“Try no sex at all.”
Her brows rocket up as she gaps at me. “How does your home um…reproduce? This is starting to sound more like a cult.”
I laugh, and the sound feels so odd in my throat it almost catches me off guard. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed like this.
“Wait…” Sophie squints at me from across the table, her jaw falling open. “Does that mean that you were—“Her voice trails off like she can’t bring herself to ask the question.
“A virgin?” I offer. “Yes, I was.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know if I believe that. You were too…”
“Good at it?” I smirk.
“Um…” Her cheeks flush pink. “Yeah.”
“Well, that’s good news for me. It means you’ll want to do it again.”
I expect her to laugh or crack a joke of her own, but instead, she looks confused behind her furrowed brow, like she’s trying to solve a mystery. She’s a smart girl. She’s knows something’s off about me, and I’m sure she’s aware that it’s because I’m not human.
In a world where shifters exist, how could I be human with reflexes that would rival comic book heroes, eyes that could pierce the dark, and a nose that could smell a wet dog from three blocks down? She’ll figure out soon enough if I don’t come out and tell her first. What’s another broken rule?
Her frown deepens. “You drink a lot.”
It wasn’t a question, but a fact. Even a blind person could safely draw that conclusion, it’s not a fact I ever cared to hide. “I did.”
“What do you mean, you did? You were drunk last night.”
“That was before I met you.”
“So you were serious about up and quitting cold turkey?”
Cold turkey. I roll my eyes. “What’s with you people and meat?”
I take another bite of my eggs and wave my fork at her, as if a bit of misplaced whimsy will actually dismiss this depressing topic of discussion. “Besides, I can quit, and I have. I don’t need that shit anymore.”
“Well, this might be an awkward time to tell you what I do for work, but I’m a bartender. So I’m around booze a lot. But I don’t drink much.”
“A bartender, huh?”
She nods, waggling her fork equipped with a bit of egg at me. “Yup, so what do we have to thank from your miraculous recovery of alcoholism?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Should it be?”
My eyes narrow. “Yes.”
I see her throat twitch with a gulp. She’s nervous, but I can also smell a tinge of arousal waft from under the table as she squirms as if she’s trying to scratch an itch that only parts of me can reach. “Is this the part where you tell me I’m like a drug to you, and you don’t need alcohol anymore because you’ve found a new addiction?”
“Didn’t I already say as much?”
“Yes but that’s…” She drops her tone as a waitress passes, eying us with curiosity and perhaps a touch of envy as she should, we’re a beautiful couple. “That’s when you were trying to get into my pants.”
I don’t miss the faintest of mocking ticks in her tone. “You speak as though it’s absurd.”
“Isn’t it? We met not even twenty-four hours ago, and we’re acting like we’ve known each other for an eternity.”
“I already told you, we’re fated—” I don’t get a chance to finish my words, she cuts me off with a flippant flick of her hair and stabs her fork into her chicken fried steak with a little too much force.
“Yeah, fated mates. You already said that. I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re a shifter, the same kind of people you think killed my sister.”
My blood runs cold. “I’m not a fucking werewolf, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Her lips flatten, and her eyes spark with defiance. She’s like me, a loner who’s been plunged into something strange and wonderful and her first reaction is to fight it, well- my cock twitches at the memory, her second reaction. “Then what are you?”
I shove another piece of egg in my mouth and grin at her with smug satisfaction. “You didn’t seem to care what I was when I was inside you last night.”
I say this loud enough to be heard by the restaurant patrons seated at the tables nearest us. A few turn their heads to look. Sophie’s cheeks flare with a glorious shade of red.
For a moment I think she might fling a sharpened retort at me, but instead, she goes incredibly still. Her bottom lip quiver and tears begin to well in her eyes. My heart melts in my chest.
“You don’t know me,” she whispers.
I lean forward, my elbows on the table. My eyes drill into her like I might see all her delicious secrets should I stare hard enough. “I want to know you. All you need to do is let me in.”
“I did and that’s what I’m afraid of. I feel my heart reaching out for you, like I need you. And if you want my fucked up mind to step aside and let my stupid heart do whatever it wants, I need to know I can trust you. And that starts with a little honesty. I don’t need to know what it is you are, not yet as long as you’re not some supernatural ax murderer.”
I cock a grin. “If I were a supernatural villain, I most certainly wouldn’t be wielding an ax of all things.”
“Your lumberjack aesthetic speaks otherwise.”
I rub my stubbled chin. I want to be completely transparent with Sophie. I don’t want to hide any of myself from her. I’m desperate for her to love me for all that I am. But as courageous as I know her to be, how could she not shy from the shadows I hold in my heart? How could she want me when she discovers I was Elise’s guardian angel?
And I let her die.
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me what my sister was to you.”
Fuck me. How could I tell her about my relationship with Elise when our only connection was what I am.
“She was a friend.”
“Liar.”
I arch a brow, trying not to allow any emotions to bleed onto my face. I had no doubt she would spot them, process and analyze them, and use those puzzle pieces to complete the whole picture in a matter of minutes.
“And how do you know that?”
