Dark Secrets Unveiled (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Book 45)

by I. T. Lucas

  Wrapping her arms around his neck, Sari pulled him in for a kiss.

  He could taste himself on her tongue even though he hadn’t come in her mouth, and it was erotic as hell.

  His shaft found her entrance without any help from his hand, and as he pushed the tip in, she lifted up and took a couple more inches inside her.

  David surged the rest of the way in and then stilled.

  He was too close to climaxing, and he wanted it to last a little longer.

  Sari was impatient, though, and as she arched up under him, he had no choice but to start thrusting.

  Breathing heavily, her nails digging into his back muscles, Sari widened her legs and took him even deeper.

  He kissed her again, but pretty soon it became impossible to keep their mouths fused.

  Snaking one hand under her bottom and the other under her head, he angled her up and went wild.

  As her breathing became more labored, and her sheath convulsed around his shaft, she threw her head back and uttered one of her silent screams.

  He wanted to tell her to let go and scream as loudly as she could, but as his own climax barreled through him, the thought evaporated, and the only thing that mattered was the immense satisfaction of filling his woman with his essence.

  Completion.

  Elation.

  Breathless and covered in sweat, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly to him. “My Sari.” He kissed her softly.

  Holding him just as closely as he held her, she kissed him back. “My David.”

  For long moments, they held on to each other, but even though Sari was a strong immortal female, his weight on her couldn’t be comfortable.

  Taking her with him, he turned them both to their sides.

  She tucked her head under his chin. “Don’t fall asleep.”

  “Why not?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, he felt a tear slide down his chest.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I’m not.”

  Hooking a finger under her chin, he lifted her head, so she had to look into his eyes. “Liar.”

  She wiped at the tears that had pooled in the corners of her eyes. “I can’t lose you, David. It will kill me.”

  “You are not going to. I don’t know why you are so worried.”

  “I don’t know either. Maybe it’s because you are so precious to me. I’m not thinking logically.”

  “You are precious to me too.” He kissed her eyelids.

  David could understand her fear, and he counted himself lucky for falling in love with an immortal female who was practically indestructible.

  Perhaps that was why he’d allowed her into his heart?

  Because he couldn’t lose her?

  What others had thought of as his fear of commitment had actually been the fear of loss. After Jonah had died and Stacy had abandoned him in his grief, David had closed himself off to feeling anything deeper than casual friendship for others.

  If he didn’t get close to anyone, losing them wouldn’t cause him such intense grief.

  13

  Richard

  Richard arrived at Stella’s doorstep, holding a bag full of groceries in each hand, a bouquet of flowers tucked under his arm, a hopeful heart, and a raging desire.

  Even in the human world, he had never waited so long to get a woman into bed, and since he’d stopped his gigolo services, he hadn’t been with anyone.

  It was all good, though. In fact, it was better than good.

  There was something to be said for getting to know a woman and falling for her before getting intimate. There was a painful sort of pleasure in delaying gratification, a sense of wonder and anticipation that he’d only felt as a young boy with his first crush. Except, he was a man now, and the feelings he had for Stella ran much deeper.

  It was a little scary.

  She was the woman he wanted to be his everything, his forever, and he wasn’t sure that she felt the same about him. Cautious, reserved, and hiding dark secrets, she wasn’t ready to open up to him. And even if he managed to seduce her today, the road ahead was still full of uncertainty.

  Taking a deep breath, he put one of the bags down and was about to knock when Stella opened the door. “Good morning.” Her gaze flicked to the flowers. “Let me take these.” She carefully pulled the bouquet from under his arm. “Thank you. They are lovely.”

  He hefted the bags off the doorstep. “Not as lovely as you are.”

  As always, Stella looked beautiful. Her wild hair was partially gathered in a loose braid and tied off with a long string. The rest of it fell in long messy waves down her back. Most of it was dark brown, almost black, but she colored the bottom part blonde. It was odd, and yet it matched her bohemian style.

  She wore a white blouse that accentuated her tanned skin and a long multi-layered skirt. Richard usually didn’t notice such details, but it was hard to miss that each layer was made from a different fabric. Somehow, though, the different patterns and colors worked perfectly together.

  Like the woman herself.

  Stella had many layers, and he couldn’t wait to discover them all. Provided that she let him.

  She smiled. “You are such a charmer, Richard.” Kicking the door wide open, she motioned for him to come in. “Those bags look heavy.”

  “They are.”

  “Did you invite Vlad and Wendy to join us for lunch? Because that looks like way too much food for just the two of us.”

  She couldn’t be that naive. This wasn’t about entertaining family, it was about moving their relationship to the next step.

  “It’s only me and you, babe. You’ll have plenty of leftovers.” He followed her to the kitchen.

  Usually, immortals moved with an almost unnatural fluidity, but Stella was tense, and her gait was stiff. What was she so nervous about?

  She’d told him that she hadn’t been with anyone in a long time, so maybe anticipating the sex was making her nervous. Then again, as an immortal who had lived for as long as she had, Stella had had a lot of practice. Several weeks or even months of abstinence shouldn’t be a big deal for her.

