Joel studied her. One of his hands fell away, but the other trailed down the side of her face. Slowly. So slowly.
Her heart stuttered in her chest. Her stomach clenched in anticipation.
His fingertip was so hot against her cheek it practically seared her skin and made her want things she hadn’t wanted in quite some time.
He traced down to her chin then lazily made his way back up. He took a detour at the level of her mouth. His finger brushed the edge of her lips and recklessly Melanie opened her mouth. Her tongue darted out and laved the tip of his finger, coaxing it to come closer.
Joel inhaled sharply. The dark blue in his eyes churned with raw emotion.
Melanie’s breasts ached and heat pooled low in her abdomen. She drew Joel’s finger further into her mouth.
His gaze never left her, and she’d never felt a stronger connection with someone. She should feel embarrassed by her actions, but she wasn’t. She enjoyed the animalistic desire staring back at her, the way Joel’s Adam’s apple bobbed and the muscles in his neck bunched. She was driving him nuts and she loved it.
She ran her tongue over a callus and bit down just behind his nail bed.
”Fuck.” He hastily glanced to the front of the room where two people were working on laptops, with their headphones on. Neither one even looked up at the sound.
With one final suck she released his finger. His hand dropped to the table like a lead weight. Joel didn’t even seem to notice.
What are you doing, Melanie? her inner voice of reason spoke up.
She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything anymore.
“I don’t even know you,” she repeated. Maybe if she spoke the words aloud, her brain would stop what her body seemed to be doing all on its own.
Joel’s knee brushed hers under the table as he slid closer. “Sometimes you only need to know what you already know, and fate will take care of the rest.”
Melanie reared back from him. His words were like a slap in her face.
Fate. That damned goddess Alexander worshiped.
Could it be possible that Joel was as deluded as Alexander? Had she read Joel wrong? That she was falling for the same kind of guy all over again ate at her.
Wait … falling?
She cursed herself mentally. It was true. His charming, nervous boy routine was lowering her defenses. He was just so damn caring. Even now his face held nothing but worry.
“What’s wrong?” He reached for her, but she pulled her hand away. The muscles in his jaw bunched at her retreat. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing,” he added before she could open her mouth and say it. “Something made you shut down. What is it? You look frazzled. You can’t hold it all in. Eventually you’ll need an outlet.”
“And you volunteer to be that outlet?” she snapped at him. She should have known this was bound to come back to sex. It always did when it came to men. God, she’d been an idiot, and here a few seconds ago she’d almost admitted to falling for the guy.
But Joel surprised her. “I’ll always be here for you,” he said without a hint of anything more attached to the statement. “Everyone needs someone to talk to, someone to listen to them. But if you don’t want me around, I’ll leave. I won’t force my company on you.”
Heat flooded Melanie’s cheeks. What was wrong with her? She was sending mixed signals left and right and couldn’t seem to stop herself. She was out of control and she didn’t like it.
Focus.
Yes, she had a lot on her plate, but she could deal, she always did.
When Joel started to rise from his seat, she was the one to reach out. Her heart quivered when her fingers touched the back of his hand, and she started to trace the scars beneath her fingertips.
And just like that, desire flared between them again. It filled the room until it was a wonder the two people at the front couldn’t feel the weight of it.
“How did you get them?” she asked.
Joel stared down, studying her. Whatever he saw made him sit back down. “Cars,” he said simply. “My dad used to own a ’73 Pontiac Firebird, red,” he said with a grin, like the color meant everything. “I used to help him work on it. My mother hated it, hated how cut up I used to get because I never paid any attention to the danger. I never wore the gloves she got me, either. She used to get so mad at Dad for not enforcing the covered hands rule. I just liked taking things apart with my hands and putting them back together again.” He shrugged. “But Dad knew the importance of getting your hands dirty. I used to have oil and grease in my fingernails for weeks.” He stared down at his nail beds, as if imagining the grime there again.
