Karissa was dying of curiosity. In the twenty-five minutes since Reece had run out of the apartment with Nick tailing close behind, she had already wandered over to the front window to check for their return about a thousand times. She was going back and forth between the kitchen and the living room window so often that she was beginning to feel like she was in a pinball machine. She just couldn't sit still; the endless questions were killing her.
Would Lex be with them when they came back? Or had she left by now? And why was Reece so desperate to get to her anyways? Sure, he had just found out that his soulmate left him, but he'd been far more agitated than something that simple—that mundane, really—could explain. What had Reece told Nick while Karissa had been in the kitchen, keeping little Lindsay occupied? And just what did Lindsay have to do with all of this anyways? Damn, what she wouldn't give for telepathy right now.
"Is Reece coming back soon?" Lindsay asked.
Karissa gave her a sympathetic look. If it were possible, the girl seemed even more worried about Cahill than she was. Lindsay had only eaten a few bites of her frozen pizza and every time Karissa came back from the living room window, the glimmer of pure, innocent hope in the girl’s eyes was almost painful. Then Karissa would shake her head, extinguishing that hope until the next round.
“I don’t know,” she told Lindsay. “I hope so.”
The girl nodded worriedly and stared down at the barely-touched pizza on her plate.
“Is it too cold now?” Karissa asked. “Do you want me to heat it up for you?”
Lindsay shook her head. “No, thank you.”
Karissa smiled at the girl’s unfailing manners. Ever since she had arrived, nearly every sentence Lindsay had spoken was tagged with “please” or “thank you” or “may I” or “excuse me”. That kind of politeness was pretty rare these days. Karissa herself had grown up with five brothers and sisters, and her parents had been too busy working seventy hours a week just to put food on the table to be concerned about things like manners.
But even though Lindsay was relentlessly polite, she was also wary. Her eyes were never still. They darted around the room, constantly checking the exits, as if she were afraid that someone would jump out at her any time. She was too quiet as well. She didn’t speak unless it was to ask about Reece, and her responses to Karissa’s questions were short and vague. It made Karissa wonder if the girl was normally this suspicious of strangers or if it was because of whatever happened with Reece.
Lord, she just couldn’t take the suspense any more. While Karissa wasn’t proud of what she was about to do, desperate times called for desperate measures. She would never be telepathic, but she could certainly improvise when the situation called for it.
“So where are you from?” she asked the girl casually.
Lindsay looked up from her plate, her eyes narrowed. “Vermont,” she replied guardedly.
Karissa paid the girl’s tone no heed. “Oh, nice,” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve been there before. My friends and I drove down to the Ben and Jerry’s factory a few years ago. You ever go?”
The little girl smiled slightly. “Last summer.”
“Yeah? What was your favorite part?”
Lindsay bit her lip thoughtfully. “Um...seeing how the ice cream was made. And then getting to eat it.”
Karissa nodded. “I liked the flavor graveyard. I used to eat From Russia with Buzz—that’s a mix of White Russian and Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz ice cream—by the gallon back in high school, but they stopped making it.”
The girl laughed. “I’ve never had that.”
“Oh, it was so good. I really miss it,” she said longingly. “But at least I’ll always have Brownie Batter. If Ben and Jerry take that away from me, I swear I’ll die.”
Lindsay’s eyes widened a fraction, the corners of her mouth turning up just slightly, and Karissa knew that she had her. “You like that flavor too?” she asked the girl.
“Yeah,” Lindsay replied meekly. “It’s my favorite.”
“See, I knew it. I knew you had good taste,” Karissa said as she walked over to the freezer. She searched through the stacks of frozen pizzas and vegetables until she found a small container in the back. Whirling around, she smiled at Lindsay. “You want some?”
“But I didn’t finish my dinner,” the girl protested, pushing her shorn hair out of her face.
Karissa grabbed two spoons out of the draw and sat down at the kitchen table next to Lindsay. “Don’t worry about it,” she said as she popped the top off the ice cream container. “These are extenuating circumstances, after all. You’ve had a rough day, haven’t you?”
Some sadness and fear clouded Lindsay’s eyes. “Yeah,” she said softly.
“Well, chocolate ice cream is an amazing remedy. Trust me.”
After a brief moment of hesitation, the girl grabbed her spoon and followed Karissa’s lead by digging straight into the container. Karissa smiled to herself, thinking that she’d finally gotten Lindsay relaxed enough to provide more than one-word answers.