  Nevertheless, he was going to be patient and take his cues from her. After all, this wasn’t about scoring a hookup. This was about a life-long partnership.

  “Can I help with something?” She leaned against the counter and watched him pull the supplies out of the bags.

  “You can sit over there.” He pointed to a barstool. “And keep me company while I work.”

  “I can do that.” She walked over to the stool, sat down, and rearranged her skirt.

  “Did you design the outfit you’re wearing?” Richard opened up with a topic that he knew would put her at ease.

  Stella loved talking about her designs. Come to think of it, she got the most animated when the subject of conversation was her work, but she clammed up when he tried to get her to talk about her personal life.

  “Of course.” She smiled and lifted her leg, flipping the skirt up. “No one makes this kind of layered skirts anymore. They used to be popular in the eighties.”

  “I like it.” He rinsed the lettuce and put it on the cutting board. “It makes you look like a gypsy.”

  Recalling that he needed to put the chicken in the oven before starting on the salad, Richard pulled out the covered dish with the sliced breasts that had been marinating for the past hour. According to the internet recipe, an hour, no less, no more, was needed to make the chicken ready for baking.

  Stella leaned her elbows on the counter. “That’s the idea. I always thought of myself as an honorary gypsy. I don’t like to stay in one place for too long.”

  “Do you like to travel?” He started chopping the lettuce into thin strips the way Wendy had shown him.

  “I do, but I haven’t done it in a long while.”

  “Why not?” He emptied the shredded lettuce into a salad bowl.

  “When Vlad was born, I had to stay put. We didn’t always have this communal li
ving arrangement. Before the village was built, we had the keep, but at first only Kian, the council members, and the Guardians lived there. The rest of us were scattered throughout the city, and some even lived in the Bay Area. I had a small house, and I dedicated my time to raising my son. I was friends with two other clan females who had boys Vlad’s age, and we helped each other out. We were fortunate to have conceived at around the same time. It’s rare for us. There was even a fourth boy, but I wasn’t friends with his mother, and later, they moved back to Scotland.”

  That was more than Stella had ever told him about herself.

  Perhaps the sound of him chopping vegetables was having a hypnotic effect on her?

  He pulled two tomatoes out of the bag and put them on the chopping board. “Are Vlad and the other boys good friends?”

  “The best. You’ve met Jackson, right?”

  Richard nodded. “He and Tessa came over to the cabin when we were staying there. His mother is the clan’s therapist.”

  Stella grimaced. “I hope she wasn’t one of the auction winners.”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  “That’s a relief.” Stella let out a breath.

  She’d never asked him about the clan females he’d had sex with, and naturally, he hadn’t volunteered the information. In fact, Stella hadn’t asked him much about his life in the human world either.

  They’d talked about his time in the government paranormal program, and he’d told her about his relationship with Jin, so she wouldn’t worry about him having any lingering feelings for his ex-girlfriend. He and Jin had dated only because they’d been compelled by Eleanor to do so, and not because they’d been in love. He liked Jin, and hopefully she felt the same about him, but once the compulsion had been removed, they remained just friends.

  He’d also told Stella about the kinds of jobs he’d had before the program so she wouldn’t think that he was a slacker, but she hadn’t asked about his family or his childhood.

  It hadn’t been the best time of his life, and he didn’t like to talk about it, but maybe if he did, she would open up to him and share some of her life experiences, even those that she wasn’t proud of.

  14

  Stella

  When Richard had asked Stella about her travels, she had gotten carried away and dangerously close to telling him too much about herself. Fortunately, he hadn’t continued that line of questioning and had chosen to ask about Vlad and his friends instead.

  If he went back to that, she would just switch things around and ask him to tell her more about himself. Most men were usually more than happy to do that. If they asked a woman to tell them about herself, it wasn’t because they were really interested in getting to know her better but because they wanted to seduce her.

  Except, that wasn’t the case with Richard. He wanted much more than that from her.

  Heck, she wanted more from him too, and she was curious about his past. But if he shared his life experiences with her, he would expect her to do the same, and that was dangerous.

  But how long could she keep everything about herself from him? What kind of a life would they have together if she did that?

  Her secret was hugely important, but it didn’t encompass her entire life. If she was careful, she could tell him about herself and just skip over the part she had sworn not to reveal.

  Pushing off the stool, Stella rounded the counter. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “What do you have?”

  She opened the fridge. “I have spring water, beer, and orange soda.”

  “What kind of beer?”

  “Blue Moon. It’s a very nice beer. I like that it’s not bitter.”

  “I’ll have some of that.”

  “Regular or mango flavored?”

  “Regular.”

  Naturally, manly men didn’t drink flavored beers, and Richard was definitely a manly man.

  Even his vegetable chopping technique was manly.

  She enjoyed seeing his large hand gripping the knife and his biceps flexing as he chopped things into tiny pieces.

  Frankly, it felt good to have Richard in her kitchen, acting all domestic as if he belonged there.

  She could get used to that.

