I missed Italy. More specifically, at this very moment, I missed the ancient inns where I stayed with their thick, heavy walls separating the rooms. The walls here could be sliced through with a box cutter. Earlier, it had been a baby in the room to the left of mine, crying its poor little heart out. For hours. When she finally settled down, the television in the room above mine blared some kind of musical show, and I think the occupant was dancing along with the people on TV. And they must have been clogging. That went off at eleven, and my room had fallen blissfully silent. I relished the peace, thinking I could finally go to sleep. As I drifted off, though, the giggles and the squealing began next door, right next to my head, followed by groans and moans and a rhythmic pounding against the wall. It went on for seemingly ever. What guy could even go that long? Judging by the girl’s screams, which were now reaching a crescendo, he must have been an animal. Or maybe unable to ejaculate? Ugh. Just finish already.
But they didn’t. I couldn’t take one more bang against the wall, one more shout of “yes!” I sprang out of the bed, grabbed my key-card while stuffing my feet into my cowboy boots and charged out of the room. My initial intention had been to go for a walk, hoping by the time I returned, the couple would be worn out, but being the middle of a dark night and near the highway, leaving the hotel’s well-lit property probably wasn’t such a good idea. I thought about going for a drive, but if I was going to do so, I may as well drive to the lake.
Why not? Good question. Why shouldn’t I go to the lake and make the drive back when I had the paperwork I needed? Besides the facts that it was 1:30 a.m., I was exhausted, and if they were done, I could be asleep in minutes here, nothing stopped me. I made a deal with myself: one lap around the hotel and if the wallbangers were still going at it, I was packing up.
The first-floor rooms opened to a sidewalk encircling the building, with a railing on the outside to keep anyone from traipsing through the landscaping to the parking lot. After passing several rooms, I reached the outlet that spilled onto the blacktop, where I felt a little more comfortable than being so close to people’s doors. My imagination pictured someone grabbing me as I walked by and yanking me inside their room to do all kinds of disgusting acts.
When I nearly completed my lap of the parking lot, though, I wished I’d stayed closer to the building. An eerie feeling raised the hairs on the nape of my neck, then out of nowhere, two big, black shadows flew at me.
Literally flew.
They soared through the air, shapeless like obsidian mist, and joined together over my head. They swirled into a cloud, and the black vapor spiraled down and around me, like some kind of tornado, though no wind blew. Not a single hair on my head stirred, but a screech of, “We always find you” filled my ears. I threw my hands up as shields, and I tried to scream, but my heart had lodged in my throat, blocking any sound. My mouth clamped shut before I sucked any of this craziness into my body, and I shot my arms out in a sort of karate-chop. For the briefest of moments, not even a nanosecond, my hands hit something solid, but then the mist disappeared completely. Gone. As if it had never been there.
I glanced down at myself, wiped my hands over my t-shirt and pajama bottoms, expecting to find them damp or covered in black dust, but there was nothing. When I looked up, a man ran at me, wearing nothing but a towel and spewing a series of slurred profanity.
And my breath sucked back in all over again.
He stopped dead in his tracks five yards away in front of me, and his fist grabbed at the towel’s corners before it came loose, while his deep blue eyes popped wide open. A bazillion thoughts jumbled in my mind. What was he doing here? Did he follow me all the way from Italy? Was that him causing the bed to bang against the wall? What happened to his hair? This was too wild to be a coincidence. Maybe he had something to do with everything going on. It should be illegal to look so hot. Were those piercings in his nipples?
Jeric and I stood there staring at each other as if caught up in some kind of surreal warp where time stood still. His mouth hung open, and he was clearly as surprised to see me as I was to see him. His hands twitched to say something, and the towel began to slip. He caught it in time, although the terrycloth now hung much lower on his hips. I couldn’t stop staring at those hips, where his muscles began to form a V that ended behind the fabric. My thighs trembled, and my throat went dry.
“What’s going on?” a female voice called from behind him.
