Authors: K. S. Haigwood
The hypnotic state Baddon had put on the mortals was removed and there was a lot of excitement for about ten minutes as the situation—weird as it was—was explained to them.
I still didn’t believe it, but I wasn’t dumb enough to open my mouth again, at least not where Isaiah could hear what came out of the thing.
Isaiah tapped his index finger on the toe of his polished shoe that was rested on his knee, and I cringed as I remembered all my thoughts were open to him again.
Crap!
Fortunately for me, he didn’t say anything. He just tapped his shoe and looked ahead at the seer as she finished up her impossible theory.
“I think I am supposed to accompany you on your journey to Limbo,” Aries said to the room and my head jerked up in alarm.
“What?”
Her eyes fell on me and she nodded with a smile. “I think I can help you find what you seek there. I also believe it’s a good idea to take Ethan with us. His soul is not safe here, obviously, and with the power he possesses—”
I jumped to my feet and stared at her as I pointed at the male mortal. “What power? He’s got no more power than the brown rock in my pocket.”
She didn’t look away from me. She held my stare and fired her own right back at me as she spoke. “He hasn’t discovered his abilities. They haven’t been woken up yet, but they are there, I assure you. I’ve felt them ever since we arrived in the street below Emma’s apartment. Can’t you feel them?”
I blinked at her, and then looked to the wide-eyed, frightened mortals. There was definitely a creepy and different feel about the room since we had returned with him. Why was I just now noticing this energy?
“Because you wouldn’t shut up long enough to feel it before. Now, please sit down. You are making a complete fool of yourself and it isn’t very flattering or becoming.”
I rolled my eyes to the vaulted ceiling, but did as Isaiah requested and sat beside him in my seat. I even went as far as to make brief eye contact with Aries and voiced my apology aloud, “I’m very sorry, Aries. I’ve reacted badly. To say there is a great deal riding on our decisions from here on out would be putting it mildly. I fear we have no more room for mistakes. But I am eager to hear what else you have to say, and I can promise you that there will be no more outbursts—at least not from me.”
The seer smiled at me and her gaze flicked briefly to Thoros on my left, before looking back to her audience.
“What the hell was that about?”
A soft chuckle echoed through my head, but Isaiah wasn’t the one that responded that time, either. Thoros leaned over by my ear, sending chills of the oh-so-good kind up my arms, and whispered, “I had to apologize to her, too. It’s a good thing she doesn’t hold grudges.”
I turned to face him, not realizing how close we were. Our noses nearly touched and I sucked in a sharp breath of surprise, but didn’t move back. Neither did he. Actually, it was all I could do not to close the distance between us and kiss him. I had never in my life felt the urge to do something so much. Why him? This man unnerved me to the point of pain. I wanted to scream at fate that it was wrong! Even if I wanted to—which I most certainly did not—I couldn’t be with this man. It was impossible. I had to return to Heaven and he had to stay here… without me.
The thought made me ill to my stomach and I turned away from him.
Why would fate give me a soulmate that I couldn’t spend an eternity with?
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He was still staring at me, and I fidgeted uncomfortably. Could I give up everything for someone like him? I knew I could—but would I? If not, would I go back up to Heaven and be miserable because I never gave him the chance to prove himself? I knew the answer to that; I was miserable just thinking about it.
Maybe I could give him just one night. I couldn’t deny the feelings I had for him, but it was getting harder and harder to hide them from him.
I won’t try to hide them anymore. I will stop running from him. I will talk to him. And I won’t regret it if for some strange reason I wake in the morning with his arms wrapped around me.
The thought of waking up in Thoros’ embrace was almost too much. My face flushed crimson, and I looked up at the other people in the room, sure they were all staring at me and knew the thoughts going through my mind. I swallowed audibly, and felt it when Thoros glanced away—or pretended to. There was a strong current between us, and even though we weren’t looking at each other, it was plain we knew the other was there, close enough to reach out and grab.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and looked down to see Thoros’ hand clenched tightly into a fist. His fingers relaxed and he ran his palm over his thigh. The urge to lace my fingers with his was nearly overwhelming, and he seemed to sense my discomfort, because he cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest, hiding his long fingers from my view.
