Tugging back the covers, she slid into the bed nearest the window, positioning her back to the bathroom so she didn’t have to see him when he emerged. For some reason, she couldn’t stop shivering.
Several minutes passed and she heard the water shut off. Closing her eyes, she feigned sleep. A few moments later, the door opened. That fresh, warm-water smell swept inside the room. She inhaled, catching his clean, soapy scent. Beneath that was the inherent, intoxicating male musk of him. Her chest swelled with a deep breath.
His movements were silent and her back itched, tingled, imagining his gaze there. She longed to turn and take a peek. Instead, she curled more tightly into herself, tried to make herself as small as possible, and resisted the urge.
The desk lamp snapped off, plunging the room into darkness, and all of her senses jumped into hyper-alertness.
A faint spring creaked, the only indication that he’d gotten into his bed. She envisioned that bare chest exposed above the sheet. Was he wearing shorts? Boxers? Anything?
This was just because she’d isolated herself too much. The unremitting loneliness… going without a man’s touch… without sex. That explained why she would yearn for a lycan who justifiably hated her.
“Good night.” His voice rumbled across the dark, stroking her flesh as softly as a feather.
She jammed her eyes tightly shut, even though he couldn’t know she was only pretending to be asleep.
He couldn’t know that it took hours for exhaustion to claim her, with thoughts of him flooding her, consuming her, drowning her just as that river had.
Only instead of the black river water, it was his brilliant silver eyes that she saw.
ELEVEN
The elevator dings and you step off. An empty corridor looms left and right, cast in yellowy light from the wall sconces. The elevator doors whoosh softly shut at your back. You step right, the plush carpet deadening your steps as you advance. Doors drift past until you reach the one you seek. The door’s gold-scripted numbers confirm you’re in front of the correct room. You flatten your palm against the wood, imagine you can feel a pulse in the dead particles.
A sigh trembles from your lips as you imagine her on the other side. The one like you. Even now, asleep, she’s with you, sharing in everything. You know this. Your hand slides away.
A quick glance left and right reveals you’re still alone in the corridor. The faint sound of a television plays from behind the door of a nearby room.
You squat in front of the door and deposit the bunch of rose stems. Stems minus their blooms. A slow smile curves your lips as you recall how you used those petals. Even now Jason flashes before your eyes, the pink petals arranged so gloriously around his body. He was more beautiful in that moment than ever in life, and you’re sad… because it’s over. And you can’t do it again. At least to him.
With one last glance at the butchered roses, you step back, satisfied that your token will be waiting there for her when she wakes up.
* * *
TRESA’S EYES FLEW WIDE. Darkness swirled around her, thick as tar. Her face turned instinctively toward the door. A small thread of light glowed from underneath.
“She’s here.” She barely breathed the words but she felt Darius instantly alert, fully understanding and springing from the bed.
Light flooded the room as he yanked the door open. Beyond his naked torso, Tresa could detect nothing. No one. But she knew the other witch had just been there. Standing there, staring at their door. A shiver scraped down her spine to know that she had been so close. That she still was. She couldn’t have gotten far. She pushed back her shoulders and forced herself not to tremble like a scared child.
“Hey! You there!” A curse exploded from Darius and he suddenly flew from the room. Tresa dove from the bed and caught the door, stepping into the corridor to see where he was going.
Pain stabbed the bottom of her foot, and she hopped back just as she glimpsed Darius slamming through the stairwell door. A glance down revealed a pile of thorny rose stems.
She examined the bottom of her foot where several of the thorns had pricked her flesh. Blood welled from the puncture wounds. With a muttered epithet, she looked back up. The witch had just stood here. Had left the destroyed flowers while she and Darius slept. This time there was no stopping the shiver from coursing through her.
She tentatively rested her foot on the floor, stepping over the flower stems to peer down in the direction Darius had fled.
