Protected (Book 1 in the Ariya Adams trilogy) (32 page)

His hands hadn’t left my hip bone, and I started rocking my hips up again, begging him to do something, anything. His fingers slid inside me and I gasped at the sudden way in which he had done it. My treacherous breathing picked up, it followed the intense rhythm of his fingers, giving away how unaccustomed I was to this kind of intimacy. His mouth rained kissed down my neck, biting my ear lobe gently.

In my heated state, I lost track of time. I don’t know if the pleasure he unleashed in me lasted seconds, minutes, or hours, but it was long enough to have my whole body tightening around his fingers until I found my release. His mouth was back on mine half way through my fit of convulsing and he held me tightly.

When my body had finally calmed down, I tried to snake out from under him. More than anything, I wanted to return the favor and give him some relief. However his arms, locked around me, stopping me from getting anywhere.

Pouting up at him, I knew fighting him was useless. He wouldn’t ever let me do anything to him. It was something I didn’t understand, but the first time I asked, he said to drop it and that he needed some time. He claimed he was more than happy to spend every night watching me come apart. What he didn’t seem to comprehend was, I wasn’t happy with only that arrangement, even if it was earth-shattering.

Reluctantly, I snuggled back down into his chest as he stroked back my hair. My frustration dissipated quickly as he continued the motion. He made me feel so secure and safe.

“How have things been with your dad here?” I asked him.

James and his father didn’t exactly see eye to eye on things, well on just about anything. Seeing as James wasn’t leaving my side, a vow he made after the Devon incident, Christmas break at home for us meant he’d have to be around him.

I didn’t like causing him extra stress. Actually, James was probably never stressed. He was always calm and had every situation under control. Unless I was sneaking off with the bad guy, like I had done with Emma. She had threatened to kill my friends when I found out she wasn’t as good as she was pretending. That threat had made it so that when the time came, I went with her, willingly, away from the people protecting me. I hated the thought of my friends being at risk because of me.

He kissed my forehead.

“There is no need to worry about me, Ariya, I promise you. Things are fine. We are both staying out of each other’s way.” He spoke so reassuringly that I almost believed him, but I knew he didn’t like it.

“What’s the plan for our research?” I was referring to finding out more about James’ mother.

“Leave the research to me. I’m actually going to go home for a couple days after New Year’s to start digging around.” I pulled back from him, surprised he hadn’t told me.

“You’re going alone? When are you leaving?”

I had just been thinking of how great everything had been with all of us around each other and no one in danger. Exploring into his mother’s death by himself when we didn’t even have the slightest idea how deeply she really was involved in my kidnapping by werewolves, didn’t really seem that safe to me.

“I’m not going alone. We’re all going. It’ll be a road trip. It was going to be a surprise, too, but clearly you and your questions won’t allow that,” he teased me. “I thought you might like to see where I grew up,” he shrugged.

It was such a human action that it was easy to forget that James was 250 years old.

My smile widened. “Of course I want to.” I couldn’t help feeling content that he wanted to share his past with me.

"You're going to be the death of me, Ariya," James said as he leaned down to plant a kiss on my lips.

My entire body froze. I know he didn't mean for it to be something that I took seriously, but that was my biggest fear. He felt me tense and pulled his head up, looking at me for a reason. He seemed to get it and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Ariya, it's an expression."

"No, I know. I know," I said, trying to convince myself as I said the words.

How could I explain to him what I felt? He didn't understand how scared
 I was for all of them. If someone wanted to take me, the Protectors would fight to stop him or her. They'd get hurt.

James stared at me another minute or two before speaking. His
 forehead creased and he looked even steamier than he normally did.

"Do you have so little faith in me?"

"What?" I said, surprised at his response.

"That's what it comes down to, Ariya. Do you not believe I can keep everyone safe?"

"I do... I know you'll keep us safe, but what about you? That's my concern," I said quietly, no strength to my voice at all.

I didn't want to talk about this. Our prior fun-loving mood was long gone as fear crept in.

Caroline was trying to work with me on my emotions, letting me know if I was overreacting. We had discovered that irrational emotions were part of the stupid “gift,” and they were uncontrollable for the most part. I hated how it felt like a jumble in my head all the time. I would feel varying emotions throughout the day, and as a result, was also tired and sometimes even exhausted by the evening. Apparently, all that was supposed to change when I turned twenty-two.

The thought was that since Christiane, the first member of the bloodline, had turned when she was twenty-two, the rest of her bloodline felt a surge in emotions at that age. The vampires aren’t sure if it’s a lack of changing or if it’s that due to changing that we all feel so emotional around that time. Since I had been surrounded by the supernatural before my birthday, my vampires think I triggered the emotional shift early.

That didn’t make me feel any better. Caroline was teaching me to take deep breaths when I was being irrational. I'm sure she would be telling me to take a deep breath now as I lay here panicking about James’ safety.

"Ariya, everything is going to be okay. I've survived 250 years, haven't I? I'll be here for you," he whispered, brushing his mouth against mine softly. He pulled back slightly and lay facing me with a look on his face I couldn’t quite name. I would say love, but we couldn’t be in love yet.
You’re in love already, Ariya,
the thought snuck in. But that was me. James was a 250-year old vampire. He didn’t do things like fall in love quickly.

He kissed my forehead, bringing me out of my thoughts. "Go to sleep, Ariya. Everything is going to be a
ll right."

