by Debra Doxer
“Let’s get a drink.” I straighten abruptly and fan myself with my hand.
He shows me a satisfied, arrogant grin before taking my hand and turning to lead the way back. I’m following behind him, admiring the view, when someone steps in my path, making me lose my grip on him. Keeping the top of his head in sight, I push past the moving bodies in my way until I have a clear view of him again. Just then, a pair of female arms wind their way around his waist. As I’m watching, the hand attached to one of those arms moves lower and palms his ass. I stop in my tracks, frozen first in shock and then in outrage.
Lucas turns with a familiar sexy smile until he sees who owns the hand. Then the smile drops into a scowl. He takes her arms and returns them to her. I follow the line of those pale arms to a body clad in a tight black dress, dark blonde hair curling along the sides of hoisted-up, exposed cleavage. She’s grinning at him with a perfect white smile. She’s gorgeous, and she seems to think his ass is hers. I quickly unfreeze, intending to march up there and explain things to her, when Lucas looks back at me. I expect him to seem annoyed, rolling his eyes in exasperation or to appear smug, shamelessly shrugging at how irresistible he is. But his expression goes blank as he catches my eye, and something twists inside me. He knows her. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be schooling his face so carefully.
He turns back and says something to her that wipes away the coy smile and has her sneering at him instead. I can read the words “the other night” on her lips before she flips him off and disappears into the crowd. The whole thing lasts a few seconds, but it feels like the ground just shifted beneath me.
Lucas’s eyes are on me again, and their cool depths are cautious. I still haven’t moved. When I don’t come to him, he walks back toward me. He reaches for my hand and starts to pull me along with him. I hear Nikki calling us, but we keep moving past her table toward the door and then out onto the sidewalk, into the cool night air.
My ears are ringing from the noise inside, and my blood is pumping fast. I look at him standing beside me, just watching me, not saying anything, and I know I don’t have a right to the sinking feeling inside me. I turn to go back in again.
“Wait.” His fingers wrap around my arm.
I don’t turn around. “I know you’ve decided we’re leaving, but I left my bag in there, and I have to say good-bye to Nikki.” Without looking back, I pull my arm away, and he lets it go. Then I catch the bouncer’s attention. He allows me to bypass the line to go back into the club. I find Nikki’s table again, grab my bag, and explain to her that we’re going.
She winks at me. “I understand. You two looked pretty hot out there. Thanks for briefly gracing us with your presence.”
I grimace.
“No, seriously.” She laughs. “It’s fine.”
I make myself smile at her, thankful she didn’t see the exchange between Lucas and the blonde. If she had, I’d probably be getting an earful about what a jerk he is.
Reluctantly, I push my way back toward the door again, but before going outside, I swallow my resentment. I left him. Therefore I have no right to be angry if he was with someone else during that time. And I have no right to the bile burning at the back of my throat at the thought of her touching him. I have no right to any of it.
When I get outside, he’s just where I left him. “I’m ready,” I say, keeping my expression as neutral as his.
His lips form a straight line as he starts to walk. We travel the three blocks back to his truck in silence. He opens my door, but before I can get in, he blocks the way. “Are you even going to ask me about her?”
I look up at him in the darkness. “No.”
“No?” His eyes narrow on me.
My stomach jumps as I watch his expression grow fierce. I expected him to be relieved that I’m not acting like a jealous girlfriend.
“So what? You don’t care?” Lucas is watching me closely. It looks like his feelings are hurt by my reaction, and I want to laugh at the irony.
“Did you sleep with her?” I hear myself asking, bracing for the answer.
“No. But I kissed her, and I thought about it.” He says it bluntly, almost angrily.
I flinch and he notices, his nostrils flaring, his eyes challenging.
When I still don’t say anything, he bears down on me. “I met her here a few weeks ago. Cal convinced me to come out with him and his friends.”
I pull in a shaky breath. Cal again. I wonder if this happened the same night he got drunk and made Cal despise me. “Why didn’t you?” I ask.
