Sebastian slipped off the stool and walked across the room to stand next to Lily’s father. They were of equal height, and seeing their reflections together like this, Sebastian realized he’d been right—they appeared the same age.
Standing here beside the man, it was easier to think of Cheval as a peer, not as the father of the woman he might be falling in love with. He shoved his fingers through his hair in frustration and looked at Cheval’s reflection in the glass.
“Please realize, I don’t know Aldo Xenakis very well. I only discovered he was my father a couple of years ago, when my mother was dying and I was helping organize her papers. I found my birth certificate, their divorce papers. She warned me to stay away from him, but my curiosity won out. After she died. I contacted him. He knew nothing about me, but when I sent him copies of the paperwork, he asked me to come. I did. I’m still not sure if it was the smartest or stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but there is something different, almost mesmerizing about . . .”
His voice trailed off. What was there to say about the man? Aldo was fascinating in the same manner as a cobra. Sebastian glanced at Cheval and realized he had his full attention. “Anyway, when I first saw Lily at the reception . . .” He shrugged. “She’s beautiful. Charismatic. I’ve never felt a connection like I felt with her. I was trying to influence her to look my way.”
Cheval chuckled. “Did it work?”
Sebastian laughed outright. “Hell, no. She said I was much too pushy.”
“That sounds just like Lily.”
“I’d never really communicated telepathically before. My father can push at my mind, and occasionally I understand what he wants, but we don’t actually speak. Not the way Lily and I can. To say she grabbed my attention is an understatement. She was working her way through the crowd, talking to people greeting her, and at the same time, we were tossing telepathic comments back and forth.”
He remembered how she’d looked, like royalty acknowledging her subjects, and his heart sped up. “We made eye contact, and suddenly a sharp pain spiked through my head. Lily collapsed. Just went down like someone had coldcocked her. I was aware of a sense of evil, of darkness, but there was a subtle familiarity. I pushed it all away and ran to Lily.”
He chuckled. “She was awake but pretending to be unconscious because she was embarrassed. She asked me—telepathically, again—to get her away from everyone, so I carried her to a private office. She recovered quickly, we went back to the reception, and all was well.”
He glanced at Lily’s father. Cheval stood motionless, listening carefully to everything Sebastian was saying, but watching him in the way of a predator studying his prey.
What did he see? Facial expressions or something more? Did he see auras the way Sebastian did? Was he searching Sebastian’s thoughts, looking for words he wasn’t speaking aloud? He’d often thought his father could read his mind, and he already knew Cheval was capable. So be it. He had no intention of lying. The man could turn his brain inside out for all he cared. All he’d find was just how very much Sebastian already cared for his daughter.
“After the reception, Lily said she was going to run on Mount Tam. I asked if I could go with her, and she said she’d be running as a wolf. I’m not Chanku, but I can shift by magical means. She was okay with that. But something happened that’s never happened to me before. Shortly after we shifted, I lost almost half an hour. I have no real explanation, but Lily says I chased her as if I intended to mount her.”
He shook his head, still ashamed of what had happened. “I vaguely recall a sense of evil, as if something foul had entered my mind, similar to what happened at the reception, but it’s not clear enough for me to be sure. Whatever it was, I can only assume I was mentally compromised until we were attacked by two huge wolves. Lily was able to get through to me then, thank goodness, because they were bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. They were smart, obviously working together, but Lily wasn’t sure if they were Chanku. She and I fought them off.”
He shot a quick glance at Cheval. “Your daughter is amazing. She doesn’t give an inch in a fight, and together, we were able to overpower them. One left with a broken right front leg. The other one had a broken left hind leg, and a slashed nose.”
“There’s more to this. Something Lily doesn’t know, right?” Cheval’s focus was laser sharp, aimed directly at Sebastian.
“Yes, sir. Early this morning, my father made a couple of comments that let me know he was aware of what had happened last night. When I admitted to losing myself in the wolf, he seemed disappointed I’d not raped Lily. He was rather crude about it.”
