“Except, apparently, her.”
“Exactly.”
Pandora shrugged, rotating her shoulders to ease some of the tension. “I guess you have some better sources?”
His smile was delightfully innocent. “Of course. None that I’m planning on telling you about, but if there’s anything out there, I’ll find it.”
“I don’t want to know.” She laughed and held up a hand. “Some things are better left to the imagination.”
“Speaking of imagination…” He turned toward her a little and stretched a long arm along the back of the couch. “My turn to ask questions.”
She gritted her teeth. “Okay. A deal’s a deal. Ask away.”
“What is it with you and sex?”
“What?” The direct question took her by surprise. “There’s nothing with me and sex.”
“Bullshit. We were milliseconds away from getting naked and happy. Then you froze up on me.”
“The phone rang.”
“That’s crap and you know it.” He tugged an errant lock of her hair. “It’s honesty time here. Spill it. Is it me?”
“Hell no.” The answer tumbled out far too quickly for her liking, but apparently Cheney didn’t mind since it brought a wicked smile to his lips.
“Good. So what is it then?”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she considered how best to answer his question. She didn’t discuss this matter—with anyone. And hadn’t for more years than she could remember. But she knew there was a really strong attraction between them, and if anyone might be able to understand some of it, it would be the man sprawling next to her, looking at her with warmth in his eyes and toying with her hair.
He deserved the truth before it went any further than a hotly passionate kiss. If indeed it was destined to go any further.
He might simply turn tail and run when she told him the truth. A part of her wished that might be the case. That she could continue to live her relatively uncomplicated life and devote herself to law.
But another part, a place he’d awakened with his sensual skills, that part wanted him so very badly she ached with it.
She took a breath and turned toward him, folding one leg beneath the other on the couch and glancing briefly at the wooden dragon, the only piece of wood she had left of her own right now. It seemed to smile encouragingly at her.
“Have you ever heard of a dryad?”
Chapter Eleven
Cheney was held fast in his position, the strands of fiery softness twined around his fingers and the look in her eyes doing the job better than any physical restraints.
“Aren’t they tree fairies or something? Nymphs?” He dredged through his memory to find some reference to dryads, wishing he’d paid more attention to his classical mythology lectures.
“Close.” Pandora swallowed. “Turns out that’s what I am. A dryad.”
“Ah. Okay…”
She shifted her position a little, resting a hand on her thigh. “I suppose I should start at the beginning, then you’ll understand.” She looked away. “I was an only child and the first AG in the family.”
“Your parents were blands?”
“Yes. And I think I was rather a surprise to them.” She grinned. “They weren’t expecting to have a Fae, just a kid. It’s a small family too. No big groups of people at the holidays, only one aunt on my mother’s side.”
“So it might be safe to infer they didn’t quite know what to do with you?”
“I guess.” A wry smile crossed her lips. “They loved me, without a doubt. But once I hit puberty and the whole Fae thing started to manifest—well, they were at a bit of a loss.” She closed her eyes for a second or two. “I never fit in with the school Fae. You know the types…all about the wings and the dresses. That wasn’t me. I was—odd Fae out, if that makes sense. At that time, I didn’t know why.”
“When did you realize you were a dryad?”
She opened her eyes and thought for a moment. “I guess it was sophomore year. I’d been to a party and there’d been some drinking.”
“My goodness.” He looked astounded.
“Yeah. Terrible, huh?”
“The sad state of the morals of our youth.” He chuckled. “Sorry. Go on.”
“I got home, a bit buzzed, and I didn’t want to go indoors. It was one of those perfect nights, warm air, moonlight—I’d danced with a boy I had a serious crush on and he’d kissed me. First real kiss. I was a couple of feet off the ground for a variety of reasons. Girl stuff.” She threw him an apologetic glance. “You probably don’t get all this, but you did ask.”
“I may not have the same equipment, but I get the general idea.”
“Well, anyway…” she continued, “I walked into our back garden. I could sense something special, something different. I just stood there, and it was like a door opened in my head. The trees were talking to me, saying wonderful things, encouraging me to throw my arms wide open, to let them into my soul.” She winced. “This sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it?”
He shook his head but remained silent.
“Long story short, my wings manifested. But they weren’t Fae wings. They were branches, living branches, heavy with leaves. I felt rooted, felt my toes digging into the earth. I wasn’t flying like a Fae, I was growing like a tree.” She chuckled ruefully. “It was quite a shock. Not just to me, but to Mom and Dad who happened to look out the window at that moment.”
“I can see their faces now.” He grinned. “You probably still can.”
She couldn’t help smiling at him. This was easier than she’d imagined it would be. “You have no idea.”
“So what then?”
“Then? I sort of suppressed it, I guess. Mom and Dad never told me to, it’s just that they were at a loss, you know? They bought the books, read all the right literature—they were both teachers, so they knew the resources. But there was hardly anything on dryads. And none of us were interested in going through test after test. It was easier to just not mention it, pretend it didn’t really exist.”
“Easier for them. But not for you.”
“Probably. It didn’t seem too hard though. And God knows I’d have really hated being poked and prodded by those DNA registrars.”
