Fiery Temptation (8 page)

“Yeah. I’m not sure what happened. I just couldn’t seem to catch my breath, but I’m fine now.”

Jalen scooted closer and cupped the back of her head as he gave her a soft kiss. A deep breath expanded his chest before he slowly released it. “I’m going to clean up in the bathroom. You can have it after me. I think I’ll introduce you to the others, then I have to tell you something.”

“All right. Tell me what?”

“Something about me.”

Without another word, Jalen stood and walked into the bathroom, leaving Neve to wonder what it could be he had to tell her. From the look on his face, it had to be something important.

* * *

After coming out of the bathroom and Neve went in, Jalen snatched up the cordless phone from the nightstand and dialed Gannon’s phone number. His friend answered after the third ring.

“Hey, Jalen. What’s up?”

“Do you know if the rest of the guys are around?”

“I think so. Why?”

Jalen blew out a breath. “I have someone over here who would like to meet all of you,” he paused, “like I told you before, I think I’ve found my mate. There is no question that I’m going through the same thing you did with Arwen.”

He was met with silence before Gannon asked, “Are sure?”

“Oh, I’m pretty damn sure.” Jalen looked at the closed bathroom door, then lowered his voice. “I just absorbed some of her life energy.”

“You were able to stop it, right?” Gannon asked with concern in his voice.

“Yes, just barely. I think I’m going to have to tell her the truth before I do something that can’t be taken back.”

“If you really think she’s your mate, don’t do what I did with Arwen and try to run away from it. You’ll only make yourself and her miserable.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on doing anything like that. I’ve learned from your mistakes.” At that moment, Neve walked out of the bathroom. In a lighter tone, Jalen said, “So if you aren’t busy, how about you and Arwen come over in about twenty minutes. I’ll call the others and see if they can pop around as well.”

“She’s there now, isn’t she?” Gannon asked.

“Yes.”

“I see. Arwen and I will be there. I’m sure she will be happy to meet her, especially if she really is what you think she is to you. At least, my mate has been through it.”

“My thoughts exactly. Anyway, see you two in a bit.”

Jalen hung up and turned to face Neve. “That was Gannon. He said he and Arwen would come over. I’m just going to call my other band mates.”

She stopped at the side of the bed and picked up her panties, which she pulled on. “I’m looking forward to meeting everyone.”

He watched her pick up her bra. His cock jerked, showing interest in going another round, but that wasn’t going to happen. As he’d told Gannon, he’d actually absorbed some of Neve’s life energy the last time. It was also getting too hard to control. He was going to have to tell her the truth and show her what he was. After that, if she accepted him, he’d see what happened. Jalen was pretty sure he’d change Neve the same way Gannon had changed Arwen.

“I just have to call the others. All right?”

She smiled as she picked up the last of her clothes and put them on the bed. “Go ahead. Don’t let me stop you.”

Jalen made his phone calls, able to reach the rest of the band and invite them over. While he did that, he kept a close eye on her. She wandered around his bedroom, looking at the things on top of his dresser, then out of the bedroom window, to the backyard below. She didn’t seem to have had an adverse reaction from him absorbing some of her life energy. Granted it hadn’t been very much, before he’d pulled away from her completely and broken the connection between them.

Once he finished, Jalen led Neve downstairs to the living room. They sat on the black leather couch as they waited for his friends to arrive. He turned on the cushion so he faced her and picked up her hand. He stroked his thumb across the back of it.

“Everyone is going to like you,” he said, trying to end the silence that had fallen between them. He’d also caught her giving him a strange look from time to time. He had no idea what she thought about what had happened in his bedroom and he wasn’t ready to find out just yet. That could come afterward—once he’d faced the hard part of revealing his true nature.

Neve chuckled. “You sound so sure of that.”

He shrugged. “I do. I can’t see anyone not liking you. You’re one of the easiest people I know to get along with.”

She shook her head. “Thanks, but why the sudden compliments about my personality?”

Jalen reached across and stroked the fingers of his other hand down her cheek. “So I’m not allowed to compliment you?” He pulled back.

“I didn’t say that.” She lifted their joined hands and kissed his. It just seemed like an out of the blue kind of thing is all.”

