Drawing Deep (16 page)

With no way to sneak out, Ria did as directed, pulling out a chair to the left of Melinda. As she did, Santos sauntered in the room, his eyes landing without hesitation on her face before snagging his own plate and mounding it with food.

Ria fell into the chair with little grace. She wanted to squirm. The knowing heat in Santos’s brief look had just about seared her through and through. Not a leer or male smugness, but one of carnal intimacy, appreciation and intention for further exploration.

How she got all that from a second’s glance, she couldn’t explain. She just
knew,
and it made all her female parts stand up and sing.

Ria poured herself a glass of iced tea and drank deep. When Santos pulled out the chair next to her she tried desperately not to react, even as her whole body sprang to life in sexual awareness. She didn’t understand what it was about him that made her respond to his simple presence on such a passionate level. After forcing Santos and her feelings for him into a little box all day so she could concentrate on her work, sitting next to him made it all burst free in a flaming rush of vicious hunger. All she could think about was ripping his clothes clean off his body so she could succumb to the ravenous need to touch and take.

Crossing her legs against the dampness gathered there, and aching for the slightest touch, Ria focused her attention on Melinda instead. “It’s just a theory, of course.” She settled in to answer questions and provide an update on what she and Lance had discovered at the site, slowly growing comfortable with the easy conversation that flowed around and to her. Then a heavily muscled thigh pressed against hers and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Santos,” Andreas said, his tone bordering on rebuke. “I believe we can start on the navel trees later this week.”

Ria might have thought it an odd change in subject, until she remembered exactly who it originated from. A shifter. He could probably scent Ria’s discomfort, her arousal. It was mortifying. Knuckles white around her fork, Ria dropped her head and attacked the remains of her dinner with gusto. When Melinda and Annie started to clear the empty dishes, Ria stood as well, intending to lend a hand, and get the hell out of the room.

“Porter will help us, dear,” Melinda said. “I actually have a favor to ask of you and Santos.”

Ria turned to Santos who only shrugged. “Sure.”

“There are several containers in the attic with Christmas decorations. If you two could bring them down, I’d appreciate it.”

“Okay.” Now that Ria thought about it, December was only a day away so the request wasn’t an unreasonable one. Until she saw the slight lift of Santos’s lips.

Quietly contemplative, Ria followed Santos into the kitchen and to a set of back stairs she’d glimpsed and wondered about.

“These go directly to the third floor,” Santos informed her. “Where my parents, Gwen and Rome live.”

His voice was low and the husky quality, to her vivid imagination, brought to mind warm, lush, pleasure-drenched nights. She followed him up the three flights, ogling his ass the entire way.

It was a damn fine ass. A bite-able ass. All taut with muscles that flexed enticingly with each step he took. Liquid heat bloomed between her legs and she felt her face flush.

Turned on by a butt. How embarrassing. Then again, she couldn’t think of a single thing about Santos that didn’t turn her on. He’d called her a witch last night, but it was him that was casting spells. Seductive ones that spun erotic webs, and she couldn’t seem to break free.

At the top of the stairs, they came to a closed door. Santos set his thumb on an electronic scanner built in the wall and, an audible click later, the door unlocked.

“You’ve got a lot of high-tech security around here.” She observed.

“We protect what’s ours.” A repeat of his comment at the reserve gate not long ago. This time, however, something in his eyes made her believe that vow just might extend to encompass her as well.

She squashed the warm glow in her chest before it could build into hope. As much as she was coming to like this family, and particularly this man, she couldn’t allow her heart to ache for more. She was simply too different, and a little too messed up, to be accepted, regardless of what she’d overheard yesterday.

Gwen and Melinda’s humanity didn’t stop a shifter from loving them.

Despite the truth of it, she dropped a mental hammer on that yearning inner voice. Though she knew Dax had done his best, Ria never felt she belonged anywhere, and she bore the burden of that. Not letting anyone in too deep meant no wishful thinking, because wishful thinking only invited pain and disappointment. She was safer immersed in myths and legends and cool logic. There was no denying disappointments occurred in her work, but they never ripped her heart to shreds or encased the tattered pieces in ice.

Only people did that.