Sophie dons a melancholy smile. “Because Elise didn’t have any friends. The people she fucked for drugs didn’t count.”
I watched as Sophie’s eyes dropped to her plate. With a cheek resting lazily in her palm, she pushes the last few scraps of hash browns around her plate with her fork. It’s clear that Sophie wasn’t close to her sister. It doesn’t take a keen eye to see that. I’ve hardly known this girl for a day yet that’s all it takes for me to know that Elise was like the night, she was dark, she didn’t like others to see her. She hid in the shadows, content to stay out of the light.
And Sophie is the day, blazing, bright, impossible to avoid if one didn’t want to die from lack of sustenance. She’s my sustenance.
I leaned back in the uncomfortable booth, sighing. “Watching over Elise was my job, at least it was supposed to be my job.”
At this, Sophie straightens. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope.”
“Is that why you were demoted? Because she died?”
Smart girl. That familiar swell of guilt and shame tries to rear its ugly head, but I force it down by concentrating on the brilliant light that’s radiating off the girl before me. She keeps away the darkness, she gives me a new meaning. I deserve a second chance if it means I can do a good job protecting her.
And I’ll protect her until I breathe my last fucking breath.
I nod. “Yeah… And there isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not kicking myself for it.”
“Is that why you always look as guilty as a whore in church?”
I’m caught off guard by her brazenness and her lack of anger. All I can do is gape at her.
Seeing my slack-jawed expression, she gives a humorless laugh and shakes her head. “Don’t tell me you feel responsible for my sister
’s death?”
My eyes narrow. “How can I not? It was my job to save her.”
“Yeah, and Elise was an adult. The fact is, she didn’t want to be saved. As much as I loved her, it’s her own fault for pushing people away and adopting the lifestyle she was in to. She knew it would kill her in the end.”
Well, I’ll be damned. “You sound like an old friend of mine.”
“Your friend sounds smart.”
“He is.”
“Who would bother sending help for my sister anyway.”
“People who think they are better than everyone else, who think they are doing people like Elise good.”
“Are they, better?”
I shake my head and slap a twenty on the table to pay for breakfast. It’s my last bit of money until the next stipend. Oh well, I have olives at home and electricity is overrated when you can see in the dark. “Not when they’re sending fuck-ups like me to save the day.”
Chapter 12
Sophie
“Jesus, you drive like a grandma.” I roll my eyes at Gideon, who’s hunched over the steering wheel like a man fifty years his senior. My new found lover had insisted he drive, and like a fool, I surrendered the keys to my Honda Civic without a second thought. The profound and inexplicable bond that’s formed between us in an instant, continues to baffle me every second I spend in this man’s company. I find myself trusting this guy, without evening really knowing why. This isn’t like me. I don’t trust anyone. I gave my virginity to him after knowing him for barely two hours.
What’s even more absurd, it still feels like it was the right thing to do. He feels right for me.
“Geez, if I were driving we would be there by now.”
“I’m going the speed limit, thank you.” His tone is clipped, as if daring me to further argue the point. But I see the ghost of a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m not sure I can be with a sadist.”
He swivels his eyes, flashing me an incredulous look. “I didn’t hurt you last night, I’ll never hurt you, Sophie.”
I bit the smile that curls at my lips, unable to bridle it. “Then stop torturing me and drive faster.”
I don’t know if it’s because of my audacity that his eyes flash and skirt back to the road with a gravely growl, or if it’s because I drive him crazy. Either way, I think I like riling him. Besides, this playfulness feels natural and it allows me to put the brakes on the serious stuff. Last night had been…a gift. Or rather, a package. A very large package complete with a sprawling red couch, midnight eyes that could read my mind and please me in all the ways I’ve only dreamt of, and skilled hands that read my body like braille.
A delightful shudder rakes my body and my nipples pebble at the memory. It’s as if Gideon can sense my sudden arousal, his nostrils flare and his knuckles whiten as he clenches the steering wheel tighter. I don’t miss the bulge in his pants, hardening as he watches me squirm in his periphery.
I’m not sure if it’s the trick of the street lights reflecting in Gideon’s obsidian gaze, or if it’s something more sinister, sparking to life. When the car picks up speed, at a ridiculous rate, I’m sure it’s the latter.
“Faster it is, as my lady wishes.”
Before I can interject, he jerks at the wheel and my Honda takes a sharp turn down a deserted side road. We’re going faster than we should in a residential area. I look out the window at the blur of buildings streaking by and frown. “This isn’t the direction to the address I gave you.”
After breakfast, I hadn’t told Gideon where I’d planned to go today if efforts to find my sister’s murderer. I had a feeling he wouldn’t like it, so I just told him the address and ignored his questions in the meantime. I would tell him our destination as soon as we arrived, as his curiosity would hopefully override that strange protectiveness he flexes over me.
“I know. Wherever we’re going, it can wait. Right now I’m going at a pace to please my mate since apparently, she’s an adrenaline junky.”
“That’s not really what I—” I never finish my sentence. Gideon’s hand dips in the waistline of my jeans, and when his index finger presses against my labia my words are punctuated with a sharp gasp.
