Nothing mattered right now. All I cared about was how my body felt alive wherever he touched me. My hand gripped his head as his mouth bit my lobe. I wanted to climb inside of him, and if I couldn’t do that, I wanted him pressed inside of me as deep as he could.
Waves of pleasure started to wash over me and I felt him thrust. Arched over me, his weight partially on his forearms, his hands gripped my head as his eyes—almost wild, now—stared into my own, and then his mouth covered mine. There was something different this time, though. I felt it in his stare and I felt it in the almost claiming of my mouth.
The pressure of his lips increased and when I would’ve turned my head he held me there. His hips picked up their pace. It went from too much to not enough. The last little bit of hesitance, which had been buried within me, died, and I found myself clinging to him as I cried out.
He collapsed next to me on the floor of the living room, both of us still dressed. The reality I’d avoided was coming back quickly now, as the air cooled my skin. What the hell had we just done?
“What happened to your leg?” he asked.
They weren’t exactly the post-coital words most women long for. I looked down and saw the bruise. It looked like the shape of a boot, and I quickly tugged my dress down.
“I was moving the TV and dropped it.” I sat up, self-conscious now, and adjusted the top of the dress, the air becoming chilly.
He sat up as well, leaning on his one arm and eyeing me suspiciously. “Take off your dress.” His voice wasn’t husky; it was determined and it scared me, not because of what he’d do but what he’d see.
His eyes squinted and his gaze dropped to my torso before rising.
“No.” I got to my feet, looking to put some physical distance between us, just in case he wasn’t willing to let the subject drop. “I don’t strip on command.”
“Either take the dress off or I’ll do it for you.” He got to his feet as well. Somehow he seemed larger now that he was possibly going to try and rip my clothes off.
“We’re done. I think it’s time you left.” Don’t let him unnerve you. Stay in control. If I showed panic, he’d smell it. If he saw the bruises…I couldn’t even think about that. I knew what they looked like. What I looked like.
We stared at each other, only a few feet between us, as I waited to see how far he’d push the issue. My eyes darted around, trying to figure out a plan if he did.
Then something changed in his expression. “Why wasn’t that iced tea in the fridge?”
“What?” I looked at the half empty bottle sitting on the counter. “If you wanted it in the fridge, why didn’t you put it there when you brought it?”
He adjusted his clothing while he was mumbling curses under his breath, ripped the iced tea off the counter and left the condo, slamming the door as he went.
I didn’t care. I was too stunned about what had just happened. How many times had I told myself I wasn’t going to do that ever again, and a couple of steamy looks from him and I’m all in?
I fell on the couch with a loud sigh and covered my brow with my arm. A feather gently landed on my nose as I lay there. Opening my eyes, I held it up, thinking it had broken loose from one of my down pillows and made the journey from the bedroom to the living room via Smoke.
It wasn’t that small though, and it had the strangest iridescent quality to it. Where had I seen this shimmer before? It was right at the edge of my brain but didn’t want to break loose.
And then the memory slammed into me.
Cupid! I’d seen feathers like this flying all over his office. He’d been here. That hadn’t been Fate’s iced tea.
The ramifications ran through my head. He’d caught on way before me and hadn’t been happy about it. He must have realized something was wrong, because he couldn’t understand why he was so attracted to me. It’s not like he’d come on to me once since that night, months ago. Every detail that came to mind just compounded my embarrassment.
This was why you didn’t drink things when the tamper seal was broken. I jumped to my feet and dug my work phone out of my purse. Scrolling down my contact list, I knew he was here somewhere.
I scrolled down and hit send.
“What did you do?” I said, the second he answered.
“That was fairly quick, no?” Cupid said. “I feel as though you two are seriously wasting my gifts with these slam bams.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I’m going to tell you the same thing I just told him, darling. It’s my job.” Cupid’s voice, in comparison to mine, was the epitome of calm. “And I’m exceptionally good at it.”
“I didn’t want to have sex with him!” Perhaps I shouldn’t have even admitted it happened, but my embarrassment was quickly morphing into other emotions.
“Oh please, sure you did. I didn’t get to this pay scale because I sucked at seeing the signs.”
“I really wish you hadn’t. I thought…” My words trailed off, not wanting to say the rest.
“That he wanted you, too? He does, you idiot.”
He called to someone in the room to go fetch him a latte as his words sank in. Fate had wanted to have sex with me without Cupid’s interventions?
I needed to keep this in perspective. Even if he did, it was a far cry from “I love you,” and “I can’t live without you.” Still, it was better than having him ask me what time my flight out was.
It couldn’t matter either way, right now, as the other phone started vibrating in my purse. Not with the current status of my life. “I gotta go.”
“Toodles.”
It was Luke.
“Yes?”
“If you’re finished over there, it’s time for work.”
My hand clenched on the phone. I’d already wondered if they’d know. Would it have been too much for him to have kept his mouth shut and given me the illusion of privacy? I wrapped an arm around myself, as I replayed what they might have seen.
“I’m assuming you’re ready now?”
“Just tell me what you want.”
Chapter 23
Leave a message at the beep.
The last two days had been hell. Even if Fate had been looking for me, he never would’ve found me. I’d had two jobs for Malokin and a legitimate one for the office.
Just when I’d thought I’d have a break, I received another call from Luke. I’d been lucky though. They’d all been “save” jobs.
I was starting to wonder if Malokin threw me softball jobs to keep me off balance. As if he dragged me to the very line where I was about to snap and then eased me back.
It was a type of mental warfare I could imagine Malokin playing with me. Keep me off balance until I didn’t know which direction was up anymore. And I was sure it was Malokin. Luke was too stupid to play these games. He was more of a “hit them hard and obvious” type.
In the wee hours of this morning, I’d had to save a junkie, who was holding up a convenience store, from getting shot. He’d been one of the worst humans I’d seen in a while, and it made me wonder what Malokin was up to. Why was I saving these people? Now, I also had the additional knowledge that any of these saves might be a Lock and cause further turmoil at the office.
It was one of the things that drove me to come to the office today. I needed to know what I was dealing with, and see if I’d caused another uproar. But instead of going in, I sat in the parking lot, my fingers running across the leather-bound manual.
Harold had told me to stop working on it, but I couldn’t. When everything else seemed chaotic, this gave me some sort of control. I’d flip through the pages and make notes. Even when my life had no semblance of order, inside this cover, everything was how it was supposed to be. Somehow, working on this had become my mental salvation.
Sanity; I’d looked up the definition of it the other day. According to Webster’s Dictionary, it was the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner. Such a thing didn’t exist in the realm we operated within. At best, the office was in short supply.