Christmas After Dark: A Holiday Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Abigail Owen

  Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

  -- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

  Lyric didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Emotions were bubbling up inside of her—so many emotions that she didn't know how to handle them. Couldn't recognize them; couldn't identify them. Didn't know how to cope. Her breath was too fast, too shallow, and she was shivering with reaction from the morning’s adrenaline letdown from the night’s fear.

  She'd been terrified when he'd arrived feeling so icy cold, like he was near death, and that fear hadn’t quite subsided over the hours she’d spent watching over him. She still didn't know what had happened. He’d raved and ranted about a storm, Poseidon, and unicorns, of all things. She chalked it up to the head injury. No doubt he would tell her the true story when he was feeling a little better. In the meantime, she'd sit right back in the chair where she'd already spent hours listening to him breathe, holding his hand while he slept, and sending prayers that he would survive and be okay.

  Even while he slept, his presence filled her small bedroom, electric and larger than life. He radiated an energy that called to her, sent a frisson of awareness down her spine that tingled and lifted the hairs on the back of her neck .

  Awareness of him.

  He was sleeping again, and this time she hoped it was restful. His forehead felt warm, but maybe that was just the aftereffect of being wounded? The "superior" Atlantean healing at work raising his metabolism? She didn’t know, and it wasn’t like she could Google it.

  But he was resting this time, not tossing and turning and muttering as he’d been doing before.

  Lyric was so tempted to touch him again, but this time, finally, more than just his face. To explore him with her fingertips. To measure the breath of his shoulders, the muscles in his arms and chest, and even to stroke his hair. When she lifted his head to drink, she'd been able to run her fingers through the thick waves of his hair, which was something she'd been longing to do for a long time.

  She slid forward to the edge of her seat, tried to speak, and then cleared her throat and tried again. "Dare? Dare, are you awake? Would you mind if I touch you?"

  He didn't answer, so she decided to take that as permission, in spite of the fact that she’d deliberately whispered. Which was completely and entirely wicked of her, but she couldn't resist the temptation. Six long years of temptation.

  She was tired of trying.

  She reached out with both hands, tentatively at first, until she touched the firm curve of his shoulder, and then less so. Her fingers shaped the edges of him—the edges of a man. He was all hard muscle. Strength and sinew wrapped around his shoulders, arms, and chest like armbands. There was no give to him—no yielding.

  Who could live with such a hard man? Who would want to? She already knew the answer to the latter, but was still unsure about the former. She knew him; had grown to know so much of his heart during their time together over the years. She knew his kindness but she also knew his hard edges. A pirate, perhaps—a warrior, definitely. Was he the right match for her? Doubts stirred, but she squashed them. She deserved a chance to find out.

  He mumbled something. A name. Seranth. A twinge of something that felt a lot like jealousy curled up from her throat, but then subsided. He’d told her about Seranth and explained their bond. Seranth was a sea spirit; a water elemental, and they worked in tandem to sail his ship, the Luna, across the seas. Seranth was part of him. She was also part of the ship itself, and part of the sea and sky. He’d said he couldn't describe it any more clearly than that, but that had been enough for Lyric. She’d told him she thought she understood, at least a little.

  She herself had felt the presence of a guardian angel in her life ever since the night of the car crash that took her parents. An angel whose serene and protective presence had been with her ever since. It was different, but a little bit the same. Angel and spirit. Christian and pagan. Dare came from a time before Christ, and she lived in Christ's grace. But she knew—hoped—that what was between them could transcend differences and bridge barriers. She prayed that he would recover, and then she would admit her feelings to him. She would invite him to stay with her for Christmas and celebrate the holidays with her family and friends.

  Maybe he'd even invite her to Atlantis sometime.

  He stirred beneath her fingertips, and she realized she'd been stroking his hair for several minutes without even realizing what she was doing. She felt his forehead again with the back of her hand out of habit, not at all expecting the blazing heat in his skin. She snatched her hand away, shocked. He should be glowing at that temperature. She had to call Penny. Something was seriously wrong—surely this couldn’t just be his metabolism.

  It had to be fever, or maybe something worse. Please God let it not be something worse.

  She started to rise to retrieve her phone from the kitchen, but his hand shot out and grasped her wrist with unbreakable strength.

  "Don't leave me," he demanded. For demand it was. Sick or no, he wasn’t asking; he was telling. This was the voice of a sea captain in complete control.

  "I need to call the doctor, Dare. I need to—"

  He yanked on her arm so she fell forward onto the bed and partially on top of him. Before she could move, he curved one of those strong arms around her and held tight.

  "No. Stay with me. I need you. Please."

  This time, his voice was less demand and more seduction. Silken tones from his damaged throat—honey over whiskey. Playful, but implacable.

  "I need you to hold me, Lyric. Beautiful Lyric. Six long years of wanting to hold you, and it only took almost dying,” he murmured into her hair.

  She froze, unable to believe what he was saying. Unable to believe that he was saying the exact things she herself had felt for so long.