Cheney shifted closer, letting his hand drift to the hair tumbling over her ears. She rather liked it.
“That I can believe. Any new mutation gets put through a wringer, no question about it.”
“Yeah. I probably wasn’t that new, but I didn’t want the notoriety either. I was a teenager. That’s bad enough. Plus I was taller than everyone else—God, I so hated sticking out. Always standing in the back row, red hair blazing…” She shuddered. “Wouldn’t go back to that for any amount of money.”
“Been there, tried to slump through that.”
“Yes, I guess you would have.” She laughed. “Moving on…I dealt with it. Kept it all under wraps. Stayed away from moonlight gardens. Didn’t drink very much at all. I guess I was pretty dull, all things considered, but I sure got good grades, graduating top of the class, acing pre-law in college.”
“And headed for law school?”
“Yes.”
“You dated, I take it?” A casually simple question.
“Yes.” No simple answer though. “I dated. I even had sex. It was okay, nothing to write home about.” She paused. “I suppose I never really got into it very much. Then I made the mistake of falling real hard for a guy. Senior year. I was convinced he was the one.”
“Ah.”
“We dated for a few weeks, then we got to finals. He was pre-med and I was pre-law. Heavy duty studying. When we were done, we planned a night of riotous celebration.”
“Ending up in bed, I assume.”
“I hoped so. We hadn’t had time to go there, so this was going to be a major thing. Especially for me. I was crazy about him in one of those horribly sheltered-life, almost-obsessive kind of ways. I was already seeing wedding gowns and hearing church b
ells.”
“And?”
“It was a total disaster.” As if distancing herself from her past, Pandora got up from the couch and walked across the room, staring out the window into the darkness. “I let the passion take over. I lost any and all control of myself. We were actually doing it when I started to change.” Even now, years after it happened, she could still experience a pang of emotional agony. “The wing branches emerged. My toes grew. God knows what else…”
“I’m guessing the guy freaked on you.”
“Freaked being the operative word. Not only did he grab his pants and put ’em on running, he kept running. Only stopped to pass the word that I was abnormal. I think he actually used the word freak, now I come to think about it.” She rotated her shoulders, trying to ease the tension that had crept through her spine. “Fortunately we were days away from the end of the semester and right on top of graduation. I was able to walk away from there with most of my reputation intact. And when I hit law school, I found I could drown myself in law and enjoy every minute of it.”
“You telling me you haven’t had sex since then?” Cheney’s eyes were wide.
“Not at all.” She turned back to him, keeping her expression blank. “I’ve had some quite nice sexual experiences.”
“That sounds appallingly frightening.”
“It’s not. I don’t mind having sex. I’ve learned to manage it. I just keep it under control.”
“You mean you’ve managed to repress damn near half of who you really are.”
She blinked. “Probably. But it works fine and I’m content with it.”
“Oh, Pandora.” Cheney shook his head slowly. “You are so wrong about that.”
“I don’t think so.” She returned to the couch. “Let’s face it, Cheney. Sex is a simple physical expression of affection between two people. No more, no less. As long as I keep it to that, I’m fine. I enjoy the closeness, the touching. I…” she cleared her throat, “…I get aroused sometimes.”
For a moment she closed her eyes. God, this was the weirdest conversation she’d ever had with a man. “All I have to do is remember to relax and just enjoy as much of it as I can. Most times, my dates haven’t even realized…” She trailed off, realizing what she was implying.
“They never know you don’t come.”
At a loss as how to avoid answering that, Pandora simply kept her mouth shut and looked away from him.
“They’re idiots.”
“That’s harsh. And some were quite nice.”
“Okay. Nice idiots.”
“There really haven’t been too many. I have a busy schedule. My work doesn’t allow me time to go out and party up a storm every damn Saturday night, Cheney. I’m not out cruising for hot sex on a regular basis, so it really doesn’t matter much in the overall scheme of my life.”
He tilted his head and stared at her thoughtfully. “Pandora, you’ve suppressed a huge part of your life. And I’m not just talking about orgasms. This goes deeper. It goes to who you are, a part of you that shouldn’t be kept under wraps.”
“Really?” She flicked a glance back at him. “And haven’t you done the same thing?”
“Me?” He looked surprised. “Hell no. I come. I’ve never faked an orgasm in my life.”
A laugh bubbled up in her throat, catching her off guard. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Oh.” He grinned unrepentantly.
“You don’t tell many people about your AG talent. Your gift for illusions. I wouldn’t have known to come talk to you at all if I hadn’t met Roz and had the wits to put two and two together about your project. Rusty and Lucy.”
“That’s a personal choice.”
“As is mine.”
“Not the same,” Cheney disagreed. “I simply don’t make my talent public. Doesn’t mean I don’t use it or enjoy it from time to time. I don’t push it out of my life. It’s part of me. I’m tall, I don’t like olives and I can create illusions. That’s it. No big secret.”
He was wrong about that, thought Pandora. It might not be secret, but Cheney was anything but a straightforward person. He showed what he wanted the world to see, and that didn’t necessarily correlate to who he was or what he happened to be thinking at the time. However, she had no right to argue the point, since she’d probably lose that one. “Well, say what you will, I guess we’ve both come to terms with who and what we are, just in different ways.”
