Lost Paradise (20 page)

I woke up to loud familiar screaming. I’d
watched this movie enough times to know the sounds of the final
battle. But where was I? I was laying partially on somebody, curled
around their lower body. Someone was stroking my hair back from my
face gently with callused hands that were rough on my face. There
was the scent of leather, autumn leaves, and the faint musky odor
of earth.

This was not Theo.

I lifted my head, looked up into Lash’s face
looking down at me, and froze.

He removed his hand from my face. “You should
go up to bed. I didn’t want to wake you, but you clearly need
sleep. You almost fell off the couch, so I eased you down next to
me.”

“Sorry,” I said, blushing furiously, trying
to untangle myself from him. My one arm, woven though the coils of
his whip, took me a minute to unwind.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lash said easily,
helping me get to my feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner. We
can put the movie on again then, if you want.”

We had a standing dinner date now. But Lash
was supposed to be guarding me, so it made sense. Also, he’d made
no moves on me. He could have tried to raise The Lust when I’d been
lying there with him, and he hadn’t.

I relaxed. “It’s a plan. See you then.”

Lash nodded. “You asked me about the clothes
yesterday. I left you a pile on Devlin’s loveseat. Anything you
can’t fix you can throw out.” He turned and left.

“Thanks,” I called awkwardly after him, then
headed upstairs.

* * * *

The next day was the best one yet.

I had set my watch alarm for eight. When it
went off, I got up and threw on some clothes. Devlin grumbled, but
when he heard that I was going with Lash to check out the gardens,
he gave me a smile, and let me go.

It took a good two hours. Lash showed me all
of the gardens, while I scribbled notes furiously. Most of them
were raised beds. Not knowing if there were any flowers there
beneath last year’s weeds, I wrote down a list of possible plants,
figuring to wait and see what emerged in the spring.

Lash made no mention of the night before. He
was polite, but not overly so. Relieved, and relaxed, I enjoyed the
sunshine and his company, deciding finally that I liked him. Maybe
he could be a jerk, but he’d been decent with me when it counted.
That was what mattered.

Afterwards, I went back to bed, and spent the
rest of the day sleeping with Devlin. When I awoke with Dev at
dusk, I was rested. He dressed, kissed me once warmly and then went
off to work with Titus. I got dressed, then called Theo at Danial’s
house for an update.

“He isn’t here, he’s working,” Danial said
crankily, when he answered. “And I hope you’ll be back to work next
week, too, Sar.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked, surprised.

“I finally put up the Solutions Inc.
website,” Danial answered grumpily.

“That’s great!” I said excitedly. “You’ve
wanted to do that for ages.” I’d looked at so many designs with him
over the years, I’d suspected this day might never come. Danial was
always the perfectionist; it had to be perfect, or he wasn’t happy.
But whatever he did do usually got great results. “So what’s
wrong?”

“Sar, we had a hundred emails our first day!”
Danial said loudly. “I deleted the junk, but there are over thirty
people to call. That’s just from today.” He paused. “I need you
next week.”

Sigh
. “I’ll be there Monday at eight.
Tell Theo I called.”

Hanging up, I put the looming work to come
out of my mind and went looking for Serena.

We spent an hour sewing. Using Lash’s
clothing, I showed her the basic stitches, and how best to repair
clothing needing mending. There were a lot of Lash’s clothes in the
pile, more than I had expected. The heavy cotton, denim, and wool
were all in black, which made my work easy; I didn’t have to change
my thread color once.

Serena got the hang of it quickly. Nosy about
the men who’d given her clothes to mend, I snuck glances at the
fabric, but the dark navy blue shirts, single red shirt, white
socks, and brown jeans didn’t give me any clues as to whom their
owners might be. Asking flat out seemed in bad taste. But I made a
mental note to pay attention to who wore blue shirts here.

Some of what we worked on was normal wear and
tear: socks needing darning, pockets that had ripped out, frayed
cuffs, and unraveled seams. But several others were from fighting,
though I didn’t see any bloodstains on the ripped and sliced
cloth.

Lash came in as we were finishing. “You fixed
them all?” he hissed, surprised.

Serena grabbed her clothes and edged fast
towards the door. “Thanks, Sar. See you later.” She darted out.

