Desire Awakened (Aaron's Kiss #13) (6 page)

He nodded, but didn’t stop looking at
her.

“She and I are gonna have puffy pancakes.
You want some too?”

“Sure, son, that’ll be great.”

She moved from the cook top to the sink,
then back to the island again and wouldn’t look at him anymore. He
thought about reaching for her, but didn’t know what to say once he
got her there. He needed to see how deeply she believed she was a
vampire, of all things. She looked at him, he saw the hurt in her
eyes, and he had to turn away. Instead, he looked at the stuff on
the table and picked up a watch he’d been looking for and thought
he’d lost.

“Melissa brought it back. She stole it all.
Lizzy told her to bring it back, and with the keys she’d made too.
She sure had a lot of our stuff, huh, Dad?”

Logan glanced at Lizzy, who had her head
buried in the refrigerator.

“She was stealing our stuff and wouldn’t
help me get a sponge bath either.”

Sponge bath? Stealing? He helped Mathew to
the chair and put his crutches against the wall near him. He walked
to the island where Lizzy was and noticed that she was wearing the
shirt she’d had on last night and her feet were bare. When she
noticed him looking at her feet, she stepped behind the island and
huffed at him.

“I didn’t have time to put any shoes on when
I left. And after we…”

She blushed, and he wanted to make her do it
again. He moved toward her, forgetting that he wanted to talk to
her and why. “After we what?” Her skin was warm and soft. “After we
what, Lizzy? What did we do that has your face heating up?”

He moved back as the stove timer buzzed.
Lizzy reached for the little timer, turned it off, and opened the
door. The smells radiating from it made him groan. Nothing had ever
come from that thing smelling that delicious. He moved when she
took the large muffin tin from the oven and poured the contents out
onto the counter.

He helped her put them in a bowl and then
took them to the table. He hadn’t noticed the first time, but there
were jellies and jams on the table, as well as syrup and butter. He
sat down when she told him to. She brought another plate to the
table, and he watched his son talk to her.

“You should have seen her last night, Dad.
She was so cool.” She wouldn’t look at him as Mathew continued.
“She told Melissa to get her butt home and bring back your stuff
before she put her into a world of hurt. I don’t think she believed
her at first, but then she took her gun.”

Logan’s fork was halfway to his mouth when
his son said “gun.” He dropped it when she stood up. When Lizzy
tried to go around him, he grabbed her arm . “Sit down and finish
your breakfast.” He said it low, but was sure she’d heard him. When
she sat and pushed her plate away, he pushed it back. Mathew looked
at them both.

“I didn’t mean to get you into trouble,
Lizzy. But you were really brave for protecting us,” Mathew said
and played with the food he’d been enjoying so much before. “I
should have kept my mouth shut.”

“You’re all right, kid,” Lizzy told him
before he could say anything. “He was gonna be mad at me when I
gave it to him anyway. You just made it easier for me. Now eat. I
have to get back to the…to where I was staying soon.”

“You can’t stay here?” Mathew asked in
disbelief. Lizzy shook her head. “But you have to. Dad has to go to
work, and Melissa isn’t coming back. Who’ll help me today?”

“I’m sure your dad will stay home. I can’t
stay, buddy. I can’t…there are things going on you don’t
understand, and at my age, I don’t always say what’s proper when a
kid is around.” She ruffled his hair as she walked around to his
side of the table.

“At your age,” Logan said. She glanced at
him when he realized he’d spoken out loud. “You can’t be any more
than twenty-three or twenty-four.”

She didn’t answer him, and he found that now
he needed to know. Before she could go back to the sink again, he
touched her arm and asked her how old she really was.

“Do you believe what you saw yesterday? What
you were told?”

He glared at her and shook his head.

“Then what’s the point? I won’t waste my
breath on telling you again what I am.”

He helped Mathew up and to the bathroom as
she cleared the table. When he came back, she was wiping it down.
He jerked her around to face him when she tried to avoid him
again.