She withdrew her hands and folded them into her lap, tracing the carvings in the wood tabletop with her eyes to keep them from drifting to Joel. “I received a note earlier today,” she said when she built up the nerve. Joel was silent, and she wanted so badly to look up and see the expression his face held, but she plowed on.
“It was from my ex.” She heard a knuckle pop. Still, she kept her eyes down. “I put a restraining order on him weeks ago, and I really thought he’d stay away this time, but apparently my new job is somewhere he frequents. So, of course, he thinks this is a sign from Fate—that bitch goddess he seems to love so much.” She gave a snort. “I don’t even know if Fate is a real goddess or not, but either way he thinks we’re meant to be together.” She shook her head and finally lifted her head. “It’s not, though—a sign, I mean. There’s no such thing as destiny. Fate doesn’t decide who we love. We do. Free will. I thought I loved him, but love doesn’t hurt you intentionally.” She realized too late that she’d slipped. Let go of something she didn’t intend to. “Not that kind of hurt anyway,” she whispered.
Joel’s eyes widened at the word hurt. His face darkened with rage. Trepidation crept up Melanie’s spine, but Joel’s anger wasn’t directed at her.
“He never hit me,” she explained, though she had no idea why she was defending Alexander. “He used to leave lots of bruises on my arms. He liked to grab me, especially when we’d get into arguments, as if he could force his opinion into me with nothing but the pressure of his fingers on my skin.” Never again. “He’s also the reason why I carry this around.” She pulled out her key chain and showed him the bright pink can of pepper spray.
“So that is why you pulled away from me earlier when I mentioned fate?” Joel asked carefully.
She nodded. “There’s no such thing. It’s just an excuse. A reason someone can keep pursuing another when clearly the interest is only one-sided.”
Joel’s shoulders slumped and something passed through his eyes too quickly for Melanie to identify. She felt as if she’d let him down.
“What’s this guy’s name?”
“Alexander.” She didn’t offer his last name.
She didn’t trust the dangerous and protective glint in his eye.
“If he ever shows up at your work, you call me.” He pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to her. “Call me whenever you need anything. And I mean that. Anything.”
Again, if she’d received that line from any other man, she’d have taken it sexually, but maybe that wasn’t the case with Joel. Maybe he cared about her and she’d been too caught up in her own problems to probe deeper into why that was.
What was so special about her?
Besides the obvious supernatural ability she held.
It was a mystery she was determined to unravel, but the moment had passed.
Already Joel was shifting into mentor mode. He let his arm fall across the table, his palm open to the ceiling. “Okay,” he told her, “training starts now. Try and take my ability. I want you to Lock my arm to the table as well as my index and middle finger together.”
Chapter 9
She didn’t believe in fate. She didn’t believe in destiny. And Joel knew Melanie sure as hell wouldn’t believe in Mirror Mates.
Maybe that was a blessing in disguise.
He drove home in silence, his mi
nd replaying his conversation with Melanie. His fingers tightened around his steering wheel at the idea of that bastard Alexander leaving bruises on her. He ground his teeth and pulled into his driveway. He shoved his truck into park perhaps a bit too forcefully and slammed the door as he took his front stairs in one big leap.
There was a message waiting for him on his cell when he pulled it out. Sydney. The last person he wanted to hear from right now. Ignoring the voicemail, he pitched his cell into the living room as he headed to the kitchen.
He fixed himself something to eat before calling Felix. He needed a distraction from Melanie. While things were taking a step in the right direction, he had no idea how he was going to breach the topic of Mirror Mates, or even if he should.
“Please tell me you have something to report on these new suit guys?” Joel asked as soon as Felix picked up.
“Sorry, man, nothing. The only new information we have is that these guys aren’t working for Vander. Cali got ahold of Jente. We ruled out that it’s not them. Cali asked Jente to let her know if he comes across anything else.” Joel could hear the repressed anger in Felix’s voice. Nearly a year ago Vander Donahughe had abducted Cali, and it still rubbed Felix the wrong way that Jente and not he had been the one to save her from that horror house.