“A nice summation encompassing neutral ground.” He crossed his legs at the ankles. “Well done. One thing though…”
“What?”
“Your tears. You cried blood at the fire.”
She nodded. “I have what could best be called an empathy, I guess. I can sense when a tree is in trouble. If it needs pruning or it’s rotting or dying. I suppose I could have turned that into a pretty successful job as an arborist, but it’s draining, both physically and emotionally.” She slumped back onto the couch, her hand drifting once again to the carved dragon. “Most times I can deal with it when it happens. And that’s not often. But today?” She gulped down a lump of bitterness. “Today was the screaming death of the wooden pieces I’d come to know and love. They weren’t alive, not like a forest fire burning living trees. But they were part of me. I’d touched them so many times, learned the feel of their surfaces, taken something from them that made my life better, just like I hope they took something from me.” She stared down at the figurine beside her. “When they burned I felt it like a physical pain. Like my insides were being torn apart. I guess that caused the bloody tears…I don’t know for sure. It’s only happened once before.”
“When was that?”
“A big bonfire one year in college. Dead wood used for logs doesn’t bother me. It’s as if the spirit of the tree is lost once it’s chopped up. But some of the students brought newly cut still-living wood and threw it on the blaze.” She recalled the pain, her skin dappling with goose bumps at the memory. “It was terrible. I realized I was crying and saw the blood when I wiped my face. I got the hell out of there and haven’t been to a bonfire since.”
“You’re weird all right.”
Stunned, she blinked at him, then noticed his grin. “Uhh…”
“C’mon, kid. You’re smart enough to know that AG mutations take all kinds of forms. Nothing’s standard, nothing is quote normal unquote.” He made the appropriate gesture with his fingers. “It’s all natural, part of our world nowadays.”
She blew out a breath from between pursed lips. “Sure. You know that. I know that. But somewhere along the line people didn’t manage to adjust to stuff that’s out of the ordinary. Okay, so the ordinary has changed in its definition from what it was a few generations ago. But there’s still that…that…” She searched for the word.
“Stigma?”
“I suppose that’s as good a way of any to describe it. Fae are accepted. Differently talented Fae are still looked at askance.”
“Askance. Lovely word.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Forgive me for enjoying the English language.”
“Don’t get snotty. That was a genuine compliment. You don’t speak in shorthand. I like that.”
“Sorry. My mistake. I get a bit touchy now and again when my linguistic skills are…” she smiled at him, “…impugned.”
“Oooh. A twofer. Let me get my notebook.” He chuckled and rubbed a finger down her cheek. “You need rest, crazy tree lady. Been a rough day.”
“Yeah.” Pandora stifled another yawn. “That’s an understatement.”
“So go get some sleep. But maybe you should think about this.” He leaned forward and barely brushed her lips with his mouth. “We’re going to end up naked and in bed together.”
Amazed by the frisson of arousal his kiss had sent chasing down her spine, she simply stared at him.
“And when we do, there’ll be no faking. No pretending. No hiding. Is that clear?”
She nodded. What else could she do? Lying wasn’t
an option. She’d bared her innermost soul to this man. He knew what she was, now. There was no need for pretense. It was a strangely liberating moment, one in which her life shifted a little and she acknowledged to herself that having him make love to her might be pretty damn fantastic.
And it scared the crap out of her.
“Go to bed and think about it, okay?” He pulled back with a rueful sigh. “I know I will.”
She stood and almost ran to his guestroom, not looking over her shoulder. Whether it was because she was afraid he would follow her or that he wouldn’t—well, that was something she’d postpone thinking about until she could get her head straight and her mind organized.
Oddly enough, those were two things that she was finding increasingly difficult when she was around Cheney Fisher.
He hadn’t lied. He was thinking about getting Pandora naked, hot and sweaty. He was thinking about how he’d arouse her and push her past her self-imposed limits. What she’d like, where he’d touch her and taste her—and what to do about the seriously solid erection that all these thoughts had quite naturally produced.
“Fuck.” He shifted in his chair. Sleep definitely wasn’t an option right now so he’d opted for his office and Marilyn, intending to dig around a little in some official files and see if there was anything out there on Victoria Larson he might have overlooked, missed or just not found first time around.
“Cheney?” Marilyn’s face peeked at him from the side of his screen. “Anything I can do for you, darling?”
“Sadly no.” He moved again, easing the throbbing weight between his legs.
“I have a few ideas, baby…” Red lips pouted at him as the speakers whispered in husky and seductive tones.
“You’re not helping, Marilyn.” He frowned. “On the other hand, maybe there is something you can do. Can you access the department database from—let’s say fifty years ago? Give me the ten years prior too.”
“Of course, honey.” The dulcet voice sounded a little disappointed, but within moments the official logo appeared on the screen and he entered his password. Back files began to appear. “Is there any particular area you’d like displayed, handsome?”
Demons are a Ghoul's Best Friend: Afterglow, Book 2 Page 11