I hadn’t realized I had turned my head until my eyes were locked onto his. Green blades of grass. Clovers in the springtime. My soulmate’s eyes. My heart skipped a beat. It was all so clear to me now. Whatever had happened before, and whatever may happen in the future, I was his and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. And I knew then that I didn’t want to do anything about it.
He smiled, and then I smiled and looked back to the front of the room, where Aries was still trying to convince us of Ethan’s powers and the great protection we would receive from her stones.
Yes
, I decided. Y
es, I would most certainly be waking up in the arms of Thoros in the morning.
Thoros bent to grab the strap of the duffle he’d dropped just outside the great room. He looked up and noticed Josselyn, lost in her thoughts and walking out the front door.
Instead of following her, like the beating muscle behind his chest wall was screaming for him to do, he made a left, hit the swinging door with his palm and walked into the kitchen. There, he took two glasses from the cabinet and filled them both with ice. After a bit of back and forth with himself about whether she would prefer sweet or unsweetened tea, he chose the sweet and decided that he would come back to change it if his instincts proved to be wrong.
Spotting lemons in with a variety of other fruit in a bowl on the island, he made quick work with a knife and cutting board in case she wanted lemon with her tea. He tossed the sliced citrus in a bowl and carried that in one hand while balancing the two glasses with his palm and fingers of his other.
Nervous as a whore in church, he backed out of the kitchen door and headed for the front entrance. Thankfully, there was no one around to witness him going soft around his severely tattered edges. He would never hear the end of it if Fallis caught wind of the fact that he was actually groveling at the feet of a woman, instead of the other way around.
The feeling was new to him; that was a fact, but it wasn’t an unwelcome sensation. He found he actually enjoyed trying to make her happy. The not knowing if she would like it was what scared the bejeezus out of him.
He balanced the bowl of lemons on his left forearm and opened the front door with his now free hand. Peeking around the jamb to the left, he spotted her on the porch swing, one bare foot tucked under the leg that was swaying and making the swing do what it was made to do. Thoros closed the door gently behind him and slowly walked toward her, careful not to interrupt, as her mind clearly seemed to be elsewhere.
Sitting one of the glasses of tea and the bowl of lemons on the rail of the wraparound porch, Thoros leaned against a post and studied her as he sipped his own cool beverage, thinking Webster really needed to re-define beauty, because the boring explanation the guy used to define beautiful things just wasn’t doing it for him where Josselyn was concerned. Anything that had been said in a book wasn’t enough to explain how Josselyn affected him on any level. He was mesmerized and hypnotized just by being within a hundred light-years of the angel.
A smile curved her lips before she looked at him, and then she motioned with the nod of her head, offering him the opposite end of the swing, next to her.
Well, he wasn’t slow, and he knew opportunity wasn’t going to knock twice. He sat his glass down, and then picked up the other and the bowl of lemons, and shakily offered them out to her. Ice clink-clink-clinked against the walls of the glass like chattering teeth.
Fuck! Get a damn grip, Thoros,
he demanded of himself.
He swallowed audibly, and then she smiled and politely declined the lemons, but took the glass of refreshment he offered, brushing her fingers ever so slightly over his. Breathing a sigh of relief, Thoros retrieved his own glass and sat at the other end of the swing, trying his best to ignore the tingling on his skin from her faint touch.
He wanted to give her time, all the time she needed, but he didn’t know how much he could physically stand before he fucking combusted. To occupy his mind and his trembling hands, he took the two-toned brown rock from his pocket and looked at it. He didn’t see anything special about it, but he would try anything if it meant keeping Josselyn safe.
Cocking his head to the side, he studied her out of the corner of his eye, his eyes narrowing as he studied her swinging foot and considerably lengthy leg. Putting his right toe to the heel of his left boot, he pushed the thing from his foot, and then did the same with the other. After that, his socks did the same disappearing act and ended up in the mouth of the expensive leather. He dropped the stone in the left boot and placed them neatly beside the steps.
