He couldn’t have moved if he wanted to.
He didn’t want to.
As Derek licked up and down her slit, Gwen started moving against his mouth, thrusting gently, rolling her hips. The moans and groans echoing through the shower showed just how much she was enjoying herself.
And Derek was enjoying himself just as much. He loved the noises she was making. He loved that she was as into the moment as he was. It was a rare thing to find a woman as open sexually as Gwen was.
“Derek... I... I’m going to... ”
Derek didn’t give her an opportunity to finish her sentence. Instead, he increased the pressure on her clit and she exploded above him. Her sweet nectar flooded his tongue. She continued to grind herself against his chin as her climax rolled over her.
He had to have her. He couldn’t wait any longer.
With a complete lack of grace, he stood up, spun her around so that she was facing the wall again and plunged his cock deep into her. As amazing as she’d felt on his mouth, she was absolutely incredible on his cock. She was so soft and hot.
“Please fuck me,” she begged.
Hell, it wasn’t like he could ignore her request. Not plunging himself deep inside of her over and over again might actually kill him.
“Gwen. So soft. Hot.”
He couldn’t even complete a sentence. His brain was full of nothing except Gwen.
She put her hands against the wall, pushing back against him as he surged forward. The sounds of their bodies slapping against each other echoed through the bathroom.
His hands snaked up her front, between her hot body and the cool tile wall. This time, he took both of her breasts in his hands, and simultaneously tweaked both nipples.
She came apart. She howled like a wild animal. The sound threw him over the edge. Had someone held a weapon to his head, he couldn’t have kept himself from coming.
He released himself, spilling his seed inside her. A hoarse cry erupted from deep inside of him. He continued to thrust until he could barely move. Gwen wasn’t doing anything more than whimpering, her head resting on the tile.
“I... I think I’m going to need another shower after that,” she said.
Reluctantly disconnecting his body from hers, he turned around and turned off the water. "You're probably going to want to wait until the water turns warm again."
Ever so carefully, she pushed herself up away from the tile wall. They bumped into each other in the small confines of the shower.
“I hadn’t noticed it got cold.”
Now she blushes?
He’d seen everything, each and every part of her, up close and personal and now she was getting bashful?
He didn’t know what to do about that. How did you handle awkward after sex moments? He’d never stayed around long enough to find out.
“Let me get you a towel.” He opened the glass shower door and reached out for the one fluffy pink towel. When he looked back at Gwen, she was shivering slightly.
“Here you go.” Rather than handing it to her, he wrapped it around her shoulders and rubbed her arms. It wasn’t until then that he realized how cold he was.
“Let me go get you a towel, too.” She dried herself quickly and then ran out of the room. He could hear her rustling through the closet. “I don’t keep two towels in the bathroom. Usually it’s just me here.”
She was babbling now.
“That’s okay.” But damn, was he cold. Especially without her warmth nearby.
It felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute when she came back with an extra large fluffy towel. “Sorry I don’t have anything for you to put on.”
As Derek dried himself off quickly and tried to get warmed up, Gwen replaced her towel with an oversized fluffy robe.
“I’ll go make some coffee while you get dressed.”
She didn’t even give him a chance to respond before she disappeared from the room.
Taking advantage of the privacy, he tried to rub some warmth back into his limbs. Creatures of the night were always cold. Came with the territory. It had never much bothered him before, but being so warm next to Gwen, well it bothered him that he was never going to feel that way again.
He dressed in his black pants and long sleeved black shirt, even put his black leather jacket back on in an attempt to get warm. But it was no such luck. He was barely able to keep himself from shivering.
He made his way through Gwen’s small apartment to the kitchen. When he reached the door, he just stood there and watched her as she bustled around the kitchen making coffee. He smiled as he watched her. She pushed up the long sleeves on the oversized robe and measured the coffee. As she was pouring it into the container that held the filter, her sleeves fell back down. She pushed them back up again and reached for two coffee mugs. When she put the mugs down, the sleeves fell again.
Derek couldn’t keep from laughing.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were there.” She pushed up her sleeve again, only to have them fall back down again.
“I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“Do you want anything to eat? I’m not much of a cook, but I could make some sandwiches or something. Or I make a mean scrambled egg.”
There was a lump in his throat. He couldn’t speak over it. Here she was, going on as if nothing was wrong. She was so sweet. And he knew without a doubt that she was going to die.
Chapter Five
Something was wrong.
The tension in the kitchen was thick. Derek seemed extra quiet. She’d never been very good at the morning after stuff. Not that this was morning. But it was most definitely after.
After the most amazing sex she’d ever had in her life.
“Do you have to leave?”
“What?”
“If you have to leave, I won’t be mad.”
“I don’t have to leave,” he said. He walked over to the breakfast bar and sat down. If he was trying not to look awkward, he wasn’t doing a very good job.
