Skin Deep (5 page)

The week passed slowly and quickly all at the same time for Kiera. She was far from used to her new look and neither were her clients at the salon. The look of shock on their faces when they came in to get their hair done said it all. When the first one asked her what her secret was, she’d been baffled. What was she supposed to say? She tried to keep it vague, though Weight Less, the energy booster drink, owed her loads for endorsements after all the business she’d sent their way the past week.

Kiera’s entire wardrobe changed. She wore tight designer jeans and scoop-neck shirts to work. Kiera was thankful the scars she bore were only in a limited area, an area her new wardrobe would never expose.

When she and the girls had left Lucky Zipper, Kiera had felt lost, embarrassed, afraid, and later, even a little hot, as she remembered the way the stranger’s hands had roamed over the length of her body. The feelings his touch ignited were like nothing she had ever experienced. When she’d reached her loft, she cursed herself for her stupidity and promised herself she would never go anywhere near that damn bar again.

Things changed as time passed. Her mind kept returning to the short time she’d spent in that darkened hallway. Sometimes she would be in the middle of a haircut and a flush of heat would run rampant across her body.
“Your feet aren’t going to touch the ground until that sweet little pussy has come apart on my dick … more than once.”
Her pussy throbbed at the memory of his gravelly voice in her ear, and she accidentally cut an inch too much off one side of her customer’s hair.

Other times she would be at home trying to focus on her latest crochet project when the memory would resurface. His handsome face looming over hers, his green eyes flashing in the dim light. And she found herself setting aside the slippers she had nearly finished to start on a new project, something she rarely did.

She stayed up all night working, the soft yarn coming together beneath her fingertips faster than anything she had ever woven in her life. It wasn’t until she finished she realized what she’d created and couldn’t help but feel shame that she let a stranger take such control of her subconscious.

The shawl was the color of his eyes—a myriad of greens, from bright to forest, all woven together to create something to warm her shoulders on a cold night. She tried to convince herself it wasn’t so. She didn’t do this because of him. But that was a lie. Just as much as it would have been a lie if she said she hadn’t touched herself to the memory of his hands on her body.

She shamelessly brought herself to orgasm over and over, remembering the way his fingers had played with her labia and delved into the slickness of her channel while she gripped his rock-hard cock.

Friday arrived and her earlier feelings of regret and embarrassment had all but disappeared.
I was only turned on by him because I haven’t had any sort of sexual contact in the last four years. That’s all it was.
He was a handsome man, she couldn’t deny that, but he wasn’t irresistible. She couldn’t let meeting him keep her from going there. She liked the crazy atmosphere and the music. When Maryline asked her to come out with them to Lucky Zipper that night, Kiera was more than ready to go. After one experience on the dance floor, she needed to go again and lose herself in the thrumming music.

In fact, she hoped he would be there because she was ready to reject him … again. Just thinking about how he’d approached her, not even saying hello or introducing himself. He just held his hand out, like that was the
most
effort he would put into it, really pissed her off. She was not so easy that she would hop on the first man that came along just to fuck him in a dank hallway.

She picked each article of clothing with care. Tonight, she was gonna knock ’em dead.

Cain sat in Lucky Zipper, smoking a Lucky, with his feet kicked up on the table. He knew he reeked of Jack and probably looked like a damn mess. He’d been drinking all day, and shots at that. It took a lot to get him drunk, especially on human liquor, which was what he drank most of the time, having no desire to be vomiting all the next day. It was saying something for him to be actually teetering on the edge of drunkenness. Of course, that’s how he’d spent most of his week.

“Hey, sexy, you need a refill?” Cain looked up at the busty Vampire waitress. She smiled seductively at him, biting down on her lip. He just shook his head without speaking and took a long drag on his cigarette.

“Are you sure? Maybe I could tempt you with something else?” This was the waitress he’d fucked upstairs last week. She was utterly plain, like every other fucking woman on the planet. All of them except one.

The vision of the red-headed seductress filled his mind. He could still smell her sweet, tropical scent and taste her on his tongue. It was like a damned drug.
I’ve never had a woman who was unforgettable.
Hell, the second he pulled out of a woman he started to forget her, but now wasn’t the case.
I didn’t even fuck her and I’m practically panting just thinking about her.

She’d rejected him. Flat-out pushed him away. That had never happened to him before. She’d responded to him. There was no doubt about that. She’d moaned, touched him like an aroused woman should, and practically begged for more. Just the thought of it made his cock jump to life in his pants, pressing hard against the denim.

Gods, he wanted that woman with a vengeance. What made it worse and perhaps even more puzzling was that he hadn’t been able to ease his want on another. Directly after she’d walked out on him, he made a beeline to follow her. He wanted her badly and knew she had been left in a needy state as well. He was determined to see them both eased, but Sparrc had caught him just as he came back into the bar.

Sparrc had gotten a hang-up call on their work cell from two counties over. Supernatural creatures in the Immortal Realm could phone the Eternal Forces like a human could call their local police department. It annoyed the shit out of him how much the damned civilians would call in. Immortals in Mexico settled their business without needing the local authorities. American Immortals seemed to need their asses wiped every time they took a dump.

The calls would come in to the state central office where a Clair would transfer it. The Clairs were a species of women with sparkling orange skin and telepathic powers. They could sense which species the call dealt with, even before it completed its first ring. Naturally Cain and his boys were forwarded all calls that dealt with Weres in the state of Maine. If there was a situation with multiple species, whoever was closer was given priority, while the other had to hump ass to get there if they wanted any kind of justice for their own kind.

