by Unknown
I stepped closer and put my hand on his chest. My body screamed for me to lean in and create as much contact as possible. It was all I could do to stay standing. “And I don’t mean I don’t know now. I mean the details. The bad habit, dirty secret, favorite color kind of things that are supposed to come before your heart decides.”
He raised his head and his eyes searched mine. They shone with emotion.
“I’ll beg. If that’s what redemption requires, I will. I was wrong to leave. To not try.”
“Stop,” he said.
“I can’t.”
He pulled me to him. Stella’s throat cleared meaningfully from behind him. I buried my face into his shoulder, inhaling the delectable aroma of him. My entire being prayed and craved for him to say yes.
“Shh,” he said, and stroked my hair. “Hey. Look at me.” He cupped my face. Gold shimmered over the surface of his lips. “I leave my clothes on the floor. Wet towels, too.”
The ache inside me eased back.
“I once stole money from my grandma’s purse. A dollar for the ice cream truck and to this day, I wish I hadn’t.”
I half sobbed, half laughed. He kissed my nose. The room of people around us—hanging on our every word—disappeared.
“The favorite color changes. Red for a corvette. Black for electric guitars. Green for the flecks in your eyes.” He kissed me firmly on the mouth. Relief flooded through my limbs and joy surged into my soul. “I have to do this right now. But, if you’ll wait, I promise, I’ll come back.”
I opened my mouth to object, a part of me terrified to let him go, but the sound fell flat. A slow smile crept up my cheeks. “Okay. I’ll wait.”
As though he hadn’t been certain until that moment, he brought me into his arms, crushing his lips to mine. He kissed me again and again. Salty and sweet. I realized tears were coursing down my face. Then he stopped. And he left.
I waited for hours. The last stragglers were nearly gone. Adjusting my weight in the thinly stuffed chair, I checked my watch again. It was nearly two in the morning. Maybe I should go home.
I must have fallen asleep because I didn’t sense him back until he wound his arms under mine and scooped me up.
He carried me out a side door to a waiting car. Once inside he stopped kissing me long enough to ask the driver to get out. Realizing we’d be alone, my lust swiftly awoke. I needed to feel his skin on mine, to hear words from his lips to prove he was no dream.
“Liv, you are mine,” he said to me, looking me in the eye.
The fierceness in his voice drove me wild. “Justin,” I said, getting my hands under his shirt. He felt so good. “I want you. Please, don’t let go.”
“I won’t, baby.” He pulled my shirt over my head. “I promise I won’t go. You’re mine and I’m yours.”
His hands were hot on my skin. My hunger sucked each sensation in. The tickle of his hair, the graze of his teeth on my nape. He pulled off his sweatshirt and returned to me, holding me close. Soon, we were both undressed. I wrapped my limbs around him.
Justin buried his face into my hair. I could feel his heart beating against me. At once I wanted to stay exactly as we were and drown into him. His erection pressed at my sex then slowly eased into me. Fully sheathed, he paused.
I groaned in sweet agony. I was so swollen and slick. So ready. I forced myself to wait. To trust.
He kissed the spot behind my ear. “I love you, Liv,” he whispered.
Everything inside of me shifted. The hunger of my curse, my heart, my soul. I already knew. I knew the day I walked away that he loved me then. But I’d denied it.
He loved me.
Raindrops pelted the car’s roof. New car smell mingled with his musk and citrus. Kiss by tender kiss, he showed me. “I love you,” he said, laying me onto my back, looking at me in that heavy lidded, potent way of his.
And I never, in all my curse and in all my life, never had I felt more like me. Whole and safe. Complete. My body leapt over the precipice of my need and as he gently undulated into me, I climaxed in short, heady waves. “I love you, too,” I said, then closed my eyes and gave in to the wondrous bliss that was Justin.
Chapter Twelve
“Told him yet?” Paula said low, the first minute we were alone on the sofa.