Anger surged, fresh and hot with the memory. He realized he was clenching his hands into such tight fists he’d cut off circulation, and he stared at his hands a moment, flexing his fingers, getting the circulation back. After a moment, he raised his head and faced Lily’s father. “His comments infuriated me. We had strong words; it got ugly. Later, before I did the spell to access the astral, he held one of his big public rallies against Chanku rights of citizenship. I watched the remote feed and noticed he had at least six large bodyguards up on the stage with him. Men I’d never seen before, but he likes to flaunt his power, so their presence wasn’t unusual. Except one bodyguard had his right arm in a sling. Another had a slashed nose and a walking cast on his left leg.”
“Coincidence?” Cheval raised an eyebrow.
“If you say so.” Sebastian met his steady gaze.
Cheval studied him for what felt like a very long time. Then he nodded, as if answering his own questions. “I have a condition if you want to continue seeing my daughter. Now, obviously I can’t prevent you and Lily from being together if that’s what she wants, but I hope you’ll humor me on this.”
Sebastian merely waited while Cheval walked across the room to his desk, reached into a bottom drawer, and grabbed a small plastic jar. Sebastian walked over to stand beside the desk, and Cheval dropped the jar into his hand.
It was filled with large brownish-green capsules.
“These are the nutrients I want you to take. I believe you are Chanku, but I want to know for sure. Once you take these, if you are Chanku, you can’t go back. You will no longer be human. The changes are at a cellular level, and they are permanent.”
Sebastian held up the plastic container and looked at the capsules. “Lily asked me to take them. I told her I would.”
“And then you left.”
Sebastian nodded. “And then I left.” He glanced at Cheval. “Not a very bright move on my part. I knew it the moment I shut the door behind me I’d made a stupid mistake.”
“Good. There’s hope for you yet.” Cheval glanced at the jar. “They go well with cognac.”
Sebastian removed the lid and dumped one of the capsules into his palm. He retrieved his glass from the bar, swallowed the capsule down with too big a gulp of cognac and almost choked.
Cheval ignored his coughing and checked his wristwatch. “Do you play chess?”
“I do.”my
“Good. We can play while we wait for Lily. And when she arrives, I would like to hear more of your walk on the astral.”
None of this felt real. Annie gazed into Alex’s eyes and wondered if she should pinch herself. He was usually so funny, teasing and playing jokes, acting like a clown. Making her laugh.
Not now. Not here. His hands slid down her arms, but his fingers trembled against her skin. His lips parted when he cupped her breasts, and he sort of gnawed on his lower lip as if he was totally lost in touching her.
She was quickly losing herself. Losing any sense of who or what she was beyond what she could be for Alex. What they could be together. Was this love, this terrifying sense of free fall, the feeling that if he didn’t do more now, make love to her
now,
she’d burst into flames?
She’d had sex with a lot of women—girlfriends both human and Chanku. None of them, not even Lily tonight, had affected her the way Alex did, merely by looking at her as he ran his big hands over her body.
She reveled in the rough scrape of calloused palms, his strength, and the flex of muscles barely visible in the darkness. Even with her Chanku eyesight, he was all line and shadow, shape and form without truly defined edges, but he was every inch an alpha male.
What was he thinking? She wondered if he’d open his thoughts to her, and when she dropped her shields, just like that he was in her head.
And firmly entrenched within her heart.
Beautiful. So beautiful, and I don’t know if I’m good enough, if I’ll ever be good enough. Beautiful, perfect Annie.
Her breath caught in her throat. He had no idea she was listening, that he was broadcasting, and as much as she wanted to hear more, it wasn’t fair to him. Not when she could answer his questions so easily.
Since I was little, you were always the best thing in my world. The boy I looked up to, and then the man. The one who made me laugh, even when you didn’t realize I was in the room. The one who always kept the bigger kids, including my brothers, from teasing me. You’ve always protected me. Make love to me. I’m thirty years old, and I’ve waited almost all of those years for you. You know how this is supposed to work, but I don’t. Please don’t make me wait any longer.
