“Calm down, Will. I’ve been asked to pass a message.”
“From who?”
“Whom. None of your business. Kal’s fine. She’s safe.”
Will fought the urge to choke the information out of Ryan. “Where is she? Who’s she with?”
“If I tell you that, you’ll go charging in there and make matters worse, trust me. She needs time to decompress. Apparently she had a rather large row with her parents, and then on top of whatever lovers’ squabble the two of you had, she didn’t feel she could call you.”
Guilt overwhelmed him. She couldn’t call me? “Who’d she call?”
* * * *
“Doesn’t matter,” Ryan said. “No, it wasn’t me, I’m simply the messenger. She’s safe, and she’ll stay safe until the two of you settle this one way or another. Not that I imagine there will be more than one way to settle it, but whatever it is, it’ll work out. The party in question asked me to let you know she’s safe and secure.”
“Is she with Aidan?”
He shook his head. “I’m not saying where she’s at.”
“Swear to me she’s safe.”
Ryan nodded, suddenly wide awake. “I swear to you she’s safe, and I swear to you she’ll stay safe. You have my word.”
Will slumped on Ryan’s couch. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Go home. Try calling her in the morning. Apologize for whatever happened and kiss and make up.” He witnessed Will’s sorrow and choked back his own emotions. When Ryan next spoke, he kept his voice low and soft to mask his feelings. “I’ll make sure she’s taken care of, Will. I promise. Let her have this time to de-stress a little. She’s overwhelmed. Frankly, I’m surprised she’s gone this long without some sort of breakdown. Go home.”
Will nodded and disappeared.
Ryan sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair. Obviously he wasn’t getting any sleep tonight. He changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, then made a quick stop at the local grocery store. He sensed Aidan’s barrier, and while he knew he could bypass it, that would be rude.
He appeared at Aidan’s front door and knocked.
A startled Aidan opened the door. Ryan walked in and held up the plastic grocery bag. “Is this where the pity party’s being held? I brought chocolate chip cookie dough, pistachio, and butter pecan. Where are the spoons?”
They’d been Abby’s three favorite flavors. If Aidan remembered, he didn’t let on.
Kal’s startled look transformed to a broad beaming smile. Ryan stilled the lurch his heart took. That look had been for him and no one else.
He would cherish the image of her smile forever.
Okay, maybe it had been for the ice cream more than anything, but still…
Will, you’re a truly blessed bastard and you have no idea, Ryan thought. You’re lucky I’m a dedicated company man.
“Thanks, Ryan,” Kal said as she gave him a one-armed hug so she wouldn’t drop her spoon. She scooted over to give Ryan room to sit on her other side.
Ryan settled next to Kal on the couch while Aidan brought another spoon. The three watched TV until she fell into an ice cream-stupor-induced sleep after midnight, snuggled against Ryan, with her feet in Aidan’s lap.
Aidan carefully extricated himself and put what little was left of the ice cream in the freezer, then returned to the couch.
Aidan didn’t want to wake Kal and assumed she couldn’t hear their thoughts while she was sleeping. “Why are you here, Ryan? Did you talk to Will?”
“I did. And no, I didn’t tell him she’s with you. I swore to him she’d stay safe.”
“You don’t trust me to take care of her?”
“Of course I do, but you have to sleep sometime. If anything happened to her, he’d kill you and me both, you know that.” They watched Kal sleeping between them. “What happened, Aidan?” Aidan related as much of the story as he knew. Ryan sighed. “Well, she’s right that she has to learn to stand on her own feet in some matters. The stronger she can be in that way, the more it will help her in life.”
She rolled over in their laps, onto her side, her face snuggled against Ryan’s stomach.
* * * *
Aidan felt a wall go up in Ryan’s mind. He looked at the man. Ryan’s hand hovered inches over her head, not touching, as if he wanted to stroke her hair yet didn’t dare to.
