Miracle walked into the kitchen and pressed herself up against Eppie’s side.
“Daddy’s sad.” Their perceptive child was right as always. Her dark mood seemed to be lifting as her concern for her father rose. She pointed toward the hallway. “Needs a hug.”
“I know, honey, but for now we need to leave Daddy alone with the lady.” Eppie pulled her onto her lap. “Did you say hello to the sheriff?”
She smiled up at the man shyly. “Hello, Sheriff.”
“Good morning, Miss Miracle.” He winked at her.
Miracle turned back to her mother and patted her cheek. “Lady sad, too.”
It wouldn’t surprise Eppie in the least if Sarah was sad, but perhaps together, she and Micah could break that cycle of sadness. Life was meant to be lived, not endured. She hoped her idea to find Micah’s sister would have the desired results. If it backfired and she caused more damage to both of the Spaldings, Eppie would have to live with that.
It was a gamble and she bet on all their lives.
Eppie continued her conversation with the sheriff, discussing the weather and other inane topics while Miracle picked at a biscuit. They were all waiting and the anticipation was making Eppie squirm.
Miracle must’ve felt her mother’s anxiety, because she started squirming, too. They were a pitiful group, waiting in the kitchen. If Micah didn’t come into the kitchen soon, Eppie thought she might start climbing the walls.
Finally, the sound of the front door opening had them all standing, anticipation making Eppie shake. She didn’t know what to expect and that made it even worse. Was he angry with her?
Micah appeared in the kitchen with a woman at his side. She was tall for a woman, nearly Micah’s height, and thin like he was. Her long wavy brown hair was liberally sprinkled with bits of red as if she’d been painted with sunset colors. Her eyes, however, were the giveaway—they mirrored Micah’s so much it sent a chill up Eppie’s spine. This was definitely his sister.
Eppie straightened her spine and smiled as Miracle clutched her hand.
“This is my sister, Sarah.” His voice was hoarse with emotion and his eyes suspiciously damp. “Sarah, this is my fiancée Elizabeth and my daughter Miracle.”
Sarah stepped forward her hand outstretched. “I’m happy to meet you.”
“Please call me Eppie.” She shook the other woman’s hand, noting the calluses and a missing small finger on her left hand. Sarah had obviously worked to survive, as had Eppie. An instant connection was formed between them.
When she saw the smile on Micah’s face, Eppie knew things were going to be all right. “Welcome home, Sarah. We’ve been waiting for you.”
The other woman nodded, tears in her eyes. “I’m glad to be here.”
Micah pulled Eppie into a hug so fierce, she felt the love from her head to her toes and everywhere in between. Miracle joined in by hugging their legs.
Eppie knew then her decision had been the right one. Sarah was now part of Micah’s life again. They weren’t the standard, everyday type of family, but they had each other.
“I love you,” he whispered against her ear.
“I love you, too.” Eppie couldn’t ask for anything more than what she already had. Her cup runneth over with joy, love, and life.
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This was new for him. And oddly…stimulating. “I think I’m going to be okay.”
Emma arched a brow. Daring him to admit the truth. “Annie told you,” he said with a sigh.
“That you’re on a volunteer search-and-rescue team and you were called out to save a guy who’d gone off a cliff on his rock climb? That said guy panicked once you had him halfway up the cliff to safety, knocking you down about fifty feet? Yeah, she told me. You might have told me.”
Stone looked at Annie, who was suddenly very busy at the stove.
“Oh, and given the redness I see around some of your cuts and bruises, you do need the antibiotics.”
“You said I looked good.”
“That was a few days ago. You don’t look good now.”
She let him start sweating over that one for a beat, before she shook her head. “You fell off a cliff and you’re scared of me?”
“Hell, yes.”
She stood up and headed toward him, and he stumbled back a step, smacking right into the door.
Spencer winced.
Annie cackled.
“Careful,” Emma said, still coming at him. “Your ribs.” She reached her hand into her bag.
Oh, Christ. He pictured another needle and felt his skin go clammy. His stomach went queasy. This wasn’t working for him, not one little bit. Not unless she was going to strip down for him again. “I don’t need—”
Still looking at him, she pulled out…a prescription bottle. “Are you afraid of pills, too?” she asked innocently, when he was beginning to suspect there was nothing innocent about her at all.
Annie snickered again.
“I swear to God,” he muttered in her direction.
Emma lightly smacked the bottle against his pecs, a fact he found interesting—was it his imagination, or did she touch him a lot?
More importantly, did she do it on purpose? It was worth finding out, and testing, he leaned into her, just a little.
Her pupils dilated.
Check.
Her nostrils flared.
Check, check.