Okay. Start out slow. Don’t scare the girl off. “So,” she said as casually as possible, “how long have you known Reece?”
Lindsay licked the ice cream off her spoon. “Um, I just met him today.”
“Really?” Karissa replied with some surprise. “He seems so protective of you.”
“He saved my life,” the girl said softly as some color flooded her cheeks.
Karissa grinned in spite of herself. She hadn’t expected to get such a candid answer out of Lindsay until the pint was at least half gone. And she had to admit that it was nice to know that even if Reece had gone crazy lately, he was still helping people. “What did he do?”
Lindsay took another bite of ice cream and then coiled one of the longer strands of her hair around her finger. “It’s a long story. You...you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I’ve got time,” Karissa said lightly, even though she was so curious that she was ready to shake the story out of the girl. “Try me.”
Reece drove back to Nick’s apartment as recklessly as he’d driven to his own. At least his friend was quiet this time, forgoing the lectures in favor of anxiously clinging to the “oh shit” handle. He might be a little too self-righteous for his own good, but even Nick had the heart not to kick a man when he was down.
They made a few stops on the way back, checking out places that Lex sometimes went to—cafes, bookshops, music stores. It was a long shot, but Reece didn’t realize how much hope he’d put into it until they’d gone to the very last place he could think of and his soulmate was still nowhere to be found.
Goddess, she was really gone. Reece could barely breathe through the pain in his chest. He wondered if she could feel it, wherever she was. And if she could feel it, he wondered if she even cared.
“I can’t believe she did this,” Reece whispered to himself.
Nick gave him a sideways glance from the passenger’s seat. “Karissa said that Lex thought you wouldn’t care if she left.”
“What?” he snapped.
The witch shrugged. “You haven’t been yourself for a long time, Cahill. We’ve all noticed. Apparently, Lex thought that it was her fault. She thought that you would be happier without her.”
Reece probably should have gasped in shock, but instead he felt compelled to laugh. If there was one thing his soulmate was good at, it was blaming herself.
The laugh caught in his throat, however, as Nick’s words sparked the memory of a conversation Reece had had with Lex a few months ago. He’d been getting ready to go out on patrol and she’d been standing in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter as she stared at the floor. It was the first time in over a week that Reece hadn’t asked someone else to cover his shift and he’d been in a rush to leave so that he could get back home—back to his search for Zarek—that much sooner. While he’d been tying the laces of his boots, Alexandra had murmured something about being afraid they were drifting apart. Reece had told her that everything was fine. Then she’d asked if he was happy with her. After grabbing his jacket off the back of the couch, Reece had given her a quick peck on the cheek on his way out the door, saying, “Yeah, sure. Be back later. Don’t wait up.”
Damn it. Looking back on it, Reece wanted to kick himself. He knew how difficult emotional conversations were for Alexandra. Trying to start one with him must have cost her a lot, and he’d just callously dismissed her. How could he have been so insensitive and self-absorbed? That wasn’t him. It just wasn’t.
“This is all my fault,” Reece murmured bitterly.
Nick snorted. “Hey, no argument here.”
“But I just...I had to kill Zarek for her. She deserved justice for what happened to her.”
“Yeah, she deserved it. But did she want it?”
Reece didn’t have an answer for that because he’d never actually asked her. He hadn’t even wanted her to know about what he was doing. He didn’t feel that he had a right to throw the past in her face when it seemed like she’d made some semblance of peace with it.
His stomach turned as he suddenly realized that his crusade had never been about Lex at all. Hell, it had never even been about Zarek. It had been about him all along—his inability to deal with what had happened to her.
In response to Reece’s strained silence, Nick shook his head sadly. “Goddess, you’re an amateur. You’re in a relationship with her, Cahill. You’re supposed to talk about this stuff. I mean, Karissa may not be my soulmate, but even I know that.”
“She didn’t deserve to have everything—”
“There’s that word again,” Nick interjected with exasperation. “Cahill, just listen to me and try to get your mind around what I’m saying. What Lex deserves is you. What she wants and what she needs is you. Now, if you don’t want her, then—”
“I do,” Reece insisted as he pulled up in front of Nick’s building. Tiredly, he cut the engine. “I thought she knew that.”
The other witch unbuckled his seatbelt, visibly relieved to be getting out of the car. “Well,” Nick tossed over his shoulder as he opened his door, “actions speak louder than words.”
