“Okay. You’re going to love this. It’s all about living excessively and being famous for not much of anything.” She mashed the power button and toggled the station to a lifestyle channel. A loud, garishly dressed woman sat in front of the camera, complaining about her uneven wax job.
John picked up another slice of pizza and turned his chair to face the screen. His jaw slacked more the longer he listened. The woman kept going on and on about how the wax had caused a burn and how she was mortified at showing it to anyone.
During the next commercial break, he turned to Ariel. “Why is she so upset about her floors? She can just strip them and do them over.”
Ariel’s eyes goggled. “Her floor?” Then her jaw dropped, too. “Ohh, okay.” She pressed a hand over her mouth and giggled until her eyes watered.
It was hard for John to be offended when she was so sweet about it. To her, he must have been like some sort of alien learning human customs for the first time. That’s sort of what he felt like.
He hadn’t been completely closed off at the compound, but what exposure he’d had to media was limited. Sometimes, he and some of the other boys would sneak into the office and watch old reruns on the black-and-white set, but the people in those shows were … normal. Conventional for the most part. They certainly hadn’t worn so much jewelry that the combined worth of their accessories could have balanced the state budget.
“No, Hitch. Wax is what some women use to … ” She giggled again, her face burning red at the cheeks as she fought for control. “Some woman use depilatory wax. It’s hot. You go to a salon and have it applied. The technician puts a paper strip over it to yank it up, and when they remove it, it takes off body hair.”
“Hot wax?”
She nodded.
“And … women use that … ”
“All over.”
Masochists. The whole lot of them. Hmm. He cocked his head to the side and eyed her smooth legs crossed beneath the table.
As if reading his mind, she said, “I’m a razor girl.”
“Ah. Those I understand.”
They watched in silence for a while, with Ariel occasionally nudging his knee with her foot under the table and bobbing her head toward the television in an isn’t that crazy? fashion, and John staring at the screen, but really struggling to concentrate.
Every time she laughed or groaned or talked back to the screen, he zoned out, thinking too hard. Thinking was going to get him in trouble, and not just with Gulielmus.
The scenario seemed far too ideal to him — him and Ariel at the table, relaxed and watching silly things. It seemed like a thing a real couple would do, not that he knew what real couples did. He’d grown up in a cult, for chrissake. There, couples didn’t date or court. They were assigned based on their worth. A man deemed very valuable couldn’t have just one spouse, right? He’d have to have several — a whole harem of woman to form his amorphous energy blob in the afterlife. A man worth not very much, like John, got booted.
He’d never seen his mother and her “husband” do anything casual together, and certainly not alone.
He scratched his itchy palm. Best he stick with the plan. All he knew was dysfunctional. No woman in her right mind would want him, even if he wasn’t a cambion. And the fact that Ariel was so pleasant to him surely meant the poor dear was absolutely insane.
Damn shame.
Chapter Seven
Hitch hardly looked at Ariel from the time he returned from trashing the cold, leftover pizza to the point she sidled into the bedroom and pulled back the sheets. She tried not to be offended by it. Maybe the long day had finally snuck up on him. He hadn’t had a nap.
Around ten o’clock, she set the alarm clock for early, hoping to make up some time on the road before morning traffic picked up. She tapped the lamp off and settled under the covers, eyes closed.
The sound of the television in the outer room set her mind reeling. It wasn’t so much the programming, but the fact Hitch would rather watch that than seduce her. She didn’t look that bad. She’d even smudged on a bit of eyeliner after getting out of the shower. At least she looked awake whereas earlier she’d looked a bit like death warmed over. She’d even rooted through her cosmetics case and found the little bottle of perfume she hadn’t used in two years. It’d once been her favorite, but a certain someone told her it made him sneeze, so she stopped using it. Putting it on in the bathroom while waiting for Hitch to return had made her feel womanly for a change. Not just some dowdy country girl who didn’t try hard enough.
She blew a raspberry into the dark. “I should have called Momma. Shit.”
Too late for that. Momma was a night owl, but it was eleven there. That might have been pushing it. She closed her eyes once again. This time it wasn’t the sound of the television keeping her mind from stilling, but the disquietude she’d introduced to herself by thinking of her grandmother.
“Shit.”
She sat up, threw back the covers, and shuffled into living area.
Hitch looked up from his space on the sofa — where he looked far too comfortable with a pillow and blanket from the armoire — but she ignored him for the moment. She found her phone on the table and woke it up.
Momma picked up on the third ring.
“I’ve been waiting on you to call all day,” she said in lieu of hello.
“I know, I’m sorry. You worry.”
“You make me worry.”
“Fair enough. I just wanted to say goodnight. I stopped in Arkansas for the evening.”
“Are you in a good hotel?”
“It’s okay. It’s near the highway. They bumped me up to the honeymoon suite because of overbooking.”
“All that room just for you?” Momma laughed.