I’d been prone to nightmares since the time I was tortured by Devon. Sleeping with James brought some comfort. I'm not sure how it's possible that James'
 presence has such a strong effect on my dreams. I didn’t want to get too caught up in what that means because I don't want there to be something else making me feel dependent on him. I wanted to be strong.

I sighed into his chest and let the gentle
 rhythm of his hand caressing my arms lull me to sleep.

Christmas Eve morning is a feast in my home. My parents and I make a huge breakfast with chocolate chip pancakes, sausages, eggs, coffee, juice, the works.

I felt funny about it this year with the vampires around. They didn’t eat actual food, they ate, no
drank
, blood. I wondered how they were getting it here. I was going to comment, but then I thought I'd rather not know all the details. I'm sure they were taking care of themselves. I was still processing everything there was to know about their lifestyle.

I knew I wanted to be with James, of that I was certain, but did I want to turn? Part of me was scared to embrace that life.
Immortality? Is that right? All the werewolves I knew were monsters, but the vampires I knew were so good, moral even. 

Caroline had told me that vampires were the same as humans. There were good people and bad people, just like there were good vampires and bad vampires, but since they were supernatural, not everyone understood them. That was what caused the fear. But again, it’s not like many people know they are actually real.

I chuckled at the thought as I stirred the pancake batter. I knew the chances were growing that I would eventually turn to be with my friends. They were all doing something with their lives. I wanted to do something good. Helping people the way they did was amazing.
We could all do it together.
I smiled again at the thought of our group saving the world, one person at a time, like superheroes. James came in and I hadn't noticed him watching me.

"You‘re in a good mood this morning."
He smiled at me so stunningly, I almost fell over. 

"Just thinking, that's all. I would ask if you were hungry, but I don't think I want to know," I said winking at him.

"I've been hungry since I met you, Ariya." His playful tone made me to laugh.

"My parents will notice if the three of you don't eat. What should we do?" I asked, suddenly curious.

"Ariya, it's fine. We can eat the food. It just doesn't taste like anything. Stop worrying." He walked towards me purposefully and I felt my knees shake for a moment.

Pulling me into his arms, he kissed me, which made me to blank out on everything
, but his lips.

I heard someone clear their throat behind us and saw my father when my eyes opened. My face went flush.

"Morning, Daddy," I said sweetly, trying to smile and recover.

"Morning," he said gruffly. He wasn't used to
 seeing his little girl kissing someone.

"Smells good, sweetheart," he said a minute later,
 relaxing a bit now that there was some distance between James and me.

I kept cooking, and soon our kitchen was full. My mom and I bustled about preparing everything, and the rest of the group sat at the table talking.

"Thanks for having everyone here, Mom," I said giving her a hug while we were finishing up the cooking. 

"Oh, don't be silly. You know I love this." I smiled at her and knew she was right.

She loved having a full house and she always made other people a priority. It was how she's always been. I had wanted to be like her my whole life. I brought everything to the table and after a quick grace, my dad told everyone to dig in.

James picked up his fork and I watched him. He had cooked for me one night before I knew he was a vampire, and he ate then, but now it was intriguing for me to watch him eat, knowing what I knew. He
widened his eyes in mock fear as he shoveled a bite of pancakes into his mouth. Rolling my eyes, my gaze went back to my own plate.

There was a choking sound, and I jerked my head back up towards him to see what was happening. I started coughing and laughed when I realized James was making a joke. I shook my head at him, trying my best to look upset instead of laughing at his attempt at being funny.

“James, are you okay? Did something go down wrong?” My mother was questioning him and Nick burst out laughing.

I had to stifle my own grin, too. If only my parents only knew who they were sitting around the table with!

We ate our feast at a leisurely pace. I laughed a few times at my vampires when they were offered seconds. I tried not to look at James anymore, but could see he was trying to get my attention and was making faces at me as he ate.

"Oh,
 Ariya, I almost forgot. Can you go up to the attic after breakfast and get the extra stockings? We have to make sure there are enough hung up for everyone," My mom reminded me.

"Sure! James, want to help?"

"Of course!" I noticed my dad looked at him critically when he answered so eagerly.

We finished up, and Caroline and Nick offered to clean everything. My parents retreated to the living room, and James and I headed upstairs to the attic.

It was dingy and small, but surprisingly it was kept pretty neat. Not many boxes were kept up here, and we didn't really have to come up for things often. It was basically a storage place for the extras of everything we had accumulated over the years.

We managed to get up into the attic, which had just enough room for James to stand. I started digging through the boxes. Pushing through the couple boxes closest to us, I found the extra Christmas box towards the back of the attic.

"Found them!" I exclaimed, turning to face James, but he wasn't paying attention to me.  He was looking into a box that I couldn't see the label of. 

"James?" I said, trying to get his attention.

He slowly turned to me. I was so taken aback by his sad expression that I almost gasped. "What's wrong?"

I walked over to him quickly and noticed the box he had found. It was labeled
 “Ariya's Future Family.” My mom had made the box when I went to college. We had gone through the spare room that had all my childhood things in it because it was her goal before I left to create a guestroom in our house. I inhaled sharply. I knew James didn't want to have a conversation about this, but we were about to be forced into it now.

He had told me before that he couldn't give me a family. It was one of the many reasons he originally stayed away from me. Vampires didn’t procreate, and he believed I wanted a family more than anything. I had at one point been keen on it. That was, until I met him. Now, I wasn’t sure that I did care to have a
family if it meant I wouldn’t have one with him.