Protector (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 5)

by Christine Pope

  “Sounds great.”

  Was it his imagination, or had he heard a hint of trepidation in her tone? Maybe she was worried about what they’d do when they got there, whether he’d press her to sleep in his room again, just to be safe. As much as he’d enjoy that, he’d let her make her own decision. She should know he’d never urge her to do something she didn’t want to do.

  After flagging the waiter down and asking for the check, he and Caitlin sat in a semi-uncomfortable silence until the rest of the ritual could be completed and he could drop the necessary number of twenties down on the table. Good thing he’d been carrying a decent amount of cash; waiting to have his credit card run would have been even worse.

  They drove back to his place, still not talking. She looked out the window, seemingly staring at the clear skies above, at all the bright stars winking overhead. They couldn’t be that new to her, though; Jerome had to have even less light pollution than Tucson, even for all his hometown’s reputation as a dark sky city, a place that purposely cut back on its nighttime lighting so as not to interfere with the spectacular desert starscape.

  He pulled into the garage and shut off the Pathfinder’s engine. Even as he pulled the key from the ignition, Caitlin opened the passenger-side door and got out. She did have to wait for him to come around and unlock the door that led from the garage to the house, but once he’d done that, she pushed inside, as if afraid to be alone with him in the dark.

  Two of the lamps in the living room were on timers, so they came on whether he was home or not. Their soft glow provided enough illumination to show Caitlin pausing next to the breakfast bar in the kitchen, her expression diffident.

  “Thanks for dinner. It was really good.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, the automatic response. He moved toward her, to the little bowl he had sitting on the end of the bar, where he generally dumped his keys at the end of the day. She stepped away — less than a foot, but enough to show she was uncomfortable with allowing him to get too close.

  Damn. Talk about mixed signals. With the way she’d looked at him earlier that evening, he’d thought…oh, never mind what he thought. She was here to help find her friends and for no other reason.

  “Do you watch The Walking Dead?” he asked, forcing his tone to be relaxed, casual. They had to do something to fill up the rest of the evening, since it wasn’t even eight-thirty yet. Watching TV seemed the most innocuous thing to do.

  For a second, Caitlin looked puzzled, and then what he could have sworn was a look of relief crossed her face. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Did you see this week’s episode?”

  A shake of the head. “No, I was down in Jerome having Sunday dinner with my family. Danica was supposed to download it for me, but….” She let the words trail off. They both knew Danica probably wasn’t going to be downloading anything for a while.

  Alex let it go. He knew nothing he could say would change anything or make it better. “Well, I’ve got it on my DVR. What do you say we go and put our feet up, and watch some people who have even worse problems than we do?”

  For a second, she didn’t respond, only seemed to be staring down at the toes of the somewhat scuffed ballet flats she wore. Then she looked up and smiled — a real smile, the kind that seemed to light something in those beautiful blue-green eyes of hers.

  “I think that sounds like a great idea.”

  11

  It was sort of surreal to be sitting in here next to Alex, their feet propped up on the glass and metal coffee table, attention fixed on the flat-screen hanging from the wall opposite them. The thing was huge, too, way bigger than the 42-inch television her parents had bought a year ago. Again Caitlin wondered where the heck Alex got the money for all this stuff, but that was a question that could wait for another day.

  For now, she was having a hard enough time keeping her attention fixed on the TV, on the admittedly gruesome scenes playing out there. But she’d never gotten grossed out by things she saw in the movies or on television, no matter how gory they might be.

  It was the real-life stuff she had problems with.

  Alex had gotten them both water, and he was drinking from his glass now, attention fixed forward so she could catch the fine outlines of his profile from the corner of her eye. The Adam’s apple in his throat moved as he swallowed, and she made herself look forward again, to not think about the lean muscles of his neck and what it would feel like to place her lips against the warm brown skin there.

  All right, this was getting out of hand. Her friends were still being held against their will by Matías and his gang, wherever they might be hiding, and right now she was watching some extra on The Walking Dead get his entrails ripped out of his stomach in a spectacular spray of Karo-syrup blood, and the only thing she could think about was kissing Alex’s neck?

  All she could do was pray he hadn’t noticed her tension, hadn’t seen the way her gaze kept wandering from the television set. He’d seated himself a respectable distance from her, at least a foot, and yet she fancied she could feel the warmth radiating out from his body even so. She knew she was acutely aware of every time he shifted, every creak of the couch and every movement of the sturdy biceps under the polo shirt he wore.

  To distract herself, she bent forward and picked up her own glass of water, then planted her feet firmly on the rug-covered floor while she took a few swallows. There, that was a little better. If she drank enough, maybe she’d dilute some of the sangria currently swirling around in her stomach. To be fair, it really hadn’t been that strong…just strong enough to have messed with some of her extremely hard-won composure.

  “More?” Alex asked, and she started.

  He grabbed the remote and paused the DVR. “Do you want more water?”

  “Um…sure.”

