Candlemoth: A Holy City Romance (2 page)

I reddened.  “I’ve been fending for myself for quite a while now,” I said, trying to be nonchalant as we swung into the private entrance of the house.  A curtain of heavy, air-conditioned silence instantly drew over us.  I lowered my voice in spite of myself, taking in all the fancy antiques, the deep plush of the rugs.

Then I realized his hand still rested lightly at the small of my back.  Possessively.  Awareness of his touch burned through me like a torch.   

“Well, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you looked like you could use a little help, pretty,” he said.  He got that playful look in his eyes again.  “You think vodka absorbs through the skin?  I feel a little buzzed.”

“That’s the adrenaline,” I said.

“My heart
is
beating pretty fast,” he said, grinning at me as he held open the door to the bathroom.  I slipped in and he stood in the doorway, still holding the door. 

Still watching me.

I was about to ask him his name when I caught sight of myself in the mirror. 

Even in the forgivingly rich dim of the elegant bathroom, I looked disheveled and flushed.  My long, shiny black hair had escaped from my once tidy bun into a frazzled mess, and my pale eyes looked bright and starstruck. 

Suddenly I realized what I looked like to him.  Like an anonymous peasant girl.  An easy roll in the hay. 

Well, if that’s what he thought, he was dead wrong.

“Well, thanks.  You should get back to the party now,” I said, snapping back to my senses.  I ducked my head and turned on the tap, rinsing my cuts clean.  Threads of blood ran over the sides of my arm and disappeared down the drain. 

Focus, Lily.

“You don’t like it when people help you, do you?” he said.

“Not particularly,” I said.

Then he was behind me, so close I could feel the heat of his body through my clothes.  He smelled like lemons and cedar, and something else I couldn’t name.  Something old, something powerful. 
Sex.

I felt nerves all over my body sharpen and dance to the surface.  I went blurry with desire.

I wanted him away from me, now.  This was crazy! 

He was a complete stranger- and anybody could see we were impossibly different.  I mean, here I was, this loner foster kid who’d basically never been kissed, and there he is: rich, gorgeous, impossibly cut.

But I wanted him.  Specifically, I wanted him to fuck me.  Some secret, traitorous part of me wanted it, desperately needed it, and I couldn’t get the bad thoughts out of my head. 

What would it feel like to have him press against me?  His full length, the sensuous hardness of him.  And his gorgeously full, sullen mouth in the mirror- I could see it just above my shoulder- how would that taste? 

I ached for his body, his weight. 

The wanting went deep.  I wanted him inside me.  Every inch…

I flushed. 

I’d never had these kinds of thoughts before.  The masterpiece of my life was having learned how to glass myself inward, burying my heart so deep that I didn’t even know where it was buried.

This guy was tripping off all my alarms and yet I couldn’t even begin to run away!  What the hell was wrong with me?

“Easy,” the maddening stranger said.  As if I were some wild horse. 

Gently, he took my hand in his again.  He was darkly tanned, every line of his body perfectly sculpted.  My familiar tea-colored skin, usually so dark next to the pale Southern Belles I’d grown up with, looked delicate beside his own. 

Somehow, that turned me on even more.  How different he was.  How sun-dark and rock-hard...

He turned down the faucet to a trickle, and ran his thumbnail up the edge of my cut.

“Ouch!” I cried, as he carefully lifted out a splinter of glass.  It hurt more coming out than it had coming in, and I felt a ribbon of fire sail briefly under my skin.  “I didn’t know that was still in there.” 

Behind us, the bathroom door fell closed with a heavy, expensive click like a limousine’s door.  He held the splinter of glass up between us so I could see it, his hips so close that if I swayed even slightly we would have touched.  I couldn’t help smiling up at him. 

“See, you need me after all,” he said.

I flipped my hair out of my face irritably.  “I don’t
need
anybody,” I said, rolling my eyes, moving away. 

