“I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to reinforce your locks and windows. I’ll be here as much as I can until we figure out what to do about this situation. The Chaolt are the only real threat, the only thing you need to worry about right now.”
She put her face in her hands, the strain of it all sucking away her breath. All the lost sleep, the issues that other mothers didn’t have to worry about. Fear for her child. Crushing, strangling fear.
“You know, I always assumed it would be people who thought he was a freak that I had to worry about. Or like, the army or something, wanting to use him for a weapon. Silly, right?” Her smile felt weak and sad. “But that’s why I went looking for you in the first place, to find out how to protect him from that. Or to hide him. Because you were so good at hiding it when I met you.”
And he had been. But now that she could look at him with the truth, she could plainly see what she’d missed. He’d seemed so extraordinary, so unique, so much larger than life because he was.
If only she’d known.
But no matter what, she couldn’t regret meeting him, couldn’t regret Jackson. Couldn’t help wanting more now that Ajax was here. It was just…
Her baby. Her sweet baby boy was already different, and now he was in the middle of a war. It was too much.
“Emory.” He took her hand with one of his, lifting her chin with the other. “I will do everything in my power to keep you both safe, I promise. I will not abandon you to do this alone.”
She wanted to believe him. Did she have any other choice? This was what she wanted wasn’t it? Him to help protect her—their—child. With a sigh, she gave in and leaned on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him. “Thank you,” she murmured. She was scared for Jackson, but at least she wasn’t alone anymore.
It was a moment before Ajax’s arms came up around her. When they tightened, it pressed her forehead against the side of his neck. He smelled the same as he had a year ago. How was that possible? So much had changed. The world had changed.
“I need to go to the hardware store, get some stuff to reinforce your house. Just as a precaution.”
Emory leaned back. “You’re leaving again?” She took a deep breath past the tightening in her throat. “What about the Chaolt?” Alarm made her breathy. “What if something happens while you’re gone?”
Ajax stood, reaching down a hand to help pull her to her feet. “It’ll be okay. I won’t be gone long, there’s none nearby, and I showed you how to use the gun. You’ll be safe until I get back, and then after I reinforce things, you won’t have to worry as much when I leave.”
“You’ll be leaving more?” Damn it, hadn’t he just told her he wouldn’t leave her alone with this?
“I have a mission, Emory, a duty. I’ll have shift changes and reports to make, and other things, but I’ll be here as often as I can.”
“Would it be easier if you stayed here? I have a spare room. It’s my office right now, but if you wanted to help me move the desk out, you could sleep there. Instead of on the couch.”
Emory held her breath, because she didn’t know what kind of offer she was making.
She needed Ajax here for her son’s protection, but she wanted Jackson to have his father around if possible, too. And she couldn’t deny that she wanted Ajax around as well, for more than just protection. He was still everything that had attracted her the night Jackson was conceived. Maybe having Jackson changed things. Maybe she could have something more permanent with him, now that she’d had his child?
“It would be easier…” His hot eyes said it would be more tempting, too.
She swallowed again, temperature rising. “Okay, we can do that.”
Really, she was more worried about Ajax not being here if she ever needed him. Selfish, right? She looked over at Jackson, shaking his little plastic rings on the blanket. Maybe it was selfish to put the life of one child above all others, but if the choice was between Jackson and the rest of the world, Jackson would win every time.
Ajax shrugged his coat back on, hiding those dark tattoos on his arms.
“I’ll be back soon. Just keep Jackson awake until I get back, okay?”
Emory squeezed her eyes shut. All her relief from the night before, from moments ago, had suddenly flown out the window. Ten a.m., and she already felt like she was going to have a breakdown.
“Ajax, he’s four months old. I can’t keep him awake all day. He has to have a nap.”
A gentle stroke across her cheek made her eyes fly open. His lips were only inches away.
“If you can’t keep him awake, don’t. Just… If he seems like he’s having a nightmare, wake him up, okay?”
That she could do. “Okay,” she whispered, waiting to see if Ajax would close the gap. He stared at her mouth, thumb brushing over her bottom lip.
But then Jackson gurgled, and she backed away.
He dropped his hand, but smiled, because he knew. He knew how he affected her.
“Be back home soon, honey,” he said with a twitch of his eyebrows and a grin.
Emory couldn’t help a laugh as he closed the door. He’d been joking in his way, but it caused a yearning so strong it made her chest hurt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Emory played with Jackson while Ajax finished nailing the last two-by-four over the big plate window and went straight to work on the doors, replacing all the exterior locks with military-grade versions.
Then he spent a few hours in Emory’s orbit, watching her. Watching her care for Jackson, watching the tiny half-human that was his son. The baby didn’t do much but eat, sleep, and lay on the floor or in the playpen. Emory was either holding him or by his side every few minutes.
Ajax could barely reconcile that Emory’s baby was his son, but there was no denying it. The child had his blood, his eyes, his powers, and none of his self-control. And he was incredibly fragile. He was completely dependent on Emory for every aspect of his existence, but she was excellent at caring for him. She’d explained everything she was doing as she did it.
