[M__M 03] Misery Loves Company

by Tracey Martin

  Jenny ran up to us as we were leaving. “I just remembered. The woman’s name is Shawna.”

  Bridget wrote that down too, and thanked her.

  “Did you see anything about a Shawna in Eric’s stuff?” I put my sunglasses on as we returned to the car.

  “No.” Bridget pulled out the keys, and the SUV beeped as it unlocked. “But now we can look again.”

  Peachy. So much for getting out of more paperwork.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I suspected Bridget would have kept me around all evening searching for Shawna or other leads in the mess of papers she obtained from Eric’s house, but when I told her I had plans, she grudgingly let me go. I felt bad for cutting out early, but Lucen was taking the night off for our date, and it wasn’t fair to screw up his plans either.

  Speaking of my horned demon, he called me as I got off the T. “Wear a skirt tonight.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. A skirt. A short one.”

  “I don’t think I own a skirt. Scratch that—I know I don’t. I just finished unpacking my clothes the other night.”

  “You don’t own a single skirt? What sort of woman are you?”

  “One that likes pants, obviously. When have you ever seen me in a skirt?”

  He sighed into my ear. “Never. That was the point. If we’re doing this whole date deal, we should do it right. You, a skirt, an easy way for me to slide my hand up your leg during dinner.”

  “Not a skirt person.”

  “You lack imagination. Picture a quiet, candlelit corner. You’re sipping your wine, waiting for the food, and that’s when you feel my hand brush your knee under the tablecloth. You do nothing to give it away, and slowly, I draw my fingers up your leg, nudging your skirt higher. You’re tensing with anticipation, but still not moving as I glide my fingers between your thighs. You breathe a little faster, feeling your blood rush. And still I reach higher and higher, caressing your smooth skin, watching you stifle a gasp as my finger grazes the edges of your hairline before sliding lower and spreading your folds.”

  I realized I’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and hastily started moving again. “Okay, you’ve got my imagination going.”

  “Really? Then imagine that I can tell you want me to stop, but you can’t help spreading your legs just a touch, leaving me room for another finger and another, delving deeper until I find your clit, stroking and caressing it. Again. And again, feeling it grow harder while you grow wetter. And maybe you move slightly now so I can slide one of those fingers deep inside you. Your hands are tight around your wineglass, and your nipples are poking through your shirt. You’re afraid people are watching you, sensing what’s going on, and as your breathing—”

  “All right, all right. Been giving this a bit of thought, have you?”

  “All day, Jess. You need a skirt.”

  I swallowed. “You said eight o’clock? There’s time for me to buy one then.”

  “Do that.” Then he hung up on me.

  Men.

  I wasn’t sure how I did it, but within ninety minutes I’d shopped, showered and changed into the first skirt I’d owned since high school. It wasn’t a very nice skirt, but I’d been pressed for time, and it didn’t look bad when paired with a lacy tank top and my knee-high black boots. Too bad for Lucen, though, I was not going commando beneath it. The skirt flared in the wind a bit too much for that.

  He showed up exactly at eight, part of his insistence that we do this thing properly. He wore a plum-colored button-down shirt tucked into a pair of black pants. It wasn’t as much to my taste as his tight T-shirts and jeans, but it showed off his narrow waist and broad chest nicely.

  “Anyone ever tell you you clean up well?”

  “Not if they want their jaws to continue working. Anyone ever tell you that you have legs?”

  “You’re well acquainted with my legs.”

  He grinned. “But the rest of the world is not. That needed to be remedied. You have so many lovely body parts. You should be sharing them with people more often.”

  I poked him in the chest. “We do not need to go down that road tonight. This is our date. Just us. Two.”

  “Fair enough.” In a couple steps he’d rounded on me, pushing my back against the door. His lips found mine, then his tongue, pulling and taking insistently as I let him in.

  I wrapped my arms around him. The warmth of his skin beneath his shirt seeped into mine, and my blood burned hotter. His cinnamon scent flooded my senses, driving away thoughts of anything but his body and the way his hard muscles moved beneath the thin layer of cloth.

  I broke away from his mouth, hungry for air. “You always smell good enough to eat.”

  “Is that so?” He flattened me against the door again, retaking control of my lips. One hand snaked its way beneath my skirt. Fires ignited up my leg as his skin pressed against mine, and I remembered his little tease on the phone.

  With his other hand, he tugged aside the low-cut collar of my blouse, slipping the strap down my arm. I held my breath but made no move to help him. I wasn’t wearing a bra because the tank had one built in, and the fit was tight. Lucen’s face was a mask of intensity as he struggled to free my breast, and I enjoyed watching him almost as much as I enjoyed the feel of his hand. When his fingers brushed my nipple through the material, I clenched down to my toes.

  Lucen breathed my name, then the hand beneath my skirt stopped abruptly. “What’s this?”

  My body wailed as his grip on me loosened. I wanted to scream at him to keep going, but he’d like that too much. “That would be my thong.”

  “What happened to no underwear?”

  “I never promised that. I didn’t feel the need to flash my lady parts to all of Boston should there be strong breeze tonight. Besides, I know you know what to do with thongs.”

