Their eyes flashed angrily as their scowls deepened. “She’ll have us smelling like women!” Jack snapped.
Stefan stifled a laugh as he turned away from them. “How much do you expect her to get done in one day?” Ethan retorted.
“Knowing Isabelle that house is already repainted, with scented candles, and potpourri everywhere!” Doug yelled.
“Why is she all by herself?” Stefan interrupted.
They looked at him in surprise before shrugging absently. “Vicky and Abby had enough of work yesterday,” Ethan answered.
Apparently they were all used to Isabelle being on her own, and not having any help. He didn’t know why, but for some reason the thought of that did not sit well with him. “And Jess?”
They all looked at him as if he were crazy. “I don’t think she wanted to help,” Jack answered, chuckling softly.
Stefan nodded, but didn’t say anything. Of course Jess wouldn’t want to help; the idea of getting her hands dirty was enough to make her squirm her way out of anything. He groaned inwardly, wondering for the thousandth time why he was still with the girl in the first place. He had his answer almost immediately, she was good in bed. But she was also whiny, clingy, and truly beginning to grate on his last nerve. The sex was becoming not worth the trouble.
A flash of wide violet eyes unwittingly blazed through his mind, and to his amazement, he found himself hardening instantly. He could clearly recall how Isabelle had felt when he had seized hold of her tiny waist, a waist so narrow that his hands had nearly encircled it. Her skin had been warm, silky smooth, and utterly tempting.
For a moment, the touch of her had blazed through him, arousing him fiercely. The smell of her, apples, and fresh dirt, and her underlying sweet, natural scent had assaulted him instantly, and aroused his baser instincts. He had not wanted to release her, and since he had touched her he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. Or his cock, he thought ruefully.
He shifted uncomfortably as the force of his erection became almost unbearable. “Go stop her Ethan,” Jack ordered briskly.
Ethan sighed as he ran a hand through his tangled hair. “Leave her be Jack. It’s not going to hurt us to have a clean house, and clothes. Besides Jess is staying there too, and Isabelle is the one that realized that if there’s no human food in the house, she’ll think it’s odd. You know that none of us would have thought about it. She sent David and dad shopping for groceries.”
“That’s fine and dandy, but....”
“Jack,” Ian interrupted as he approached them. “Leave her be. You know how Isabelle is when she’s upset about something; this is just her way of working things out.”
Jack’s scowl faded as he nodded slowly. “What is she upset about?” Doug demanded. “Oh, Julian,” he answered.
“Yeah,” Ethan said tiredly. “I had a long talk with the four of them last night.”
“Did you tell your parents?” Doug demanded.
“I wouldn’t have, but...”
“They could have both been killed,” Ian finished for his brother.
Stefan glanced back at the four people stretched out in the sun, his aggravation mounting. He was half tempted to walk over there, drag Jess up, and force her to go help Isabelle. The house was obviously a bachelor’s place, and even he had been a little amazed by the amount of dust and filth in it. Jess had complained endlessly about it yesterday, the least she could do was help clean it today.
“Yeah, so if this makes her happy than let her be,” Ethan said firmly.
“Anything for Isabelle,” Jack muttered, but there was a soft smile on his face.
Stefan raised an eyebrow as he turned back to them. “What, are you scared of her?” he asked lightly, but there was a tension in him that he had never quite experienced before.
They grinned back at him, their eyes twinkling merrily. “Of Isabelle? Hardly!” Doug snorted. “She growls like a grizzly but inside she’s as mushy as a teddy bear. We just hate seeing her unhappy.”
“Isabelle’s our favorite,” Jack said jokingly.
“Hey!” Ethan and Ian objected.
Jack laughed at them as Doug eagerly nodded his agreement. “Well she is,” he told them, biting on his lip as he attempted to keep from laughing at them.
“That’s good to know,” Ethan mumbled.
“Oh, she’s your favorite too, and you know it!”
Ethan grinned as he ran a hand through his hair again. “What is this, break time?” Mike demanded as he strolled over to them. “Someone could have told me.”