Aidan’s mind flashed back to a night when Chloe was alive and he’d once watched this almost identical tableau play out, then slammed the door on his memory. No. Not now. He couldn’t think of her now. It was too painful.
Ryan’s eyes bored into his. “Never tell her, Aidan. She must never know she was Abby.”
Aidan nodded, understanding. He’d quit trying to figure Ryan out centuries ago. He knew from their long history together that there was more to the asshole than met the eye, even if Aidan usually thought he was an asshole.
I’ll never understand what Chloe saw in him, Aidan thought, then pushed that memory back in its closet, too. It did no good going there, especially now. Then again, from the way Ryan had tried gently coaxing Kal out of her funk, maybe that was one of the things Chloe had seen in him.
Kal started to dream and softly moaned, murmuring.
Ryan studied her face. “Aidan, remove the barrier.”
“What?”
“Do it! Now!”
He did. Just then in her sleep, Kal cried out, “Will, appareo!”
Will immediately appeared in the living room and both men frantically waved at him, warning him to stay silent.
He glared at Ryan. When Will realized Kal was asleep, his face softened. The other two men witnessed his obvious anguish.
“She’s dreaming, Will,” Aidan said. “She talked in her sleep. We didn’t want you waking her.”
He nodded. “Thank you.” He looked at Ryan. “What are you doing here?”
“I swore I’d keep her safe. You should know by now that I always keep my word.”
Will sat cross-legged on the floor. “Thank you. Both of you.”
By two in the morning, all three men were yawning. Ryan crooked his finger at Will. “Come here. Stand behind me, your hand on my shoulder. I don’t wish to wake her.”
Will didn’t want to touch the other man, but he did as Ryan instructed. He felt the shift and found himself sitting on the couch where Ryan had been, with Kal nestled in his lap.
Ryan patted his shoulder. “In the morning she might be pissed off because you’re here, much of that due to an ice cream hangover. She ate enough to put an elephant into a diabetic coma. Take her out, get her a good breakfast, some protein. And quit pissing her off.” He disappeared before Will could zing him back.
Aidan looked at Will. “I’m going to bed. Don’t kill each other.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re not mad at me for calling Ryan?”
Will stroked Kal’s hair and shook his head. “No. You guys were right, she needed to decompress. I pissed her off. I need to remember she’s still got a lot of adjusting to do. I’m her first relationship. I settled back into my normal patterns with her and…” He sighed. “I have to remember she’s not Abby. Not anymore. She’s a lot like her, she really is. But she’s different. I need to remember that. I can’t tease her the same way, I can’t be who I was because she’s not who she was.”
Aidan carefully slid Kal’s feet from his lap. “Good night, Will.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Kal dreamed. She dreamed of strange lands and unusual people.
First she dreamed of Aidan, of looking up at him as if she were a child, feeling him lift and toss her into the air before catching her and swinging her around, smiling, playful and happy, feeling safe and secure with him, loved and protected. Then time folded and shifted, and she dreamed of Ryan.
The dreams were disjointed and odd, disturbing in that she felt ripped away, unwillingly pulled from him, as if she’d loved him.
Then there was Will. The world had changed yet again, different people
and places and times, but still disjointed. Before the dream could go too far, she was ripped away again.
Then she dreamed of walking into Plant Hall a few weeks ago and seeing Will for the first time, his slate gray eyes…
Kal opened her eyes and realized she was lying in Will’s lap, purple dawn light visible outside Aidan’s living room windows.
She closed her eyes, certain she was still in the dream and not wanting to wake up and discover she was alone on Aidan’s couch. A deep breath, and Will’s warm, familiar scent came to her.
Her eyes popped open. No, she was still nestled in Will’s lap. His eyes were closed, and she fought the urge to be mad at Aidan and Ryan for calling him. When Will spoke, it startled her.
“They didn’t rat you out.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
Will shrugged his shoulders, winced, and stretched his neck. She heard several audible pops. “No. I dozed a little while.”