“You believe you’re a vampire. You want me
to believe that yesterday I was in a queen’s kingdom with fairies
and dragons. You bit me and made me…I sucked your blood too. So
does that make me a vampire also?” He pulled her to his body so she
could feel what she did to him. “Does you thinking you’re a vampire
make you come harder?”

He watched her face harden. And when she
drew back her hand, he let her hit him, almost welcoming the slap
he knew she was going to give him. He knew the moment he’d said it
he shouldn’t have. And when she pulled away this time, he let
her.

“You might believe this.” She lifted her
arms up and the room exploded in light. Covering his eyes, he fell
back against the counter. When the light dimmed, he saw that the
entire kitchen was spotless and, most importantly, she was
gone.

Sara watched Lizzy pace for a few minutes
and then leave the room. Duncan stared after her, but said nothing.
He was worried about her, as they all were. Sara felt she had to do
something or Lizzy would go back to the castle again and not return
this time.

“My lady, if you do not mind me saying so,
Miss Lizzy is in need of something more than the toast that she is
not eating. Someone must call her mate and make him understand,”
Duncan said.

Sara nodded.

“I would like to do so, if you do not mind.
Miss Lizzy is my friend and I would like to see her happy
again.”

She nodded again. Duncan would more than
likely confuse the young man, but then he might be curious enough
to come to the house. Sara stood up and moved to the counter to get
another glass of tea. “Do you know where his office is?” He said
that he did. “You go and talk to him and see what you can do. If he
has any question you can’t answer, let me know.”

“I will, my lady. I will show him the error
of his ways and if that does not work, I shall have to resort to
violence.” He clenched his fist and pretended to fight. “I could
make short order cook of him soon enough.”

“I’m sure you could.” She smiled at his
newest missed meaning of a word. “It’s make short work, Duncan, not
short order cook.” Sara went to her office and began answering
emails from their subjects and was nearly finished when Duncan came
in with a briefcase and his keys.

“I shall return posthaste, my lady. If you
should require anything from me while I am out, please call. I do
have my cell phone.”

He was gone less than ten minutes when Lizzy
came into her office. She sat down and stared at the window for a
long time before she spoke. Sara knew that whatever she said, she
wasn’t going to like it.

“I’m going to Molavonta. I’ve talked to
Tess, and she said I could hang around with her and Nathaniel for a
few days, then I think I might…” She got up to pace, something she
and her father did when they had a problem to solve. “I’m going to
move there. I like it there well enough, and Mel said she’d leave
me alone for the most part. Draco said he’d show me how to sword
fight.”

“Don’t do this, Lizzy. He’ll come around.”
She was already shaking her head. “Please try and talk to him
again. Maybe after the other day, he’ll be more open.”

“He won’t and we both know it. He refuses to
see me for what I am. And now that I’ve drank from him, I won’t be
able to stay here without stalking him. I won’t go rogue because
the Fates have decided that my mate is an asshole.”

Sara smiled, remembering her own asshole of
a mate a long time ago. “You’ll regret this. You can hide from him,
but it won’t lessen your need for him. And if you come back here,
you’ll hurt him when you do feed from him.” Lizzy nodded and turned
back to her. Tears were in her eyes, something she’d not see her
daughter do for decades.

“He refuses to believe in me.”

Sara wanted to find the man and kick his
ass. She felt the stirring of her mate as he spoke to her.

“
Not if I get to him first. Ask her to
wait until tomorrow. I would like to speak to them both.”

Sara told him she didn’t think the man would
come over.

Oh he’ll be here. Trust me.”

Sara smiled. “Your father would like for you
to wait until the baby is born if you could. I’m sure that Mac and
Andi would want you there as well.” Aaron told her good thinking,
and she continued begging Lizzy. “I would hate for him to not tell
us the name of the baby because you’re not here.”

“I’ll try.” Lizzy left the room a few
minutes later, and Sara leaned back in her chair. Her children were
so stubborn and pigheaded, much like their father. She smiled when
she felt him touch her mind.

“
I’m not in any way the cause for their
stubbornness. I believe that rests solely on your shoulders. Mac is
mellower, like me,”
Aaron said.

Sara snorted.

