Reaper's Dark Kiss (7 page)

“Be ready to go,” Alvina said.

That was so far from what Sky had expected, it took her a second to track it. “Go? Where?”

“Something’s coming into your life, Sky. And it’s big. The whole way you live is about to change.”

“You don’t even have your dice out,” Sky said.

“I don’t need the
I Ching
for this. It’s all over you.”

Outside, two men stopped and talked. One of them checked his watch, and then they went in opposite directions. Sky felt a little like that, as if she were going two opposite ways at the same time. She wanted Julian in her life. But she didn’t want to drown in him. She said this to Alvina.

“What do you control now?” Alvina asked quietly.

Everything. Nothing happened in Sky’s life without her say-so.
Nothing
. When death stole her parents, she’d promised herself life would never blindside her again. “My job, for one thing,” she said, suddenly finding herself on the defensive.

“What if the building burns down? What if you wake up tomorrow, you sit down to write, and you find out you hate writing? Just getting down one paragraph makes you vomit.”

“That couldn’t happen.” But Sky felt a nervous shiver at the thought.

“Maybe,” Alvina said, “maybe not. The point is, we don’t control anything. And with this Julian guy, you want him”—she ticked off points on her fingers as she talked—“you want total control—”

“It doesn’t have to be total,” Sky said, but even she heard the doubt in her voice.

“And,” Alvina said, holding up a third finger, “you don’t want to fall in love. Because it’s called ‘falling’ for a reason, and my friend, SkyLynne Jordan, does
not
fall, because we can’t control that, can we?”

Her best friend’s insistent voice penetrated a strange fog Sky had felt caught up in for weeks now. On the brink of tears, she said, “I can’t, Allie. I can’t. He could…”

“Go on,” Alvina said softly, “say it.”

Sky shuddered and let the tears fall. “He could die,” she whispered.

Offering Sky a brown paper napkin, Alvina said, “But there’s a part of you that wants this so badly, it hurts. And you think you can just walk away, but you know if you do, it’ll never stop hurting.”

All Sky could do was nod. Every time she hung up after she talked to Julian, she told herself he wouldn’t always be there, because nobody was always there. But at the same time, she wanted desperately for Julian to never ever not be there. It was slow torture, always being torn two ways, like being ripped in half over and over.

For long seconds, Sky felt so vulnerable she was lost in it. She reached for something in her mind, something to steady her. And what came was Julian’s voice—
you’ll always be safe with me
. It was so real, she half turned, expecting to find him standing there, as if he could walk through walls. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“You know what, my friend?”

“What?”

“You are
the
worst,
the
most unconvincing,
the
most transparent liar I’ve ever heard.”

* * * *

A storm was on the horizon. Sky hurried home from Awakened Heart. By the time she ran up the steps of her building, giant raindrops were falling. Upstairs, she unlocked the door. Inside, rolling thunder rattled the windows.

It was just after midnight. She grabbed a bottle of water and settled into her worn leather chair behind her desk. Alvina’s words echoed through her mind…
Be ready to go
. It sounded strangely like a warning.

Outside, lightning ripped night into day.

She shivered.

It was the storm, giving her a bad case of living-in-the-city-alone jitters. But she couldn’t shake it. She crept to the window, parted the curtains just a crack, lifted a single blind, and put her eye to the opening. Lightning threw jagged shapes across the deserted streets. Wind scattered fallen leaves into the night. No man with fangs.

She turned and eyed her laptop. Her mind was an absolute blank. Maybe a nap would help. She went into her bedroom, slipped off her jeans, and lay down on top of the covers.

As her eyes slipped closed, the thunder seemed to fall into rhythm with her heartbeat. It wasn’t frightening anymore, because…Julian was there. He was just beyond the door, watching over her, standing guard. She got up and felt the shift of warm fabric against her skin. Looking down at herself, she saw she was wearing a white diaphanous dress that stopped barely a quarter of the way down her thighs. Underneath, she was naked.

