Heads or Tails (33 page)

‘There.’ She swung her cloak of hair over her shoulder, clearing his view of all obstructions before he could prompt her to do so. ‘Debt repaid.’

‘And then some.’ Tristan felt punch-drunk at the sight of her naked body, which was bleached a milky-white in the moonlight glowing through the window. His eyes roamed from the shadow between her breasts, to the one between her thighs. He swallowed and shifted his position, the tautness of his pants causing discomfort. ‘Did I ever tell you that you’re exactly my type?’

Ivyanne giggled. ‘I thought
all
girls were your type.’

‘Nope,’ he said quickly. ‘I had a penchant for blondes, primarily, but my next favorite things were curls, big, natural breasts, tiny waists and powerful thighs…’ he glanced up at her. ‘Oh... and green eyes are a particular weakness of mine.’

‘You are so
full
of it.’ Ivyanne smacked his shoulder playfully, but her fingers lingered, shifting the fabric of his shirt against his skin. ‘You’ve always known what I looked like. Yet I didn’t hear a peep out of you until two months ago.’

Tristan chuckled. ‘Well the last time I saw you before January, I was only slightly younger than you are now-and
you
were thirteen or fourteen. Even
I
had my boundaries, you know.’

‘You
remember
that?’

Tristan cocked his head. ‘Do you?’

Ivyanne nodded. ‘The Santa Monica Pier.’ She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. ‘You were hitting on two girls at once, and when you saw me looking, you waltzed over and tried to turn that charm on me.’ She grinned. ‘You called yourself Trent.’

‘One of many of my old aliases. As I recall, you were using me for a free Ferris Wheel ride.’

‘No way! You just went on and bought the tickets!’

‘That’s right. I did.’ Tristan laughed. ‘And when I found out that you were jail bait, I flipped out.’

Ivyanne giggled. ‘The expression on your face was hilarious!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I still can’t believe you thought it would be that easy... buy me a ticket, escort me home..’ She shook her head. ‘Has it always been that easy for you? One smile and they fall on their back with their legs open?’

‘Well... yeah.’ Tristan smiled. ‘But that’s not what I was doing with you, you know.’

Ivyanne raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh sure. You wanted to take me to a poetry reading, right?’

Tristan snorted and shook his head. ‘I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.’ He admitted softly. ‘My grandmother, Athalia, was on her deathbed. She’d asked me to start looking-
really looking
-for a girl I might want turned.’

Ivyanne sank back onto her backside, swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, gaping down at him. ‘You wanted to make me a
mermaid
?’

‘It occurred to me.’ He confessed, rising, swinging his own knees so that he was sitting, facing her, unable to let her body heat stray far from his own. ‘And even when you told me your age, I was thinking about it
still
-about how some things were worth.. waiting for.’ He didn’t know why, but he was embarrassed to be telling her this. ‘So I pried a little, to find out what your home life was like, trying to see if I’d be able to get you out of there without a fight, to Malibu, where Nanna was…I guess I was kind of hoping you had that runaway slash backpacker streak teenage girls can be notorious for, that I could offer you a better life. I should have known better considering the Nikes on your feet and the Ray-Bans on your head-but I went for it.’ He chuckled. ‘And was humiliated as a result.’

‘Oh. My. God.’ Ivyanne said. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ She crossed her arms across her chest and made a face. ‘You expect me to believe that you were so gaga over an underage girl at first sight that you had me earmarked for
marriage
within minutes?’

‘Actually, yeah,’ he confessed. ‘Is that so strange?’

‘Strange? It’s inconceivable! Is this a line?’

‘From my database? No.’ Tristan laughed at that. ‘No-it was coincidence.’ He sighed. ‘I had an ideal in my head, okay? And that ideal was a portrait that’s hung in my mother’s hall since I was a child-of Anna L’Autienne.’ He smiled. ‘You were the spitting image of her and so I thought:
How perfect!
’ He shook his head wryly. ‘And then of course you dropped the name of the street where you were living and I worked out that your beauty had a damn obvious explanation-and I freaked out accordingly!’