“
You don’t believe me?”

“
No, I don’t.”
She smiled sadly.
“When the two of them finally figure this out, it’s going to be
explosive. You know that, don’t you?”

“
Yes. And it’ll be good for them both.
Bradley said she came to him about the wolf in the car. The bat
that she’d given him yesterday also had been used by a wolf. What
do you think is going on there?”

“
I don’t know. But just so you know,
Duncan is going to talk to Logan. It might confuse him enough that
he has to come here to get a translation. He had a briefcase when
he left.”

“
Heaven help the man then. I love Duncan
dearly, but you know as well as I do that he can be a tad much.
Especially when he gets angry. Then you can’t understand a word he
says.”

Sara nodded. But Duncan loved Lizzy and
always had. He would fuss at her more, but everyone, including
Lizzy, knew that she was his favorite. Aaron told Sara he must
rest, but wanted to know if later she’d come down and rest with
him.

“
You know as well as I do that there will
be no resting. You want to have sex.”
She smiled when he
agreed.
“What if I don’t want to wait? What if I come down there
right now and join you in that huge bed and we use every square
inch of it?”

“
Come to me now, Sara. My cock aches to
be freed and deep inside of you. Come to me and show me what you
want.”

She rushed to the lower levels, naked by
time she got there.

~~~

“Logan, there’s a man here to see you, he
said his name is Duncan. He’s from the MacManus household. He said
it’s important. And he also said that if you refused to see him to
tell you it’s about Lizzy.” Logan looked up at Anna when she spoke
and she nodded. “He’s the cutest little man I’ve ever seen.”

Logan sighed. Lizzy. He’d not slept well for
nearly the week since she’d been gone. And whenever he did close
his eyes, he thought of the fact that she believed herself to be a
vampire, of all things, and the way she’d left him, but more about
the way she responded to his every touch. “Tell him that I don’t
want to talk about Lizzy with him or anyone else—” Duncan moved
past Anna and into his office. “See here, Duncan, I have work to
do. You’ll need to make an appointment.”

Anna went out and closed the door behind
her. He looked at Duncan. He was smiling as if he knew a big
secret.

“I have asked my lady to help. She said to
tell you that the young lady is not harmed, but believes that you
have given me permission to come to speak with you.” He sat down at
his conference table. “Come see what I have brought you, Master
Logan.”

Logan looked at the files on his desk. He’d
been looking at them every day and was still no closer to figuring
them out than when Anna had handed them to him. He got up and
walked to the table as Duncan opened his briefcase.

It was the oldest-looking case he’d ever
see. Worn in places so badly that the leather was white. But it was
well cared for, and he could see that the man who held it loved it.
Logan would bet that someone important gave it to him and that
Duncan treasured it as much as he did the friendship between them.
Logan took the first picture that he handed him.

“The day Miss Lizzy and her brother were
born. As you can see, they were beautiful babies. See the bruising
around Master Mac’s throat? He was nearly not born at all. Lady
Pete delivered them by magic and spoke to the two of them before
they were born. Miss Lizzy said that Mac could be born first, you
see, so that he’d be able to be the oldest.”

Logan handed the man the picture back. She
was an adorable baby. Chubby cheeks and blue eyes. He took the next
item. It was a birth certificate. It took him several seconds to
realize what he was supposed to be looking at. Duncan nodded when
he saw the date of her birth.

“According to this, she’s nearly eighty
years old. That’s not possible. Why would you go to the trouble of
doctoring this up when it’s so obviously not true?”

Duncan nodded and assured him that it was.
“You should look on the World Wide Web, Master Logan. Look up Lady
Sara’s name. There are many articles about her as a pilot as a
younger woman. You’ll see that she is nearly twenty-five years
older than Miss Lizzy. And my master is over seventeen hundred
years old. He is a true master of his realm.”

Logan shoved away from the table.

“Everything I have told you is true. Here
are more things if you wish to see them.”

“Why are you here? Did she send you? Is she
pregnant and she’s too scared to tell me?” He found that there were
times, more often than not, that he wished she was. He wanted to
see her huge with his child.