She slowly pulled open her bedroom door and stepped into another world. Instead of her desk and laptop and battered armchairs, she was in a room with white, rounded, rough walls. It felt like a cave. Candles, fat and thick, stood in niches, throwing off glimmers of light. There were only three walls. Straight ahead of her, the room opened onto an unending vista of restless ocean. The moon hung low among glittering stars, full and round, streaking the waves with silver. A four-poster bed with crimson silk sheets was to Julian’s right. Four marble columns supported a curved white canopy. The sheets billowed softly in the ocean breeze.

Julian stood outlined in moonlight, his back to her. He was naked to the waist. His muscled arms hung at his sides, fingers relaxed, but there was tension in his body, as though he were barely holding himself back. His shadow was crisp and clear in the moon’s strong glow.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said.

At the sound of his voice, Sky felt her nipples rise. A warm breeze made her dress move against her body, and every inch of her was suddenly alive with desire. She went to Julian and wrapped her arms around him from behind, pressing her breasts against her back. His body was warm against hers. She ran her hands up his belly, over his chest, feeling the ripple of muscle there. He let out a quiet moan and freed himself gently from her embrace. Turning to her, he leaned down and kissed her, his tongue invading her mouth as his hands roamed her body. He stood back and undid his jeans, his gaze never leaving Sky.

Her body heated, Sky watched him slip his jeans down over his hips and step out of them. His erection rose from between his legs almost to his navel.

Without thinking Sky was on her knees, kissing up and down his hard length, rubbing her lips over his veined, swollen cock. Julian let out a moan and pulled her to her feet. The desire in his eyes left no doubt what he wanted as he ran his hands through her hair, then bent to kiss her throat. She felt sharp points grazing over her soft skin and sighed softly.

“Julian,” she whispered.

The fingers in her hair tightened, and he pulled her head back. He kissed her roughly, his lips demanding against hers. He pulled away, his breath coming in quick hard pants.

“I have to wait, Sky,” he said. “But I couldn’t stop myself. I felt you dreaming, and I drew you here.”

Wait?

She didn’t want him to wait. She wanted him to take her. Now. She couldn’t remember ever wanting anything more. He kissed her breasts through the thin fabric of her dress, making Sky grind herself against him. She felt his cock become slick with her wetness. Impatient for the feel of Julian’s lips on her bare skin, Sky tore at her dress. It ripped away easily, and Julian’s tongue found her bare, hard nipples and licked and teased.

Sky reached down between them and tried to guide Julian’s cock into her, but he pulled away.

“No,” he said. “Not like this.”

Not waiting for a response, he picked her up as if she weighed nothing and laid her down on the bed. Its silky crimson sheets were soft under her. Below Sky was the ocean full of moonlight. Above her was Julian, looking down at her, his palms pressed into the bed on either side of her face. He was holding himself up on his arms, rigid with muscle. The heavy weight of his cock lay between her spread legs. She rubbed her nub against his cock, moaning.

Lowering himself closer to her, Julian kissed her breasts, licking at her nipples, tugging them between his lips. Sky, intoxicated with the feel of his hard body so close, writhed under him. She tried to slide her hand down to guide him into her, but Julian, quicker than lightning, caught her wrist and stopped her.

“Not yet,” he said.

In the candlelight, his gaze was hot with desire, but he was holding back, controlling himself.

“Why, Julian? I want you inside me,” Sky protested, raising her hips, rubbing herself against him, feeling his cock grow slicker and wetter.

“I have to wait,” he said and kissed her, gently this time. “This isn’t my dream. It isn’t right. I shouldn’t be here. I can’t do it like this. You’re my mate.”

His mate?

Yes. Now that he’d said it, Sky knew it was true. She’d known for a long time. Just like she knew Julian’s will was unbending. Even if all she wanted was to feel him inside her, filling her, stroking hard into her, she would have to wait.

He rolled away from her and pulled her into his arms. He was behind her, his hard cock nestled against her ass, his arm over waist. He slid his hand down between her legs, found her nub, and rubbed gently while he kissed her neck.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t pleasure you,” he whispered.

Sky, already hot from Julian’s teasing, tossed her head, feeling her body convulse as Julian rubbed harder, faster, all the time whispering, “You’re mine, Sky. Mine.”