“Oh.”
Luckily, she was distracted from the discomfort when the coffee pot finished perking. She poured two mugs and pulled a pint of milk out of the fridge. She set it on the breakfast bar next to the sugar bowl.
When she sat down, the awkward silence returned. She prepared her coffee and took a sip. Then she realized Derek was staring at her. “What?”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, Gwen.”
“Well, okay. I mean, we’ve had sex a few times but I’m not looking for a long-term commitment or anything.”
She was pretty sure he was talking about something much more serious. Maybe if she distracted him though, she could pretend that she was normal for just a little while longer.
“That’s not what I mean,” he said.
But she didn’t want to talk about it. “You know, I think that I do want something to eat.” She jumped up and crossed the room to the refrigerator. So what if she was being childish? She was going to ignore these things as long as she possibly could.
“Gwen, we have to talk about it sooner or later.”
“Well, later is just fine with me. How about scrambled eggs?” That would keep her busy for a few minutes at least. Too bad she couldn’t make something much more complicated.
She took the carton of eggs from the fridge and set it next to the stove. She thought maybe he said something else, but she was too busy banging pots and pans against each other, searching for her skillet.
When she stood up from the cabinet, she was shocked to find Derek directly behind her.
“We have to talk about it, Gwen. You’re not like other people, and you know it.”
She banged the frying pan down on the stove, practically rattling the whole kitchen.
“I am too like other people.” Okay, so she had really regressed back to childhood now.
She couldn’t meet his gaze. She simply stood with her hands braced on the kitchen counter. She wasn’t crazy. She was like other people. She
was.
But even as she repeated the mantra to herself over and over again, she knew she was lying.
“Come sit with me,” he said.
“No, I’m going to make eggs.” If she talked to him, she’d have to accept the fact that she was going crazy.
“Gwen,” he said again.
“Fine.” She pushed him out of the way and walked out of the room, only pausing long enough to put the eggs back into the fridge. She walked through her apartment and up the stairs to the loft.
If she was going to have to have an unpleasant conversation like this, she wanted to do it in the place she was most comfortable.
She walked over to the two paintings she’d spent the last few hours working on. The light man versus the dark man.
It didn’t take a degree in psychology to realize she was battling two different sides of herself. One would be her death, the other, her salvation.
If only there was a way to tell which one would be which.
She was pulling an old drop cloth over both paintings when Derek finally came clomping up the stairs.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry you had to be involved in this?”
“Involved in losing my mind?” She asked. How couldn’t she be involved?
She watched him fighting some internal demons as he walked across the loft space and sat at her drafting table. He absently flipped through one of the sketchbooks she’d left laying around, but his eyes were unfocused. It was clear he wasn’t seeing anything, just keeping his hands busy.
“You’re not losing your mind, Gwen.”
“Sure. It’s really easy for a figment of my imagination to say that.”
He slammed the sketchbook closed. “Do you honestly think that what happened in the shower is a figment of your imagination?”
Well, no. Actually she didn’t. Or at least she desperately hoped it wasn’t a figment of her imagination. “But my dreams... ”
“You’ve had nightmares all your life.” Her mouth was open to refute his claim, but he outsmarted her. “Don’t even bother trying to deny it.”
“How do you know?” Her voice was so quiet that she wasn’t even sure she’d spoken aloud.
But Derek got up and walked to her. He stood close, but he didn’t touch her. “I know because I’ve always been a part of them.”
She shook her head. “No. Only for the last few weeks.”
Like she could ever forget Derek appearing in her dreams? She remembered every second she’d been in his presence since the moment she’d met him.
“Gwen, maybe you should sit down.”
“I don’t think I want to.”
“Yes,” he said. “You do.”
She shook her head. She had a feeling she wanted to remain standing for what was about to come. It would be much easier for her to escape.
“Gwen. You didn’t just meet me two weeks ago. I’ve known about your nightmares for years. I’ve even given you a few myself. It’s just that for the past two weeks I haven’t been able to mask myself.”
Oh, my God. It wasn’t her that was crazy. It was Derek!
She tried to take a few steps away from him, but he held her fast with a hand on her arm.
“You have to listen to me Gwen. It’s the only possible way you’ll have of saving yourself.”
“You’re going to be my death,” she whispered.
“I hope to hell I’m not,” he said.
Only then did he release the hold on her arm.
Her instincts told her to run away and just keep running as long as she possibly could. But she didn’t. She didn’t know why, but she actually moved closer to Derek.
“Tell me more,” she said.
She walked over to the stool on one side of her drafting table, indicating with a nod of her head that Derek should perch himself on the stool on the opposite side.
He finally walked over and sat down.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning. Who are you? And how did you get into my dreams?”
“Nightmares,” he corrected automatically. “I’m kind of a nightmare demon. More than that actually.”
