His eyebrow shot up. “Your logic completely eludes me. When I’m asleep I can’t be responsible for looking sexy.”
Judith laughed again, that low, melodious sound Stefan listened for, like soft, perfectly tuned chimes in the wind. He could listen to that sound forever. Sitting on her balcony with the stars sparkling overhead and her sea of white star flowers below, he found he was perfectly content. He knew Judith worried he would find their life together boring, but for the first time since he was a small boy, he felt he had a home. There was no way to express in words what having a real home meant. Sitting on a balcony with the wind touching his face and mist beginning to creep in from the ocean, he felt absolute freedom.
“When I was boy, we were snuggled in our apartment, the fire going and my father stretched out on this couch, his head in my mother’s lap, two babies on his chest. I remember he looked at my mother with such love on his face and he took her hand and said, ‘This is a golden moment, my love.’ At the time I didn’t know what that meant, but it stuck in my head because of the way he looked at her, with so much happiness. Now I know what he meant.” Once again he brought the fistful of her hair to his mouth.
He loved the feel of all that silk. He thought it looked like a shining waterfall, dark and mysterious on a dusky night. When Judith lay on a pillow, with her hair spilling all around her, he’d never seen a more beautiful or seductive sight. He rubbed her hair over his jaw, wanting this moment to last forever. He glanced at her, was immediately caught in the spell of her. Tears swam in her eyes, diamond droplets caught in her eyelashes.
Without conscious thought, he leaned over and kissed her tears away, sipping them from her soft skin. “Don’t ever feel sad for me, Judith. My life brought me to you and that’s enough for me. That’s everything.”
Judith shook her head and finished off her chocolate, too choked up to answer him. Sometimes, when those small memories came back to him, Stefan broke her heart. She wanted to hold him forever. He thought she saved him. She could tell in the way he looked at her, in the things he said to her, but it was the other way around. She had become lost in her need to avenge her brother’s death. In her belief that she didn’t measure up because she couldn’t find a way to make Jean-Claude suffer.
She sighed. The chocolate was definitely doing the trick, making her sleepy. She let herself drift, thinking of the man beside her. He was an anchor in the storms of emotion that washed over her so intensely. Sometimes she couldn’t contain all the force of her passionate nature, so concentrated by her element, but when she was with Stefan, she didn’t need to keep constant vigil. She found she could relax and just feel what she was supposed to feel. She’d felt half alive, desperate to control the growing power within her, yet the moment she’d met Stefan her spirit had recognized him as some sort of protective shield. It made no sense—yet it made perfect sense.
“You make me happy,” she said, half closing her eyes, allowing herself to drift further toward a dreamy place. It was more than that. She’d felt empty and he’d filled her. She’d felt afraid of herself and he gave her confidence. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to it, but strangely, they fit, two misfits completing one another.
She turned her head to look at him, struggling to keep her eyes open. Her lids felt heavy and her body deliciously exhausted. “I was happy here, and I knew I’d have a decent life. I didn’t know I was empty until you came along. And I didn’t have any idea what real happiness was until I laid eyes on you. Isn’t that crazy?”
He shook his head. “No. I didn’t consider another way of living. Even when I prepared for it, I never really thought I’d disappear into the real world. Men like me live our lives apart and we die that way. No one knows we exist and no one mourns our death, because we’re ghosts. I didn’t consider myself unhappy. My life was just what it was.”
He allowed the soft strands of her hair to slip through his fingers, watching it slide back around her, a cloak of silk framing her face and falling with grace below her waist. “Until I saw you. The world just seemed to hold its breath, waiting for you to notice me.”
Judith felt as if he had given her the world. He didn’t think he knew the right words to say, but nevertheless he found them, at least for her. He made her feel as if she were the only woman in the world.
“Tomorrow your sisters are going to talk to you, angel. You know they’ll come at you from a million different ways.”
She could hear the concern in his voice, the worry that once away from him, she would be persuaded she’d made a terrible mistake. “I worry that once you’re away from me, you’ll change your mind, Stefan,” she admitted.