“Told him what?” I asked. It was her favorite question these days. I’d only seen her every few weeks, between cities on Justin’s tour, which was leaving me tired, but blissfully content. We’d found our own normal. I could hear Justin opening the wine in the kitchen. The three of us were going to have a nice dinner in.
Paula didn’t buy my feigned ignorance, though. “Alejandro says—“
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
Justin called from the kitchen. “Merlot or Shiraz, Paula?”
“Shiraz, please!” She eyed me. “Liv. He’ll still love you. You know that, don’t you?” She brushed invisible lint from my shirt, but emotion shone in her eyes. “How could he not?”
I took her hand in mine. “I know he loves me.” He loved me in a way I still found breathtaking and wondrous. I’d never known such peace. Not as a human, not as a psychic vampire, the good doctor’s new favorite term for a succubus.
“But?” Paula pressed.
“But…I don’t know, but what if it isn’t enough?” What if telling him broke this spell?
“Either way you risk things changing. You risk freaking him out or you risk waiting too long. Don’t tell me he doesn’t ask, doesn’t wonder what it is you keep from him.”
“Maybe.” He asked. I’d even tried once. He’d looked at me oddly and I’d changed the subject. “How would I not look like a freak, Paula? Let’s say I told him. Why would he not immediately think I’m either nuts or making a joke?”
“What about the images?”
I mulled it over. Every so often, during intense climax, I continued to get strange images, like pieces of him. “What if I’m taking them from him? What if it’s a new level of feeding?”
The corkscrew clanged from the kitchen. My nerves zinged. I wanted to switch subjects, but I saw Paula’s determination.
“Or maybe it’s the proof you can use to show him what you are. Reciprocity means you have to be fully honest and open before you can fully receive any kind of curative energy. Alejandro is very specific on this. I wish you’d just come with me, once, to see what he means.”
I could hear the fridge open and close. Justin checking on his marinade.
I rolled my eyes. “A microscope isn’t going to make my fear any easier.”
“I think that’s an excuse.”
On loud footfalls, probably to warn me he was coming, Justin brought a tray of mozzarella and tomato drizzled in Italian dressing. He set it down, looked once at me, and quickly departed back to the kitchen.
“You don’t understand, Paula. Justin gets me. He knows I need coffee to be sane in the mornings. He knows how to make me laugh. He rocks out to silly music with me and even when he’s gone for weeks, I’m okay.” I hugged my knees and focused on the afternoon Malibu view. The clouds grayed the spring sky. How could I explain to her that maybe a short time with incredible would be worth the eventual long time without? “I don’t know how. I can’t let it end yet.”
“Don’t think like that. It isn’t an end. Telling him will free you both.”
Or ruin what we had now. “I’ve decided to tell him if it gets to the point where my feeding is endangering him. This could be as cured as I’ll be. Maybe he won’t become enslaved. Maybe that is the solution. Finding the one person who feeds us, but we don’t destroy because they love us and accept us.”
“Seth loved you.”
I glanced back to be sure Justin was still out of earshot. “Seth met someone within three weeks and they are now married.”
“Fine. Suit yourself.” Paula smiled tightly. “But we may be out of time.”
I frowned at her. “What?”
“Remember Gigi? The redhead? Jimi turned her succu-slu
t. She found me and warned me. He’s still looking for us. She said he can’t survive without us. Literally. Which means if we don’t cure us, he’ll get desperate.”
“What do you mean literally? Like he feeds off of us?”
“I don’t know. Gigi compared it to ants, only he’s the queen and we bring him his food.”
Nausea roiled up my throat. Old familiar flashes of being drained and sustained by Jimi all at once. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t crawl at Jimi’s naked feet again, begging for mercy. Or for more.
I could hear Justin close the utensil drawer. I tried to smile and nodded. He’d join us any second now, ready to serve the first course.
“This isn’t just for you, Liv. It’s for me, too.”
