Love Lies (Tails from the Alpha Art Gallery Book 3)

by Cynthia St. Aubin

  A shiver started at the back of my neck and raced to my knees, leaving a burning trail right through my center.

  This was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 19

  “You’ve made some improvements.” I wandered around the formerly bare living room of Morrison’s townhouse, noting the addition of a credenza topped by a huge flat screen TV, two overstuffed buttery leather couches, and matching end tables.

  I mean…the man had end tables topped with two matching lamps.

  The last time I’d been here, we’d taken a late night supper sitting across from each other at a coffee table, the only other piece of furniture in the room aside from two Wal-Mart bookshelves. The bookshelves had both evolved and multiplied, now taking up the entire wall.

  I forced myself not to look at the titles, having had enough trouble not pole-vaulting onto his cock last time I was here based on his book collection alone.

  This was to say nothing of the artwork lining the walls, these having been painted by Morrison himself.

  “I had some free time on my hands,” he said.

  Free time, being code for being suspended for beating Abernathy to a pulp during an interrogation.

  “The couches look really comfortable. I don’t mind sleeping down here if you have a blanket I could use.” I would have brought mine with me, had it not been stuck under a pile of prostitutes.

  “Come upstairs,” Morrison said, looking over his shoulder.

  “James, I don’t think—”

  “That’s where the guest room is,” he added.

  “Oh. Right.” At some point, I really should stop assuming everyone wanted to sleep with me. Just because I’d been propositioned by a unicorn didn’t necessarily mean every male on earth wanted a go.

  I followed Morrison up the stairs, smiling to myself as he schlepped my oversized bags without complaint. He paused at the first room and flicked on the light.

  This was his room. I knew it even before the warm glow washed over the king-sized bed. His scent filled my chest, my head, my heart. Not just any scent. His sleeping scent. The heavenly distillation of his skin, his cologne, his deodorant, concentrated by hours of applied body heat. The same scent he’d left on my pillows, my sheets after he’d warmed them for a night.

  A little ache radiated out from the center of my chest when I saw the pile of books slanted across the nightstand on the side closest to the bathroom.

  Just like mine.

  The other nightstand was bare.

  “Hanna?” He’d continued walking, and was now standing in the doorway of another room, the light already on.

  “Oh, sorry.” I shuffled down the hallway to meet him in the doorway of the guest room and had to stifle a gasp.

  A four-poster wrought iron canopy bed. Filmy, diaphanous swags of fabric slithered between the ornate rods and fell, shimmering to the carpet. The plush velvet damask bedding and matching throw pillows looked like they’d been seduced from a courtesan’s boudoir. Somehow the configuration sailed past feminine and landed squarely in erotic. This was a bed you tied someone to. A bed built for begging mercy, and being given something far better.

  I had always wanted one of these.

  “I always wanted one of these,” Morrison said, hauling my suitcase onto the vintage steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. “Guest room seemed like a good place for one.”

  I walked past him to click the lamp perched on the nightstand. The glow revealed a stack of books that might have been at home on a coffee table. Large, ponderous tomes about Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh.

  Van Gogh.

  Even if his brother had stabbed me a few times, I couldn’t find it in my heart to hold it against Vincent, my first and longest art historical love. I smiled, thinking of the impossibility of my situation. Vincent Van Gogh’s brother had tried to kill me. And here, a book about him adorned the guest room where I was staying.

  Given a thousand years, Morrison could not have guessed the reason for my grin.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “That’s not a nothing smile.” His observational acuity had ever been finer than a razor’s edge, and so it remained. The source of equal parts pleasure and problem for me.

  “This room is more me than me. Does that make sense?”

  “No. And yes. We share some territory.” He reached out and caught up a length of the silky fabric. It sighed as it yielded to his fingers, much as I would, and had. And wanted to.

  The ache in my heart found my breasts. Something pulled my magnetic center south.

  You’re coming into heat. This is so, so not the place to be when your every cell is begging to be fucked.

  “You should go,” I said.

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “Why?”

  Surprise etched every muscle in his face when I leapt at him. Though not yet a werewolf, I moved faster than he expected. A familiar sensation of falling, the world blurring around us, then ceasing to spin on its axis when our bodies made contact. One moment of perfect stillness held us before I descended, pinning him to the bed beneath me. Like the predator I might yet be, I devoured him—my prey, my prize. I lost and found myself in the taste of him, essential as water, his tongue surging against mine like the tide.

  The hands he’d pressed against my chest in surprise melted, sliding around my back to pull me closer.

  My fingers threaded through the thick dark sugar of his hair. I bit then licked his lips, his hard jaw, the smooth skin of his neck.

  His groan moved heavy desire through my veins where it gathered in my stomach. I ground my hips against his, knowing what I’d find there already.

  As ever, James Morrison did not disappoint. “Such a big boy,” I whispered, nibbling the spot below his ear that I knew could drive him to frenzy. “I could ride you until your back broke.” Greedy, I pushed my hand against his pants, feeling him, hard beneath my palm.

  “Jesus,” he panted. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I’d like to.”

  What’s gotten into you? Why don’t you tell him? Tell him you’re a— “No!” I tore myself away from him, rolling off the bed, putting as much distance between us as possible.

