Dark Solace (31 page)

* * * *

Devlin and I woke up about five thirty the
next afternoon. I told Dev I was showering and asked him if he
wanted to join me, but he said only to go ahead, that he would be
down later.

After a wonderful long, hot shower, I dressed
and went downstairs to watch some TV. While I was tempted— perhaps
insanely—to visit Venus again, I knew it wasn’t a good idea. She
clearly saw me as a source of food. Our days of mother-daughter
bonding would have to wait until she was older.

Lash came in shortly after six, his face
breaking into a grin when he saw me waiting. I gave him a welcoming
smile, and he sank down beside me, turning at once to put his black
socked feet up on the couch by my feet.

Not surprising that even his socks were
black. Why didn’t he get some black underwear as well?

“Want to watch the Fantastic Four?” he
offered. “I TiVo-ed it for us.”

“Sure,” I hurriedly answered, pushing my
illicit musing back under a rock where it belonged. “It’s got those
two guys from that FX—”

“I know you like those FX shows, Sar,” Lash
said with a smile. “It’s all the sex—”

“And the intrigue,” I laughed. “They’re
fun.”

“But they’re dark too,” Lash said quietly,
looking at me intently. “Happy people seem to be absent from all of
the major roles.”

Lash had a point. Late night FX was pretty
devoid of shiny happy people smiling and laughing.

“I don’t watch only FX,” I said defensively.
“I’m not wasting away in the darkness. There are some things I
watch that are happy.”

Lash gave me a look that said I most
certainly did not watch anything happy.

“Okay, Mr. Sunshine, what do YOU watch that’s
happy?” I challenged.

“I watch South Park,” Lash smirked.

I threw a couch pillow at his head, snorting
back my laughter. Lash easily caught it, then put it under his head
and sprawled out, stretching his legs across my lap. He began
working the remote.

“Wait,” I asked, flushing.

Lash paused the movie, looking at me
closely.

“Would you come to therapy with me, either
this week or next?”

“You want ME to come?” Lash said, shocked.
“Why? Theo will shit a brick.”

“Because our therapist said you should,” I
explained, giving him a shrug. “Theo won’t be there, Lash, just me
and you.”

“I could probably do it next week,” Lash said
thoughtfully. “Dev’s been booking me jobs here and there, and I
need to meet with some people for him, too, but I can work around
it. Let me check and I’ll let you know next week.”

“Okay.”

“Just so you know, there are some things I’m
not going to talk about with your therapist,” Lash added with a
hiss.

He was hissing again, which meant he was
upset. What things did he mean? How he loved me? Him dying? “You
don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to,” I reassured.
“And you can swear, if you want.”

“That’s a relief,” Lash replied. “I assume we
have to sit on a couch and talk about our feelings? I’ve never been
to therapy before.”

“Must be because you are so well-adjusted,” I
quipped.

Lash reached down and grabbed my legs,
pulling them down his way, and began tickling my socked feet.

“Ahh! Stop!” I yelled, laughing and
writhing.

He was laughing, but he did stop.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. “I could make us
something.”

“Like what?” Lash said, giving me a hungry
look back.

“I don’t know...what would you like to
eat?”

“I like to eat a lot of things,” Lash said,
giving me a suggestive smile. “Depending on what I have a yearning
to taste—”

“Be serious,” I chastised. “How about
pancakes? Eggs? Pasta? I don’t know how much time we have before
Dev comes down, or what’s in the refrigerator—”

“Let’s go look.” Lash got up immediately.

I followed him into the kitchen, and over to
the fridge. He opened it, peering in. “Looks like we are out of
eggs, and there’s no bacon or sausage, either,” Lash said with
irritation. “Serena buys at least three packages every week, but
that bastard Jerry’s always eating it all himself—”

I remembered Jerry, one of the newer weres
Dev had hired. He was short and dark haired, with an intense way
about him. He had seemed nice enough, but I’d only seen him a few
times at Hayden in passing. I still didn’t know many of the
werebears well, but I knew the single ones, like Jerry, better than
the mated ones, as those six were the ones who visited Serena
almost daily. Well, maybe it wasn’t daily anymore, she was taking
care of Venus now...

