Flamebound (15 page)

I didn't catch the double meaning in my words until my aunt burst out laughing, and then my cheeks flushed even though she couldn't see me. “I meant—”

“I know what you meant, darling girl. But I'm sure Declan's doing
everything
in his power to keep you in bed.”

“And on that note . . .”

She was still giggling when she said, “Well, I'm glad you're doing so well, sweetheart. I know you're busy, so I won't keep you any longer. But please, consider coming to Ipswitch for a visit. I miss you terribly. You're my favorite niece, after all.”

I laugh. “You say that to all of us.”

“Maybe I do. But I really mean it when I say it to you.”

“I'm glad.” Even though I know she says that to everyone as well. “Because you're my favorite aunt.”

“I hope so—close only counts in horseshoes, after all. Besides, all the gray hairs you've given me through the years better be worth something. Take care, Xandra. And come home, soon.”

“I'll think about it.”

“Do more than think about it.” And with that statement—which sounded a lot more like a royal decree than a request—she hangs up the phone.

Yep. Definitely acting as my mother's stooge. Which is fine. Because if I can help it, it will be a long time before I step foot in Ipswitch again. My mother might have sat by my hospital bed a week and a half ago and sworn that she'd turned over a new leaf, but it'll take more than a few words to convince me to believe her. That belladonna poisoning was one for the record books.

Before heading to the kitchen, I take a couple of minutes to finish up my tea and enter the receipts that came in after I left the shop yesterday. I want to get started on my muffin batter before Travis leaves for class in an hour and I have to take over the front of the house. Then again, considering the way my staff responded to my bumps and bruises, maybe I'll let Marta handle it. Scaring customers away is not on my short list of things to do today.

I sink gratefully into the routine of baking. I've always loved to cook, but lately it's been more than just a creative outlet and a job. It's been a way for me to keep my sanity.

Baking is so orderly, so precise. You have to measure the ingredients exactly, add them in a certain order, mix them to a certain consistency. The more jumbled and chaotic my world gets, the more I appreciate the precision of these moments in my kitchen.

I manage to get two batches of banana chocolate chip muffins in the oven and am just filling the tins with the batter for my best-selling strawberry cream cheese muffins when Travis pokes his head into the kitchen. “Nate's here. He's following up on your phone call.”

“Awesome. Tell him I'll be right out.”

I finish up the muffins, get them in the oven and set the timers so Marta and Jules know when to take them out. Then I make a quick chicken panini sandwich for Nate. I plate it up with some chips and fruit and grab his favorite iced tea. I know the way I take care of Nate whenever he comes in annoys Declan, but I do it for all my friends. And these days, Nate needs the TLC almost as much as Declan does.

He grins when I slide the plate onto the table in front of him, but his smile quickly fades when he gets a look at my face. “Xandra! What happened?” he demands, his hands clenching into fists.

“It's nothing,” I tell him.

“That's nothing? You look like someone mistook you for a punching bag.” His hand comes up and probes gently at my jaw, in much the same way Declan did when he first saw me last night. With Nate it feels a little uncomfortable—we're friends, but we were once on our way to being more than that, before Declan came to town.

It must feel weird to him, too, because he drops his hand after only a second or two. “Who did this?”

“It's not what you think.”

“Did Declan—”

“No! Of course not!” I answer impatiently. “I told you it wasn't like that. I got this looking for Shelby.”

“Shelby? Why would you go looking for her by yourself? Why didn't you call me? Why didn't—”

“Because,” I interrupt before he can work up a whole new head of steam. “I didn't actually go out looking for her. That's not how it works.”

“Oh.” He settles back in his chair, watches me carefully. “Right. So how did you get that black eye if you weren't physically searching for her?”

I explain as much as I'm able, leaving out the magic but keeping everything else in. By the time I'm done, Nate looks completely sick. “Xandra, I'm sorry. If I'd known what it was like for you, I never would have asked.”

“Then I'm glad you didn't know. To be honest, I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, either. I've never connected to someone who's alive before. But we need to get to her quickly. I'm not sure how much more time she's got. She's hurt pretty badly.”

The words galvanize him to action. As he eats, he calls the detective I assume is in charge of the case and relays the information I gave him. But he doesn't stop there. Within fifteen minutes he's got an entire search party organized. I learned a couple of weeks ago what a damn fine cop Nate is, but standing here, watching him mobilize to find a little girl who isn't even technically his responsibility, drums it home all over again.