As the seconds ticked by, her heart hammered faster. When a hand closed over her shoulder, she jumped back and screamed.
Darius held both hands in the air as though proclaiming himself safe. Innocent.
“Where’d you come from?” she panted.
He motioned behind him. “There’s a second stairwell around the corner.”
Her heart rate gradually dropped into the normal realm as disappointment filled her. “You didn’t catch her.”
“I thought I heard someone in the stairwell… running feet.” He shook his head. “I went down and back up, but didn’t see anyone. It’s possible she went into a room.”
That seemed likely. The witch couldn’t have outrun him—not a lycan.
He bent and gathered the rose stems. “Guess she left these for you.”
“She knows I’m here,” she said hollowly. The stems had been a message. A warning or a taunt. Maybe both.
He nodded, his gaze locking with hers. “Then so does he.”
Tresa swallowed past the unbearably thick lump in her throat. Balthazar could take her, claim her at any moment. Whenever the mood struck him.
Darius looked satisfied. Of course. He was only here to hunt her demon. He didn’t care what happened to her.
Deflated, she turned back for the room, wincing when she stepped down.
“What’s wrong?” His hand grasped her arm.
“Nothing. Just stepped on those.” She waved a disgusted hand at the butchered roses.
“Let me see.”
She tried to object, but his warm hand slid around her calf. She grabbed hold of his shoulder with both hands for balance. Immediately her hands were full of warm male skin, silk over steel. His muscles bunched and rippled beneath her palms. Her breath seized inside.
She didn’t even feel him prodding at the sole of her bare foot. She only felt the powerful body in her hands. The heady aroma of him as soap and man wafted to her nose. Her feminine parts tightened and clenched, reminding her that it had been a long, long time since a man had touched her. Longer since one had been inside her, filling her, moving hard and fast to satisfy her body’s deepest aches.
“You’re bleeding.”
Suddenly she was off her feet. He swung her into his arms as if she were nothing more than a feather. He lowered her onto his bed, which only made her more uncomfortable. She was drowned in the scent of him, awash in a sea of sheets still warm from his body. His gaze skimmed over him. His amazing body.
Her mouth watered and she forced her gaze away from the ridged muscles of his belly.
“I’ll clean it.” He moved toward the bathroom. She heard running water.
“It’s hardly going to kill me,” she muttered when he returned with a wet washcloth.
His lips twisted into the semblance of a grin. He propped her legs across his lap, her foot on his thigh. His fingers on her ankle sent shock waves up her leg and she squirmed. As the seconds passed, she grew more and more tense beneath his careful attention.
The washcloth stilled against the soles of her feet. His silver eyes fastened on her face, peering at her in that intent way of his, impossible to read.
And yet there was something different in those eyes. His eyes glowed brightly… more potent than usual.
“Sorry,” he murmured, his voice velvet deep.
He thought he’d hurt her? She wasn’t even aware of her injuries anymore. There could be thorns embedded in her flesh and she wouldn’t feel it. She only felt his hand on her ankle, heard the steadines
s of his breath, smelled the scent of him.
“Does that hurt?” He probed a particularly tender area of her foot.
“No.”
His fingers skimmed the bottom of her foot, rounding over the top. “What about here?”
“No.” Her breath caught, her chest lifting sharply.
His hand roamed on, fingertips dancing up her calf, gliding over her knee. His touch stopped, brushing the sensitive inside of her knee. “Here?”
She shook her head, beyond words, afraid that if she made the slightest sound he would hear his effect on her. That she wanted him. Desire pumped hot and heavy through her, making her limbs feel heavy as lead.
He inched closer, his gaze hot on her. His warm breath fanned the side of her face. Helpless, she lifted her face to his, seeking, yearning. His nose brushed her cheek. She knew his lips were there, close, but she couldn’t feel them.
His fingers stroked the sensitive skin beneath her knee. “So nothing hurts?” His voice teased the tiny hairs near her ear. “But you’re shaking.”
