Lure of the Wicked (28 page)
He braced his hands on his thighs, his smile widening. Dimples winked at his mouth, shadowed points of pure lust. Naomi swallowed hard. “You hate to be fussed over, but you love fussing with clothes. You hate tea—”
Her eyes widened. “How the hell do you know that?”
“You never drank the tea we sent up with your meals,” Phin said, his eyes twinkling, “but you love coffee. Black, no cream or sugar.”
Naomi threw out her hands, a wild effort to swing his words right back at him. His observations, his neat little deductions. “All right, so what? How does that—”
“Thinking.” Phin sighed and held out a hand. One simple gesture. A hand, steady. Waiting, palm-up. “Come here.”
Naomi stared at it.
“I’m not— No, wait,” he amended. “I will probably bite. That’s not a problem, is it?”
“You’re naked.”
Laughter washed over his features. Turned her beautiful, dimly lit god into something so very male. Approachable. So very real.
So very Phin.
“So are you,” he said, and waited. Just . . . waited.
For her.
Naomi’s fingers clenched, unclenched. Clenched again. Her heart pounded in her throat, roared in her ears, too loud, too crystal clear to ignore, but fear closed her throat.
Regret filled her eyes with tears.
His hand wavered. “Naomi—”
“I’m so sorry.”
E
very muscle in his body struggled to go to her. To climb off the bed and cross the room, pick her up, and carry her back to the bed with him. To make the decision for her.
Phin couldn’t do it.
If he did, if he obeyed the impulse to make it easy for her, to remove the terrible conflict he read in her eyes, on her face, then he could never know for sure.
Never know if she really had made the choice.
Or if he’d just made it for her.
I’m so sorry.
Fear ate a terrible hole in his chest.
“For?” It took effort to keep his voice steady. To keep his hand outstretched, waiting. All she had to do was reach.
Please, God, let her reach.
She was so beautiful. Lightning painted her body with shades of white and shadow, as if the sky had dipped her in silver. Metal glittered at her lower lip, at her eyebrow. At her navel and one pebbled nipple.
Different, but Naomi through and through.
Her eyes shimmered, huge pools of regret and uncertainty. Of the same fear that ate at him.
He knew what she felt.
She shook her head. “I never—” His heart sank. “When I said the things I did,” she said huskily, meeting his eyes with effort. With so much pain. “I never wanted this to happen. I never wanted to see your mother—” Her voice broke.
“Hey.” He shot off the bed, ready to damn his pride and the uncertainty of the future to ease the shadows from her eyes, her memory now. But she threw out a hand, froze him in place with a single, hard look.
“Stop. Let me say this.”
Phin nodded slowly. Oh, his poor Naomi.
“The things I said, I said because I wanted you to hate me. I wanted you to think you were better off.” She laughed, a wan, humorless sound. “I wanted to believe what I said so that I could walk away. No strings. A pretty dream during a bad time.”
Silver spilled from her eyes, a single trail of tears. Phin took a slow, deep breath, fighting every urge to go to her. Soothe her.
“I
never
wanted your family to get hurt,” she said, throaty regret. “I never wanted to see you hurt, Phin, not by anyone else. Not by me.”
“You broke my heart.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Phin mentally kicked himself into traction. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t mean to share that. To make it worse.
She flinched. “It was supposed to save you.”
“Maybe it did.” Slowly, hoping against hope, Phin offered his hand again. Palm up. “Maybe that anger got me through this past month. But it was a bandage. I need more than that.”
She shoved her fingers roughly into her hair, lopsided from their lovemaking. Tangled and so perfectly Naomi, purple streaks and all.
Phin held his breath.
“I don’t have any guarantees,” she began, but he shook his head. She frowned. “Don’t you want—?”
“All I want,” he said quietly, “all I need is you.”
He watched the battle rage behind her eyes. Fierce independence, fear, uncertainty; and there, slowly, like a warm spring rain, he saw it. Love.
She loved him.
Phin’s heart swelled. Blossomed inside his chest like something thriving after a cold winter. He took in a slow, deep breath, threw his pride to the wind, and crossed the floor anyway.