If they’d been wild animals, their foreplay had just been conducted. Still testing, he lifted his hand and covered hers, still against his chest.
She stared down at their now entangled fingers around the pill bottle, then lifted her gaze to his. Her breathing had changed.
Quickened.
Test over, he decided, his own breathing changing as well. Because oh hell yeah, she was aware of him, every bit as much as he.
Which meant she was all bark and no bite.
That was very good to know.
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“Throw her out, Niol. You want the vamps to keep comin’, you throw that bitch out.”
The tapping stopped, and, because the vampire had raised his shrill-ass voice again, the nearby paranormals—because, generally, the folks who came in his bar were far, far from normal—stilled.
Niol shook his head slowly. “I think you’re forgetting a few things, vamp.” He gathered the black swell of power that pulsed just beneath his skin. Felt the surge of dark magic and—
The vamp flew across the bar, slamming into the stage with a scream. The lead guitarist swore, then jumped back, cradling his guitar with both hands like the precious baby he thought it was.
The sudden silence was deafening.
Niol motioned toward the bar. “Get me another drink, Marc.” He glanced at the slowly rising vampire. “Did I tell you to get up?” It barely took any effort to slam the bastard into the stage wall this time. Just a stray thought, really.
Ah, but power was a wonderful thing.
Sometimes, it was damn good to be a demon. And even better to be a level-ten, and the baddest asshole in the room.
He stalked forward. Enjoyed for a moment the way the crowd jumped away from him.
The vampire began to shake. Perfect.
Niol stopped a foot before the fallen André. “First,” he growled, “don’t ever, ever fucking tell me what to do in my bar again.”
A fast nod.
“Second…” His hands clenched into fists as he fought to rein in the magic blasting through him. The power…oh, but it was tempting. And so easy to use.
Too easy.
One more thought, just one, focused and hard, and he could have the vamp dead at his feet.
“Use too much, you’ll lose yourself.” An old warning. One that had come too late for him. He’d been twenty-five before he met another demon who even came close to him in power and that guy’s warning—well, it had
been long overdue.
Niol knew he’d been one of the Lost for years.
The first time he’d killed, he’d been Lost.
“Second,” he repeated, his voice cold, clear, and cutting like a knife in the quiet. “If you think I give a damn about the vampires coming to my place…” His mouth hitched into a half-grin, but Niol knew no amusement would show in the darkness of his eyes. “Then you’re dead wrong, vampire.”
“S-sorry, Niol, I—”
He laughed, then turned his back on the cringing vampire. “Thomas.” The guard he always kept close. “Throw that vamp’s ass out.”
When Thomas stepped forward, the squeal of a guitar ripped through the bar. And the dancing and the drinking and the mating games of the Other began with a fierce rumble of sound.
Niol’s gaze searched for his prey and he found Holly watching him. All eyes and red hair and lips that begged for his mouth. He strode toward her, conscious of covert stares still on them. He could show no weakness. Never could.
I’m not weak.
He was the strongest demon in Atlanta. He sure as hell wasn’t going to give the paranormals any cause to start doubting his power.
His kind turned on the weak.
When he stopped before her, the scent of lavender flooded his nostrils.
She looked up at him. The human was small, to him anyway, barely reaching his shoulders so that he towered over her.
She was the weak one. All of her kind were.
Humans. So easy to wound. To kill.
He lifted his hand. Stroked her cheek. Damn, but she was soft. Leaning close, Niol told her, “Sweetheart, I warned you before about coming to my Paradise.”
There was no doubt others overheard his words. With so many shifters skulking around the joint, a whisper would have been overheard. Shifters and their annoyingly superior senses.
“Wh-what do you mean?” The question came, husky and soft. Ah, but he liked her voice. He could all too easily imagine that voice, whispering to him as they lay amid a tangle of sheets.
Or maybe screaming in his ear as she came.
He cupped her chin in his hand. A nice chin. Softly rounded. And those lips…the bottom was fuller than the top. Just a bit. So red. Her mouth was slightly parted, open.
Waiting.
She stepped back, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Niol—”
He stared down at her. “Yes, you do.” He caught her arms, wrapping his fingers around her and jerking Holly against him. “I told you, the last time you came into my bar…”
Her eyes widened. “Niol…”
Oh, yeah, he liked the way she said his name. She breathed it, tasted it.
His lips lowered toward hers. “If you want to walk in Paradise, baby, then you’re gonna have to play with the devil.”
“No, I—”
He kissed her. Hard. Deep. Niol drove his tongue right past those plump lips and took her mouth the way the beast inside him demanded.
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Liam sounded exhausted. Fed up. She didn’t blame him a bit. She was a piece of work. Her mind raced to come up with a plausible lie. Letting him see how small she felt would just embarrass them both.
