Eternal Embrace (8 page)

Her slim shoulders tensed under her white tank top, but she slowly eased from his vision, the lines of her becoming dim as a darker shadow appeared in the deepest corner of the underground gym. He nodded. She’d done it. Pride filled his chest. Her hard work made such a move possible, but damn if he didn’t feel like letting out a whoop.

She slowly walked out of the corner, a big, shit-eating grin on her pixie face, and he caught her in his arms when she raced for him with a happy squeal.

“I did it, huh?”

He lifted her higher in his arms. She weighed nothing, so small he knew he could hold her like this and make love for hours. Hell, hadn’t he done just that?

She smiled at him, her hazel eyes bright with happiness. Her red hair fell forward to cover one eye, but he brushed it aside and hooked the curl behind her tiny ear then rested his hands on her rounded ass. She had the most amazing eyes, slightly tilted upward at the outer corners like a kitten’s.

“You did it, baby. Like a pro,” he added, kissing her lips once just because he couldn’t go more than minutes without tasting her.

“Mmmm, a pro? Does that mean I can now learn the wolf thingy? You know, as a reward for good behaviour, oh Jedi Master.”

He shook his head at her eagerness. “Damn, you’re perfect,” he muttered, happy as shit that she loved to tease him like this. He’d driven her hard every waking hour. Each night making her learn more and more. She rocked his world. Completely. Hell, he’d not found a thing
not
to like about her in the past few weeks they’d had together. If he could, he’d watch her all night, every night. And hold her every day.

“Perfect? Why is that?”

“I have no idea, but I plan on taking the next few centuries to find out,” he told her.

Her smile grew brilliant, and that heated look he knew meant one hell of a ride lit her hazel eyes, but when his phone vibrated between them, she nearly had him splitting a gut laughing when she jumped with a frightened cry.

He only stopped when she gripped his jaw in both hands and pressed kisses all over his face. Did any other male in the world know what it was to have a woman like Joey? To wake up with her soft and warm in his arms? If he’d known such a thing as this woman existed, he’d have been searching for her just like all those other sorry bastards hunted for their mates. He wanted things with Joey that made him ache to tell her. But he held back, wanting, needing really, to give her time.

“Get that, babe, then I think you need some attention.”

“Darlin’, I always need attention,” he assured her. They’d barely scratched the surface of attention in his opinion. He’d not even got to the garters and sexy-as-hell panties she owned.

“Jaxon!”

Grumbling, he put her down and motioned to the water he’d brought. She still questioned everything about her new world, but the water she thought the oddest of all for some reason. She seemed to think the blood she drank should be enough liquid. He explained that if humans needed eight glasses of water, so did she, even more really, but she drank, and that was all he could ask. Well, drinking from him, he added silently, he wanted her lips on his neck, taking her nourishment directly from him.

He dug his phone out and lifted it to his ear. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Jaxon, I hate to break in, but…” Torque cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Jaxon winked at Joey, making the mage wait in misery for a bit before he offered, “You need me to save the day?”

Joey set her water bottle down and turned serious. She reached out and touched him, rubbing along his forearm with a concerned frown. It shocked him to realise she worried for him. Not because she must have guessed he’d have to leave her alone, but because he’d be out there fighting.

“Damn, I don’t know about that,” Torque grumbled.

“But…”

“Yeah, well, there’s been other shit going on, and we need you.”

Other shit.
That never sounded good. “What’s up?”

“Still the US salt mine, but it’s gotten more complicated. We can fill you in when you get here, but we kinda need to move, and fast.”

“Understood. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Joey’s concerned expression deepened.

“Thanks, man, we owe you,” Torque said, then hung up.

“What? You have to go? Is it safe? Will you be safe?” Joey demanded, sounding frightened.

“Whoa, hold on, I’m going, but hell yeah, I’m going to be safe. Didn’t you hear the part where I said I was over six hundred and a badass?”

His joke didn’t seem to ease her. Instead, she examined his face as if she’d somehow know if he would be safe or not. He pulled her close and kissed her. So many emotions tangled in his chest, he couldn’t break one apart enough to even tell her he loved her. He did too. He loved her so deeply, he knew that all those nights being near her in the coffee shop had laid the foundation for such a strong, deep connection it would never be broken. But he couldn’t tell her that yet, not yet.

