boy…Her high excitement abruptly condensed and lowered to a tight, bright burn deep in her center. Custo.
She’d had one lover before, long over, but never, even at the peak of that passion, had she felt a fraction of the desire Custo evoked with the rake of his lust-hungry eyes. How could it be that an angel and temptation were one and the same?
Annabella’s breath caught as Custo leaned forward and found her jaw with his mouth, whispering against her skin as he traced a line toward her lips. “Your mind is a jumble, but it’s clear the direction you’re going. Decide already.”
The thought of her body under his, his muscles bunching, broad shoulders flaring as he braced himself over her had the burn coiling into a sublimely torturous, yearning knot. She was happy, celebratory, and, yes, she wanted it all. She wanted him.
“There it is,” he breathed. He brushed her lips with his. The flame leaped at her core. Delicious, searing.
Custo’s mouth settled on hers in a hot and hard press of heat and she was adrift in molten sensation. Angel, demon, she didn’t care. She was near senseless with the smooth friction of his mouth, the way he surrounded and consumed her body in the furnace of his. Custo must have moved because his hand supported her head, the length of his arm at her spine to hold her close. Her sexy protector. His chest against hers was hard, strong, and packed with strength. Her muscles answered by loosening in some places and straining in others in a strange coordination that took no years of practice, just human nature.
She barely gasped for air when he darkened the kiss to taste her. He found her hip and drew her snugly against his thigh. The movement sent a deep, glorious thrum through her system. She squirmed against him, trembling—yes, please, more!—her hand finding and fisting in his hair. He eased his palm under her ass to move her onto his lap. She helped, straddling him, not caring that the bedsheet slid to the floor to leave her tank and underwear exposed.
Annabella reciprocated by pulling his shirt from his pants—too bad he’d been so neat and pressed before—and feathered her fingers over the ripples of his stomach to the defined mound of his pecs. His skin was smooth, hot, his nipple a flat patch of satin.
Her body was talking now, and she’d spent her life learning to listen to its demands, coaxing its limits higher, stronger, faster. Custo was about to push those limits further, his wide hands hot on the bare skin of her thighs. His thumbs fingering the elastic of her panties.
Yes, yes. Naked would be good. Naked would be very good. She squirmed to give him access, but he grabbed her hips with both palms to hold her still, groaning.
“Stop that, Bella. I’ve been two years dead…damn it…” His voice was gruff against her mouth, as if he were fighting himself.
The torturous knot in her pelvis pulsed, ached. She’d known him a single day, but she was certain that there was only one thing to do to a Custo on the brink: push.
The bunch of his shirt caught her wrist. She reversed her direction, sliding her hand down to the tight waist of his pants. A damn belt held them firmly in place, so she wrapped her fingers around the band and pulled at it with a whine.
“Not yet,” he murmured as his mouth broke away to graze her neck. She tilted her chin up to give him the length of her. To give him everything.
Warm breath brushed her cheek and sent a chill down her back, prickling her skin. Custo nuzzled the hollow below her ear. His teeth grazing, just there.
A sudden flash of the wolf’s mouth on that very spot had her blood stalling, her muscles freezing up with poison cold and a memory of fear. Her nerves quivered, but not in a good way. The wolf had wanted to be inside her, too. Had touched her just like that.
Custo froze as well, his mouth on the bad spot.
Reality shredded the moment.
She focused her lust-clouded eyes and took in the foreign apartment and remembered why she was there. Custo was so fantasy-hot, but…This is too fast. Too much.
“I’m not the wolf, Annabella,” Custo said against her skin. His chest heaved against her, their shared rhythm now at odds.
“I know you’re not,” she said. But…
One coherent thought allowed a line of others to intrude: She didn’t really know Custo at all. Angel? Insanity. All she really knew, really trusted, was dance.
Dance. And not the bedroom kind. She should be getting ready.
The last embers of her arousal doused with a sick, disappointed hiss. She shifted back, away from Custo, easing herself first on the bed, and then scrambled to stand at the side.
She took a steadying breath. “I’m…uh…interested. There’s just a lot going on…” Her feeble attempt at an explanation dribbled away to nothing. The air was cold on her almost-naked skin. With him glowering at her like that, a long-dead vestige of her modesty kicked in, shaming her. Heat scorched her cheeks while she shivered.
But if he had something to say, she’d take it before running and hiding in the bathroom. She owed him that much. She trembled, waiting, hoping she hadn’t completely screwed things up. Yeah, he was going to help her, and he was physically delicious, but, well, she was starting to like him, too.
Custo inclined his head, jaw flexing. “Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t have to apologize. That made her feel worse. “It’s just—”
“Don’t worry about it.” The side of his mouth slowly tugged up, but she could see the muscles of his body were still tense. He stood, approached—the smell of him had her aching again—and kissed the top of her head. “I have some work to do before we leave for the city. I better get to it.”
***
&nbs
p; Custo stalked from the room, casting a glance over his shoulder to catch Annabella dragging on a pair of sweatpants, blue washed to pale gray. Lovely, pale legs, quickly, furtively hidden.
As she’d kissed him, her body moving against him, he’d caught her single, stressed thought: wolf.
Anger had every nerve snapping. What was he thinking? Not twelve hours ago the wolf had assaulted her. Without the intervention of Talia, who knows what might have happened?
Annabella was coping with so much. The least he could’ve given her was a little space. A little self-control. Even now, the thought of her under him had him adjusting his pants.
Custo sat at Adam’s computer console in the living area and touched the screen to activate the monitor. He stared at the list of credit card charges for gala ticket sales, but the names and numbers were a blur of black and white. He flexed his hands hard to burn away the memory of Annabella’s satiny skin. Her sexy, slender body.
Besides, he had plenty of business to take care of, old and new, before he could linger with her the way he wanted—the memory would have to last an eternity. Soon he would be caught, if not by a seriously pissed-off Shadowman, then by some holier-than-thou avenging angels, and dragged out of this world. He had a lot of work to do before that happened.
Custo forced his concentration onto the screen, tabbing to the contact addresses and telephone numbers associated with the credit card accounts.
He put in an earplug so he could talk as he worked. “Tommy?”
“Here,” Tommy’s gruff voice buzzed across the line. “Good to have you back, man.”
“Good to be back. I trust you’ve been brought up to speed?”
“Yeah, I got it. Adam gave a general security briefing this morning, told us that we were all at your disposal. Says there’s some scary shape-shifting Shadow monster after your girl.”
His girl? Not yet, but Custo didn’t correct him. “I want to get Segue operatives into as many seats as possible. Put together a team. You have whatever funds you need to buy back what you can. I’m sending the credit card list to you now. Be discrete.”
Custo ended the call and selected another file, the Segue personnel manifest highlighting staff members from before and after his death. One of these trusted people was a traitor, a wraith collaborator. Adam had gotten a head start on reviewing the profiles, tagging names with thoughts and background information.
Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 26