The car continues to pick up speed as his finger hooks into my panties and slips between the folds of my wet heat. I jerk my attention to my salacious savior, whose eyes are glued to the road, glazed with an intense focus, as if his attention wasn’t half divided between the street, and what lies between my legs.
I opened my mouth to speak but again, the only thing that escaped my throat is a lusty moan as his finger began to rub my clitoris in firm, circular motions.
Oh god.
I watch his chiseled jaw tighten, and his kissable lips press into a hard line as he focuses, on what I’m not really sure. A shiver of delight ripples up my spine as his hand strokes my most private place, with such familiarity and skill, he’s acting like we’ve done this a thousand times before.
A strange and enticing pledge lies buried in the abyss of his dark eyes. In them, is an oblivion that I feel safe in, hidden away by the shadows with Gideon to stand watch and keep me safe from all that I have suffered in the wake of his absence these past years. It’s an absence I didn’t even know about until yesterday.
Any normal person would be frightened, sitting where I am, zipping along in a twenty-five going fifty-five or sixty. But for some strange reason, I feel safer than ever right by his side. The words he whispered to me last night echo through my mind, the memory of his husky, velvety voice bringing my womanhood to quiver in his hand, ‘it’s a dark and wondrous magic.’
Dark and wondrous indeed.
Whatever it is between us, it’s not normal. It’s what’s binding us tightly together and somehow I know, our futures are now woven together in a way that we couldn’t undo if either of us wanted to. Call it fate. Call it magic. Call it love at first sight. Call it absolute insanity.
Whatever it is, I’m desperate for every delicious second this handsome creature decides to spend beside me. He’s my key to figuring out Elise’s sad fate, and he’s the key to figuring out my fate, one that’s far brighter than my sister’s.
I arch into Gideon’s hand, begging wordlessly for more. His touch is confident, with all the skill of a man who has mastered the female body, supposedly without much practice at all. I can spend an eternity under his touch, against his body, feeding on those perfect lips that I ache to kiss. I can’t wait for when I am once again lying beneath him, feeling his rapid heartbeat against the bare skin of my chest, tangled together, like we were always meant to be one from the start.
I really am insane. I’m Sophie, the loner. Sophie, who was abandoned by my junkie of a mother and my deadbeat of a father. Sophie, who couldn’t make a connection with her own twin sister. But with this man, it’s like I’ve found a missing part of my soul.
And I want all of him so that I might never know the feeling of emptiness ever again.
The Seattle streets blur past — if we’re still in Seattle. I’m not paying attention anymore. “S-slow down,” I pant. My command comes out soft and sensual, not demanding.
A dark chuckle rolls from his chest, zapping the air around us with a charge of sexual energy that feels as dangerous as it is exciting. “Are you talking about the car or my finger inside you?”
I blink, trying to focus my vision through the dark of my vehicle’s interior. “You’re not inside me—” My statement is smothered by a moan as two thick fingers suddenly slip past my folds and into my pussy, stretching me open.
Gideon’s chuckle shifts to a silken growl. “You’re already wet.”
My pulse races as an erotic tingle shoots through my body, filling every inch of me with the most blissful of sensations. He works his finger in and out, at first slow and then with a more fevered pace that has me gasping for him not to stop, but to slow the damn car down.
“I’ll slow down when you come for me, Sophie.”
&
nbsp; My heart clenches in my chest. The bastard is teasing me, in a dangerous and dark way that doesn’t have me actually frightened, not with the way his eyes are widened and focused as if they are pulling everything in and processing our surroundings at a speed that rivals the car. Instead, anger clashes with lust, igniting a fire inside me that rages, fueled with passion and longing and frustration.
“Damn you,” I whisper through clenched teeth. I arch up from my seat and grid against his hand, making desperate love to it as he watches me with thin hunger. The way he looks at me, I feel so fucking sexy. He makes me feel all sorts of things I’ve never had before.
Gideon’s lips stretch into a diabolical grin, one that would look at home on the devil’s face should it have been sitting in my car. “Oh, my sweet, I’m already damned. Once I’m forced to part from this mortal coil foisted upon me, I am destined straight for the Pit. And I intend to revel drown in your sweet cunt until I’m dragged from it.”
His words are strange. Like what we’re doing is wrong, forbidden even. And deep down, a part of me knows it is though I don’t know why.
This is dangerous, depraved, and absurd. Yet it all feels right. Since the moment he shielded me from the shifter’s bullets and carried me to safety, It felt so right.
I clench around his intruding digits as he plunges and plunders my sex with all the skill of a seasoned courtesan. I shiver and moan and whimper like a virgin, speared upon his fingers, wishing that it was his cock in their place.
“Come for me, baby,” he growls, and his command is my undoing. His fingers push me over the edge, and for a moment, I feel like I’m flying, and then I plummet into euphoric oblivion. I allow the spasms of the most intense orgasm to sap the energy from my body.
I slump in my chair, crying out as he pulls himself from me with a smug smirk perched on his lips. As promised, he taps on the breaks, resuming an old man pace that had another car riding our bumper in a matter of seconds.
Claimed by my Dark Angel: A Forbidden Paranormal Romance (Saints to Sinners Book 1) Page 8
