Ivory Guard (19 page)

TWENTY

Lillian needed to forget, and what better way to oblivion than through a bottle of tequila?
After the day she had had she figured she had earned the right to just let go – at least for the rest of the night.

When Maion had showed up telling her that Raz had been summoned, it was like a déjà vu – the bad kind. Down the
bottomless pit her heart fell, just like two years ago, since she was sure she would never see him again. She was sure he had once again disappeared from her life without so much as a good bye.

Sam’s guard had come over, much to Abby’s delight, and peopl
e filled every spot in their living room. The walls were raw and cracked, the wallpaper none existent, but at least the angels or whoever had installed a new, comfy couch. Those who didn’t win a spot on it sat on the floor around the coffee table, on which bottles of wine and beer mixed as if having their own party. Music, a mix of good old rock and new, pulsed through the house and their veins. In short, it was perfect.

Or i
t should have been.

But she needed that sweet oblivion now rather than later and the wine would take t
oo damn long. She was well on her way to being tipsy but there was still too much in her head she really didn’t want to think about.

“
Time for shots,” Lillian called out as she came back into the room and held up two bottles of tequila in one hand and a bowl of lime wedges in the other.

Sam
almost groaned with pain, “Oh no, count me out. The last time I couldn’t get up the next day.”

The o
thers laughed and yet Sam’s guys declined as well.

“Oh,
come on guys. Grow a pair.”

Laughing Abby jumped up,
“I’ll stay with my wine too. But I gladly act as pourer and score-keeper, though. Or the nurse, depending.”

“Accepted.”

In the end Joshua and Matt were the only ones brave enough. Thank God. Lillian almost sighed with relief.

“Let’s line them up.”
Abby rushed into the kitchen to get the glasses and salt.

Sam’s eyes shot up
when she got back. “You got shot glasses in your kitchen? Damn, guess we got the wrong safe house.”

The table was cleared and
twelve glasses, four each, were lined up as Lillian shook her head and explained with a smile, “A good, well-functioning guard always has tequila and shot glasses in the trunk of their car.” She sat down on the floor, crossing her legs Indian style.

“
Yeah, well, and they were on sale.” Abby winked at her.

“That too.”
They laughed. “Now, let’s get started.”

Lillian sitting at the end of the table with Joshua at her right and
Matt on her left and on the couch, looked directly into their eyes knowing a wicked gleam of challenge lit up her own.

Abby poured. Salt was passed around and licked.

Lillian downed her glass. Fire hit her belly and she relished the pain, as it for one peaceful moment masked the one in her heart. She definitely needed more of that.

At shot number eight Lillian watched as
Matt slid like water off the couch and onto the floor.

Abby
bit her lip to keep from cracking up. “You okay?”

“I’m ‘kay.
Still ‘ere.” His eyes were glassy and rolling around as he tried to focus on the table in front of him, his brain obviously not catching up with the sudden change of perspective.

“Ready for round three?”
Abby asked the guys, already pouring shot number nine for Lillian. Ah, her friend knew her too damn well, she thought.

Joshua
slowly nodded, his eyes flicking to Lillian. He winked at her and a beautiful smile curved his lips, one that made his eyes glow.

A fluttering rustle and suddenly Raz stood in the room,
dressed in dark jeans and shirt and a navy pea coat now that looked entirely too good on his shoulders. Hands buried in the pockets of his coat he looked straight at her from across the table. His brow furrowed as his gaze wandered, taking in the room, resting on the bottles and the glasses before coming back to find hers.

How was it possible that one look hit her stronger than the tequila ever would?

Never breaking the contact Lillian leisurely licked salt off her hand and felt a shot of pleasure searing her veins as Raz’s gaze dropped to her mouth. Smirking she raised her shot in a silent salute before knocking it back smooth.

Her voice low and slow from
the tequila, she asked, “Wanna join?”

Lillian could feel her guard’s nervousness to his presence change into curiosity. They weren’t sure what to make of the two of them, since she had been rather tight-lipped about what had happened earlier outside.

“What are you doing?”

Joshua started laughing like a loon, almost smashing his head against the table before wiping his eyes and looking at the angel.
“What does it look like? Shots obviously.” He winked at Lillian again, before drinking his shot down.

Abby held up the bottle. “Wanna give it a try?”

Raz’s eyes flicked from Lillian to Joshua and back again. He pulled off his coat and threw it over the arm rest of the couch, the muscles in his arms and shoulders flexing. “Okay.”

During their exchange
Matt had keeled over. When he started to snore Abby snickered but her gaze was soft. “And he’s out.” To Raz she added, “You mind using his glasses?”

“Go ahead.” Raz sat down on the floor as well, at the end of the table
so he faced Lillian. Gesturing with his chin towards Matt, he asked, “How many did you have?”

Lillian tapped her empty glass. “This was number nine.”

Nodding, Raz lifted his and saluted her before downing it without a blink. Licking his lips, he cocked his head. “Nice. But it seems I have some catching up to do.” With that said he knocked back the rest of them, while motioning for Abby to start pouring the next round. Joshua was outright staring now, while Lillian couldn’t help but smile.

“So what’s the point of this
anyway?”

“Besides getting drunk?
To last.” Abby paused pouring to looked at him in astonishment, one hand on her hip. “You’ve really never done this before?”

“No.”

“But you do drink so…”

“Alone, sure, but never like this.”

Eyes wide and incredulity written all over his face, Sam almost sputtered, “How old are you again?”

“I’ve existed…a long time. You’d call it forever I guess.” He slammed down his empty glass, number nine. Locking eyes with Lillian he raised the next, “Bottom’s up.”

“Forever without drinking shots?” Joshua snorted and hiccupped, “What kind of forever’s that?”

