by Jane Kindred
“But if you don’t want him—”
“I want him!” Rhea’s eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God. I hate you, Di. That was so loud.”
Ione pushed away from the counter with a smirk and opened the bathroom door.
Dev and Leo were in the kitchen, where Leo had discovered the bottle of tequila.
Leo sniffed the open bottle appreciatively. “As enjoyable as that was, perhaps you have a shot glass or two around here?”
“I think Ione does, yes.”
“Top right cabinet,” said Ione from the doorway.
Dev got down four shot glasses and started to pour.
“None for me, thanks.” Rhea took her mug to the stove. “I think I’ll stick with the magic cocoa.” She ladled more into her mug and Dev poured two shots into the cup. Rhea laughed. “Okay, I didn’t realize how much you’d put in there. But to be fair, Di drank mine.” She stuck her tongue out at her sister, trying to act as if they hadn’t heard her loud declaration.
“Whipped cream’s in the fridge,” said Dev. “And you can sprinkle some cinnamon on top if you like.”
As Rhea sprayed the canned whipped cream into her mug—clearly Dev’s influence, since Ione was all about the real thing when it came to pretty much anything and preferred to make hers from scratch—she noticed the bottle of tequila. “Peligroso” it was called, and the embossed symbol on the glass was a coiled snake with rays fanning out around it that looked like they were meant to be feathers.
“Interesting bottle,” she said to Ione.
“Rafe recommended it to Dev apparently. They’ve developed a bit of a bromance.”
Leo tossed back his shot and poured another. “So Rafe, he’s the one who channels Quetzalcoatl?” He looked at Dev. “So you must be—”
“Okay,” Rhea interrupted loudly. “That wasn’t exactly meant for public consumption, Leo.”
Eyes flashing, Ione dragged her aside to the living room. “You told him about Rafe and Dev? About us?”
Rhea swallowed a gulp of cocoa and burned her throat. “He wasn’t supposed to remember.”
“How exactly was he not supposed to remember?”
“I told you about the curse. From dusk to dawn during the period between All Souls and Yule, he separates from his hugr—”
“His what?”
“It’s like his soul. It goes off somewhere, and when it rejoins him in the morning, it leaves him without memory of the previous night.”
“This just gets better and better. So you’re telling me he doesn’t have a soul right now?”
“Who needs one?” Leo entered the room behind Ione and smiled when she turned. “Bothersome things.” He tucked his hands into his pockets, the crisp white shirt he’d borrowed from Dev still unbuttoned. “I should probably get going. I appreciate you coming to our rescue.”
“Going?” Rhea extracted her arm from Ione’s grasp. “Where are you going?”
“I have a little money. I can get a room somewhere.”
“With the holiday room rates?” Ione shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. You and Rhea are staying in our guestroom until we can get Rhea back into her place in the morning.”
“It seems a bit awkward. I don’t want to be any bother.”
Dev leaned against the kitchen doorway behind him, his warm-copper skin a striking contrast to Leo’s Nordic pallor. “You think this is awkward, mate? You don’t know the Carlisle sisters. And you especially do not know Ione. When she says you’re staying, you’re staying. I’ve already set up the guestroom.” He smiled. “Nice chat. We’ll see you in the morning.” He stepped forward and took Ione’s hand, ignoring her attempt to hang back, and led her up the spiral staircase to her room on the second floor of the split-level house.
Rhea sat on the sofa to finish her cocoa, careful not to spill anything on the cream-colored cushions. “So you’re staying, then.”
Leo laughed. “I don’t seem to have much choice.” He sat beside her, manspreading both arms and legs. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize it was a secret.”
“It’s my fault. I had no business telling you.”
“Have you told your sister about me?”
Rhea lowered her voice. “As little as possible.”
“Yeah.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I imagine she’s not too keen on the idea of her baby sister dating someone so much older.” He winked one impossibly vivid blue eye at her.
Rhea regarded him slyly. “So we’re dating, then?”
“Well. You were quite insistent that you wanted me.” The teasing look in his eyes was merciless.
Rhea set the mug on the coffee table and groaned into her hands.
Chapter 17
The guestroom had a somewhat narrow bed, but it beat being strapped to a chair.
As Leo started to unbutton his jeans, the expression on Rhea’s face, staring him down with her hands on her hips, made him pause. “What?”
“What are you doing?”
“Taking off my clothes.”
“What exactly do you think is about to happen here?”
Leo shrugged. “Munr. Not big on thinking.”
Rhea sighed, sitting on the bed. “First of all, that’s total crap. I don’t know exactly what a thought-self does, but you’ve done plenty of thinking. You were the one who got us out of a burning building an hour ago. Second, I think we’ve already established that I made a promise to Leo, and there won’t be any hanky-panky.”
He couldn’t help but smile at her quaint choice of words, even though her insistence on not crossing some imaginary sexual line was becoming tiresome. “I can sleep in my clothes—can’t really recall a time when I had a choice—but I have to point out that you’re the one who seems to have trouble keeping your hands off me.”
