Veiled (24 page)

“I wasn’t doing anything. I was yelling at you because you’re a big ginger-colored piece of shit!”

“Be that as it may,” he says, reaching out and grabbing my wrist before I wallop him in the chest again. “You froze me with your stare.”

My nose scrunches up. “I did what?”

“You did the same thing to me that I did to you at the diner.”

My mind goes back a few reels. In the diner I’d pissed Jay off, insinuating he didn’t know who he was. His glare caused a physical reaction in me. A bad one.

“I did that to you?” I ask. “Just now.” Then I glower at him. “Wait a minute, you
are
trying to switch the subject.”

“No, I’m not,” he says. He sounds sincere. Then again he sounded sincere when he was lying about my mom. “Remember when you asked me when you would be ready? This is the first step. I don’t quite know what you can do, Ada. But you can transfix me with your gaze in more ways than one. Which means you can do the same to a demon. A crucial skill to have, I would say.”

“And I can put up walls,” I tell him proudly, even though I have no idea how I do that either.

“About that,” he starts.

“No!” I yell at him, ripping my wrist from his hand. “Explain why you’ve been lying to me! I’m supposed to
trust
you Jay. And I did. It took my own grandmother to rip me into some secret location in the Veil to finally tell me the truth!”

“I had to lie,” he tells me, not seeming surprised about Pippa. “It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

“Safe!” I cry out, aware that I’m yelling at him full-blast and his face is a foot away. “Who gives a fuck about safe? What about my heart? My mother, Jay. You never had a fucking mother so you wouldn’t understand, but my mother was everything to me. And she’s being tortured for all eternity! How could you let that happen?”

He’d flinched at my comment but is back to being stone-faced and impassive. “It’s not up to me. There are rules to follow and I follow them.”

“Because you’re programmed to follow them, is that it? Like a mindless drone.”

He swallows. “You’re not being fair.”

“No, I’m being honest. You’re not being fair. You could have gone and rescued her at least if you didn’t want to tell me.”

“I can’t,” he says gravely, shaking his head. “I would if I could.”

“But you’re not allowed,” I say in a mocking voice. “You’ll get in
trouble
.”

“Ada, listen to me, please. You don’t know how this all works. I do, all right? My job is to protect you at all costs. To protect and teach. I am bound to it, bound to you.”

“For a limited time only,” I mutter.

“And I will do that at all costs. For you to go after your mother is too risky. I can’t afford to take that risk. I’m sorry, I would do it if I could, but I can’t. I can cross freely into the Veil, to all the layers, but Hell is another story all together. First of all, going in there would mean leaving you alone and vulnerable. Then there’s the fact that I don’t have a bond to your mother the way you do. She wouldn’t come with me. Then there’s the fact that there aren’t many portals from here going in.”

“There had been one in my closet . . . if I’d only fucking known.”

“I know, you would have stepped right in by yourself, if you weren’t already dragged there by the demons. Obviously we couldn’t have that. Jacob had to close it. And it wouldn’t have helped if you had gone in. The portals that the demons create are teeming with them on the other side, all dying for ways to break into our world. Sometimes they get caught in the middle, in the Veil, other times they pop right onto our streets. Find a vulnerable mind, an angry soul, and take over. The world is going to shit right now, shootings and bombings and so much fucking hate because the very anger and sorrow we feel makes us vulnerable to them. There are devils residing in everyone, all around us. And the worse the world gets, the more they spread. It’s a vicious cycle and one that you can help stop. I hate to throw in the argument of saving thousands of souls instead of saving one, but I have to.”

“Thousands of souls?” I counter. “Look, I’m sorry the world is destroying itself, but that’s not my concern. My mother is my concern. I’m sure I sound despicable to you, but I would rather save her than all those people I don’t know. People who are probably inherently evil to begin with.”

He sighs softly, looking down. “You don’t sound despicable, Ada. You could never because that’s not who you are. You’re a loving soul and a very loyal daughter. But you have to understand that if I told you the truth, you’d be in Hell right now with no way of ever coming out.”

“But you didn’t know that,” I tell him. “You have no right to decide how I might react. Leave that up to me! You lied to me Jay and now I think you’re lying about everything else! I bet you know who you are. Who you were. And you’re afraid to tell me!”

“Because it doesn’t matter, okay?” he yells right back, with force that shocks me. “It doesn’t matter who I was, it has no bearing on what we are to each other!”

“And what are we to each other??”

He exhales noisily, eyes blazing, and runs a hand through his hair. “I wanted to tell you. I did. I went to Jacob and he said I couldn’t. It was too risky.”

“And you listen to everything he says,” I say snidely. “He says you have to lie to me, you lie to me. He tells you to keep your hands off me, you keep your hands off me.” I know I should stop talking but I’m like a freight train going off the rails, too much momentum to control. “He says I’m forbidden to you, and so I’m forbidden to you. Did you ever think you have free will? That you’re a man of your own mind and heart and action.”

“I have no heart!” he roars at me and I am transfixed to the sight, the fire in his eyes, the vein pulsing at his temple, the flush of red on his cheeks. “And I’m barely a man.” He leans with his two hands against the wall, trapping me inside. He lowers his head, his hair flopping forward, and pinches his eyes shut. “Do you want the truth?”

I can barely speak. I’m sandwiched between his massive arms, watching him as if he’s a lion let loose from his cage. “Yes,” I whisper.

“I know who I was,” he says, so low and gravely I can barely hear him. “Before I died. Before I became what I am. And I wasn’t a good man. I wasn’t a good man at all, Ada.”

For some reason I yearn to touch him, to soothe him. My hand reaches forward to touch his hair as he’s bowed over. He flinches at my fingers as I run them gently through his strands of soft hair. It feels like silk, brings me a strange sense of pleasure.