Ivyanne grabbed his hands. ‘Why are you just telling me this now?’

‘Honestly?’ Tristan shrugged. ‘It was sixteen years ago. And it was embarrassing. I really didn’t think you’d remember it. I rather hoped you didn’t.’

‘Did
mum
know?’

‘She did.’ He leaned back on his palms, smiling at her. ‘
That’s
what brought me to this country, Ivyanne-or Ivanna or whoever the hell you think you are. We didn’t exactly click that day we met, and I honestly walked away thinking you were a stuck up brat... but when your mother called last year, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was a reason I’d ended up at the top of the list after all.’

‘And Athalia? She never changed anyone for you guys, did she?’

Tristan shook his head. ‘She died, a week later in her sleep. She never got to go back to the sea
or
turn for me.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Ivyanne said softly.

‘Don’t be.’ Tristan said honestly. ‘
I’m
not. About being single that is...I miss the dead Nanna.’

Ivyanne giggled.

‘What?’ he asked with a smile.

‘Oh... nothing... I just remembered thinking what an arrogant man you were-and I’d heard my dad caution me to keep an eye on you if you came over to the house before they got home.’

Tristan chuckled. ‘A wise man.’

‘He was.’ There was a pause. ‘And...a bitter one. Thanks to your uncle.’

Tristan looked up, heart skipping a beat. ‘You know?’

Ivyanne nodded, her lips tight. ‘I do. He told me, last weekend, after I escaped. About the order from mum too...which is why I’ve been on my best behavior.’

‘Until tonight.’

‘Until tonight,’ she echoed.

Tristan could tell she didn’t want to get into it. ‘You know your dad apologized to me?’ He said instead. ‘Right before-’

Ivyanne nodded. ‘I know. Your sister overheard it and told me about it after their funeral.’ She smiled weakly. ‘I was glad to hear it, Tristan. Exultant.’ She smiled a faraway smile. ‘But he was singing a different tune back then! And when we met, I couldn’t help but stare at you, trying to see what all the
fuss
was about.’

Tristan glanced at her, curious. ‘Did you?’

‘Did I what?’

‘See?’ He quirked up an eyebrow. ‘What all the fuss was about?’

Ivyanne blushed and looked away. ‘Well….I…’

Tristan chuckled again. ‘You did, didn’t you? You were checking me out!’

‘Shut up,’ Ivyanne snapped.

‘Thank goodness you didn’t have security surveillance in
that
place! I showered there after our swim that day!’

Ivyanne reached out and smacked him playfully across the head. Tristan caught her hand and turned it gently behind her back, much as she’d done with Ardhi when she’d taken him hostage at her engagement party, only this movement forced her to drop into Tristan’s lap with her back to him.

‘You said you wouldn’t-’ She squeaked.

‘I’m just holding your hand,’ Tristan whispered. ‘Is that so wrong?’

Ivyanne inhaled, then exhaled low and slow. ‘No,’ came her feint reply. ‘It’s exactly right.’

‘Well then…’ Tristan smiled, interlaced the fingers of their other hands and then pressed her own palm to the junction between their thighs, stimulating her with a gentle rub and grinding his hips into her from beneath. She gasped and then he felt the slick humidity of her sex through the fabric left remaining between them. ‘Hold on.’

Ivyanne sighed deliriously, and then rocked back.

*

Lincoln towed Michael to the edge of the pool, one arm under the other man’s armpits, holding his face out of the water, as Marcus had trained him to do twelve years before.

‘Grace! Pull him out!’

‘Okay!’ Grace was on her knees and had Michael on his back on the rough pebbletex surrounding the pool before Lincoln could even vault himself out of the water. ‘Is he dead?!’

‘No! I felt a pulse!’ Lincoln hoisted himself onto the edge and crouched over Michael, listening to his heart on reflex. If there was a beat, he couldn’t hear it. Panic engulfed him as he tilted Michael’s head back and wrapped his trembling lips around Michael’s mouth-the unconscious man’s own lips felt waxy and ice cold. He breathed into the man deeply, twice, noticing that the chest beneath him expanded with his own breaths. That was a good sign-it meant their weren’t any blockages. ‘Grace keep his head tilted back okay?’

