“Her name was Kyla. She was a little scamp.”
They walked past a row of rabbits lined up along the side of the path, watching Eva, but Flynn only spared them a brief glance through hooded eyes.
“She loved her big brother. And she had a huge heart, so she loved her big brother’s friend. Me. She followed us around everywhere. I never had a sister of my own, so it was nice. Nice to be part of the family in a way. I hung out there for maybe a year.”
She could read the pain in the way his jaw was clenched, in the tight way he held his shoulders. In the tightness of his grip on her hand as she waited for him to continue.
He fell silent again, so after a moment, Eva ventured a question. “How old was she?”
“Exactly the right question,” Flynn said, so harshly that the rabbits, who’d been silently hopping along behind them, scattered in all directions. “She was thirteen when I met her. She was fourteen when she died.”
Eva didn’t even realize she was crying until a tear dripped off the end of her nose. She brushed it away and pulled on Flynn’s hand to get him to stop. Then she did what she’d been longing to do for a while, but she did it from compassion, not from desire.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest. He stood stiffly, still as a statue, not returning her hug. But not pulling away from her either.
“Oh, Flynn. I’m so sorry for Kyla and for her family and for you.”
He took a deep breath and then stepped away from her and folded his arms across his chest, probably so she couldn’t hug him again. She tried not to let him see how much that hurt her.
“You don’t understand. I told her she would be okay. She was terrified of the transition because three of her best friends died. Only two of the little group she ran with survived it. I told her she would be okay.”
He buried his face in his hands and his big body started to shake. “I told her she would be okay, and she died in agony.”
She pushed his hands out of her way and hugged him again, so tightly that he couldn’t get free of her. He needed human contact just then, whether he thought he did or not. His heart beat wildly beneath her cheek, and he took deep, shuddering breaths. Suddenly, almost convulsively, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even closer, bending down to rest his forehead on the top of her head.
“I told her she’d be okay,” he said brokenly. “And the last thing she said—while she could still speak at all—was ‘Flynn, you lied to me.’”
Eva’s heart was breaking. For the man in her arms, whose guilt and pain and loss were destroying him, for the family who’d lost their daughter—their sister. And for little Kyla, who’d cried out in pain and terror and despair.
“It wasn’t your fault.” She whispered the words against the warm, bare skin where his collar opened, breathing in his scent. Trying to absorb his pain. “You must know that it wasn’t your fault. Of course you had to tell her that she would be okay. There’s nothing else to say in that situation. It’s a horrible, horrible thing—it’s hell itself. But there was nothing else you could’ve done but be there for her, and it sounds like you were.”
He nodded, swallowing convulsively.
“You were there for her in the best way you could be. It’s so awful, so unbelievably awful, that she died, but it’s not your fault. You need to forgive yourself, Flynn.”
Flynn put his hands on the sides of her face and tilted it up so he could look into her eyes. “How do you do that? How do you know exactly what to say? Is it part of your ‘soothing the savage beast’ gift?” His voice was rough and husky, the voice of a man who’d been screaming or sobbing, even though he’d done neither.
The voice of a man who needed comfort.
Eva pulled his head down until their lips met. She initiated the kiss, but Flynn instantly took charge. He captured the back of her head in one big hand, and then he tilted her head and took her mouth like a conqueror. Like a seducer. Like a pirate, ravishing her in his treasure cave…
She moaned, trying to climb his body, needing to get closer. She’d never been kissed like this, like the man kissing her would die if he couldn't. She tangled her tongue with his and kissed him and kissed him until she had to stop, gasping for air, hanging on to his shoulders so she didn’t fall down.
His treasure cave… Why was that poking at the edge of her consciousness so much? Suddenly she knew.
She knew.
“Flynn. They’re holding the girls in the old copper mine.”
He got it immediately. “The copper in the mine would conceal any magic being done from somebody like Griffin who was trying to detect it.”
She nodded. “Of course. Why didn’t we think of this? Black-magic witches use copper in their summoning circles. It can keep demons in—”
“So it can keep nosy law enforcement out,” Flynn finished.
“You need to call your friend or teammate or whatever he is and get federal law enforcement in and set the takedown. Now.”
Flynn was quiet for a few moments with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he looked at Eva and shook his head. “Jake is with Zach, who says we’re brilliant and he’ll call it in, but it will still be no-go on the federal takedown. They’re afraid the Dark Angels will kill all the girls in the event of a raid because the demons will still want the magical power from the sacrifices. Our best chance to save them is still to get in there another way.”
Eva’s heart sank. “Using me.”
Flynn nodded, his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of any other way. But if you don’t want to do it, you should go. Now. I’ll die before I let anything happen to you, but that’s not a one hundred percent guarantee of your safety. As I’ve told you, I don’t have a good record of protecting people.”
“I’ll do it,” she said in a very small voice, trying to be brave.
He slashed a hand through the air. “No. It’s not fair of us to ask you to risk your life for this. We’ll figure something out.”
