The Divine Whisper (21 page)

“Don’t be… stupid.”
She couldn’t believe that she had snapped at him all over again, and she couldn’t stop hyperventilating, let alone crying.

“Tink, you have to let me know what is going on here, or I can’t help you.”

“Don’t call me that. You know I don’t like it.” She took a deep breath in, and slowly let it out. It took a minute, but she finally got her breathing under control.

“Yes, but it got you to focus on something other than what was making you so crazy.”

She felt herself starting to get mad that he called her crazy, but caught herself before she said anything else.

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

She let out another deep breath before answering. “How can you keep your cool, and be so nice to me when I’ve been borderline certifiable?”

“Because I know that you have a lot going on in your head right now which is causing more stress than normal.
Don’t worry, once you have the baby, you’ll start to feel more like yourself again.”

His words were so nice, and she should have started to feel comforted by them, but there was only one thing that stuck in her head.
“Are you saying that this pregnancy and my
hormones
are the only reasons I’m emotional?” She put just enough emphasis on the word ‘hormones’ to show her displeasure.

“I would never say that.”

She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn that he mumbled, “again,” under his breath.
The thought made her smile and roll her eyes.

It felt as though a crisis had just been averted, and she became utterly exhausted.
She pivoted her body to lay lengthwise on the couch with some pillows propping her up. Letting out a loud sigh once again, she started shaking her head in disbelief. “How do you do it, Gemariah?”

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”

“I’ve overheard different stories about your job, and of course there was the time that you came here hurt and covered in blood.”

“What are you asking?”
The tone in his voice had gone from relaxed to guarded within seconds. She knew better than to ask too many questions about his job. It always made him uncomfortable.

“There has to be a large amount of stress in your life, but you’re always so laid back.
What’s your secret?

“Masturbation.”

He spoke so earnestly that she could help but laugh out loud. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

“Oh, I’m very serious.
Well, that and cooking, but masturbating is a big part of it.”

She couldn’t believe that they were having that conversation.
She felt her cheeks flush to the point that she had to press her hand against one to get it to cool down. “Why don’t you find another woman?” Did she really just say that? Did she even want to know?

“For sex you mean?”

She couldn’t answer, but swallowed the lump in her throat before nodding slightly.

“If that’s what you mean, you should know that I haven’t been with another woman in almost seven weeks.”

“Why not?” Her voice was hardly above a whisper.

“You really can’t guess?”
She didn’t know if she wanted to hear his answer. “I haven’t been with another woman since I found out that you were carrying my child.”

Now, how was a person supposed to respond to that?
Nicole cleared her throat before answering with a strained, “Why?”

“Really?” he asked.
When she remained silent, he continued. “Dammit Nicci! I don’t know what else I have to do to get you to understand that I’m trying to be the right kind of man for you. I bite my tongue before saying something I think you’ll hate. I call you every day to find out if you need anything.” His voice was rising higher to the point where he was practically yelling. “I gave up sex for fuck sake, unless it’s with you. Do you know how hard that is, especially for a man like me?”

“I never asked you to do any of that!”
She felt herself getting emotional again, but diverted it to anger instead. He actually thought to blame all of it on her?

“I know, but it was the only way that I could get you to stop hating me.”

“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job, let me tell you.”

“Errg!
You can be impossible at times, do you know that?”

Nicole felt her pulse accelerate, and couldn’t prevent the smile that came to her lips.
When she realized her enjoyment was because she had missed bickering with him, she started to laugh at the absurdity.

“What now?” he answered sternly, but she could tell that some of his ire had left.

“You’re going to think I’m weird.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time, so tell me.”

She chuckled. “Hey! That wasn’t very nice.”

“When are you going to realize that I am not a nice guy?”

“Yes you are.” She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “You just have your moments of stupidity, that’s all.”

“Now look who’s not being very nice.”
There was a pause before he continued. “What was so funny?”

Nicole thought for a minute.
She didn’t know how to phrase what she wanted to say without sounding like she was off her rocker. Deciding to just wing it, she started to explain. “I missed it, is all.”

“Missed what?” he asked, clearly confused.