  Guilt clubbed me over the head as I took in his wounded, bewildered expression. How could I do this? This man loved me, and I was going to use him like my own personal scratching post? Sharpening my claws against the willing flesh around his good heart. I struggled to regain my breath as well as my composure. “I’m so sorry, James. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed, pushing himself to his elbows. “Get your ass over here and finish what you started.”

  “See, I’d really love to, but I think that would be a bad idea.” Don’t look at his pants. Do. Not. Look at his pants.

  “I’m having trouble validating your assertion. You’re horny as hell, I have this erection, there’s this big bed right here, and we’ve done this enough to know it will end well for both of us.”

  I had to admit, the man was making a whole fuck-ton of sense. “Yeah, but that’s just, physical. And we both know it’s not that simple.”

  Morrison followed my gaze to his aforementioned erection. “It could be.”

  “But it isn’t.” I loaded my look with every ounce of pleading I could muster. Please understand.

  “Why not?”

  No such luck. “Because. Because of...what you said.”

  He looked at me like my tits had suddenly migrated from my chest to my forehead. “What did I say?”

  Shit.

  “Forget it,” I said.

  A knowing smile slid across his lips. “You think it would be insulting to use me for my body because I love you, and you don’t love me.”

  My eyes must have gone as wide as duck eggs, judging from the amusement on Morrison’s face. “I didn’t—”

  “I’m touched, Hanna. Really I am. But I’m also a man. Please. I
ask you, I beg you, use me for my body.”

  I blinked at him, unbelieving. “You would really be okay with that?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t shit yourself, cupcake. I want everything you have. All of you. But I’ll take what I can get. If that’s your ass, for a night, so be it.”

  “That’s horrible!” I protested. “That makes it worse, not better!”

  “Any man who told you different would be lying.” He rolled over onto his side and patted the space on the comforter before him.

  “What if it was less than my ass? Would you take that?”

  Morrison’s boyish laugh was more contagious than Cholera. “I sleep with a pair of your panties under my pillow. I think we’re past any illusions of pride at this point.”

  Arousal stormed my senses anew. “My panties? When did you—”

  His smile was less enigmatic than Abernathy’s by half. “You have your secrets. I have mine.”

  “Do me a favor?” I asked.

  “Depends.” He pushed himself to a seated position on the edge of the bed. “Does this favor involve oral sex and multiple orgasms?”

  My knees threatened to give. “Could you please stop being so fucking charming? You’re making this really hard for me.”

  “Only fair, considering how hard you’ve made things for me.” We both glanced at his erection, still insistent upon participating fully in this conversation.

  Moisture flooded my mouth. “Get out of here and go lock your door. Now.”

  “Nope.” He rolled off the bed and slung an arm around my neck. “Come on,” he said, tugging me through the door toward his bedroom. “Let’s go to bed.”

  “No, James. I told you. I can’t. Even if you’re okay with it.”

  “You’re not going to,” he said.

  “What?”

  “We are going to sleep together,” he announced. “That’s all.”

  “Sleep?” Visions of me pole vaulting onto the half-naked, sleeping Morrison sprang through my head. “James. I don’t think you understand. I’m going to attack you again. It will happen.”

  “People try a lot of things in my line of work, Hanna. And none of them succeed without my say.”

  “I’m...stronger than you remember,” I warned him.

  “Okay,” he said, sliding past me into the hallway. “Come at me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Come at me.” He gave my shoulder a playful shove and squared off against me.

  I looked behind back to the guest room. “I already did. Remember?”

  “Now try it while I’m resisting.” His broad shoulders flexed as he hunkered down, preparing for an attack. “Come get some.”

  “I am not doing this. This is ridiculous. I’m going to bed.” I turned to walk into the guest room and was caught by a forearm around the waist. Morrison tripped me over his outstretched leg, and I fell to the carpet, pinned beneath him.

  “Single leg takedown,” he announced. “Didn’t know you were shacking up with the Croton High state wrestling champion, did you?”

  No, and it certainly wasn’t helping me not want to climb him like a tree. “Congratulations sixteen years ago. Now let me up.”

  “You’re dangerous, remember? You’re going to attack me. Let’s see what you got.” He brought his full weight down on my hips, keeping my arms pinned above my head. The second he shifted, I jerked my hips upward, tossing him off to the side.

  A quick roll, and I scrambled out from under him, only to be tackled again from behind. My elbows stung as Morrison pulled my legs out from under me dragged me backward on the carpet. His body came down on my back, and in a swift succession of arm and leg locks, I was face down on the floor, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Only that wasn’t a meat thermometer pressing against my ass.

  “That all you got?” His lips were warm against the already feverish skin of my neck.

  It wasn’t all I had. Not by half. But any further demonstration would raise more questions than it would answer. “You win,” I sighed.

  “The lady yields?”

  “For the moment…”

  He rolled off and pulled me up by hands, but dove toward my hips at the last minute and slung me over his shoulder.

  “Put me down!” I tried for indignant but came much closer to delighted.

  “Not until you say the magic word,” he teased.

  “Please?” I guessed.