Ajax wasn’t sure he’d absorbed any of it, wasn’t sure it mattered. He didn’t know anything about caring for a child, even after her explanations. He knew just where to slice Chaolt to slow them down, knew where to stab to turn them to dust and send them back to the Chaos plane.
Caring for a small child was beyond him.
Now Emory and Jackson were in the kitchen, and Ajax was messing with his hair, because that’s what he did when he wasn’t patrolling or fighting. And because the ends were looking a little dry.
He got some dry shampoo out of his bag and put it at his roots to keep his hair from getting stringy, and rubbed a little conditioner in the ends. Long hair was a pain sometimes, but that’s what he’d crossed over into this world with, and that was the way it was going to stay.
And he looked good with it.
Besides, it made Levi envious and he couldn’t grow his out very long without it turning into a fly-away mess.
Ajax grinned at his reflection. He’d never tell him, but the secret was all in the air-dry, not the heat-dry. Which was something a Fire Elemental would never understand.
“Hey, Ajax.” Emory appeared in the doorway, hands wringing a towel. Looking nervous, hesitant.
Luscious.
“Yeah?”
“Dinner is ready. If you want some, that is. If you eat.” She flushed a pretty shade of red as she talked. “Do you eat? Of course, you eat.” Her brow wrinkled. “You do, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I eat,” he said, barely holding back his laughter. Mostly just the energy bars they needed to fuel their powers, and Brooke’s occasional cooking. He didn’t need anything in addition to the bars if he wasn’t using his powers a lot, but he’d be happy to eat with Emory.
When he sat at the table, she put two big bowls before him, one with spaghetti and one with salad. That was what Brooke usually made if she was inviting anyone else to partake other than her and Levi, but…
&nbs
p; Emory’s tasted better. His first bite was a revelation.
Maybe it was the seasonings in the sauce, or the freshness of the salad. Maybe it was her cooking skills in general, or the fact that Emory was back in his life, sitting beside him at the table. Maybe it was just the fact that it was the first meal he’d had that was prepared just for him. Whatever it was, it was the best meal he’d ever had.
It wouldn’t be enough to fuel his powers and he’d have to eat an energy bar afterward for the rest of his calories, but he thoroughly enjoyed every bite.
Dinner passed with stilted conversation and Emory avoiding meeting his eyes for too long. Or trying to, just like that night in the bar. When it was done, Emory grabbed his plate and glass, her scent teasing him as she came close. That scent was imprinted on his memory from their first night, and he took a deep breath. Sweet and warm and slightly floral. Like wild roses and…whipped cream. Yeah. He didn’t even know when he’d smelled either of those things, but that was what she smelled like and the scent worked on him. In fact, everything about her was roses and whipped cream. From her red hair and lips and pale skin, to the loose flowing shirt she was wearing; big red blossoms on a white background.
But he’d rather see the way her rosy nipples contrasted against her creamy skin. Or better yet, the blush of the skin between her thighs. He could remember the exact shade of dusky rose…
His body reacted immediately to the memory.
Down boy.
He needed at least one more night, needed to see…
Emory wanted him. She was just as hot in his arms every time they kissed as she had been before. He couldn’t miss her shy, longing glances either, but she was still nervous around him. Not that he could blame her. Yeah, they’d spent an entire night wrapped around each other like a pair of twist-ties, but that was a year ago and they were still strangers in a lot of ways.
It was just odd how close he felt to her, how much he still wanted her, in contrast to any other woman he’d had a night with. He’d never felt even a hint of interest for the other women if he saw them again. Actively avoided them, in fact. But damn, there was just something about Emory that drew him in. Over and over and over again.
That soft skin, the way she smelled. Her delicate hands on him…
He cursed.
He had to convince Emory to have another night of hot sex to get it out of the way. Out of both of their systems, because despite her shyness now, she’d been anything but passive in his arms before. Her little cry as she ground herself against him at the bar had brought back every bit of their first night in hot, sweaty detail. She’d made that noise a few times… A lot of times.
And the memory of it still affected him the same.
He adjusted the front of his jeans again with a grimace. This was a pain in the ass, always wanting her. Always getting his directives from the wrong head. He was so fucked. He pushed his hair back with a laugh, the reality of how much he was fucked starting to register.
Emory turned around at Ajax’s dark laugh and met his eyes. “What’s funny?”
He had these sharply slanted eyebrows that either made him look angry or mischievous. Right now, he looked downright wicked.
“I was just remembering how pretty you are.” He swallowed audibly, his lids lowering. “Everywhere.”
He didn’t say it, didn’t say the specific words with his mouth, but they were there in his eyes. Emory felt the heat flood her face, all the way to her hairline. Her gaze flashed to Jackson before she turned away, because she couldn’t hold his hot gaze. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because this isn’t… This isn’t that.” Articulating her thoughts with his stare burning into her back was difficult. The way he’d looked at her… It made her sweat. “I need your help with Jackson. He needs your protection. You need time to get information, to make a plan. It’s not like we’re picking up where we left off.”
“No, I’ll give you that. Things are a little different now.”