  Setting the remote aside, he got up from the couch and moved from the family room to the kitchen, giving her a great opportunity to watch how his faded jeans clung to his ass and thighs. He was built just the way she liked — muscular but not muscle-bound, tall and broad-shouldered. After she’d hit her current five foot eight, she’d realized there were a lot of guys she wouldn’t consider dating, just because they were too short. Call her shallow, but she wanted someone she could look up to.

  Alex came back with her freshened-up glass of water in his hand, then gave it to her. She noticed he was careful not to let his fingers brush against hers, and felt a stab of disappointment. Well, what had she expected? She’d been acting like an idiot today, blowing hot and cold, being completely inconsistent in the way she was treating him. He’d probably decided it was much safer to keep his distance. And if she could just get her head screwed on straight, she’d put all these unwanted feelings and thoughts aside, and would regain some kind of focus. Maybe then the visions would return. For all she knew, she’d been unsuccessful so far because she was expending way too much mental energy on Alex Trujillo and not enough on letting her powers work through her.

  “Better?” he asked, dropping down onto the couch next to her.

  “Sure…thanks.” She swallowed some water, and then some more. Whether it would be enough to clear her head, she had no idea.

  He must have noticed something was wrong, because instead of picking up the remote and unpausing the DVR, he shifted so he was more or less facing her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  His eyebrows quirked slightly, but he didn’t say anything, only sat there, watching her. And that was the absolute worst, because not even a foot separated them now. No matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from his, from their warm brown depths.

  “It doesn’t look like nothing to me,” he said.

  What was she supposed to say? An easy lie, one about being worried about Roslyn and Danica? It wouldn’t even be a lie, not really — of course she was worried. But their predicament wasn’t what occupied her thoughts right now, and Alex seemed to sense that.

  “It’s just — you’
re distracting,” she finally blurted out, then wished she had rammed her fist into her mouth to shut herself up before she could say something so baldly honest.

  Those eyebrows lifted even further. “Distracting? I think I kind of like the sound of that.”

  Oh, hell. She set down her glass of water, mainly because doing so gave her an excuse to break eye contact in a way that appeared more or less natural. When she straightened up, however, he was still watching her, didn’t appear to have moved. “It’s just that I feel like I should be focusing on Roslyn and Danica, and I’m trying, but every time I look up, you’re there, and it’s like you’ve managed to get in my head or something, and I don’t know — ”

  She’d meant to say, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it, but she didn’t get that far, because Alex had reached out to her, had laced his fingers through hers and then pulled her toward him, his lips pressing against hers before she had a chance to even process what was happening. And, oh, Goddess, his mouth felt so good, strong and full, and he tasted even better. She opened her own mouth to him, let him deepen the kiss, found herself pressing against him, her breasts crushed against the strong muscles of his chest.

  He let go of her hands, instead wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, his mouth still exploring hers, and it was all heat and need and a wild racing sensation through her entire body, so strong, so unexpected, that she found it hard to breathe. It had never felt like this before when someone was kissing her — not that she had a huge amount of experience. Even so, she was fairly certain she could have kissed a hundred guys, and none of those kisses would have come anywhere close to what she was experiencing now.

  Gasping, she finally recovered herself enough to pull away, to lift her mouth from his, although doing so felt harder than anything else she’d ever done. But she knew she had to stop kissing him, or she’d never be able to get her tumbling thoughts in order.

  Alex didn’t try to stop her; something in his expression seemed to show that he understood she needed her space right now. She set her hands down flat on the sofa cushion, felt the soft leather against her skin, the floor beneath her feet. Okay. That was a little better. At least now the world didn’t feel as if it was spinning out of control all around her.

  “What the hell are we doing?” she whispered at last.

  He took her hand and held it in his. Maybe she should have tried to pull away, but she really didn’t want to. His fingers were so strong, so warm. They felt real, something she could cling to in a world that had become strange and frightening.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last, his voice also quiet, yet filled with its own urgency. “I’ve been trying to fight it, but when I looked over at you right then — I don’t know…it just seemed like I couldn’t control it anymore. Did you — did you not want me to?”

  She’d wanted him to kiss her, more than anything. And that was the real problem. If she’d met him under different circumstances, then she wouldn’t have minded one bit. Yes, there could be some difficulties in getting romantically involved with someone from another clan, but the McAllisters and the de la Paz family had always been more or less friendly. However, she hadn’t stayed down here to Tucson so she could hook up with Alex Trujillo. She was here because, flawed and useless as she felt right now, she was her friends’ best chance of rescue.

  “No,” she said, and his brows pulled together. Oh, crap. That wasn’t what she’d meant. “That is, it’s not that I didn’t want you to kiss me. It’s just that…we shouldn’t be doing this at all. Not right now. Not with everything that’s going on.”

  His face cleared a bit. “I get it. I feel the same way. But this pull…this attraction…whatever it is…it feels stronger. So I don’t know what to say about that.”