He gets up to depart, and I slip out from behind the counter so I can catch him before he leaves. I can't tell him that the people who have Shelby are magic, can't tell him that they are actually evil. But I can't just let him walk in there blind, either.

“Hey, Nate. Do you have a second?” I call as I come up behind him.

“For you? Always.” He looks at me quizzically, his green eyes calm but his body filled with nervous energy. He's more than ready to go out on the hunt.

“These people who have Shelby. I don't know who they are, but I've seen enough to know they're bad news.”

“I figured that when you told me she was in bad shape.”

“No, I mean, it's more than that. More than hurting a defenseless little girl. They're dangerous, Nate. You need to be careful. You need to be really careful.”

His eyes narrow and the smile slips from his face. “What aren't you telling me?”

Too much, but he wouldn't believe me if I tried to explain. “I just get really bad vibes from them. They've killed before, and it's not just kids. Just please, don't go storming in once you find the place. They'll hurt you and I don't want anything to happen to you.”

At my words, everything about him softens just a little. “Thanks, Xandra. I'll be careful.” He gestures to my face. “I'm really sorry about what it cost you.”

I touch my cheek. “This is nothing. Not if it means Shelby gets to go home.”

“I'll keep you posted on what we find. And if you manage to connect,” he says, using the word awkwardly, like he's still uncomfortable with it, “to her any more, please let me know.”

“Of course I will.”

He pulls me in for a quick hug, drops a kiss on my uninjured cheek. I return the friendly gesture, then step back. As he turns to go, I look past him for the first time—and right into Declan's dark and shadowed eyes.

N
ate says something else to me on his way out the door, but I don't hear it. I wouldn't even be aware of him exiting except he passes right by Declan, on whom I'm hyperfocused. I try not to respond to the deliberately bland gaze he shoots Nate as the detective sweeps by him, but it's hard—especially when hot color creeps slowly up my neck.

I don't know why I'm so nervous. It's not like I did anything wrong. I helped a friend who asked me, and in doing so maybe helped a terrified little girl as well. I should be proud of what I did, not worried about how Declan is going to react.

Except it's not the part where I helped Shelby that I'm worried about. Then again, there doesn't seem to be any reason for me to be worried at all. Declan doesn't seem upset by what he witnessed, so why should I be? Except—except his eyes are a little too calm, his face a little too composed.

Of course, I could just be projecting my own issues onto him. I'm not sure how well I'd take seeing him hugging one of his old romantic interests only a few hours after his perceived rejection of me.

When he makes no move to come toward me, I raise a hand in a tentative greeting. He waves back, a two-fingered kind of thing that is totally Declan. And totally annoying. Maybe he's more upset with me than he's letting on.

Deciding to give the lion a few minutes to chill out before I beard him in his den, I return to the counter and take drink orders from the small line that formed there while I was talking to Nate. Once the line is down to a trickle and Declan
still
hasn't moved from the spot against the wall where he's carelessly lounging, I start to get annoyed. Since he went to all the effort of showing up here, the least he could do is make it to the front counter to talk to me. Especially since I can feel his eyes on me even when my back is turned to him.

More customers come in and I wait on them, too, getting more and more irritated the longer this absurd standoff between us goes on. I've just about resolved to ignore him completely—that's the least that he deserves—when it occurs to me that this whole situation might very well be my fault. He came to see me, and yes, he hasn't actually made it to the counter, but I've been busy filling orders pretty much the whole time he's been standing there. If it was anyone else, any of my other friends, I would have done for them what I did for Nate—made up their favorite sandwich, grabbed their favorite drink. . . . How ridiculous am I that I'm too proud to do the same for the man I care about more than any other? The man I want to call my own.

Screw it. I head back to the kitchen where Marta and Lisa are just finishing cleaning up from the lunch rush. Both batches of my muffins are cooling on the counter and—after sending them out to work the register—I snag a strawberry one, put it on a plate. I add some of the pasta salad Declan likes so much and dish up a big bowl of chicken noodle soup to go with it.

After carrying the dishes back to my office, I go in search of Declan. He hasn't moved from where I left him, but his head is bowed, his eyes closed, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose like he's trying to relieve a headache.

Sorrow pours from him and it's such a change from the usual vitality and rage that it hits me right in the gut. Makes me feel a million times worse about letting him leave last night than I already do. I needed time to come to grips with everything that has happened, but when I accused him of murder, I obviously hurt him and that's the last thing I ever wanted to do.