Eva started running for the car, shouting back at him over her shoulder. “But if not me, then who? Who will stand for those girls? I know you will, and your floating magic friend, and whoever else is on your side, but if you can’t get in there without setting some kind of alarm, the girls still wind up dead. I can’t do it. I can’t leave. I could never live with myself if I bought my own safety at the cost of their lives.”
She wasn’t the Eva from before, who’d cowered in the face of Snake’s threats and Noel’s bullying. This was the Eva she’d been before all that. Willing to stand up for what was right. And Flynn had said he’d die to protect her, so she was pretty sure he was the exact same kind of person deep down, underneath all that guilt and sadness he was carrying around.
They sped through the dark night, and when they reached her place, she was glad to see that Mrs. M had already left for California. One more innocent out of harm’s way.
“I’ll be on your roof again to watch over you—” Flynn began when they reached her door, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Flynn. No. Come inside and stay with me. I don’t want to be alone, sitting around waiting for Snake to call.” Even as she said it, she realized she really did think of Scott as Snake now. The Scott she’d fallen for could never have put her through the past few years of pursuit and torture. The black magic had twisted him into something unrecognizable, and it was time she acknowledged it.
This time Flynn took the lead checking out the apartment. When he was sure it was safe, he beckoned her to come in.
“I’ll be just a minute. I want to stand out here on the porch in the fresh air for a few minutes and call my grandfather.” She suddenly was finding it hard to breathe, let alone get the words out, but she managed.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” he said quietly. Flynn, so big and tough and muscular, so hard and deadly, gently touched her cheek and then quietly closed the door between them.
The tears started falling the
moment she dialed the phone.
“Eva?”
“Gramps. It’s so good to hear your voice,” she managed, trying her best to sound cheerful.
“Are you okay? You sound funny,” he said, concern clear in his dear voice.
“I am okay, Gramps. I met a man from Atlantis. Well, two men from Atlantis, but one is actually a mage. Anyway, they’re so interesting. Maybe sometime I can get them to talk to you about the history. I know you’d like that.”
“You sound more cheerful than you have in a long time, honey, but like you have a cold. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m working on it, Gramps. I’m working on me. It sounds silly, but I think I’m finding the person I was before— No. I’m finding the person I was meant to be, and I kind of like her.”
“I knew you would, sweetheart. Always remember that I love you, and come see an old man pretty soon, okay?”
She had to agree. So, standing there, alone in the moonlight, knowing that there was a very high chance that she was going to die that very night, Eva promised her grandfather that she’d visit soon.
When she ended the call and collapsed in tears, the door opened and strong arms caught her before she could fall.
Flynn lifted Eva into his embrace and stepped back into her apartment, kicking the door shut behind him. Then he stood there with an armful of weeping woman and no idea of what to do with her. He thought kissing her might help, but her hands were covering her face, so she probably wasn’t in the mood for that. Dammit.
He wasn’t particularly good with women, at least the kind of relationships that lasted longer than a casual week or two. He definitely wasn’t good with tears. He’d rather face a rogue vampire, unarmed, than a woman’s tears. “Eva? Honey?” He bent and placed her ever so carefully on the edge of her couch and smoothed her hair away from her face. Eva looked up at him.
He’d seen women before who could cry and still look beautiful.
Eva wasn’t one of them.
Her face had turned blotchy, her eyes were red, and her nose was swollen.
Right at that exact moment in time, Flynn felt—actually felt—his heart turn over in his chest.
“When our grandchildren ask how I knew you were the one, I’m going to tell them it’s because you looked so bad when you were crying,” he blurted out, and then he groaned. “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
Eva slowly blinked, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open. “Are you out of your tiny little Atlantean mind? Also, it’s not very nice to tell someone they look bad even if they do.”
She defiantly turned away from him but then immediately ruined her tough-guy act by grabbing for a handful of tissues out of the box on the coffee table.
Flynn, who had either just learned a lesson or been hit over the head with a meteorite, knelt at her feet and put his hands on her knees. “Eva. I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. Please, for the love of all the gods, stop crying. I’ll do anything. Anything at all. Just please stop crying.”
She wiped her face one last time and managed a shaky laugh. Then she took a deep breath and blew it out, sniffling. “I’m sorry about that. I’m usually a lot stronger than this. I’ve had to be. But talking to Gramps—that was tough
She blew her nose, loudly, and Flynn had to clench his teeth to keep from laughing. He knew that wouldn’t go over well.
“Part of this is just a reaction to the idea I’m probably going to die tonight,” she said, taking deep, shuddering breaths. “You don’t know what it’s like to live your life in fear.”
Flynn’s rage surged, cold and deadly. “Neither will you, ever again, even if I have to kill every single one of them to protect you.”
She inhaled sharply but said nothing. Didn’t reach out to him. His heart crashed inside his chest, but he had to let her take control. Of course she wouldn’t want any kind of intimacy now, not even a hug, not with what was coming next.
He glanced at the clock. “It’s midnight. Monkey said they’d call at three. You should try to get some sleep.”