“After you.” Dragging her eyes from his, she stepped into the third floor home of her hostess, Santos holding the door open for her as a gentleman would.

A second later, there was nothing gentle about him when she found herself pressed against the unyielding wood of the door, his hands cupping her face as he fastened his mouth over hers. She opened in famished relief to the thrust of his tongue, her arms snaking past his waist and up his back to clamp on his shoulders. Her heart might still be cold, but her body was on fire.

“I missed this,” he growled between kisses so deep and thorough, his taste would be etched in every pore of her body for all time. “I missed you.”

His lips were soft, his tongue a slick thrust that made her moan with need as heat exploded in a shower over chafing nerve endings. Her breasts were flattened against his chest, his cock a rigid enticement caught in the cradle of her thighs. When his hips rocked into her, she couldn’t stop from arching her own in blatant invitation, seeking a remedy from the throbbing ache burgeoning in her sex.

Another drowning kiss that only intensified the restless craving eating her alive, pulling her further under the seductive magic of his touch. His hands slid down her torso and hips in a possessive sweep before coming back up to cup her breasts. Her hands traveled south, intend on setting his erection free and beg him to fill the emptiness inside her. Then her eyes opened, and she remembered where they were. Like a plunge into freezing water, reality cleared the glaze of lust from her mind before those sensual lips could destroy any more brain cells. “Santos. Stop. Not in your parent’s home.” It just felt wrong to her.

With a soft grunt, he closed his eyes, lay his forehead against hers. His hands flexed on her breasts once, then moved down to clasp her hips in a hard squeeze. She could hear the thundering of his heart, as it matched her own. After a minute where he obviously struggled for control, he opened eyes filled with dark desire. “All right. As long as you understand it
will
happen.”

Though his gaze searched hers, Ria knew it wasn’t a question. It was a fact. One she happened to agree with. “Yes.”

He kissed her hard and fast. “Then let’s hurry up.”

Feeling a bit tipsy, her hand engulfed in his, she let him set the pace. They rushed through the third floor to another door and up a second flight of stairs.

She smelled it before she saw it. “Oh.”

A secret indoor garden greeted her when Santos flipped on the light-switch. Trees and shrubs, flowers and herbs grew from raised beds to fill the air with their fragrant scents. “How wonderful.”

Though he was probably feeling more than a little impatient, Santos let her wander, as if sensing her delight and enjoying it. “Mom loves it and that’s all that matters. Even though it was a pain in the ass to create.”

“You did this?” An impressive feat.

A cheeky smile. “If I thought it would get me bonus points to say yeah, I did it all, I would. But it was a family undertaking.” He pointed out the glass ceiling, explained the water and solar collections that reduced their dependence on utility services and then showed her how the windows on either side of the attic opened to allow fresh air flow through the indoor paradise.

“It’s amazing.”

His expression stilled and he reached up to trace her lips with a finger. “So are you.”

She sucked in a breath. “Santos.”

A sharp shake of his head. “Right. Boxes first. Sex later.”

She felt a spurt of laughter bubble up. He tugged her through two more sets of doors before they came to the other half of the attic. One filled to near overflowing with boxes and sheet-covered items she assumed was furniture.

With long, determined strides, Santos headed for the stacks of large green and red boxes. Ria’s brows rose at the amount. “Those are all Christmas decorations?”

“Yeah. Two are for the tree, one has lights and the others are filled with stuff she puts up around the house.”

“It must take all day,” she murmured in awe.

“Pretty much. It’ll take us three trips.” He hefted one up. “This one’s pretty light.”

She went over and took the plastic container. “You seem to be in a hurry.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

The laugh she’d held in check nearly burst forth at the pained expression on his face. Then he lifted another box and in his haste, caught the corner of it on the sheet behind it. Her amusement fled in a startled gasp.

It was a portrait of a man, his back to a turbulent ocean that she recognized as the bay in front of the very house they were standing in. A big man with thick, white hair and dressed in a long, black coat, black pants, white shirt and white cravat. His weathered face wasn’t handsome, but rather intriguing with heavy cheekbones, wide-set dark eyes and a chin that looked like granite. His mouth was set in a smirk of satisfaction. Head back, one hand on his hip as if daring the artist to do his worst. His right gripped the top of an ornate cane. “Who is that?”

