by R. C. Murphy
Confused, he looked down at the offending paper where it’d fallen on a patch of greenish-brown grass. Who the hell put grass in the barracks?
A sparrow swooped down and landed beside the paper. It pecked at the grass. Deryck watched it pull up a wriggling earthworm with a strange feeling of detachment. Perhaps he’d fallen asleep while reading in the library. It was the only explanation he could think of.
“Sorry, mister,” a boy called from a distance away.
Startled, Deryck looked up at the boy. He rode a bicycle down a narrow street. The sun peeked above the roofs of a row of nice, neat homes lining the street. Each house looked nearly identical to its neighbor, save a few details like paint color and the style of vehicle parked before them.
Birds chattered back and forth to each other from the dew-covered lawns. An old orange cat watched half-heartedly from the front stoop of the house directly across the street from where Deryck stood. Its tail swished back and forth, Deryck couldn’t help but think of an excited dog greeting its owner. Strange feline.
The front door of the house next to the cat’s swung open. A woman, wrapped in a brightly colored robe, stumbled outside. She covered her eyes from the rising sun and bent down to grab the rolled up paper sitting on the path to her door. Strands of fiery gold hair fell down to block her face from view, but didn’t stop Deryck’s heartbeat from speeding up.
He’d found her again.
Sunlight shined through the thin robe concealing her. Deryck got a good look at the well-built body underneath, even though it was all in shadow. Pressure behind the fly of his pants grew until he was forced to turn away from Shayla and adjust himself.
Deryck froze with his hand on his groin. If he had indeed found the woman from his dreams in her realm, the human realm, then he shouldn’t have a physical reaction to her presence. He looked down at his pants in confusion. The bulge behind the denim pants was unmistakable. And impossible. Incubi were only aroused at the command of the women who summoned them to the Inbetween.
“It is a week for impossible things,” he whispered and eased the pressure off his hard-on.
“Good morning,” Shayla called across the street.
Panic set it. What if he got caught outside of her home, would the gods punish both of them?
Deryck turned back to steal one more glimpse of the woman he wished he could call his own.
Recognition flared in her eyes. “Are you stalking me?”
Afraid he’d do her more harm, Deryck flexed his powers and transported himself back to the barracks. He stripped on his way through the door, his mind set on the coldest shower he could withstand to conceal the painful erection he bore from just a few moments gazing at her.
You can’t go back to her. The truth of it hurt more than anything else.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
The cursor on Shayla’s work computer taunted her. She’d been staring at the same report for over an hour and hadn’t made any progress. Not one damn word. Her boss had already emailed three times asking for it. She kept ignoring them, hoping he’d think her email wasn’t working again. That’d be easier to explain than what actually occupied her mind at the moment.
She glanced toward the windows again--still no impossibly hot stalker guy. Shayla’s first instinct after seeing him outside her house had been to call the cops. Only, she couldn’t prove he’d been there. She didn’t know his name. Hell, she started to doubt he even existed, except when she arrived at the office, Kelly teased her about sneaking off with the guy instead of going to happy hour the night before. So much for living in denial.
There wasn’t any way to explain how he’d found her house. Likewise, she couldn’t figure out how two hundred plus pounds of drop-dead-gorgeous disappeared into thin air.
“Maybe he’s training for the Olympics.” Shayla leaned her cheek on her hand and stared at the blinking cursor on her computer screen some more.
“Who’s in the Olympics?” Kelly peered over the cubicle wall beside Shayla’s chair.
“No one. I’m just talking to myself. This report is killing me.”
Kelly winked. “Take a break. We’ll go get some coffee.”
No way could she show her face at Sweet Bean again. What if Mr. Creeper was waiting for her? She couldn’t face him. Not after the weirdness in front of her house, which she wasn’t entirely certain happened. She hadn’t had any coffee before going to get the paper. Maybe her brain played tricks on her. Nevertheless, she played it safe and handed Kelly a handful of cash.