“Who was that?” she finally asked.

He’d debated how much to tell her, and now that she’d asked he frowned, not liking his instincts, but going with them. “I think it’s better you don’t know more right now, Joey. Trust me, I—”

“I do,” she hurried to say, stalling him so badly he couldn’t get his brain to function. “I do trust you, Jaxon.”

The sincerity in her voice did things to him, like tightened his throat until he could barely breathe. What would he do if he lost her? He’d find her, that was what. Decided, he squeezed her hand. “I want you to stay in the dark on this one, baby. I think it’s the best way to keep you safe. Not that anyone is hunting for you,” he said when she looked frightened. “It’s just that until you’re settled,
we’re
settled, I want you hidden.”

“So in case someone gets hold of me…”

“No one is getting hold of you. If anyone comes here, I want you hidden, but I don’t want you to know too much either, just in case. Can you understand that? Trust me?”

She looked so miserable and frightened, she startled him when she threw her slender arms around his neck and pressed her face to his. “I don’t want to lose you.”

He cleared the sissy shit from his throat and held her tightly. “I’m one hell of a bastard to try and kill.”

“Jaxon! Don’t say stuff like that, okay?”

“Shh, just trying to lighten your mood, huh?”

“Try dipping yourself in chocolate then, because talking about—”

He cut her off with a deep, hungry kiss. Soon, he’d promised Torque, but first, he needed to feel Joey come apart in his arms.

* * * *

Jaxon stiffened in her arms. The things he did to her, made her feel and experience, pulled her deeper and deeper in love with him. Did he realise that?

He had to leave, but still he lingered, letting her touch the hard, strong, muscles of his body. He could survive anything, couldn’t he? She rubbed her hands over his shoulders and into his silky, slightly damp hair. He’d made love to her so sweetly, hard and fast, but so tenderly too, she could still sense the emotions surging inside her chest. She loved him. And now, he was leaving. Only for a bit, but still, it was the first time since waking in his bed they’d be apart. He was keeping from her where he was going and with whom, to keep her safe, but from what she wasn’t sure. She just knew she missed him already.

“Baby,” he breathed, “you’re going to make me late.”

She snorted a laugh at his tone. He sounded so normal, like he’d be late for work or something. She wiggled on his lap, and reluctantly eased back to stare at his flushed face. “Can’t you at least tell me where are you going?”

“I have to go meet with a warlock and head to a salt mine. That’s all I feel safe letting you know. It’s better this way.” He kissed her lips again, stopping her from saying anything. “Now, watch.” Suddenly she was dressed—in a sexy dress and thigh highs with garters. “I found your sexy stuff, you little sneak,” he whispered in her ear.

“Oh!” She nearly fell off his lap laughing when he snapped her garter.

“Yeah, you’re a bad, bad girl. When do you wear this? Don’t even fuckin’ tell me to work.”

She rubbed her fingertips over his button-down shirt, and wiggled when his penis stiffened under her butt. “Stop that!”

“Like I can control that,” he told her gruffly, and grinned when she moved again. “I have to go, though. I want to show you something before I do.”

He stood and picked her up as if she weighed nothing, grinning widely when she gasped and hugged his neck. Deep inside her body, she could clench her muscles and still remember every inch of his possession, just as he always claimed.

“I want you to drink from me,” he murmured in her ear.

The thought made her shiver and not in disgust. Every day, or night, he’d made her drink bagged blood. It got easier each time. But when they made love, the warmth of his blood surging under her mouth drove her crazy with hot fantasies of drinking from him. And him from her.

“You like that idea, baby?”

Nibbling her lip, she considered it. She would, she decided. She wasn’t going to lie to him, or pretend that the idea of going down on him, even biting him along his thigh while she stroked him didn’t turn her on. He was direct, sexy as hell and drove her nuts, but she was beginning to believe, as impossible as it seemed, that he was just as crazy for her as she was for him.

“I would. Maybe when I go down on you.”

He stumbled and she squealed, hugging him harder when he nearly dropped her. “Fuck! Why do you do this to me? Did I piss you off?”

