Compelled (The Secrets of Dragons Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter Two

As they drove by their motorhome, Alex pulled the bike over and Eric pointed to it. It was a big rig and she knew by the name on the side, it was one of the rare combinations of RV and toy hauler. They probably towed the small truck because it was parked out front. She drove up to stop beside them.

“Lead the way,” said Eric.

“To where?” Lou was under the impression their date was over.

“To your home,” replied Alex. “We want to know which one you live in.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request. Lou drove by them and continued down the road and over the small bridge. Hers was at the very end of the circle with the back deck overlooking the water. She pulled into the small driveway and hit the house alarm key to turn it off and open the garage door. Turning to hold up a finger so they would wait, she then pulled in and turned the bike off. She got off and walked back down the small, stone-covered driveway. Her smart car was parked off to the side, but she rarely used it for anything but shopping and rainy days.

Alex and Eric had pulled in behind her car and stood waiting for her. Did they expect her to invite them in?

“Do you have any decent coffee?” asked Alex. “We ran out and had planned to stop on the way home.”

And there was the question. Did she really want to invite them in? The conversation at the restaurant had faded out, and she never really answered them as to whether or not she was interested in joining them. The question would ultimately come up again if she invited them in. Of course she wanted them to come in and was interested. She just didn’t know if she was willing to admit it yet. Hesitating for a reasonable amount of time, she sighed heavily. “I guess it depends on your idea of good coffee.”

“We usually drink the organic dark roast they sell in the warehouse store, but Green Mountain is also good.”

“Come on in.” The invitation might be a mistake or it might not, she was about to find out.

****

Alex smiled. She was a gutsy little shit and he liked that. Eric often tended to be docile to the extreme, and a strong woman to balance out the relationship was desirable. Of course there was a fine line between strength and a woman who would argue about everything. That was something he didn’t like, and it had caused problems in their last relationship.

Eric grasped his hand as they followed Lou inside. They had discussed their mutual interest in her as they raced to get back to their bike before she made it to Main Street. Luckily for them the traffic was so heavy it had been faster to walk than ride. Lou had been surprised to see them, the expression on her face relaying her thoughts clearly. He knew she had been disappointed they hadn’t come after her. Alex was very good at reading facial cues and body language, and Lou would lose a fortune playing poker against him. Fortunately for them, she had told them what they needed to know, by the sag of her shoulders and the disappointment etched in her tightly pursed lips when she saw them missing from their seats.

She had been hesitant to let them come into her house and they would do nothing to lose the trust she was showing them by doing so. They would have coffee and see what happened from there. Everything with her from this moment on would be done with his say so. Eric was welcome to share an opinion if he cared to, but the final decision would be his based upon her reactions. Eric had less of an analytical mind and often made choices founded on pure emotion. Emotions were a good thing, but more often than not, they got Eric in trouble.

Lou’s house was for the most part clean and cheery. The colors of the sunset showed through the back patio door, but it would be safer is she kept the curtains closed when she wasn’t present. Did she close them at night? Just because there was water behind her house didn’t mean it wasn’t subject to prying eyes.

“Sorry the house is messy. I haven’t felt much like cleaning. Today I just wanted to get out and enjoy the weather.”

Was she sure she was from Florida? It had been sunny, but could have been fifteen or twenty degrees warmer. Eric shrugged off his jacket and hung the leather on the back of the chair. “I’d be happy to do the dishes for you.”

Lou turned to stare at him with a look of utter surprise that made him feel the need to intercede. “Believe it or not. Eric likes doing housework. Our motorhome is so clean you could eat off the floors. Dirty dishes in the sink bug the shit out of him.”

“Help yourself,” she replied, gesturing to the sink before turning and flipping the coffee maker on. “I have regular dark roast and vanilla; what’s your poison?”

Alex sat at the table. “I would love plain dark roast. Eric likes vanilla. So what’s your poison?”

“Are we still discussing coffee?” she asked with a smirk of a smile.

The woman certainly had an expressive face. “Have you ever played poker?”

She turned to the sound of the microwave being closed and frowned. Eric was also a fanatic about having a clean sponge and liked to nuke it to kill any germs. He wasn’t exactly a germaphobe, but had his moments.

“What are you doing?” asked Lou.

Eric cringed. Their former girlfriend had been extremely nasty about Eric’s eccentricities. It was one of many things they were constantly fighting about. He didn’t allow anyone to pick on Eric.

“I was sanitizing the sponge.”

Lou shrugged. “I do that myself sometimes. Thank you.”

A smile bloomed on Eric’s face. The expression verified what he already knew. Lou was the perfect woman for them. She put the first cup of coffee on the table in front of him, then turned back to make a second cup. He wondered if she would make her own first or make Eric’s knowing he would be tied up with the dishes for a few minutes. “Do you have any milk?”

“I have half-and-half in the fridge.”

Alex got up and checked. He was pleased to find she had purchased the organic kind with nothing but milk and cream in it. He had problems with many of the additives in food. They would make him ill and cause his skin to become beet red, hence his nickname. He had also been called Hellboy on occasion.

“Do you want milk, Eric?” she asked as she set the cup down next to the sink.

Eric smiled and shook his head. “I like it straight up black.”

Lou sat down across from him. “I’m going to skip on the coffee. I drank a cup earlier, and it’ll keep me from sleeping if I have more. Not that I sleep well anyway,” she added with a shrug.

That was concerning. It was important for body and mind to get enough sleep. “You don’t sleep well?”

“Not really. I haven’t since my grandmother died. She was the only family I had. I swear I hear her walking around sometimes and the sounds creep me out.”

“You think she’s haunting you?” he asked with far more humor in his voice than he intended. He had every reason in the world to believe the supernatural existed.

“No. I think it’s my imagination, but it doesn’t make it any easier to go to sleep.”