She shook her head. “Nothing,” she whispered.
He let out a sigh, and leaned back, leaning his head against the back of the couch. Covering his eyes with his hands.
That was when she noticed the condition of his hand. His knuckles were torn and raw, encrusted with blood. God, she hadn’t even given a thought for his injuries, his trauma, his shock. She’d just zoned out, floated in her bubble, leaned on him. As if he were an oak.
But he wasn’t an oak. He was a man. He’d fought like a demon for her, and risked his life, and gotten hurt, and she was so freaked out and self-absorbed, she hadn’t even noticed. She was mortified.
“Liam. Your hand,” she fussed, getting up. “Let me get some disinfectant, and some—”
“It’s okay,” he muttered. “Forget about it.”
“Like hell! You’re bleeding!” She bustled around, muttering and scolding to hide her own discomfiture, gathering gauze and cotton balls and antibiotic ointment. He let her fuss, a martyred look on his face. After she’d finished taping his hand, she looked at his battered face and grabbed a handful of his polo shirt. “What about the rest of you?”
“Just some bruises,” he hedged.
“Where?” she persisted, tugging at his shirt. “Show me.”
He wrenched the fabric out of her hand. “If I take off my clothes now, it’s not going to be to show you my bruises,” he said.
She blinked, swallowed, tried to breathe. Reorganized her mind. There it was. Finally verbalized. No more glossing over it, running away.
“After all this?” His tone was timid. “You still want to…now?”
“Fuck, yes.” His tone was savage. “I’ve wanted it since I laid eyes on you. It’s gotten worse ever since. And combat adrenaline gives a guy a hard-on like a railroad spike, even if there weren’t a beautiful woman in my face, driving me fucking nuts. Which puts me in a bad place, Nancy. I know the timing sucks for you. The timing’s been piss poor since we met, but it never gets any better. It just keeps getting worse.”
“Hey. It’s okay.” She patted his back with a shy, nervous hand. He was usually so calm, so controlled. It unnerved her to see him agitated.
He didn’t seem to hear her. “And the worse it gets, the worse I want it,” he went on, his voice harsh. “Which makes me feel like a jerk, and a user, and an asshole. Promising to protect you—”
“You did protect me,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, and I told you it wasn’t an exchange. You don’t owe me sex. You don’t owe me anything. And that really fucks me up. Because I can’t even remove myself from the situation. I’m scared to death to leave you alone. And that puts me between a rock and a hard place.”
She put her finger over his mouth. “Wow,” she murmured. “I had no idea you could get worked into such a state. Mr. Super-mellow Liam let’s-contemplate-the-beauty-of-the-flower Knightly.”
His explosive snort of derision cut her off. She shushed him again, enjoying the feel of his lips beneath her finger. “You’re not a jerk or a user,” she said gently. “You were magnificent. Thank you. Again.”
He looked away. There was a brief, embarrassed pause. “That’s very generous of you,” he said, trying to flex the wounded hand. “But I’m not fishing for compliments.”
“I never thought that you were.” She placed her own hand below his and rested them both gently on his thigh. Her fingers dug into the thick muscle of his quadriceps, through the dirty, bloodstained denim of his jeans. Beneath the fabric, he was so hot. So strong and solid.
She moved her hand up, slowly but surely, stroking higher toward his groin. His breath caught and then stopped entirely as her fingers brushed the turgid bulge of his penis beneath the fabric.
Here went nothing. “I think I know what you mean, about the hard place,” she whispered, swirling her fingertips over it. Wow. A lot of him. That thick broad, hard stalk just went on and on. “Or was this what you meant when you were referring to the rock?”
His face was a mask of tension, neck muscles clenched, tendons standing out. “You don’t have to do this,” he said, his voice strangled.
Aw. So sweet. Her fingers closed around him, squeezing. He groaned, and a shudder jarred his body. “I can’t seem to stop,” she said.
“Watch out, Nancy,” he said hoarsely. “If you start something now, there’s no stopping it.”
She stroked him again, deeper, tighter, a slow caress that wrung a keening gasp from his throat. “I know,” she said. “I know.”
He reached out, a little awkwardly, clasping his arms around her shoulders, staring into her eyes as if expecting her to bolt.
He pulled her close, enfolding her in his warmth, his power.
Suddenly, they were kissing. She had no idea who had kissed who. The kiss was desperate, achingly sweet. Not a power struggle, not a matter of talent or skill, just a hunger to get as close as two humans could be. He held her like he was afraid she’d be torn away from him.
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Copyright © 2009 Beth Williamson
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The Redemption of Micah Page 26
