Gathering Storm (25 page)

The only light in the room
was coming from the garden lights and filtered through the windowed
walls. Glen closed that door behind him and turned to face her. His
eyes ran up and down her body slowly in a conspicuous way. It made
Rosie feel self-conscious enough to have to resist curling up into
a protective ball. The fact that she felt like he did it
deliberately to unsettle her also sparked her anger.

“So you’ve changed?”

What she was dying to know
was,
do you like what you
see
? What she said was, “You can always be
counted on for sharp insight, Glen.”

He smirked. “Sarcasm is a
different look for you, too, sweet Rosie. So, you’re wanting me to
set you up to go out. What did you have in mind? Dinner? Movie?
Fanny fucking?”

Surprise flitted across
her features, but she quickly regained her composure and lifted her
chin defiantly. “I hadn’t thought about the details. What do you
recommend?”

”This is
such
bullshit!” His
expression hardened as he loosened the hold on his feelings. He
didn’t raise his voice, but his tone said he wanted to throttle her
as did his body language when he took a step toward her. “You want
to tell me why you froze me out?”

Rosie didn’t know exactly
what to expect from the reunion, but she wasn’t prepared to deal
with the force of angry energy that was emanating from
Glen.

She didn’t back away, but
shrugged prettily and looked at her nails like she was bored and
would prefer to be elsewhere. Everything about that reaction stoked
the fury Glen was trying to tamp down. She glanced up and noticed
his nostrils flared in reaction. He was fuming.

“You hurt my
feelings.”

“I hurt your feelings.” He
restated that with the exact same inflection. “You froze me out and
refused to talk to me for over a week because I hurt your
feelings.”

She stopped avoiding
looking at him. She met his gaze with her eyes and matched his
intensity with her own. “Bad!”

He gritted his teeth.
“Bad?” He shook his head and knitted his brow like he had no idea
what to do with that word.

“You hurt my
feelings
badly
.”

“What are you talking
about, Rosie? How could it hurt your feelings badly that I cut a
chess game short?”

“
Ugh! Not because you
wanted to pause the game. Because you were going out on a date!
Gods!”

Glen stared at her like
she was alien while trying to process that. He took in the resolute
set of her mouth and the flush of the truth-telling embarrassment
that colored her cheeks. And he waited for those eyes that had
sparked a lightning flash of anger, when she thought he was being
dense, to lift up and meet his again.

While he looked at the girl who stood in
front of him, who was so strange and so familiar all at the same
time, he ran through a range of possibilities. At the end of that
mental exercise he decided to go with one of the ideas expressed in
Newtonian physics. The simplest explanation is usually the correct
one, even if it seems farfetched.

“You were jealous.” His
face softened as he lowered his chin and said it evenly with a
little hint of wonder, while a little bit of mad was seeping
away.

She gave him a look like
she thought he was slow. A look that said,
Just now coming to the party?

“Yeah.” She confessed it
with exquisite simplicity, no artifice, no feminine ritual of
subterfuge or manipulation. “I was
so
jealous that I contemplated
putting a hex on the skank even though doing that would bring shame
to the witch side of my family for generations.”

The corners of his lips
twitched. “How do you know she was a skank?”

Her eyes flashed when she
looked up again, letting him know she didn’t share his
amusement.

“This whole conversation
is causing me to think that rumors of your genius are greatly
exaggerated. You know that?”

His grin turned into a
satisfied smile. “I didn’t go.” He ducked just a little to force
her to look at him eye to eye.

“You didn’t go.” Understanding dawned. “You
didn’t go on that date?”

He shook his head no.

“Why not?”

“Because the whole thing
had upset you, which resulted in me being upset, too. I tried to
call you and say I was sorry.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

As the shape of forming
that word lingered on her beautiful lips, Glen was finding it hard
to think about the conversation instead of the burn in his chest
and the twitching in his cock.

“Why didn’t you return my
calls?” She looked down at the floor. “There’s no stopping now. If
you’re laying it out there, let’s lay it
all
out there.”

“You may not like it.”

“I may not. Let’s hear it.
Then I’ll let you know.”

She studied his face for a minute like she
was trying to decide whether to press forward or retreat.

“At first my feelings were
really hurt.”

He took another small step
into her space that brought him close enough to feel the heat of
her aura and catch her scent, which was hard to place. It was
almost like it was wafting on currents, not lingering quite long
enough to be conclusively identified. It seemed to be alternating
between rainstorm and the pungent, erotic smell of Dragon’s Blood
resin set on fire.

“And then?” he asked softly.

“Then?”

“
After
your feelings were
hurt.”

“Then I was hurt
and
mad.”

His lips twitched. “Why
were you mad, Rosie?” He couldn’t help noticing that she closed her
eyes when he said her name. “Tell me,” he breathed, leaning into
her.

“I couldn’t stand the idea
of another woman being with you.”

“Another woman?” She
glanced up to see him grinning at her.

“Are you making fun of me?”

He wasn’t making fun of
her. Exactly. But he wiped the grin away because there was no point
in being deliberately antagonistic. Though he wouldn’t mind
experiencing the sight of her spitfire again and the rush of being
in the presence of its power, he knew that wasn’t the right time to
bring it out.

“Why don’t you want me to
be with another woman, Rosie?”

“Because you’re mine.”
Matter of fact. Death and taxes. The sun comes up in the east, goes
down in the west. So far as she was concerned, he was a foregone
conclusion. Like destiny.

“I’m yours?” His mouth
curved into a genuine smile. “So how did you see this going? Your
plan was to cut me off and ignore me for nearly two weeks, get me
so frustrated that I was ready to strangle you, then show up here
all voluptuous curves and pouty lips, asking me to set you up with
some
nice boys
.”

