Denial (Goblin's Kiss Series Book One)

by Cyndi Goodgame

  His eyes darkened when I turned to him abruptly.

  “And you do?” I questioned carefully.

  “Emma. Don’t ask me what you shouldn’t hear. For now, I want you safe. You are not ready for marriage and neither am I, nor are either of us safe to make a mistake we would regret.” His voice shuddered with need and want and something else. It scared me, but excited me only because he was being that great of a guy.

  “For now, we enjoy just being together. If that’s what you want?”

  What I want. I don’t want anyone else. “It is.”

  “Then together it is.” His voice grew deeper and he breathed in unsteadily causing me to do the same. I caught the scent of his earthy pine and wondered then if it was a different cologne I hadn’t registered before or simply just ode de Ames. “And when the time is right, I will ask you to marry me and be mine forever. I have no doubt that you are the one for me, Emma. If that scares you, I don’t mean for it too. I just want you to know the truth.”

  He’d accepted my teenage drama past and acknowledged we were still too young to make quick decisions about a future together. Besides, I had to finish high school first. I won’t pretend that it’s not freaking scary that a guy just said he wanted to marry me, but my inner diva was dancing around screaming Hooyah! Amongst this inner screamfest, I leaned in and multitasked trying to see if he was wearing cologne or not.

  “Are you smelling me?” he asked obviously startled by my silly notion. How embarrassing.

  “Um...you always smell really good. Is it your cologne?”

  “I don’t have any on at the moment. Had other things pressing on my mind than primping this morning. Guess I’m just that irresistible.” He spread his arms out before him in arrogance. I slapped his arm playfully.

  “Incidentally, you smell good too.”

  “Surprise. Perfume, no. Lotion, yes. Honeysuckle.”

  His eyes brightened a little and he even licked his lips. I was so far from talented in the flirting department since Rick messed me up.

  “I could tell. It was my goal to figure it out.”

  “When did you figure it out?” I wasn’t sure this was going to be the answer I was looking for. With Ames, I was always surprised.

  “The first day you walked into my realm. Honeysuckle grows right outside the entrance and you caught me picking one of the flowers when I realized it.”

  The hard edged Ames I met that first few days was a lot more carefree and eased into himself. I liked that he was telling me little things like this. It was kind of poetic, but I’d never tell him in case he took it wrong and stopped saying them.

  In the car I changed into jeans and the red t-shirt I knew Ames silently liked, but hated. He kept his eyes forward but popped his neck a few dozen times to stop himself from looking back. He grunted and adjusted in the seat more than a few times. I liked having that affect on him.

  “You could hurry. It isn’t easy on a guy to know your naked back there.”

  “Maybe that’s why I’m taking my time,” I said bravely.

  “Wow! She’s daring with her other weapons as well.” His voice was husky even as he tried to be playful.

  I couldn’t come up with a comeback that didn’t sound too unladylike, so I just climbed over the seat and popped a kiss on his cheek.

  He kept his eyes on the road while I asked questions I thought he might finally answer.

  I did clarify the whole goblin’s kiss thing that Brooks started and never finished. Turns out, every goblin king found his mate and his “oh so awesome” kiss made her swoon with longing and she was his forever. That could be very dangerous, you know. What if you kissed your mother as a child out of childhood innocence when she tucked you in at night?

  Ames didn’t laugh at my assessment, but he did say that I wasn’t the first girl he’d kissed. I’d already figured that since he was a “really good kisser”! As jealous as it made me, I also knew he was mine now. Forever. The goblin’s kiss was a permanent thing that can only be shared among our own kind if one of them is a blood heir. Guess that says he wasn’t kissing any other queen to be’s, but I didn’t want to think about that either.

  And his father had married a human. He loved her and that’s all that mattered in my book. Perhaps Ames had redeemed my faith in men and was even handed down by his father as a gift solely for me. I wished we could have known him.

  I wanted the subject to change before it went all serious again so I asked, “Didn’t you say you had to take me somewhere?”

  AMES

  She was still a young girl on the inside. Her ability to make decisions, talk like an adult made her wise beyond her years, but she was still young. I wouldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. She might have been brave with the Joshlin thing, but inside she was screaming for normal again. I could meet her halfway.

  Her being almost completely naked in my backseat didn’t make my focus on the road very well. They say cell phones are dangerous while driving! Try having the girl you vastly want to have your way with sitting naked in the back while you’re stuck in the front...in drive.

  She asked about Wicker and Katelyn and was completely surprised but genuinely excited for her new friend. By the way she talked, they’d become better than just friends in the end just as predicted. I was happy for all of them. Now, I just wanted to see Emma aim a smile meant for only me.

  When she brought up that her body was indeed naked, I almost wrecked the Jeep keeping my eyes on the friggin’ road. She didn’t cool off her raging desire even as she climbed back over and gave me a momma’s kiss on the cheek. That wasn’t the kind of kissing I had in mind.

  I pinched my legs through my jeans to get my mind cleared. When I could trust myself to move to a topic that didn’t involve a bed and clothes on the floor in my mind (or a backseat), I looked back at her.

