Behind him, chairs scraped across the floor. Slade reached for her. “Allie—”
Caleb motioned him back, sinking to the floor, taking Allie with him. She didn’t make it easy, fighting him all the way, her pain striking him harder than any blow could have. She thought he didn’t want their baby. He braced his back against the wall, turning Allie in his arms as he sat, keeping her arms pinned to her torso with one arm as, with the other, he gripped her chin, bringing her gaze to his. Her mouth worked. “If you spit at me, I swear to God, Allie Johnson, I’ll strip you right here and paddle that lush little ass of yours.”
She didn’t spit, but none of the mutiny left her face. “Sanders! It’s Allie Sanders!”
“Call yourself whatever you want, it doesn’t change the facts.”
“Any more than any two-stepping you do now changes the fact that you don’t want our baby.”
Not want their baby? He shook his head. She couldn’t be more wrong. “Open those ears, and hear me good. For over two hundred years I’ve lived with the thought that this is as good as it got, one day blending into another. No kids, no wife, and no hope. Just a future that plods on like a horse heading to the next stop.”
“So?”
“So, you stubborn woman, if, and it’s a mighty big if, you are somehow miraculously carrying my child, then I have a reason to go on. One that I never thought I’d get.”
“Which means?”
“I want my Goddamn baby!”
“What if it looks like a freak?”
Son of a bitch, she was pushing him. He tilted her head back and his anger disappeared as if it had never existed, because beneath the challenge and anger, he saw the fear and hurt that tore her apart. The same hope and hurt that lodged in him when he looked into her face and she denied the permanence of their relationship.
A tear spilled down her cheek, her lips thinned, and her chin came up as if sheer force of will could dispel that moment of weakness. He stroked his thumb over her cheek, catching that tear on the pad, watching it spread as it hit the grooves. The next stroke smoothed the salty drop into her skin. Another tear hovered, ready to fall. “I want the child, Allie. Red, blue, or riddled with polka dots, I want my child. More than you can ever comprehend.”
Doubt clung to her expression, but she wanted to believe him. He could feel it. He closed the small distance that stretched like a canyon between them, need and desire making up equal parts of a kiss initially more pressure than passion.
Allie had to believe him. Her lips were still under his, passively resisting his demand. His gut wrenched. Allie was never passive. He pulled back a millimeter, allowing just enough space that a breath of air could get through. He tightened his grip, pulling her deeper into his embrace, as if eliminating the physical distance between them could do something about the mental distance she was establishing.
His “You can believe me, baby” bridged the chasm, riding the lingering moisture and emotion, spreading across her mouth, slipping inside as her lips parted on a breath. He closed the gap, fitting his lips to hers, edge to edge, seam to seam. Delicately. Gently. Respectfully. Because, dear God, she deserved it. He tried to keep the passion out of the moment, tried to convey what she meant to him through the kiss because her mind was closed to him.
And she let him, just lying against him, allowing him to do what he wanted. As if it didn’t matter—he didn’t matter—and then, when desperation was at its peak and his vampire was howling at him to force her compliance, her lips moved. Tentatively at first, little more than a soft fluttering, but then they parted, relaxing all the way, inviting him in.
He didn’t hesitate. He thrust his tongue into the dark warmth, claiming it as his, claiming her as his, dragging her closer, needing her to be closer, wanting to draw her so deeply inside him she wouldn’t be able to hold herself separately again.
When he pulled back, she was looking at him with bruised lips and eyes that showed the bruise on her soul. He balanced her chin on his forefinger, sliding his thumb into the moisture lingering on the lower curve, pulling her lip down until the white edge of her teeth peeked at him. Another tear hovered, ready to fall. “These tears are unnecessary.”
Her hand came up to circle his wrist. Her gaze clung to his with the same uncertainty. “I’m scared.”
That soft confession gouged his soul. His indomitable Allie was afraid. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“If I’m pregnant there’s a whole heck of a lot to terrify me.”
“I’ll take care of you.”
“Unless you have a set of initials after your name that read OB/GYN, I don’t think your care will do me much good.”
He stroked his thumb along the edge of her lip. “I’m your husband.”
“Lover.”
She could split hairs all she wanted, it didn’t change the facts. She was his future, and he was hers. “I’m all you have. Initials or not.”
“That’s not a comfort.”
He knew that, too. “Comfort or not, it’s what you’ve got.”
Her eyes narrowed. Her grip on his wrist stayed firm, but something in her eyes softened, giving him hope.
“I won’t fail you, Allie girl.”
“You realize, of course, that I have absolutely no reason to believe, even if you mean it, that your promise is going to be enough.”
“True.”
Her gaze clung to his, the fringes of her mind stretching to enfold his. He felt her anger, her frustration, but mostly her hope. “So why in the hell do I believe you?”
“Because I don’t lie.”
She was shaking her head before he finished the sentence. “That’s not it.”
“Are you saying I lie?”
“I’m saying your honesty, or lack thereof, is not part of the equation.”
“Then why do you think you believe me?”
