by D. N. Hoxa
“What time is it?” I whispered as his hands traveled up and down my naked body under the blanket like he couldn’t get enough.
“Eight,” he said, and I cursed under my breath. We didn’t have time…
“Shower,” I said and gave him a peck on the lips before I stood up.
“Oh, baby,” Aaron whispered as he watched me walk the short distance to the bathroom, and for his pleasure, I moved in slow motion. He made me want to be sexy for him like never before. He made me want to never ditch my seductive smile that was only for him.
“Come and get me.” I disappeared into the bathroom and hopped right into the shower. I turned the water on, but I no longer needed it to calm me. No, now I had my own personal demon.
I didn’t even hear him come in behind me, I just felt his hands as they touched my already wet back. He spun me around and pushed me against the bathroom tiles. The shower was small, but that just worked in our favor.
Water dripped from his face and mine as he, very slowly, took both my wrists and brought them above my head. His lips were all I was able to see, and I felt half until they crashed against mine. He kissed me, gently at first, and pressed his body against mine. I realized he was hard and ready, and that just made me want him inside me more.
But when I tried to wrap my arms around him and pull him to me, rush him so that he could make me cry out his name in pleasure again, he didn’t let me. He had both my arms above my head, and he held them there with one hand around both my wrists.
“No rushing,” he whispered, and the sound of water falling constantly on our bodies gave his voice a deeper, sexier feel. So, no rushing it was.
No matter that I was burning between my thighs and he no doubt knew it, Aaron took his time to kiss me until he had me completely drunk, and then moved on to my face, my neck and my breasts. I no longer recognized the sounds that left my mouth, but I didn’t need to. All I needed was to watch him worship every inch of my body with his swollen lips.
When he had enough, he put his hand under my ass, and he pulled me up. My legs immediately wrapped around his hips, and finally, his erection touched my center. Cries of pleasure from both of us. We were more than ready. We were starving for one another.
He held my eyes, and this time, he didn’t need to tell me to do the same. I did it all on my own because there was no purer form of beauty than watching Aaron as he made love to me. And when he finally slipped inside, we were both complete again, halves to a whole, united.
Aaron had his way with my body. While both my arms were held above my head by him, he still had one free hand to explore my body with, to touch me with and grab me with, in all the right places, like we’d done this with each other a thousand times already. But I didn’t mind. He thrust himself inside of me and out, and I didn’t even feel the hard tiles against my back. All I could feel was him, his body, his eyes that never once left mine while the water washed us both.
Last night was easily the best night of my life, and this morning right up there with it, too. I was so close already when Aaron suddenly let go of me and pulled out of me. He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around again. My front met the bathroom tiles as Aaron pushed my legs apart and positioned himself between them again. My nails tried to hold onto the tiles or even scratch them as Aaron played with my desire and touched his hard erection to my ass, excruciatingly slowly, until he found my center again.
When he thrust himself inside me this time, he found me ready and begging. His hand traveled around my hips and his fingers slipped under my folds, too, while with his other, he grabbed my hair and pulled back, just enough for it to drive my desire even higher. Stuck between the bathroom wall on the front, and Aaron’s hard body against my back, I had no control over anything anymore, not even when I let go and bliss took over every inch of my body and mind. I cried out as the ripples of the orgasm shook my body over and over again.
Aaron followed me soon after, and a minute later, he wrapped his arms around me and held me with my back against his chest as we both breathed heavily and found our way to the present again.
“Now that’s a good morning,” he whispered in my ear.
“But I think you can do even better,” I teased, though I doubted my body would be able to handle it if he did even better.
Still, I was down to prove that theory, but unfortunately, we’d run out of time. So I turned around and kissed him hard on the lips, and then it was time to really shower.
***
Finally, we got dressed. I couldn’t, for the life of me, keep my hands off him, and he couldn’t keep his hands away, either. I ran to the door of my room and opened it before we got into a lot more trouble than we already had. We were half an hour late, and that was just fucked up.
I jumped out in the hallway giggling, like a schoolgirl, and almost ran into Jack’s massive chest. Aaron came right behind me, smiling widely and obviously chasing me like we were in first grade, but to my amazement, his big smile didn’t disappear when he saw Jack—like mine had. I didn’t know where we stood, and it wasn’t like we spent a lot of time talking. Other things were just more…interesting.
Aaron surprised me even more when he put his arm around my waist and pulled me to his side. Jack’s brows rose high.
“Good morning?” He even made it sound like a question. Yes, it had been a very good morning.
“Hey, man,” Aaron said to him and kissed the top of my head while I stared intently at the floor.
“I looked for you in your room last night,” Jack said to Aaron without the slightest amusement in his voice.
“I wasn’t in my room last night. Or this morning.” Aaron didn’t miss a beat.
“I see,” Jack said. “So this…” he pointed at the both of us, “what is this?”
“Nothing you didn’t already suspect,” I mumbled. Jack was Aaron’s best friend. I had no doubt they’d already spoken.
This time, Jack grinned widely and looked more like himself.