“I know I’m not going to be able to sleep, and I don’t even want to try. There’s only one thing I want.” She put her hands on his face and drew his head toward her. “I want you. Now.”
He forced himself to resist the urge to pick her up and carry her immediately to her bed. “Eva, you don’t—”
She put her fingers on his lips. “There’s a chance that whatever happens in in the next three hours will be the last good memory I ever make in my life. Make love to me, Flynn. Make it my best memory.”
He was driving her out of her mind.
Flynn had scooped her up off the couch, carried her to the small bedroom, and tossed her on the bed, instantly joining here there. Beside her, around her, beneath her, surrounding her. Touching, kissing, holding, stroking. He kissed her and touched her until she thought she’d go insane from wanting him, and they hadn’t even undressed. She finally demanded that he take his clothes off, and he shed them in seconds but stopped her when she tried to remove her own.
“Oh no, mi amara. I want to unwrap you like the gift you are for me.” Now, maybe half an hour later, she was down to her bra and panties. It was taking so long because he insisted on kissing every square inch of skin as he unveiled it. She lay trembling on the bed next to him, aching with desire, clutching his shoulders and moaning.
She was wetter and hotter than she’d ever been in her life, and every time his fingers skimmed the insides of her thighs, her hips bucked involuntarily against his hand.
“Please touch me,” she begged. “Flynn. Touch me now.”
He laughed, but his dark eyes were glowing with such stark, raw desire that she felt as if she were melting under the weight of his gaze. He finally slipped his fingers beneath the fabric of her panties, and she cried out. He took that as an invitation and stroked down her center, then pushed his fingers just a little way inside her, causing her to arch her body and moan.
“Please, please, please, please,” she begged, tossing her head back and forth on the pillows.
“Is this what you want?” He stroked her with his fingers, smoothing her own hot wetness against her clit, and in seconds she was coming apart under his hand.
“That’s it. Come for me,” he said with dark, fierce triumph. “I’m going to make you come again and again, with my hands and with my mouth. You’re going to come so hard you won’t know which way is up and which is down, and then—only then—I’m going to fuck you so hard you shatter, screaming my name.”
“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Every touch was a revelation, every caress a rapture. He sent her soaring, skating, dancing down the silver knife’s edge of a desire so fierce it was almost pain. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anyone in her life, and she could tell from his words and his touches that he felt the same way.
He tore off her panties and slid her bra down her arms, and now she lay nude, writhing in the bed, clutching his shoulder with one hand and wrapping her other hand around the silken hardness of his very large erection. He kissed her again and then, in one quick motion, he slid down her body and put his mouth on her. His tongue swirled over her once, twice, and then he sucked hard on her clit and she shattered. Every nerve ending in her body lit up, a chain reaction of pure, electric sensation, and she screamed.
Before the spasms had even died down, he climbed up her body and shoved her thighs apart with his knee. He held himself over her, his arms trembling, and she could see the strain in his face. He’d held back and showed so much restraint, but now his heart thundered in time with her own, and the heat in his eyes promised her everything, if only he could give up that control.
He was so strong. Showed so very much control.
But now it was her turn to shatter him.
“I need you now,” he said roughly. “Please, please tell me yes.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Now.”
With that, his control broke into a mil
lion pieces. She watched it happen. She watched his face as he leaned forward, driving into her so hard she felt him in her soul.
“Never going to let you go,” he said, over and over and over. “Never. Not ever.”
“I never want you to.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss, and on his next hard, deep thrust, she flew apart again, clenching and convulsing around him. She could feel his hardness deep inside her, so deep, and when he exploded in turn, she caught him when he went up and over.
This time it was Flynn who shouted her name.
And that's when she fell inside his soul.
"I see you," she whispered, awestruck and terrified at the same time. "I see you."
And she did. A whirling torrent of memory and emotion—his emotions—surrounded and enveloped her, filling her with the certain knowledge of his past…his present…his now.
She saw the childhood he'd fled and his fierce love for the brothers he feared had forgotten him. The wasted years—the friendship with the dragon shifter—the love . . .
"Oh, Flynn," she murmured, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You love me, too?"
He inhaled sharply and his eyes began to glow a hot, fierce blue-green. "The soul-meld," he said, his voice rough and almost broken. "I see you, too, Eva. I see it all. All of you. And you are even more beautiful inside than you are on the surface."
The heat of his body and the touch of his skin to hers kept her grounded when she thought she might shatter, enough to allow her to speak. "The soul-meld? What does that mean?"
He rolled to his side, pulling her with him, and kissed her very thoroughly before he answered. "It's a gift that's very rare, even to us, mi amara. When our soul finds our true mate, we open up to that person in every way and actually see inside each other's soul."
She blinked away the tears and took a deep, shaky breath. "It feels like a gift. A knowing on such a deep level . . . I feel like you couldn't possibly love me after you saw everything inside me, though. I've been--"
My Paranormal Valentine: A Paranormal Romance Box Set Page 30