No minute was ever longer than the one she subjected him to as she studied him, her lips pursing around his finger with the rhythm of her thoughts. She couldn’t really believe him. Logic said he was the devil to her angel, the evil to her good, but as he sat there as each second passed, more and more of him wanted her belief. Her trust. Shit, he was as irrational as she was.
“I trust you for the same reason I came back for you after the wolf ripped your throat out.” She touched the scar on her finger, permanent because he willed it so. “I trust you because my gut tells me to.”
Caleb wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his embrace, pressing her face to his chest, breathing in her scent, making it part of him, gratitude to whomever had given him this woman flowing out of him on a silent prayer of thanks. “Then you, Allie Johnson, are a damn fool.”
SHE wasn’t a fool. Her family thought her dead. Her vampirism made her into something she didn’t recognize, she might be pregnant, and all she had to cling to was Caleb, but she wasn’t a fool. She was a fish temporarily out of water, but even flopping around as she was, searching for her place, she could see the pluses and minuses of Caleb’s logic. The major plus being the baby’s father. There was nothing more solid than Caleb. No more cohesive a group than the Johnsons. However, a baby was going to change everything. Raise the stakes in whatever game the vampires and weres were playing. Raise them beyond petty back and forth or hostilities. Allie lifted her head from Caleb’s chest, ignored the stares of the men around her, and looked up at Caleb. “You are not going to be enough.”
“You’ve got my family, too.”
She shook her head. “Who have just declared they’re as big a threat as anything else.”
“That’s not true,” said Jared.
“What’s changed?” she asked.
“The possibility you might be pregnant.”
“According to Derek, that will just make things uglier.”
“Where we come from, family sticks together.”
“You’re talking pre-vampire days.”
Jared folded his hands across his chest. “Vampire or not, kin is
kin.”
And that apparently was that as far as the Johnson brothers were concerned. She was beginning to appreciate their black-and-white view on some things. Her attempt to slide free of Caleb’s embrace got her nowhere. She glanced pointedly at his arm around her waist. “Do you mind?”
He shook his head. “Your hunger is returning.”
Like she didn’t know that. “That’s why I came back down here, to let you know.”
“And instead you ended up hearing what you shouldn’t have.”
“I’d say I came back just in time to hear what I needed to.” She pinched his arm, letting him know with her eyes that she could pinch harder if he didn’t see reason. “Let me go.”
“I’m feeling a bit protective right now, so you probably want to be humoring me.”
“This millennium protective, or eighteen sixties protective?”
His hand dropped to her stomach, cupping the flat surface. As light as his touch was, it didn’t diminish the depth of the emotion behind it.
“Definitely eighteen sixties.”
“Well, hell.” She let go of his arm. A pinch wasn’t going to get her around that. A glance around showed all the brothers looking at her with the same protect-with-their-lives intensity. “You realize I’m the same woman you were lusting after fifteen minutes ago, right? Nothing’s changed.”
The only satisfaction she got was an infinitesimal flick of their gazes from hers. A reflection of shame for the emotions they hadn’t been able to avoid feeling. From everyone except Derek. He was still arrogant and still amused.
“Sweet thing, if you don’t know that, for the brothers, everything’s changed, then you don’t know your men.”
“Nothing’s definite.”
“Sometimes potential means as much as reality.”
Again that subtle tension entered Caleb’s muscles as he asked, “But not for you?”
Derek shrugged. “I don’t have your upbringing. To me, her pregnancy just makes her more attractive.”
Caleb set her aside. He came to his feet in a slow, deadly uncoiling of muscle and intent. “That kind of honesty will likely get you killed.”
Derek’s right eyebrow cocked up. “Or that kind of honesty could just make me a werewolf.”
Caleb held out his hand. She took it. He pulled her to her feet and to his side. Derek continued to stare and the tension continued to build. Against her, Allie felt the rumble begin in Caleb’s chest. Dead. The wolf was going to be dead. Caleb’s talons pressed into her hand. Across the room, Derek sat and watched, no equivalent tension in him, which could only mean one thing. He was testing Caleb. For what? There were so many undercurrents here that she didn’t understand, so many layers to the relationships to which she didn’t have a clue. She didn’t look away, just kept her eyes locked on Derek’s. “Caleb?”
“What?”
“You’re jealous for no reason. Derek would never betray a friend. He’s just not the type.”
“And you know this how?” It was Derek who asked, a barely detectable flicker in his lids betraying his surprise. Surprise at her direct action or for knowing what he was up to?
“The same way Caleb does once he gets past his first emotional response. Instinct.”
“You think Caleb’s emotional?” Jared asked, a level of amusement in his voice she recognized from dealing with her brothers. He was working up to harassing Caleb. She could put an end to it, but Caleb deserved harassing for a lot of things and payback could be a bitch.
“He has a tendency to lean that way.”
“The hell I do.”
“I think that growl just might count as exhibit A,” Slade offered.
“I definitely think so,” Jace tossed in.
“Never thought of it before, but he is prone to yelling.”
“Jared, shut the hell up.”
Derek caught her eye and gave a little nod, and then she understood. It wasn’t Caleb he was testing, but her.
She shook her head. Another layer to add to the growing pile. “You are all nuts.”
