Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem) (39 page)

“Kim,” he said, sounding slightly panicked.

“Has a boyfriend of her own,” I laughed, breathing the words against his chin.  “I’m certainly not sharing
mine
.”

“You’re killing me, Em,” he moaned, as I caressed his bottom lip with the tip of my tongue.  “How am I supposed to argue against this kind of persuasion?”

“You’re not,” I whispered against his lips.  “I need you, Nathan.”

“I need you, too, baby,” he groaned softly.  “You have no idea how much I need you.”

Considering my position on his lap, I thought that was a bit naïve.

His grip loosened and his hands started to roam up my back.  In less time than it took me to blink, he went from being my victim to being the one in charge.  His eyes captured mine as his hands slid under my t-shirt and started slowly pushing it up.  With each brush of his fingers against my skin, I felt like I was coming apart.  When he finally whipped it over my head and tossed it behind me, I could barely draw in a full breath.

“Do you know how tempting you are?” he purred, trailing his fingertips up and down the line of my spine.  “Everything about you draws me in.  Just the scent of your skin is enough to drive me insane.”

His lips barely brushed my skin, there and then gone again only to land somewhere else.  My skin tingled from my head to my toes.  My hands clutched at his shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch beneath my fingers, as if that would keep me from being
sucked into the whirlpool of sensations I could never have felt with anyone but him.  I was totally breathless by the time his lips touched mine, another barely there caress that drove me crazy, and I couldn’t stand the torture for another second.

“I love you, Ember,” he whispered against my lips.  “I will love you until time ends and I end with it.”

“And I love you,” I breathed, tracing the line of his strong jaw with my fingers.  “I love you with everything I am.  I have since the moment I laid eyes on you.  That hasn’t changed.”

Those were the last words either of us spoke for a long time.  We let our hands and our lips say everything for us.  With each touch, each kiss, we found our way back to one another.  Every hurt was forgiven, all the terrible things we had said to one another forgotten.  There was nothing but love and passion.  Nothing else even existed.

Until somebody started pounding on the damn door.

“Do we ignore it?” Nathan asked, whispering the words against my earlobe.

“Oh, yeah!”

I dragged his lips back to mine for another long, drugging kiss and hoped whoever was outside that door would just melt into the floor.  In fact, the whole world could have gone away right then, and I wouldn’t have minded a bit.

“Nathan!  Take your nasty-ass hands off my friend!” Kim yelled through the door, kicking it when she decided knocking wasn’t going to do any good.  “Ember!  Get your butt out here!  Seriously!  Don’t make me come in there and get you!”

I hissed, glaring at the door as Nathan groaned and let his head drop to rest against my shoulder.   Between the two of us, it was hard to tell who was more frustrated.

“I think we better talk to her,” Nathan growled.

He was off the sofa and pulling his shirt on before I could yell at her to just go away.  He pulled me up beside him and had just handed me my own shirt when the door literally blew off.  Nathan grabbed me, sheltering me with his own body as the thick panel blasted straight across the room, embedding in the opposite wall with an earsplitting crash that shook the floor beneath us.

I peeked around him to glare at Kim and found her standing in the doorway, her mouth hanging open and her eyes so wide they were bugging out of her head.  She looked down at her hands, then at the door lodged in the wall across the room, then back down at her hands.  She looked like she didn’t know whether to be horrified or just plain terrified.

“We were going to answer the door, Kim,” Nathan said, his voice sounding tight and controlled.  “You could have just waited a second.”

“
You
don’t get to speak to me!” Kim hissed.  Her voice was a little shaky, but the anger in it was undeniable.  “
You
are a creep. 
You
don’t deserve to get to touch my friend anymore.  After what you did, I can’t believe she would even
want
you to!”

“Funny you should say that,” I growled right back, stepping away from Nathan and facing her head on.  She took one look at me, standing there with my shirt fisted in my hand, and her face went nuclear red.  “Do you know why it’s funny, Kim?  It’s funny because before you came blasting through the door
I
was trying to seduce
him
!”

She drew in a loud hissing breath through her teeth and I saw a glimmer of blue-white fire in her eyes.  She
glared from me to Nathan for a few seconds and then turned on her heel and stomped back down the hall.  I heard the door of her room slam behind her and shook my head.  Nathan sighed loudly before wrapping his arms around me again, holding me close. 

