Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem) (17 page)

My heartbeat went so crazy that I was probably making his freaky fangs vibrate.  I tried to jerk my head away, but his hand over my mouth stopped me from moving so much as an inch. With an almost tortured groan, he let his fangs sink into my neck. 

I won’t lie to you, it hurt like hell, but the pain only lasted for a second.  The moment he drew in his first mouthful of blood, my back arched, and I didn’t even attempt to suppress the moan that slipped through my lips.  Pleasure like I had never known rocketed through me.  My hands reached up to tangle in his hair, holding him closer, and his arm tightened around my waist.  For the first time in my life, I felt complete, as if I had been asleep and was just waking up.  The world took on a dazzling clarity and everything made sense. 

He drew away long before I was ready for him to.  I shivered when his tongue slid over the small puncture wounds his fangs had left, the erotic feel of it too much for my raw nerves.  He buried his face in the crook of my neck and held me tighter in response. 

Then I remembered what his biting me really meant for me.

His head jerked back when my arms fell back to my sides and I stiffened against him.  I could almost feel the regret rolling off him when I cut my eyes up at him just in time to see a single red-tinged tear form in the corner of his eye.  He had done it.  He had really
done
it.

He had
branded
me!  Like I was a
cow
or something!  I would never forgive him for that.  Never, ever, ever, ever.

“Now,” he breathed, brushing his lips against my throat again, “We are going back upstairs together like this never happened.  If you make one sound to draw attention to yourself, if you try to run, if you so much as
look
like you’re going to do something foolish again, I will drain you until you’re too weak to lift more than your pinky finger.  Am I making myself clear, Ember?”

Perfectly
, I thought, letting the tears in my eyes overflow without shame. 

“Good,” he whispered.  Then, just to add insult to injury, he gently kissed the side of my neck. 

Without another word, he let go of me and wrapped his hand around my wrist instead.  Leading me to the door like a toddler, he checked to make sure the coast was clear, then dragged me back down the hall and into the brightly lit lobby.  By the time we reached the top of the stairs, some of my terror had worn off, and the anger that had flared to life in that dark little room was starting to burn through me like acid.   

 “I hate you,” I whispered, too furious to manage more than that, stopping in the middle of the hall and glaring at him. 

“No, you don’t,” he said softly.  “You should, but you don’t.  I wish you did.  This would be so much easier if you hated me.”

“Oh, but I do.”

And, at that moment, I really
did
hate him.  He had gone too far with his stupid control freak act.  I was tempted to start screaming at the top of my lungs just to test him to see if he would make good on all those other dark little threats of his.

“Damn you’re stubborn,” he grumbled, giving me a warning look.  “Ember, if you test me you aren’t going to like the results.”

“Oh, really?” I snorted.  “What about your friend, the one who’s so concerned about my well-being?  Don’t you think she’s going to be a little pissed when I show up with the equivalent of a GPS microchip
on my
neck
?”

“Probably, but it was a chance I was willing to take.”  And the look in his eyes said he meant every word.  “Now,” he continued, rubbing his hands together in a way I didn’t like at all.  “Are you going to behave?  Or am I going to have to tie you to the headboard so I can get some sleep?  Tying you to the bed gets my vote.  Maybe
without
that shirt…”

I should have been scared out of my mind at the idea of being stripped and tied to the bed, but I was just so infuriated with him that my mind wasn’t functioning correctly.  Instead of cowering away from him when he started toward me like I should have been doing—like anyone with half a damn brain
would
have been doing after being bitten by a vampire—I just stood there and continued to glower up at him, too angry to realize I was just asking for another dose of terrorism from him.

“You wouldn’t
dare
,” I seethed. 

To demonstrate that he wasn’t just making threats, he pulled several long pieces of material he had obviously torn off the sheets from his back pocket and dangled them in front of me.  I looked at them for a second, swallowing hard, then turned my glare back to him again. 

Then, out of sheer spite, I punched him in the stomach.  A course of action I immediately regretted.  I swear, it felt like I had just punched a brick wall.

“Ow!” I yelped, cradling my hand against my chest as my knuckles began to throb.   

“Well, that wasn’t very smart.”  Chuckling, he reached for my hand.  “Let me see.  I’ll kiss it and make it better.”

“Bite me, Nathan,” I snapped.  I winced when I realized that might have an entirely different meaning to him.  Like, oh, say, ‘Nathan, would you like to use me as a Slushie machine?  Really, I don’t mind.  Go right ahead.’ 

Then again, he’d already done that, so what difference did it make if he sucked me dry? 

Blinking away the tears in my eyes, I turned around and marched back to the door of my temporary prison and stood there and waited.  He didn’t say a word as he reached around me and slipped the keycard in the slot and threw the door open for me, but I knew he felt the anger rolling off of me in waves.  Without a word, I stomped to the bathroom and slammed the door behind me before locking it so he couldn’t follow.

I had to force myself to look in the mirror.  When I saw the pearlescent outline of the very symbol on my neck that was emblazoned on Nathan’s, I started to cry.  Then to sob.  I clamped my mouth closed so Nathan wouldn’t hear me, but there was no stopping the tears.  I sank to the cold tiles and then laid down on the cheap bathmat in front of the bathtub and continued to weep for everything I’d just lost.

I was no longer free to go where I wanted.

I no longer controlled my own life.

I belonged to
him
. 

As much as I mourned for what he had taken from me, that hurt the most.  I belonged to someone who didn’t give a damn about me.  In a single act of cruelty, he had taken everything I valued away from me.  And for what?  To prove a point?

Well, I hoped he had enjoyed it, because it was never going to happen again.