“I really need to finish this before Joel blows a gasket.”
Kelly leaned down to look at the blank document. “Good luck. I’ll have them put an extra shot of espresso or three in your mocha.”
“You’re the best,” Shayla called after Kelly’s retreating back.
She rolled her chair over to the window and craned her neck to watch Kelly leave the office. No one harassed her or followed her down the sidewalk to the coffee shop. There was no sign of Mr. Creeper. For the first time since she left the house, Shayla took a deep, calming breath.
“This is by far the stupidest thing you’ve done since drawing your first breath three-thousand years ago.”
Deryck stood by himself against a pale blue wall and looked out over a labyrinth of short, black walls. A mass of humans moved through the passages or sat hunkered down in one of the many alcoves formed by the walls. It looked like a horizontal ant farm occupied by overworked humans. No one smiled. When they approached the alcoves, he could almost see the will to live drain from their souls.
Did Shayla feel the same way each time she entered the building? He hoped not.
The bouquet of flowers in his hand gave off a pungent scent that wrinkled his nose. Deryck picked them from the garden at the compound while Garik wasn’t looking. If the male caught him taking flowers from his garden, he’d give him high holy hell until he confessed to the transgression and explained why he took a sudden interest in flower arrangements. Deryck examined the delicate petals on the small purple wax flowers, or at least that’s what he thought they were called. He usually zoned out on the rare occasion Garik opened up to discuss his garden.
Taking a steadying breath, Deryck eased into the busy office. He said a silent prayer that Shayla would like the flowers. The females he serviced on the Inbetween always imagined beds covered in rose petals; obviously they enjoyed them on some level. What if she didn’t? He’d feel like an ass.
Deryck spotted Shayla at her desk. Her back was to him, but it didn’t stop his body from reacting like she stood before him as she had the last time he saw her days before on the front lawn of her house in her robe.
She wore her hair piled neatly on top of her head. He had no problem imagining how soft the skin on the back of her neck would be if he leaned in and kissed it. Or how her hair smelled—far sweeter than the flowers in his hand.
As though she sensed him, Shayla turned around and met his gaze. Her green eyes went wide. A hand shot up to cover her throat. She bounded out of her chair and backed away from him.
“Why are you following me?”
Before he could say anything to calm her, Shayla bolted down the hallway at the back of the crowded room. Deryck followed. Water sloshed out of the flower vase. He set it down on the desk she’d occupied.
A door down the hall slammed so hard the glass wall alongside it shuddered. Deryck raced to it and tried the knob. It didn’t budge. She’d locked herself in to get away from him.
Pain wrapped around his heart and dragged it down to the pit of his stomach. This was not the reaction he’d anticipated after making the rash decision to seek Shayla out on his own, without whatever power that kept setting him in her path interfering. The effort to enter the human realm hurt, but he’d managed. And now the sole motivation he possessed to attempt such a mad feat thought he was stalking her.
Deryck caressed the door, wishing it was her arm. On the other side, her panicked breaths grew louder. A sob broke the gallo
ping pattern and sent a lance straight into his chest.
He braced his forehead against the cool wood. “I’m sorry, Shayla.”
Pounding footsteps came at him from both directions. Angry men’s voices joined in the cacophony. Deryck backed away from the door sheltering his prize. Another door sat behind him. With a glance back toward where Shayla hid, he ducked into the small closet.
Deryck transported himself to his home, feeling like the worst scum to ever breathe.
Man, the wallpaper in here is butt-ugly.
Shayla wrapped her arms around herself and wondered who the hell she needed to talk to in order to get the conference room’s décor redone. No wonder their clients walked out of there looking like they’d sucked on a lemon. She never noticed how bad it was before, but being stuck in there for well over an hour gave her plenty of time to grow to hate the wallpaper.
“Ma’am, did you hear me?”