‘Okay!’ Grace sniffled and rearranged herself. ‘Can I do anything else?!’

‘Check for a pulse again!’

‘I don’t know how!’

‘Okay well get your phone out and call your brother-tell him to get out here!’ Lincoln counted the thirtieth pump and then loomed over Michael’s blue lips again, breathing into him twice more before going back to the compressions. ‘I just drowned my phone in my pocket so if he doesn’t answer, you’ll have to run inside and get Remi.’

Grace sobbed again. ‘Okay….’ she had her phone to her ear already. ‘Is he breathing yet?’

‘No,’ Lincoln said grimly. ‘Not yet.’

‘Oh god..!’ Grace wailed. ‘Bane! Bane it’s Grace! Get out to the diving pool right now-bring Remi! It’s life or death!’ Grace snapped her phone shut just as Lincoln was about to wrap up the second set of compressions. ‘Link wait! That’s the human way, right? What about
our
way?’

Lincoln looked up. ‘It’s
different
?’

Grace nodded. ‘Our breaths are more powerful-longer, our oxygen cleaner! That’s why it saves when the human method fails. I’ve never done it but I think you grab his hand, like, lace your fingers through or something to help with energy... and then breathe one really, really long breath into him! For like, thirty seconds, until his lungs stop expanding! I think it works like a plunger, creating a vacuum to get the water out or something!’

Lincoln wasn’t quite sure what she meant but he figured it was worth a shot. He cupped Michael’s face and drew in a deep breath, even though that wasn’t necessary, and then exhaled into the man’s throat. As always, he was surprised when the air didn’t peter out of him after a few seconds as it had in his human life when he’d been blowing up a balloon, but continued in one, smooth and seemingly never ending stretch until his hand, which had been placed on Michael’s chest, began to lift and then stopped, the lung beneath him taught. Lincoln wasn’t sure if he
should
stop, but then his mouth filled with a sudden spray of water and he sprang back, astounded, as Michael’s mouth formed the funnel of a geyser. The water whooshed out of him until Michael’s body twitched and he began to make gurgling noises, his eyes flying open, his expression bewildered.

‘He’s alive!’ Lincoln exclaimed, spitting the water out, his heart thumping against his ribcage. ‘Oh my god!’

‘Oh…!’ Grace sucked in a breath. ‘But he’s still choking!’

Lincoln rolled Michael onto his side and thumped his back, but Michael’s body was jolting violently as a wet, rattling cough seemed to shake him. ‘What do I do?’

‘Do it again!’ Grace exclaimed. ‘You need the rest out or he could still die!’

Lincoln’s heart lurched and he rolled Michael back-who was bluer in complexion now than he had been before.
Live! Live! Live!
He thought frantically. Lincoln breathed into him again, able to go for longer this time before the water was regurgitated into his mouth. He spat, hating himself for being grossed out by the whiskey- flavored spittle, rolling Michael onto his side again and pounding once more. ‘Are you okay man?’ he shouted. ‘Try to breathe!’

Michael sucked in a gasp and it was the best sound Lincoln had ever heard. The man nodded dumbly before launching into another coughing fit, only this time it was a dry, wheezy sound.

‘He’s okay! Link you did it!’ Grace flung herself at him over Michael’s prone body and Lincoln laughed, catching himself just before he could be knocked back into the pool. ‘You’re a hero!’

Lincoln held her tightly, grateful for so much at that moment that he could barely think. ‘You too!’ he said, beginning to tremble as his body registered the shock of what had just transpired at the same time his sodden clothes began to chill him to the bone. ‘Thank you!’

‘Remi-’ Michael gasped.

Lincoln released Grace and leaned over Michael. ‘She’s coming man. Boy is she going to be happy to see you!’

‘What h-happened? I’m freezing!’

Lincoln chuckled. ‘You went for a swim when there was no life-guard on duty.’ He clucked his tongue. ‘We decided to fish you out now and press charges later.’