She met him halfway.
L
ater, as the storm rolled away into silence, Phin studied the faint golden circle on the far wall and traced Naomi’s spine with a feather-light touch. She shivered over him, her legs entangled with his, her head under his chin.
One finger tapped a beat against his chest in time with his heart. Her heart.
As rain trickled from the quiet night sky, the air crackled. Hummed. Lights flickered on, bathed the outside street in typical dim illumination.
The lights inside stayed off.
Naomi shifted, planted an elbow in his chest to look down into his face. He grunted. “You didn’t have the lights on.”
“So?” Phin winced, edged her elbow off his solar plexus. “Is that a crime, ma’am?”
“You were trying to trap me.”
He grinned, wolfishly pleased, into her blue-violet eyes. So beautiful. “So?”
“You son of a—”
He raised his head, stole her words with a kiss that stole his breath in turn. Her lip ring was warm against his mouth, her breath suddenly a ragged sound.
Reluctantly he let her pull away. “You’re a dirty fighter, Miss West,” he said, watching as she slid from the bed. The light gleamed over her naked skin, outlined every curve, every muscle. He whistled when she bent to retrieve her clothes.
He grinned unrepentantly when she shot him a quelling look over her shoulder. “Yeah?” she shot back. “Well, you learn fast.”
“That’s a fact.” Still, he threw back the covers, retrieved his own clothes. He dressed quickly, already shivering in the frigid winter air.
“So why you?”
“Why me, what?”
She shook her head as she eased past him to the kitchen. “Why was I supposed to meet you? Don’t tell me this was some sort of elaborate booty call—”
“Whoa.” Phin caught her arm, pulled her right back to frown fiercely into her surprised gaze. Her eyes flicked to his hand on her arm. Back to his face, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t ever,” he warned, “ever think of this, right here between us, as some sort of troll for sex.”
Her lashes flared. “Easy, slick,” she murmured.
“No, I’m serious.” He caught her chin, held her gaze as he feathered his lips over hers. “
This
is serious.”
She hummed something that sounded like capitulation, like simple enjoyment of his mouth on hers, but her mind wasn’t on them. Obviously.
He let her go, unable to fight the grin that tugged at his mouth. His heart. Naomi West, the most infuriating, thorough, stubborn woman he’d ever met.
“To answer your question,” he said, sitting on the mattress to pull on his socks and shoes, “I’m extending an offer to you and your group to help with a project.”
“A project?” Naomi shot him a curious frown as she filled the old kettle on the stove.
“When Timeless was still operational—” Even saying it was a twist of anger, of pain in his chest. The kettle clattered to the stove.
It was a pain they both carried, he realized.
Phin stood, crossed the small room to slide his arms around her waist as she turned on the stove. “When Timeless was still operational,” he repeated, “we ran an underground railroad of sorts.”
Her body stiffened. “You were a smuggler?” It wasn’t surprise that raised her voice. It was anger. Self-directed, he realized as she turned in his arms. “Why the fuck didn’t I know?”
He laughed, struggled to smother it as she shot him a glare, murder in her eye. “Because we’ve been doing it for a long time, Naomi,” he managed, with somewhat of a straight face. “And we didn’t smuggle things, we smuggled people. Witches, or at least those accused as such by the Church.”
The conflict in her face made him tuck her hair behind her ears. Made him want to touch her, reassure her.
“We always checked, as much as we could. The people we ran through Timeless were innocent of wrongdoing. Maybe some were witches,” he added, “I’m not disputing that. But they weren’t like—you know, like Agatha.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. Shaking her head, she sighed and draped her arms around his shoulders. “I just don’t even know enough about the difference,” she admitted, annoyed and rueful and so gorgeous, it hurt to look at her smile.
“They were like you,” Phin explained. “Like my mother. A witch”—her eyes flinched—“but not bad. Not evil. And definitely undeserving of the Church’s attentions.”
“I’m only a witch because . . .” She hesitated. “Well, I guess I’m a witch now.”