“Trust me, this isn’t a break that you want to be involved in,” Jack muttered.
“Why is that?” Mike inquired.
“We were talking about Isabelle cleaning the house.”
Mike grimaced as he shrugged his shoulders. “It needs a good cleaning; we’ve been over here so much that it’s filthy, even by our standards. Leave her be, she’s upset about Julian. They both could have been killed.”
“Both?” Stefan asked in surprise. “It was Julian that was hanging inside the pit.”
They turned to look at him, their faces hard, and their eyes dark. “She never would have let go of him,” Ethan said, shuddering slightly. “She’d have followed him into that pit first.”
Stefan opened his mouth to protest that statement; no one would follow someone else to their death, no matter how much they cared for the person. Then, he thought about Isabelle hanging into that pit, holding on to her brother for dear life. She wouldn’t have let go, he realized with a start. A shiver of fear raced up his spine as he recalled the dangerous spikes at the bottom of that pit.
Suddenly he understood why the people gathered around him were so determined to make sure that she was happy, why they capitulated to her wishes. He didn’t know anyone else that would have gone over that edge. They would have tried to save Julian, yes, but fear for their own life would have caused them to release him before they went over too. It was a shock to realize that he actually respected and admired her for it. He couldn’t recall a woman he had ever felt that way about.
“It’s a good thing you were there,” Ethan said.
Stefan turned to look at him, nodding briskly. They had already thanked him more than enough for his liking. “Yeah,” he replied absently. He still didn’t know why he had gone back to the house yesterday, but he had felt a sudden, compelling urge to make sure that everything was all right. He had run into Willow along the way.
“So, how serious is it with you and Jess?” Ian asked with a sly grin.
Stefan snorted. “Not at all, why?”
He shrugged as his gaze wandered out to the field. “She’s pretty hot, but I thought because you guys were dating and all that it was serious. I know I don’t stick around with one woman.”
Stefan laughed softly as he ran a hand through his hair. “Neither do I, but when you get to be my age one night stands become tiring. It becomes a little more convenient to just stay with one woman for a little while.”
Ian grinned. “Tiring? I think not.”
Stefan laughed as he shook his head at him. “Oh, trust me, they do.” He knew how Ian felt; he had felt that way in the beginning, for over two hundred years actually. Then, things had changed, and not for the better. Stefan forced his mind away from the past, it was better forgotten anyway. He forced himself to focus his full attention on the disbelieving faces surrounding him.
“Never!” they all declared loudly.
They couldn’t even put a dent in the amount of women that he’d had, so there was no point in trying to tell them that they were wrong. That things would change for them. They would learn it eventually. “Well if you want a turn at Jess...”
Ian’s eyes widened as he smiled slyly. “Thanks, but no. She’s sticking around here a little too long for my liking.”
“There’s the queen of clean now,” Jack muttered.
Stefan’s gaze darted instantly toward the house. Isabelle had come outside and was making her way t
oward the group gathered on the lawn. The gold highlights in her dark hair flashed in the bright light. Her long, bare legs were delicately curved, and gleaming in the sun as she swiftly covered the ground toward the quartet on the lawn.
To his amazement, he found himself growing even harder as he admired the gentle sway of her hips, the soft bounce of her full breasts. She stopped by her sisters, and one of the twins dropped their legs down for her to sit at the end of the chair. She bent forward, revealing the soft curve of her back, and a patch of creamy skin that caused his mouth to water.
Isabelle closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she allowed some of the tension in her shoulders to ease. She was stiff, tired, achy, and absolutely filthy from attacking the house with a vengeance. The bathrooms were done, the kitchen cleaned, the living room dusted and vacuumed. She only had the mound of laundry left to get through, and the dusting in the dining room. She desperately needed a break though, and some fresh smelling air.
“You look beat Issy,” Abby said gently.
