Read Lover Mine Online

Authors: J.R. Ward

Lover Mine (34 page)

BOOK: Lover Mine
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Slow massages, slow hands, slow progress . . . and only on the outside up toward the top.
When he was finished, he stood, his knees cracking as he lifted to his full height and maneuvered her under the spray. Holding on to her arm again, he gave her the soap so she could wash whatever else there was to be done.
“John?” she said.
As it was dark, he whistled a
What?
“You are such a male of worth, you know that. You really are.”
She reached up and cupped his face.
It happened so fast, he couldn’t believe it. Later, he would play and replay everything over and over again, stretching out the moment endlessly, reliving it and taking a strange kind of nourishment from the memory, again and again.
When it actually went down, though, it was just an instant. An impulse on her part. A chaste gift given in gratitude for a chaste gift received.
Xhex flexed up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his.
Oh, so soft. Her lips were incredibly soft. And gentle. And very warm.
The contact was far too fleeting, but then again, he was ready to go for hours and hours and call that almost long enough.
“Come lie with me,” she said, opening the door to the shower and stepping out. “I don’t like you on the floor. You deserve much better than that.”
Dimly, he shut off the water and followed her, accepting the towel she handed him. They dried off together, her wrapping her whole torso up, him covering his hips.
Outside, he got up on the hospital bed first and it felt like the most natural thing in the world for him to open his arms wide. If he’d thought about it, he wouldn’t have made the gesture, but he wasn’t thinking.
Which was okay.
Because she came to him as the spraying water in the shower had, drenching him in a warmth that leached through his skin and into his marrow.
But of course, Xhex went even farther through him than that. She always had.
Seemed like he’d lost his soul to her the very first time he’d laid eyes on her.
As he clicked off the light and she settled even closer to him, it felt like she was burrowing right into his cold heart and setting up shop, her banked fire thawing his soul out until he took the first honest-to-God deep breath in months.
John closed his eyes, not expecting to sleep.
He did, though. And very, very well.
THIRTY
I
n the staff room of Sampsone’s mansion, Darius concluded his meeting with the daughter’s maid.
“Thank you,” he said as he rose to his feet and nodded at the female. “I appreciate your candor.”
The
doggen
bowed low. “Please find her. And bring her home, sire.”
“We shall endeavor to do just that.” He glanced at Tohrment. “Would you be so kind as to show in the steward?”
Tohrment opened the door for the tiny female and the pair left together.
In their absence, Darius stalked around the bare floor, his leather boots making a circle about the ledger desk in the center of the room. The maid knew naught of relevance. She had been utterly open and unassuming
—
and added absolutely nothing to the puzzle.
Tohrment came back with the steward, and resumed his stance right beside the door, staying quiet. Which was good. Generally speaking during interrogation of the civil variety, you didn’t need more than one inquisitor. The boy had another utility, however. His shrewd eyes missed nothing, so perhaps there was something he would pick up on that Darius missed during the discourses.
“Thank you for speaking with us,” Darius said to the steward.
The
doggen
bowed low. “It shall be my pleasure to be of service to you, sire.”
“Indeed,” Darius murmured as he sat down on the hard stool he had used when speaking with the maid.
Doggen
by nature tended to value protocol and therefore they would prefer those of higher station to be seated in this situation while they stood. “Whatever are you called, steward.”
Another low bow. “I am Fritzgelder Perlmutter.”
“And how long have you been with the family.”
“I was born unto them seventy- seven years ago.” The steward linked his hands behind his back and straightened his shoulders. “I have serviced the family with pride since my fifth anniversary of birth.”
“Long history. So you know the daughter well.”
“Yes. She is a female of worth. A joy to her birthed parents and her bloodline.”
Darius watched the steward’s face carefully. “And you were not aware of anything . . . that would lead one to expect such a disappearance.”
The servant’s left eyebrow twitched once.
And there was a long silence.
Darius lowered his voice to a whisper. “If it eases your conscience, you have my word as a Brother that neither myself nor my colleague shall reveal what you say to anyone. Even the king himself.”
Fritzgelder opened his mouth and breathed through it.
Darius remained in silence: Pushing the poor male would only slow the process of revelation down. Indeed, he was either going to talk or not, and encouraging him would but delay his decision.
The steward reached into the interior pocket of his uniform and withdrew a bright white handkerchief that was pressed into a precise square. Blotting at his upper lip, he fumbled to put the thing away.
“Nothing shall breach these walls,” Darius whispered. “Not a thing.”
The steward had to clear his throat twice before his thready voice materialized. “Verily . . . she was above reproach. That I am certain of. There was no . . . consort with a male about which her parents were unaware.”
“But . . .” Darius murmured.
At that moment the door swung wide and the butler who had let them into the mansion appeared. He seemed totally unsurprised by the meeting and utterly disapproving of it. No doubt one of his underlings had tipped him off.
“You run such a fine lot of staff,” Darius said to the male. “My colleague and I are very impressed.”
The low bow did nothing to ease the male’s expression of distrust. “I am complimented, sire.”
“We were just leaving. Is your master about?”
The butler straightened and his relief was obvious. “He has retired and that is why I came to see you. He has bidden you well adieu, but must needs look after his beloved
shellan
.”
Darius got to his feet. “Your steward here was about to show us the grounds on our way out. As it is raining, I am certain you should prefer one of your staff to guide us o’er the wet grass. We shall return here after the sunset. Thank you for your accommodation of our requests.”
There was no other response save for the one the male gave: “But of course.”
Fritzgelder bowed to his superior and then extended his arm toward a door in the far corner. “This way.”