She laughed so hard, he set her down beside a big picture of a man in a kilt holding a sword with dogs lying at his feet. “What? Why do you say that?”

He placed both fists on his lean hips and glared at her. “Shit, I have to leave, and the thought of those satiny-soft lips sucking my dick just might get me killed, you know?”

Suddenly serious, she hugged him around the waist. “Don’t say that, Jaxon. Please, don’t say such things.”

He wrapped an arm around her. It felt so right, she rubbed her face against his chest to keep back the sudden rush of emotions.

“Shh, I’m teasing you, baby. I focus on my fight, not my dick. I’m not going to get hurt. Hell, I’m too tough. Have some faith, would you?”

She tipped her head back to see his face. He frowned at her, but his lips quirked when she narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t tease. Now, what do you want to show me in here? If it’s your clothing removal and then the poof, I’m dressed again thing, forget it. All I know each time is I’m naked, then I’m suddenly dressed or vice versa. I never
see
a thing.”

He tipped his sexy head and winked at her. “Stop lusting after my body next time and you might catch on.”

She choked on a laugh.

“Besides, this isn’t like that, no vampire skills needed.”

“Huh, I have skills—”

“Baby”—he hauled her to his hard chest and smacked his hands down on her ass possessively—“you have skills, believe me.”

“Jaxon! Not those skills.”

He laughed and shook his head, but turned to the portrait and shifted it sideways to reveal a full-sized door behind it. He took her hand, fitting it into a small depression in the stones. Something gave and the doorway began to move inside the wall with a loud, long gravelly noise.

“This is how you get inside, and I want you to come here if anyone comes to my home. A short loud bell will sound if someone reaches the grounds. No one but you and I can get inside. No one.”

He ushered her inside, and suddenly candles lit the space in a soft, warm glow. Inside was a treasure house of ancient weapons, armour and, on the floor, rugs to soften the starkness of the room. A desk sat to one side, loaded with books and rolled parchment. A painting of a castle on a hill overlooked the desk, and took centre stage to an array of daggers lining the walls. A soft chair, another older one, and some ancient-looking chests were scattered throughout the long, rectangular area. No windows and only the one doorway led out, she assumed.

“This is where you will also go if anyone sets off the alarms. You hide in here. If I don’t return in a week—seven days—then things haven’t gone well. I want you to head home. If you sense you’re being followed—don’t ask, but you’ll know—you go back to the States, not your apartment here. Not the coffee shop. You head to the States. Got it?”

She hugged herself and nodded. This was a Jaxon she’d never seen before—rough, no-nonsense and direct. His handsome face was different too—more intense, more closed off to her, but she could sense his emotions under the façade, anger being one of them, but too many others to name.

“Why can I sense your emotions?” she asked, suddenly needing to know this one thing before he left her. Maybe for good.

He frowned, clearly thrown by the question, but giving it some thought. “You might sense me because of what we’ve shared.”

She studied him, sensing there was more there that he wasn’t saying, but he leaned in and kissed her, pulling her tight to his larger, harder body, and all thoughts but him fled. She held on to his dark shirt and wanted to keep him with her forever. The way he firmed his grip on her shoulders, as if he never wanted to let her go either, made her feel worse instead of better.

He narrowed his blue eyes. “Leave me a damn note in here if you do have to go back to the States. Swear it.”

“I will. I… Do you think you won’t return, Jaxon? Is that what is making you so angry?”

He pulled her against his chest and sighed into her hair. “No, I’m coming back, but damn, fate has a way of screwing with us, you know? Better you safe than harmed.”

Chapter Six

“What the hell took you so long?” Torque demanded before Jaxon had fully shifted into the room. Four immortals settled their gazes on him, making him swallow nervously for the first time in his life.

“Shut the hell up, Torque, and just get to the facts,” he shot out, sounding like himself. He’d shifted into the library where Torque did most of his work. The big room was nearly as big as Jaxon’s underground garage and workout area combined. Books lay everywhere, on every available surface—desks, tables, chairs. Some of them were left open and stacked on top of others. He’d never seen Torque’s place so out of control. It was as if they’d been searching for something. Maps lay scattered throughout the room along with books still open to pages of ancient writing.