“Well, get used to it, because I’m going to do this often.” The sound of the doorbell had him letting go of Neve’s hand. He gave her a quick kiss before he stood. “That must be our company. I’ll be right back.”

He hurried to the front door and opened to it see Gannon and Arwen standing on the other side. Jalen stepped back and waved them in. He gave Arwen a kiss on the cheek as she walked by. He also noticed her eyes were light hazel, the color before they’d changed after her mate had shared his life energy with her. With Gannon’s help, she’d learned to hide the silver of what her eyes were now, just as well as any of them.

After closing the door, Jalen followed Gannon and Arwen into the living room. He walked by them and went over to Neve. She stood and smiled at the newcomers, her gaze seeming to linger more on Gannon, staring at him in a starstruck kind of way as she’d done to him when they’d first met.

Making the introductions, Jalen said, “Neve, this is Gannon and Arwen.”

“Hi,” she said.

“I’m thrilled to meet you, Neve,” Arwen said. “It’s about time someone else from the band found a girlfriend. I’m sadly outnumbered.”

Jalen gestured for Gannon and Arwen to take a seat on the leather loveseat kitty-corner to the couch. He was sure the others would be along soon.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Neve said. “When’s the big day, Arwen?”

Gannon’s mate smiled at him, then turned back to Neve. “In six months. I would have been happy with just a small wedding where it was only immediate family, but my mom insisted on something a bit bigger.”

“At least, she’s not inviting everyone she knows,” Gannon said as he put his arm around Arwen’s shoulders and pulled her tighter against her side.

The doorbell rang again. Jalen got up to answer it. This time it was Malik, Trae and Keiran.

“So who is this person you want us to meet?” Malik asked as they waited for Jalen to shut the door.

“Her name is Neve.”

All three men had been in midstride, heading in the living room’s direction when they came to a stop and turned to stare at him. They all wore the same surprised looks on their faces.

“What?” he asked.

“You’ve invited us over to meet a woman?” Keiran asked incredulously.

“Don’t act as if you’ve never seen me with one before,” Jalen said.

“It’s not that. It’s the point that you actually want us to get to know her. Usually you don’t keep a woman around long enough for us to even learn her name.”

Trae’s surprised look turned into a furrowing of his brows. “Is this what I think it means? Is this Neve to you what Arwen is to Gannon?”

“It looks that way,” Jalen said with a grin.

Malik and Keiran’s faces were almost comical to see, as they shot him an even more shocked look. Trae just nodded to himself, as if he’d had something he thought of proved correct. Trae being the more thoughtful member of the band, that didn’t surprise Jalen one bit. His friend probably figured Gannon wouldn’t be the only one to find his mate.

Unable to take his friends’ stares any longer, Jalen shook his head. “Enough already. Gannon and Arwen are already here.”

As Jalen went to walk past Trae, his band mate stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Before we meet her, you’re going to tell her about you and us being Alte, right?”

“Yes, but not now and not when you’re all here. I’m going to do it later tonight when we’re alone.”

“Good. If you are going through what Gannon did, we know what the final outcome will be. It’s best to get it all out in the open before that happens.”

“Don’t worry, Trae, those are my thoughts exactly.”

* * *

After Jalen had left to answer the door, Neve looked at Gannon and Arwen, not really knowing what to say to start a conversation. Her gaze coming to rest on Gannon had her inner fan girl wanting to squeal and jump up and down. Of course, she wouldn’t do any such thing. She wouldn’t embarrass Jalen in that way, nor have Gannon think she was a brainless idiot. Neve figured the band had to deal with that type of fan more times than they could count. They didn’t need that in the privacy of their own home.

Arwen cleared her throat. “So, Neve. This is the first we’ve heard about you. You and Jalen must have recently met.”

Thankful for the conversation starter, Neve nodded. “We actually only met yesterday. At the early man site at the Mojave Desert to be exact.”

Arwen and Gannon exchanged a meaningful glance that Neve couldn’t even begin to understand.

“Well, you two must have hit it off, since Jalen brought you home to meet all of us,” Gannon said.

Neve’s brow furrowed. “The way you said that, you make it sound like a big deal.”

