He’d bet his next meal she was a ’67 Mustang named Peggy Sue. He’d thought of home and his powers had brought him, not to a place, but to a person.
To Leah.
Leah knew she was dreaming, but she couldn’t be bothered to wake up when the dream was so much better than reality.
Reality was a roomful of cops looking at her sideways. Reality was Nick’s empty desk chair across from hers, and a cardboard box where her partner’s things should have been. Reality was the memorial service, and the funeral, and Selina asking her to say something at the service when she couldn’t, she just couldn’t. And reality was Matty’s memory fading bit by bit.
Basically, reality sucked.
The dream, though . . .
Wow, and hello, baby. Where have you been all my life
?
In tonight’s installment of her fantasy life, her dream warrior stood in the shadows of the attic eaves, staring at her. He was tall and dark, with high, slashing cheekbones, piercing eyes, and the aristocratic line of a thin beard. He was wearing black combat pants and boots and a white oxford, and held himself like a leader, like he didn’t take crap from anyone. She appreciated that in a guy, as long as he didn’t take it too far into Neanderthal territory. But this was her dream, wasn’t it? Her rules, her desires.
She lay on the futon mattress up in the attic, where she’d slept since Nick’s death. In her bedroom she’d felt hemmed in, restless. Up here, she could stretch out beneath the wide skylight and feel the starlight on her skin.
Naked, she turned on her side and let the light sheet fall away, baring herself to her dream lover, needing to let loose of the grim control she kept on herself during the day so her recent frustrations wouldn’t have her lashing out at the people around her. But here, with him, those frustrations turned to pure heat. A strange hum built in her bones, in her ears, in the air around her, and a flush climbed her skin, warming her, prickling when her pores opened and her neurons flared to life, as though they’d been dead numb all day and were just now awakening. The moon caught the edge of the skylight, dimming all but the brightest stars, and the tiny points of light called to her, sending heat throbbing beneath her skin.
Daring him, she crooked a finger. ‘‘Come here.’’
He moved out of the shadows into the moonlight, his steps soundless on the wide attic floorboards. Slowly, so slowly, he dropped to his knees beside the mattress and bent over her, but didn’t touch.
‘‘Leah,’’ he whispered, his voice rasping across her name like a caress. Like a prayer.
‘‘I don’t know your name,’’ she said softly, lifting a hand to touch his jaw, and finding it warm and solid and masculine beneath her dream fingertips.
‘‘You don’t need to.’’ Something flickered in his eyes—sorrow, perhaps, or guilt.
She wanted to argue, wanted his name, but that small desire didn’t seem as important as the larger roar of lust brought on by the feel of his strong jaw against her palm, and the rasp of his close-clipped beard as he leaned over her, leaned into her. And touched his lips to hers.
The kiss was a whisper at first, though not a question. It was more like a test, though she didn’t know if he was challenging himself or her.
Heat came quickly, digging her with sharp claws of need, and she arched up to him, offering. Demanding. And the moment of hesitation was gone.
He came down on her with a muttered oath, and then his hands were everywhere—touching and stroking and shaping her. She arched into him, gasping as pleasure flared, hard and hot. The intensity of his touch and her response would’ve been too much, too soon if it hadn’t been for the edge of tenderness in the way his tongue touched hers when she opened her mouth, strong and sure, but coaxing a response rather than demanding it.
There was no need for either a coax or a demand, though. She was right there with him. Hell, she was powering past him, ahead of him, waiting for him to catch up.
Then again, this was her dream. Why shouldn’t she be in charge?
As the kiss spiraled hotter, harder, she plastered herself against him, feeling his strength through his clothing, the nap of the fabric an exquisite torture against her bare, sensitized skin. He stiffened and hissed out a breath as she hooked his shirt from his waistband and slid her hands beneath, walking her fingernails across the hard ridges of his abs and lingering on the trail of rough, masculine hair leading down. But when she made a move for his belt he caught her wrists in one of his hands and broke the kiss to say, ‘‘Relax. This is about you, not me.’’
Of course it is,
she thought.
It’s my dream
.