“She chose well.” He dipped his head, kissed her forehead. “I never, ever once doubted it.”
Her lips curved up into that half smile. “Says you. I wonder, though,” she mused, her smile fading. “Given I wasn’t born with witchcraft—hell, I don’t even know how to use this damn thing. I should run some blood work on myself. If I can get the equipment— Shit.” She turned as the kettle whistled shrilly.
He let her go and watched her search the cabinets for more mugs, the flex and sway of her body as she reached into the shelves.
He ran his hand over his head. “There’s instant coffee on the top shelf,” he admitted. “I may have . . . hoped you’d be here.”
The look she shot him twisted somewhere between pleasure and stubborn pride.
He bit back a grin. “Anyway, Timeless is up in smoke and we’re deflecting the Church left and right. They’re looking for you, looking for excuses. We don’t have the same kind of safety we used to.”
“So how do we help?”
“Silas reached out a couple weeks ago. We haven’t hammered out any details, but we’re going to.” He wrapped his hands around hers as she offered him a mug, held her close. “You, me, and the rest of your group need to meet somewhere when it’s safe.” Slowly he brushed his lips across hers. A whisper, a breath of warmth. “And I’m warning you now, Naomi. We’re going to make this work. Whatever it takes, whatever I need to do, I’ll do it.”
She stared into his eyes. Searched them for whatever it was she needed to believe. Phin didn’t know. “We’re going to spend a lot of time apart,” she said doubtfully.
“I know,” he replied. “But we’ll find a way. I promise you, I’m not going to lose you, lose this, to anything. Including your own fear,” he added.
She winced, but laughter eased in around it. “You’re not pulling your punches.”
“You wouldn’t like me if I did.”
“I love you.”
Three words. Offhandedly said and with a
but
so obviously attached, yet he didn’t care. His heart soared. “That’s all I need,” he said, cutting off the explanation, the excuse, whatever it was that welled in her eyes. “That’s all I’ll ever need, Naomi.”
Frustration shaped her expression, the taut line of her body as she pulled away. Steam rolled off the mug in his hands, mingled with the steam from her own as she clattered her cup to his. “You’re going to regret this.”
“Never,” he swore.
“You’ll probably yell at me a lot.”
Now he grinned, unabashedly cocky. “You’ll yell at me just as much. I bet you’re a dish thrower.”
She sighed. “I’m not good with—”
“Naomi.” She stilled. Phin caught her hand, lifted her fingers to his lips, and breathed a kiss so light, so tender over her knuckles that her hand shook in his. “Shut the
hell
up.”
Her smile eased into her eyes until they shone. “I give it three months.”
“Then we’ll be right here again in three months,” he promised. She laughed, throwing her head back with the sheer joy of it, and for the second time that night, pottery thudded to the floor. Tea and coffee splattered everywhere, hot and steaming and completely ignored as they collided.
Buttons parted, zippers hissed. Naomi hesitated, her clever fingers tunneling into the front of Phin’s pants. Her skin was cold against his heated erection; shockingly exciting. He gasped.
“Oh, damn,” she said suddenly, her eyes glinting. Wicked bright. “I just remembered.”
“God, what?” he gasped, sweat slick on his skin. “Stove? Is something on fire? Whatever, it can wait, just—” His mind detonated in pure pleasure as she rolled her palm over him.
“No. You just never got to see the lingerie Andy let me have.”
Phin screwed his eyes shut and groaned. She was sheer torture. Pure heaven. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Maybe,” she murmured, sliding down his body like hot silk. “I’m definitely going to try.” Before he could wrap his mind around her intent, she replaced her fingers with the wet heat of her mouth.
He tunneled his fingers into her hair and laughed, half amusement and half a ragged sound of soul-wrenching need as he collapsed back against the counter and prayed for patience.
Despite everything that had tried to tear them apart, despite the baggage they both carried and the memories of blood and fire, she was his.
Not a missionary. Not an heiress. Not a witch.
Naomi West. The woman he loved.
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T
here was no such thing as rest for the wicked.