Heart bruised with love for him, I start across the room. I'm still several feet from him when Declan senses me, looks up. Our eyes meet, hold, clash, and somehow I know that it's taking every ounce of self-control he has not to bound across the restaurant to me. Not to sweep me up in his arms and take over the way he's so damn good at. But he doesn't do it. Instead, he waits for me to approach him. He gives me that control even though it's totally out of character for him.

Looks like that game of wills I thought we were playing really was all in my head.

I step closer and want nothing more than to pull him into my arms, to hold him and comfort him the way he's done for me so many times before. But not here, not in front of all these people with their prying eyes and inability to understand everything that Declan and I have gone through.

So I reach for his hand instead. He clasps it like a lifeline, and for the first time it hits me that he needs me as much as I need him. I don't know why it's such a revelation—we are soulbound, after all—but this is so much more than that. This is Declan needing me, Xandra, not just the Anathema at work.

I lead him back to my office, close the door. And wrap my arms around him.

He buries his face in the curve of my neck, shudders. And takes the comfort I so desperately need to give.

When he finally lifts his head, those dark eyes of his find mine, hold. He's looking for something in my gaze. I don't know what, but I'm determined to give him whatever he needs.

“I'm sorry,” I tell him. “I should have asked you to stay last night.”

“I'm the one who's sorry. You'd just had the worst day imaginable and all I did was add to it.”

He reaches up, strokes his fingers down my cheek. I turn so that my mouth lines up with his palm and press a soft kiss right in the middle of his hand.

“I made you something to eat.”

“Thank you.” He settles on my visitor's chair. “Will you eat with me?”

“I'm not—” I break off at his long, steady look. He might have been shaken earlier, but Declan is still Declan. “Okay. The strawberry muffins are my favorite.”

I lean against the desk, but Declan whips his hand out and grabs my wrist. Then he tugs until I'm sitting, curled up, on his lap. “How are you supposed to eat soup like this?” I demand.

“I'll manage.” He breaks off a piece of the strawberry muffin, feeds it to me. I let him, because I can sense that he needs this. He needs to take care of me, comfort me in a way I wouldn't let him early this morning.

As he does, we talk of silly things. Travis's new haircut. A new cookie I want to try out. The traffic jams that rain always brings to Austin.

Before I know it, I've eaten the entire muffin and half of the pasta salad—all from Declan's hand. When he goes to feed me yet another bite, I moan in protest. “I can't,” I tell him. “You've stuffed me.”

“Good.” He looks me over. “Your color's better.”

“I think that has more to do with you than the food.” His eyes go impossibly darker and I grab his hand, pulling it to my heart. “Thank you.”

My gratitude is for a lot more than the minutes he spent feeding me, and he knows it. I might not agree with everything he does, I might be scared of the parts of him he keeps hidden beneath his oh-so-calm surface, but I know he's got my best interest at heart. No matter what he's doing, no matter how he's doing it, I know that what he really wants is to protect me.

“You're welcome.” Another long, steady look. “What did Nate want?”

Knowing what it cost him to ask that, I answer immediately. Hold nothing back. “I had another dream about Shelby.”

He stiffens. “Oh yeah? Did you find out anything else?”

“She's close. When she looks out the small window in her room, she's got a view of the Frost Bank Building.”

“What kind of view?” he asks, suddenly alert.

I pull back, wary of where his line of questioning is going. “Why are you so interested?”

“A little girl's been stolen from her parents, is being tortured by goddess only knows who. And you think I shouldn't be interested in finding her?” He's stiffened up again, his voice as cool and remote as it was when he walked out of my bathroom last night.

“I didn't mean it like that.”

“I think you did. But it's fine. I'm used to it.”

The words are a slap in the face, as is the way he lifts me gently off him and settles me on my desk chair. “I should probably go. I have a number of things I still have to get done today.”

“You didn't eat.”

“I'll get something at home.”

My stomach tightens uneasily. I hate the tension that stretches between us, the stilted conversation that's polite but not much more. Again, I'm assaulted by the knowledge that my inability to trust him completely is ripping us apart. But how can I trust him when the shadows around him grow darker with each day that passes? When he admits with no compunction that he's already set things in motion to kill one man? That he plans to kill more?

Then again, how can I not trust him when he's proven, over and over again, that he'll do anything for me?

When Declan leans down to brush an impersonal kiss across my cheek—the same cheek that Nate kissed just a little while ago—I turn my head so that his lips connect with mine instead.