The pain in Reece’s chest deepened as he realized that he’d done neither. Not only had he neglected her, he’d never actually told her how he felt about her. Inside of her mind, he had seen the battles between her and her last lover, Tristan. He knew that Lex shut down every time Tristan got too close to her, and frankly, Reece didn’t think he would be able to bear it if Lex did that to him. He’d told himself that she didn’t want to hear that he loved her. He’d been so goddamn afraid of her pushing him away that he’d done that exact thing to her.
Christ, he’d been a fool.
For a moment, Reece rested his head on the steering wheel. He was so tired. He was tired of fighting, tired of worrying, tired of anger, tired of hate, but he couldn’t remember the last time he felt anything else. He felt so lost and he didn’t know how to find his way back.
Somehow, Reece found the will to get out of the car and follow Nick inside the apartment. He found the other witch in the kitchen with Karissa, who was washing the dishes. They were murmuring to each other, but Nick touched the human girl’s arm when he saw Reece in the doorway of the kitchen, and they were both silent.
Reece glanced around the room and then turned to Karissa. “Where’s—”
She held up a hand to cut him off. “Lindsay is fine,” she said calmly as she shut off the faucet. “She was falling asleep at the table, waiting for you, so I told her she could lie down in the bedroom.”
The tension in his body relaxed infinitesimally. “Okay. Thanks for staying with her.”
Karissa smiled. “No problem.” She turned to face him, meeting his gaze challengingly. “So who’s Zarek?”
Reece was taken aback. “How did you—” he stuttered. “Lindsay told you about him?”
“Uh huh. She told me about what happened in the church. How you saved her life.” Then she crossed her arms over her chest. “Why? Was it supposed to be a secret?”
“No, not any more. It’s just that she was so uneasy about being left here with you...I’m surprised that she confided in you.”
“Well, I happen to be an easy person to talk to, Cahill,” Karissa said indignantly as she started to throw away some empty boxes and containers that were sprawled over the kitchen counter.
“I never said you weren’t. But Lindsay—”
“Hey,” Nick broke in, “didn’t we just buy that pint of ice cream?”
Reece caught sight of an empty container of Ben and Jerry’s in the human girl’s hand just before she hastily threw it into the trash bag. “No,” she replied in a tone that she probably intended to sound breezy. In effect, she sounded nervous.
Not for the first time, Reece thought that it was a good thing the girl never tried to play poker because her tells were blatantly obvious. Whenever she was lying, she bit her lip and refused to meet your eyes. Her movements would be somewhat hurried and if her hands were free, she often played with the ring on her right pinky or the charm on the end of her necklace.
Reece looked at Karissa, then down at the trash bag, and then back to her. After a few seconds, he finally figured her out and his mouth fell open. “Oh gods. You bribed Lindsay into talking with ice cream?”
“I didn’t bribe her,” the human girl snapped. “It was just...you know, girl talk.”
Nick shook his head, seeming both appalled and amused. “Man, that’s really low, Kar.”
“Hey, you two ran out of here without telling me anything. I just wanted to know what was going on. Besides, Lindsay is comfortable around me now. So we all win.”
She had a point. There were bound to be more times when Reece would have to leave Lindsay under someone else’s guard and he wanted her to feel safe with them. “Fine,” he sighed. “Whatever.”
Ever the gracious winner, Karissa grinned smugly and then made a face at Nick.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Reece continued impatiently. “What matters now is finding Lex before Zarek does.”
“Wait. Zarek is after Lex?” the human girl asked.
“Yeah. Look, Nick can catch you up on the details later. We need to start looking for her now. You made the new IDs for her, right?”
Karissa bit her lip. “Yes. Look, I’m sorry that—”
“Don’t worry about it. Just help me find her. Please.”
“You know I will.”
They gathered in the living room. Karissa sat at the desk, in front of her laptop, and Nick stood behind her, looking at the screen over her shoulder. Reece, however, needed to move, so he paced back and forth across the room as the computer booted up.
“So Lex didn’t tell you where she was going?” he asked Karissa.
“No. She just said she was headed somewhere warm.”
Reece smiled. That was his soulmate, all right. Lex was the only vampire he’d ever met who couldn’t stand the cold. “Okay, so we can assume she’s going south.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Nick said. “She could have flown to Tahiti for all we know.”
“No,” Reece replied. “She can’t fly. Wherever she went, it was by car, bus, or train.”
Karissa began typing furiously. “All right. I’ll see if any Kimberly Bauers purchased a train or bus ticket in the last two days.”