“How will we find you love?”
“I don’t know. For now, I’ll take hope. And you telling him is our only one left.”
Her eyes grew glassy. I didn’t want her to cry, and not simply because I could feel Justin approaching behind me.
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell him.” Not right away. Not without figuring out how the hell to make him believe and not leave me. Soon. “I will.” When the time was right. Until then, I’d love him with all I had.
That night I dreamed of Jimi. His skin glistened with crimson tinged sweat. His hips drove softly against mine in that familiar tease that always sent me over the precipice. He whispered my name. The sound tugged at my heart. Deep red smoky tendrils curled from him, tickling into me. His chiseled face above mine. Those alluring autumn eyes, smoky with desire and power. I awoke with his name on my lips, drenched. For the first time since I’d left, I missed him. So deeply it hurt.
I rolled over and took Justin’s hand in his sleep. My fingers trembled. My whole body shook. I shut my eyes tight, telling myself repeatedly that it was only a dream. A bad, bad dream. I could almost feel the sparks of Jimi’s climax peppering my skin. Then I felt Jimi whisper my name again.
Liv.
Two cities and a raw ulcer later, as Justin sang in the shower, I sat on the edge of the bed in a pleather corset and matching thigh-highs, listening, chewing my thumbnail. What Paula told me wouldn’t leave me alone. Jimi’d turned Gigi. I didn’t even know Gigi unless the back of her head between my best friend’s legs counted as an introduction. More than Paula’s words, the tone to them. She was scared. Jimi wanted us back. I’d found love and possibly a cure for my lust. Paula hadn’t and probably wouldn’t. She didn’t play the game. She just fucked and sucked and fed at will.
If I told Justin—assuming I could find the nerve to and that he’d actually believe me—the magic of reciprocal exchange would occur and I’d be free. Jimi would in turn be free of me. And he’d hunt only Paula. My Paula. I couldn’t protect her as well if I didn’t feel the same driving need, could I?
The shower stopped. I watched Justin’s tanned body move as he stepped out, grinning from a good beer buzz, and toweled off. Water trickled down the lean, corded muscles of his arms. His wet hair lay tousled and mischief shone in his eyes.
“What’s up your sleeve, Liv? Or should I say, down your thong?”
I leaned back enough to arch my back and open my legs. “Sorry. Nothing in a thong here.”
His eyes widened at the site of my bare pink skin. He tossed the towel on the floor and walked to me. I inched back on the bed, indecision tangling up in my attraction for him. I didn’t need to feed and that made every little detail of our lovemaking so much better. Surreal.
Justin loved me.
His hair dripped on my chest and top curves of my breasts. A little shiver went over my skin. His eyes alone could make me wet. Then they did. His lids went half mast as his gaze roved over me, looking as though it was the first time. His knee came softly up against my bare, moistening sex. “You drive me crazy,” he said.
I knew the feeling. But right now, I had to stay sane and in control. I twined my arms and legs around his back and rolled our bodies so that I sat on top. His hard dick lay beneath me and I couldn’t resist winding wet circles against it. His hands gripped my hips. A low moan escaped his lips. I stopped.
“Justin,” I whispered.
“Yes?”
“Do you ever feel like it’s more than attraction between us?”
“Of course there’s more. There’s love. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.”
My chest squeezed, a bittersweet pain. “I know. Me, too. But what I mean is, when we’re together, does it ever feel like you’re losing a part of yourself?”
He laced his hands behind his head and half smiled. “Is this more of your witchy woo woo stuff.”
“A little. Just humor me. Does it feel like I’m taking from you?”
“You mean beyond the obvious sucking me dry that you do?”
I wacked his belly. The muscles bunched, outlining the hard planes. “I’m serious, Justin.”
“Ouch. Okay, you win. I’m afraid it isn’t what you want to hear, though.”
I waited, uncertain what I did want to hear.