Caleb loosened his grip, his hand reaching up toward the feathers bouncing on top of her head. “Says the woman with feathers on her head.”
She stepped quickly away, the sense of inadequacy coming back. “Feathers or not, we need to talk.”
He smiled, a humor-the-little-woman smile. The one that set her teeth on edge.
“I’m going to have a hard time taking you seriously with those feathers waving about.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Slade interjected. “She looks a bit like a hurdy-gurdy girl from the good old days.”
“Hurdy-gurdy girls?”
Caleb’s expression went from amused to cautious in one blink. There could only be one reason for that. Allie put her hand on her hip and sashayed a step forward. “Did you like hurdy-gurdy girls, Caleb?”
“Like? Hell.” Jace laughed. “He kept them in feathers.”
She had a hard time picturing that. Allie simply could not see a man like Caleb having to pay for sex. “Really?”
“Jace is exaggerating.” The glare Caleb shot Jace said the opposite.
Jace just shrugged. The grin tugging his lips lightening his expression, giving her a clue to how he must have been before the whole conversion happened. Bold, reckless, and a good time on two feet. “Big Red was always real happy to see you.”
“The way I remember it,” Jared cut in, crumbling the edge of a pastry, “Caleb was always paying her to stay off his lap.”
“The woman weighed about three hundred pounds.”
Allie dodged Caleb’s hand again. The gleam in his eyes didn’t bode well for her continued success. “You don’t like big women?”
“Don’t go there,” Derek warned.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Caleb drawled. She scooted past him to the stove, secretly disappointed when he didn’t lunge, her heart beating as if he had.
“Seriously, if I get big as a barn, are you planning to push me off your lap?”
“If he does, I’ll be there to catch you.”
She gave Derek a sweet smile. “Thank you.” She turned back to Caleb. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Probably because it’s not relevant.” He folded his arms across his chest, the biceps bunching with the move. “Vampires don’t get fat.”
“You’re always telling me what vampires can and cannot do, one thing being that vampires don’t get pregnant.” She spread her hands wide, jumping back a step when he straightened. “Yet, here I stand, potentially knocked-up, unwed, undead, and with no visible means of support.” She shrugged. “Go figure.”
Hands caught her from behind. Masculine laughter surrounded her shriek. She had a glimpse of Jared’s face before he passed her to Slade who then passed her to Jace who in turn passed her to Caleb, who accepted her weight with a very superior smile and a soft kiss. “You’ve got lots of support.”
Allie relaxed into Caleb’s hold, and glared at Jared. “That was so unfair.”
“What Caleb wants, I tend to see he gets.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“I’m not overly concerned with right.”
She’d remember that for future reference. She tilted her head back to look at Caleb. He was looking at her, making no attempt to hide his smile. “And it’s very uncool to gloat.”
“I’ll remember that.”
He might remember it, but she didn’t think he intended to do anything with it. Just like she didn’t think he intended to put her down anytime soon. Which wasn’t a good thing, as this close, she couldn’t avoid the temptation of his scent.
Her stomach clenched and the familiar pain resumed its slow inner grind. Her ears hyperfocused on the slow beat of his heart, the whoosh of his blood through the valves, the steady in and out of his breath. Humor fled with the intrusion of reality. She was a vampire. She might be having a vampire child, and she was completely dependent on this man. And she had no idea what that meant. She needed answe
rs. “Put me down.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just remembered that I’m totally screwed.”
Caleb shifted her weight, but he didn’t put her down. “You’re not screwed.”
She shrugged, working her arm deeper against his side, seeking a bit of leverage. “That’s a matter of opinion.”
Her elbow anchored on his hip bone. With a push and a twist she threw herself out of his arms. Unfortunately, without the grace she would have preferred. She landed in a heap at his feet.
As one, the men swore, Caleb’s “Son of a bitch” louder than the rest, or maybe just more audible to her ears. She’d noticed over the last week that her senses seemed to focus in on him. He was beside her in an instant, fingers pressing along her hips as he searched for breaks. “That was a damn stupid thing to do.”
She waved his hand aside. “I’m fine. And it’s not as stupid as tossing me about like a sack of grain.”
He tipped her chin up and looked her in the eye. “The difference is I’d never drop you.”
No he wouldn’t. She touched his wrist, her finger on his pulse. “I know.”
His boot scuffed the floor as he shifted position. “Do you hurt anywhere?”
She couldn’t look away from his eyes. There was something different about the way he was watching her. “My pride’s smarting.”
“Want me to kiss it and make it better?”
“At the risk of ruining my chances with you, I’m going to agree with the Johnsons on this.” Derek stood apart from the brothers. Just one step back, but it was an important foot. It marked him as an outsider. “That was dumb.”
The hunger writhed within, diminishing her retort to a squeaky gasp. This time Caleb didn’t bother with a hand. He grabbed her upper arm and hoisted her up. She twisted her arm free as soon as she found her feet. Her immediate stumble was a bit of a setback in her capable-woman moment, but she caught herself without any further need for assistance. Thank goodness. She might be a klutz, but she didn’t want to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt with five hunky men in the room. She was dead, but not that dead. “We need to stop fighting among ourselves.”
Caleb Page 19