He chuckled. “It is, believe me. Jalen doesn’t normally, how should I put this, include his lady friends in our circle.”

“So in other words, you mean he goes after the groupies who won’t expect more than a roll in the hay.”

Arewn laughed. “That pretty much describes it. He’s not a lothario or anything, but according to the guys, Jalen doesn’t do serious relationships.”

“Then I guess that means Jalen asking me to move in would be a huge step for him?” Neve asked.

“Monumental,” Gannon said. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing right now. It’s a big step. One I’m not sure I should be jumping into quickly.”

“If it helps, Jalen is serious about you if he already wants to take it to the next level. Plus, that’s the way it was with Arwen and me. We fell in love fast and hard.”

Arwen nodded. “Instead of asking me to move in with him, Gannon wanted me to come with him to the last performance of Soar’s tour.”

“And that’s where he sang to you on stage,” Neve said with a smile.

“Yes.” Arwen looked lovingly at Gannon before she turned back to Neve. “He surprised the hell out of me. I hadn’t expected it at all. I’m sure he broke a lot of hearts that day.”

They were all laughing when Jalen returned with the rest of the band. Neve once again found herself starstruck as she looked at each one. Their faces were as familiar to her as Jalen’s had been. At Trae, her gaze looked way up. Soar’s drummer was the tallest, at six-foot-six. All the guys were over six feet, but Trae’s height made him stand out. His gray-blue eyes were friendly as he returned her gaze.

Jalen crossed over to where she sat and took her hand as he pulled her to her feet. He then tucked her under his arm, positioning her so she faced his newly arrived friends. “This is Neve,” he said to them. “If I have my way, you’ll be seeing more of her from here on out.”

Neve felt herself blush as her cheeks warmed. “Nice to meet you all. I’m a big fan.”

“Well, we’re really looking forward to getting to know you better, Neve,” Malik said, while Trae and Keiran nodded their heads in agreement.

The way they looked at her, Malik and Keiran in particular, Neve had to wonder what Jalen had told them about her. She wasn’t the famous one.

“Thanks,” she said.

They all proceeded to take a seat either on the couch or in the two armchairs. A conversation started about what each member of the band had been up to the last few days. Neve could only sit there and listen. They all sounded so normal. Gannon then told the story of how he’d first met Arwen at the skate club she’d coached out of and how he’d gone out on the ice rink to meet her and had fallen on his ass. They all laughed, especially when he said he’d had to embarrassingly get Arwen to help him up.

The conversation then turned back to her when Trae asked, “What do you do, Neve?”

She shook her head. “Nothing for the moment. I’m currently in between jobs. My best friend, Kara, thinks she has a job lined up for me as a hostess at the restaurant she works at, but I’m not sure I really want it.”

“I told Neve if she feels that way she shouldn’t take it,” Jalen said. He turned his head to look at her. “Besides, I have enough money. So you really don’t need to get a job.”

Neve felt her jaw drop. He couldn’t be serious? Yes, he’d asked her to move in with him, but having him support her as well, she didn’t know how to react to that. If Jalen had his way he’d have their relationship zooming to a lifelong commitment.

As if she’d guessed how uncomfortable Jalen’s statement had made Neve feel, Arwen said, “I think we’ll leave that topic for another time.”

The conversation shifted to other things, but Neve only paid half attention to it. Her mind kept playing over Jalen’s proposal of her living with him and letting him support her. What girl in her right mind would turn down something like that? She knew she couldn’t say no to him outright.

She turned to look at Jalen as he laughed at something Malik said and responded with humor in his voice. He still had her tucked under his arm. Neve had to admit it felt nice. And she felt safe with Jalen, somehow protected, not that she needed protection from anything. It was just a sense she got whenever she was close to him.

Should she take everything he offered? The longer she spent with him, and now getting to see what Jalen was like with his friends, Neve found herself leaning more and more toward saying yes.

As it got later in the day, it was decided they’d all eat dinner together. Jalen already had some steaks, but not enough for everyone. That led to the others returning to their own homes to get the rest of what they needed. It was a combined meal with everyone pitching in to help cook. Since they were going to eat out on Jalen’s patio, he grilled the steaks on his gas barbeque.