  His hand squeezed my butt, but he moved slowly backward. Heat and hardness vanished, leaving me burning but empty. “I’ll rip them off.”

  “You’ll owe me a new pair.”

  “I’m going to need to buy stock in a lingerie company because of you.”

  My body sagged with disappointment as he let go of me altogether. “Not my fault you can’t behave around underwear.”

  “Your fault for being silly enough to keep wearing it around me. Now look at you, you’re a mess.” Lucen adjusted my shirt, taking care to rub my sensitive nipples as he did, then he pulled down my skirt. “How can we go out with you looking like you’ve been ravished?”

  I squeezed his hands. “I haven’t been. That’s the problem. I thought I might be a bit more of a mess before we left.”

  “Don’t be impatient, little siren. That was just an appetizer.”

  “Steph was right,” I said, flinging his hands away. “You are evil.”

  “And your sexual tension feeds me better than anything we’re going to eat tonight.” He burrowed his face in the crook of my neck from behind, an arm locked around my stomach. “I can smell the lust on you.”

  I elbowed him in the gut. “If that’s all you’re going to do, then back off. So where are we going?” I grabbed a purse because the stupid skirt didn’t have pockets.

  “You’ll see.” And that was all he would say about it. We spent the drive discussing Dezzi’s offer. Lucen reacted to it exactly as I’d expected, encouraging me to say yes. That allowed me to fine tune my case for why I shouldn’t, although whether that served to convince Lucen or myself I wasn’t sure.

  Either way, I dropped the topic when Lucen pulled up in front of one of the North Shore’s more famous seafood restaurants. “We’re going here? Seriously?”

  In response, Lucen threw a cheap disguise charm around his neck, and his horns winked out of view. While I gaped at him, a parking attendant opened my door for me. In a state of disbelief, I got out of the car. We’d left Bo
ston proper for one of the outlying coastal towns, and the evening was heavy with the smell of the ocean. Even the air tasted salty.

  A shudder of lust swept through the valet as Lucen handed over his key, and half dazed, the man got into the car. I hoped he didn’t crash it.

  “Seriously?” I asked again. Lucen seemed to make decent money, but the prices at this place had to put those at Vine to shame.

  He took my arm and escorted me inside. “You think I have no class.”

  I made a noncommittal noise. It wasn’t that so much as I didn’t know enough about him to judge. But hey, that was partly what tonight was about. Probing Lucen for his life story. “When I said date, I imagined a burger-and-beer joint.”

  “When do I ever do things half-assed?” Lucen fell silent as the doormen ushered us inside. “Let’s just the say the owner has a lusty little problem.”

  I groaned. “One of yours?”

  “No, not one of mine, little siren, but it helps get us a table. It also helps that it’s a Wednesday. I’m not sure anything would help if this were a Saturday.”

  The restaurant was small and dimly lit, but Lucen’s connection meant we got one of the best tables the place had to offer. Tucked into a corner, I had a brick wall at my back and to my right, a large window that overlooked the water. Since it was rapidly getting dark outside, however, my best view was sitting across from me.

  I kicked him lightly under the table. “For all your evil plans, you can’t even reach my leg from there.”

  “No, pity. I should have scoped the place out ahead of time and found somewhere more suitable for mischief.” He handed me the wine menu. “There’ll be time enough for that later though.”

  “I expect so. For now, we get to talk for a change.”

  Lucen raised an eyebrow. “Because we don’t usually do that?”

  “Different talk.”

  “Different? Like we’re going to speak in pig Latin?”

  I picked up my napkin as if to throw it at him, but I worried that sort of behavior would get us kicked out. Lucen’s laughter died away as our server came over.

  After he left, my date adopted his serious face. “Okay, little siren. You obviously have something on your mind. What do you want to talk about?”

  “Nothing in particular, but I feel like we don’t talk about real things enough.”

  “Real things, unlike when we discussed who could have framed you for murder, or the ethical implications of you working for the Gryphons, or—”

  “Yes.” I leaned forward. “Real things, unlike whatever our current crisis is. We’ve known each other for ten years, and yet how much do we actually know about each other?”

  Lucen was silent as our wine came, and we both quickly scanned the menu and ordered. Once our server disappeared a second time, he sipped his wine thoughtfully. “I know you are the most fascinating person I’ve ever met. That’s been enough for me.”

  “Even now that you know what I am? I’m hardly so exciting anymore.”

  He shook his head. “It’s true enough that I became interested in you because of your gift. It’s the reason I contacted you that first time.”

  That first time had been the day the Gryphons had kicked me out of their pre-training program, the day of my eighteenth birthday when they lost all hope of my gift developing normally. Lucen hadn’t merely contacted me. He’d followed me and kept me from doing something stupid in despair.

  “My unhappiness was probably an all-you-can-eat buffet for you.” I’d never had any delusions that he’d helped me out of kindness.

  “I’m not a cruel person. Misery isn’t exactly my favorite emotion, but you were full of it. But that’s not it either, Jess. Just having a weird satyr-like gift interested me, but it’s what you did with it that got my attention for good.”