She let out a loud sigh of surrender before continuing. “Arguing with you.” He stayed silent, so she forged on. “I appreciate that you’ve been watching what you say, but I missed the verbal sparring. It kept things interesting. Did we agree on everything? Of course not, but at least I was getting to know the real you. When you agree with me all the time, it gets boring.”

She had spoken quickly to get it all out in the open, but now that she was done, he wasn’t talking.

“Gemariah… you need to say something.” She prompted.

“Oh thank God,” he said on a whisper.
“Do you know how hard that had been?”

“Then why did you do it?”

“I told you. I needed you to stop hating me.”

The more he talked, the worse she felt.
Looking down, she started to wind the drawstring of her pants around her finger. “I never hated you.” She spoke to her lap. “Okay, maybe I did for a little while, but never after you started hanging around more often. Did you piss me off? Undoubtedly yes, but not hate.”

“That’s good to know.” he responded softly.

They talked for another half hour about anything they could think of. The feelings between them had shifted, and it was slightly nerve-racking, but at the same time, new and exciting. Her cracked defensive wall had started to crumble.

“It’s getting late.”
Surprisingly, it was him that made the observation.

She looked at the clock to see that it was close to midnight, and she still had to get up early for work the next day.
Ugh! “Yeah, I should probably get some sleep.”

“Okay.”
There was a pause. “You gonna think about me while in bed?”

Nicole laughed out loud.
“You wish.”

“You’re right.”

There was no teasing in his tone, and she knew that he was completely serious. The thought made her cheeks start to flush… yet again. She didn’t know what to say, so she stayed quiet.

It was him that finally broke the silence.
“Have dinner with me tomorrow.” It could have been a question, but the way he spoke, it made it sound like a demand. “At my house. I want to cook for you.”

At that moment, there was nothing that sounded better.
“Okay.”

“I’ll pick you up at six.”

“I can drive—”

“I’ll pick you up at six.”
He interrupted whatever else she was going to say, and his tone brought no argument.

“Okay.”

There was a quiet tension between them.

“Goodnight, Nicole.”

“Goodnight.”

“Dream of me?”

She could make another joke, but it just didn’t feel right. There had been a change, and she had a feeling that there was no going back. She swallowed the lump in her throat before she whispered, “Okay.”

“Till tomorrow…”

He hung up without saying more, and Nicole pulled the phone away to look at the screen. “Till tomorrow,” she said to no one.

Thinking back to Gemariah’s last words, she thought that they sounded more like a promise than a farewell.
Suppressing a shiver, she got up and walked back to her bedroom to get ready for bed.

CHAPTER 9

“Shit!”
Gemariah pulled his hand back from the scalding pot, and shook it out. “Dammit!”

He’s never had this much trouble cooking before.
It had to be his nerves. He was wound so tight, he felt that he would snap at any moment.
Why am I nervous
, he thought? It’s not like he’s never cooked for a woman before. Admittedly, those times had been different. It had never been at his house, he had never put that much work into it… and it had never been Nicole.

He had been off kilter all day.
His job was not one that he could get distracted while doing, as he was proved that day. It was a simple vanquishing mission. A blackjack dealer at a casino was stacking the deck in his favor and cheating people out of their souls.

He got there, but his mind wasn’t completely on what he was doing.
Nicole took up the majority of his thoughts. What she would want to eat, what would she wear, did she actually think about him in bed the night before... Was it the night for them? That thought quickly led to the question, did she take his advice and touch herself to relieve some tension? Once that vision got in his head, he was a goner.

Terah went with him to the casino and could tell that he was distracted.
Hell, with her ability, she probably knew exactly what he was thinking.

When they got there, his
ax was too obvious to take inside, but Terah easily got in with her dagger. Using her womanly wiles, it didn’t take long for the dealer to be lured into a secluded corner. There weren’t too many things demons loved more than an illicit rendezvous.

Terah lead the unsuspecting demon into a utility closet, where Gemariah was already lying in wait.
The plan was that he would overpower him while Terah stuck him with her dagger to send him back to hell. Of course, his mind was elsewhere when they came in, and the demon got the jump on him.

That was the last draw for Terah.
She was a naturally calm person, but even she had her limits. In front of the demon, she started to berate him for being a lovesick fool, and yelling to get his head in the game.