“Who were you?” I ask.

“My name was Silas Black,” he says. “I was Irish. Born in Dublin in the 16
th
century.”

I can only stare at him. My hand pauses. “What?”

He raises his head to look at me, my hand falling away. “It was a long time ago. Which is why what I was, who I was, has nothing to do with who I am right now, with you.”

“But you’re a rookie,” I remind him carefully. Pippa’s disbelieving expression when I told her the same floats through my head. “How could you begin again now, so far in the future?”

He cocks his head in form of a shrug. “I don’t know. I try not to ask too many questions. Jacob warns about that. Says it can mess with your head. I believe him.” He straightens up and I tilt my head back to keep his gaze. His arms stay on either side of my shoulders. “But my duty aside, I am not his prisoner. I do have free will. And with this free will I choose to protect you. In the very sense that some Jacobs will give up their immortality to go rogue, to be free and live and die a normal life. I have choices and I make choices every single moment of every single day. And no one,
no one
, has tested them quite like you.”

“How am I testing you?” I say, nearly breathless.

He swallows thickly, his eyes dropping down to my mouth in a heavy-lidded gaze. He doesn’t have to say anything. I already know. “I may be immortal but I am still a man with blood pumping in my veins.” He moves an inch closer. My skin heats up. Every nerve is burning. “You are off-limits. You are forbidden to me. And all it does is make me want you more.”

I shouldn’t speak. Just keep my mouth shut and watch him as his expression turns more lustful. Predatory. I already feel like I’m one big coil ready to spring. In anger, in frustration, in shameless abandon.

But I part my lips, because I know what I want and that I’d die to get it, and ask him, softly, “In what way do you want me?”

“Every way. To feel you,” he murmurs, his voice shaking like he’s trying to hold himself together with all his strength. He slides one of his hands into my hair and I automatically close my eyes. “To taste you. Every inch of you.”

My breath hitches.

I’m standing with my toes over the edge, ready to free fall.

I just need the push.

And so does he.

I put my hand on his arm, the one still planted against the wall, and lower it. I guide his hand to the small of my waist, hiking up his Led Zeppelin shirt just enough until the full heat of his palm is flush against my skin.

He closes his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose.

“You undressed me last night,” I whisper as the touch of his skin on mine sends heat straight into my core, my legs automatically squeezing together in order to quell it. “You put this shirt on me.” I pause, lick my lips. “Did you like what you saw?”

His eyes find mine, startlingly clear. Raw. I’m not scared by their intimacy. He’s always stared at me too deeply, like he sees me for all that I am and encourages it.

“Did you touch me?” I go on, tone softer than air.

His gaze never breaks. The slight shake of his head. I believe him.

“You can touch me now,” I tell him. I reach down and bring his hand further up, his fingers trailing over my ribs. His thumb brushes against the curve of my breasts, my nipples immediately going hard from even the lightest contact.

His eyes are boring into mine, flashing in shock, in amazement, in desire. He’s flickering through emotions while the truth, our argument, my anger, all disappears from my head. All I feel is deep-seated lust, a primal force that’s surging through me in ways I’ve never felt before, enough to make me bold and brazen and greedy.

I’m not myself at this moment.

And I love it.

His hand cups my breast now, thumb skirting over my overly-sensitive nipple. I can’t help but gasp, every inch of me now awake and starving for him.

Jay groans, a throaty sound from deep in his gut and he leans in, his lips grazing my cheekbone. “I won’t be able to come back from this,” he whispers into my ear, sending even more shivers down my spine. “A side of me might come out, one I can never put back. A side better left hidden.” He pauses, his thumb pinching my nipple until I’m gasping again. “The more human I get, the more dangerous I become. The more dangerous it is for us. And I can’t promise a happy ending.”

“I don’t need your promises,” I tell him, putting my hand behind his neck and holding him there. “I just need you. Right now.”

I move my head back slightly so that his forehead is resting against mine. “Besides. I’m starting to get the hang of this whole danger thing. I might even like it.” I smile. “You know I—”

His mouth is on mine in a second.

Hot.

Wet.

Feverish.

Hungry.

I’m instantly devoured.

Firm fingers at my chin, holding me in place.

His lips move against mine in a flawless rhythm, a kiss that nearly knocks me off my feet, a kiss that reaches through my mouth and down into the heart of me, erasing every kiss I’ve ever had.

I’m his first kiss.

And in a moment he’s rendered me his equal.

His tongue slips inside my mouth, teasing, testing, sending shockwaves along every sensitive nerve. Warm. Lush. It’s decadent, like sweet syrup and I’m drowning.

Where did you learn to kiss like this
? I think but don’t say because words are stolen from me and I am swept under.

I grip his neck for dear life, as if he’ll be lost to me if I don’t. His thumb pinches my nipple, hard, and I’m gasping from shock and pleasure, all rolled up in one merciless feeling.

He brings his mouth to my neck, sucking a bruise into my skin, nipping me, a little taste here, a long lick there. His body shudders as he comes closer, his shoulders dwarfing my frame, until his hips are pressed against me.

I swallow at the feel of him, hard and thick and hot along my bare skin. Just from feel alone his size is intimidating but it doesn’t stop me from reaching down with my hand, to cup his girth in my palm.

He moans at my touch, a throaty primal sound that shakes his whole body.

“Ada.” His lips move along my collarbone, his breath hard and heavy. “I’m not sure you want me to let go. I don’t think I can be gentle.” He raises up my shirt, exposing my breast before dipping his head. My body arches back, my eyes close, welcoming his mouth on my nipple, hot and wet and exquisite. The pressure between my legs is building, a fire uncontained, begging to be put out.

I don’t want gentle. I want his hands lower.