Immortal Desire (3 page)

Chapter Four

Griff draped an arm across Bailey’s shoulders after setting her down and restarting the elevator. The contact was light and casual. Nothing they hadn’t done a hundred times before. Still, it felt different. It
was
different. There was a connection with her he couldn’t explain. He’d just helped her achieve her first full-blown orgasm, and that changed whatever it was between them. It changed
them
.

He watched her distorted reflection in the elevator’s polished walls. Her silence unnerved him. She hadn’t said anything since he put her down. Instead, she’d retrieved her pants and pulled them on before wrapping his shirt around her upper body.

His leathers lay untouched on the floor.
Too late for modesty.
He kicked them aside as the elevator doors opened and he stepped into his living room.

The Atlanta skyline burned bright through the floor-to-ceiling windows so he didn’t turn on lights. Instead, he propelled her through the lavish, if impersonal, apartment and straight to the kitchen where he dropped his arm and went for the fridge. “Want something to drink?”

“Sure.” She slid onto a bar stool. “A beer if you’ve got it.”

“I own a bar. My rep would be seriously impinged if all I had was juice.” He grinned over his shoulder and found her staring at the cityscape. The grin faded.
Damn.
This was about to get complicated. Not for the first time, Griff wondered what the hell he’d been thinking in taking on her Change. Caustic memories crowded his consciousness and he rebelled, shoving them away. He simply couldn’t let her be used the way he’d been used, or use the way he’d used. She needed to survive this and emerge far more whole than he had. History had taught him that some things, once lost, could never be found again. Self-respect floated near the top of that list. The last thing he wanted was for her to end up despising herself. If he could save her the centuries of heartache he’d endured, he would. He’d see her through her Change. No way would he back down just because shit got hard. He rested his forearm against the cool steel fridge and let his head hang forward, loose and heavy. What he had to tell her was going to rock her world, and not like he had in the elevator. Granted, his little planet had been rattled, too, but he was sure that had more to do with her intent to kiss him than the mind-blowing sex.

He’d told her straight up that kissing was off the table. When she’d moved in... Goose bumps shivered across his skin. Nothing, and no one, had come closer to tempting him to break his number one rule. Bailey had pressed against his boundaries and made him reach for her, made him long for the kind of connection an incubus couldn’t have. If he was smart, he’d tell her what she needed to know and end this now, let someone else see her through the Change.

He grabbed a couple of longnecks and let out a short whistle.

Bailey looked over and snatched the tossed bottle out of the air. A practiced twist freed the cap. Her expert flick shot it into the trash can. She took a long pull, her throat working as she swallowed.

Griff couldn’t look away. Every idea of cutting her loose dissolved. Her borrowed shirt—
his
shirt—had fallen open to reveal a thin line of pale skin from chin to unbuttoned jeans. The swells of her breasts peeked out. He’d fed hard the second time Bailey came. Technically? He should be sated. Reality wasn’t concerned with technicalities, though.

Her nostrils flared as she lowered her chin.

He wanted to drag her against his body, skin to skin. Instead, just looked at her, all mussed after being thoroughly pleasured. Then her tongue snaked out to capture a lone drop of beer on her lip. Suddenly there wasn’t much thinking left to do. Bottle dangling deceptively loose from his fingers, he started toward her.

She shook her head and stopped him in his tracks. “What’s going on, Griff?”

“Come again?”

A cheeky grin revealed her dimples. “I sort of did, thanks.”

“You know what I mean.” The words were harsher than he intended.

Hurt flashed across her features, stealing the intimate playfulness. Bailey slipped from the stool and moved to the window, presenting nothing but a silhouette as she sipped her drink. Her normally fluid carriage grew concise. Calculated, even. Cold city lights partially illuminated her face when she finally glanced back. “I’d like to know what the hell’s going on. You said we had stuff in common.”

He set his beer on the bar and tilted his head toward the sofa. “You want to sit down to have this little chat?”

“Not so much.”

“I think you should sit.”

“And I’m passing on the offer.”

“Suit yourself.” He stalked to the bedroom. “Such a fool for getting into this damn mess,” he muttered, grabbing a pair of satin lounge pants from the dresser and yanking them on.

