When they left, I locked the door behind them and leaned my head against it, sighing deeply. Footsteps sounded behind me, and then Charlie was there, his warm hands on my arms, turning me to face him and pulling me into his chest. I went willingly. Gratefully even. I leaned into his comfort and let him wrap me up in the armor of his embrace. I just wanted to go to sleep and forget today had ever happened.
“Hey,” Charlie whispered into my hair. “You okay?”
I nodded against his chest, unwilling to leave my cocoon just yet. “I’m okay. Just tired.”
“I can imagine. Why don’t we walk Shadow and then go to bed?”
I nodded again, reluctantly pulling away from his warmth and heading to the kitchen to get the leash. Shadow jumped up immediately and ran to the kitchen, snagging his leash off the counter before I even made it to the kitchen. He brought it to me, and I hooked the leash to his collar as Charlie laughed.
“That is the weirdest dog I have ever seen. He’s basically human,” he chuckled, earning him a growl from Shadow, which basically proved his point.
We headed outside, locked the door behind us, and proceeded to wander around the yard, letting Shadow find just the right shrub or flower. Charlie followed closely behind me, smiling at me when I caught the occasional glimpse of him.
“Hey, I almost forgot after everything else that happened. What was Shadow doing out when we got here?”
“No idea.”
“What do you mean, ‘no idea?’ Did someone let him out? Could those guys have been in your house?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I responded quickly. I could hear the rising panic in his voice, but it was misplaced. “Shadow would’ve destroyed the house if someone had come in there. There would’ve been blood, things broken, I doubt they would have all made it out in one piece. He used to get out like that all the time. We’d leave him inside the house while I was gone to school, but then he’d magically show up at school some days and be waiting for me when it was time to go home. I still have no idea how he gets out.”
“But how could he—”
“Trust me, Charlie, I’ve thought about it a lot. There is no answer. It’s better if you don’t think about it too much.”
“How am I supposed to not think about it? That’s insane! It defies the laws of physics! Someone has to be letting him out, right? Or—”
I turned quickly and placed a finger over his mouth. “Sh. Stop it. Believe me, I know. I’ve also had six years to wonder about it and zero epiphanies.” I held his eyes and wrapped my arms around his neck, and Charlie smiled.
“Maybe I just need something else to think about.” Charlie leaned toward me, and my heart stuttered. Then Shadow jerked on the leash suddenly, unlinking us and ruining yet another moment.
Since the dog was finished with his business, we headed back inside, locking the door behind us. Charlie stopped and peeked out the glass panels beside the front door, then proceeded to wander around the house, checking every window, upstairs and down, before checking the locks on both the front door and the back again. I could have done that myself, but he seemed so happy to be able to take care of me, and he was probably way too paranoid to have trusted my evaluation anyway. So I sat patiently on the couch listening to and watching his progress until he was finished. As he exited the kitchen, I noticed the dirt and blood stains still on his face and clothing.
“Do you wanna go clean up, Charlie? I think I’ve got a pair of your sweats I borrowed for the gym one day upstairs, and I have a few big t-shirts that might fit you.”
“I was wondering if you were ever going to give those back.” I blushed and he laughed. “Thanks, yeah. I’d prefer to be clean before I touch the furniture.”
We headed upstairs, and I grabbed his sweats—which I’d had no intention of returning—from my drawer and one of my oversized tees, while Charlie headed to the bathroom and started warming the water up. I tapped on the bathroom door. “Hey, Charlie? I have your sweats and a shirt. Why don’t you let me put yours in the wash while you’re in the shower?”
“Okay. Hang on.”
I heard a bit of shuffling, and my mouth went suddenly dry as I realized Charlie was undressing. When the door opened, I handed him the clean clothes and took his dirty ones silently. I couldn’t speak. In all this time, I’d never seen Charlie without a shirt. If I had, it might not have taken so long to give in to him. My God.
“Thanks,” Charlie said, and I smiled as he swung the door closed.
I took a long, deep breath, exhaling slowly, and desperately hoped that the sound of the shower running covered the small sound that escaped my mouth. With another deep breath, I turned and walked back downstairs.
I stain-treated Charlie’s clothes, then loaded them in the washer, added detergent, and set it to quick wash, hoping that would be enough so that I didn’t have to stay awake any longer than necessary. After the day I’d had, and the events of that evening, I wanted to pass out and sleep for a few days. Luckily, I was off tomorrow, so I could have slept in, but Charlie had to work, so he’d have to get up early. Which meant I’d get up early. And Shadow would want to go for a walk. I was never going to get to sleep in again.
Once the laundry cycle was started, I trudged back to the den and flopped down on the couch, listening to the sound of Charlie’s shower above me and trying really hard not to picture him naked in there. I failed completely and eventually caved and allowed myself to lean into the fantasy tugging at my consciousness. The one where I walked up the stairs, swung open the door, and climbed in the shower with Charlie. Where he claimed my lips and stripped me out of my now wet clothes, pressed me up against the wall and…
I woke suddenly, in the wrong place, and on guard as memories assaulted me. Shadow woofed from the floor next to me and the den and couch crept into my awareness. I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Then I smiled as I remembered the dream… or daydream? I think it started as the latter, but it had morphed into the former. Wait, Charlie was here, wasn’t he? How long had I been asleep? Where was he? I pushed up onto my elbows, blinking to clear my vision.