Sparrc had been unable to find Blaise, so Cain begrudgingly went with him, since all hang-ups had to be responded to with Force presence. The call should have amounted to nothing. Instead, they’d discovered a dead human woman, her shredded body scattered across a suburban lawn.
Only a Were could do that kind of damage.

The worst part was that the place was surrounded by human cops. Humans always tended to fuck things up when it came to shit like this. Cain and Sparrc couldn’t just waltz in and take the body. No, that would put a spotlight on the Were community and a kink in all the painstaking work they put into blending in.

Cain and Sparrc stayed back and let the humans do their thing. They got the info on where her body would be taken so Blaise, who was a licensed medical examiner, could get clearance and check things out the next day.

The next night Cain returned to the bar and a tiny blonde Pixie approached him. He’d glanced past her and seen the rest of her sisters by the bar staring in his direction. If he played his cards right, he knew he could have his cock between the legs of all of them. This was the kind of thing he usually went for. Women who were ready for a good, fast fuck. Not this time. Her approach offended him. He brushed her off only to be met with the stunned looks of Sparrc and Blaise.

It was the same all week. Women came on to him every other hour. Stopping by his table, jiggling their breasts in his face. When he forced them to move along, they would follow him to the bathroom. Once, he turned around and there were two Witches standing right behind him. Both of them had their breasts free and their hands between their legs. He’d pushed past them, needing a drink more than ever.

At the end of each night, he would remove his pants to find his pockets full of scraps of paper, gum wrappers, and napkins with phone numbers on them. He hadn’t put any in there. Women would do so as he passed by, all grabbing on to him and shoving their numbers in his pocket, hoping he would call them for a late night fuck. He didn’t. In fact, he hadn’t been inside another woman since the red-headed chick had pushed him away. It had been centuries since he’d gone more than twenty-four hours without the comfort of a woman’s body and he was damn sure feeling the repercussions.

“Are you sure?” The less-confident voice of the waitress broke through his thoughts.
Good Gods, is she still here
? He dismissed her with a curt nod and she all but ran away.
Thank Olympus
. Her lust was appalling.

“Sending another on her way? Damn, Cain. Looks like old age is beating the shit out of you and not your cock.” Sparrc laughed as he and Blaise sat down at the table. Blaise had continued to be distant until Cain finally apologized to him a couple days before. Cain did hate that he’d broken their code, but he didn’t regret it by any means. He would give anything to be back in that hallway.

Surprisingly enough, he even admitted to them that she’d rejected him. The smile on Blaise’s face had been too smug and Cain longed to punch it off, but he refrained. Like she would have fucked his dog-ass anyway. Or would she? The thought ate at Cain’s insides. His gaze wandered to the dark ceiling illuminated by the flashing florescent lighting. He focused on the Alae Demons dancing in their cages. Their barely clothed bodies writhed to the pounding music, their large feathered wings nearly covering their entire backs and legs. A week ago he would have enjoyed the sight. Even though the wings seriously fucked up his doggy-style game, he still liked to look.

Not today. He jerked his gaze from the dancing bodies and scrubbed a hand down his face.

“Looks like it’s redemption time.” Blaise’s voice broke through his turmoil.

“Huh?” Cain took another long drag off his Lucky. He wished these things would actually help relieve the pent-up tension coiled in his body.

Dammit, he needed to cut out of this place and go for a run. He’d been too damned drunk all week to do anything besides sling himself into bed at the end of the night.

“She’s here—but hey, hey, hold on,” Blaise spoke as Cain yanked his legs from the table and swiveled his head in search of her. “I think we should make a bet before you go running to her like a damn desperate school girl.”

Cain’s eyes returned to stare at Blaise. “A bet?”

“Oooh, I like the sound of this,” Sparrc chimed in, rubbing his hands together.

“If you can’t get her into bed by the end of the night, she’s mine.”

Cain’s pupils dilated and his blood heated at the thought of Blaise touching her. He vaguely noted he was growling.

“No. Fucking. Way,” he bit out.

The smile on Blaise’s face creased in confusion, and so did Sparrc’s. “What’s with you, man? We share most, if not all, of our women. What’s so different about this one?” Sudden realization hit Blaise’s face. “Holy shit, she’s your
feorh,
isn’t she?”

A chill traced its way through Cain’s body, successfully making his jaw drop. He was shaking his head in denial before he found his voice again. “What? Gods, no!”

“You sure about that, man? You looked like you were ready to kick my ass
over a chick.
” Blaise emphasized the last three words by banging his fist against the table.

His gray gaze, both glass and regular, focused on Cain as if he were trying to see into his soul. Every person—no matter what species—had a
feorh.
It was the connection with another person that only came once in a lifetime—never for most humans, since their lifespan was so short. It was the reuniting of the soul from when the gods tore the androgyns apart in the ancient world, ripping them in half.

Each half would search for the other across eternity to be reunited, only to die and search again. It was romantic and terrifying all at once. He’d seen many others, Weres especially, find their
feorh,
their soul mate. Every Were said the same thing: they could scent their other half from miles away, and they’d been certain of their connection the moment they laid eyes on them. He was probably the oldest Were who hadn’t discovered his
feorh
. He didn’t much care, though. He liked his carefree, tetherless lifestyle. He didn’t want to be bound forever to the body of one woman.
I like my tattered half-soul. Thank you very much.

“She’s not my
feorh
. I’d know, wouldn’t I?” Both Blaise and Sparrc looked skeptical, but nodded their heads. “Give me a week and she’s yours.”