“—
there’s some fruit here,” Lash said,
making a face. “And it looks like some milk, and some vegetables,
and oh look, someone did leave us one egg!”

There was real fury in his manner. Why? This
was a pain, sure, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. But he’d always
had a short fuse with Theo. Maybe he had one with most people?
Those jocks that’d made fun of us a month ago had brought the
monster out with just a few digs at me.

“They’re all such fucking selfish
asses—!”

I went over behind him, and laid a hand on
his shoulder, hoping to calm him. He went still beneath my
fingers.

“I could make you some cornbread,” I offered.
“Do you like cornbread?”

Lash turned to me, longing and a touch of
emotion in his dark eyes. “I love cornbread. I haven’t had any in
years.”

“Then hand me our lone egg, and I’ll get on
it,” I said with a smile.

Lash hugged me quickly, and then let me go,
turning back around to grab the egg, and the milk. Given his lack
of enthusiasm for cooking, I was surprised that he knew that milk
was in cornbread, but chalked it up to the vast years he’d probably
spent watching TV. Perhaps he had watched cooking shows on
occasion.

I took both the egg and the milk from him,
and went to the counter looking for cornmeal in the cupboard.
“Preheat the oven to four hundred degrees,” I said, flipping
through my mental cookbook for a list of the other ingredients.

Lash began pushing the buttons of the stove,
as I located everything else I needed. As I began pouring and
measuring, Lash came up behind me, slipping his arms loosely around
my waist as I worked, his head leaning on my shoulder. I waited for
him to say something, make some comment, but he seemed content to
stand there in silence.

“You have to let me go,” I said, putting the
last of the batter into the pans. “I’ve got to put these in the
oven.”

“Right,” Lash said in one breath. He released
me, and stepped away.

I slid the pans into the oven, set the times
for an hour, and then turned to him. “Want some wine?” I asked.
“The bread will be a while. I think there are some pretzels
here—”

“Cornbread, wine, and pretzels?” Lash said,
laughing. “That’s not a balanced dinner.”

“Probably not, but like you said, there isn’t
much else here—”

“Sorry about that,” a voice said.

We turned to a thin blond woman at the door,
a full grocery bag in her arms. She looked about Mary’s age, early
sixties maybe. But she was in very good shape, and when she moved,
she had a spring in her step. She came in and handed the bag to
Lash. He took it from her without a word, and set it on the
counter.

“I’m Robin,” she said softly.

I gave her a smile, and extended my hand.
“I’m Sarelle.”

She nodded. “I saw we were out of most
everything this morning, so I took a drive down late this afternoon
to get some supplies,” Robin said cheerfully. “There are some eggs
there, and some bagels, and bacon—”

“Thank you, Kitchen Goddess,” Lash said,
shooting her a grin.

Robin gave him a smile back.

That was odd. He’d been so against her coming
here, back in the early spring. What had changed to make him like
her?

“I’ve got to get to cleaning,” Robin said,
checking her watch. “But have a good night, Sarelle. You too,
Lash.”

“Thanks again,” I said. Lash echoed me.

“If you’re going to do baking again here at
Hayden, Sarelle, please let me know,” Robin said pleasantly.
“Serena has been telling me of your skill, and I’d like to pass on
a few recipes to you.”

That was nice, but I wasn’t used to Hayden’s
people being nice without an angle. “Oh?”

“I don’t have children of my own,” Robin
explained. “The recipes are some of my traditional family ones, and
I would like to pass them onto other cooks, so they aren’t
lost.”

So long as it wasn’t some kind of raw
werewolf stew. “Sounds great. I like new recipes, if they aren’t
too complex. Probably a week from now, maybe? I’ll let Serena know,
and she can tell you.”

“Sure thing,” Robin said with a grin. With a
last good-bye to us both, she left.

“She’s nice,” Lash hissed, putting away the
salad, and the two extra packages of bacon.

He’d left out the eggs, bacon, sausage, and
bagels. Looks like we’d be having a balanced meal after all.

I got out two large skillets, and began
prepping, as Lash opened the packages for me. As the meat was
cooking, he again came up behind me, and possessively put his arms
at my waist, his thumbs hooking beneath the edge of my shirt to
stroke my bare skin.