“Hey, sleepyhead.”
I looked toward the door to the kitchen, and there stood Charlie in the doorway, leaning against the frame. It was almost too much, the sight of him there in nothing but sweats, the very chest that had earlier inspired daydreams and actual dreams on magnificent display, hands shoved in his pockets, blonde hair still damp and tousled over his forehead, perfectly framing his crystal blue eyes. His freshly washed chest looked a little damp still, so I couldn’t have been out long.
“Sweet dreams?” he asked with a knowing grin.
Oh, no…
Then again, fresh from a very fiery dream, and staring at the outline of every muscle in his naked torso, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. This would be a hard subject to broach, but maybe we didn’t need to talk about it. Maybe he just needed to know that I wanted him. And maybe it was fast, but I’d known Charlie far longer than most people that were dating had known each other before they jumped into bed. He was my best friend. How much safer could he be? So I met his gaze with my own, hiding nothing I was feeling, open, honest, real.
Charlie’s self-assured smile faltered a bit, and his lips parted. He tilted his head to one side, regarding me nervously, but then stood upright and headed my way. My heart began to pound harder and faster with each step that brought him closer to me. Just when he had almost reached the couch, Shadow jumped up, putting himself between us and growling lightly, but I reached my foot out and nudged him out of the way.
“Quiet, Shadow. Or I’ll lock you in my room.” No more interruptions.
Charlie chuckled, but he was stopped a few feet from me now, and when his eyes met mine, he looked uncertain again, so I stood and bridged the gap. He accepted me into his arms, pulling me close to him as our lips met. The sudden feel of his bare chest beneath my hands drew a shaky sigh from my lips, and Charlie smiled against my mouth. I smiled in return, but then somethin
g changed. The smile fell from my lips and my hands wandered hungrily down his abdomen and around his waist. Charlie groaned and deepened our kiss, consuming me like his life depended on this single interaction.
Eventually, I had to come up for air or pass out, but he took the opportunity to slip his lips from mine, across my jawline and down my neck as another tiny moan broke free from my throat. Every little sound from me seemed to spur him on, and a rumbling growl rose from deep within his chest. I pulled him with me as I stumbled backward, then I turned us around and shoved him back onto the sofa, climbing onto his lap and recapturing his lips before he could object.
Charlie had always been a gentleman. He respected me, and he would eventually try to slow us down, but I was determined to live my fantasy without holding back in the meantime. I’d held back far too long, lived in books and dreams. This was no dream. For the past two years, I’d been avoiding Charlie’s advances, pretending I didn’t believe him, isolating myself. What a difference twelve hours and some much-needed mom-advice had made. Given how I’d woken this morning, I would never have guessed the day could lead us here. But here we were. And I wanted more.
I pressed my hips into him as our tongues mingled, pressed my breasts against him, and slid my hands over his bare chest, feeling the muscles tense and stretch as he wrapped me up in his arms. I grabbed Charlie’s hands and slid them beneath my shirt then whispered against his lips. “Take it off, Charlie.”
He stopped breathing for a moment, but pulled the t-shirt up and over my head, freeing my hair from the band that had been still barely clinging to it. The shirt dropped to the floor behind me as my hair cascaded down around us, and the ragged breath Charlie forced into his lungs at the sight of me made my core clench. His hands fell to my hips, but I dragged them back up to the bare skin of my ribs just beneath the edge of my bra, sliding his thumbs beneath the offensive piece of fabric dividing my flesh from his. I wanted him to take it off. I don’t know why, but I needed it to be him.
His fingers trailed along my chilled skin as he slid his thumbs forward beneath the elastic band of my bra, tracing my ribs and the undersides of my breasts. I gasped and my back arched toward him slightly. My eyes threatened to drift closed, but I allowed them only a gentle flutter, forcing them to stay open and hold Charlie’s gaze. He dropped his eyes to watch as his thumbs slid back beneath my breasts again, and his eyes drifted closed. Only for a moment though, and when they reopened, they were fixed on mine.
One arm wrapped around my waist as the other tangled in my hair, and I pressed my hips down into him, grinding against the hard length of him swollen between us. He growled and clutched me to him tightly, flipping me suddenly onto my back and settling himself above me. I slid my hands down the muscles of his abdomen and slipped my hand inside the waistband of the sweats he was wearing, tugging at them as I wrapped my legs around his hips and pulled him close.
Or tried to.
Charlie froze the second my fingers slid under his waistband. He was shaking, and he pulled away from my kiss, dropping his head to my chest for a moment and breathing deeply. Finally, his head lifted, and as soon as I saw his face, I knew we were at an impasse. This was over for tonight.
I smiled, pulled my hand back up his body, and sandwiched his face between my hands. I kissed him softly, knowing he was in a somewhat delicate state, and pulled back to look at him.
