NOT DEAD YET: A Lucy Hart, DEATHDEALER Novel (Book Two) (5 page)

Lila was all too willing to let someone else do the cleaning up, and took off her heels before trudging up the stairs to bed. 

Gram was close to objecting when Lucy gave her a look.  The look screamed G
o to bed
so I can have some alone-time with my love-muffin!

Gram got the hint loud and clear, and taking a last cup of coffee with her, she traversed the stairs as well.

Lucy started in on the dishes.  Gram had already packed away the few leftovers, so pretty much they just needed to get all the dishes clean.

Gram was also fanatical about keeping the dishes she used while cooking cleaned up as she went, and immediately put back in their rightful place. And she cleaned as she cooked.  So truthfully there wasn’t a whole lot left to do except the pots and pans and the dishes, glasses, utensils, and coffee cups they’d had on the table.    

Gram had bought raspberry scented Dawn, and Lucy let the dishes soak in the sudsy water for a few minutes as she wiped down the entire kitchen with Clorox. She didn’t want there to be a speck of anything—much less a smudge of grease—for her grandmother to clean up in the morning.

When she came back to the sink of dirty dishes Gabriel was waiting for her, his suit jacket off now, his tie loosened and the top two buttons undone, and he’d rolled up his sleeves.

“Wash or dry?” he asked.

Lucy fidgeted, not wanting to shallowly look at her manicure.  But after her training session with Micah, she imagined they were already beyond repair.  “Guest’s choice.”

Gabriel smiled, and it was the kind of smile that made Lucy’s skin tingle.  She so wanted to just ditch the dishes and drag Gabriel out onto the porch for some much needed lip lock time.  But the other part of her wanted the dishes done and out of the way first.

“I’ll wash,” he said, looking at her in a comfortable leer. 

The sight of his well muscled forearms tensing and flexing as he washed and scrubbed the assorted pots and pans made Lucy practically drool. 

Gabriel cleared his throat and shot Lucy a wicked smile.  “I believe you were supposed to dry?”

Lucy looked at the heaping drain board of already washed and sparkling china. 

How long have I been staring?

Lucy grabbed a clean dishtowel from the drawer and started drying.

When the last of dishes were clean, Gabriel got this look on his face.  Bewildered.  He looked at Lucy with beseeching eyes.

“What?” she asked as she dried and stacked the last of the plates.

He shook his head, and the befuddled smile on his face was just... well, it was gorgeous.

“How do you... ” he gestured to the sink of soapy water.  “How do you drain it?”

Oh...

Lucy took his hand in hers and pushed it into the still warm, sudsy water, and felt around until she found the metal and rubber stopper.  She let his fingers find it as well before she said, “Now pull it out.”

He made a muffled chuckle, and then pulled out the stopper.  He looked at it in his hand, his face scrunching into an expression of distaste.  It was half-full of leftovers from dinner.

She took it from him and discarded the lot in the trashcan in the corner, and then came back and started scrubbing out the sink with more Dawn and a metal scrubby.

Gabriel came up behind her and folded her in his arms. 

It was so nice, so deliciously needed. Her body hungered for the warmth of his.  And
god
he was warm—so much warmer than a human.

She leaned back against him and turned, oh so slowly, around to face him.  The moment their lips got close enough they kissed each other, deeply, with such hunger and passion. 

Lucy had needed this for so long, to be with him, to be alone with him—a feeling so deep, so primal that it made her shiver even as a roiling heat built inside her. 

She wanted Gabriel, and she wanted him
now
.

And from the feel of his body against hers, she was sure he felt the same way.

Damn it to bloody hell
, though, Gabriel was too good a man—or was he a boy scout?—to let it go any further before they were married. 

He pulled himself away from her, lips parting last, and then kind of stumbled back from her.  She wanted to reach out and drag him back to her, to pick up where they’d left off...

But he was just suddenly on the other side of the kitchen, his jacket in one hand and his other gripped on the woodwork of the doorway.  A white knuckled grip.

Damn werewolves and their supernatural speed!

“That’s not a good idea,” he said breathlessly.

Lucy cocked her hip, haughtily placing her hand there for effect.  “I don’t know... seemed pretty good to me.” She licked her lips.

Always call attention to your mouth when attempting seduction, and then make the man notice other, even more appealing parts of you.  She took a sultry breath and arched her back.

Gabriel’s eyes started to go that hot, amber wolf color that made Lucy tingle all over.  Totally sexy, totally uncontrolled. 

But then he looked away and a literal gasp escaped his lips.  “Your grandmother would kill me.”

And then he was just gone.  There was a click of the screen door, and then the revving of his Jag’s engine, and then he was gone.

Lucy slumped against the counter of the sink and dried her still wet hands on a dishtowel. 

She so needed to get this wedding thing over with.  If she didn’t, she was going to spontaneously combust and catch the whole house on fire.

~*~

Micah was on his way out of Lucy’s grandmother’s house, a big, half-eaten sandwich in his left hand and the keys to his Jeep in his right.  He was chewing some of Lillian’s fine
Roast Beast
and
Mary’s Little Lamb
when a guy on a skateboard rolled up the driveway. 

At first Micah didn’t give him a second glance—so not his type: skinny and not all that tall.  Plus he was obviously pretty young, a freaking teenager.  But he remembered that Lucy had a younger brother, Keith or Kevin or Kyle or something.  So Micah decided to extend a little soon-to-be brother-in-law courtesy to the pup.

He swallowed the delicious meat he’d been chewing and moved to intercept the rolling teenager.  He took a breath to say
Hey, how’s it hanging?
or some shit like that, when the kid’s scent hit him, sharp and dark and to die for.  It made Micah’s brain short circuit, so he stood there gawking, with his mouth hanging open.