She nodded tiredly and shifted her weight as the plastic of the chair bit into her upper thigh. Giving up on being able to get comfortable, she slid off the chair to sit on the cool, refreshing ground. Her fingers instinctively curled into the prickly grass. Inhaling deeply, she savored the fresh scent of the air, and grass, as the sun beat warmly down on her. She tilted her head back to get the full extent of its soothing rays, a soft smile played over her mouth. She inhaled again and sighed softly as more of the tension she had been living with finally began to ease.
“Do you want help Issy?” Vicky asked.
“No that’s all right, I’m almost done. What are you guys up too?”
“Working on our tans,” Jess replied, her tone clearly stating that she thought Isabelle was an idiot for asking the question.
Isabelle stiffened slightly as a flash of anger washed through her. Most of her tension came flooding back as she opened her eyes and turned to look at Jess. She was leaning back in the chair, her long legs stretched out before her as she tilted her head to look at Isabelle disdainfully. Her anger notched a level higher as she met Jess’s clear blue eyes. She remembered Jess as being fun, energetic, and mischievous. She didn’t know what had happened to the little girl, but she was beginning to greatly dislike the woman.
When she had asked Jess if she would help her clean the house, Jess had sniffed contemptuously and informed Isabelle that she didn’t clean her own house, she sure as hell wasn’t going to clean someone else’s. Isabelle had managed to keep her temper then, mostly because cleaning the house was the only hope she had to keep her mind focused on something other than Stefan, and her fear of what he represented. However, her mission had failed, and her anger had mounted with every passing moment that she had scrubbed, cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed with him consistently filling her thoughts. Jess’s attitude, on top of her own misery, was pushing her very close to a snapping point.
“We were talking about how Jess and Stefan met,” Vicky said quickly, obviously detecting Isabelle’s mounting ire.
Isabelle leaned her back against the chair as she straightened her cramped legs gratefully before her. Closing her eyes, she leaned back to enjoy the rays of the sun, determined to ignore Jess, and her attitude. Fighting with her wasn’t going to do anyone any good. She pushed back an annoying piece of clinging, damp hair as she settled in. The house had been unbelievably stifling, even after she had opened all the windows to air it out. There was no breeze today and the air was heavy with the humidity of late August, but it was much more refreshing than the house had been.
“Go on Jess,” Abby urged eagerly.
“We met at a bar, by my school,” Jess said, yawning as she stretched her arms before her.
“How long have you been together for?” Vicky inquired.
“Three months.”
“So it’s serious then?” Abby asked happily, her eyes taking on a dreamy look.
Isabelle felt her tension growing again as she grit her teeth, trying to remain relaxed, and calm. She had been determined to try and forget about him, she did not want to hear about him now, when she had been seeking an escape from her own mind. “I guess so,” Jess replied absently. “I mean he did come up here with us.”
“He is so hot!” Vicky gushed.
Isabelle shifted uncomfortably as a flash of black, piercing eyes swept through her mind, bringing with them a wave of heat that far exceeded the warmth of the day. “He’s even hotter in bed,” Jess replied slyly.
Isabelle’s eyes flew open as her mouth went dry and her heart leapt into her throat. A fierce wave of something like jealousy swept through her. Never before had she felt jealous of anything, but she was fairly certain that was the emotion that was clutching at her chest right now. It scared the hell out of her, at the same time that it made her want to rip her hair out in aggravation and disgust. What the hell was the matter with her? She thought angrily. She wanted nothing to do with him; she had nothing to be jealous of.
Delia laughed softly as Abby and Vicky stared at Jess in disbelief. Their eyes darted to Isabelle as their mouths gaped open. They weren’t used to hearing such blunt statements, and by the blushes creeping up their cheeks they weren’t comfortable with them either. “Uh yeah,” Vicky muttered shyly.
Jess and Delia laughed. Isabelle’s eyes darted back to them, narrowing angrily at the obvious enjoyment they took in her sister’s discomfort. Isabelle opened her mouth to let loose with her anger, but Abby seized hold of her shoulder. Gritting her teeth she turned to look at Abby, who shook her head slightly, her green eyes pleading with Isabelle to keep her mouth shut. It took all she had to remain silent, but in the face of Abby’s obvious pleading, she managed to do so. They were Kathleen’s daughters, and her mother wouldn’t be at all happy if she started a war with them.