‘Nice boys’ was dripping
with sarcasm and ridicule. Rosie couldn’t decide if the offense
he’d clearly taken at that notion was because he didn’t know any or
because he thought the idea of nice boys was pansy.

He pressed on without
waiting to see if she took his meaning. “Did you think the idea of
you with somebody else might make me jealous?”

She pulled back, looked
away again, and muttered, “I guess. Maybe. Something like
that.”

“Hmm. Well. As plans go, I
guess it was okay.” Her eyes met his. The uncertainty seemed to
have been replaced with a hint of hopefulness. “Who came up with
it?”

“My mother.”

He barked out a laugh.
“Litha did?” Rosie nodded. “Scary. And Elora got in on it, too.
Fuck. A guy doesn’t stand a chance around this place.”

Even in profile, he could
see that brought her brows closer together. He could see that she
was too inexperienced to understand that his declaration meant he
was waving a white flag of surrender.

He put his fingers under
her jaw and turned her face toward him. What he saw there was
uncertainty and the fear of loss. By all the gods, she was double
jeopardy. Hot.
And
cute.

“Rosie.” He said her name
quietly, just the way she always dreamed he would. “I’m a nice boy.
Can I be your first kiss?”

He didn’t wait for a
response, but leaned in and gently brushed his lips over hers. Her
lips were luscious, begging to be swollen from lovemaking, and they
tasted every bit as delectable as they looked. But still, the kiss
was beyond awkward.

Glen repositioned himself
in front of her and took her face in both his hands. As he
continued giving her light kisses, one right after another, she
began to respond to pressure and suction, mirroring what he was
doing. As soon as she started to get the hang of it, he deepened
the kiss and, when he did, she immediately moved closer – pressing
the softness of her young body into his. The resulting sensations
made a clean cut through his connection to rational thought.
Intimate contact with Rosie was so arousing it defied description.
Something about her ratcheted every nerve ending into
overdrive.

Elora was talking as the
door opened before her eyes found them in the semi-darkness. “Hey,
you two. We need to give Crisp our dinner order. Oh.” They looked
up at Elora just before she hurriedly backed away. “Sorry.” She
closed the door and was gone.

Glen had broken the kiss
as soon as his brain registered the interruption. After Elora had
come and gone, he looked back at Rosie whose eyes had a glaze of
haziness. And he was sure it was the sexiest thing he’d ever
seen.

“Glen. I wish…”

“What?” She didn’t answer.
“Tell me. What do you wish?”

“I wish I was
your
first
kiss.”

His jaw went slack and he
felt what little bit of resistance he had melt away with that
dreamy look in her eyes.
All the
gods.

“Sweet… Rosie, it might as
well have been my first kiss. Believe me. You’re not like anything
else in the world.”

Litha looked at Elora with
a question on her face, as the auntie slid back into her chair.
“Well, mom, our little girl is sprouting womanly wings as I
speak.”

Litha didn’t know whether
to cry or clink glasses with Elora. “I’m not old enough for a kid
who’s wing-sprouting. I wish Storm was here.”

Elora reached over and took
Litha’s hand. “Me, too. I can’t stand to think about the fact that
he wasn’t here to…” Elora decided to try and lighten the mood
before it turned into a tissue contest. “I wish he was back in this
dimension where he’s supposed to be, but I can’t go along with
wishing he was
here
. If he saw what I just saw, I suspect he’d have a few choice
words, and maybe a beat down, for our Glen.”

Litha stared at Elora for
a few seconds and then laughed. “Which one of us do you think
should be the one to give Glen the badass speech on Storm’s
behalf?”

“You decide. I could
threaten to give him the beat down Storm would lobby for. You could
threaten to scorch his ass. He’s kind of grown comfortable ignoring
threats coming from me. So he might pay more attention if it comes
from you.”

“Seriously, should I be
worried? She’s innocent. Physically at least. And Glen
is…”

“…
a teenage player. Yeah.
I know. He’s too smart to not know that Rosie isn’t a date night
throw away. First, he’s a good kid.”

“We could do worse, huh?”

“Don’t get me started.
He’s the best. Second, he knows Storm’s coming home. If that’s not
an incentive to make good choices, then Glen isn’t as smart as
we’re all giving him credit for.

“And, don’t forget
that
we
did start
this.

“What if Glen had set her
up? Of all the scenarios for Rosie being introduced to male-female
interactions, this is practically a controlled environment, an
ideal outcome.”

Litha nodded and held up her glass. “To
Glen.”

“To Glen,” Elora agreed and they clinked
glasses.

CHAPTER 18

It took some doing for
Shade to set up a worthwhile game on a Monday night. When the
details were finalized, he gave Storm two days’ notice. On Monday
night, the car arrived to pick him up and drive him to the game
location in the Tenderloin, not the best address in San Francisco.
Shade was waiting in the backseat. Apparently he thought Storm
needed an escort.

They rode in silence. When
the car pulled over, Storm turned toward Shade and held out his
hand expecting cash. Instead, the creature said, “I’ll be
accompanying both you and my investment. Spectators don’t make you
nervous. Right?”

One of Storm’s shoulders
lifted in a half-hearted ambiguous shrug. “Suit
yourself.”

“After you.”

Storm exited the car,
looked around, and waited on the sidewalk for directions as to
where they were headed. A block behind them a black Hemmy stopped
and parked.

When Storm had mentioned
the upcoming game to the knights, they’d exchanged glances and
decided later, amongst themselves, that on Monday night they would
be happening to patrol the area around wherever the event was to be
held. After all, one place was as likely to turn up a biter as
another. So they might as well.