“What exactly?” She didn’t know why she believed him, but she did. She’d always thought that there was more to the world than most people admitted. But years growing up in foster care had taught her that it was much better for her to believe the same things that other people believed.
“I’m the head nightmare demon. The King of Darkness, so to speak. Not the devil, but I rule the night.”
Her head was spinning, and she was desperate to know more. Not just more about Derek, but more about this hidden world that seemed to exist on the fringes.
“If you’re the ruler of the night, who’s Kyle?”
It would have been impossible for her to miss the disgust that flashed through his eyes at the mention of the other man.
“He’s the ruler of the day.”
“Oh, my God.” She dropped her head down into her hands. “Please don’t tell me I got dropped into some age old fight between good and evil.”
“Just because I rule the night doesn’t mean I’m evil.”
She’d obviously hit a sore spot there, and she really hadn’t meant to. Frankly, a part of her thought that he’d laugh the whole thing off. Instead, he took it seriously.
This was real.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“I know. I... Maybe I over reacted a bit. This must be a lot for you to take in.” She shrugged and he continued. “Although you do seem to be taking this better than I would have expected.”
She shrugged again. “Honestly, it’s kind of a relief to know that there are otherworldly creatures afoot. At least it means I’m not going crazy.”
He harrumphed. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
“Yeah, well, the other way to look at is that someone is trying to kill me.” She was amazed that the words came out so calmly. “If it’s the same to you, I prefer not to think about that.”
He nodded.
Damn it. She sighed. “But I have to think about that, don’t I?”
”Yeah. You do.” Well, at least he had the sense to look guilty about having to talk about her death.
“So, what’s the deal?”
She was starting to wish she’d made those eggs as a rumble rolled through her stomach. Of course, if they were going to talk about her death, she wanted to do that on an empty stomach.
“You’re a Key between the world of light and the world of dark.”
“What?” She shook her head. She was pretty sure she’d know if she was a key of some kind. But still, Derek sat across from her and the look in her eyes made it perfectly clear that he was telling the truth.
She was a Key?
What did that even mean?
“You’re the Key, the one person that could upset the balance between day and night.”
“I can’t be.” Maybe if she denied it enough it would turn out to be true. It could happen eventually, right?
“You are. Just the fact that I’m able to be here and talk with you is enough to prove it.”
The fact that he was able to talk to her.
Does that mean that he couldn’t interact with people usually?
God, he must be lonely. She felt her heart melt for him a bit.
He was basically telling her that she was more important than anyone else in the world. If that was the case, why was she worried about him?
“You were talking to people at the club the other night,” she said.
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, you said that I must be... different for you to be talking to me now. But you were talking to people at the club the other night, so you must have some interaction with, you know, normal people.”
“Gwen, the people at the club the other night weren’t normal.”
She could feel all the blood dra
in from her face. What in the hell had she gotten herself into? “They weren’t?”
He reached out and grabbed her hand across the expanse of her drafting table. “No, honey, they weren’t.”
“Do I want to know who they were?”
He shrugged his shoulders. Had his answer not been so important to her, she would have had trouble concentrating with his thumb brushing ever so softly over her hand.
“A mixture of people: demons, vampires, werewolves. You know, the usual.”
“Right. The usual.”
*
This had to be a lot to take in.
He’d had several weeks to come to grips with the fact that a war between darkness and light was brewing. Hell, he’d known that his entire life was pretty much nothing more than a battle between light and dark. And this certainly wasn’t the first time it had happened. Not only was Gwen just learning about the war, but she was also learning that paranormal creatures actually exist, and she was also sleeping with one.
And next came the kicker part.
The paranormal creature she was sleeping with was going to be the one to have to kill her.
He wondered how much longer he could put off telling her that part.
“So, what’s the deal with someone being my death and someone being my salvation?”
Apparently, it wasn’t going to be nearly as long as he’d hoped.
He let go of her hand and stood up. He couldn’t be quite so close to her when he told her this part, though he already desperately missed her warmth. “One of our sacred texts speaks of a prophecy. Every so often a woman will come along who will have the ability to upset the balance between light and dark.”
“And that’s me?”
“It looks that way.” And he was going to have to lose another woman that meant a lot to him. Sometimes doing the right thing really sucked.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” And that was the worst part. If he didn’t know why Gwen was a Key, what made a person the Key, than how in the hell was he supposed to save her?
“What? Why?” She paused and laughed slightly. “I’m so confused I don’t even know what questions to ask first.”
He squeezed her hand again and figured it was best to start at the beginning. “Back before time began, before there was darkness and light, a Goddess gave birth to two sons. One became darkness, the other became light. They worked together well for several millennia until a woman came between them. She was a priestess, one of the most powerful women of her time. But that wasn’t enough for her.”
EDGE OF NIGHT Page 13