I wrap my arms around his neck, pull him closer. Then I suck his lower lip between my teeth, nipping gently at it.

At that first soft bite, it's as though a dam bursts inside him.

His hands go to my hair, twist and tug until my head is at the angle he wants it. His mouth opens against mine, his tongue delving in to stroke, to taste, to plunder. It's an old-fashioned word, one I never thought I'd use in reference to a kiss, but it fits perfectly. Declan plunders me, takes everything I have to give, then looks for more. Demands more.

Which is completely fine with me. My own hands find their way into the cool, ebony silk of his hair. My tongue meets his in an intimate caress. My body, my bruised and aching body, arches against him in a desperate plea for his touch.

He doesn't take the hint. Instead, he pulls away, stumbles back a step or two like he doesn't trust himself not to touch me. His lips are swollen, his eyes hazy with desire, his hands shaking with his self-imposed restraint.

“Why are you stopping?” I demand, my own body trembling with need for him.

“Do you want this?”

I stare at him incredulously. “Doesn't it feel like I do?” I take his hand, press it to my breast. He groans as his thumb strokes over my hard nipple, once. Twice.

“Declan, please.” I need him, need to prove to myself that the connection between us is still there.

But he stops, his palm resting directly over my heart. I know he can feel it thundering beneath his touch.

Declan closes his eyes, makes a sound that's a cross between desire and devastating pain. I reach for him, run my hands over his washboard stomach and narrow hips. Revel in the hitch of his breath, in the fine trembling he can't control.

And still he doesn't take me.

“What's wrong?”

When his lids lift again, his eyes are midnight black, and I swear I can see small flames flickering in their depths.

“I need to hear you say it,” he tells me in a voice that is all smooth whiskey and starry nights. “I need to know I'm not influencing you, that all this heat isn't just the soulbound thing at work.” He takes a deep breath. “Do you want me, Xandra?”

His restraint makes no sense, not when we've made love dozens of times in the last week and a half. And yet it makes perfect sense, because Declan will never take anything from me that he isn't sure I want to give. Our fight obviously shook him up, too.

Wanting to erase the doubt I can see in his beautiful face, I reach for him and wrap my hand around his neck. I tug until his mouth is only inches from mine.

“I want this, want you, more than I want my next breath. More than I've ever wanted anyone or anything in my life.

“Kiss me.” I brush his lips with mine.

“Take me.” I stand, rub my body against his.

“Love m—”

His mouth crushes down on mine before I can say another word, and then he's lifting me up, grinding himself against the very center of me. I moan, wrap my legs around his back for better access. Scratch my nails gently down his back.

He mutters a curse against my lips, something dark and dirty and oh so sexy. Then he's turning, backing us up against my office wall. Thrusting against me until I feel like I'm going to lose my mind if I can't feel him hot and hard and naked against me. Inside me.

I fumble with his shirt, desperate to pull it over his head. But his hands are in my hair, on my breasts, and he won't let go long enough for me to get the damn thing off.

“Please,” I tell him, arching my back in a desperate need to get closer, to feel the heavy weight of his body against my own.

A flick of his hand and the shirt is gone. And so are the rest of our clothes.

“I'm beginning to really like that trick,” I murmur against his mouth.

He grins, though he doesn't stop kissing me, even for a moment. “Me, too.” Then he's reaching between us, his fingers stroking around and over my clit before dipping down to test my readiness.

“Fuck. You're so tight. So hot.”

“So ready for you,” I tell him, hitching my legs a little tighter around his waist. “Please, Declan, don't make me wait. I need you.”

“I thought you liked foreplay?” he whispers as he trails hot kisses over my cheek, down my jaw.

“Fuck foreplay!”

I feel his grin against my neck. “I'd rather fuck you.”

And then he does, slipping inside me so easily, so perfectly. This is what it means to be meant for someone, this glorious, wonderful, perfect fit. Not just in our bodies, but in our souls. I can feel his dark, wild spirit tangling with my own, the connection between us locking more tightly into place with each breath we take. With each slide of his body into mine.

I turn my face away, but his hand comes up, grasps my chin. “Look at me, Xandra. Please. Look at me.”

I do, because I can't say no to him. Not when he uses that gravelly deep voice of his. And not when every moment, every movement, fuses our souls more deeply together. My eyes lock on his, and in their depths I see the same joy and terror that I know he can see in mine.