“What? Sleep with her?” He starts to laugh, and it’s an awful sound without a trace of humor. “Because she’s not you, and I wasn’t drunk enough to forget that.”
My hands grip the straps of my bag as everything I put him through over the past few months gets projected back at me through his wounded eyes. “Have you slept with anyone since you’ve been here?”
“Why?” He scowls. “I thought you didn’t care.”
When he makes that statement, the floodgates I’ve been holding back burst wide open. “I don’t have the right to care! But that doesn’t mean I don’t. God, I cared too much. I wanted to punch that girl in the face when she grabbed you.” I can feel the way my top lip curls up when I picture the blonde’s hand on him.
His eyes sharpen.
“It made me sick to see the way she touched you. The idea of you being with anyone else…” I break off, unable to finish.
“What, Ray?” he asks softly. “Tell me.”
“It hurts,” I whisper.
In that moment, his harsh stance softens. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he says. “It happened, and you have every right to be upset with me. But I haven’t been with anyone else since I met you. I promise.”
I exhale slowly because I believe him. I trust him. He may be the only person I’ve ever really trusted. It scares me, how much I feel for him and how easily he can hurt me. Then I say what I’m thinking, realizing he’ll like hearing me sound possessive. “Don’t let it happen again.”
He blinks. Then he slowly smiles. “I won’t. That goes both ways, you know.”
My head shakes at that possibility. “You have nothing to worry about. You’re the only one who would put up with me.”
Laughing now, he gives me an incredulous look. “Your cluelessness is cute. But it’s going to get you in trouble one day.”
“I’m not clueless.”
“Says the clueless girl.”
“Hey.” I feign annoyance, but I’m glad to see the warmth back in his eyes. “By the way, what did you say to her back there? I saw her flip you off.”
“I told her the truth.” He shrugs. “That she was a stand-in for the real thing, but the real thing is back now.”
“You did not,” I reply, completely appalled.
His eyebrows inch up. “I can be a real bastard. You of all people should know that.”
Swallowing, I kind of feel bad for her now. But not too bad.
“Ready to go?” he asks. “So we can finish what we started at the beach and then continued on the dance floor?”
I nod, wanting alone time with him, too, needing it even more now than I did back on that dance floor. Once we’re in the truck, I lean my head back, realizing how tired I feel. Lucas’s aggressive personality can be exhausting sometimes, the way he’s all over me if he thinks I’m holding anything back. But the truth is, someone less sure of himself and more willing to let me stay in my shell would never make me feel the way he does. It’s his willingness to challenge me and drag me kicking and screaming from the places I like to hide that have cemented him in my heart. He fills me with every emotion, and then he makes me confess to each one of them.
I wasn’t being clueless when I told him that no one else would put up with me. I know I’m attractive, or at least I can be when I try, but I’m emotionally unavailable. My heart is cold. That’s basically what every guy before Lucas told me, although not in so many words, and not always so nicely. I’m d
ifferent with him, though. My heart was never cold. It was just in some sort of stasis while I was trying to survive each day. But it’s not anymore. It pumps hard and fast for Lucas. He makes me feel so many things. My feelings for him are intense and persistent, and they root more deeply inside me each day. The fact that he’s easy on the eyes and sexy as hell doesn’t hurt either. And now he says he’s never leaving me. No matter what.
“What’s that smile about?” he asks, glancing across the seat at me.
“You,” I reply, not realizing that I was smiling. I can see my answer surprises him as he flashes me a pleased grin.
“I marked you,” he says, his eyes on the side mirror now, waiting for an opening in the traffic.
“What?”
He taps the curve between his neck and shoulder and then directs his eyes to the same place on me. My forehead wrinkles as I reach for the sun visor, pulling it down and pointing the mirror at myself. It’s too dark to see it clearly, but it looks like there’s a small red blotch on my skin. My temperature starts to rise as I recall the feel of Lucas’s mouth on me there. “You gave me a hickey?”
His response is an amused wink.