“When we’re together, it’s like I come apart and then get pieced back together again. For a moment, I lose myself to you. But I always come back whole.”
It was so sweet, how he weighed each word so carefully, then simply looked at me.
“Wrong answer?”
“No, not wrong.” My stomach clutched. Nearly every part of me screamed against this idea. But, for Paula, for Justin. For me, I had to try. “I have to tell you something and I doubt you’ll believe me and I’m scared of what you will think of me.”
The moment suspended and Justin waited, looking at me with deep, naked love. I memorized his face, his body, my heart. It might never be like this again. “Do you know what a succubus is?”
He frowned and cocked his head a little. “Something that sucks?”
I grinned. “Sort of. It’s like a vampire, but instead of blood, a succubus needs sex to live. It feeds off of attraction and lust.”
“Are you saying I’m a succubus?” he teased, pulling me down to his chest.
I propped my chin on my fists atop his pecs. He grabbed a pillow for his head, keeping his eyes on me. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“You’re not,” I said, ignoring the feel of Jimi beckoning to me in my head. “But I am.”
His smile fell. “Liv, what’s really going on here? You haven’t been yourself this week.”
“I’m not myself. I’m worried. You see, I don’t know if vampires are real, but I do know that if I have too much or too little of you sexually, I get sick.”
“Wow. Uh, thanks.”
Shit. I sat back up. Too late to turn back now. “When we’re together, I feed off of you. Sometimes, I even get images from you. And I’m scared I’m taking from you, piece by piece, bit by bit, and I’ll eventually either destroy you or have to leave.”
“Are you trying to leave, Liv? Is that what this is about?” He sat up, too, scooting me to his thighs.
“No.”
“Really? Because it feels like you have one foot out the door. It always does. And if you need the door held open—“
“Stop! No. Please, don’t say that, Justin.” Sorrow and fear clotted in my throat.
“Then tell me you’ll stay. Tell me I don’t have to worry about you leaving. Ever.”
How could I promise such a thing? Should I just lie? It felt as though my heart was being gripped in a vise. It hurt to breathe. “Forget what I said, okay? I’m not leaving. I don’t want to ever leave.”
His intent, yet wary gaze searched mine. “You really believe you’re a succubus, don’t you? You think you’re taking parts of me?”
I barely nodded. “I get images. Of a ring with a heart-shaped emerald. I get a scene with a redhead in all sorts of scenarios.” Though his eyes shadowed with disbelief, I couldn’t stop. I felt that inner tug worsen and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear Jimi had just whispered in my ear—don’t. “I see her in a hammock with you. I can feel you love her. You’
re young and it hurts, but you love her.”
Justin sat back more. I felt like an animal he was moving away from. A dangerous creature. I hated it. But I couldn’t stop now. The pull inside of me ached and memories of Jimi flooded my brain. His tattooed arms embracing my naked curves. His wicked tongue driving me mad. I shook my head to try to clear it.
“So, you’re a little psychic,” Justin said, his voice low. “Or are you a little deranged?”
I wanted to smile. This was what I’d known would happen. This is what Paula couldn’t understand. And she was right not to. She’d never been in love. I couldn’t leave her behind. And no matter how much my body suddenly craved Jimi Gale, I had to ignore it. Better yet, I took it as a sign that I was on the right track.
“I might be deranged. I wish I wasn’t. But, Justin, please, you have to know I’m being honest.”
If Alejandro’s theory was correct, Jimi and I were connected. And he would feel himself about to lose me. If I was part of what he needed to live, what would losing me mean to him?
“Liv,” Justin said, shaking his head.
What could I do, what else could I say? I had to erase that wariness from his eyes, from his heart. I reached for him. “Please. Let me just show you?”
I could hear Jimi’s longing, a deep ache. I could see Justin’s mistrust. The only thing I could think to do to eliminate both, could put my heart and soul at risk. It could hurt Justin. Permanently.