“Bye, Serena,” I said brightly, handing the
clothes to Lash as if her behavior was perfectly normal. “It’s not
hard to do mending. It’s just tedious sometimes. Yours was easy.” I
gave him a knowing look. “Maybe you should be more careful when you
fight.”

Lash gave me an odd look in return. “Dinner?”
he hissed.

“Sure,” I said, making a face. “but we’re out
of sushi. Do you want—”

“I got some more for us today, while you and
Dev were sleeping,” Lash said, going to the fridge and handing me
several packages of eel, and one of vegetables.

“You didn’t have to,” I said awkwardly. I got
a plate, and filled it with sushi, wondering again if there was
more to this sudden thoughtfulness, and if that more was a bad
thing.

Lash followed suit. “You need it.” He paused.
“It’s probably the closest thing to raw meat that you can tolerate
eating. Wereanimal children need a lot of protein. My mother always
made sure we ate a lot of meat and fish. It is good for your
werechild to eat this. You should try to eat it at least a few
times a week, to give the baby what it needs to grow.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t just awkward, I was an
emotional mess, too. “Thank you,” I managed.

“I told this to Devlin, but he is vampire and
doesn’t understand,” Lash hissed furiously. “But most vampires
don’t understand weres, or want to, other than to tell us what
needs doing.”

What was his issue with Dev?
I’d
absorbed from my time with Danial and Dev, not to mention the other
Rulers, that most vampires looked down on weres, and that most, if
not all, weres knew this and expected it, though they didn’t like
it. Danial had always treated Theo pretty much as an equal, but he
hadn’t thought of the foxes that way until I had called him on it.
Even then, it was adopting Elle as his daughter that had finally
made him realize that his employees had their own needs,
personalities, and desires. It was clear from Dev’s comment when I
had insisted on telling Serena about Vince, not to mention his
treatment of Elle, that he thought of weres and even Titus as just
creatures who were there to work for him, or make his life easier.
But Lash I’d thought an exception, especially with Lash’s bedroom
right next door to Devlin’s.

“Did you two fight?” I asked finally,
worried.

“No, but we’re going to soon,” Lash said
bitterly, then lapsed into a brooding silence.

“Then let’s leave the work for tonight,” I
said, taking my plate into the TV room. “Put on
South Park
,
please.”

Lash liked it at once, though he was shocked
at the language. “These are children?” he said, flicking his tongue
at me. “Children talk like this now?”

“Third graders, no less,” I said,
laughing.

“I feel old,” he said ruefully.

We were watching the episode about the
Starbucks coffee house, when Dev called.

“Sar’s fine, Dev,” Lash hissed angrily, after
he answered it. “We are watching TV.”

There was silence. Lash didn’t speak, but
whatever Devlin was saying was pissing him off, as he began
flicking his tongue rapidly, like a rattling angry tail.

I had to shut this down. “Tell him you know
what happened to his underwear,” I said quietly.

Lash looked at me, and his mouth dropped
open. I laughed, then gestured to the screen where the underpants
gnomes were singing songs and stealing underwear. Lash began
roaring, laughing so hard he was choking. That set me off, tears
streaming out of my eyes as I howled.

“What is so funny?” Dev’s voice screamed out
of the receiver.

“We’re sorry the gnomes got your underwear,”
Lash hissed contritely, giving me a wicked grin. “We managed to
fend them off ourselves. We feel sorry for you.”

I wiped at my eyes, the tears flowing like
water as I gasped for breath. “Stop!” I yelled. “I can’t
breathe!”

Devlin sputtered on the other end of the
phone. “I don’t wear underwear by choice! No one stole it! It was
not worn in my time, you idiots! What the hell are you talking
about? What’s going on there?”

“You’d know if you were here,” Lash hissed,
venom flowing in every word. “But you’re not, so you won’t.” He
hung up the phone.

“I solved one old mystery at least,” I said,
grabbing for a tissue. “But he’ll be pissed you hung up on
him.”

“He’ll get over it,” Lash hissed, smirking.
“That was great, Sar. He was so pissed, because he thought we were
having fun here without him.”

“Well, we are,” I said, snickering. “Hit
play.”

We watched a few more episodes. Soon it was
after midnight. “I’m going to bed,” I said finally. “I don’t want
to fall off the couch like last night.”