When we began to walk down the hallway, Aaron didn’t let go of me.
“You’re late. I don’t care what you did all night, but you can’t let this,” Jack continued, pointing at our connected bodies, “get in the way of what’s happening. Or I’ll kick both your asses.”
We both rolled our eyes, but we also nodded because Jack was right.
“So, we tell everyone now? Just like that?” I whispered in Aaron’s ear, though I knew Jack would hear it. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to tell because I did, very much, but I was afraid of what people might think if they saw Aaron with me.
But Aaron grinned and kissed the side of my head again. “I can’t wait to tell the whole world that you belong to me,” he said.
“I’m going to be sick,” Jack mumbled, but that only made Aaron tighten his grip on my hand.
Me? I was too busy enjoying how proud he looked that I now belonged to him.
When we entered the kitchen, at first, no one noticed. Until the first ones that were closest to the door started nudging each other with their elbows, all of their eyes locked on my and Aaron’s intertwined fingers. I put my face back to expressionless and let my body relax. I held my head high, and so did Aaron. We walked passed all the shocked faces and straight to Marie, who was watching us, too, but she had a big bright smile on her face. My whole body was in goose bumps, partly because I hadn’t had a relationship in more than four years, and partly because I was going to see Ella in just seconds. I didn’t care that people were watching. They always did.
“Morning, Marie.” She was preparing some delicious-looking ham sandwiches I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. My stomach growled with hunger. I’d lost a lot of energy the night before doing different kinds of…exercises.
“Morning, you two. I see you finally came to your senses,” Marie said with a wink, and Aaron grinned. I looked at her and then at him, and I could tell that she knew something. “You better take good care of her. Otherwise I’ll have her kick your ass herself.”
“No, there’ll be no need for that, Marie. I intend to take really good care of her,” Aaron said and looked at my flushed face, smiling.
Normally I would’ve rolled my eyes at anyone for saying that, but now that it was Aaron saying it to me, it just sounded like perfection.
When we turned to go sit and eat with huge smiles on our faces, butterflies in our stomachs and dirty things on our minds, Marie called behind me.
“Star, can I have a moment?”
Aaron raised his brow at the both of us in question.
“Don’t worry. She’ll be safe with me,” Marie told him and waved me over.
I followed her to the other side of the counter at the end of the kitchen cabinets, away from prying ears. Marie was already blushing.
“I know that you’re leaving today, and I wanted to ask you to give this to Everett if you see him.”
She reached for a small white envelope that had been hidden in an almost invisible pocket of her apron. I looked at the letter and then at her. Shit. This was going to suck
“Marie, I can’t guarantee you that I won’t have to—”
But Marie cut me off.
“I know. Just keep it with you just in case you don’t have to kill him the second you see him. Okay?” she said, smiling a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and handed me the envelope.
I took it and hid it deep in my pocket.
“I promise,” I said reluctantly.
Now, even if I saw Everett, I was going to have to do my absolute best to not kill or attack him until he’d read that letter. Still, I doubted he was going to even be there.
“Thank you,” Marie said.
“Don’t thank me yet.”
When I went back to the others to eat my sandwich, I noticed Ella’s hair first and my stomach turned. I still couldn’t believe it. She wanted to be a vampire.
“Good morning,” I said and raised a brow at Kyle.
He looked down at his plate like he didn’t notice, but I saw the bright crimson that covered his face. I was going to have a word with him, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. Because Ella never mentioned that I couldn’t violate him indirectly. Everything was fair game as long as I didn’t threaten him openly.
Ella didn’t look at me when I took my seat next to her. Across from me, Aaron smiled at me sadly like he knew exactly how I felt. Then I realized, he really did know how I felt. I had no idea of the extent of his powers because we hadn’t really had the chance to talk about anything.
Everybody was nervous. You could see it from the way they spoke, moved, even ate. It was a big day today, and once the chatter began like it always did, I turned to my sister. She was right last night. She’d had the guts to confront me about what she wanted and about Kyle, too. She told me straight to my face. I was going to do the same.
So I cleared my throat.
“We, uh… Aaron and I…um…we…” Shit. My tongue was completely tied. I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
“What Star wants to say is that as of last night, she’s officially my girlfriend, believe it or not,” Aaron said out of the blue, and he didn’t even try to keep it down like I had. Everybody at the table heard. Everybody!
“Like…together together?” Kate asked.
She looked shocked. I smiled sadly.
“As together as we can get,” Aaron confirmed with a nod, and he even looked straight at Arturo when he said it.
The poor Nephil hadn’t said a damn thing, but it was cute to see Aaron jealous like that. At least I knew I wasn’t the only one. Arturo smiled and nodded his head once to tell him that he had it clear. I was so glad that I’d spoken to him before Aaron and I became a couple.
The door to the kitchen opened with a jolt and slammed on the wall behind it. Everyone turned to look, and what we saw was a very panicked and excited Horatio running toward us with something small in his hands.
“It works!” he called before he reached the table.
I stood up immediately, my heart already pounding inside my chest.