Everything inside her trembled. She wanted to turn into his arms, to curl up against him. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and feel all that warm male skin against her, and remember what it was to be a desirable woman.
He brushed the hair off her neck.
“I’m not shaking.” She leaned forward to get up, desperate to put some space between them.
His fingers closed around her arm and pulled her back down on the bed, then he leaned over her.
Everything inside her seized, tightened with expectation, with dread, hope. Want.
But his lips didn’t so much as graze hers. His face hovered directly over hers. Their eyes locked and she could practically count each one of his dark eyelashes fanning out from the brilliant silver.
“Liar,” he finally announced. “You’re trembling.”
A breath shuddered past her mouth, and he swallowed it, finally claiming her lips, diving into the kiss.
They savored it, sampling each other’s lips with a thoroughness, a leisure that made her chest ache from the unexpected tenderness, the seductive slide of his tongue against her own.
He drank in her moan, his hand on her thigh now, the callused pads of his fingers an exciting rasp on her skin. He could have her now. She knew it. The way she fell into the kiss, the way her thighs parted for his drifting hand…
He knew it, too. Which was why she gasped, reaching for him with groping hands when he pulled away. She choked out his name, quickly sitting up.
He wiped a hand over the back of his mouth as though he needed to wipe the taste of her from him. The gesture stung.
Everything inside her wanted to call him back, wanted to pull him to her so that she could feel warm again—alive. She’d forgotten the wonder of it all. The closeness of another, a kiss so obliterating, so consuming that it washed away all numbness.
He glanced at her and then looked away. Grabbing his shirt, he hurriedly pulled it over his head. She watched, her throat tightening.
“I’ll be back in a while,” he muttered and fled the room.
Alone, in the center of the bed, she wondered what had just happened. How had she allowed a lycan bent on destroying her to kiss her? How had she liked it? Wanted it?
How could she want him still?
* * *
DARIUS WALKED WITHOUT DIRECTION, but with purpose. If he moved fast enough, maybe he could outrun his feelings, his desires. The sight of Tresa as he’d left her, warm and welcoming on that bed, her eyes clouded with desire, filled his head. He walked faster.
He left the hotel behind, losing himself in the night’s darkness, moving too quickly for anyone to process, becoming nothing more than wind. Briefly, his mind touched on Balthazar, another shadow winding through the night.
No. He wasn’t like that. Nothing like that.
He slowed to a stop and looked around. He was in a high-end shopping center, the stores all closed for the night. The lights of a wine bar spilled out on the sidewalk. Two laughing women tripped out the doors as he strode past, one almost bumping into him.
He steadied the blonde, stopping her from colliding into him. Her perfume surrounded him.
“Oh, hello there.” She blinked large blue eyes up at him. A slow smile curved her wine-stained lips. She moved lightly on her feet, brushing against him. “Aren’t you the gallant gentleman?” Her eyes gleamed at him in invitation, looking him up and down appreciatively. Her friend giggled.
For a moment, his hand lingered on her arm as he toyed with the idea of finishing with this female what he’d started with Tresa.
As soon as the thought entered his mind, he dismissed it. It wouldn’t be right.
She wouldn’t be Tresa.
Disgusted with himself, he stepped around the woman and continued on, wondering when she had come to consume his thoughts… when she had come to mean so much?
TWELVE
The Salty Bean was a coffee shop a few miles from the college. Following the memorial service, they decided to check it out, since Shannan had worked there. It was a popular campus hangout, so in Tresa’s mind it was a wise use of their time.
If her hunch was right about Balthazar’s witch being a student, maybe she frequented the place, too. Tresa winced. Or maybe it was safe to assume she would be there because she was. The witch had now proved herself to be aware of Tresa’s movements.
A vase full of white lilies sat on a back counter, surrounded with snapshots of all the victims. Jason was wearing a rugby uniform, a ball tucked under his arm. Even from where she sat, his smile was blinding, infectious. Hard to equate him with the young man from her nightmare.