He groaned and kissed her, but there was nothing practiced in the press of his firm lips, the click of teeth bumping, the sensual tingle of tongues touching, stroking, searching deeper. Annie sensed that Alex was every bit as nervous as she was, and his sweet anxiety gave her courage.
She loved his taste and the way it felt when they were skin to skin. She twisted beneath him to bring their bodies closer together. She wanted him inside where no man had touched her, where she’d kept that one small bit of herself inviolate, just for him.
Did he care? Did it matter?
It matters, sweetheart. You have no idea. Matters so much, and yet I’m afraid of hurting you. Afraid I’ll screw up and you’ll hate me, hate what should be wonderful.
He laughed, breaking their kiss and looking at her with so much tenderness that a lump grew in her throat and his image wavered through tears. He kissed her again, a short quick taste of her lips. “I’m not kidding, you know. Believe me, if anyone’s going to screw something up, it’ll be me.”
“Only if you don’t shut up and make love to me.”
He chuckled, a sound from deep in his chest, almost as if he groaned at the same time. “See? What did I tell you?”
But then he leaned close and clamped her right nipple between his lips, worried the sensitive peak gently with his teeth. Her body writhed and twisted beneath him, and she wondered if a woman could come merely from having her breasts licked and nipped, but then he brushed the curls between her legs, and she knew this intimate touch would definitely make her come.
“No.” She moaned the words. “Please, not with your hands. Not with your mouth. I want you inside me. All of you, as deep inside as you can be. Please?”
Her body trembled and his was shaking, and she wondered what it was like for him, a man who’d been with so many women, making love with someone so inexperienced, but he followed her plea, lifted her hips beneath his hands, and nudged at her needy sex. He was gentle, parting her slickened labia with his fingertips, pressing forward until he’d seated the broad head of his cock just inside.
She wanted more. Wanted him now, and she raised her hips and thrust against him, impaling herself on his thick length, thrilling with the burn and stretch as he filled her. She’d used sex toys to ease the pressure of unmet needs, but they were nothing like Alex’s thick, hot erection. She lifted her hips, pushing against him until the solid pressure of his cock against the mouth of her womb, the soft slap of his balls against her bottom, signaled she’d taken all she could, that she’d taken all of him.
He held still for a moment, giving her time to adjust to his size, and both of them a chance to savor the feeling. When he finally withdrew, the wet, sucking sounds as he pulled free made her shiver. He paused with the thick head of his cock resting against her entrance, and then he drove home again. And almost as if it were an afterthought, he opened his thoughts to her, shared the sensation of her inner muscles rippling along the fullness of his cock, the way her skin felt to him, like silk. He shared his sense of surprise and amazing joy, that since Annie had suddenly reappeared in his life, he knew his life would never be the same.
Annie returned the sensations, magnified through her sense of wonder, that the man she’d loved for so long truly cared about her, maybe even loved her. This was what she’d waited for. So many times she’d dreamed of just this moment, this wonderful sense of fulfillment, but only with Alex Aragat. Never any other, and now that it was happening, it was more than she’d hoped. So much more, so much deeper, more meaningful than anything she could have imagined.
It wasn’t just sex. No, this was so much more. This was Alex making a commitment unlike any he’d ever made. She felt the strength of it in every move he made, in every touch.
It was a commitment to her, to Anne Marie McClintock. Not even Lily, a woman he’d loved all his life, had affected him this way. There was no doubt in her mind. He was telling her with his eyes, with his body, with the soft words he whispered in her ear, that he hoped this was worth the wait for her.
That she was definitely worth the wait for him.
His words of love heated her mind as his touch heated her body. Her climax grew closer. His thrusts went from long and slow to short and fast, and she saw the shimmer in his eyes, the sweat on his forehead and across his broad chest making his muscles gleam in the faint reflective moonlight that lingered.
She opened to him, found him waiting, balanced on the precipice. Waiting for her.
I love you,
she said, unashamed to tell him what she’d imagined saying for so long.