Julian’s whisper a promise in her ears, his heated breath on her neck, Sky’s orgasm rocketed through her, and she…woke to the sound of crashing thunder. She sat up and actually looked to see if Julian was there with her. But of course he wasn’t. She’d been dreaming. She couldn’t remember all of it, but she remembered his whisper—“
You’re mine
”—and it aroused her, made her shiver with desire.

She shook off the dream, slipped into her jeans, and went out into the living room. All four walls were there. No ocean where the window looked out on the street. No white walls. No Julian.

She sat at her desk and booted up her laptop. While she waited, she brushed her fingers over her neck where Julian had kissed her in the dream. His teeth had been sharp…like fangs. She thought back to the night she’d been waiting for Julian in Aunt Millie’s, trying to remember every detail of the man who’d smiled at her. All she knew for sure was that he’d had fangs. And there’d been something else. When he walked away, his hair hung down his back in thick pale whorls. He had dreadlocks. Then she’d seen him again and—

A soft knock came at the door. Sky’s heart hammered. With the hours she kept, no one visited without calling ahead. Julian would have told her if he was in town. Maybe it was a delivery to the wrong apartment.

She waited, then heard soft footsteps retreating. She counted to thirty, her ear pressed against the door, listening for the slightest sound. When she heard nothing, she opened the door cautiously, ready to ram it into the face of anyone who tried to get at her.

The still hallway was deathly quiet. She was closing the door when she saw them on the floor. Unthinkingly, she bent to pick them up, then flung them all the way into the kitchen, revolted. She slammed the door shut so hard, tiny splinters of wood flew off the frame. Her hands shaking, she shoved the bolt home.

She curled up in the armchair farthest from the door, glaring at it as if the door had offended her. Her fingers were sweaty where she was gripping her phone. She wouldn’t call Julian and act like a frightened girl who’d found an ogre under the bed.

She wouldn’t.

Fear kept her immobile in the chair for so long, she actually considered calling CJ.

Throat dry, heart thudding, Sky touched speed dial and put the phone to her ear.

Chapter Eleven

Deep in a labyrinth of tunnels, miles below the Montana ghost town of Fasting’s Folly, two Shadow Worlders fought. Both were shirtless; one was battered and bruised. The combat-training chamber was a wide rectangular cavern with a vaulted roof of craggy stone. Candles and lanterns burned along the bare walls in niches, or hung in metal cages from thin black chains. The floor was gridded like a checkerboard in black-and-white squares, about fifteen feet to a side.

Harli, the former vampire who was now Julian’s ward, watched from a stool near the entrance. Inside a square near the center, Julian was fighting, what he’d loved best before he met Sky. Marek was the only Shade Julian didn’t have to hold back with. In the centuries they’d been sparring, he’d hurt Marek only once. Usually Julian’s mind dropped into the fight, and everything fell away except the flow of muscle, the thudding sound of flesh hitting flesh, the cool rush of air as they blocked each other’s blows. But today was different.

If he’d been mortal, Julian would have had a broken nose, two black eyes, and a few shattered ribs. Every time pain exploded somewhere on his body, he realized he’d been thinking about Sky. He’d been wondering what she was doing, thinking of a good time to call her, wanting to know if he could—a smashing blow landed on his shoulder.

“You’re distracted, brother,” Marek said. His heavily muscled body was bent in a crouch, his scarred hands raised, ready to fend off Julian’s answering blows. Julian swept at Marek’s feet. But he’d misjudged. He crash-landed on his back and found his brother’s knife pressed to his throat.

“Phone for you,” Harli said, careful to stay off the square that marked the fighting ground. He offered Julian his phone in one hand and a stack of towels in the other.

After rolling free of Marek, Julian took his phone and a towel. He glanced at the screen. It was Sky. Something was wrong. It was too early for her to call. “Hey,” he said.

“Did I wake you up?”

One question was all it took for Julian to hear how scared she was. He glanced at his brother and walked away from the sparring square. “No.” He wiped sweat off his face and took the clean shirt Harli brought. “I was working out.”

Sky’s voice was unnaturally quiet when she said, “I just wanted to talk you.”

Hours on the phone with Sky had taught Julian not to push if he expected answers. “Here I am,” he said, keeping his voice even. “There you are. Let’s talk.”

Too much silence went by before Sky said, “Seen any good movies lately?”