Even though she didn’t say a word, her moment of relaxation had been completely ruined. “The laundry should be done,” she mumbled.
“Did I make you uncomfortable Isabelle?” Jess asked with false sweetness.
Isabelle’s temper flash boiled as her gaze locked fiercely on Jess’s. A soft, mocking smile curled Jess’s mouth as she stared down at Isabelle with malicious amusement in her eyes. She was about to let her temper fly, to hell with the consequences, when a shadow fell over her. Isabelle’s mouth instantly went dry as fear seized hold of her. Instinctively she knew who it was, knew that he was there without even having to look at him.
“Stefan!” Jess said sweetly. “We were just talking about you.”
“I know, I heard,” he replied coldly.
Isabelle’s face flooded with color at the thought of what he had just overheard. She realized then that the sounds of the saws, and hammering, had stopped. Her face grew even redder as she wondered if everyone at the building site had heard too. Swallowing heavily, she forced herself to look up at him.
His shoulders were so broad that they blocked out the sun behind him, throwing him into sharp relief against its bright rays. His hair was damp, and tussled as it fell boyishly across his dirt streaked forehead. For a moment Isabelle couldn’t breathe from the force of his enticing dishevel, and the hungry gleam in his onyx eyes.
“Good thing it was nothing bad then,” Jess said laughingly.
Stefan forced his gaze away from Isabelle’s wide violet eyes, and beautifully blushing face. He folded his arms over his chest as he turned his attention to Jess. She smiled slyly at him, a seductive twinkle in her bright blue eyes. The small blue bikini she wore revealed almost every inch of her long, slender, tanned body. She was sleek with sweat, and suntan lotion, a condition that would have turned him on at any other point in time, but did nothing for him at the moment.
He had been on his way over here when he had overheard the conversation. For some reason, instead of laughing at it like he normally would have, it had angered him. The discomfort he had felt radiating from Vicky and Abby, and the joy that had poured out of Jess and Delia, had not helped the ange
r.
But, if he were truly honest with himself, he didn’t want Jess talking to Isabelle about their relationship, and what went on between them. Which was absolutely ridiculous, considering the fact that they were staying in the same room, and everyone knew what went on between them.
His gaze returned to Isabelle as she climbed swiftly to her feet. Her hair was wet with sweat; it was a tangled mass in its loose ponytail as it clung to her shoulders and face. Dirt streaked her delicate nose, and high cheekbones, emphasizing her tomboyish, hoydens nature. The clothes she wore were filthy as they clung damply to her, emphasizing her high, full breasts, slender waist, and gently flaring hips. Even though she was filthy, and a mess, she was still exquisitely beautiful, and the most tempting thing he had ever laid eyes on. The erection that he had managed to rid himself of suddenly reared back to full, excruciating life.
Isabelle stared silently back at him, her heart hammering as she struggled to breathe normally. She was acutely aware of how awful she looked, especially compared to Jess, and for some strange reason that fact bothered her. She didn’t want him to see her looking like this. Silently, she cursed herself for behaving like an idiot. She didn’t care what he thought of her, or how she looked, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with him, or his bitch of a girlfriend.
There was a gleam in his eyes though, a gleam that left her breathless and trembling. A gleam that told her that he didn’t think she looked as awful as she felt. In fact, he looked as if she was the most desirable woman in the world, as if he wanted to devour her. A fierce shiver made its way down her spine, it caused her to tighten, and harden, in places that she had never felt sensitive in before. Part of her desperately wanted to be devoured by him, while the other part, the saner part, wanted to run screaming for help and never look back.
“You look tired Stefan, why don’t you take a break?” Jess’s voice dripped with so much ice that it was able to tear Isabelle’s gaze away from Stefan.
Destined (Vampire Awakenings) Page 6