Understatement.
It was surreal, this weird new reality she found herself in.
She had gone from the kind of woman who didn't have one-night stands to the kind of woman that did, in just one evening. And then she'd gone from single woman to single mother in just a few months. That was weird enough.
But she was also the mother to the child of an Elemental being, a being not from her world.
A being sitting at her table, looking way more human and way more handsome, than he had any right to.
Holy Macaroni.
“Do you have some kind of alien…mojo?” she asked, eyes narrowing.
His eyebrows went up in question. “Alien mojo?”
“You know, like whatever it is that makes you so insanely attractive and irresistible to us human women.”
His face split in a grin at her words, and then he threw his head back and laughed. Her cheeks and ears got hot, a sure sign she was blushing to her roots.
With a scrape, he pushed his chair back and came up behind her. He brushed a hand down her hair.
“Not alien, Elemental. And you think I'm irresistible, huh?” he asked, his lips ghosting across her cheek. His arm snaked around her and her heart started thumping against her ribs.
“I think you know you are.” Her words came out breathy, broken. She squeezed her eyes shut as he gently kissed her neck, her shoulder.
Oh god.
“I'm not the kind of woman…I wasn't the kind of woman that did one-night stands. Until you.”
And dammit, she just wanted an explanation of how he could change that, change her so easily. She had wanted him with an intensity that seemed to be out of her control, wanted him that way still.
And if he was basically an alien, maybe he had mind controlled her somehow or manipulated pheromones, or something.
“Why me?” she asked, desperation leaking into her voice. “Why did you come to my table that night?”
“You, sitting in your prim little skirt with your shy glances, that made me curious. You were out of place and I wanted to ruffle your feathers. That brought me to your table, but your personality and your smile kept me there. By the end of the night, after spending time with you, I wanted everything about you. Still do.”
Oh god. Her breath hitched at his admission. He wanted her the same way she wanted him.
“I know you probably think our night together was a one-off, Emory, but it wasn’t for me. I’ve tried to put you out of my head for a year now, and never could. I still feel that…connection.”
She still felt it too, in more ways than one. The scant millimeters of air between his front and her back seemed to vibrate, every inch of her skin aware of him.
“It’s killing me to be this close to you and not touch you,” he murmured. Her heart started thumping against her ribs. The gentle brush of his fingertips glided down the side of her neck, and she clenched her eyes shut. She wanted him to touch her, all over. Desperately. But it was a bad idea, even if she couldn’t remember exactly why right now.
“You were the one who said it could only be one night.” It was a weak argument, but she couldn’t remember any of her stronger ones with his fingers now trailing down her arm, his lips at her ear.
“I took what I could have because I thought we’d never see each other again. Weren’t supposed to, and now you know all the reasons why.”
Yes, now she did.
The morning she’d walked away from the hotel room, she’d thought that the pained look on his face would mean that he would get past whatever it was that he thought was keeping them apart, that he would call at some point. But he hadn’t.
Then she’d found out she was pregnant.
In her hormonal state, all his talk about feeling a connection and wanting more had felt like one big deception. And she’d been the idiot who fell for it.
She’d done the whole self-recrimination thing, and then she’d put on her big girl panties and come to terms with her act
ions. From the very moment she’d found out, she’d been all in. The child inside her hadn’t done anything wrong and wouldn’t pay for her mistakes. She was going to shower him with love and attention, and he’d never feel alone or unloved. She was determined be the best mother she could be, confident she would be. Confident she could give him a normal, happy, loving life.
All the way until Jackson had shown his powers. At that point, the only solution available to her was to find Ajax again.
And Ajax was an Elemental soldier, from a place that wasn’t here, wasn’t Earth. That’s why he’d never called, why they could only have that one night in the first place—
“But one night was never enough for me, Emory,” he said, as if he heard her thoughts, his lips ghosting across her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut as he gently kissed the side of her neck, her shoulder. “Am I the only one?”
No, her heart cried, but all she could do was shake her head. He wasn’t the only one. Had it just been last night that he finally walked into the bar? It felt like she'd been wanting him for days. Months. The whole year. Hell, she'd never stopped wanting him since he'd walked up to her table. One night had never felt like enough for her, either.
“Then why not take advantage of the time we have? I’m here for you and Jackson, and I’m not leaving until the situation is sorted out one way or another.”
She bit her lip, the thought of him leaving making her chest tight.
“If I can even bear to leave at all.”
His strained whisper did what his sexy comments couldn’t; it crushed her resistance.
She turned around to face him, and he pushed her against the counter until they were hip to hip and chest to chest. His arm snaked around her back and he wound his fingers in her hair, pulling her head to the side to put hot open-mouthed kisses all over her skin on the way to her lips.
Oh god.
But when he finally got there, his kisses were nipping, teasing and shallow, to the point where she clenched her hands in frustration. Hands that had at some point wound themselves in his hair.
The little mewl of desire that came out of her mouth as he pulled back slightly was embarrassing, but she forgot all about it when he finally slid his tongue across hers.
Rise (Elemental Hearts Book 2) Page 7