Caleb Leigh opened gritty, burning eyes, giving up on the fitful doze that was all his pain-wracked body could manage for sleep. The filthy motel room came into focus as the neon lights outside the grimy, patchy curtains popped and fizzled, thrusting red and orange knives into his retinas.
How long had he managed to sleep this time? Two hours? Three? It didn’t matter. Little twinges burst through his body, hellfire sparklers of pain spasming in his muscles. His skin twitched as if it wanted to crawl off his abused body and slink away for a shower.
God. He’d kill for a shower.
Muffling a groan, he reached for the shirt he’d left on the floor, caught the edge with his fingers, and froze as a whisper of a breeze ghosted across the sensitive scars on his back.
Off. The room felt off. Unbalanced.
He inhaled, smelled New Seattle’s own peculiar brand of acid-tinged summer rain, acrid smog, rotting garbage, and . . . something else.
Get up!
A floorboard creaked behind him.
Caleb threw himself off the bed as a black silhouette loomed out of the dark. Rusted springs screeched, a high-pitched shriek that twanged into a crescendo as his assailant landed on the mattress. Caleb’s grunt of pain as he hit the floor drowned in the raw fury clamping around his head.
He’d had no warning. Not even a
whisper
of magic.
He should have been less surprised.
The shadow pushed off the bed as Caleb leaped to his feet. Silver winked a deadly promise in the faint glow of the neon lights spilling through the single broken window; serrated steel, a knife gripped in one black-gloved hand.
It pointed at him, wicked edge gleaming. “How the hell are you not dead?”
The already cramped motel room walls slammed in tight around him. That voice. Feminine. Breathy with exertion, with fear, but so fucking familiar that it sucked out his breath on a raw sound.
Memory. Affection. Worry.
Love.
It rose like a dream, a sigh of lazy summer days and laughing secrets, and Caleb fought the slick, blissful whisper back behind gritted teeth. It wasn’t
his
love. It wasn’t his affection, his worry, his goddamn memory that fisted in his heart.
And Juliet Carpenter had no goddamned business being anywhere near him.
A year wasn’t nearly long enough.
The neon lights snapped and crackled in rhythmic chaos outside the window. They slanted lurid color over her black hair, cut shorter than he remembered and in a fashion that suggested she was aiming for edgy and tough. The dark, choppy fringe framed her face, her faintly square jaw and the ghostly green eyes that he’d last seen half closed and luminous as he sank balls-deep inside her warm, straining body.
Promise me.
His fists clenched. He’d done his part, damn it. “Get out,” he said flatly.
“You son of a
bitch.
” Deftly the sawlike blade in her hand rotated as Juliet jumped onto the thin mattress and launched herself at him.
Every muscle in his body locked.
Every goddamn nerve in his left side detonated as he plucked her from the air. Her legs swung to his side, knees ramming into his ribs and jarring a painful grunt from between his clenched teeth as he fisted both hands into her jacket collar and used her own momentum to slam her against the wall behind him. Plaster cracked.
The breath left her on a hard, wordless snarl.
His threatened to lodge in his chest, banded tightly under the fiery protest of unhealed wounds lancing through his weakened left side. “I said get out,” he growled, glaring through the sizzling edges of his vision.
The knife glinted. He shackled her wrist with one hand and slammed it back against the wall. White dust floated to her hair in a gritty cloud.
Sweat gleamed on her face, echo of the perspiration drying across his shoulders. It wasn’t all courtesy of the unusually muggy summer heat that had settled into the deepest crevasses of the city. Holding her in place shouldn’t have been as hard as it was, but his body still wasn’t recovered from the burns that had nearly killed him a year ago.
Every day was a lesson in pain. Pinning a witch against a wall as her feet thrashed a foot above the floor wasn’t helping.
Pinning
this
witch wasn’t something he’d ever expected to do again.
She’d lost weight.
Her jacket was a little too loose, her black shirt baggy where he’d tangled his fingers into the collar of both. The warmth of her full breasts against the back of his scarred hand wasn’t a reminder he needed, but he couldn’t afford to let her go for his own comfort.