Nick wrinkled his nose. “Kimberly Bauer? That’s the name you gave her?”
“Yes.”
“Kar, I think it’s safe to say that your obsession with 24 is getting a little out of hand.”
“You’re hardly one to lecture me on obsessions, Nick. How many hours of Buffy have you watched in the last few weeks?”
“But come on,” Nick retorted, “no one even likes Kim’s character.”
“Well, no one likes you, but you don’t hear us complaining,” Karissa replied sweetly.
Reece paced faster as he tried to block out the couple’s playful bickering. It reminded him too much of the way he and Lex were when he first brought her up to Montreal. They were still practically strangers at that point—strangers who, thanks to the soulmate link, happened to know each other intimately. It had been so awkward. Reece had known her deepest fears, and yet he hadn’t known what kind of food she liked, what TV shows she watched, or how she liked to spend her day. Of course, it certainly hadn’t been any easier for her than it was for him. To cover up their discomfiture, they had often taken small, good-natured digs at each other. And maybe that was the problem. With all of the teasing, neither of them had learned to tell each other how they really felt. So when the stress of Reece’s search for Zarek began to take its toll on him and the jokes stopped, there was nothing left between him and Lex but silence.
“Got it,” Karissa said, and the urgency of her voice snapped Reece’s mind back into the present. “She bought a bus ticket to New York City two days ago. It left here at 11:30PM and it got into New York at 7:45AM.”
Nick cursed. “She could have gone anywhere from there. Cahill, can you think of anything else to narrow down the search?”
“Um...I don’t know,” he replied as he ran his fingers through his hair. “This is just a gut feeling, but I don’t think she would have left the east coast. She grew up on the Atlantic, so it’s where she feels most at home.”
“Okay. So we’re going for south, the east coast...Florida, maybe?”
“Maybe.”
Nick turned away from the computer. “Cahill, your pacing is going to drive me crazy. Can you please sit down? Actually, better yet, why don’t you lie down and get some rest? Karissa and I can handle this.”
Reece shook his head. “No. I’m not going to relax while my soulmate is missing and might very well be back in the possession of the man who tortured her for three decades.”
“You told me yourself that you haven’t slept in days. You’re not going to be much good to Lex or Lindsay or any of us like this. You need to rest.”
“I said no,” Reece snapped.
The other witch sighed. “Fine. Then you’ve left me no choice.”
Reece didn’t recognize the words that Nick said next until it was too late. One second, he was whipping around to pace in the other direction, and the next, his legs gave out underneath his weight. Darkness enveloped him as he fell and Reece Cahill was asleep before his head hit the floor.
Darkness pressed against the windshield of the car—dense and empty and cold. As Aiden St. Helen plunged through it at eighty miles per hour, he almost felt as if he were gliding through the vacuum of space. There was no force of gravity to ground him. No true sense of direction. He could have been moving forward or backward; there was simply no way to know for sure. There were no absolutes. Nothing certain. Relativity left him adrift.
He listened for her. In vain, he searched inside of himself for her presence, for the part of his soul that she had possessed for nineteen months. For so long, it had felt like there were two people living in his mind, each vying for control of him, but suddenly the battle had ended. She had abdicated, leaving him alone. Bereft. And also, somehow, calm. Clear. Light. Each time he glanced into the rearview mirror, he saw his own silver eyes shining back at him like moonlight reflecting off a blade, and he felt eerily like himself.
The girl in his passenger seat fiddled with the radio, trying to find a decent station. They were between Philadelphia and Baltimore now, and the choices were limited. He’d discovered, not surprisingly, that her tastes ran similar to his. She liked Radiohead. Linkin Park. Smashing Pumpkins. Depeche Mode. Nine Inch Nails. She would enjoy any modern rock station until they played something by Creed or Dave Matthews Band, and then with a sigh of disgust, she would begin flipping again.
Alexandra appeared content, but there was fear inside of her—Aiden could feel it. She had fallen asleep shortly after they left Phoenicia and had woken up an hour later screaming as loudly as she had when he first found her in the motel. She hadn’t wanted to discuss it, but in the end, there was really no need. He knew she was dreaming about the vampire that made her. He felt her growing terror and he knew that that was the cause of the divide between her thoughts and her words. It still fascinated him and it pained him, but Aiden knew that there was nothing he could do about it. Lame platitudes would not help her and he respected her too much to even try to talk down to her like that.