“Wait,” he said, his hand near my waist.  He reached down to the cabinet beneath the sink.  “I think they’ve got bandages down here.”

“You must know these people pretty well,” I said, but he didn’t respond, busying himself with opening a silver-plated first aid kit.  It was neatly stocked with band-aids, hydrogen peroxide, bandaging tape, nail scissors, everything you could want. 

“Come here,” he said, without looking at me.  When I didn’t obey, he gave me that mischievous, smirky look again and tugged me close.  He bandaged my arm expertly, smoothing the fabric tape flat. 

“There.  Now you won’t bleed through your shirt.”  He grinned.  “Now, admit it.  You need me just a little bit.”

It didn’t help that he was impossibly cute.  And now we were standing toe to toe. 

“Maybe just a little,” I said.

“What, no kiss?” he said, still grinning down at me.

I laughed.  “Thanks.  Really.  But I gotta go, they’ll be wondering where I went,” I said, escaping before he could grab me again. 

But as I passed him, his hand trailed against mine, almost as if by accident.  Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something like wistfulness in his eyes.

But I didn't trust myself to look back. 

I fixed my hair as I hurried towards the door.  As I passed a mirror that looked like it belonged in a museum, I tugged out a tube of tinted chapstick and slicked it on. 

There.  I looked almost like myself again. 

I quickly rolled down my black shirt sleeves.  Even though it was warm outside, I didn’t want to look like some escaped patient.  “Even though I kind of am,” I thought to myself, grinning at the memory of my would-be rescuer.  I used the mirror to glance behind me again. 

Where was he?

No way had he slipped back out into the party with blood still on his shirt.  This was definitely not that kind of place.

Was he upstairs somewhere…? 

I pictured him shirtless, his abdominal muscles cording as he shrugged on a fresh shirt.  His long fingered hands, deftly buttoning away that gorgeous torso of his.  What a crying shame...

I thought of the hard, beautifully cut muscles I’d felt beneath his warm, wet shirt.  The electric heat of his hips so near to mine. 

His scent still clung to me, too, faint and unforgettable.  That sexy squint of his and his rich dark tan.  The mouth that was so kissable it was impossible to think of it doing anything else.

Except…

I rushed outside, shocked at myself.  I couldn’t understand how I was getting so carried away.  All my life, while other girls squealed and obsessed about the cute guys in class, I’d never been able to understand what the big deal was.

Suddenly, I got it.

As annoyed as I was with the way this stranger had scooped me along with him so effortlessly, I couldn’t stop thinking what it would be like to have him crush me against the wall and take me in his arms.  To have him cover me in open-mouthed kisses with that infuriating mouth of his... 

It was like he’d ambushed me, body and soul.  I couldn’t get him out of my head.  I wanted to be where he was.

So where was he?

Beren ran towards me.  “There you are!  I was worried, what the hell happened?”

“I spilled drinks all
over
these people, and some glass broke in the glass, and then-” My shoulders sagged.  “Oh shit.  I need to tell Chef.”

“Uh, honey, Chef
knows
.”

“Is he pissed?” I said.

“He was until he heard it was you that did it!”  Beren’s lovely mouth curved into a naughty grin.  “He’s hot for you, girl.  I don’t know why you don’t shake it more, what yo’ mama gave you- you oughta fan that pretty tail, we aren’t here forever!”

“Can’t you tell?  I’m so clumsy, I’d probably bring about the end of the world as we know it,” I said.

He took my arm, slowing me down as we passed in front of the band.  “Well, you go for it, Miss Kali.”

“Oh, very nice, the goddess of destruction, I’ll take it.”  Moving my shoulders in time to the music, I scanned the crowd furtively, looking for my mystery man.

“Thought you would… Hey… so, you seem a little distracted.”  Beren squeezed me as we headed together towards the kitchen.  “I’m going crazy!  Are you going to tell me about him or not?”

“I… don’t know his name, actually.”  I looked up at the twilight.  “But holy shit!  Look, my hands are shaking.”