Having had enough, Gemariah finally overpowered the demon, and when Terah delivered the final blow to the demon, she gave him one as well.
Her words were firmly etched in his mind, and forever would stay there. “If I would have known you were going to turn out this unbalanced, I would have made sure that it wasn’t you who took Nicci home the night of the barbeque.”

He knew immediately what she was talking about, and was stunned.
So stunned, that he forgot to let go when the demon caught fire.

So, he was in his kitchen, working with second degree burns on his hands.
They were slowly healing, but still hurt any time he touched something remotely warm. Damn Terah for dropping that bomb on him. It brought on a new flood of thoughts.
What would I have done if Terah would have told me why it was me that had to go? Did she know about the baby?
Ugh… too much information to process, and she wasn’t answering anything.

Thinking only of the night, he pushed all other thoughts aside.
He would have to come back to them eventually, but it wasn’t the right time.

Turning his attention back to the gumbo that he was simmering to perfection, he tried to get into his zone whenever he was in the kitchen.
It was a place that used to be his domain, somewhere he would go to release all the tensions accumulated in his life. Except, lately the only time he could forget how ugly the world was, he was around Nicole.

Shaking his head, he laughed at what his thoughts sounded like.
If he believed in love, he could almost believe Terah when she called him a lovesick fool. Lucky for him, he didn’t.

******

Dinner was a success. She had been so particular with her cravings, Gemariah knew he had taken a shot in the dark with the choice in food, but the look on her face when she walked in the door had said it all. She was impressed. When she closed her eyes to savor her first bite, it was all he could do not to lean over and kiss her.

To distract himself, he decided to fill the silence.
“How was your day?” Really? Out of everything he could have asked her, he came up with the most mundane question?

She licked her lips clean before she spoke, and even though he knew she had said something, he couldn’t recall what it was because his attention was still on her delectable mouth.

“Gemariah.”

His name snapped his attention back and he jerked his gaze to her eyes. The laughter he saw in them showed that he had been caught with his mind in the gutter. “I’m sorry, what?”

Her smile got wider.
“Are you okay? You seem distracted.”

Putting on the playboy smile that has made girls swoon for centuries, he grinned wickedly before admiring her from head to toe.
“Tell me, how I’m supposed to stay focused with the most tempting thing in this kitchen right in front of me and I can’t help myself?”

It was now his turn to laugh at her flustered reaction.
When she realized that he was teasing her, she giggled and reached over to slightly shove his shoulder. He found how much he loved the sound, and went to reach over and tease her more.

She obviously wasn’t having any of that, and grabbed his hand to stop the assault.
With everything going on, he had forgotten about his injuries to his hands, but in that moment, he felt everything.

He winced, but quickly tried to mask his reaction to a lack of interest.
She didn’t miss the slight change, and quickly grabbed his wrist when he went to pull back.

“It’s nothing,” he said before she could speak.
“Just a hazard of the job.”

Immediately, she looked troubled and pulled her hands away.
He gave her a couple minutes, and when she still hadn’t said anything, he prompted a response from her. “What’s wrong?”

She waved her spoon slightly in the air.
“It’s nothing.”

He didn’t buy that for a second.
“You got heartburn? Gas?” He knew it wasn’t any of those, but tried to get her embarrassed enough to say something. When she just looked at him like he was a petulant child and kept eating, he knew he was going to have to go one step farther.

“Oh I get it.”
He turned back to his own bowl, and tried to keep a straight face. “It’s those
hormones
again.”

The sound of a spoon clanking against the bowl was his signal that he hit his mark.

“For your information…”

He tried to keep the smile off his face, but failed miserably.
When he glanced up, she took one look at his face, and immediately relaxed her stiff posture.

“You’re impossible, you know that right?”

He nodded. “I have been told this before.”

She let out a heavy sigh, but her face stayed soft.
“I worry about you.”

He was not expecting that.

She must have seen the confusion on his face, because she turned towards him and straightened her spine. “I worry that your job is too dangerous; that one day you won’t come home. It’s not just you to think of anymore. You have a little one coming that’s going to want you around.”

Suddenly she became self-conscious, and looked back to her meal.
“Plus, what would I do without you? Who would be around to give me a hard time every day?”

He could tell that she was trying to make light of a serious subject, but he was just too floored to try and make a teasing remark.
Instead, he grabbed her hand.