Lex’s finger paused on the button as a melodic guitar riff filled the car. After a moment, Aiden recognized the Metallica song and gave her a puzzled look. Twice during the ride so far, she had changed stations when one of their songs had come on just as readily as she had when Scott Stapp’s froggy voice clogged the speakers.
“I thought you didn’t like Metallica,” he noted.
She looked at him sharply, as if he’d startled her. “I don’t,” she said softly. “But these lyrics are pretty. I’ve never really listened to them before.”
Aiden had always thought they were rather hackneyed, but for a minute, he listened quietly along with her.
what I've felt
what I've known
never shined through in what I've shown
never be
never see
won't see what might have been
what I've felt
what I've known
never shined through in what I've shown
never free
never me
so I dub thee unforgiven
“You feel unforgiven, angel?” he asked her as the song dove into a guitar solo.
But Lex dodged questions with more frequency and grace than anyone he’d ever known. “Don’t you?” she replied easily.
Of course he did. For months, his guilt had damn near crippled him. He supposed now that Eve had left him, he should feel even guiltier, but in truth, he felt nothing. It was odd and a little empowering, and it made him laugh. “If I said no, would you think that I was a horrible person?” he asked.
“No. I would think that you were a liar.”
Aiden smiled. “Maybe you would just be projecting.”
He could feel Lex’s eyes on him, trying to figure out if he meant what he said. “Do you remember when I came to see you in the infirmary after you attacked me?”
“How could I ever forget?” he asked flirtatiously.
“You asked me how you were supposed to live with yourself after what you’d done.”
He shrugged slightly. He really didn’t want to be reminded of that pain, now that he’d found some relief from it. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?” he replied.
“Maybe about as alive as I am.”
Aiden paused, knowing that she was right. What he’d been doing for the past nineteen months could hardly qualify as living. He had only existed. He’d drifted through time with nothing but the thought of Alexandra to keep him from running a stake through his own heart. And he didn’t want to think about that, either.
“I was forgiven,” he said tightly. “You, yourself, told me that.” Then he leaned forward to change the radio station.
Lex turned her head toward the window. After a few minutes, she asked in a strange voice, “Do you miss her?”
Aiden glanced at her and then drew his eyes back to the road. “That’s not the question you really want answered, is it?” he asked. “You want to know if he misses you.”
“No. I already know that he doesn’t. And he shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Do you miss her?” she asked again as she turned to look at him.
“I’m not him, Lex.”
“And I’m not her.”
“I know that,” he said tersely. “You’re everything she’s not.”
“And vice versa.”
He hesitated, unsure of what she really meant by that, but he finally conceded. “Yes.”
“Do you miss her?” Alexandra asked for the third time.
Aiden swallowed hard and looked down at the gauges on the dashboard, glad that she couldn’t see his eyes. With her power, she might be able to find the answer to her question and whatever it was, Aiden didn’t want to know.
“I have to stop for gas,” he said.
Lex just nodded and turned her head away again. Silently, she stared at her own distorted reflection in the window. He was tempted to touch her, to try to see what was going through her mind, but he decided that they both needed their space for a while.
He pulled off the highway and onto a curvy road that was heavily lined with trees. While living in Washington, D.C, Aiden had heard that northern Maryland was fairly rural, but he’d never expected anything like this. The road was nearly as isolated as the ones in upstate New York had been.
The air was warmer when he stepped out of the car at the nearest gas station—some no-name place a couple of miles off the highway. The few hundred miles south they had traveled had already made a difference in the climate. The breeze felt nice against his face as he filled the gas tank, but he knew that it was still about forty degrees colder than Lex wanted.
The convenience store was practically empty when Aiden went inside to pay. There was only the clerk behind the counter and a blond woman in the back who was examining the candy.
He gave the clerk his pump number and the man rang it up. “That’ll be twenty-four dollars.”
Aiden looked at the clerk curiously as a thought suddenly struck him: he didn’t actually have to pay for the gas. In fact, he could leap over this counter and drain the man dry if he wanted to. There was nothing to stop him.
Or was there...
Eve hadn’t protested when he’d attacked the man who had taken advantage of Lex, but Aiden didn’t think she’d stay silent if he killed someone. She hadn’t even liked it when he killed Daybreak’s enemies—her enemies, ultimately. If she was still with him, there was no chance that she would stand for him killing an innocent person.
“Sir?” the clerk prompted impatiently.
Aiden looked the man up and down with some distaste and decided that he was too old. The skin of his throat was sickeningly loose and his body odor could only be described as rancid. Aiden wanted to do this experiment, but he still had standards.