  I told her she would go back and finish her senior year of school. I would pick her up and drop her off for school meant only for her safety. She giggled at the idea of her “boyfriend” dashing in and dashing out every day.

  “So I’m your boyfriend, is it?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “I’m not sure you can call a goblin prince who kissed me and made me all googly eyed with want, a boyfriend.”

  “Oh, so my girlfriend is not the princess of the goblin realm with more superpowers than Superman and guts like steel.”

  “Touché.”

  “Will you keep an open mind when I take you into my lair?” I wiggled my eyebrows trying to lighten the mood for the coming events to take place.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “I don’t mean to. It’s just...you’re the only one I’ve ever told or shown this too. No one but the king or queen can know about it.”

  I turned onto the road leading to the cabin and a point of no return.

  “I’m no queen,” she scoffed.

  She asked if Joshlin knew. He wasn’t a real king. So that would be a no. And I never intended to tell him.

  At the entrance to my personal road leading to the cabin, was Caydon. He was set back in the trees where he knew I’d see him. He was there when I brought her here the first time. It was another warning. He wouldn’t wait long. Ignoring him, I focused back on the girl in question.

  “I beg to differ on you renouncing your title. I am the one who watched a girl command a king to step down and give up his crown with the crack of her proverbial whip. You, my love, are just what the realm needs.”

  EMMA

  I stiffened as the car stalled and Ames pocketed the keys. My body went cold from my toes to my brain. His door closed and I couldn’t bring myself to move.

  My own door swooshed open, and there stood two black boots facing me. I was lost sometimes with what was magic from Ames and what was normal. I followed them up to his face taking time to appreciate his beauty. No, he’d never like that word, but he was. He was all muscle and man and just scrumptious to look at.

  His un-agenda-like smil
e told me he had no idea what he’d just called me and in no way would I tell him. He called me his love. How many more things would I learn about him before he could tell me with awareness that he was doing it?

  I trudged one foot out and made the other follow taking his hand to loop up and out of the car. We walked together into the cabin, his hand out to let me lead.

  I wanted to close my eyes and go back in some ways. Have the moment on the back porch back. The spaghetti. But I was positive of something else. I didn’t want to go back home to a life of being ignored and hiding who I was. I thought I did before, but now...

  “What will we find here?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “We are going down below it.”

  Below it? I raised my own brow at him the way he did me when I made him wait.

  “You’ll see,” he swallowed a mouthful of air before nervously flipping the rug in the hall closet.

  Who keeps a rug in a closet? Oh, a door...in the floor. Ames lifted a creaking mystery worthy trapdoor from the floorboards of the empty closet. Well, empty except for one coat that I never saw him wear.

  “After you, my queen.”

  “Not yet I’m not,” I sing-songed and enjoyed that same rare smile he gave Brooks and Wicker that was becoming more of a stationary thing. Except I noticed the smiles he gave me lifted the tiny dimple in his chin.

  “Time will go by faster than we might realize.” He took my arm in his grip. “After you see this, you can’t go back. Really, it’s too late. You already know about the door to get in now.”

  “Ames, I’m not leaving you. You aren’t the only one who’s in too deep. I might have been a silly school girl a few days ago, but I’m not that girl anymore. And she wants to be with you no matter the cost.”

  He might not have realized he was holding his breath. “You really want to be with me?”

  He doubted it still? Guess girls weren’t the only ones with insecurity issues.

  “I told you. I have not been able to focus since the day I met you. You crawled into my head and left a permanent mark on me. I want...” I gained the courage, “I want to stare at you all freaking day and kiss you worse than anything, but most of all I love your courage and determination.”

  The next thing I know, I was being squeezed half to death and my mouth was being overtaken by earthy man scented Ames Cahn. His kiss was urgent and his hands were moving south gripping fabric. I felt him stop on the top of my hips, but wanting to move further. I didn’t think he would, but the small excitement of knowing he wanted to, thrilled me. Who didn’t want to be wanted?

  He broke the kiss and panted into my hairline trying to bring himself back under control. I can’t say I didn’t like his lack thereof.

  I thought of my friends back home. If only they would keep their self-respect and know that the right person would wait for them to be ready. Maybe I’d get a chance to tell them.

  “Give me a second and we will head on.” His shuddering made me shiver too. Glad it wasn’t just me.

  “I like this.” I sounded lame. Classy. Great come back.

  He grinned well...smugly.

  A kiss landed on my forehead and his hand indicated to move down the steps.

  All the way down the steps and then some. At least thirty of them. They weren’t too narrow except at the top, but I had to keep my balance and feel the wood move each time I advanced as well as when Ames’ body came down behind me.

  The walls were all rock, red, and combed with ribbons of gold and silver matter all across it. Light was coming from somewhere, but who would have lit it? The more I focused and scanned what I could see it seemed more like a glow. The walls themselves kind of shimmered, but not like diamonds.

  At the bottom step I glanced up to be sure he was still there. He had maybe ten steps go so I found myself walking away, but not far.