“I guess if anyone can gather information on these suit guys, it’s that kid,” Joel said. Jente was a Veiler, so he had the ability to turn invisible, which made him such a great commodity. The only problem was that he worked for Vander. He couldn’t be trusted, but what choice did they have at this point? Joel was coming up with nothing electronically. And now they knew these goons didn’t work for Vander. Joel didn’t like how this was playing out one bit. New meat sniffing around was not what he needed. It stacked the odds against them, and now that Melanie had shown up in his life, he had one more person to worry about.
“Did you listen to the message Sydney left you yet?” Felix asked, breaking Joel from his thoughts.
He should have known Sydney would ask Felix to do her dirty work. Sydney and Felix had been best friends for years, well before the Guild of Aletheia was ever formed. “Not yet. Want to give me the Cliffs Notes version?”
“Niella called in sick today at the clinic,” Felix said.
And this was concerning, how?
“She’s never called in sick before,” Felix explained. “She’s not sick either; she just didn’t want to come in, which isn’t like her.”
“Maybe she wants a vacation.”
Felix sighed. “I don’t think that’s it. Sydney’s worried, Merrick’s worried … shit, we’re all worried.” Joel could all but see Felix running his hand through his hair, a habit he did whenever he was stressed out.
“Did anyone go check on her?” Joel was technically the closest and he could drive over if they needed him to.
“Luke and Cali drove over there earlier, but Niella didn’t open the door. She talked to them through it.”
Joel frowned. That didn’t sound like Niella. She might close the door in your face, but she’d at least open it. Why didn’t she want anyone to see her?
“We don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Felix said. “Do you think you could search the web for anything?”
Joel was already on his way to his office. “I’m on it.” He booted up his computer.
“How’d your date go with Melanie?”
Joel dropped down into his computer chair. “Not so good. I mean the lesson went great, but she … ” He drifted off as he remembered her tongue along his finger, the wet heat of her mouth as she sucked on him. His blood quickened.
“If you dozing off is any indication, than I don’t think it went that bad.” Felix’s voice held a smile.
Joel wished that was all that happened. Well, if he were honest, he’d wished more than her mouth on his finger had happened. “She doesn’t believe in fate,” he confided to Felix. “Or destiny or anything like that, where a higher power is in control of who she loves.”
Felix was quiet for a moment. “That could be a problem.”
“Maybe not. I mean, I’m only here to keep her safe.”
Silence. Then finally, “Joel, she’s your Mirror Mate.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Why are you denying this?” Felix asked.
“Because I’m not ready for it,” he confessed.
Felix laughed without humor. “What a bunch we make, huh? Our whole guild knows about Mirror Mates, and what do we do when we find them? Hop on the denial train. Cali denied it, Sydney did, Merrick too. Now you. You’d think we’d know better by now, but I guess it’s human nature or something.”
“Or something,” Joel mumbled.
Was he being unreasonable? To deny something he’d dreamed of simply because he wasn’t ready?
Was this fate’s way of saying, “So you had a bad breakup. Life goes on. Now start living”?
“So she’s not your Mirror Mate,” Felix said with an air that made it obvious he thought Joel was an idiot. “Where did this disbelief in fate come from?”
“It turns out that her last boyfriend would get a little violent with her, and he believed fate wanted them to be together.”
“Well, shit.”
“In a nutshell. Things were going great between us and then she mentioned something about not knowing me and I stupidly opened my mouth, telling her that she knew enough and that fate would take care of the rest or some bullshit. It completely freaked her out.”
“Why’d you bring up fate in the first place if you didn’t think she was your Mirror Mate?” Felix said with annoying rationale.
Angry silence was Joel’s answer.