Ariel chuckled nervously. “Yeah. It’s comfortable. I need it, though, after days of driving. Every muscle of my body is tight. I didn’t know how taxing holding a foot over an accelerator pedal could be.”
“Well, you’ve got everything tensed up. Try to take a hot bath.”
That actually sounded nice. She’d opted for a shower for the sake of speed, but the tub was deep and wide. She could have swum in that thing. It was practically worth the ten percent up-charge on its own.
“Maybe tomorrow. There’s a little gym here. Might pound the treadmill for a while and take a hot bath before check-out.”
“Make sure you’re eating good.”
“I’m eating like shit and you know it.”
“You could at least lie.”
“I’m bad at it.”
“I love you for it. You wearing your cross? Locked the door? Deadbolt, too?”
Ariel pulled her lip between her teeth and mumbled “Mm-hmm.” At the rate she was going, she might as well trawl the internet for some guys and invite them over for an orgy. Maybe once she made it safely to North Carolina, she’d tell Momma about her great adventure and the pretty man along for the ride.
She looked at Hitch then, and he gave her an encouraging grin. He seemed to be enjoying the half of the conversation he could hear.
She smiled and gave him a little wave.
“When you arriving?” Momma asked.
“Saturday, I hope. Two days. I want to spend Sunday recuperating before dragging my sorry ass into the agency on Monday for orientation, so cross your fingers.”
“I’ll say a prayer.”
“That’ll work. I’ll pick up some pie stuff on the way to the coast.”
“What kind?”
“I’ll surprise ya.”
She disconnected and felt better for the short conversation. She knew Momma would sleep well, too.
“Sounds like you two have a great relationship,” Hitch said. Now he was propped up on his elbows, laying on his belly, watching her.
�
��Yeah. I’m her only grandchild, so, I imagine there’d be some possessiveness there.”
“Only one. Wow.” He sat up. “My mother has thirteen, no … fourteen kids. Forgot about the baby. If I tried to tally up how many grandkids Gramma Margo has, I’d probably run out of numbers.”
“Nice exaggeration.”
He shrugged. “Think about it. Exponential propagation. Like guppies or bunnies.”
She crooked an eyebrow up at him and leaned her butt against the table edge. “You find propagation distasteful?”
That made him chuckle. “If you’re fishing for information, sweetpea, come straight out and ask.”
Fair enough. “Do you want kids?”
His thumb hovered over the remote control’s power button for moments as if he were meditating on the red target, then he mashed it. “I change my mind from day to day. I think, though, I see myself having one or two. What I can’t see is being in a stable enough situation to be responsible about it.”
“Rolling stone, huh?”
He shrugged. “I guess I am.”
At least he was honest, she figured.
“What about you, Ariel? You seem suited to maternity.”
She rolled her eyes. “Goodnight, Hitch.”
“What?” he laughed. “I’m serious. You’ve got an infectious happiness about you that little kids should get to be around.”
“Maybe I’ll moonlight as a preschool teacher.”
“You don’t see yourself playing mommy?”
She turned her back and strode to the bedroom. “I try not to think about it,” she mumbled.
This time, when she slipped beneath the covers, Hitch lingered in the doorway.
“Do you need an invitation?” she asked before closing her eyes.
“Yeah.”
“Seriously?”
“I don’t want to overstep my bounds.”
She sighed. This guy kidding me? “Hitch, turn off the light in there and come help yourself to half the bed. You can think about hot Belgian waffles until you fall asleep.”
“Waffles?”
“Mm-hmm. They’re why I plan to spend half an hour on the treadmill tomorrow morning. I’m going to slather so much syrup on those … ”
When Ariel opened her eyes again, the room was very dark and very quiet. The only noises were the whir of the air conditioner and Hitch’s gentle breathing on the other side of the bed. He had his back turned to her and the gulf between them was so large, Moses could have led the Israelites through it.
She reached to the nightstand and angled the digital clock toward her face. Four. She’d planned to get up at six, but maybe this way, she could get her half hour of cardio in and have a nice, long soak in the tub, just like Momma prescribed. By the time Hitch got up, they could have a hot breakfast and hit the road.
She scoffed. It was funny that she’d started including him in all her plans as if it were a sure thing. Maybe he was ready to bounce by now. There was only so much of her one man could take, and he’d been with her pretty much non-stop for two days. That would grate on anyone.
She sat up and pulled the covers back.
Hitch stirred.
She froze.
“What are you doin’? Didn’t hear the alarm.”
“I was going down to the gym. Get a run in.”
He rolled onto his back and stretched his arms over his head, yawning. “Are you some kind of fanatic, Ariel?”
“No, I feel guilty if I don’t try to make up for my bad food decisions.”
“If you’re desperate to exercise, I can help you out.”
“How so? Gonna take off in my car and make me chase you?”
“Ha ha. No driver’s license, remember? Come here.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and dragged her toward the bed’s center. “I hear kissing burns calories.”
“You really want to kiss me after watching me eat half a junk pizza last night?”