Charlie just shook his head. “God, you know how to push my buttons. Or maybe it’s just that you are my button. Everything about you, Dani. Everything about you is sexy. Everything about you is amazing. I think you know I’ve been in love with you for a long time, and I don’t expect you to jump forward to where I am, but I wanna do this right. I wanna take things slowly and build us. The physical part is obviously going to work just fine, but I want to earn your love and your respect and your trust as a partner and lover. I want you to know without a doubt that it’s me for you, Dani. Forever.”
I stared at him for several moments, speechless. My heart was pounding a mile a minute. I had no response for that, at least not any I could put into words, so I didn’t try. I stretched up and kissed him again. Then he smiled and rolled sideways against the back of the couch, rolling me and pulling me into him as he snagged the blanket on the back of the couch and draped it over us, sliding his lower arm under my head.
Charlie reached between us and adjusted himself a bit, and I laughed awkwardly. “Sorry,” he chuckled. “That doesn’t just go away instantly.”
I nodded, smiling, but it took every ounce of self-control I had not to push my ass back and wriggle it against him until he gave in. I wanted to be respectful too, and honestly, it was hard to say no to what Charlie was asking, so I controlled myself. I fell asleep to the gentle sounds of his breathing behind me and the warm tickle of his breath across my ear and neck, and it led me into a night of painfully delicious dreams. Not a single nightmare.
10
Damien
“Don’t you ignore me, Castor! This is getting out of hand and you know it.”
“I said I was sorry, Fox. I know that was too close, but what more do you want me to do? Reverse time and change the past? Trust me, if I could, I would, just to avoid this conversation.” We were still making our way quickly—and supposedly silently—through the woods behind Dani’s house. When we’d run, I’d hesitated behind the tree line just long enough to verify he headed back to the house and was not in pursuit. He wasn’t, but he’d made a phone call, so it was fair to assume someone would be soon.
“You smug, British son-of-a-bitch. Do not minimalize this. That guy caught me, Castor. A Descendant. You know what they’re capable of. And they’re stronger than us. That’s so far beyond too close…”
I rounded on her in frustration, so fast she almost ran into me. “I get it, okay. Believe me, I do. But we need to get to the fallback position for pickup. Yelling at one another isn’t getting us anywhere any faster. It’s far more likely to get us caught… again. I’m sorry.”
Sarah stared at me for a few moments we didn’t have to spare, then she nodded and brushed past me, heading toward the water tower. Sarah and I had been friends for a long time, much longer than this team had existed. I would do anything to protect her, but this girl was getting to me. Dani. It had been much easier watching her before I’d met her, learned her name. Now she was under my skin.
“I forgive you… ya stupid git.”
I laughed hearing the familiar term slip out of her mouth. She had picked up a number of phrases from me, but it was always odd hearing them in her thick, Texan drawl.
“Thank you. I appreciate the magnitude of your grace under duress.”
“Don’t appreciate it too much. I still have to report your slip in the bookstore this afternoon.”
“God-damnit, Sarah! I told you that wasn’t a slip. I couldn’t risk the Descendant hearing me and recognizing my code name.”
“Like that wasn’t a slip that you just used my real name! You dumb fuck, stop using anything other than our code names! What has gotten into you? Your focus is all over the place lately, but today has been one disaster after a-fucking-nother!”
“Keep your voice down! Obviously, I pale in comparison to your ultimate self-control…” I rolled my eyes and she turned to glare at me over her shoulder. “My name is less known anywhere than our code names. If he’d recognized it and called it in, the whole op could’ve been blown, along with our cover and our team.”
“And you couldn’t use a fake?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. The truth was, I had slipped. Finding out the last known whereabouts of the book we needed was the very store where my current assignment worked had thrown me. I should have said Castor. Or any other name in the universe that was not my actual name. I should have stuck to the mission. But there was something about Dani, something I couldn’t put my finger on, and when Dani had asked me for my name, Damien had slipped out without a thought.
“Hey, lover-boy, did you even h
ear me?”
“What?”
Sarah shot me another exasperated look and slowed a little to fall back next to me. “What were you thinking about just now?” she asked, shaking her head at me in wonder. “Her, right? What’s gotten into you, man? You’re all hung up on this girl you’ve only met once. You don’t even know her.”
I fixed my eyes on the forest ahead. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters. It has to, Cas.” When I didn’t respond, she continued. “Are you sure she’s the one? We’ve followed a lot of false leads since we started looking. Maybe it’s not her. Hey, we recruited several of the potentials. Maybe she can become a recruit, and—”
“It’s her, Fox.”
She was silent for some time after my assertion, walking companionably by my side, silently offering her support.
I’d been watching Dani for weeks, but only now was I certain she was the one we were looking for. And I was certain. She was special, and we’d been trying to find her for a long time. We were beginning to lose hope after being disappointed by several potentials that didn’t pan out as anything more than normal supes, but now we were finally in the right place and more hopeful than we had been in a long time. Except Hemlock, of course. He’d never lost hope.
Until today, I’d been pretty sure we were barking up the wrong tree again. I didn’t see how this could possibly be the girl we were looking for, but Hem was insistent that we keep watching her. He seemed so certain. I didn’t get it. She just wasn’t particularly special in any way.
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