  “You mean with the souls?” That was the night I’d taken up soul-swapping. I’d decided if my gift had gone evil, then I would use that power for good. Since that night, I’d made a lot of trades. Only when the Gryphons had started forcing me to work for them did I stop. All of Shadowtown knew about my new job, and therefore no one was inclined to trade with me anymore.

  “Yes, that’s what really made you interesting,” Lucen said. “Your gift? It was curious, but it’s not something you can control. What you did with it was. It was clever and it was gutsy, and I knew then that you were someone to keep an eye on. Someone I’d better not mess with too, although that’s exactly what made me want to mess with you.”

  “Really?” I sipped my wine, feeling those words wrap around my heart.

  “Really, little siren. You’re smart and reckless and sexy, and I’ve never met anyone quite like you, your gift aside. I wouldn’t have chased you down for ten years if I didn’t think you were worth it.”

  I could feel my body flushing. These were the most words Lucen had spoken at once to describe his emotions. Show me, don’t tell me, he’d once said. And he had shown me, time and time again, what I meant to him. But I hadn’t realized how much I craved to hear it too. How hot words could make me feel. What a rush it was to hear this damn sexy, powerful satyr say these things to me. Lucen wasn’t hitting me with his power, but my nerves were on fire, and all I could think about was that he’d teased me about my skirt. All I could imagine was his hand slipping between my thighs. I’d never wanted to throw myself at him so badly before.

  “I always thought it was just my gift that interested you. You never said anything to make me think otherwise.”

  “I know that’s what you thought, but you are amazing, so some things I expect you to figure out on your own. What’s also amazing is how someone so smart can be so stupid too.” He smirked, but any urge to kick him vanished as he kissed my hand.

  The sensation of his lips seemed to travel up my arm and straight down to my groin. I squirmed in my seat. His gaze was molten, heavy and sticky, as he watched my chest rise and fall. Catching on, Lucen dragged his thumb slowly over my skin, and oh God. Little ripples of desire ran through me and pooled between my legs. I held my breath a moment, then took my hand back before I did something stupid.

  This was probably one of those reasons why we never talked except about essential topics. He would just say or do something irresistible, or touch me in the right place, and I was a goner. Satyr magic was hard enough to ignore without one trying to make you melt. If we weren’t in public, I would have been all over him by now. Him sitting so close and so clothed was maddening. In fact, if he told me to, I’d start doing something obscene now and damn the consequences.

  I want you now. Inside me. I didn’t have to say it. He could sense it, and was enjoying every second of it from the look on his face.

  He bent over, his voice low and his breath on my face. “One day, Jess, I’m going to make you scream without even touching you. That’s my life goal. To leave you writhing, begging for my touch, but be able to make you come with just a look or a word. To know you want me that bad, that our connection is that strong.”

  My heart pounded. I suspected he was closer to that goal than he might realize if my reaction tonight was any indication. Sitting still, not touching him was torture.

  Lucen straightened with a smile. “So what else do you want to know about me that you don’t already?”

  I reached for my wineglass with an unsteady hand. “I want to know how you’re planning to do that. Exactly how you’re planning to do that.”

  “I don’t think you want to have that conversation here. I’m too close to being successful.” Lucen touched my hand again, proving the point as my eyes closed. “We’ve covered the basics. I’m obviously brilliant, which is why I’m on Dezzi’s council. I make a damn good martini. And I like you on top so I can see you all the better when we fuck. So next?”

  I choked on the overpriced wine. “You also know how to take a sweet and sexy moment and ruin it with your
arrogance. Moving on then. You’re always chiding me and saying things like ‘if I ever bothered to know you better,’ so that’s what I’m trying to do.”

  “Interview me.” He held open his arms.

  I pretended to crack my knuckles, but I was still recovering from a serious case of horniness. “We’ll start with your name.”

  “You know my name.”

  “I meant the name you were born with.”

  Lucen stared at me a moment, his fingers tracing the stem of the wineglass. “Why does that matter? It’s not my name anymore.”

  “A name says a lot,” I replied as our server brought over our dinners. My scallop concoction smelled wonderful, but food was far from my mind. My tongue, like the rest of me, was hungry for other things. “A name gives a clue about a place or a time—your where and when.”

  Lucen assured the server we were fine. “Where and when I was born originally aren’t important if you want to know more about me. You’d be better off asking, say, if I chose Lucen for my new name. That would be more telling of my personality.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why bring it up?”

  “It was an example.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Then share the most telling thing about your personality with me—did you choose to become a satyr?”

  Lucen refilled our glasses with the remains of the wine bottle. I had the sense he felt he needed the alcohol to deal with my questions, but I didn’t understand why. Why poke fun at me for not knowing everything about him, then get defensive when I asked questions? He was lucky he had other good qualities that made up for him being so frustrating.

  After he finished drinking, he went back to studying me. “Does that matter? It’s all in the past. Any decision old me made is old.”

  “It’s a very telling decision.”

  “Is it? Without knowing the circumstances surrounding it, your conclusions might be completely false.”