Thoros bent his left knee up and put his bare foot under his right leg on the seat in the same exact way she was seated. The sway of his foot matched hers and made the ride a little smoother.
He shrugged.
Swinging was comfortable. The realization that he had never done such a simple act before to relax crossed his mind and made him a little anxious. What else was he missing out on? As he forced himself to relax again, he looked over at her and froze.
“What?” he said with wide eyes, and a burst of giggles erupted from that beautiful mouth of hers. Clenching his teeth together, so his tongue couldn’t do a roll-out-and-pant move, he looked down at the floating pieces of melting squares in his glass and grinned. “I’m just trying to figure you out, woman.”
“I’m really not that difficult to figure out. I’ve just been confused, that’s all.”
He was completely enamored and unable to look away, as if she was the puppet master pulling on his strings. Being with her would never get old. He knew that to be a fact. He felt it somewhere deep inside, in a part of him that he had never known existed before… before
her
.
The archangel was right. I really do love her. Love?
He tossed it around his head again and then smiled.
Yes. It is love. It is wonderful and great and painful and deceiving and heart-breaking and horrible, but it is love.
He relished the fact that it was Josselyn that he was
in love
with.
“Look, I want to apologize for—”
“Stop,” he whispered as his eyes drifted shut.
“No, Thoros, I know I’ve been a real—”
He leaned toward her, reached out with his index finger and then placed it gently to her lips. “Shh…” His eyes lingered there, too. He was nervous and excited and wanting to kiss the ever-loving crap out of her, but before he allowed himself to do something she wouldn’t want him to do, he backed up out of her personal space, but left his finger in place. He didn’t want to move that just yet. For some strange reason, just that small amount of contact with the tip of his index finger pressed against her pouty lips seemed so erotic and sensual to him, and he felt the lust side of him wake up and stretch its long arms.
No! I can’t treat her that way. I can’t treat her like all the others.
He shook his head for more than one reason, but she only needed to know about one of them right now. “I don’t deserve any apologies… not from you.”
She shuddered and parted her lips. His finger followed her puffy bottom lip as it separated from her top lip. Damn, he wanted to kiss them. Three months ago he would have—without a second thought. He would have taken what he wanted and not cared if she would have wanted him to. Now—yeah, now shit was different. He wasn’t that guy anymore. He actually despised the man he used to be. It could have ruined everything for him. It could still ruin everything.
Her eyes never moved from his as she took the tip of his index finger between her lips. Gently and slowly, she ran her tongue around the soft pad of his finger and around to his short-clipped nail, then sucked the sanity right out of his mind.
His mouth fell open and he inhaled quickly.
What the hell was she doing?
The woman was driving him crazy! He couldn’t stay here and let her do this, or he would have her whisked away, up to his awaiting bed, sending Isaiah a mental message that they would need a few more days before they could depart for Limbo.
Damn it! Why hadn’t he just left when he told the archangel he was going? Why? Oh, yeah. That’s right. Fucking
love
!
He swallowed and stammered out, “What are you doing, Josselyn?”
Her only answer was to take his entire finger into her mouth, massaging its length with her tongue.
A low growl bubbled up from his chest as he peered at her playful eyes from under his lashes. “Don’t start a game you can’t finish, skirt. And don’t forget that I’ve been a master at this particular one for over a century. The odds of winning are not in your favor, but I’m willing to make it fun for you.”
Fun for you!
Had he freaking lost his mind and said that out loud… to her? He’d be lucky if he got through one round without surrendering and begging to be her sex slave for the next million years with her looking at him like she was looking at him now, those chocolate eyes of hers dancing with desire and longing—and that mouth, sucking,
sucking
on his finger!
Dear God, he was ruined. Lameria had been right, the angel had ruined him. He wasn’t good for anything anymore, not even something as simple as tying his own shoes! Good thing he wore boots. He was putty in her hands, and the worst part about it, he was freaking happy about that. Why did he want her so badly? Why did it have to be her? An angel that he couldn’t possibly have and keep forever? He was in Hell!