“Why wouldn’t I want to?”
“I … ”
“What?”
Her shoulders sagged. “Look, Hitch, the last guy I was involved with wasn’t great with the intimacy stuff. So maybe I’m not good at feeling sexy.”
“Are you kidding me?” He sat up and rested his chin atop her shoulder, tightening his hold on her waist.
Her body felt as if it were unfolding to the sun like a flower — his energy transferring to her, waking her up, tearing down her walls. She didn’t understand it, but she liked it. She closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath.
“You’re incredibly sexy. You’re sexy without having to try. And smart, too. I like that a lot.” He gave her ponytail a playful little yank.
“And yet you haven’t once tried to get into my shorts this evening.”
His hold on her tensed momentarily, then relaxed. “I didn’t want you to feel taken advantage of.”
“Why would I feel that way?”
“Because I’m a bummy hitchhiker who owns just enough stuff to pack into one knapsack.”
“I’m pretty sure I could have evicted you from this little adventure a lot of miles ago if I were ready to get rid of you.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I want to make love, but I wanted you to initiate it. I don’t want to feel like I’ve corrupted you by taking your virginity.”
He tensed again, but before she could question him on it, he let go of her and crawled around so he was facing her front.
“You corrupting me?”
“It’s true. You were probably going to save yourself for marriage.”
“In the world I came from, for me? There wasn’t going to be any marriage, so where would that have put me? Eternal virginity?”
“That’d be a damned shame.” She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it was just as well.
“So why not you, Ariel? You’re not going to break me.”
“You sure about that?”
“Why don’t you try and see?”
There was a bit of challenge in his voice, and it was one she was more than willing to answer. She pulled her legs under her body and sat back on her heels. Her eyes had adjusted a bit in the dim light so she could see his shadowed face, his gaze locked on hers watching and waiting.
“I think it’d be easier for me if … you were the aggressor here.”
“Are we playing submission games, Ariel?”
“What would you know about submission, Hitch?”
“Enough to know that if I took over this ride, you’d completely zone out. I don’t want you to zone out. I want you present.”
“I will be.”
“Easy to promise.”
She sucked in a breath as his thumbs found her nipples and flicked at them through her thin shirt.
“Why don’t you turn on the light?”
She didn’t want to turn on the light. She wanted to hide out in the dark and make ugly faces while working up to her Big O. Still, it was his first roll in the hay, so it was the least she could do. She tapped on the light.
When she’d crawled back to the center of the bed, Hitch was peeling his undershirt off. She watched him expose the sinewy planes of his belly, his firm chest, and broad shoulders, and more as he tossed his shirt over the bed’s edge.
She couldn’t wait. She pressed her hands against his chest and just felt him. Solid and warm and present.
He didn’t have his hands darting from here to there all over her. He just sat there, watching her. Letting her connect. Waiting for a cue, probably.
She gave him one. She leaned in close and teased her lips over his.
“You smell wonderful,” he whispered.
“You like that?”
“It’s nice. Kinda fruity.
I like it a lot more than the floral stuff everyone back home uses. I think every woman at the compound uses the same bottle. Must get it in bulk size.”
“That doesn’t sound stimulating.” She dragged her tongue across the crease between his lips.
“It’s not. Think about it. Every girl smelling like your mother?” He reciprocated, touching the tip of her tongue with his, then slowly, carefully claiming more real estate in her mouth.
His hands grazed the skin of her waist beneath her shirt, slowly gliding up until they met her breasts.
Her body tensed in anticipation, but he kept her lingering there on the edge. It was like he’d put a key in an ignition, but hadn’t turned it yet. She began to feel a bit dizzy between the work of his talented tongue and her mounting arousal. Where did all the blood in her head go?
He drew back and fisted her shirt’s bottom in his hands. “The women there. They all start to blur together over time. Look the same.”
She lifted her arms as he eased the shirt over her head.
“Smell the same.” He tossed it on the floor toward his own discarded shirt and pressed his nose into the crook of her neck. He took a deep inhale as his hands found her breasts and cupped them.
“Act the same.”
When his thumbs flicked at her nipples this time, she reared up onto her knees and sank her fingers into his muscular back.
“They don’t think for themselves.” He dipped his head and pulled one aching nipple between his teeth.
Right at that moment, she felt like she wasn’t very good at thinking herself. She shuddered and arched her body toward him.
“I think you’re putting me on a pedestal I don’t belong on,” she said as his teeth grazed her other nipple.
Strong arms wrapped around her and gently lowered her to the bed. He kissed down her neck, visited her breasts with his tongue for a while, then dragged his tongue lower, lower, and stopped at the elastic of her shorts. He hooked his fingers in and eased them down in one swoop along with her panties, which weren’t anything special to start with. If she’d known she’d be entertaining company, she would have packed a few pairs of underwear that hadn’t come out of a five-for-eight-dollars pack.
A Demon in Waiting (Crimson Romance) Page 7