I was staring blankly at the wall across from me when Nathan snapped the lock on the bathroom door and let himself in.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at him when he got a cold washcloth and bathed the tears from my cheeks, so I just closed my eyes and pretended he didn’t exist.  I didn’t make a move to stop him when he scooped me up in his arms and carried me back to the bed.   

I cringed when I felt the mattress sink a few inches as Nathan climbed back in next to me, but I didn’t utter a single word.  Trying not to be obvious about it, I scooted as close to the edge of the bed as I could get until I was practically hanging onto the edge so I wouldn’t fall off.  I heard him suck in a shaky breath in response, but I didn’t turn to look at him.  I never, ever, wanted to look at him again.  I didn’t want to look at him, talk to him, or even think about him. 

I wanted him to go away and never come back. I wanted to go back in time and tell him to take a flying leap off a short pier instead of letting him in my car and, by doing so, into my life.  I wanted him to disappear and take the hatred and anger eating a hole in my stomach with him. 

But, more than all of that, I wanted to forget what it had felt like to be that connected to him.  I wanted to erase how incredibly close we had been for those few seconds.  I wanted those amazing tingles to stop chasing each other beneath my skin.  I wanted it all to be a bad dream.  Because, to him, it hadn’t meant a damn thing.  But, to me, it had meant everything.

I found myself counting Nathan’s breaths after a while out of sheer boredom and was surprised to find it was soothing to me.  Maybe it was the steady, quiet sound of it that did it.  Maybe it was how comfortable he was, sleeping less than eight inches from someone who was slowly starting to hate his damn guts.  Whatever it was, I felt my muscles start to relax and my eyelids started to get heavy.   

Just before I closed my eyes, I pulled the collar of my borrowed t-shirt up close to my nose and took a deep breath.  Like the sound of his breathing, that scent was strangely calming to me and gave me that final push into sleep.  It followed me into my dreams, painting pictures of a fantasy world full of flowing gowns, dancing in the moonlight around a garden shimmering with white roses, a Prince Charming who looked entirely too much like my kidnapper, and stolen kisses in the dark.

Dream a Little Dream of Me

The next morning, I woke up with a light, warm feeling in the pit of my stomach.  For a second, I just let my dreams from the night before play in my head like a movie reel.  I should have been horrified that Nathan had haunted me even in my dreams, but I wasn’t.  With every imaginary stolen kiss, I had felt myself come to life.  If I could have stayed in my dream world, I would have.

Realizing I wouldn’t be able to hide behind my closed lids forever, I stretched—and  froze like a five-foot-nothing leprechaun ice sculpture when I realized I was pressed against something hard and cool.  Something with its arms wrapped around me.

Something
breathing
.

I could feel the heat creeping up my neck to my face even before I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the line of Nathan’s jaw.  I turned so red my hair was probably steaming when I realized I had been sleeping on his chest.  My hand was pressed against cool, silky skin, and I was even more mortified to discover it had somehow found its way under his t-shirt to rest over his heart.  And, if that wasn’t bad enough—and trust me, it was—I had thrown one of my bare legs over his thigh.  In essence, I was wrapped around him like he was the ultimate body pillow…or my boyfriend. 

Neither of which, I might remind you, he was ever going to be.

Please let him be asleep,
I prayed, ready to do anything I needed to do to have that prayer answered.  I would stop cussing.  I would become a missionary and devote my life to the needy.  Hell, I would even give up coffee and gladly be my parents’ test dummy.  I would do
anything
not to have to face Nathan after spending the night drooling on his chest. 

Uh-huh, right.  Because the Bad Karma Fairy was going to let
that
dream come true…

Very slowly, I forced my eyes up toward his.  I had to stop at his nose to take a deep breath before I could bring myself to go any further.  My humiliation became complete, though, when I saw that Nathan was not only awake, but watching me with a sweet, almost dreamy, look.  If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was…happy.

“Oh, God,” I groaned, trying to squirm out of the death grip he had on me.  “I’m so sorry.  I don’t know how I got here and…  I mean, I was asleep so… I’m so,
so
, sorry…”

“I’m not,” he said softly, causing me to stop trying to remove his boa constrictor-like hold on me for about ten seconds.

“You’re not what?” I asked, frowning in confusion as I tried to blow one of my curls out of my face.  I immediately stopped myself when I thought about the green cloud of morning breath I had just doused him in.  Why couldn’t everybody wake up like they did in the movies, with minty-fresh breath and perfect hair?

“Sorry,” he murmured with a tender look as he rolled me onto my back and brushed the curl over my shoulder for me.  “I’m not sorry.  Do you have any idea what you look like in your sleep?”

“No,” I whispered, too overwhelmed by the way he was looking at me to even push him away.  I felt special and beautiful and cherished in that moment, a rarity for me, and I couldn’t bring myself to give up that feeling.

“You look like an angel,” he murmured as he trailed a finger down my cheek, following its path with his eyes.  “You look sweet and peaceful and so damned beautiful it took my breath away.”

His fingers moved to my chin, his thumb brushing over my bottom lip, and the blush on my cheeks got a little hotter when I found myself having to force my traitorous body not to move.  I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck and pull his lips down to mine to see if he tasted even half as good as he looked.  I wanted to see if he could make me feel the way he had in my dreams.  

But dreams are just dreams.  Eventually, you have to wake up.  And it was way past time for my wake up call. 

“Well, I
am
sorry and it won’t happen again,” I told him, pushing at his shoulders to move him away from me.  When he gave me a sad look, I rolled my eyes.  “Stop looking at me like that.  I’m a fast learner, Nathan.  You’re bored, that’s all.  Just get me to Washington, dump me off on your friend, and you’re free to go kidnap someone less…how did you put it?  Oh, yeah,
now
I remember.  Boring and frigid, right?”