SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (19 page)

Nothing scary about that.

Gracie’s gaze moved through the room, searching for the threat she still felt. Tinkerbelle and Romeo huddled behind the beanbag chair, tucked up under the hanging bookshelf.

Hiding.

Gracie knelt down and made a clicking sound with her tongue to coax them out. The dogs swiveled their ears and whined but neither moved. Juliet had remained in the hall. She woofed softly, and the whining stopped. Gracie didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand where her own fear came from. Nothing in the room had changed since she’d walked in with wonder last night, so what had her on edge?

Quietly, she moved to the bed and looked down. Brendan held her daughter in a gentle embrace, her head on his shoulder, her fingers curled at her check. They looked like a snapshot of young, sweet love. Nothing scary, here.

Tinkerbelle and Romeo watched her from behind the beanbag. Both had their ears pinned, but neither one bolted for the door. They wore the same expressions when they’d been busted eating trash, so Gracie wasn’t positive she could make anything of it now.

No closer to figuring out what was bothering her, she left the room, using a round stone she’d found when she was eight as a doorstop. She felt better with it propped open, and the strange, dark feeling eased. By the time she’d moved a few steps away, it had faded altogether, making her think she’d imaged it. This whole place seemed to have that effect on her.

The room Reilly had claimed was directly across the hall. She hesitated outside it for a moment before finally gathering the courage to knock. After a few seconds, he yanked his door open and stared at her with an aloof expression.

“What do you want?”

She wished she knew. She stared past him to the bed where his duffel sat open, his things obviously going in rather than out. The unsounded feeling of unease shifted to one of all too familiar disbelief.

“You’re leaving,” she said.

Instead of answering, he moved to bed, shoved a toiletries case inside the duffel, and zipped it up.

“Have you looked outside, Reilly? In case you hadn’t noticed, you might need an ark to get out of here. You saw what happened to my car, and that was hours ago.”

“I drive a Jeep.”

“And that makes you invincible? Or are you trying to get yourself killed out there?”

They stared at each other across the room, separated by all the years of anger and a lifetime of loss. Yet their past, bound them just as completely.

“And what about Analise? You just going to take off on her without a word. She figured out who you are.”

He paled and shook his head. “I did you a favor when I left the first time, and I’ll be doing her one by leaving now.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she said, rolling her eyes.

She’d told Analise not to expect too much. She should have told herself. She turned to go when a box wrapped in clear plastic caught her eye. Young’s Mortuary was etched on the side.

“Is that . . . Are those Matt’s ashes?”

His narrowed gaze moved to the box and back to her.

“You said he died months ago,” she went on.

“So?”

“Have you been carrying them around all this time?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, except it gives emotional baggage a whole new meaning. For the love of God, Reilly, is there no limit to what you’ll do to avoid unpleasantness?”

He took an angry step forward. Juliet had flopped on the floor. Now she looked up to let him know she was watching him. Reilly didn’t seem to care. He took her shoulders between his hands and glared into her eyes.

“Unpleasantness? Sweetheart, this is hell.”

Did he mean being here? Being here with her? Or were they still talking about Matt? She searched his eyes, finding a different answer altogether.

“You’re afraid,” she said.

“I’m not afraid. I’m pissed off. I just want to leave this behind. All of it.”

“But that’s not what’s going to happen. Once you lay Matt to rest you’re going to have to deal with everything you’ve been using him as an excuse to avoid.”

“Like you?” he said softly. “Like the woman who didn’t think I should know I was a father?”

She pulled back, stunned at the speed of that arrow. Wounded by how deep it sank.

“You gave up your right when you left without a forwarding address.”

“Did Analise agree with that? I didn’t know I had it to give up, Gracie. I left thinking I was protecting
you
, not abandoning my family.”

“And what are you doing now?”

The pain in his eyes stopped her next words, though she’d had this conversation in her mind a thousand times. Over the bitter years, she’d honed snappy comebacks and searing zingers that would hurt him. Make sure he knew just what a disappointment he’d been. But now she knew the truth.