Outside, the air carried little of spring’s promise of warmth. Indeed, it was winter-cold as they trudged through the mist.
Fritzgelder knew exactly where to take them, the steward walking with purpose around the back of the mansion to the part of the gardens that were overlooked by the female’s bedroom.
Did not this work out well, Darius thought.
The steward stopped right under Sampsone’s daughter’s window, but he didn’t face the stout stone walls of the house. He looked outward . . . across the flower beds and the hedge maze . . . to the estate next door. And then he deliberately turned to face Darius and Tohrment.
“Lift thine eyes unto the trees,” he said while pointing at the house as if describing something pertinent—because undoubtedly they were being watched from the leaded windows of the manse. “Regard well the clearing.”
Indeed, there was a break in the crowd of barren tree limbs—which was how they’d seen the far-off mansion from the second floor.
“That vista was not created by our household, sire,” the
doggen
said softly. “And I noticed it about a week before . . . she was found gone. I was upstairs cleaning the rooms. The family of the household had retired underground as it was lighted day. I heard the sounds of cracking wood and rendered my eyes unto the windows, whereupon I saw the branches being taken down.”
Darius narrowed his stare. “Very deliberate, the cutting, isn’t it.”
“Very deliberate. And I thought nothing as it is naught but humans who reside therein. But now . . .”
“Now you wonder if there was a pur pose other than landscaping. Tell me, to whom did you mention this.”
“The butler. But he beseeched me to remain mum. He is a fine male, of good service to the family. He wants nothing more than to have her found . . .”
“But he wishes to avoid any conception that she might have fallen into human hands.”
After all, they were just a tail away from being considered upright rats by the
glymera
.
“Thank you for this,” Darius said. “You have done well your duty.”
“Just find her. Please. I care not the source of the abduction—just bring her home.”
Darius focused on what he could see of the manse next door. “We shall do that. In one manner . . . or another.”
For their sakes, he prayed that the humans in that estate had not dared to take one of theirs. The other race was to be avoided, by the king’s orders, but if they had the temerity to aggress upon a vampire? And a noble female at that?
Darius would slaughter each one of them in their beds and leave the bodies to rot into a stench.
THIRTY-ONE
G
regg Winn woke up with Holly curled against him, her lush fake breasts a pair of twin pillows pressing into his side.
A quick glance at the clock and he saw that it was seven a.m. Might as well get packed and head for Atlanta.
“Holly.” He nudged her with his hand. “Wake up.”
She let out something close to a purr and stretched, her body arching into his and turning his morning hard-on into a raw need that he was inclined to do something about. Memories of how she’d ended up in his bed curbed that impulse quickly, though.
Proving that he was a gentleman in some ways.
“Holly. Come on. Wakey-wakey.” He pushed her hair back and smoothed it down her shoulder. “If we get a move on, we’ll be in Atlanta by late afternoon.”
Which, considering he’d cost them a day chasing after this Rathboone thing, was going to come in handy.
“Okay. I’m up. I’m up.”
Actually, he was the only one of the two who got vertical. Holly just nestled into the warm space he’d left and went right back to sleep.
He took a shower and then filled up his suitcase as loudly as he could but she was dead to the world. Not so much asleep as in a coma.
He was just about to go a round with Stan, who was even worse at the whole rousing thing, when a knock sounded on the door.
Could the stoner fool already be awake?
Gregg started talking to his cameraman as he opened the door. “Listen, let’s pack up the van—”
It was the tight-ass butler. Looking as if someone had dumped red wine all over his couch.
Gregg lifted his palm. “We’re leaving, okay. We’re taking off. Just give us—”
“The owner has decided to allow you to film here. For your special.”
Gregg blinked like an idiot. “Excuse me?”
The butler’s tone grew even more disgusted. If that was possible. “The owner spoke to me this morning. He said you are permitted to host your show herein.”
One day too late, Gregg thought with a curse to himself. “Sorry. My team and I are—”
“Thrilled,” Holly finished for him.
As he glanced over his shoulder, his narrator was pulling her robe into place and getting off the bed.
“That’s great news,” she said pointedly while smiling at the butler.
Who seemed to be yo-yoing between disapproval and enchantment at the sight of her all fuzzy and warm and au naturel.
“Very well then,” the butler said, after he cleared his throat. “Do let me know if you need anything.”
With a bow, he disappeared down the hall.
Gregg shut the door. “I thought you wanted out of here.”
“Well . . . I was safe with you, right?” She sidled up to him, stroking his chest. “I’ll just stay with you.”
The satisfaction in her voice made him suspicious. “Did you play me. About that whole sex thing with . . . whoever it was?”
She shook her head without hesitation. “No . . . but I truly think it was all a dream.”
“What about the fact that you said you’d actually had sex.”
Her plucked brows furrowed as if she were trying to see through frosted glass. “It’s just too hazy to have been real. Last night, I was totally confused, but in daylight . . . it all seems silly.”
“You were pretty sure when you came in here.”
She shook her head slowly. “Nothing except a really vivid, incredible dream . . . it didn’t actually happen.”
He searched her face and found nothing but certainty.
Abruptly, she put her hand up to her temple. “Do you have any aspirin?”
“Headache?”
“Yeah. It just came on.”
He went over and took his dopp kit out of his suitcase. “Listen, I’m willing to give it a shot here, but if we decide to stay, there’s no pulling out. We need to fill our time slot, so we can’t just bolt for Atlanta in a day or two.”
Frankly, they were already in last-minute land.
“I understand,” she said as she sat on the bed. “I absolutely get it.”
Gregg brought her the aspirin, then went into the bathroom and snagged her a glass of water. “Listen, why don’t you go back to bed. It’s early yet and Stan’s no doubt still passed out.”
BOOK: Lover Mine
7.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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