She looked over at him, and he could see the depth of her concern.
He never needed his abilities with her when he could see everything through her eyes.

“My job is…”
He stopped. He didn’t want to lie, and telling her that his job was just as dangerous as any other was not entirely true. “There are many dangerous jobs out there. It’s not like this every day.”

When she still didn’t look convinced, he made sure that her eyes locked with his.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that what I do is a piece of cake. Some days it’s hard, but it’s even harder to get rid of me. So like it or not…” He squeezed her hand for emphasis. “You and our little guy are stuck with me for a very, very long time.”

Her smile was all he could have asked for at that moment.
“Little
guy
, huh? What if it’s a little
girl
?”

He brought their clasped hands up to his mouth and kissed the back of hers.
“Two of you? God help me.”

“Hey!”
She let out a burst of laughter and pulled her hand away to push his shoulder once again.

Still laughing, she got up and walked over to the fridge.
“So, how did you burn your hands, today?”

Shrugging, he watched as she opened the refrigerator and examined the contents closely.
“Got too close to a fire.”

Glancing away, she looked at him questionably.
“Really? That’s all you got for me? I thought you were in a security business and protected people. How does one get ‘too close to a fire’ while doing that? Well, except firemen, of course.” Once she was done speaking, she turned her head back to the fridge.

“Looking for anything in particular?”
He already knew, and the thought sent shivers up his spine. Before she could say anything, he continued. “Because if it’s what I’m thinking it is, you’re not going to find any in there. I can’t believe you would even think to defile my gumbo with it anyways.”

When her shoulders sagged, he knew he had gotten it right.
“Sit down and eat the rest of your food. If you’re good, I might just give you something for dessert that will have you begging for more.” He hadn’t meant for it to sound so provocative, but from the color that rose to her cheeks, she had taken it that way. Just knowing where her mind had wondered excited him so much that he had to adjust how he was sitting.

Once again, he had to deter his mind elsewhere.
“So, tell me more about being a social worker. Is it everything you thought it would be when you went into the profession?”

She gave a sad smile.
“Yes and no. Some days it’s hard.” Her words were an exact echo of his a couple minutes earlier. “You can’t help them all, even though I wish I could. I would love to be able to swoop in, wrap the child in my arms, and fix everything that was wrong in their lives, but it’s never that simple. There’s a system… a set of rules that need to be followed. Therefore, I can’t help them all.”

“Do you just work with kids?”

“Yeah. There are other people in the office that are called when adults are the ones that need help. I’m one of the people that only work with children.”

“Is it because you grew up in a foster home?
Is that why you wanted to become a social worker?”

She put another bite in her mouth when he asked the question, so she nodded.
Once it was swallowed, she continued. “Part of the reason. As you know, Rin and I were in a couple homes together. I knew then what I wanted to be.”

“Why?”

Inhaling slightly, she looked at him with wide eyes. “What is that glorious smell?”

He could tell that her eyes had become guarded. Therefore, when she changed the subject, he didn’t push her for an answer.

“That is dessert.” Nodding to her empty bowl, he asked, “How was the gumbo?”

“Perfection,” she said with a smile.
“What’s next?”

Laughing, he got up and held out his hand.
“Come on, you can help me with the next part.”

She scoffed, but stood up anyway.
“What? I thought
you
were preparing a meal for
me
. I thought I wouldn’t have to lift a finger,” she teased.

Pulling her in so her back was pressed against his chest, he kissed her temple.
“Trust me. This will be fun.”

They rounded an island, to walk into the actual kitchen, and he finally let her go.
“Stand back.”

Grabbing the pot holders, he waited until she moved out of the way before he opened the oven.
When he pulled out the tray holding the mini chocolate cakes inside ramekins, her face was almost comical. He never thought eyes could get that big a round.

While he ran a knife around the inside edges, he nodded to the plates on the island. “Grab those, and bring them over here.”

She did as she was told, but never took her eyes off the cakes.
When he inverted them onto plates, he could practically see the hunger in her eyes when he slid hers in front of her.

Catching him off guard, she grabbed a fork, and tried to cut into it before he could stop her.
Luckily he was a second quicker. “Ahha… not yet.

He laughed when she put down the utensil and practically pouted.

“Patience.”