“Horatio…” I warned him. People didn’t need to know. Who knew who would tell whom? I didn’t need that information landing in the wrong ears.
“It works!” the warlock cried again, shaking a small flask filled with bluish liquid in front of my face.
I took it from him and hid it in my fist.
“Are you sure?!” I asked him in a whisper. Aaron, Arturo and Jack were towering above him already, too. and Horatio, whose hair was standing in all directions and who wore wrinkly clothes like he hadn’t changed them in days, nodded, and his face looked like that of a three-year-old who had just seen Santa Claus.
I took him by the arm and headed for the door. Everyone was watching now, both curious and suspicious.
“Let’s go to your office,” I said to Horatio, and he didn’t complain.
“It works, Star. It really works!” Horatio kept saying every few seconds on the way to his office.
When we finally made it, Aaron locked the five of us in. I was excited as hell, too, but I was also scared.
“I know, Horatio. Calm down,” I tried, but he kept shaking his head.
“You don’t understand! It works. Do you know what this means for us? For the whole world?” He was a second away from bursting into happy tears.
“Nothing!” I hissed, panicked.
“Horatio, we agreed that we weren’t going to tell anyone about this. And you made this, but it is for this one time only, okay? No one will know, and we will never produce the potion again. You will never produce the potion again. Are we clear?” Aaron said.
I envied his calmness. I was already freaking out.
Horatio kept looking at him wide-eyed, shaking his head like he wanted nothing more than to send Aaron to hell.
“Okay…okay…we have Veritas, and I know how to make it…I know how and I can’t…but okay. Sure. Fine!” he mumbled to himself, his excitement now turned into anger.
“Good. Now tell us. How do you know that it’s working?” Aaron asked him.
“I made it,” Horatio said, looking at my hand that was holding the small flask. “And I tried it myself. And it works because I can’t tell a lie. There’s something in here,” he said, pointing at his throat, “that will not let me speak a lie. I have to tell the truth, and it’s like some impulse that rearranges the cells in my brains and it convinces them that nothing that is untrue can be said through my mouth. It’s…spectacular!” Horatio blurted.
“He’s telling the truth,” Aaron said.
My heart picked up the beating again.
Arturo was right behind me, and I offered the flask to him.
“You know what to do.”
“Here,” Horatio gave him two other flasks identical to the first one. “Make sure you don’t put too much or it will drive a person crazy.”
Arturo nodded without missing a beat. “I’ll be on my way. I’ll see you there,” he said to me with a smile.
“Be careful, okay?” I urged him. We didn’t need to bury another one of us.
“I will,” Arturo said, and with a nod to us all, he disappeared out the door.
“This shit’s crazy, man. Forcing people to tell the truth…fucked up,” Jack said with a sigh, obviously unimpressed by our newest and so far best discovery.
“Have any better ideas?” I asked, a bit restless myself. I didn’t like the thought of forcing people to do anything, because giving them Veritas made us more like the Council than we ever were before, but sometimes, you just had to fight fire with fire. There was no other way to strip those people of their fears and make them tell the truth. Without them, I didn’t even want to think about the outcome of the war that was inevitable.
“No, but I can tell you that the Elders don’t agree, either,” Jack said reluctantly.
“I don’t care who agrees,” I hissed. They didn’t need to make this any harder for me.
“We don’t have another choice. If we did, we would’ve taken it. T
ell the Elders that,” Aaron said to Jack and came to stand by my side. At least two of us were on the same page.
“Tell them yourselves. They want to see you before you go,” Jack said, grinning because he already knew how I felt about meetings with the Elders.
Fucking great, I thought to myself.
Aaron took my hand in his in an attempt to calm me. Strangely enough, he did. His skin against mine was even better than air or water.
Frankly speaking, I couldn’t care less anymore. Not about what the Elders thought and not about what the others thought. I had made this war personal, and I was going to handle it the same way. I was going to do whatever was necessary, and I didn’t intend to stop, especially not now that Aaron had my back.
18
The place looked calm, not a thing missing. The room was big and the wooden desks shiny. It was underground, too. I was so sick of never seeing daylight. I couldn’t wait for all this to be over.
Arturo had arrived two hours ago. He was lucky enough to have reason not to go to the meeting with the Elders like the rest of us. I couldn’t stop itching all the while when I was in Grandmother’s presence. My mind went to the last words she had said to Samayan in the Cathedral, and those words shattered whatever illusion I had created that the Elders were the good guys. They weren’t. They were just the lesser evil guys, unfortunately.
Arturo assured me that everything was set and in place. Whoever drank the water that the hotel offered in sealed bottles was going to tell the truth about whatever they were asked. And I intended to be very specific.
Christopher, the were-lizard in charge of security at the Base, the one I’d sent to South Dakota two days earlier to gather information, had been very helpful, too. He’d managed to talk to some of the participants. He gave me a list of names that included five people, and he guaranteed me that they knew things. He also said that people have had a hard time getting in touch with their friends and families. They had no idea what was going on, but I did. Whoever was missing, they were being held by the Council somewhere, being fed potion against their will and being trained and brainwashed for the war.