She dragged her eyes away from the wall. A police officer in his mid-thirties watched her carefully, like she’d snap a cog at any moment and they’d have to haul her off to a psych ward.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“Did you know the man?”
Shayla shook her head. “I’d never seen him before last week.”
The second cop, an older no-nonsense looking woman, tapped her pen against her notepad. “That’s when you saw him at Sweet Bean. Did you talk to him, say anything that’d make him think you were flirting with him?”
“God no. I don’t remember saying anything to him. He just . . . watched me, like he knew me.”
The female cop made a note. “Do you do a lot of bar-hopping?”
Shayla laughed bitterly. “Not in years unless you count my living room as a bar.”
“What about when the man came to your house? Did he try to break in or follow you inside?” The male officer, T. Brandon, looked sympathetic. Unlike his partner, Officer Bitchface.
“No. He didn’t say or do anything.” Other than apparently vanish into thin air. “I hadn’t seen him in days, so I thought whatever fixation he had was over.”
Officer Bitchface, or N. Thompson as her name badge said, gave her a stern look. “Are you one-hundred percent sure you didn’t lead this man on in any way. Even things we think are innocent come across differently to men.”
Officer Brandon straightened his shoulders, but didn’t come to the defense of his gender.
“I didn’t do anything or say anything. Can I go?” Shayla wanted to curl up on her couch for the next week.
Thompson closed her notebook. “Do you want to press charges if we figure out who this guy is?”
Shayla hugged herself tighter. That was the million-dollar question and she’d be damned if she could come up with a simple “yes” or “no” answer. Sure, he’d scared the ever-loving crap out of her showing up out of the blue. But he hadn’t tried to touch her or say anything to truly terrify her. If only she hadn’t freaked out seeing him in the office and stayed put to hear him explain himself. Oh no. She’d flipped her lid and ran off like he had a gun hidden behind the vase of flowers he carried.
She wanted to kick herself. The guy was probably some poor delivery driver for one of the nearby florists and she’d put a vague description of him on notice with the police. His parting words, an apology that sounded so heartfelt, replayed in her head.
Shaking her head, Shayla stood. “No. I don’t want to press charges.”
“Your choice,” Thompson said. It looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn’t.
“If you have any other problems, give us a call.” Brandon handed Shayla his card.
The officers left her alone in the conference room. Shayla pocketed the business card and walked into the hallway. Her boss, Joel Tate, and Kelly were waiting outside.
“You’re going home, Shayla. Take the next couple of days off.” Tate gave her a stern look. There’d be no arguing his decision.
“What about the Anderson report?” She blurted and realized, no matter how much she wanted to go home and curl up; she didn’t want to be alone.
“I’ll take care of it,” Kelly offered.
Tate patted Shayla’s arm. “It’d be best for you get some rest after all of this.”
Kelly nodded in agreement. “I’ll call you later to check in, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Shayla walked to her desk in a daze. Mr. Tate wasn’t usually so accommodating or nice. She was afraid to see how shaken up she looked if he offered her a day and a half off, presumably paid, without a second thought.
The vase of flowers the strange man had been carrying sat on top of her desk. Shayla froze in place and stared at them. It was obvious now that she got a closer look, a professional hadn’t put the bouquet together. However, the flowers complimented each other. The scent wafting from them made her think of her grandmother’s garden at the end of spring.
She plucked a small white card out of the vase and read it.
Her heartbeat kicked up to eleven. No one had ever called her a goddess before. Hell, aside from when she’d landed in the hospital with pneumonia during college, no one ever brought her flowers. Mixed emotions swirled in her head. So strange, a man she’d never met before could elicit such a feeling when the handful of people she loved couldn’t do the same.
Shayla gathered her purse and the flowers and headed to the elevators. She felt guilty taking flowers from a man who was probably wanking to thoughts of her every night, but she couldn’t let them go to waste. Something good had to come of an extremely screwed up day.