“My whole body is shaking.  This crowd, they’re like vampires, I’ve never seen anybody go through trays so fast.”

“Oh wow, you guys covered up my mess perfectly.  You can’t even tell I was there.”

“Mm-hmm, I got you girl.  Which means you might have to cover for me tonight.”  Beren locked glances with the sexy gymnast he’d been eyeing up earlier.  “You read me?” he said, still grinning, talking sideways, and I cracked up. 

“Ah, you’re terrible!”

“You picking up what I’m putting downnn?” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, no problem, I’ll cover for you.”

“Right.  I’ve got to go.  Kiss kiss.  And good luck in there, babe, don’t take no shit.”

On the way through the door I crossed paths with Hazel, Chef’s last victim.  Everything about Hazel was dark and sultry.  She had long, thick dark hair and a tan as rich and golden as wildflower honey. 

And she could wear an anklet like nobody’s business.  We were supposed to wear black trousers and simple black button ups, but Hazel was always putting a spin on things- wearing tight black capris and chic little black ballet flats that showcased her pretty legs. 

In her spare time, people said she ran some kind of Wiccan sex-magic class, but I didn’t know her all that well.  Hazel was the kind of girl people just wanted to talk about, whether or not anything they had to say was true.  I know all about being
that kind of girl
.  So I also knew how much rumors hurt- and so I chose not to believe everything I heard. 

Anyway, at the end of the shift last night, Chef had screamed at Hazel for taking a guest’s steak order down wrong.  She’d put it in as medium-rare when apparently the guest had said he wanted it rare.   But the way Chef exploded, you would have thought Hazel had spat in the guy’s food. 

I hated yelling, but you could tell Hazel
really
hated it. 

She seemed to shrink down three sizes, like the girl in the Alice in Wonderland cartoon.  But Hazel stood there taking it until Chef was finished.  When she walked away, still without saying a word, her head was still held high.  I loved her for that.

Afterwards, Chef was the one who looked like the asshole. 

I was glad she’d hadn’t just walked out forever.  I mean, I would have.  Everybody knew chefs were under a lot of stress but that didn’t give them permission to treat staff like disposable silverware.

She and I hip-bumped hello in the doorway.  “Hey lady, where you been?” I said.

“I had to come late, I had a class.  Hey, I heard what happened, but don’t worry, I got Chef all warmed up for you,” Hazel said.  “He’s ready to explode!”

“Oh no!” I must have looked horrified because then she squeezed my hand gently.

“I’m just kidding, Lily” she said.  “He was apologizing to me about yesterday.  He said his girlfriend had just sent him some bitchy text and everything was going wrong and he just lost it or something.  Anyway, he seems like he’s in a pretty good mood now.  In there drinking champagne, feeling no pain.”

“Perfect.”

I could smell the metallic sweet smell of champagne on Hazel’s breath too.  She gave me a conspiratorial wink and floated out into the crowd. Dusk was thick in the trees now, and the candles on the tables looked like fireflies.  You could tell
everybody
was getting liquid from the champagne the way people moved now.  Everyone stood a little closer together.  Hands lingered a little longer on shoulders and hips.  Love was in the air.

I saw the bride and groom arrive and turned to admire them.  I saw the happy flush on their cheeks, the tender look in their eyes when they looked at each other.  Even though they were walking into a crowd, they looked like they were alone in a world made of just the two of them.

Then a familiar dark-haired presence strode towards them.  It was him, of course, but my body registered him before my mind did.  It was like an electric bolt shot right through me.  His thick, dark hair was neatly shaved in the back, and I wanted nothing more than to trail my fingers up his neck, pull him against me so that I could feel his warm, heavy body near mine again.

We locked eyes across the lawn.  In the dark his gaze seemed even more sensuous, almost smoky.  His lips lifted ever so slightly into that mysterious smile, and he broke off from the couple- turning towards
me
!