“That’s because you didn’t have the use of your hands.” Rhea’s gray eyes darkened, a dead giveaway that just thinking about touching him had gotten her blood pumping. “Also, my sister, who was basically my mom growing up, is directly above us right now, and there is no way in hell anything is going to happen, even if I wanted it to happen.”
“Which you do.”
“Leo.”
“I’m merely stating the obvious, not trying to persuade you to acquiesce to your own desires. If you want to sleep side by side in this little bed like chaste siblings, that’s your call. I can’t remember the last time I slept at all, so it will be a novel experience for me nonetheless.” He re-buttoned the jeans and started to remove the shirt. “Can I take this off, at least? It’s not really my style.”
“No.”
“Now you’re just being petty.”
Rhea threw back the covers and climbed between the sheets. “Nope. Just acknowledging my own limitations. You’re the one who pointed out that I couldn’t control myself around you, so you have only yourself to thank. And button it,” she added before rolling onto her side to face the wall.
With a shrug, Leo complied and climbed into bed beside her. He snuggled up behind her, spooning her, and she didn’t resist, her arms curving around his. Her hair smelled like smoke. And violets.
“So what happens at dawn?” she asked quietly, giving voice to the question in the back of both their minds since they’d escaped the fire.
“Honestly, I don’t know for certain. But I know what I want to happen. Absolutely nothing. I want to wake up beside you and remember this entire weird, wonderful and terrifying night. And when I do, perhaps you’ll stop waiting for him to come back and let yourself feel what you feel without having to analyze it and berate yourself for it.”
In truth, he was afraid to fall asleep. Afraid he’d wake to find himself in another town, in another motel room, miles and months away from Rhea Carlisle and the smell of violets.
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* * *
But it turned out Leo the Dull had been right about how this worked. He’d fallen asleep despite himself and despite the fact that Rhea was in his arms...and had woken up in the morning. And he was still here. Still himself. He didn’t feel like he was missing anything. Maybe the curse only served to keep him from remembering his true self. And breaking the bonds had broken the curse. This was who Leo was supposed to be. He was free.
He nibbled at Rhea’s earlobe, and she swatted at him in her sleep. The collar of her flannel shirt slipped down to expose her shoulder, and he kissed the warm flesh. He recalled brief flashes of memory of his daytime life over the past however many years, and he knew he’d been intimate with more than a few women, but it was like the memory of a recorded event, not the sensations. Like watching it on television. But Rhea was real.
He moved slowly up the slope of her neck, planting a chaste kiss every half inch.
Rhea shivered and stirred. “Leo?”
“The one and only.” He slipped his hand beneath her shirt, teasing his fingers upward along her side.
She rolled over to face him. “One and only. Are you saying...?”
“I haven’t gone anywhere. And I remember everything.” He meant he’d remembered everything that had passed during his nightly confinements, but it was clear from her response she believed he’d remembered his daytime self as well. That he was whole. And he considered himself whole, so there was no reason to split hairs.
Rhea slid her arms around his neck. “That’s wonderful news. No more nightly flights on the Wild Hunt.” She kissed him, and he felt like Sleeping Beauty awakened. Not the most masculine of images, perhaps, but the symbolism fit. He tasted her mouth as if for the first time, explored the velvet softness of her lips and tongue, forgetting to breathe until her hand slipped down between their bodies, making him gasp.
He covered by nipping at her ear. “What about your sister-mom?”
Rhea’s hand was making it hard for him to concentrate. “Not above us anymore. I hear her banging around in the kitchen. She’ll be busy for a while.”
Leo laughed nervously, his forehead against hers, feeling like an adolescent losing his virginity. It was absurd. He’d spent four of the last five nights doggedly trying to woo her, and now a single touch from her, knowing he was about to get what he wanted, made him nervous.
Rhea’s forehead creased. “What’s so funny?”
“Just that I feel this is the first time I’ve been myself in hundreds of years and I somehow feel like an amateur. I hope I still remember how to do this properly.”
It was Rhea’s turn to laugh. “I’m pretty sure you’ll figure it out.” She pushed him onto his back and climbed over him. “But in case you don’t, I’m happy to give you a refresher.” Rhea took off her top and tossed it aside before she began working through the buttons on his borrowed shirt.
He wove his fingers together behind his head and watched her with a grin. “So I don’t have to keep the shirt on?”
“Only if you want to seem like a creepy businessman having a nooner with a prostitute. But the socks are going to have to go. That’s just a rule I have.” He pulled off his socks with his toes while she bared his chest and ran her hands over his skin, sending little ripples of anticipation through him connected directly to his groin, before pausing to examine his pendant.
“Yggdrasil,” he said. “The World Tree.”
“It’s lovely.” She moved on to the pants. Her fingers were cold, but the slight shock of it against his flesh when she tugged down his briefs and exposed him was part of the pleasure.
Rhea’s eyes went a bit wide as she curled her hand around him. “Well, hello there. Aren’t you a big boy?”
Leo breathed in, trying to suppress the groan that wanted out. “Not sure I care for being called a boy,” he managed to say with what he felt was the right touch of amusement and arousal.
Rhea flicked her gaze up to meet his with an amused arch of her brow. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
It drew an unexpected laugh from him, earning one of those smiles of hers that said his laugh turned her on, which turned him on more, making his cock twitch eagerly in her hand.