Then he caught the smell of the woman in the back of the store. Her perfume was a little too florally, but under that was the scent of her blood—rich and warm. His canines lengthened, stabbing into his lower lip painfully.
“Sir!” the clerk snapped.
“Sorry,” Aiden said smoothly as he threw thirty dollars on the counter. “Keep the change.” Then without waiting to see if the man was placated, he quickly turned on his heel and went down the candy aisle.
The woman saw him approaching and she straightened up to give him a smile. She wasn’t as pretty as Aiden had initially thought, but the scent of her blood still made his mouth water. He had expected his heart to be pounding in anticipation of crossing this line, but his pulse remained slow and steady as he smiled back at the woman.
She didn’t cringe or step back uncomfortably, as so many people did when Aiden came close. The woman was fooled by the pale beauty of his eyes, the graceful curve of his cheekbones, and the lithe muscles of his body. Her survival instincts were severely lacking and Aiden thought that it was a wonder she had lived this long.
The woman batted her eyes and tossed her long, blond hair over her shoulder. “Do you need something?” she asked him.
Aiden’s gaze fell to the creamy skin of her neck. “Yes,” he whispered. “I do.”
Then he closed the distance between them and dipped his head. His fangs pierced her throat and the woman sighed softly against him. Her blood was sweet as it spilled over his tongue and the taste made his head swim. Aiden held on to her tightly and felt her heart beating in time with his own. But as he drank, her pulse fell behind while his raced ahead.
He strained his senses and listened for Eve. He waited for a shudder of protest or a sharp gasp in his ear. He searched inside of himself for the sense that this was wrong, but there was nothing.
Aiden sucked harder, drawing forth every last drop of blood running through the woman’s veins. There was no turning back now. Her skin was cool to the touch as she went limp in his arms. She gasped once and then was silent. Her heart sputtered and finally succumbed.
Still, there was nothing.
Nothing, nothing, nothing...
Dizzy, he let the woman fall to the floor. He leaned forward against the rack of candy while the ground disappeared from under his feet. So amazing, this rush. So very much the same as he remembered it. Why had he ever stopped? What had it gotten him?
Nothing, nothing, nothing...
More, damn it. He had to have more.
Desperation shattered his arrogant notion of “standards” and he flew to the front of the store. The clerk was nowhere to be seen, but Aiden knowingly vaulted over the counter and found him cowering behind the cash register. Hauling the old man to his feet, Aiden went straight for the jugular. He didn’t bother trying to make it painless this time and the clerk screamed and trashed in his grip. Aiden only laughed against his throat until the screams faded.
Nothing, nothing, nothing...
The gorge left him feverish and his skin was burning as he stepped out into the night again. He was half-blind from the bright lights inside the store, but when his vision cleared, the first thing he saw was Alexandra’s dark curls pressed against the passenger-side window.
Feeling his eyes on her, she lifted her head and met his gaze. Brazenly, he stared at her, and just as he had the day they met, Aiden let her pierce his soul. He let her see what he’d done in the store. Let her feel what he felt in that moment.
What he felt in return was...nothing. No hint of judgment. No sense of disappointment. No anger or frustration. Lex accepted him for what he was. Her feelings for him had nothing to do with his actions.
Aiden strode up to the car and wrenched her door open. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her up out of the car. Her weight was nothing to him as he opened the back door and shoved her inside. Pressing her down into the seat, his kissed her.
She made some small noise of protest, but the next instant she was arching up against him. Greedily, she licked at the residual blood in his mouth and a moan vibrated deep in her throat.
Even though he had started this, Lex took control, as always. Reversing their positions, she tore at their clothes urgently. They were cramped in the back seat, but she didn’t even seem to notice. Her fingers moved nimbly and her limbs stretched and bent in directions Aiden hadn’t known were possible. The girl was as flexible as a dancer.
And perhaps this was a dance. They moved together and came apart in the same instinctive rhythm, the tension between them building synergistically. When it finally broke, Aiden looked up into her eyes, but all he saw was his own reflection staring down at him.
As she collapsed on top of him, her mass of curls falling over his face, the link between them hummed. And even though she didn’t like it, he held her tightly, clinging to her as if someone was trying to rip her out of his arms.
Not her, too. Not yet…
Lex squirmed and pulled back slightly. “Is there anything wrong?” she asked him.
“No,” Aiden replied. “Nothing.”
Nothing, nothing, nothing…
Part 10
Part 12
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