She hoped he couldn’t read her thoughts, that she fell asleep in Ryan’s lap, and the dreams she’d had. “How’d you know where I was?”
“Aidan called Ryan, who called me. They didn’t tell me where you were. You were dreaming and called out to me in your sleep and I heard you. I’m sorry, Kal. Before I say the wrong thing again, I want you to know I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t think you’re stupid, and if you want to wait two weeks, we will. Somehow.”
She wrapped her arms around him, hungrily kissing him. “I’m sorry. I’m mad at myself that I can’t stand up to my parents. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.” Her hunger for him burned deep inside her. Heck with it, she couldn’t go two weeks without him. She wanted him.
His hands slipped under her shirt and she pressed into him.
“Aw, geez, get a room. You’re worse than a couple of friggin’ alley cats.” Aidan stood in the kitchen doorway. He wore a pair of yellow SpongeBob SquarePants boxer shorts, and his hair was a mess, but he smiled.
Will looked at her and grinned. The world shifted and then they were in Will’s bed.
“That’s better,” she said. She rolled on top of him and lifted his shirt, kissing his warm flesh. “This time, you get to come first. I owe you one, big-time.”
“You don’t owe me anything, sweetheart. I love you.”
She worked her way down his body, unfastening his shorts and pulling them and his briefs off. “No, you’re wrong. I do owe you for being so patient.” He was already hard, and she swiped her tongue over the tip of his stiff shaft, enjoying his moan as he jumped at the sensation. She’d discovered what to do to make his body meld to her hands in the same way hers did to his.
Kal shed her clothes and spent several long minutes teasing his cock with her mouth, wiggling her body against his, keeping him on the brink until he couldn’t control himself. He flipped her over and slipped inside, thrusting deeply, kissing her. His tongue flicked hers in time with his strokes, and she tightly wrapped her arms around him.
“Come for me, Will,” she whispered in his ear.
He moaned. With one last deep thrust he climaxed, his lips pressed against the side of her neck. When he caught his breath, he kissed her. “That was very sexy, sweetheart. See? You can talk dirty.”
“I didn’t think that was very dirty.”
“It’s the context. A nursery rhyme can be pornographic if said with the right inflection. Look how Marilyn Monroe sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to JFK.” He worked his way down Kal’s body, nuzzling between her legs until he found her clit and began teasing it. In a few minutes she cried out as his tongue stroked her to climax.
He held her and pulled the sheet over them. “Let’s take a quick nap and then I’ll take you out to breakfast, all right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you with your parents.”
She stroked his chest, her fingers tracing his scars. “I have to do this. I have to learn to stand up to them.”
They dozed. A little after nine they got up to take a shower. Before heading to the bathroom she made the mistake of checking her phone. Her father had left seven voice mails throughout the night.
She groaned. “I’d better do this now and get it over with.” She sat on the bed and dialed her father’s phone. Will sat behind her and started nibbling the nape of her neck. She smiled, closed her eyes, and tried to concentrate.
Her father answered on the second ring. “Kalyani? Where are you?”
“I told you, I had to work.”
“Your mother has been beside—”
“You listen to me, Daddy.” Will’s arms encircled Kal’s waist. She felt his strength flow throughout her being. “I love you, but if you want to stay down here, you need to go to a hotel. I can’t have you hounding me at my job. I am a producer of a show that shoots at night, regardless of your feelings about it. It’s not like I’m shooting porn.”
Her father gasped. “How dare you!”
“How dare you? Listen to me, I love you, but get it through your thick skull that I am not, repeat not marrying Jeff! I am not coming home to Columbus. Maybe not next year, maybe not ever if I stay with this show. It’s very popular and the network might extend my contract.” Another fib that would hopefully be overlooked in the grand scheme of things. Then again, if Ryan had his way, he could make it perfectly true for her, and it wouldn’t be a lie at all.