She brought her latte to her lips and sipped the hot brew. “I’m thinking it’s not much of an assumption to say she’s a college student, too.” Tresa nodded to the shrine. For some reason, it was easier to look at that than at Darius. After he had run out following their kiss last night, she hadn’t wanted to meet his gaze. “Just like the other victims.”
From the corner of her eye, she observed him lift one shoulder in a shrug. “Yes, I’d say she’s affiliated with the school. She could be a professor, though, or someone on staff. Administration.”
“Possibly,” she agreed before falling silent to absorb everything inside the cozy coffee shop, eavesdropping on the conversations around her. Several times, the topic turned to the murders.
She scanned faces. They were afraid, but titillated, too. They either knew one of the victims, or someone they knew knew a victim. It was gossip—plain and simple.
“She’s the one who worked here.” Tresa nodded to Shannan’s photo.
Darius followed her gaze to the photo before looking back at her. “So. When she died, what did—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Her gaze skittered off him again.
He set his coffee cup down with a clink. “I’m only asking because it might shed some light on who it is we’re looking for. I wouldn’t have thought you so squeamish. Not after all you’ve done… all you’ve seen.”
He would always throw that in her face. He would never see anything else when he looked at her.
She angled her head sharply and forced her attention back on him. “I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
He cupped his coffee with both hands and leaned forward, closer, across the small black-topped table. “I guess not.”
His ready admission startled her. Maybe it startled him, too. Or at least left him uncomfortable. He leaned back in his chair for a moment, his cheeks flushed a bit, and then abruptly rose, moving to the back counter, scanning the memorial shrine and the bulletin board on the wall behind it.
She couldn’t help noticing the college girls checking him out, their gazes sliding over the long length of him in admiration. He was either oblivious to their glances or indifferent. It would be hard not to notice the way they gawked.
“Hey.” A girl stretched over from her chair to tug on the hem of Tr
esa’s shirt. “Is that your boyfriend?” She nodded to Darius.
Appallingly, she felt tempted to say he was. To claim him, to pretend last night had been real and had meant something.
“No,” she said.
“Excellent.” The girl gave a catlike smile and rose from her chair. Smoothing her snug tunic top down her hips, she sauntered over to where Darius stood.
Tresa watched the roll of her hips, an uncomfortable knot forming in the pit of her stomach.
“Not very subtle, is she?” a voice asked, drawing Tresa’s attention to the guy sharing the table with the girl who was stalking Darius like a jungle cat.
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, plucking at the cardboard sleeve around her cup.
The guy continued, “She’s shameless that way. And he’s a good-looking guy.” He shrugged again, implying that the girl couldn’t be held accountable.
“Yeah.” Tresa didn’t know what else to say. “He is.”
“Yeah,” he echoed. “And she’s the sluttiest girl I know.”
Tresa blinked. “Excuse me?”
He grinned and shoved his dark-rimmed glasses up his nose. He managed to look stylish and cute in them. They complemented the handsome roundedness of his features. “She’s my cousin, so I can say it. It’s nothing I wouldn’t say to her face.” He extended a hand for Tresa to shake as he picked up his cup and dropped down into the chair across from her. “Name’s Carson.”
She shook his hand. “Tresa.”
“Ooh, exotic. Where are you from? I hear an accent.”
She blinked again, taken aback by his openness. She stared at him, wondering how he had come to sit at her table with her saying so few words, and why she felt so comfortable with him. “Luxembourg.” That was the relative area where she had been born.
“Cool.” He nodded slowly, his bottle-bleached hair so stiff it didn’t move in the slightest. “So what brings you here? You a student?”
“Just visiting.”
“San Vista? Really? Why would you want to visit here? There are so many cooler places to be.”
A Soul So Wicked (Moon Chasers) Page 9