Alex had been under the impression she had been living with someone when she mentioned changing the locks. “What about your boyfriend?”

“He worked nights.”

It was disturbing to consider her alone, every night, wandering around or lying in bed in fear. Why did he feel so propelled to protect her? He had just met the woman. Alex glanced up at Eric and saw Eric staring at him with a look that could only be described as horror. Were they having the same thought? They often did.

What he was thinking was completely ludicrous, but he was going to propose it anyway. “Would it be completely off the wall if one of us offered to stay with you tonight? It wouldn’t be a problem or anything. We could sleep on the sofa so you won’t be alone.”

Her face flushed with the pink of embarrassment, but why was she embarrassed? Was she ashamed to be fearful of being alone? For many people darkness was claustrophobic and filled with threat. The sun chased away the demons, but if she couldn’t sleep during the sun, lack of sleep was probably making her fear even greater.

“I…” she stammered before getting up and leaning across the table to kiss him. Her lips touched his like a bolt of lightning that flowed directly into his cock. It rose tightly against the inseam of his jeans, but it didn’t stop him from kissing her back. He welcomed her tongue, wrapping her head with his hand to keep her from changing her mind and pulling away. Lou didn’t, her mouth warm and silky as she pressed her lips to his. Was she always this forward?

****

Eric turned and then leaned back against the counter as he dried his hands. To see Alex kiss another man would infuriate him, but to see Lou doing it was intriguing. No woman was a threat to his and Alex’s relationship, but some of the ones in the past had been a horror. The bad female energy had created tension in the house and he hated tension. So far Lou had proven herself as amiable and sweet. She was also sexy as hell.

What he noted now, was Lou being the aggressor with Alex, and it struck him as unusual. He loved the man dearly, but Alex was rough around the edges when it came to sex. Of course they both enjoyed things wild and demanding so that made for warm fuzzy nights in bed.

He liked Lou’s style. The embrace relayed a sense of passion, and he could see just the mildest flashes of pink tongue as their lips parted and then reconnected. What had he missed that caused Lou to kiss Alex? Could her response simply be from the compassion in Alex’s offer to spend the night Alex truly had a kind heart so the question hadn’t surprised him. Eric had felt the tension of her comment rise in the room. Alex’s emotions often flowed from him as a viable presence, although he was usually the only one who felt it.

To think of her terrified and unable to sleep as darkness fell was disturbing in a way that touched something in his soul. Who was this woman? They had both felt it as she got up and scurried to the safety of her motorcycle. She was something special, and they had to have her as a part of their lives. She was the counterpoint they had been looking for, and they both sensed it like a wildfire in their minds.

****

As quickly as she had stood, Lou gently pulled away from him and sat down. He was left with the oddly sweet taste of her on his tongue and a raging hard-on. Her face was now brilliant red as if she further embarrassed herself with the kiss. “That was unexpected, but nice. You have amazing lips, Louisiana.”

“It was amazingly heartwarming of you to offer to stay rather than berate me for mentioning my childish fear. I felt the need to kiss you. I’m not usually brazen.”

She was absolutely adorable, and now he had a reason for the blush in her cheeks. She
was
embarrassed not only by the admission of things that go bump in the night, but also for kissing him. He had the overwhelming urge to push a bit and see what she did. “I wasn’t complaining, but I think Eric is jealous. You should kiss him, too.”

Eric stepped across the kitchen and knelt down before her. The smile on Lou’s face was ethereal as she giggled and then leaned forward to kiss Eric. So she was aggressive one moment and pliable the next. It was an interesting combination rolled up in a voluptuous package. Lou was probably close to five eight or maybe nine. She was overweight, but not horribly so. It actually settled well on her rounded hips and equally proportioned thighs, but he never had a thing for skinny women anyway. His interests were more focused on a healthy body and a bright personality. Lou seemed to have both and first assessments of her were panning out as truth. He had felt an instant attraction to her and so had Eric. There was something compelling about Lou, and they both wanted to be with her and get to know her better.

Lou pushed her tight braid from her shoulder to her back. Her hair was long, which he really liked, but the braid that protected the strands from being whipped into a knot on the bike needed to go.

Alex stood and moved to stand beside her. Her eyes were closed as she kissed Alex and when he grasped the braid, she jumped and sat upright. “What are you doing?” she immediately asked.

It was interesting that she had invited them into her house and kissed them, but when he touched her, she became nervous. There was no reason for it. He and Eric would do nothing to harm her. Of course Lou didn’t know that yet. “I want to see your hair loose and hanging down around your shoulders. I was just going to take the braid out. Do you have a brush?”

“Oh. Of course I do. It’s in the bathroom vanity.”

Without the question being spoken, Eric rose and walked down the hallway. He came back a moment later with the brush in his hand and stood holding it as Alex removed the braid. He carefully took out the upper hair tie, putting it on the table before holding out his hand for the brush.

The tension that had appeared in the ridged stance of her head and shoulders faded as he ran the bristles through the strands. Starting at the bottom, he worked his way upward, removing the windblown knots as he moved toward the top of her head.

“I’ve never had a man brush my hair before. It feels really nice.”

To know she had never enjoyed the simple luxury of a man brushing her hair sent a pang of sadness through him. It was an intimate gesture filled with patience and gentleness. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

Eric was smiling at him, obviously amused, but he didn’t really care. Eric knew he had a thing for women’s hair. He liked it natural, silky, and smooth. A woman whose hair was hard with spray or over-processed and course was intolerable and a complete turn off. Lou’s hair was perfect, the light brown strands shimmering with reddish highlights. It flowed into a silky, rippled mass, covering her shoulders and draping down her back. The ends were also split in places and needed to be trimmed. “Would you allow me to trim your hair? It’s really bad at the bottom.”