A lonely one
, Lillian thought.

“Yes, some times.”

Oh. She hadn’t realized she had said that out loud.

His fierce gaze
held hers, even when Joshua gave up and Abby announced the head-to-head. Those gray eyes of his pierced her and made her want to swallow, made her want to run away from the longing she saw there. Probably just imaging it, Lillian told herself. That’s the tequila you’re seeing nothing else.

In a desperate attempt to stop from falling into those
smoky eyes, she shrugged and hoped she managed a casual face. “Well, I for one gladly take my mockingly short but thankfully tequila-flavored Ivory years over your forever.” Knocking back shot number twelve, she was glad to break eye-contact.

But t
hose gray eyes persisted. “You wouldn’t like to live forever?”

“A
pparently nothing’s forever, even angels.”

The temperature in the room suddenly plummeted and Abby jumped up, waving an empty bottle like a white flag. “Dammit, we’re out of booze!
Seems it’s a draw, ladies and gentlemen.” Laughing she leaned down towards Lillian, “You still able to move those feet of yours? We haven’t danced this whole evening.”

Already m
oving to the pulse of the beat she pulled Lillian to her feet. With the tequila running through her veins, it was easy for Lillian to follow suit. Arms in the air, her hips moving, Lillian just let go. Her hair was loose, ruffled, barely brushing her shoulders, and for one moment she regretted not to be able to feel the length and weight of it at her back.

From over Abby’s shoulder she could see Sam coming up
from behind. Abby closed her eyes in sweet surrender as his hands settled on her hips. Lillian smiled secretly, turning slightly away to leave them in their own cocoon.

E
njoying the heat of her body, she closed her eyes. Alone in her head, free with the music. When she opened them, she was his captive once more, getting lost in hot smoke. Two years had gone by and yet the connection was so easy, so frighteningly easy. The world faded away and it was just the two of them. Longing gripped the bars of its prison, rattling her heart.

Lillian faltered as an unfamiliar
heat seeped into her from behind. Looking over her shoulder she saw Joshua there. She hadn’t noticed him moving, too transfixed on Raz. Regretting the broken moment and yet glad it had been interrupted, she turned around to dance with him. The pang in her heart which wished for someone else to hold her like this was enough of a wake-up call. Raz meant pain and she would do well to remember that if she didn’t want to have another taste of it.

Joshua’s smile was flirting and inviting, and yet she knew there was nothing to worry about. They knew each other well and she was safe with him. Flirting was second nature to him, especially when drunk,
but in the end it meant nothing. No harm done.

When his eyes flicked over her shoulder to where Raz sat
, she even wondered whether he might know her too well. At the conspiratorial glint in his eyes a flicker of mischievous pleasure shot through her, making her lips curve. The little wink that followed before he put his hands on her hips, confirmed her suspicion. Pulling her closer, but not too close, they started moving together. And Lillian admittedly enjoyed the thrill of seeing Raz’s eyes narrowing, darkening as he watched her.

After two songs Lillian needed some fresh air, the pulse of the music and the booze ma
king her heart throb hard in her chest. She went out on the porch, down the steps and onto the stretch of untended lawn behind the house. There was a small shed a little to the side of her that had probably served as a garage once but was now too unstable and maybe a size too small after the last hurricane had toyed with it to be used as such. Forgotten, unused, alone in the darkness - for one sad moment it reminded her of her heart.

The night sky
stretched above her like an endless diamante covered canopy that not even the lights of the city could rival with.

She sensed him like the caress of a warm breeze along her skin before he spoke. “Things have changed.”

Lillian braced herself before turning around to face him.

She looked like a dr
eam, with the night as her coat, and for a moment Raz wasn’t sure whether this was real, whether he was really standing right in front of her. But it was, because in his dreams it sure as hell weren’t Joshua’s hands touching her.

Crossing her arms over her
middle, she frowned at him, “What do you mean?”

“
You didn’t used to be that…unprofessional.”

Her frown darkened, deepened. “Unprofessional?” She spoke the word as if trying it out for the first time
and not liking its taste.

His jaw clenched as he remembered her knocking back those shots
– fearless and without hesitation, the way she tackled life as well. He knew some humans spoke of sparks going off, but that thing between them was no spark, it was a damn bomb that ripped him from the inside out whenever their eyes met. He would have loved nothing more than to taste those tequila-flavored lips. And then she had gone off and danced with Joshua. Danced, he almost snorted. Such a tame word for what they had done. It had taken all of his control to stay where he was and to not stomp over and pin the Ivory to the wall. Seeing her move in those tight black jeans of hers, her short hair tousled as if from a lover’s hands...he swallowed. “The drinking and dancing. The thing between Joshua and you.”

H
er jaw very nearly hit the ground but in the next blink of an eye he could almost see the anger flooding her. “What the hell…” Realization sparked in her eyes before they narrowed on him, almost making him want to back away.

Shit, she knew.
His jaw clenched tight so hard he was probably about to crush his own teeth. As a man he hated to admit, even if only to himself, that he was jealous. As an angel who wasn’t supposed to feel, he was fascinated by the emotion. At moments a healthy dose of it was an eye-opener, making him realize what he had been trying to ignore. At others it made him downright homicidal and lose all angelic compassion he possessed.

“A
re you out of your fucking mind? After two years … Isn’t it enough to suspect me of murder? Now you dare criticize me, my life, the way I live it?” That got a harsh laugh out of Lillian. “Worst of all, you dare stake a claim which you forsook two damn years ago? Really, Raz?” On a roll now, she threw up her arms, “What? You think I’ve snuggled up all alone in my sleeping bag for fucking two years. I’ve become an Ivory not a nun as far as I know.”