“But maybe you’ll remember the feeling next time you’re tempted to call someone a girl.” She winked, her fingers corkscrewing slightly around his shaft.
Leo closed his eyes to slow his breathing. “I will,” he said after a moment, opening them again. “I will indeed remember the feeling.”
“Glad to hear it.”
She was still wearing her pink lace bra, and Leo nodded at it. “Are you going to keep that on?”
“Why?” She cupped one breast in her free hand. “Did you want me to take it off?”
“I would very much like it if you did, yes.” He let out a slight gasp as her hand twisted once more against him. “Please,” he added to cover the gasp. It was probably the sort of thing someone with a thought-self would say, anyway.
She seemed to appreciate the gesture. His cock ached when she let go, but it was worth the deprivation to watch her twist the little clasp of the front-closing bra—the best kind—and open it, freeing her petite breasts, dusky peach-colored tips hard in the cold air.
“Oh, gods.” He hadn’t realized he’d groaned the words aloud until she blushed. “You are utterly fantastic,” he added with a grin. He unhooked his hands from behind his head and reached to touch her, but Rhea seized his wrists and pushed them down to the pillow, her breasts now out of his reach yet tantalizingly close.
“No touching. Just looking.”
Leo raised an eyebrow. “Is this what we’re doing now?”
“For the moment. I need my concentration. Nipple stimulation is my kryptonite.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
When she let him go, he tucked his hands behind his head once more, watching her shimmy out of her pants. She kept on the matching pink lace panties, rising onto her knees as she straddled him, and Leo’s cock bobbed in his lap when she inched them down, slowly, maddeningly, revealing the tip of her dark, trimmed bush.
“This is some kind of torture, isn’t it? That’s what you’re trying to do? Torture me?”
“I don’t know. You’re the expert. You tell me.” Something sparkled between her thighs as the panties went lower, a little gold ring, nestled into her...
“Ohhhh, fuuuuuck.” The words escaped him slowly, luxuriously, as it dawned on him. The hood of her clitoris was pierced.
She tilted her head, multicolored pastel strands falling forward into her eyes. “Something wrong?”
Leo moved one hand to his cock compulsively, choking it, his thumbnail hard against the tip to keep from having the ultimate adolescent moment. “Something,” he groaned, “is exactly one hundred percent the opposite of wrong.”
Rhea grinned, one hand moving up to pinch her nipple while the other slid down to tug on the ring. As she opened her mouth, presumably to tease him further, the door behind her swung open.
“Rhea, what do you and—” Her sister’s face went white.
“Oh my God!” Rhea dove forward, ostensibly to cover herself but effectively throwing herself on top of his erection. “What the fuck, Ione? Get out!”
The white of her sister’s face went crimson, and she backed out and pulled the door closed with a snap.
Leo put his arms around Rhea, stroking the silk of her skin as the ring decorating her pussy rubbed against his cock.
She moaned against his chest, but it wasn’t a moan of pleasure. “I can’t believe she did that.”
“From the look on her face, I think she feels the same.”
Rhea wriggled in his arms, shaking with a sound between crying and laughing. Above the pink lace, her ass cheek was tattooed with a little blue crescent moon.
“Älskling, if we’re not going to finish, I need you to move a bit. Or I’m going to finish.”
Rhea choked back the laugh-crying and rolled onto the mattress on her side, burying her face in his shoulder. “Sorry. This was not how I intended this to go. But there’s no way I can—”
“Totally understandable. If incredibly uncomfortable.” He pulled up his briefs, trying to tuck in his erection.
“I knew I shouldn’t have tried to do anything here.” Rhea sighed regretfully and propped herself on her elbow. Little tattoos decorated the insides of her arms. There were others between her thighs and her lower belly he’d noticed only peripherally while watching her panties come away.
He stroked one on her arm, a little sprig of pink blossoms. “Did you do this? All these?”
“Most of them. They’re not my best work. I was still learning.”
“No, it’s beautiful. You’re like a canvas, a living sketchpad. The portfolio of the artist on her own skin. You shouldn’t cover them all the time.”
“I figured they wouldn’t be good examples to show clients.”
“Nonsense. They would be stunned by the evidence of your growing talent. I don’t imagine tattooing oneself is the easiest thing to do.”
“No, it isn’t.” Rhea brushed her fingers over the fresh work on Mjölnir, visible beneath the unbuttoned cuff of the borrowed shirt he still wore. “I didn’t get a chance to bandage this up at the shop, and I forgot after. But it looks good. You heal fast.”
“The benefits of being charmed.”
A tentative knock sounded on the door, and Rhea hitched her panties up and pulled the sheet up over them both. “What?”
“Sorry. Not coming in. I wasn’t going to bother you, but Dev made pancakes. But we can reheat them later.”
Rhea made a growling huff of frustration. “We’ll be out in a minute.” She glanced at Leo. “I mean, we don’t have to. She’s a pain in the ass. If you need to...uh...”
Leo laughed. “No, I’ll be fine. And pancakes sound delicious.” Everything sounded delicious. The bastard had rarely left anything within his reach to eat.