It was amazing how a well-made plate of food in front of a man could transform into something completely inedible when his mood dropped into the toilet. Deryck spread the chicken curry and rice around his plate, hoping no one would notice he hadn’t been eating again.
It’d been days since the mishap with Shayla. Her terrified eyes burned in his mind’s eye. When he slept, he saw nothing but them. When he took a lover in the Inbetween, the same green eyes tormented him. His concern about her did not affect his performance as an incubus. Once he was pulled to the Inbetween, the control he possessed over his body was forfeited to the woman who called him. Despite his wishes, despite where he longed to be, he still filled the wombs of women with his infertile seed.
Deryck was disgusted with himself.
A plate clattered onto the table across from him. Deryck flashed Herryk an annoyed look.
The male scowled in return and pointed his fork at the expanding mess on Deryck’s plate. “Trying out a new diet? Or are too tired from your numerous hours in the Inbetween to eat?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about, Herryk.” Deryck kept his face blank; afraid the male’s dark eyes could see right into his mind.
“You’ve been absent a lot, Deryck. You were never one to whore yourself so often.
“Maybe I’ve decided to challenge you for top dick in our little band of brothers.” Deryck set his fork on his plate and pushed back from the table. “All my work seems to have put off my appetite. Or perhaps it is the company.”
“No one is above me here.” Herryk rose.
“We are all equal. You’d do well to remember that,” Wolfrik called across the room.
Deryck sent the male a grateful look. “I have nothing to prove.”
“How many women have you bedded this week, Deryck?” Herryk was incapable of letting anything go once he thought his reputation would be surpassed. Deryck’s predecessor, the one he’d assumed the name of at his initiation, had been a victim of Herryk’s scheming to be the best. To date, no one knew what happened after he was removed from the compound.
“I’ve been doing my job and not competing against those I am supposed to work with.” Deryck snagged a pear out of the bowl at the center of the table. “Which I need to get back to, if you’re done trying to prove yourself.”
“You’re up to something,” Herryk accused.
“He’s probably taken a regular,” Gar
ik chimed in from his seat.
“You’re full of shit, Garik. He wouldn’t.”
“I have not been seeing the same woman all week.”
Herryk’s cold eyes snapped from Garik and studied Deryck. Deryck held his breath, waiting for the male to manipulate him with one of the infamous spells he’d inherited from his sire.
“Well, damn. Maybe he has. Didn’t think you had it in you. Who is it?”
“A gentleman doesn’t fuck and tell.”
“Tell me when you see a gentleman enter our ranks and I’ll believe you.”
The walls of the dining room seemed to close in around him. Too many eyes watched and Deryck knew they were trying to figure out if he’d taken a regular female on the Inbetween or if Herryk was right to suspect him of joining his competition. He wouldn’t tell them about Shayla and put both of them in danger.
Ignoring the lecherous calls of the other incubi, Deryck left the dining hall. He took the short staircase down into the courtyard and followed it to the far side of the compound. Garik’s garden greeted him with a nose-full of fragrant flowers similar to those he’d left behind on Shayla’s desk. He should’ve grabbed them before he left, but his mind was focused on trying to fix his wrongs. After realizing how bad he’d scared her, getting out of the building before the angry humans descended on him took priority.
Deryck sat on the lush green grass in the garden. A lavender plant swayed in the breeze, leaning closer as if to tell him a secret. Gods, did he wish it would. Someone, something in the universe must know why he’d been sent to the human realm to meet the only woman to arouse him outside of his indentured servitude.
Faye possessed the uncanny talent to make herself at home in any environment. Her favorite place to turn into her private domain was Shayla’s couch—where she currently sprawled, taking up far more space than her slim body should be capable of.
She tapped the card from the flowers Shayla’s mystery man left on her desk between her fingers, pausing occasionally to reread the text. The flowers themselves sat over on the sideboard, a splash of color in the neutrally decorated room.