“We were both wrong,” she said at last.

Reilly let out a deep breath and released her. “Doesn’t matter. Like you said, we had our chance to be something together and we blew it.”

“So you’re going to drive out of here in the middle of an apocalypse and never look back? All that proves is that telling you about your daughter wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference. You’d have left us anyway.”

He stared at her, speechless. She let out a breath.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to throw you under the bus, but I won’t lie to her for you.”

Still, he didn’t speak. His eyes were hard, his jaw tight. She had no idea what he was thinking.

“I’ve hated you for years, Reilly.
Hated
you. I used to dream of this moment. Confronting you. I thought I’d feel triumphant. Justified.” She shook her head. “Now that we’re here, I don’t know what to feel. I just know I don’t want you to go. Not like this.”

“Why?”

“Because if you do, we’ll be stuck in this place.”

“Diablo Springs?” he asked frowning.

“In a way, yes. We need to move on. We’ve been trapped in this limbo for seventeen years. I can’t walk away without knowing that we’ve changed that.”

Reilly stared at her. In his eyes she saw a thousand feelings. They merged in the flecked blues and browns of his hazel eyes and became a wall, locking her out.

“I moved on a long time ago,” he told her in a voice that hitched with contradiction. “Sorry I left you behind.”

Anger welled up inside her, so fierce that it blinded her. Heat snapped in the air between them and sparked all around. “It’s like you believe your own bullshit, Reilly. But I never have. Even when we were just kids, I saw through it. You don’t like to feel. I get that. Feeling sucks. It is what it is, though, and you feel this. I can see that you do. I can see what you are, and it’s not a man who only knows how to walk away.”

He laughed softly, unconvinced. “I wish that were true.”

“Which part?”

“The bullshit
is
who I am, Gracie. You’ve always seen what you wanted to see. I’ve never been part of the fairy tale. It’s never been who I am.”

“That works two ways. You think you’re going to have to save me. You thought so then. You probably still think so. Guess we’re both idiots.”

“Guess we are.”

They’d moved closer. Gracie wasn’t sure when, but suddenly her heaving chest met his. Her head was back so she could see his face. He stared down at her with hooded eyes and that same yearning that had driven her crazy since the very first time she’d realized that Reilly Alexander had noticed her. It urged her to hold on to this moment. If she let it go, she’d never have another chance. It might be the epitome of stupidity, but she wanted that chance.

As if reading her mind, Reilly whispered. “What the fuck do you want from me, Gracie? I’m only going to disappoint you.”

“Maybe.”

Surprise darkened his eyes. Uncertainty shadowed them. Gracie didn’t give him the chance to make a decision—wrong or right. She took his face between her hands and kissed him. Earlier, in the kitchen, too much of their past had been churned to the surface. She’d needed a moment to let it settle, to let the doubts sift to the bottom so she could see what was important.

Reilly had done what he’d thought best. So had she. They’d made the decisions of teenagers—the same age as the two
children
who slept across the hall. Using those choices as a measuring rod now would be as foolish as the choices themselves.

Besides, through it all, in spite of it all, there was still this—the fire, the passion that led them to her pregnancy in the first place.

And she missed it, that consuming need no other man had every inspired. Even the relationships that had seemed to have a future hadn’t come with the kind of passion that she felt in that moment, with Reilly.

Tomorrow the storm might be over and the harsh face of reality would be waiting. Reilly would probably still leave. It’s what he did, and the hard truths they’d shared didn’t really change that. But this moment wouldn’t be one of their many regrets.

His kiss tasted of surprise and expectation, and she suspected that the whole list of rationalizations that she’d just completed also played in his head. He caught her bottom lip with his teeth, teased her mouth with his tongue. He stole her breath and replaced it with his own.

His stomach muscles tightened when she lifted his shirt, and he muttered something darkly carnal against her lips after she’d stripped it off him. She didn’t know what he’d said, but her body did. She arched against him, and shedding clothes became a dance they did together, their bodies in harmony, their hearts beating out a driving rhythm.