“Thomas. Think Thomas all the time. You can’t think of me as Stefan. And you have nothing to worry about, Judith. I said forever and I meant it. I’m a fairly single-minded man.”
“I meant it too. My sisters will eventually accept you. They have Levi. He kind of grows on you.” She paused, and then gave a little sigh. “When he’s not forcing us all to learn self-defense.”
“You know I’ll side with him on that issue,” Stefan said, unrepentant. “I’ll probably be far worse than he is. And we’re getting a couple of dogs. Big ones.”
“I’m a little concerned about the dog issue. Rikki brought it up the other night and we discussed it. Everyone seemed to be okay with it with the exception of Lissa. She’s sort of a warrior woman and I would expect her to totally want dogs on the property, but she was very silent on the subject. She didn’t advocate for them. Airiana did, but Lissa stayed quiet. I asked her if she was okay with getting dogs, but she didn’t exactly answer me.”
“Would the others balk if she did?”
“We tend to do everything around here together. It’s worked in the past. Blythe is the leader and the most diplomatic. She reads people very well,” Judith explained.
“I doubt if she reads them as well as you do. You’re empathic.”
She yawned and hastily covered it with her hand. “I thought I hid that very well.”
“Not from me.” He stood up, taking the mug from her hand and putting it on the small tray table beside his chair. “Come on, angel, you’re exhausted. I’m putting you to bed.”
“We get into trouble when we’re in bed. I thought I’d just sleep right here.”
Stefan shook his head and leaned down to pick her up, cradling her close to his chest. “I don’t think so, baby. You’d hurt your neck. I can restrain myself when it’s necessary.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him. “I wasn’t worried about you restraining yourself. It turns out I don’t have any discipline. At all. Not when it comes to you.”
Stefan took her through the open French doors to her bedroom, bending his head to reach her tempting mouth. She tasted of chocolate and passion, an inviting combination. He acknowledged to himself it might have been a mistake to kiss her. Once he started, he always found it difficult to stop. Kissing her was fast becoming a favorite pastime and it definitely led to other, erotic and pleasurable things, but she really was exhausted and he had work to do.
With a small sigh, he lifted his head and took her on through to the master bath. “Brush your teeth and I’ll rinse out your chocolate mug.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“You never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.”
She shrugged. “I don’t like to wake up to them.”
He sent her a small, smug smile over his shoulder as he went to collect the mug. “I know.” He had made it his mission to know everything about her in the short time they were together. He retained information, small details, easily and he filed everything about her away, her likes and dislikes, the things that annoyed her and the things that intrigued her.
Essentially, Judith was a happy person. She enjoyed life, loved her sisters and her work. She saw in color and to her, everything and everyone was a blank canvas she painted in her head. She took great joy in making kaleidoscopes for people all over the world, choosing each thing that went into them with tremendous care. The scope she had completed for Hannah Drake Harrington, the sheriff’s wife, was a perfect example. Hannah intended to use the kaleidoscope to focus on during her labor, and Judith had made it as easy to see the images as it was to turn the cell during difficult labor.
Maybe that was her secret: the caring of individuals. He didn’t have that, and maybe he never would, but he could feel the intensity of her spirit and it made him proud of her. He “got” her. He saw her. Even her sisters couldn’t see her the way he did—well, maybe Blythe could. Blythe was different. Not an element, but she had tremendous gifts.
“Are you coming to bed?”
Judith sounded drowsy, sexy, and her voice played his body the way her fingers did. He found himself smiling, aroused and happy for no other reason than that she could do that to him. His little miracle. “I’m on my way.”
She was already in bed, not a stitch on, just the way he liked it, her long hair in a braid, as if it was really going to stay that way. He shucked his jeans and stretched out beside her, gathering her close, curving his body around hers protectively. His hard cock snuggled perfectly between the soft firm globes of her ass. His hands stripped off the tie at the end of the braid to release the thick mass. He smiled at her resigned sigh, cupped the soft weight of her breast in one palm and held her close.