After flipping the sun visor back up, my fingers skim over the mark. I haven’t had one of these since I was fourteen and fooled around after school with my first boyfriend. Deciding to try something, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. My energy sparks inside me, and I send it up toward the broken blood vessels. Warmth radiates along the curve of my neck and then down over my shoulder. I flip the visor down to check again. “It’s gone.” I smile.
Lucas gives me confused look.
“I healed it. I wanted to see if I could.”
He laughs under his breath and shakes his head. “Then I’ll just have to put it back again.”
Leaning back in my seat, I grin at the thought. “Maybe someplace less conspicuous.”
“I can think of a few places like that,” he says. When I glance at him, the humor in his eyes has faded, replaced by something more intense. He reaches out for my hand and holds it firmly for the rest of the drive.
When we finally arrive at Lucas’s apartment, cars line the street and packs of people are milling around on the front lawn. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Cal’s having a party.”
A huge one by the looks of it. The whole house is lit up, and I can hear the music pouring out from where we’re parked almost a block away.
“Your place?” he asks hopefully.
My stomach clenches. “With Shane possibly eavesdropping again?”
“We can be quiet.”
My eyes grow round. There’s no way I could do that. I’d be too self-conscious and just plain pissed if Shane was anywhere to be found. “Can’t we go to your room and lock the door?”
He runs a hand over his cheek and looks back at the party again. “If I had a working lock, which I don’t. Anyway, Cal’s probably got half the party in there using my Xbox.”
“You’ve hardly unpacked anything, but you’ve got your Xbox set up?”
“Priorities,” he says matter-of-factly. “Let’s go to a hotel.”
My hands twist in my lap as our little romantic bubble starts to deflate again. We don’t have any of our things with us, and we need to be ready to leave early in the morning. Something I haven’t even told Lucas about yet. “Let’s just go to the condo.”
He gives me a hesitant look. “You sure?”
I nod in defeat. “We’ll be quiet.” Then I try not to let him see how much I really don’t like that idea.
He watches me for a moment as his jaw tightens. “Fuck it. I’ll kick them out. It is my room.”
Slumping into the seat, I stifle a yawn as I notice more people arriving.
“You’re tired?” he asks.
I am. We hardly slept at all last night. But I only shrug at him.
“You won’t get any sleep here.” He states the obvious, eyeing the party again. “Fine. We’ll go to the condo. But I’m going to fucking kill Shane the next time I see him.”
“That makes two of us,” I mutter under my breath.
As we drive past the party, the romantic mood has faded for me, and with Shane possibly listening, we won’t be able to discuss the plan for tomorrow morning once we get to the condo. I have no choice but to tell Lucas now. “By the way, Grant is taking us to Palm Springs in the morning. There’s a woman there he thinks I should talk to.”
At the sound of Grant’s name, Lucas’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “When did you talk to him?”
“Earlier, at my father’s house, when you were in the library. He found me in the hallway.”
He glances at me. “What did he say exactly?”
“That my father isn’t the only one who can help me. He told me this woman used to work with my father, but she’s on the outs with him now. He wants to take us to talk to her.” I’m trying not to sound as anxious as I feel about this.
“Does your father know you’re going to see her?” he asks.
“I haven’t talked to him about it.”
“Is it a good idea to go behind his back and start trusting Grant?” The way he grimaces every time he says Grant’s name tells me what his answer to that question is.
I cross my arms. “This isn’t about trusting Grant. It’s about finding out as much as I can. If my father isn’t my only option, that would be good news. Right? I figured you would think so.”
A grunt is his only response. “So is that all Grant said?”
When I don’t answer right away, his eyes sharpen on me. “What else did he say?”
I sigh, knowing he won’t like that Grant is sharing personal stories with me. “He told me about his fiancée, and how she left him.”
His expression turns skeptical. “No kidding? That’s too bad.”
But he doesn’t sound like he feels bad, and I find myself defending Grant. “It was a pretty messed-up situation, actually. He’s had a rough time. I know you don’t like him, but I get the feeling he’s on our side.”