Breasts versus knife? He wasn’t a fool. Or some teenage virgin who had never gotten a handful of a woman before. Especially
this
woman.
The dark circles under her eyes couldn’t take away from the visual impact she’d always had on him. Her mouth, top-heavy and so damn expressive it made him crazy for it, twisted as she struggled in his grip. She managed to gain an inch of momentum as she jerked her hand out from under his, but Caleb locked his teeth and shoved it back. Fragile bones grated under his grip.
Pain flickered. Hers. His.
Promise me. . .
Oh, Jesus. That voice.
Caleb sucked in a breath that seemed harder than it should have to get and drowned out the words echoing through his head. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He didn’t have to ask. The venom spewing at him from a look filled with revulsion was all the answer he needed.
His grip tightened on her collar. “Let me rephrase that. Where’s your backup?”
Her teeth clicked together. Her gaze slid away, flicked back as she raised her chin.
She’d never been a good liar.
Caleb stared at her as fury throbbed between his temples. “You don’t have backup,” he said softly. Then, much less quietly, he snarled, “You came alone? You came after me
by yourself
? Jesus Christ, Jules!”
With monumental effort, Juliet raised both feet and planted them against Caleb’s thigh. He braced on instinct, swore as it raised her out of his grip and threw him off balance. She reached up with her right hand, grabbed the knife out of her left, and swung it back around. Caleb swore again, jerking away, but not before the jagged teeth of the blade snagged the puckered flesh of his left arm.
Damn it!
Raw, red static shorted his vision as he backpedaled into the mattress. His knees collided with the edge, buckled and sprawled him backward onto the springs.
Sensing her intent, he rolled, blood smearing the stained sheets, and grunted as her weight barreled into his back. Her knees rammed into the vulnerable hollow beneath his shoulder blades, dug into his scars hard enough that he threw his head back, forced to lock his teeth against a brittle surge of pain.
“Don’t move!” Her fingers twisted in his too-long hair.
Caleb froze.
Her thighs clenched around his waist. They were warm, even through her pants. Warm and familiar. And the press of her soft breasts against his shoulders shouldn’t have mattered more than the knife she held at his throat.
Muscles shaking, taut with the effort to stay still, Caleb waited. It hurt. God, it hurt, but it had nothing on the clash of memory, fantasy, hell,
wanting
that roiled in his blood now.
They’d never made it to a bed. He remembered that. There weren’t that many beds in Old Seattle.
Behind him, on him, Juliet panted for breath. “I just,” she managed, “want to know one thing.”
“Then what?” His voice grated harshly. “You’ll cut my throat?”
He knew it wasn’t true the instant he said it, but that wasn’t the point. Juliet had always been too soft. Everyone had known it.
Her sister had known it.
Promise me.
The knife at his throat jerked. A thin, slick line of fire told him how sharp the damn blade was. It’d make a bloody mess of his flesh faster than he could get it away from her.
“You could only be so lucky,” she spat. “I want to know why, you bastard. Why?”
Why? She wasn’t asking why he wasn’t dead. He didn’t have that answer, anyway. No, he knew what she asked in the single, strained syllable, and closed his eyes.
Why had he betrayed the coven?
Not precisely.
More like, why the hell had he wrapped her body around him like silk and rain? Lost himself in her, pulled her apart with anger and need and mind-scorching heat and then betrayed everything she’d ever believed in?
The fact that he’d murdered her sister was something she didn’t know to ask. Fuck.
And you promised!
God, he wished he hadn’t. “Why what?” he asked, and because he already knew the answer, added, “Why didn’t I say no when you threw yourself at me or—”
The fingers in his hair tightened, wrenching his head back on an angle that threatened to pop his neck. She leaned over him, body pushed forward to thrust her face over his. Her eyes were wide, too wide, shimmering with tears that crawled deep inside his chest and twisted. Bloodier than the knife at his throat.
Darker than the rage that beat at the iron chains of his self-control.
“You know!” The words broke on a ragged sound. “Why did you kill them? Why? When we—”
“We,” he said flatly, cutting her off with barely leashed scorn. “There never was a
we.