  Caitlin didn’t, either. After all, it wasn’t as if she was a prima seeking her consort. That sort of connection was understandable…necessary, even. But she wasn’t the prima of her clan, and Alex sure as hell wasn’t the primus of his, so she couldn’t say their attraction was anything quite so cosmic, or at least foreordained. But it also went way beyond anything she’d experienced with anyone else. She’d had a couple of boyfriends, nothing serious, mainly because hiding her talents from her family was difficult enough without having to conceal those same gifts from the person she was romantically involved with. It could be that was part of this strange attraction to Alex — yes, he was good-looking and fun to be with, and kind and…all right, a whole bunch of positive adjectives — but he also knew the truth about her and didn’t care, didn’t even mind that she’d spent a good chunk of her life trying to avoid that truth.

  “I don’t know, either,” she admitted. “And now, this” —she waved a hand in the direction of the kitchen, indicating the house in general— “is even more awkward. What are we supposed to do now?”

  Without replying, he reached for the remote and turned off the TV altogether. After he’d set the remote back down on the coffee table, he took her hands in his again, his fingers twining around hers. Not tightly, though; he seemed to be telling her by the way he held her fingers that she could pull away anytime she wanted to, if she felt uncomfortable.

  Strangely, though, she didn’t. It felt right to have his hands wrapped around hers, strong and comforting.

  “We don’t have to do anything,” Alex said reasonably. “I’m not going to lie and say I don’t want you to sleep in my room tonight — just because I think it’s safer, and not because I’m going to try anything.” He paused then, almost as if he hoped she might say that she did want him to try something. She wasn’t that crazy, though — not yet, anyway — and so he continued, “But I don’t see a problem with you staying here in the guest room or wherever you want to be. It really is best that we stick together, you know?”

  Yes, she did know. And as much as she wanted to stay with him in his room…in his bed…that was too much right now. She trusted him not to do anything, because he’d said he wouldn’t.

  She just didn’t know if she trusted herself.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “But in the guest room. I don’t…I don’t want to go any further than we already have. I hope that’s all right.” Oh, Goddess, now she sounded like the world’s biggest prude. She wasn’t, or at least she didn’t think she was, but kissing Alex was about all she wanted to commit to now. Soon she’d have to explain the truth behind her reticence, but for now it was probably best to let it go.

  His fingers tightened around hers. “Of course it’s all right. I hope you don’t think that I’m trying to push you someplace you don’t want to go.”

  “Oh, no,” she replied at once. “But I’ll be fine in the guest room. If I have another vision, well….”

  “Then I’ll come running, because you’ll probably be screaming bloody murder again.”

  Despite everything, Caitlin grinned. And it won’t be so bad, she thought. Even if I do have another vision and start screaming my head off, I’ll get a chance to see Alex walking around in his underwear again when he comes in to check on me….

  * * *

  At least he’d convinced her to stay. That was something, although he could tell from the skittish, worried look in her eyes that it might not take too much more to scare her into running off to Jerome, even though she wouldn’t be able to help her friends from there.

  And he couldn’t even blame her for returning to the guest room. He wanted her…his body was telling him exactly how much he wanted her…but he was willing to be patient. The way she’d felt in his arms, the way she’d tasted, the way the shape of her lips seemed to match his exactly…all those things told him she was the woman he’d been waiting for his entire life. But because he’d been waiting this long, he was fine with giving her some space, some room to think things over. Besides, she was right — their main goal right now should be finding Roslyn and Danica. He knew his feelings for Caitlin wouldn’t change merely by putting off any further progression in their relationship for a few days. Or wee
ks, although he hoped for the missing girls’ sakes it wouldn’t take anywhere close to that long.

  The king bed had always felt big to him, but tonight it felt even bigger, the expanse to his left where Caitlin had been lying the night before now empty, cold. He certainly didn’t want her to suffer another horrifying vision, although some part of him thought that if she did, it might bring her back to him.

  He began to stiffen at the thought, and he pushed away the vision of Caitlin lying next to him, her bright hair spread on the pillow, the curve of her breasts half-revealed by the covers. Of course, that thought only made his own situation that much worse, and he rolled over on his side, cursing his body. How long had it been, anyway? He and Lana had broken up what, almost ten months ago? Right after Diego’s wedding.

  And that had been the reason, because Lana had been his date at the wedding, and afterward she started pushing Alex to take the next step, to start planning for a real future together. She was a civilian, though, and hadn’t known the truth about him. For some reason, he’d never found the courage to go into all of that with Lana…or maybe it wasn’t that he’d lacked courage at all, but that he knew she wasn’t the one, and so wouldn’t risk revealing any of his clan’s secrets to her.

  Anyway, that was neither here nor there. It was just that, any way you cut it, it had been a really long time since he’d last been laid.

  The house was quiet around him. No air-raid-siren screams from Caitlin, although she’d only gone to bed a half hour earlier. Plenty of time for the next vision of Matías’ iniquities to invade her sleeping mind.

  That thought made Alex think of what she actually had seen, of Danica apparently being coerced into having sex with Matías. No, that wasn’t really correct, because she wasn’t struggling, appeared to be a willing participant.