  A very large, depressed open area, much like a humongous basement, lay before me. It was paved with the same metallic substance that lined inside the walls leading to a passageway. A carefully carved column colonnade stood in patterns around making a star-like shape that gave me the impression they were more for vertical support. One...two....seven columns in all.

  I nonchalantly checked the ceiling above just to be sure it didn’t appear close to caving in. The same dark amber colored rocks were mixed into the grays and reds browns.

  “You are in my first home, or what were my ancestors, as is now yours.”

  Home? “We’re in a cave Ames, not a house.”

  “We look human Emma, but we are not. Our first home was that of the mountains where our ancestors carried on our world until one of the many wars between our own people destroyed that era. We moved above the mountain out of preservation for our heritage after a time of rebuilding became mundane in the eyes of the rulers at the time. Our caverns remained either way. Your father’s ancestors and mine were residents here before another’s greed drove my brother and me above to where the palace stands now. In pieces mind you,” he jested.

  “Not that I can take that all right now, but what do you mean your brother and you? He isn’t your real brother so why do you call him that.” I hated to sound bitter, but I couldn’t have compassion for the guy at the moment. He kind of kidnapped me.

  On the bottom step now, he dusted his hands like I had and walked over to the closest column. He handled the walls and traced the carvings around them. They were beautiful. I hadn’t noticed them before.

  “No, he is not my real brother. He was taken in by my father not long after I was born when his own parents perished in an accident. My father felt responsible for it since he ordered his parents to retrieve something and the traveling ended in a fire that took both their lives.”

  “How terrible. Not that I feel completely sorry for him, but no one should have to go through that.”

  His eyes lifted to me. “Unlike the two of us who lost both our parents to the war it caused?”

  My head hurt. I didn’t like being reminded that I knew nothing about my parents. Maybe now I would and it hurt to find out the truth. Truth stinks sometimes. “Is that what happened?”

  “Later maybe. For now, let’s see what we have down here.” Ames took my hand and weaved us through the columns to a carved out room within the larger area. Inside, stone tables circled oval shaped walls with nothing in the middle. On each of the tables were stacks of gold in uneven shapes and covered in dirt and dust. Another table, singled out, was standing alone in the corner stacked with paper that looked more recent and without age. I glanced over at it recognizing Ames’ scraggly letters with a few spots standing out with my name on it. The name Jem, at least.

  “What is all this?” I fingered a small piece of the cold, dirty rocks that was closest to me.

  “Gold,” he answered.

  “Ames, don’t patronize me. Why is it here?”

  “It is yours. Or it became yours when your father took it.”

  “So if they lived down here, how did two kings come about in such a small area? I mean, I get that there are other realms, but why two here?”

  “Greed. One became the true king at his father’s death. The other grew up in his shadows. When my father became of age, he challenged his brother and won his own lands as part of the truce. You will see that with all of our people, time has a way of making a man’s greed control everything he does.” His eyes lingered on a pile of clumpy gold.

  Ahh—hence the irony of the gold.

  “Anyway, a treaty was made that each would stay on their own land (mountain) and several other small details were added that I know very little about.”

  When his eyes came back to me, they were sad.

  “Have you seen the treaty?”

  “No.”

  “So other realms are formed, but the rulers are not necessarily all related?” And it didn’t sound like his father was a good guy after all.

  He knew my reason for asking so he rolled his eyes at me and just shook his head. Half turning to tell him
off and demand faster answers, I didn’t expect to see what he had in his hands.

  A painting.

  “Who is that?”

  “Who do you think?” he asked holding it up then resting it against a corner of the table beside me to analyze.

  I looked closer eyeing Ames first to see if he was watching, though I knew he was. The paint was smooth on the canvas eaten with time or maybe even insects. Centered was a couple dressed in fancy Arthurian clothes with a baby nestled in the woman’s lap. They were young, maybe in their twenties. Their glow made them look inhuman, but it looked like it was just painted that way and not their real coloring. The baby had bright blue eyes. The mother had the same. Long brown hair with a touch of something lighter streaked through it. It was my hair on another girl just years older than me. The man beside her was young, good looking. He had long hair like even some human guys today wear it, but brushed and kept even across his brow.

  Ames was patient, but started to move his feet back and forth. I didn’t want to ask him what he wanted to ask, just knew he did. Instead, he reached over and pointed to the tiny bracelet around the baby’s wrist. His finger rubbed back and forth clearing the tiny letters that were starting to fade.

  JEM

  The name the people of both realms called me. The baby was me.

  AMES

  “Say something,” I begged.

  “Why do the realms not use a camera?”

  “I show you you’re not who you thought you were and you stay calm as though I’d just told you the sky is blue. Aren’t you the least bit afraid or upset?”

  “Oh, trust me. I’m so freaked out right now,” she bit her bottom lip. “But I trust you.”

  She could not have said anything more perfect that those words.

  “I don’t know her name,” she barely said.

  She didn’t. I haven’t thought to tell her. I hate that she went so long without knowing her parents. We both lost them, but I at least knew their legacies. Good or bad as they may be.