”
She blanched. Recovered so quickly that he wasn’t sure he’d seen the blood his verbal dagger had drawn. “
We
,” she repeated through gritted teeth, “as in the Coven of the Unbinding.
We
as in your friends!”
“Liar.” Her knee dug into the hollow beneath his left shoulder blade. Neon flashed, and only part of it was the monotonous color outside the seedy motel. The rest popped and sparkled behind his eyes, accompaniment to the ruined skin she pushed on.
“They were your family—”
“Bullshit,” he rasped, all but a growl under the pressure. “They were users. Curio only kept you for your magic.” And, rumor had it, for her body.
He didn’t ask. Even as the words leaped to his lips, he didn’t want to know.
He’d had that body, too.
One of many things he’d shared with the late coven leader.
The knife lowered, a fraction. “You killed them. All of them,” she accused, a sharp whisper. “They gathered because they trusted you—”
Fuck.
They’d gathered because they had intended to sacrifice Caleb and his sister for their power-hungry cause.
“—and you just . . . killed them.” Her voice trembled.
“Most of them,” he agreed. Some, like her, he’d managed to distract. Some he’d gotten free.
Her eyes flickered, her face upside-down but still so fragile, it stole the breath from his body. Black hair dye wouldn’t make her tough. “Why?”
His jaw locked. Ticked hard. “Because I could.”
He hated himself for doing it. He hated that it had to be done. But Caleb was a lot of things, and gentle wasn’t one. Reversing her flimsy position of power was easy—just reaching up, seizing the back of her jacket, and hauling her bodily over his head.
His scars stretched, felt as if they split from the root to the skin, and the angry buzzing in his ears almost drowned out her howl of rage and surprise as she hit the ground on her back. The knife went flying, and Caleb rolled off the mattress seconds before it embedded itself into the wall beside them.
Plaster drifted lazily on the air as Caleb knocked her fist away, seized both hands, and pinned them above her head. The motion barked his knuckles on the rusted bed frame, and he grunted a curse as her knee found his gut. Twisting, he pinned her legs, clamped his thighs around hers, and locked her down.
She strained, but succeeded only in turning herself red with the effort. Dust puffed languidly around them. Sweat dripped from his nose as he stared down at the face he’d hoped to hell to never see again.
Love. God damn it, it had never been
his
to
feel
.
“Stop it,” he ordered roughly as she twisted her hips.
“You traitorous son of—!”
“Son of a bitch. Yes, I know.” He transferred her wrists to one hand, dropping his forearm to her throat. He shoved hard, forcing her head to lie still against the dirty green carpet, and met her eyes exactly because he didn’t want to.
The accusation in them didn’t quite hide the helplessness she struggled to bury. The grief.
Guilt had a punch like a prize fighter.
What the hell could he say? He’d done so much more to her than even she knew.
He knew, though. It was enough. His mouth thinned. “Let’s get this straight, girl. Yes, I turned on your coven. Yes, I killed Curio—” He pushed hard as her back arched, fury snapping through her like a conduit. “I killed Curio,” he repeated curtly, “and probably about two dozen other witches who didn’t know when to get out. If I had to do it all over again, I’d make the same choices.”
But he wouldn’t, he thought as tears shimmered in her narrowed glare, choose to touch her again. He wouldn’t commit his body and soul in a single moment of mind-blowing weakness, and he damn well wouldn’t promise the impossible to Cordelia Carpenter before he killed her.
Life gave only one chance. His bed was made; he damn well was going to lie in it.
Alone.
“We can play this all day, Jules,” he said, thrusting his face so close to hers that she flinched. “You’re on your own, and I’m stronger than you.”
Her lips twisted, teeth baring as if she would try to bite him. Under the strained pressure of his forearm, her skin flushed nearly purple. It colored her cheeks, her lips. Her eyes flashed, hatred and fear.
Protect her. Shit. Just
shit.
Caleb relented. Loosened enough so she could breathe.
She coughed, choking. “I hate—I hate you,” she managed between rough spasms. “I’m going to kill you!”