“That didn’t go very well, did it?” he
asked sadly, staring at the doorway Kim had disappeared through.

“No, it definitely did not,” I
sighed, dropping my forehead to rest against his chest.  

Then again, when had it
ever
gone well where Nathan and I were concerned?  I couldn’t understand why it always had to be so hard for us.  Even falling in love, something that should have been as easy as…well,
falling
, had been hard for us.  Every time we turned around there was a new threat, some new drama.  When would it end? 

Whatever happened to not having to fight someone all the time just to be happy?

“It’ll all work out, baby,” Nathan murmured, kissing the top of my head.  “You should go talk to her.  It’s always been the two of you, Em.  I won’t be what busts up the truest friendship I’ve seen in more than four centuries.”

“Yeah, I guess I should.”  I reached up and pulled his lips down to mine for one last kiss before whispering, “You don’t deserve for her to hate you, baby.  The only one who really had that right was me, and I forgave you.  Kim’s just going to have to trust me on this one.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked when I stepped out of his arms and pulled my shirt over my head.

“I’m going to give her the clothes I brought her,” I told him, shrugging.  When he looked dubious about the success of
that
plan, I laughed.  “Kim loves clothes more than food or air.  I’m hoping the sight of designer labels will make her calm down enough to see reason.”

“And if she doesn’t?”  He looked like he thought that was a much more likely outcome.  I couldn’t really blame him after Kim’s performance with the door.

“I’ll improvise.”

Despite the fact that I’d felt so confident about my plan when I told Nathan what I was going to do, I found myself hesitating outside Kim’s door.  There was a hole in it the size of a crater where she had lobbed the fireball at me, and a matching one in the wall.  Skippy wasn’t going to be happy.  I’m sure he hadn’t been planning on a witch hopped up on angel blood destroying his home when he’d volunteered it as a refuge for the injured.

When I couldn’t put it off any longer, I took a deep breath and tapped softly on what was left of the door.  I hadn’t really expected an answer, and I didn’t get one, but I knew she was inside.  I could hear her crying, her soft sniffles making me feel like I was about half an inch tall.  Sighing, I picked up the box I’d brought from the warehouse and opened the door slowly. I thought maybe she was over her temper tantrum, but you can never be too safe.

I didn’t spot her immediately, so I called out “Kim?”

“Go away, Ember,” she muttered.

I found her sitting against the wall in the corner of the room.  She wiped at her cheeks hurriedly as I turned to face her, but she wasn’t quick enough.  I saw the tears glimmering on her cheeks, her long lashes, and felt even worse than I had as I stood outside the door, listening to her sniffle.

“Don’t be like that, Kim,” I told her, plopping the box down in front of her and sliding down the wall next to her.  “Come on.  Talk to me.  You know you want to.”

She glared at me and wiped her nose instead.

“Okay, then,” I told her, reaching for the box.  “If you don’t want to talk to me, I guess you don’t want this stuff, either.  I’ll just take it and trash it.”

She didn’t take the bait and I sighed, praying for patience.  I dug around in the box and pulled out a black and white striped Michael Kors cashmere sweater.  Kim’s eyes flared wide and a longing look crossed her face, but she stayed strong.  That was all right, though.  I had more.  DSquared2 jeans came next, and I made a point of dangling them in front of her before suggesting that maybe Ainsley would like them.  Kim made a small sound in her throat, her expression agonized, but didn’t say a word.

I pulled out a couple more outfits, watching as her face got tighter and tighter and her eyes got bright.  I had to give it to her.  She had held out a lot longer than I’d given her credit for.  Even when I pulled a Vince leather jacket out of the box, she just bit her lip and whimpered a little.

I’d saved the best for last, though.  As much as Kim liked clothes, she positively
loved
shoes.  I sighed again, as if I thought it was a real shame that I was going to have to throw everything out, and then pulled out a pair of soft leather Prada ankle boots.  When she just whimpered again, my patience reached its limits.  Calling up a ball of my signature golden fire, flames that were guaranteed to incinerate
anything
, I dangled the boots over it.  If that didn’t get her attention, I was done.

“Okay!” she cried, grabbing the boots out of my hand just before they touched the flames.  “You are so mean, Ember!  Fine.  You want to talk, talk.”

Kim was so easy.