Of course, he didn’t hear her, didn’t react, but I broke my stare and looked up. A woman with raven hair, only her hands and arms covering her girl-junk, stood in the doorway next to mine, eyeing Jeric and then me. I thought I might puke. When a barely audible but still sickening splat hit the pavement in front of Jeric, and my gaze followed the sound to the used condom lying at his feet, I did throw up a little in my mouth.
I looked up at his red face, back at the girl who whined for him to return, then turned away, hoping to skirt by this unbelievable situation, go to my room and pretend none of this ever happened. A hand grabbed my wrist. My stomach tilted and whirled and fell off a cliff, leaving me even queasier than I already was. The word “dyad” wafted through my mind again, and once more I felt like I knew him. Really knew him like I knew myself. But I didn’t. Not really. I shook my arm free and strode off, toward the other end of the breezeway so I wouldn’t have to pass their room to get to mine.
My heart raced and my hands shook like an addict’s as I tried to swipe the card and open my door. After three tries, I was finally in, slamming the door behind me, then leaning against it to catch my breath. I closed my eyes and inhaled through my nose, then blew the air out just as slowly. My heart eventually resumed its normal pace.
Why was I so upset? Was it seeing him again? Here, of all places? That had to be it because I had absolutely no right to have a single feeling about his state of nakedness or the pounding and screams keeping me up all night. He was a guy in an airport, a passing stranger, nothing that justified me to care what he’d been doing and with whom.
Except he was here, in my hometown. What were the odds? Although, that could explain why I thought I knew him. Just because he’d been headed to Miami didn’t mean he was from there. Maybe I’d seen him around? But again, what were the odds? And why wouldn’t he mention anything about it when I said I lived near Atlanta?
“Who cares about him,” I muttered, trying to convince myself I didn’t. I needed to care more about the attack, or whatever the black mist had been, although it felt so unreal now that I wondered if I’d imagined the whole thing.
A pounding on the door right behind me, as though directly on my back, made me jump and do a half-spin at the same time. I stared at the door with wide eyes. Was it Jeric or that . . . thing? Either way, did I dare answer it? The door rattled in its jamb as the force of the banging increased. I peeked through the peephole. Jeric’s face molded into an expression of anger and worry as his fists continued to beat the door. If he didn’t stop, he’d wake up the baby next door as well as the rest of the hotel. Reluctantly, I opened the door, right in time to hear his woman screaming profanities at him from the parking lot. Over his shoulder, I saw her flipping him off right before ducking into the driver’s side of an older model T-bird. This satisfied me in a way it shouldn’t have.
My eyes returned to Jeric, who at least had thrown on jeans, but nothing else. Unlike his arms, his perfectly sculpted torso was bare of any tattoos except one scripted sentence running up his side along his ribs. And yes, his nipples were decorated with little hoops pierced through them, I couldn’t help noticing. In fact, they sort of fascinated me, and I had to force myself to tear my eyes away and up to his, where I found another, tiny loop at the end of his left eyebrow. Interesting.His reaction to me was even more intriguing. His stormy-blue gaze raked over my face, then took in the rest of me in my PJs and boots. His hands fluttered in front of me, not to talk but as though he wanted to touch me, but was hesitant to do so.
“You’re okay?” he fi
nally signed, and I nodded hesitantly, still unsure of him. “You looked like you were being attacked, the way your fists were flying, but I didn’t see anyone. Otherwise, I would have pounded them.”
I blinked at him. He hadn’t seen the black mist? Had it only been my imagination?
“Um,” I started to say. I blinked again, then signed, “Something startled me. It was nothing.”
“Are you sure?” He peered at me as though he didn’t believe me. He hadn’t seen what I had, but was still concerned. Had he heard me scream? Of course not. I hadn’t been able to scream, but even if I had, he wouldn’t have heard it, and I doubted his bimbo could have heard me over her shrieking.
“How did you know?” I asked. “What brought you out?”