  He was easygoing, easy to talk to, and he never pushed for more than she was willing to give. She’d worried that it would feel awkward to be alone with him in the house, but other than her fear of letting things slip, it wasn’t. As long as she was careful and stopped thinking about the damn secret, she could relax and enjoy her time with him.

  Why was she letting this one small piece of information dominate her life? It was nobody’s business, and she should just push it into some small corner of her mind and forget about it.

  Except, her damn brain didn’t work in straight, logical lines. It ran in circles, repeating the same thought over and over until she was ready to scream in frustration. Vanessa had taught her meditating techniques that were supposed to help empty her head of bothersome thoughts, but she could never relax enough to enter the meditative state.

  Regrettably, the chemical solutions that helped humans with her type of problem didn’t work on immortals unless consumed in enormous quantities, and she wasn’t ready to do that either.

  “Here you go.” She handed him the original flavored beer and took the mango flavored for herself.

  “Thanks.” He unscrewed the top and took a long sip. “It’s really good.”

  “The taste is great, but for immortals, the alcohol content is negligible. We metabolize it too fast. If and when you turn immortal, you’d probably prefer Snake Venom.”

  He grimaced. “I drank that stuff only because that’s what my buddies here drink, but it’s vile. Perhaps my taste buds will change once I turn immortal.” He smiled sadly. “If I turn.”

  She’d been the one who’d brought up the subject of his transition, but she shouldn’t have. Richard hoped to bond with her, thinking that was the missing ingredient, but it wasn’t certain, and she didn’t want to spoil the mood by talking about it.

  “Are Bowen and Leon your drinking buddies?”

  “And others. I’ve made several good friends in the village. Curiously, they are all Guardians.”

  “You have a way with people.”

  “I’m a salesman.” He winked. “It always starts with selling myself. It’s a learned skill.”

  “I doubt it. You were most likely born with it. Did you have many friends as a boy?”

  “I had a whole bunch, but we’ve lost touch over the years. Some got married and started families, others moved away.” He sighed. “You know how it is. People drift apart.”

  She chuckled. “Not in the clan. Whether we like it or not, we are stuck together for eternity. Our options are limited to the village, the castle in Scotland, and Annani’s sanctuary.”

  “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

  She shrugged. “For some it is, and for others, it isn’t.”

  “What about you?”

  “I feel cooped up. I hate staying put, and I hate seeing the same faces day in and day out. I need my freedom.”

  Richard paused his chopping and turned to look at her. “Now that Vlad is all grown up and lives with his girlfriend, you can go back to traveling.” He chopped the last remaining cucumber and dropped everything into the salad bowl. “I wish I could travel with you. We could go to Europe, get a motorhome, and drive from country to country like real gypsies.”

  That sounded like a dream. The one part that Stella hadn’t liked about her travels was the loneliness. She’d had no one to share her experiences with. Whenever she could, she’d called her mother and her few friends in the clan, but since there had been no cellphones back then, and making international calls had been difficult, that hadn’t happened too often.

  When the oven beeped, indicating that it had reached the desired temperature, Richard put the chicken inside and closed the door.

  She shifted on her barstool. “I have a business to
run. I can’t just drop everything and go traveling for a year.”

  “What did you do for money back then? Did your share in the clan’s profits cover all of your travel expenses?”

  “It didn’t. But I always found a way to supplement my income. I was a nurse back when no formal education was required to work as one. I did that in places where I stayed a while. In others that I only passed through, I sang and danced for money.”

  Richard smiled. “A real gypsy lifestyle. But wasn’t it dangerous for a woman alone? I know that immortal females are strong, but still. I shudder to think what might have happened to you. The world is a nasty place, with many who prey on the defenseless.”

  “I wasn’t defenseless. Unlike most immortal females, I’m a decent thraller and shrouder. If things looked as if they were about to get out of hand, I used my mental powers to defuse the situation.”

  Why hadn’t it occurred to her to thrall Richard before? She could have gotten the information about his telepathic talent without having to grill Jin for it.

  It was better this way, though. Thralling him without his knowledge would have been an invasion of privacy that would have made her feel guilty.

  “Vlad told me that he’s a powerful shrouder as well. I guess he inherited your gift.”

  “He’s much more powerful than I am.”

  Things were getting too close for comfort again, and it was time to move the conversation away from Vlad.

  “What countries have you been to?” Richard saved her the trouble.

  “I was always fascinated with the East. China, Japan, India, Tibet, and everything in between. I spent many decades there.”

  “Is that where you got your inspiration to design costumes?”

  Once again, Richard had unknowingly diverted the conversation away from the danger zone.

  “Naturally, some of my ideas are based on what I saw in my travels, but it wasn’t what got me into costume design. After I got pregnant with Vlad, I returned home, and I had to fill my time with something. I started with designing fun outfits for myself, and they served as an unintended advertisement. I’m also a theater fan, and I attend many plays and have friends in the theatrical community. One of them mentioned something about a production searching for a costume designer, and the rest was history. I started off slow, but everyone loved my costumes, word got out, and pretty soon, I had more work than I could handle.”