“You are putting yourself on a path to Hell, missy! I cannot believe you’d talk to your own father this way! You should drop to your knees and—”
“Believe it, Daddy.” Heaven help her, the only person she wanted to drop to her knees for was Will Hellenboek. “I’ll be home in a couple of hours. I can help you find a hotel then. I will not have you ruining my career over your prejudices. Maybe the best thing is for me to be on this show so others can learn from my example and be saved, did you ever think about that? You said God doesn’t make mistakes, and He obviously wanted me on this show.”
She hated twisting things around on him like that, and she normally didn’t play the proselytizing card, but she was sick of her father’s crud.
She’d stunned him into silence. Either that or he just dropped dead from a coronary.
Her mother took the phone. She sounded cheery and chipper. “Good morning, sweetheart. How are you? How’s work?”
Kal took a deep breath. “I’m fine, Mom. Did Daddy just pop a vein?”
“He’ll survive. I’m sure we can find a good hotel nearby. It’ll be too stressful on you if we’re staying here.”
“Thank you, Mom. It’d be different if I had a larger place and a spare bedroom. I’m sorry, but if Daddy had told me he was doing this, I would have told him not to.”
“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry I let him drag me into it.”
Her father shouted something in the background. Kal’s mother pulled the phone away from her mouth. “Kenneth, will you please shut up!”
Kal successfully suppressed her snort while Will quietly laughed against the back of her neck, his whole body shaking with the effort of remaining silent.
Her mom’s voice dropped to a whisper. “By the way, sweetheart, that young man we met last night, Will. Are you two seeing a lot of each other?”
That was mom code for, “When’s the wedding?” How much to tell her? With Will’s comforting presence the truth was suddenly a relief.
Well, at least the partial truth. “Yes, we’re dating. Don’t tell Daddy.”
“Tell him?” she whispered. “Are you crazy? Of course not. I really like him, if that means anything.”
Kal swung from amused to wanting to sob and hug her mom. “It means a lot to me. Thanks, Mom.”
“I’ll handle your father, don’t worry. Love you. See you in a while.”
Kal hung up and stared at the phone. Will gently took it from her and wrapped his arms around her while she sobbed against him for several long minutes. When she sat up and wiped her face, she looked at him. “What did you do to mojo my mother?”
Darn that playful smile of his. “I didn’t do anything, honest. If she likes me, then she really does like me. If I was going to mojo anyone, as you called it, I would have done it to your father. Besides, I don’t have a lot of power in that area. Purson’s good, and Aidan’s better. Ryan’s the best. Maybe we should sic him on your dad.”
“True.” She caressed Will’s stubbly cheek, then snorted. “That would be ironic. She really likes you. That’s a first. The other times I dated, she was picking the guys apart before I’d had the front door closed behind them when they brought me home. You’re the first she’s ever really liked.”
* * * *
They managed to shower without making love. Kal sighed as she looked at her clothes laid out on Will’s bed. “I wish I had clean clothes.”
“What do you want?”
“Clean jeans, underwear, bra, shirt. Why?”
He closed his eyes, as if mentally looking for something. Then she swore he disappeared for the briefest of seconds and the air popped. The requested clothes were in his hands.
“How about these?” he asked.
She took the clothes. “You went to my apartment?”
“I’m not strong enough to bring things to me from elsewhere yet. I used to be able to do that. Probably will be again soon now that I can transport two of us together. I had to appear in your apartment to get them. Don’t worry, they didn’t see me.”
“What else can you do?” Ryan’s admonishment that she would see things beyond her wildest imagination came back to haunt her. If this was no big deal to Will, what else could he do?
He shrugged. “We’ll see. I don’t know if I’ll get all my strengths back. My powers had atrophied quite a bit.”
She kissed him. Not a deep, fuck-me-silly kiss, but a sweet thank-you kiss. “When we get past this craziness, can we back up a few steps?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I want to get to know you. I want you to get to know me. I don’t mean in the Biblical sense, because we’ve pretty much got that part covered.”
Good Will Ghost Hunting: Demon Seed [Good Will Ghost Hunting 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 24