“Look, I know right now you think Melanie isn’t your Mirror Mate, but if she is, trust me when I say that everything you’re going through now will be worth it in the end. The feeling you get when the bond is complete is simply indescribable.”
Joel could only imagine. He felt the spark between himself and Melanie, couldn’t imagine a stronger chemistry with anyone. He’d been so content with Sydney that he didn’t think there was anything more out there. How wrong he’d been. What he felt for Melanie was intoxicating. He wanted to hear her voice, touch her skin, and breathe in her scent. He wanted to be able to put a sparkle in her eye and a flush on her cheeks.
You’re in over your head, Kegler.
Maybe.
Maybe he was an idiot for ignoring what appeared to be right in front of him, but he didn’t care. He was going to be there for Melanie. As much as he’d love to knock that bastard Alexander’s teeth in, he wasn’t a fighter like Felix was. If by chance Joel ever learned that fucker’s last name, perhaps he’d ruin his credit scores and destroy his whole electronic identity.
The thought made him smile.
“You still there?”
He’d forgotten he was even on the phone. He chatted a little more with Felix before hanging up and searching for anything on Niella’s condition.
The task was a good distraction from Melanie and Mirror Mates.
• • •
Melanie blinked, certain she wasn’t seeing properly. Nope, nothing wrong with her eyes. Joel was sitting on a yoga mat on the far left side of her class, waving her over. He was in black basketball shorts and another graphic tee. This time it was Batman.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered as she rolled her mat out beside him.
A couple of people shot her dirty looks for making noise during their warm up stretches, but she ignored them. Joel didn’t even seem to notice them.
He spread his arms wide. “I signed up for yoga with you,” he said brightly. Then he proceeded to try to get his fingers to touch behind his back in that age-old test kids had been doing since grade school. “Think it’ll help me with this?”
Melanie failed to repress her smile. “You do realize there’s no talking during yoga, right?”
More angry glares and Melanie jerked her head in their direction.
Joel drop
ped his arms to his side. “I thought that was only for certain kinds.”
She covered her laugh with a cough.
“Well, this was pointless,” Joel mumbled, but it was too late to help him slip out. The instructor came in and started the session.
Melanie was oddly pleased at Joel’s surprise appearance. It’d been a long time since she’d gotten this kind of male attention—healthy male attention. He wasn’t a barfly ogling her, he wasn’t stalking her out of some sick obsession, he was genuinely interested in spending time with her. She also had to admit that she didn’t mind the view either. As the instructor took them through the poses, her gaze kept drifting over to Joel and the black material of his shirt stretched taut over his back, showcasing all that lean muscle hidden underneath.
She wasn’t the only one taking in the lone male in the class either. Three young women had set up shop behind Joel. Melanie narrowed her eyes every time she caught them staring. Especially when they giggled at Joel’s lack of flexibility. Melanie had to bite her cheek a couple of times when he nearly fell over doing tree pose and warrior pose. He was a trouper though, never getting frustrated, just persisting.
He caught her staring a couple of times and gave her one of those grins. She was tremendously grateful she hadn’t signed up for a hot yoga class. She would have died from heat stroke.
Off-limits, Melanie.
She knew she couldn’t get involved, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t look.
Once the class was finished, Joel rolled up his mat and flopped it over his shoulder. “Want to grab a cold drink?”
“Yes.” Her answer was immediate. She needed something to cool her off, and quickly.
It wasn’t until they were standing in line for a smoothie that she realized this was their first time hanging out outside the community center.
This was almost like a real date.
She tried not to think on that too long. It made her objective sit like a stone in her gut. It was time to play detective for Juliet.
Melanie grabbed one of the tall, bar-style chairs set up at the front of the smoothie bar, looking out at the people walking by on the sidewalk. Joel took the seat next to her and she propped herself on her elbow, all nonchalant. “So,” she took a sip of smoothie, “ever been to jail?”
Locked Out of Love Page 6