But the second she was ready to talk to me again, I couldn’t figure out what to say.  I wouldn’t defend Nathan’s actions to her, I didn’t even defend them to myself, but I couldn’t have her hating him for the rest of her life, either.  That put me between a hard place and an even harder place.  I mean, how do you make someone
not
hate someone else when
you’re
the reason they hate them in the first place?

“I won’t take back what I said,” Kim muttered, her head down and her fingers caressing the leather cuff on the boot in her lap.  “I meant every word, Em.  I won’t apologize for it, either.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” I told her, shrugging.  “Nathan doesn’t even want you to.  If it means anything, he agreed with every word you said.  He feels really shitty about what happened, Kim.  You don’t have to forgive him, but maybe you could cut him a little slack?”

She grimaced and stared down at her boots again.  Finally, though, she nodded her head.  It was just one little bob, not like she really wanted to do it but like she had to, but it was enough.  I stood up and dumped the entire box of clothes in her lap before bending down to give her a boa constrictor-type hug.

“You’re too good for him.  You know that, right?” she whispered, hugging me back. 

“Yeah, but I like him, anyway,” I told her, giggling when she rolled her eyes at me.

Deciding not to push my luck where Nathan was concerned, I changed the subject.  While she went through her new things, I filled her in on what she had missed.  They hadn’t told her how serious my condition was, and when she found out I had nearly died—again—she got all teary again.  Of course, that brought up the subject of the angel blood.

“So, I could be immortal?” Kim asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” I told her honestly.  “Tyler said a little of his blood wouldn’t make you immortal, but I’m not sure what he meant by a little.  Of course, the only way to test the theory is to kill you.  Worst case scenario?  If you’re not immortal, you’re dead.”

“Yeah, I see your point,” she agreed, nodding.  “I think I’ll just wait and find out the good old fashioned way. 
If I stop aging, I guess I’ll have my answer.  Speaking of Ty, how did he take it?  You know, you and Nathan getting back together?”

“Tyler’s the one who dropped me o
ff on his doorstep.” 

“
Tyler
did that?” Kim asked, looking and
sounding
shocked.  “
Our
Tyler?”

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes at her.

“Tyler Jordan?  You’re sure?”

“
Yes,
Kim,” I said, frowning when she just looked confused.  “Why are you so surprised, Kim?”

“No reason,” she said, dropping her eyes and starting to fold her clothes to avoid making eye contact with me.  “I just thought…”

“You thought
what
?” I demanded, laying my hands over hers to stop her from avoiding both my gaze and the question.

“Seriously, it doesn’t matter,” she said, shrugging.  “I guess I just read the signals you guys were putting off all wrong.”

You and Jordan were putting on one hell of a show
, Nathan’s voice repeated in my mind as my hands fell away from Kim’s and I sat back with a small huff of surprise.  Had they
all
thought Tyler and I…that we were a
couple
?  Had we played our parts so well that night that even my best friends hadn’t been able to tell the difference?

Could
you?
a little voice asked in the back of my mind.  Remembering the way I’d felt that night, the happiness I’d found in Tyler’s arms as we danced…

Yeah, that was a damn good question.  And one, I was horrified to realize, that I didn’t have an answer to.

“Em, I know you don’t want to hear it, but Tyler has a
serious
thing for you,” Kim said, peeking up at me through her lashes like she was afraid I was going to bite her head off.  “Are you really so blind that you can’t see it?”

“We’re friends,” I told her, my voice sounding weak even to me. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, nodding.  “But there’s something else between you, something intense that everyone else can see and you seem only
too
happy to ignore.  You didn’t see him that night, after we’d banished Bastian.  When you stopped breathing, he totally lost it.  He kept screaming at someone to bring you back, but there was nobody there.  Seriously, it was kind of scary.”

But there had been someone there with us.  The Nerd King.  I knew Tyler had seen Death that night, had even talked to him.  I would have bet money that Tyler’s imaginary friend had been the very geek who’d screwed up my afterlife.

“He loves you, Em,” Kim continued.  “And do you know what I think?”

“No, what?” I whispered, the tiny ball of sadness that had risen in my chest at the start of her explanation growing to basketball-sized proportions.

“I think there’s a part of you that loves him, too,” Kim said gently.