“I’m assuming I’m the damn mess.” Her cool voice came from behind him.

Turning, he found her leaning against the doorjamb.

She sipped her beer and studied him with the same impassive gaze she leveled at customers coming on to her when she worked the bar.

Griff closed his eyes, laced his hands behind his head and pulled. “Shit.”

The thunk of her bottle on the dresser made him look up.

Long legs carried her away with a delicious hip-swinging gait.

Time slowed to an impossible crawl and he couldn’t react, couldn’t move, couldn’t even
breathe.
He watched her punch the down button, saw the elevator doors open, felt the loss of her like a physical wound. He didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to let himself swim through emotions he had no right to feel. But it quickly became apparent he’d swim the murky emotional waters or sink like a stone.

Suddenly he was moving. Across the room between heartbeats, he hooked an arm around her waist and drew her back into the heat of his body.

She stood rigid in his arms. “Let go.”

“You aren’t the mess, baby.” Not a single ounce of give in that curvy body. The doors closed. He held her, listening to every harsh inhale and exhale between them as her pulse pounded beneath his hands. “You’re about to find yourself
in
a hell of a mess, though.”

“I know you didn’t just threaten my job because I screwed you.” Her voice, barely audible, shook with unchecked rage.

“What? No.” He let her go.

She didn’t turn around.

“Give me thirty minutes. I’ll explain what’s been happening to your body and why I fixed the problem, at least temporarily.” When she still didn’t face him, he shoved his hands through his hair. “When have I ever steered you wrong or lied to you?” Unwelcome desperation punctuated his words.

“Fair.” She turned and moved across the room, taking up her position in front of the window again and crossing her arms. “Besides, you sign the paychecks. I suppose I’ll spend my time however you tell me to.”

An exasperated sigh escaped him. “Stop fronting, would you? You’re not a hard woman. That’s always been part of your appeal.”

She glanced at him and arched a brow before returning her attention to the view. “You want to spend thirty minutes listing my attributes? Fine. I’m sure my tits have you enamored, but don’t forget my eyes. I’ve been told they’re one of my best assets.”

Griff’s eye twitched. “Quit trying to bait me. This is too serious.”

She rolled her head back and forth before looking over at him. “Fine. Go ahead.”

A hard knot formed high in his chest, an ache that refused to be assuaged by touch or logic or demand.
Best just get it out there
,
then.
“If we don’t get this sorted out, you’re right. You’re going to die.”

* * *

Bailey pressed the heels of her hands against her temples. Surely she’d heard him wrong. A quick glance at his face said otherwise. The only surprise was that she wasn’t entirely surprised. She’d been waiting for this moment. The fear he’d given voice to had painted a patina of dread over her life as her symptoms grew worse.

Several weeks ago she’d broken down and talked to her doctor. He’d run a battery of tests. Nothing more than a few oddities—higher than normal hormone levels, a raised baseline temperature, slightly elevated blood pressure—showed up. As a precaution, he’d referred her to a reproductive specialist. She’d accepted the referral. Then she’d skipped the appointment. She hadn’t been brave enough to reschedule. Not yet. Not when she might be empowering a stranger to take something irreplaceable from her again. Not when she didn’t have anyone to trust her fears to. Bailey was alone and had never more reminded of it than in that moment.

Hot fingers brushed over her cool skin and startled her.

She moved to the sofa with short, jerky steps and half sat, half fell into the deep leather cushions. “Dying?” She shook her head. “You can’t know that.”

“Look, Bailey, you’re a—”

“You can’t know that,” she shouted. “You’re not a doctor, you’re not a...a...you own a freaking
bar!
Unless you’ve got a magically diagnostic dick, you’re not qualified to tell me what’s wrong.”

Griff shoved his hands in his pockets and widened his stance. “I’ve been where you are, gone through exactly what you’re experiencing. I’d say that makes me pretty damned qualified.”

“You can’t understand.” She looked out over the city.
So alive.
It fed her need to feel connected to something, anything. She’d been alone so long. The thought that Griff might be right, that she could die in her small apartment with no one to hold her as she faded, tripped every fear response she had.