His face twisted in a chagrined grimace. He only shrugged, though, taking a moment before answering. “I was coming out for air and saw you out there, looking terrified as hell.”
Ha. A breath of air. Geez, I wondered why he’d needed one.
“Your girlfriend left,” I signed, nodding toward the parking lot that was now missing a T-bird. “She looked pretty pissed.”
“I don’t do girlfriends, unless they’re someone else’s,” he signed with a cocky grin. “And she was mad I made her leave.”
“Why’d you throw her out?” None of my business, but he was sort of making it so.
“I didn’t. I told her to go home. I don’t do sleepovers either.”
“Of course not.” He couldn’t see sarcasm in my signs, but he must have sensed it.
“They usually don’t get mad.”
They. Ugh.
“Don’t you have any respect for women?” I asked, distracted.
His cocky grin faded. “Sure. I respect those who want a boyfriend by staying away from them. And I respect those women who sometimes want a good lay and nothing more by giving it to them. No harm to either side. Just a good time.”
I studied his face, then sighed. Girls I’d worked and danced with before had done the same thing, so I knew such women existed. I guess if it worked for all involved, it wasn’t my place to judge. His sex life wasn’t exactly any of my business anyway.
“I’m fine,” I signed. “Like I said, something startled me. Probably a raccoon in the bushes or something.”
He gave me a once over, hesitated, and then pushed past me, strode down the hall and to the far bed that was still made. He sat in the middle of it, stretched his legs in front of him and leaned against the headboard.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making sure you’re really okay. I don’t feel it.”
I stared at him with an open mouth. As hot as he was and as much as I wanted to wallow in his concern and cocoon myself in those muscular arms, this was too much. I flew into a tirade, glad he could read lips, although my hands moved, too, flying about to emphasize my every word. Mama would have been so disappointed in me for losing my temper. She would have told me to paste on a smile and kindly show the gentleman to the door. Except Jeric was no gentleman, and at the moment, I didn’t want to be a lady.
“What do you mean you don’t feel it? And who the hell do you think you are? You can’t just traipse into my hotel room and claim a spot! Why are you even here in the first place? Are you stalking me? Did you follow me from Sulmona to Rome and now here? I’m not one of those girls who will spread my legs for you at your command, you know. I don’t care if you are an underwear model. So get your ass out of here before I call the front desk and have you thrown out.”
Jeric moved like a boa making a strike, and he suddenly stood right in front of me, his hands on each side of my face, holding me still. Effectively silencing me. Our eyes locked for a few pounding beats of the heart, then his gaze fell to my lips and his tongue slid slowly over his own. He was going to kiss me. I inhaled sharply. I was going to let him. At least, I was until the mix of perfume and booze assaulted my nose. He must have seen the disgust in my eyes because his smoldering eyes darkened, and he took a step back.
I stepped back, too, out of the alley between the two beds, and threw my arm out and pointed at the door.
“Out!” I ordered. He needed to leave. Whether he was stalking me or not, he was too dangerous to be around. I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust myself.
He sat on the bed and crossed his arms. I narrowed my eyes.
“I said to get out. I’m this close to turning you in as a stalker.”
He cocked his head, then unfolded his arms to sign. “Not until you hear my side. Trust me. I’m not stalking you. I had no idea you’d be here.”
I stared at him when he didn’t continue. He was waiting for me to allow it. I knew he hadn’t expected to see me when he came running out into the parking lot, the only reason I hadn’t called the cops yet. He’d been genuinely surprised. And what kind of stalker screws other women? Isn’t that counterintuitive? It’s not like she looked like me or anything, and she certainly wasn’t being forced against her will. He could have been trying to make me jealous. Did stalkers do that to their victims? I had no idea—the ins and outs of stalking weren’t exactly my forte—but that brought me back to how surprised he’d been to see me.
I nodded for him to go on.
“I didn’t follow you here. Since I had to come to Atlanta, I thought I’d come see my grandmother. But she wasn’t home.”
Something prickled the back of my neck, making me roll my shoulders.