To my surprise, Lash didn’t take the opening
to banter. “Okay. Do you mind if I keep the DVD for a while?” he
said formally. “I’d like to watch the rest.”

“Go ahead,” I said, oddly awkward again.
“I’ll be coming back sometime soon.” I walked off waiting for Lash
to call goodnight after me, but he didn’t.

* * * *

It was close to two in the morning when I
awoke. Devlin was not back yet. Guilty over the prank I’d
instigated, I lay there sleepless thinking about it, wondering if
he was delaying returning on purpose as a sort of punishment.
Telling myself that was stupid, I decided to go get a drink of
water. Irritated I’d forgotten to bring up a glass from upstairs, I
put on my robe and headed for the kitchen. I was just starting down
the stairs when a hissing voice cut the silence.

“Where are you going?”

I turned. Lash closed his bedroom door behind
him, and came towards me in the semi-darkness, framed in the weak
outside lights shining through the downstairs windows. He was
wearing a black motorcycle jacket and his jeans, his face in deep
shadow.

“You shouldn’t wander downstairs alone,” Lash
continued, coming closer. “What do you need?”

Did he sleep in those jeans? No, most
likely he slept naked as he had at Danial’s. Probably he had
nothing on underneath them
…The Lust came roaring back like a
tidal pool, drowning me in seconds.

He’s probably warm like he’d been that night
I’d fallen asleep with him. I want that warmth, to curl around him,
and smell his scent, to roll myself in it until I’m covered with
it. I want to surround him with my body, to cover him with my
scent, until everything meshes into one!

I went up the stairs in a lunge, my robe
dropping to the floor. I reached out for him, but he evaded me like
before, sidestepping quickly, his hands grasping my arms. He
pressed my back to the wall, turning me to face him. I reached up
with my hands, and brought his lips down on mine, opening my mouth
eagerly. Lash responded immediately, sliding his forked tongue to
mine fervently, tasting me as he pressed his body to mine, his
erection forming quickly at my hip. I reached down and caressed
him. He let out a soft groan, breaking the kiss.

“Is this for me?” I said seductively,
stroking him.

Lash pressed himself against me hard, rubbing
and thrusting. “All for you, if you want it,” he hissed. Then he
kissed me, the unyielding press of his fangs quickly lost to the
soft kisses on my cheeks, then my neck as he reached his arms up
under my nightgown to slide his callused fingertips up my naked
back.

The feel of his rough hands on my smooth skin
inflamed me. I reached down and grabbed his ass, pulling him hard
against me and squeezing. “I want it! I want you,” I moaned
insistently, overcome by the pleasurable sensations of his lips and
tongue caressing my skin.

“What do you want?” he hissed softly in my
ear. “The same as before?”

“Yes,” I said, reaching for the front of his
jeans. “Now.”

“Come with me,” he said, trying to lead me to
his bedroom. “We can’t do it here, or Serena and Nick may see us.
They are in her room—”

“No, not there—”

“Where?” Lash said hungrily, kissing me
lightly again on my neck.

I grabbed him by his hair, and jerked his
head back from me. “Davy’s,” I said roughly, kissing down his neck.
“I want you to take me as you used to take Cin.”

“Take us there and I will,” he answered, raw
lust uncoiling in each word.

I closed my eyes, teleporting us. But instead
of ending up inside, we ended up before the closed doors of Davy’s,
in the parking lot. The harsh light of a streetlight shone down on
us. The cool night air was cool on my skin, raising goosebumps down
my arms.

Lash shrugged off his leather jacket, then
draped it over me. “My bad,” he hissed. “Davy’s is shielded when
it’s not open, so no one can teleport in and have a private party.”
He grinned. “Demons have a taste for booze.”

“I want in,” I said harshly, then let my tone
shift to sultry. “Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Lash hissed, baring his snake fangs.
“And I get what I want, Sar. Come here.”

I pushed into his arms, my arms going around
his neck. Lash grabbed my wrists, then held me to the brick wall,
kissing me as he rubbed his groin on mine. My breaths came
raggedly, my consuming desire for him building uncontrollably. I
raised one knee, bending my leg to pull him closer, the sudden
added stimulation of his erection making me moan with longing.
Yes, he could take me right here, against the wall. I wanted his
fangs in me, along with his cock…