The kid stopped and eyed him. Dark hair like his sister’s, with green eyes the color of old dollar bills.  His flesh was unblemished—rare for a human teenager—and it was speckled with freckles.

He smiled, and he had his sister’s dimples, except his smile was lopsided, and sexy as hell.

Micah shook his head and tried to clear his jumbled mind, but when he took another breath, his confusion became even stronger.  The kid... a young human kid, smelled like...

Fuck... it couldn’t be... it was just impossible...

And dangerously inappropriate...

But there it was.  His scent was firing in Micah’s head, sending him the flash fire signal of
Mate
.

But that could only happen between two werewolves, and then only a male and a female.  It was a hormonal, biology thing.  Not that he’d felt it for any of the women in his pack, or any women period.  But he’d heard the stories from his friends, from his relatives.  When that scent kicked in, the men had been goners.  The female that smelled like that... like home... they practically enslaved the men.

He’d always thought that was truly unfair.  That everyone should and did have free will.  But there he was, standing across from a guy who would be the last male he’d pick to ask out on a date, not to mention to mate with for life, but the mere scent off him had kicked his head into picking-out-curtains mode.

“This is so fucked up... ” he breathed, his voice low and hoarse with need.

“So he can talk,” Lucy’s brother said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.  “I thought for a minute that you were one of those mentally challenged types.”

Micah laughed, but ended up coughing like he had a hairball. 

“So you’re Gabriel’s brother Micah, right?”  He stepped down on his skateboard and the end flew up into his hand. 

“Yeah, and you’re Lucy’s brother... um... ”

The kid smiled.  His eyes twinkled mischievously as he stood there and waited, intentionally not telling him his name—leaving him hanging.

Little bastard.

Micah exhaled in an irritated sigh, and then folded his arms over his chest.  He knew this pose looked damn intimidating on him, with his huge arms and barrel chest.  “So what’s your name, you little shit?”

The kid gave a little laugh, and then bit his lower lip.  Then he moved over to Micah, looked up into his eyes with those big green peepers—and stole his roast beef and lamb sandwich.

Before Micah knew what was happening the kid had taken a huge bite out of it and headed past him to the front door.  Micah turned, his arms falling slack at his sides, his mouth doing the whole open-for-flies routine again, watching the guy who smelled like home saunter away.

Shit...

The kid reached for the screen door but stopped and looked back over his shoulder.  He swallowed and licked his lips, the smile mocking and irritating and just adorable.

“Name’s Seth.  Maybe I’ll see you around.”

And then he walked into the house, the screen door swinging shut behind him with a bang.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit...

Micah put his hands on top of his head and paced back and forth in front of his Jeep a few times.

This isn’t happening.  I’m too young to settle down.  It’s impossible, for one thing.  It’s immoral for another—the kid’s obviously jailbait.  And for another thing...

Gabriel would never let me live it down.

~*~

Lucy hadn’t spent too much time with Abbey Adams.  Not since they’d inadvertently raised every dead person in the small cemetery back behind both of their houses, just past a small wooded area.  At first Lucy had felt just used.  Abbey had tricked her into going with her that night.  She’d planned on siphoning Lucy’s necromancer power into a spell to bring her parents back to life. 

Lucy had tried being angry with her—she’d nearly gotten them both killed!  Truly, she had tried staying angry with the girl.  But she felt sorry for her, too sorry to hold a grudge.  After all, even if Lucy knew the burn and sting of having one of her parents abandon her, she certainly had no idea what having both parents gone for all time would be like.  She did know, though, that she would do a hell of a lot more than just trick someone to bring back her mother, her stupid brother, and most certainly her Gram... even her absentee father. 

She’d move heaven and earth to bring them back... to protect them.  So she soon fell into liking the Goth-makeup wearing, pink and black haired Wiccan who lived just next door.

They’d gone to a couple of movies, and bowling. Of all the low-rent, bizarre things Lucy had ever imagined doing—she’d actually worn rented shoes, and had ruined her manicure rolling heavy, tri-holed balls down a worn wooden lane to try and knock down a bunch of pins that made Lucy think more of little albino penguins than sporting equipment. 

Yet when Lucy finally got the cotton candy pink ball to stay out of the gutter and made her very first strike, she had to admit, bowling was fun.

And so, when Lucy asked Abbey to go shopping with her—her usual shopping partner and maid of honor, Elaina Enoch, was inundated with planning her up-and-coming bridal shower—she’d felt ridiculously grateful that Abbey had said yes.  It wasn’t until Abbey had directed them to a dark little shop on the wrong side of San Bernardino that Lucy thought to herself,
What the hell?

The windows were blacked out, so Lucy didn’t see any samples of their merchandise until they were both in the front door.  The first item that caught Lucy’s eye was a gorgeous tan leather jacket that was elegantly tailored and made of the softest, butteriest leather she’d ever seen.  That boded well.  But what didn’t bode well was what she saw next.  The next mannequin sported not only a black leather corset/bustier, but a strap on facsimile of a man’s rather large erection...   in shiny black latex. 

The upfront placement of such a shocking tableau made her stop in her tracks, and then take one large, frightened step back. 

“Oh my god... that isn’t what I think it is, is it?”      

Abbey swung around and frowned at Lucy, and then gave the phallus adorned mannequin a cursory glance. “Not very life-like, but I imagine it would get the job done.”

Lucy’s jaw dropped, and she stared at her funky Goth-chick friend with naked disbelief.  “Since when are you... you know!”  Lucy couldn’t bring herself to say it.  Though Abbey seemed like a wild child, she had always assumed that they shared being a virgin. 

Abbey’s frown deepened and her eyebrows furrowed as she gazed quizzically at Lucy.  And then her brows shot up and her mouth formed a perfect O.