  “What the hell kind of magic word is that?” He reached up and spanked my ass. “Try again.”

  “Stop!” I laughed.

  “Nope. Try again.” He started to spin in a circle.

  The hallway blurred around me as I grabbed handfuls of his shirt. “James! I’m going to yark!”

  He stopped, but the world kept spinning. “Say yes.”

  “Yes what?” I asked, unable to stifle a giggle. When was the last time I’d felt this giddy? The last time I’d laughed so much?

  “Yes, James. I would love to have a platonic sleepover with you tonight,” he said.

  “Do I have to?”

  “No. But just so you know, I have excellent stamina. I could spin you for hours.” He took a few steps to demonstrate.

  “Okay! Okay,” I relented. “Yes James, I would love to have a platonic sleepover with you tonight.”

  “Good,” he said, walking into the bedroom with me still draped over his shoulder. “Because I am going to cuddle you so fucking hard.”

  Chapter 20

  I awoke to the sensation of lips pressed to my forehead. My body rolled into Morrison as he lowered himself down on the edge of the bed. “Morning,” he said.

  “Morning,” I mumbled into his pillow.

  “I’m heading out. There’s coffee and doughnuts downstairs.”

  I cranked my head off the pillow. “This would be a very cruel thing to lie about.”

  “I don’t lie,” he reminded me.

  “Good. Cause I’m going to eat the shit out of those doughnuts.”

  “Make them pay. Gotta go to work.” He planted another kiss on my cheek, leaving in his wake the scent of shaving lotion and clean skin.

  “Thanks,” was my lame reply. I rolled myself out of bed and padded to the window, watching until I saw Morrison’s iconic Gold Crown Victoria exit the complex at speeds to the north of legal. Another dead body, perhaps?

  He’d hinted last night that Georgetown had been experiencing a surge in unexplained deaths. Some looked like murders. Others looked like medical anomalies: cardiac arrest in previously young, healthy adults; organ failure due to lack of blood volume.

  Not blood loss. Blood disappearance.

  Fortunately, Nero’s associates seemed capable of concealing the evidence of their contact. And this was only half of the story.

  They would have had twice as many bodies on their hands, were Joseph not adept at disposing of them.

  War. The implications of this word pressed down upon my shoulders, driving an ache into my neck and head, turning the tendons in my body tighter than a bow string.

  A world populated by more creatures than I had ever reckoned, humans the youngest and most volatile of the species I knew. Beings as elemental as the foundation of the earth poised to destroy each other, and many more innocents in the process. The fate of the entire planet hung in the balance, and I, the lynchpin in this intricate Rube Goldberg machine, could only think about doughnuts.

  Only one way to stop thinking about them.

  I flipped open my suitcase, thankfully sans any new heads, and extracted my pig slippers. In naught but an oversized t-shirt and panties, I shuffled downstairs.

  Navigating Morrison’s kitchen proved eerily easy. Coffee cups were exactly where I would have stored them, in the slim cabinet over the coffee maker. Half and half was tucked neatly in the refrigerator door, beneath the butter and eggs. Sugar could be found in the cabinet nearest the stove, where spices could be selected and quickly added to pots simmering on the range.

  Some people snooped medicine
cabinets. I’d found a man’s spice collection could tell a person loads more.

  Morrison’s, of course, read like the pantry of a professional chef, which description was not far off the mark.

  Bottles of aged balsamic vinegar as thick as chocolate syrup, slim jars of caramelized shallots, white truffle oil, exotic sea salts in pink, white, and black, tins of Herbs de Provence, Tellicherry black peppercorns, and saffron.

  Even I had never shelled out the cash for real saffron. What I had looked more like confetti soaked in red food coloring than the stamens of rare crocuses.

  “Creepy,” I mumbled, lifting to my lips the oversized Salvador Dali mug I’d selected from Morrison’s eclectic collection. This, at least, he had not yet had time to upgrade. The silverware, too still looked like a bin you might find in the kitchen section of Goodwill.

  Creepy? Or kismet? Inquired the little voice in my head, who, luckily, had receded significantly in power outside of Castle Abernathy’s grounds.

  “Those are not mutually exclusive,” I answered aloud, taking a sip of my coffee. Smooth, roasty smoke slid like velvet over my tongue. “Fucking A. He cuddles, he buys doughnuts, his coffee is better than my grandma’s. Sorry!” I added, sliding a glance heavenward. “You know how much I love your coffee.”

  But grandma would have forgiven me. She’d had a thing for cops, too.

  “I know he’s no Walker Texas Ranger, but I think you’d like him,” I said. Grandma had never been to shy about letting nice young men know when they could butter her toast, or mow her lawn, or an innumerable assortment of other innuendoes.

  My pig slippers slid over to Morrison’s new dining table, where two doughnut boxes were stacked upon each other.

  I opened the first box, still warm at the sides, and the aroma of melted sugar filled my senses like a siren’s song. In the whole box of glazed doughnuts, only three were missing from the bottom row. Morrison would have popped it open while he drove, too hungry and eager to wait.

  A smile tugged one corned of my mouth upward as I shifted the first box to the side and opened the second.