Santos had paused at her gasp and was looking at the portrait as well. “Huh. Cort Fylin. Our ancestor and original owner of the Orchards. I’d forgotten about it.”

Ria set her box on the attic floor and stepped for a closer look. Tentatively, she reached out and touched the painting. “He was a little intimidating.”

“As a kid I remember thinking that. Now he just looks like a guy.”

“Hmm.” She felt Santos come behind her, his heat surrounding her. Her eyes wanted to drift shut when his arms encircled her waist and pulled her close. His lips touched her neck, shattering her focus.

“I’m having a difficult time here, kitten.”

She could feel that difficulty pressed against her butt and was reminded of all the naughty things he did to her last night. Swallowing, she turned her head slightly when his mouth parted over her neck to nuzzle the tender flesh. As she did, her gaze caught on the cane in Fylin’s grip. It was shaped like a sleek, predatory cat. An interesting coincidence. Then she spied three letters painted into the gold handle just under the cat’s belly. “XLV?”

Santos pulled his mouth from her with a long-suffering sigh to see what had caught her attention. “We figured it was the artist’s initials. It’s not signed anywhere else.”

“Oh.”

“I want you, Ria.” Santos breathed on her ear, tracing the delicate shell with his tongue.

“Oh,” she said again as a thrill of excitement raced through her.

“Oh, yeah.”

The portrait forgotten, she turned in his embrace, twining her arms around his neck. “Do you ache, baby?” She plied his mouth with soft kisses, throwing his words back at him with her own sense of wicked teasing. “Let me take care of it.”

“Not funny.” He growled back, unamused.

She skimmed her hands down his torso, much as he had last night, only to lift the hem of his shirt and push it up high, reveling that glorious chest to her covetous gaze. “Very nice.” She laid her mouth on the hard point of his nipple, suckling the tight nub between her teeth.

The sound he made wasn’t human. “Damn it, Ria. I’m barely holding on to my control here.”

He looked anguished, his breathing rapid, the muscles in his jaw twitching. She couldn’t help herself. She lowered one hand to cup the thick outline of his erection. With a couple of flicks of her fingers, she could open his fly and set her hands on that bad boy. The anticipation of releasing all that hard flesh had her blood heating faster than any treasure could.

She smiled against his hot skin, moved her mouth to his other nipple. “Take off your shirt.” It was gone in record time, her hands busy at his fly. She scrapped her teeth along his skin, sliding her hand to the front of his jeans, stroking what she could of his cock. When it wasn’t enough, she shoved his jeans down to his thighs and wrapped her hand around him. He flinched at the touch, grasping her waist with his hands as if using her for support.

He filled her hand; long, thick, hard and oh so velvety smooth. Sliding her thumb over the engorged head, she found a bead of moisture at the tip. Lifting it to her mouth, and keeping her eyes glued to his, she flicked out her tongue.

Even as she made a sound of appreciation at the first taste, Santos muttered a dark curse, then he was reaching for her, holding her head as he kissed her, delving his tongue past her lips to sink in deep. She met his passion with equal ardor, mating her tongue with his, dueling and licking every crevice of his mouth.

In an unsteady dance of feet and nudging, she moved him back towards a familiarly shaped piece of furniture draped in a layer of white. Impatient now to feel him, taste him, she placed her hand in the middle of his chest and shoved, sending him in a sprawl over the sheet-covered couch. She dropped to her knees before him, easily sliding into the vee of his legs and reached for the jut of his arousal.

Understanding dawned and his cock jumped in her hands. “Ria, you don’t have to do this.”

“I want to do this.” Desperately, she thought.

His scent was stronger here, an earthy musk that tantalized her senses. She parted her lips and touched the tip of him with her tongue, not missing the clenching of his stomach muscles.

His voice was a hard rasp. “You’re killing me, kitten. I need to take care of you. I need to be inside you.”

She squeezed her thighs together at the erotic image. “Not yet.” Because she wanted to, and she was going to take what she wanted while she had the chance, she traced her tongue over the throbbing vein in his shaft, flicking her gaze up when his hips bucked at the intimate touch. His eyes were half-hooded, the glittering heat beneath them fixated on her every move.