Bathed in the warmth of desire, she lay back at his urging and spread her legs, offering herself to the night sky and feeling the weight of his eyes, the pressure of a thousand stars burning down from above.
Heat roared within her when they kissed. Need hammered when he touched her breasts, which were heavy and ached with desire. The world spun when he touched her with his clever fingers, his agile tongue; then she felt the rasp of his beard against the skin of her belly, and lower. Then he was tonguing her, nipping at her sensitized flesh and making her squirm, making the heat spiral harder, making the world contract inward until there was nothing but the two of them and the dream haze.
She turned toward him, lifting and bending one leg to tilt herself more fully open to him, and her breath came in short, staccato bursts as tension coiled within, tighter and tighter still until she couldn’t breathe. She buried her fingers in his hair and urged him up her body, so they were pressed chest-to-chest, tangled in each other, wrapped around each other. She tasted herself on his lips, tasted him, his need and frustrated desire, and though he’d said it was about her she wanted it to be about the two of them. Together.
When she opened her eyes to say as much, she found his eyes open as well, found herself caught in their depths. Then he touched her where his mouth had just been, slipped two fingers inside her, and set a hard, fast rhythm that mimicked the beat of her heart, and matched the stroke of his tongue against hers.
Gasping, she strained against him as a rush of sensation built, coalescing around his fingers, around them both. Then the universe exploded. Golden light flared in her mind, in her body, warming her, pleasuring her. She cried out and clung to him as the orgasm gripped her, rolled over her, washed through her.
When it was done, the world spun around her and she clung to him still, his solid body her only anchor in an existence suddenly gone unsteady. She stirred against him, opened her eyes to look at him and found them still in her attic, still in each other’s arms.
Suddenly, the fantasy seemed awfully real. The dreams had never taken her this far before, never continued through completion to the aftermath. They’d never left her feeling both satisfied and terribly alone.
‘‘This is real, isn’t it?’’ she whispered, not sure whether the huge emotion that welled up inside her was hope or fear.
His cobalt eyes went sharp with regret, and he shook his head slightly. ‘‘No. It’s a dream. It’s all a dream.’’
He touched his lips to her forehead and said something, two words in a language she didn’t know, but which sounded familiar somehow. But before she could ask how she knew the sounds, gray-green mist crept to the edges of her vision, cocooning her in warm lassitude.
She fought the pull, fought a sudden, overwhelming sleepiness. ‘‘Wait! What—’’
‘‘Sleep,’’ he said softly. ‘‘This is all just a dream.’’
He cut off her protest with a kiss. And as she slid into the kiss, she tumbled off the edge to sleep, taking with her the power of his touch and the safety of his arms.
Strike was hard and sore, and his body burned for release, for completion, but he denied both and turned Leah in his arms, fitting her up against him so they were nestled together back-to-front. Then he pulled the light sheet off the floor to cover them both.
The sleep spell wasn’t as comprehensive as Red-Boar’s mind-wipe, but she’d already thought she was dreaming. She’d wake and think of him as a pleasant fantasy, which would have to be enough.
He knew he should feel guilty, and maybe that would come later. For now, there was only the satisfaction of holding her in his arms. She fit against him perfectly, small enough that he could tuck her head beneath his chin, tough enough that she could hold her own against him, against the
makol
.
Deep down inside him there was a faint warning tug, a twitch of unease that his connection to her was too strong to be anything but meant by the fates, by the gods.
‘‘No,’’ he said aloud. He wanted—needed—to claim something for himself. A moment of private humanity. His feelings for Leah, which he was careful not to examine too closely, weren’t part of his being a Nightkeeper or the son of the king. Maybe they had been at first, but not anymore. Now, the attraction was about his being a man and her being a woman.
Jox was right—he’d always had a thing for edgy blondes. More, he respected the loyalty to family and friends that had driven her after Zipacna. Her need to fight for what she believed in. She was a cop, a protector in her own right, one who didn’t let herself get pushed around even in situations far beyond her understanding. Yet at the same time, she was all woman in her responses, in her unabashed enjoyment of her own body, and his.