Lucas bites out a laugh. “He may be on your side, but he’s definitely not on mine.”
GRANT HAS a quiet confidence about him when he watches her, like he knows it’s only a matter of time before she comes to her senses and dumps my ass for him. Of course, Raielle is completely oblivious to the predatory look in his eyes. I have a shit ton of worries when it comes to her, but despite what I said to her last night, other guys don’t top the list. She wouldn’t hurt me that way. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to smash his face in for having those kinds of thoughts about her.
We slept here at the condo last night, and lucky for Shane, there was no sign of him. Since I doubt Raielle will ever live here again, I suggested we move her stuff to my place when we get back later today. Because she doesn’t have much, that shouldn’t take long.
“You ready to go?” Grant asks, his eyes only on her. I want to offer to drive because I’m pretty sure I know who he plans on having ride shotgun with him. But they’ve already got it arranged for him to drive, and since I don’t want to look like the jealous, petty boyfriend I probably am, I keep my mouth shut about it.
We follow him downstairs and the valet brings his car around. My eyes widen when I see it’s a black 1964 Pontiac GTO, a classic muscle car. He notices me admiring it. “I restored it myself,” he says. “Found the parts for it all over the country. Took me nearly five years with all the traveling I do.”
Grudgingly impressed, I run my hand over the hood. “Nice.”
Raielle is eyeing me with an amused look on her face. Not surprisingly, when she starts to slip into the back, Grant says, “Why don’t you ride up front with me?”
She raises an eyebrow in my direction, silently offering me the passenger seat, but I shake my head. What the hell. Only an asshole would make her sit in the back.
Once we’re on the road, I lean forward. “So, why is this woman on the outs with John?” I ask. I place my hand on Raielle’s shoulder and knea
d it gently. I feel satisfied when Grant’s eyes flick briefly to my hand. Yeah, I can touch her and you’d better not.
“It might be best for her to tell her own story,” he replies.
I huff out a frustrated breath. “Come on. It’s a long drive. Give us something.”
Raielle’s hand comes up to touch mine as she, too, waits expectantly for an answer.
He watches me through the rearview mirror. “Meera and John were always reluctant partners. I think they joined forces because they were both desperate for an ally. We need each other to thrive. We need a common community to stay sane and safe. It’s not easy to be alone when you’re like us.” He turns and meets Raielle’s eyes when he says that, giving her a meaningful look.
Her own eyes widen at first, before skittering away from his. We both know he doesn’t mean alone because she’s not alone. He means without other healers, and specifically he means without him.
My hand tightens on her shoulder. “You still haven’t answered the question.”
Grant sighs, flexing his fingers on the wheel. “She’s as powerful as John, but she has no agenda. I get the feeling Raielle is wary of her father. A lot of people are uncomfortable around him. He’s like a block of ice, only no matter how hot it gets, he never melts. If Raielle wants to learn about her abilities, I thought she might feel more comfortable with Meera.”
Again, a nonanswer. “If she’s persona non grata, why are you in touch with her?”
He swallows and darts another look at me. “That’s a long story.”
“Really? Good thing we’ve got time then.”
Raielle turns her head and narrows her eyes at me. Sighing, I decide to take the hint as I sit back to stare at the hazy mountains looming in the distance. But my attention is still on the front seat.
“Could you tell us how you came to work for my father?” she asks him.
He turns a smile on her. “It’s not that interesting a story. I’m from New Mexico originally, and I moved out here after high school because I’d heard about John. That’s how most of us come to him, because we’re searching for answers about ourselves. He welcomes us in, lets us become a part of something, instead of feeling alone and different. A lot of us suppress our power because it’s hard once people know what you can do. They want to use you and take advantage of you, or else they’re just plain scared of you. After a few generations of disuse, I think the power atrophies. But some of us, like you and I, are too powerful to suppress it. We’re compelled to use it, and we have to help people when we can.”