  Oh, oh, oh, oh. He smelled like salt and sea and sky and man. Delicious, unbelievably sexy man. She closed her eyes, snuggled into the curve of his embrace, and took a deep, happy breath.

  But then she shook her head and told herself to snap out of it.

  "Dare. I can't—we need to—you’re burning up. I have to call the doctor. You probably have an infection from where your head was sliced open. I don't really know how ‘superior Atlantean healing powers’ work on infection, so I'm gonna propose we go with good, old-fashioned human antibiotics."

  "I'm fine,” he muttered into her hair. "Don't need anything but you."

  She inhaled sharply, whether from shock, surprise, or a massive case of untimely lust, she didn’t know. What she was feeling wasn’t important, though, no matter how much she’d wanted to hear exactly that from him. What mattered was that she get him some medicine.

  "Okay. You need to let me go. Now,” she said, injecting a firm tone into her voice. It was the voice she used with young art students. No-nonsense. In charge. They always snapped to attention immediately.

  Teacher voice had absolutely zero effect on Dare.

  His response instead was to tighten his arms around her and start kissing her neck. An electric sensation shot straight to every erotic part of her body from the spot she hadn’t realized was so exquisitely sensitive until his lips caressed it, and she really thought she might either melt or go up in flames.

  “Dare! Listen—"

  He gently bit her earlobe.

  "Ohhhhh," she moaned, before she could help it. "No. Dare! Not now. I need to get you some antibiotics."

  He pulled his head away from her neck, and she took a moment to sincerely regret it. Before she could say anything else, though, he put his hand on her butt.

  This time it was he who moaned. Or groaned. A sound from deep in his throat that rumbled in his chest beneath her cheek, and made her want to rip his shirt off with her teeth. “Oh, Lyric. Oh, Lyric.”

  “I—what?”

  "You have the
nicest, roundest ass I've ever seen," he told her with all evidence of true appreciation.

  She blinked and tried to push up and away from him, but one arm tightened around her, while the other hand continued to caress her bottom, causing her thighs to clench against the rush of liquid heat flaming through her entire body.

  "Thanks a lot,” she said somewhat tartly. “Just what every woman wants to hear—that her butt is big. Any other compliments you want to throw my way?"

  "Perfect, just like the rest of you. You’re so hot. So lush. So delicious. And when I finally sink into you, I bet you’ll be so wet for me. So, so wet and hot." His voice was a rasp of sex and seduction that was slowly driving her completely insane by mirroring the rough pleasure thrilling through her at his possessive embrace, and the heat was building between her thighs as if his words had been a premonition.

  "I’ve wanted to get my hands on your ass for years,” he said, his hand tightening on that overly sensitized part of her body. His other hand stroked up the side of her body until it rested on the side of her breast. “And your breasts. Oh, your breasts. I think poets could write songs to your breasts. I need you, Lyric. I need you."

  She gasped, unable to form words, to deny him, even to think in the rush of heat and feeling and pure, primal pleasure throbbing through her.

  He released her breast and threaded the fingers of his hand through her hair to cup her head. “Let me put my mouth on you.”

  Lyric went boneless; every synapse she had shot fireworks through her nerve cells—through her veins—even through her bones. She'd never been so indescribably, overwhelmingly, incandescently aroused in her life.

  Naturally, her freaking conscience decided to speak up and tell her that she was in imminent danger of hooking up with an Atlantean who was addled by injury and fever. Not exactly the best way to start off a relationship.

  Freaking conscience.

  She sighed.

  “Dare. Enough. You’re burning up. Let me get you some antibiotics. A big, fat needle filled with penicillin might take your mind off your libido—"

  “Your ass,” he mumbled dreamily, and she could feel him smile against her neck.

  “And off my ass,” she agreed, sighing.

  “Kiss me.”

  “What?” Surely he hadn’t said…

  “Kiss me, and I’ll let you go get needles and pessanillin. Pennalissen. Parasillin. Whatever.”

  “Deal,” she said, before she could have second thoughts about taking total advantage of an injured, delirious man. He had his hands on her ass, after all.

  “Deal. Now. And on my lips,” he said firmly. “No cheating with forehead kissing.”

  Lyric took a deep breath. She needed to steel herself for this, in spite of—or perhaps because—she’d wanted it for so long.

  “Okay, you can kiss me now.”

  He laughed. “No, my copper-eyed beauty. You have to kiss me.”

  She summoned her nerve and pulled away from him a little bit; just enough to raise her head so she could reach his lips with her own.

  Her brain and all parts much farther south were doing cartwheels at the idea that she was planning to kiss Dare, so she told them to calm the heck down. This was going to be a chaste, calming, gentle kiss with a closed mouth, offered just so he’d let her go get medicine for him.

  She took a deep breath, and then she leaned forward and reached toward the sound of his voice with her fingertips. When she found his mouth, she traced it for a moment, finding it firm and unsmiling, his lips softening at her touch. She took another breath, as if preparing to dive into dangerous waters, and touched her lips to his.

  And the world turned upside down.