He cleared the bed and then lowered her onto the mattress, the heavy weight of him following her down into the softness. She groaned at the feel of him as she wrapped her arms around him and held on. He rested his forehead against hers, their breaths pooling between them as their bodies aligned.

He kissed her mouth so slowly and deeply that she lost herself in the sensation, the taste of him, the scent of his skin. It was familiar and new at the same time, so exciting she could barely breath. His lips moved to her throat and down to her breasts, and her body arched into his touch. He kissed her everywhere, his tongue a soft friction against the underside of her breasts, on her nipples, at the vulnerable hollow below her belly. His fingers began some magical spell over the sensitive flesh between her legs, dipping, rubbing, pushing her to a place she hadn’t truly been since the last time he’d touched her so. When his mouth joined their efforts, she had to turn her face into the pillow to muffle her moans.

“Jesus,” he murmured against her, tongue insistent, lips and voice catalysts.

She came so fast it stole her breath and made her cry out into the pillow. He held her through it, his touch gentle against the sensitized skin. Then he was kissing her again, the length of him hard against her thigh. She wanted him inside her so badly she almost begged.

“Gracie,” he breathed. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” she asked, so dazed that speaking took effort.

“I don’t have a condom.” His laugh held irony, his breath soft against her shoulder.

“I’m on the pill.”

“Thank fuck.”

He shifted and entered her in one smooth thrust that nearly made her come again. He cupped her head and held still for a moment while their bodies adjusted to the sensual intrusion. He muttered something in her ear that excited her even more. He started a steady rhythm that filled Gracie with heat, made her boneless and needy. She rolled when he did and found herself straddling his hips, looking down at his beautiful features. She kissed his chest, using muscles she didn’t know she had to rock against his hips and bring him deeper into her body.

He sat up suddenly, sinking into her, gripping her thighs and helping her lift and come down. The shift in angle pushed her to the edge and then hurled her into a sparkling oblivion as pleasure rushed through her, turning her into a flame that burned too hot.

Reilly pressed his mouth to her shoulder as he shouted low and soft. His body pulsed with his release and Gracie’s clenched around him, holding tight, wanting to stay like this forever.

He eased them both back on the bed, still inside her, still hard. Without a word, he started all over, and Gracie joined him in the dance.

Diablo Springs: Chapter Sixteen

May 1896

Colorado

I stared at Lonnie Smith’s face and I was struck still by the rush of my hate. There was no questioning what he had or hadn’t done. I’d seen it with my own eyes. Seen him laugh as he murdered my father in cold blood. Seen him slaughter my little brother and then calmly sit down to eat my mother’s stew. I felt as if time slowed to an unbearable measure. I saw a spark pop from the fire and hover in the air. Beside me, Sawyer stood alert but still.

Aiken moved to his seat at the card table, his smile as oily as the gleaming black hair on his head. “Welcome,” he said.

But in response to the weapons drawn by Lonnie Smith and his riders, the rough-and-ready man sitting to Aiken’s left had drawn his gun and pointed it at Lonnie. I saw others move their hands closer to their weapons.

Lonnie swung the barrel of his pistol to the man’s chest. “Don’t be a dummy,” he said, smiling to show tobacco-stained teeth. “Drop your gun right there by your feet.”

The man shook his head. “No, I don’t believe I will.”

“We don’t want any trouble here,” Aiken said. “Why don’t you put away that pistol and come down for a drink? We’re all friends.”

Lonnie’s smile was cold and condescending. I looked to my right and saw Sawyer standing close, hand resting lightly on the butt of his gun. On his saddle was a rifle. He looked me in the eye, letting me know he was watching me. I searched for the same cold-blooded ruthlessness that gleamed from Lonnie, but I saw none. Just warning. With his eyes, he told me to keep my head.

“You all look good and friendly,” Lonnie said as he scanned the campsite and tent.

Behind him, another man stepped down from his horse. And then two others. The riders who had killed my family. They all had their weapons drawn.

“Why don’t you all come on out in the light where I can see you?” Lonnie called in the direction of the tent.