I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t.  There was too much evidence in favor of her argument.  I thought back to those couple of months without him and felt my tearless eyes start to burn.  I had missed him so much.  I had missed him even more than I had missed Kim and Blake, who I’d known and loved my whole life.  I had missed his smile and the sound of his voice and the way he could make me feel warm and safe. 

I had missed
him
.  Because Tyler made me
happy
.

“But I love Nathan,” I said, my voice so soft and sad that I saw Kim’s eyes fill with tears in response to it.  “How can I love Nathan and love Tyler, too?  That’s so wrong on
so
many levels, Kim.”

“I know,” she said, reaching over to take my hand.  I held on to her with a death grip, the only constant in my
ever-shifting world.  “I know you love Nathan, Em.  And I know you completed the soul mate bond because Shea let it slip to Mom while we were waiting for you to wake up after the change.  That’s why I was so confused by the vibes between you and Ty.  I mean, that’s some serious magic right there, even for us.  I was gonna ask Mom about it the night we went to the club, but with us getting shot at by a bunch of witch hunters, trying to find a way to get you to let me murder your boyfriend, and you disappearing with what’s-her-name, it kind of slipped my mind.”

“Understandable,” I muttered, nodding. 

“Don’t worry, Emmy,” she said, pulling me closer to her and throwing an arm around my shoulders, “we’ll figure it out.  We always do, right?”

I didn’t even dignify that with an answer.  There was so much about me and my life I hadn’t figured out that it would have filled an entire library. 

Seeing the blooming sadness on my face, Kim was quick to change the subject.  I was happy to let her.  Even when we moved back to angelic blood and weird powers, though, part of my mind stayed stuck on Tyler and Nathan and the mess I was going to have to deal with at some point. 

Blake was the first one brave enough to enter the room.  He
didn’t look all that surprised when he saw us sitting there, my head on Kim’s shoulder, as we attempted to make just the tips of our fingernails catch fire like we had seen a witch do in a movie once.  He stopped just inside the door, shaking his head at us, then stuck his head back out and shouted the all clear that it was safe to come inside.

“I see you two made up, as usual,” he said as he slid down on Kim’s other side and pulled her closer
to him.

“Kim could never stay mad at me,” I told him, forcing myself to smile.  “She worships me.  Didn’t you know?”

“She threatened to barbecue a pair of Prada boots in front of me is what she means,” Kim corrected, scowling.  “Besides, I kind of love the little brat.  It’s a good thing, too, because nobody else will put up with her.”

I smiled, really smiled, when Zan and Ainsley walked in, their arms wrapped around each other’s waists.  Zan immediately made a smartass remark about Kim’s new radical hairdo, which started a war to see who could be the most insulting between the two of them, but Ainsley caught my eye and smiled.  She looked peaceful, happy.  I was proud to know I’d played a part in that, if even just a small one. 

Skippy was the next one in the door.  He looked worried until he saw me sitting there all in one piece.  Kim immediately apologized for the door…and the wall…and the other door, but Skippy just waved it off like it was no big deal.  He became her idol, though, when he told her she was free to go shopping in the warehouse for herself when she was feeling up to it.

“What did you
do
to him?” Tyler asked, looking horrified, having joined us just in time to hear Skippy agree to let me and Kim give him a makeover.

“I was mean to him,” I told him, shrugging, as he flopped down next to me
on the floor and stretched out, using my thigh as a pillow.  “Strange what a little sarcasm can do to a man, huh?  Skippy’s not so bad, though.  He just needs some friends.”

“No, beautiful, it’s you,” he sighed, closing his eyes and pulling my arm across his chest.  “You just have that effect on people.”

I smiled down at him tenderly, my heart aching as what both Skippy and Kim had said repeated itself over and over in my mind.  Tyler looked tired and stressed out and completely happy as he laid there, my hand held over his heart.

E
veryone else was ignoring us, so I leaned down and whispered, “Ty?  Do you love me?”

“Always and forever,” he said with a beautiful, tired kind of smile.  “But, if you’re about to ask me to do something that requires movement, I’m going to disappoint you.”

“No, I’m not going to ask you for anything,” I told him, trying to keep the heartache out of my voice.

“I was only kidding, beautiful,” he sighed, barely cracking his eyes open to look at me.  I don’t know what he saw, but something in his expression changed, became soft and sad.  “You could ask me for anything and everything, Em, and I would move the heavens to give it to you.”