“Why did you say you were going to Miami, then?” I demanded.
“Because that was the plan until the weather changed it.”
I didn’t know if I should believe him, but I hadn’t exactly been watching the Weather Channel to deny his claim. I rubbed at my wrist while pacing a couple of times. The rest of his story sounded plausible, and although I couldn’t get a tone from his voice, his eyes and body language made me want to believe him. My gaze traveled over him once more, catching on the glints of the loops in his eyebrow and nipples. They weren’t normally my thing, but on Jeric . . . Damn, is that not hot. I shook myself out of it.
“Okay,” I finally said. “I won’t call the cops. But you need to go to your own room.”
He shook his head. “I don’t feel right doing that. I . . .” His eyes moved about as he inhaled and exhaled, as though he was trying to find the right words. “I’m worried about you.”
That was it? That was his line? Well, it was a little endearing. But not enough.
“I’m fine. Besides, I thought you didn’t do sleepovers.”
His mouth stretched into the best grin he’d given me yet, full dimples and all. My heart palpitated. “I’d make an exception for you.”
I gulped. Be firm. You can’t do this. No, I couldn’t. My uncle was missing and here I was about to let some man-whore try to sweet talk me into bed. The last thing I needed now was regret for a one-night-stand piled on top of everything else. How could he even go again anyway? Wasn’t he all sexed out? Ew. No way I was falling for this guy. He’d just had another woman in his bed! I drew in a deep breath, straightened my back and hardened my eyes.
“As charming as you are, you need to go. Now. Or I might have to change my mind about calling the front desk.”
His hands went up to protest again, but he must have seen in my face I was serious. He pressed his lips together, nodded and, then signed, “I’m right next door if you need me.”
Then he finally left. I locked all the locks on the door and double-checked the window before crawling under the covers. After realizing I’d spend the rest of the night with my knees drawn to my chest and my eyes wide open, I counted the hours on my fingers, then reached over to the nightstand for my phone. May as well make the dreaded call to Alaska now and get it over with.
As I dialed my parents’ number, I wondered: How do you tell your daddy you lost his uncle?
CHAPTER 6
I’d hoped a run would work out my tight muscles and the crick in my neck after spending the night in front of Leni’s door on the col
d, hard concrete. If anything, the cool air of dawn rushing through my lungs should help to clear my mind, and then maybe I could explain to myself why I’d spent the night in front of some girl’s door on the cold, hard concrete. But I already knew one part of that answer—Leni wasn’t “some” girl. She was so much more.
That’s why I couldn’t follow through with the kiss last night. I’d wanted to get it done and over with since we both obviously wanted it. But she deserved more than sloppy seconds, even if it was just a kiss. I’d still had the Georgia peach’s scent all over me and alcohol on my breath, too. Shit. Leni deserved so much more than anything I could ever offer her.
My mind knew I should leave town, that I should have been gone already. Usually my heart would be in agreement, cold and hard to any feelings for a girl who could only shatter it, but not this time. Something deeper than that gut feeling—my soul?—told me to stay. To watch her. To protect her. And I couldn’t bring myself to argue with . . . myself.
Shit. I was losing it. She was making me lose it. The very reason I avoided girlfriends—they weren’t worth the trouble. Except Leni. She was different. Which was why I really did need to let go, move on, forget about her, and let her go on with her life without me messing it up.
My mind was made up to do exactly that by the time I finished my run, but after showering and packing, I couldn’t follow through. I talked myself into seeing her one more time to say goodbye, to make sure she was really okay, which she more than likely was. And then, no matter what, I would go.
But when I left my room with my bags on my shoulders and stepped over to hers, I found the door ajar and housekeeping inside. Shit. She was already gone. Just as well, I told myself. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean she was gone from my mind. I had a feeling it would take a while to forget about her. Our run-ins had been brief, and she really wasn’t my type at all, but there was something about her that insisted on sticking with me.
Curses, Fates & Soul Mates Page 6