History caught up to her when Griff’s phone rang. His voice registered, low and slow, as memories abused her in vivid color. She was suddenly four years old all over again. Staring blankly at hands at once so capable and so ineffectual, she shuddered. These were the hands that had held her mother as she died in a dingy efficiency apartment as the phone rang incessantly.

Bill collectors.
It had probably been bill collectors.

Death’s magnitude had been beyond her comprehension as she waited for her mother to wake up. For two days she stayed with her mother’s body.

“Bailey?”

The phone kept ringing. She finally answered, pleading with the only adult she could get to listen to help her. Police arrived. She was taken from her mother, stuck in a broken system of ever-changing homes. Alone. Forgotten. Abandoned.

“Bailey.” Griff’s voice swept through the fragmented memories, anchoring her in the present.

Griff.
She knew him better than she’d ever known her mother, knew what he looked like when he smiled, knew how he sounded with laughter tickling his words.

Her fingers shook violently as she traced the numb contours of her lips. Impulse drove her to press hard enough to split the fragile skin against her teeth. The copper tang of blood hit her tongue. She prodded the wound, hungry for the pain and the proof it afforded. Dark red stained her fingers.
Proof I’m alive.

“Listen to me, Bailey.” Griff dropped to the sofa. Cushions sank under his weight, and she slid toward him. He gripped her wrist. “I can get you through this.”

She curled her fingers over the bloodstain and looked up, searching his face. “I don’t even know what ‘this’ is.”

His fingers tightened. “Do you know anything about your parents?”

“Not really. I never knew my dad. My mom died when I was little, so I was handed over to the State’s foster care system.” The scars of time stretched and burned over the deep wounds. She’d learned to live with them, but nothing had ever healed.

“I’m sorry about your mom. Your dad probably wasn’t equipped to take care of you, so the State was likely a better choice.”

She shook her head. “Don’t make excuses for him, Griff. Just don’t.”

“I’m doing my best to explain what’s happening.” Letting her go, he rose from the couch and shoved the waistband of his pants down. “See this?”

Bailey glanced at the exposed hip. “It’s a tattoo.”

“No, it’s not. It’s called a Marker. Five large says you have one, too.”

“I don’t have a—”

He cut her denial short when he grabbed her arm and hauled her off the couch.

“Ease up, Captain Caveman,” she snapped. “You might buy my time, but no amount of money gives you the right to abuse me. Clear?”

He gave her a gentle shake. “Check your hip.”

She pulled free of his grip and undid her pants enough to expose skin. “Nothing there.”

“You’re female. It’ll be on the other side.”

She sighed. “There’s nothing...” Roughly the size of a silver dollar, a thin-lined circle surrounded a large dot. “What the hell?” She rubbed the unfamiliar red mark, but it wouldn’t come off.

“It’s your Marker—like a brand. Every species has one. Design and location depend on what you are.” Griff ran a hand behind his neck, his biceps bunching.

“What you
are?
” Scrambling to button her pants, she shot him a hard stare. “I’m afraid to even ask.”

An ironic, humorless smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “I’m an incubus.”

Her jaw dropped. “You think you’re a sex demon.”

“There’s no ‘thinking’ to it. I know.”

“And now you think I’m a...what? Succubus?”

Silence.

Her vision narrowed, graying on the fringes. She backed away from him in a tripping rush, stopping only when she hit the wall. “Look, you clearly cracked the orgasm vault, and I’m grateful. But gratitude doesn’t mean I’m willing to buy into your time-share of crazy.”

“Crazy, huh? You’re suffering low-grade fevers and flu-like symptoms that run the gamut from full-body aches to nausea and vomiting. Orgasm has been impossible, yet you’ve been horny as hell. And it’s all getting worse, fast. I bet you even went to the doctor, and the only thing they found was a whole lot of nothing. Tell me, Bailey. How far off am I?”

Cold, the kind that seeped through bones and turned blood to slush, started at her center and spread outward. “Stop it.”

“No. You need help if you’re going to survive the Change from mortal to immortal.”

“I-immortal? You’re insane,” she whispered, shaking her head.