If he’d been nothing more than a man, or if it were five years later, with the zero date come and gone without drama, he would’ve done whatever it took to make her his own. As it was, that was out of the question, a danger to both of them. So he’d take this one time— and he swore to himself that it would only be once— and let her go, hoping she’d dream of him.
He’d keep the protection spell in place and make sure the
ajaw-makol
didn’t try to touch her again. He’d watch over her, just as he was bound to oversee the safety of the human race. But that was it for the two of them together. Hell, he shouldn’t have even come into her house tonight, but once he’d realized where he was, he hadn’t been able to override the compulsion. Hadn’t wanted to.
Tomorrow, he would meet the new Nightkeepers. Tonight, he’d wanted one last thing for himself. But when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, twice over five minutes, he knew his time was up. Undoubtedly it was Jox wanting to know where the hell he was, and when he’d be back. And though Strike was feeling vaguely out of step with his
winikin
these days, it wasn’t fair for him to disappear. There had been too much of that already.
So he gathered himself and slipped out from underneath the sheet, tucking the single layer around Leah as she stirred and murmured something sweet and low. A faint frown touched her lips and crinkled her brow, forming soft lines in the moonlight.
‘‘Sleep,’’ he said in the language of his ancestors, and touched his lips to hers. ‘‘Be safe.’’
Then he closed his eyes and tapped the barrier for power, envisioned the training compound, and teleported away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Strike woke late the next morning, groggy and disoriented, and dreading the day ahead. He used the small bathroom at the back of the pool house, pulled on a pair of cutoffs, and stumbled outside. Squinting against the too-bright summer sun, he headed across the pool deck and through the sliders into the mansion, making a beeline for the kitchen, and coffee. He stepped through the doorway to the great room that formed the center of the first floor—
And stopped dead as five pairs of eyes snapped to him and five strangers stopped talking.
Oh, shit,
he thought.
They’re here
.
It was stupid for him to be surprised. He’d known the new Nightkeepers had begun arriving the night before, had even seen some of the luggage when he’d zapped in, chowed a snack, and gone to bed. But somehow he’d thought he’d have a chance to confab with Jox and Red-Boar before meeting the newbies.
Apparently not.
The five gorgeous twenty-somethings were sitting in the sunken middle of the main room. The long leather couch held two women, a streaky blonde who was six feet tall if she was an inch and a smaller brunette with green eyes, both wearing business casual. Next to them sat a big sprawl of a blond guy wearing swim trunks and a shirt advertising a bait store. Two other guys sat in the flanking chairs, both dark haired and intense-looking. One of them was clean-shaven, short haired, and all business in a navy suit and tie he wore with the ease of familiarity. The other sported a careful layer of stubble on his jaw and long wavy hair, along with a trendy, open-throated shirt that had a pair of shades looped over the first button.
Strike’s precoffee brain did the first-impression thing, summing them up as the Valkyrie and the Ingenue, the Surfer Dude, the Business Guy, and the Playboy.
They were also complete and utter strangers. He didn’t know why that surprised him, but it did. Maybe deep down inside, he’d figured he’d recognize them because he’d known their parents when he was a kid.
Jox came out of the kitchen on the opposite side. Skirting the upper level of the room, he joined Strike and handed over a mug of coffee, whispering, ‘‘If you weren’t going to dress for the occasion, you could’ve at least brushed your hair.’’
‘‘Shit.’’ Strike looked down at himself, bare chested in a pair of cutoffs and nothing else, and stifled a curse. No need to question where he scored on the first-impression scale: somewhere between Scuzzy Bedhead Guy and Please Don’t Tell Me That’s Him.
‘‘You’ll do fine.’’ Jox clapped him on the shoulder and turned to leave.
‘‘Hey!’’
The
winikin
paused. ‘‘What, you want a fanfare or something?’’
Yeah, actually. Well, maybe not trumpets, but he’d sort of imagined that when it came time to meet the newcomers, Jox would at least introduce him, maybe play up his father or something. But that was the point, wasn’t it? He wasn’t his father, and this wasn’t his father’s time anymore. So much had changed, they were going to have to rewrite some of the rules and protocols as they went. Starting now.