  The moment her lips met his, Dare tightened his arms on her and half-sat, half -rolled, until he had her beneath him, and then he took total control over what she’d laughingly—ridiculously—thought was a kiss. That wasn’t a kiss.

  This was a kiss.

  He didn’t take; he plundered. He teased and seduced; advanced and retreated. He kissed her with skill and hunger and that sense of barely leashed power that made her head spin. She slipped her arms around him and kissed him back, meeting him beat for beat, breath for breath.

  She wondered, gloried, reveled in the feel of his hard body against hers and the taste of salt and spice of his mouth.

  This was a kiss—and she dimly realized that, once it ended, she would never, ever be the same.

  She kissed him, surrendering and conquering, advancing and retreating herself, because she was unable to do anything else. She took his mouth with passion and heat and hunger, and he responded in kind. For long moments, maybe hours, maybe an eternity, she knew nothing but his fever-hot skin and strength and demand.

  Fever-hot skin…wait. Fever…

  She had to stop. He needed help.

  She pulled away, panting, shuddering in an attempt to draw breath while emerging from the punch-drunk sense of complete and utter desire.

  “Dare. I can’t--"

  “You can. You will,” he commanded, pulling her head closer. “Mine. Now.”

  She moaned, but forced herself to turn her head, escaping his kiss that she wanted so badly.

  When she forced herself to pull away, they were both breathing hard, and his skin temperature was in the fiery blaze range. Damn. She’d forgotten her end goal somehow during that explosion of feeling.

  “Dare,” she said, still breathing hard. “ I need to get you that medicine.”

  He instantly released her. “A deal is a deal, I always tell Seranth…Seranth? Seranth?”

  Lyric sat up and then swung her feet off the bed to stand, but he seemed to have forgotten all about her.

  “My armband! Where is it? Did you take it off? Did that doctor…Seranth?” He was shouting by the end, the anguish clear.

  She knew what the sea spirit meant to him, and a bolt of pain clenched her chest at his loss. “No. We didn’t take it, Dare. You didn’t have it on when you arrived. Your shirt was torn…is it possible that it fell off in the water?”

  She reached out to touch his shoulder, but he brushed her hand off and pushed himself up to a sitting position.

  “No. It can’t fall off. It’s not jewelry; it’s the physical manifestation of my bond with Seranth. Poseidon bestowed it, and only he…” His voice trailed off and then she jumped at the sound of his fist crashing into the end table.

  “He took it. He took her away from me.”

  The pain in his voice buffeted her, and she flinched away. She’d never heard a human voice filled with such suffering since...since the accident. Her mother hadn’t died right away, and Lyric had heard—no. No. She forcibly locked that memory away. There was a man who needed her right here in the present.

  “Dare. I can’t—what can I do? How can I help? I’ll call the doctor to come over and see—"

  Before she could finish her sentence, he lurched up off the bed, stumbled into her, and knocked them both to the floor. He’d somehow rolled over in mid-fall, so his back and head took the brunt of the impact, but it was still enough to knock the air out of her for a minute .

  When she could stop gasping, she sat up and turned to him. “Dare? Are you okay?”

  But his body lay still, unmoving beside her, and her only answer was silence.

  5

  Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

  -- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

  “Welcome to Atlantis!”

  Dare watched Lyric as she stood, frozen, in the mi
ddle of the palace garden. She was holding her small blue book she called a passport in one hand and a travel bag in the other. He was carrying her larger case; the one that contained her paints and brushes and a few small canvases that she'd refused to leave without.

  "I can't—I can't believe I'm here. I thought… I thought we had to go find a train, or plane tickets, or a boat—" she paused, a stricken expression on her face. "I'm sorry, Dare. I didn't mean to—I know you need to go find out what happened to your ship. You can just drop me somewhere and go do what you need to do."

  He didn't bother to say that he'd already been doing exactly that, reaching out on the shared Atlantean mental pathway to anyone who knew anything about his ship. One of the portal guards had responded very briefly, so at least Dare knew his ship, his crew, and Bingley and Jane were safe, if nothing else.

  “It’s fine. Everyone is fine and safe. I can go check on the ship later. First let's get you—" His voice trailed off at the sight of Lyric, standing, chin raised, body held stiffly upright, reminded him of the courage it must have taken her to trust him. To travel through the portal. To actually come to Atlantis, so far in so many ways from her tiny home in her tiny town. She was amazing. It was her first trip anywhere, she’d told him, and it was to Atlantis. The land long thought to be myth by her kind. And yet her first thought was for him and his ship and crew. How long had it been since he’d known such selfless caring?

  Too long to remember.

  It had been the same way all throughout the night, while he’d tossed and turned with fever from a budding infection. He had vague memories of kissing her, holding her in his arms and—surely not?—having his hands on her lovely ass. Then strange memories intruded, of needles pricking him in the arm, and the fever finally subsided. When he'd awoken this morning, it had been to the lovely sound of her singing, which he’d wanted to keep listening to. So he’d pretended he was still asleep and lay there in her bed, with her scent of peach and vanilla and spice surrounding him, and listened to the song of the woman it'd taken him five years to realize he'd fallen in love with.