“Go to sleep, angel. Sweet dreams.” He kissed her bare shoulder and lay quietly, waiting for her even breathing.
It didn’t take long before she succumbed to her exhaustion. Stefan took another half hour for himself, just enjoying being able to lie so close to her before carefully slipping from the bed as he had each night they’d been together. He was surprised how reluctant he was each time to put on his “shadow skin,” but there was no safe place for them until Ivanov was out of their lives. Sorbacov had no idea of Thomas Vincent, but Ivanov did. He’d tried to draw him out and so had Lev, but either Ivanov was really hurt and lying low, or he was too cunning to be tricked. Stefan suspected the latter.
He looked down at Judith, her face relaxed, long lashes two thick crescents on her face. He loved that she slept naked for him and never protested when he took the braid from her hair. No matter how often he reached for her, she always met him eagerly. No matter how often he stripped off her clothes, she laughed and complied no matter where they were in the house and once, out on the grounds. Even now, he was tempted to reach between her legs and caress her, knowing she’d be damp and ready for his possession.
He reached down and took strands of her silky hair between his fingers, his heart in his throat. She took his breath away every time he looked at her. He could hold her forever. It seemed a miracle to him to be able to curl his body around hers, the soft weight of her breast resting in his palm, breathing in the scent of her, of them, combined. Most of the time he lay awake and exulted in his ability to feel such intense emotion.
He didn’t have pretty words for her, but he had his body to show her just how much she meant to him. He could do all those little things that counted, watching and noting all the things that were important to her, all the habits she had. He wanted to be her everything.
Stefan looked around the room. The space was feline cream, serene and calm, with splashes of silken color that would always be Judith, that bright well of deep joy and compassion. She might try to feed the passion of her anger and need for revenge, but her true nature would always rise to the surface, her empathy for others always there, forcing her to see their side. The artist in her ran too deep.
With a sigh, he pulled on his clothes and weapons. He was a little late meeting his brother, and it was becoming difficult to deceive Judith. He didn’t like it at all. If they were going to be together, and he wasn’t going to have it any other way, then there had to be honesty between them. His first reaction was always her protection and the less she knew about Petr Ivanov the better. And the less Ivanov knew about her, the better. But damn it all—he reached down and brushed back her hair—leaving her out of what he was doing felt wrong.
Resolutely he turned and left, careful to set the alarm before jogging down the road to meet Lev. His brother waited for him beside a small Jeep. He flashed a quick grin and slid behind the wheel, waiting for Stefan to jog around to the passenger’s side.
“You look like hell, brother,” Lev greeted.
“I feel like I’m lying to her,” Stefan admitted.
Lev had driven down the road, but he slammed on the brakes, giving Stefan a disgusted look. “Are you telling me you’re lying to her about what you’re doing?”
“I don’t tell her anything. She’s asleep.”
“What are going to say if she wakes up?”
“She won’t wake up. I made certain of that.”
“You rotten bastard. Get the hell out of my car. You
drug
her? You
drug
Judith?”
“I already feel like a bastard,” Stefan admitted. “Don’t fuckin’ lecture me.” He dragged both hands through his hair. “You think I like doing it? I don’t know what else to do. I’ve never been in a relationship with a woman. What do you tell your wife?”
“I tell her the truth. Everything. I told her we were hunting Ivanov and we’d kill him if we found the bastard, that there would be no other choice. If he gets to her or one of her sisters, they’re dead. Rikki’s autistic, she isn’t stupid. She understands a life or death matter. And damn you, Stefan, so would Judith. What the hell point is there in being with someone if you don’t trust them with the truth?”
Stefan considered hitting his brother for voicing what he’d been thinking. “I don’t know, Lev. Judith is big on Jonas Harrington. She thinks the man can solve anything.”
Lev shook his head. “That’s not it and you know it. You think it was easy for me to let Rikki see what I am? You’re holding that back, afraid she won’t accept you if she really sees you. Telling someone about our work and asking them to live with it when we’re hunting are two different things. You’re afraid, Stefan.”
“Maybe.”