Chapter
Eleven

Was he going to kiss me? What would I do if
his hands suddenly slid upward? “How many eggs do you want?” I
asked awkwardly.

“Four,” Lash hissed softly. “Four would be
nice.” He let go of me, and reached back to grasp the egg carton on
the counter. “Here.”

I took out four eggs, and cracked them into
the skillet. “How do you like them?”

“Over easy,” Lash hissed almost inaudibly.
“Or however you want to make them, Sar.” He again moved up behind
me, his hands again slipping under my shirt to touch my skin.
Gently, he caressed my sides, his thumbs just grazing the bottoms
of my breasts, his breath loud in my ears.

The closeness of Lash made it hard to
concentrate. I breathed in the scent of him as we stood there
together, the warmth of his body permeating my back. All I wanted
to do was close my eyes and enjoy being held by him, to feel his
arms holding me tenderly, yet possessively.

I told myself that I should open my mouth,
and tell him to give me some space. I told myself that I knew
better than this. Instead I relaxed back and leaned into him,
letting myself be comforted.

“The eggs will be ready first,” I said. “The
bacon and sausage will take longer.”

“Aren’t you eating?” Lash hissed in my ear.
“I thought we were eating together.”

This time it wasn’t angst that was causing
his hissing; it was arousal. “I’m trying to watch my weight. I’ll
have a little bit of the bacon and sausage with you, and the
cornbread, but not the eggs. I should really just have a
bagel—”

Lash brushed my cheek with his gently, making
me nearly drop my spatula. “You shouldn’t lose any weight, Sar,” he
whispered in my ear. “You are the right size, just as you are. Your
body is beautiful.”

A shudder went through me at his words,
images of him touching me, loving me. It was in his voice that he
remembered, too...Get a hold of yourself, Sar. You can handle this.
Now do it.

“I was thinner before I had Venus and Devon,”
I said grumpily, still very conscious of his arms around me and his
cheek against mine. “You don’t remember me that way, because by the
time we were together, I was pregnant a few months—”

“Not the first time,” Lash said hoarsely.

His hands slipped upwards, his thumbs
stroking the sides of my breasts as he cupped them. I went still as
a statue.

“You were only a month along, or less,” Lash
hissed softly in my ear, his tone longing. “I remember you well,
Sar. How you looked in the moonlight that night, standing before
me.”

I shut my eyes. Yes...he was right. The first
time I had been with him, so many months ago, I’d only been a few
weeks pregnant. I had been more or less the right size then, at
least for me. Now I was about ten pounds heavier.

Lash’s hands crossed my chest, then his arms
squeezed me back against him. “You were so fearless and determined,
your eyes flashing as you demanded I take you—”

Focus, Sar, focus! “I’m not going to be
supermodel thin,” I uttered abruptly, blinking a lot to get the
mental images of us together out of my mind. “I just want to fit
into my tight jeans again, Lash. I appreciate your kind words, but
I’ve made up my mind.”

Lash didn’t reply. The tension slowly
evaporated as if it has never been.

“Your eggs are done,” I said. “Get a
plate.”

Lash let me go, and turned to the
cupboard.

“Do you want a bagel, too?” I asked. “I can
put in one for you, and one for me.”

“Sure,” Lash said easily, handing me a plate.
“But I can put them in while you dish it up.”

Lash took care of the bagels as I carefully
forked out his eggs, bacon, and the first batch of sausage. The
bagels popped up a few seconds later. Lash handed me mine on a
plate, then took his loaded plate immediately into the other room,
a fork in his hand.

He came back in a second later. “You can’t
eat in there with me, because you’re still cooking.” He pulled out
one of the bar stools, sat down at the kitchen island in back of
me, and began eating.

Touched that he’d come back to keep me
company, I tried to come up with some comment. The timer on the
counter went off loudly, startling me so much I dropped my fork on
the floor. Rolling my eyes at my teenage-like jitters, I picked it
up and put it in the sink, then checked the cornbread.

“We’re good to go,” I said, lifting it out
with the oven mitt.

“Would you cut me a few pieces?” Lash said
eagerly. “I can’t wait to taste it.”