The Thorndykes 1: Dispossessed (16 page)

He broke the kiss to give a groan of need and mash his lips over hers again, thrusting his tongue deeply into her mouth. He didn’t taste right, not like the mouth she wanted, was learning to accept and yearn for. He tasted of beer. It was all wrong. He invoked nothing in her but a desire to get away. She’d kissed him before, but never like this, and never after having had a taste of someone else.
The
someone else.

“Am I
de trop
?”

The cool voice burst into their less than idyll. Ryan lifted his head and opened his eyes. His gaze devoured her, surprisingly hot, and then he turned to confront Jay. “You are, sport,” Ryan said. “The lady and I were just getting reacquainted.”

“Then I’m sorry to interrupt.” Jay bent and picked up a squirming black-and-white bundle. He held it carefully against his chest. “You might want to take care of the livestock.”

With a shove that took Ryan off guard, Lucille got away. Jay’s eyes narrowed, and at last his mind touched hers. Eagerly she responded.
“I didn’t want this! I don’t!”

His mental voice was cool.
“You’re fine. You never promised exclusivity.”

The words chilled her. True, they hadn’t, but he’d said he took an interest in one woman at a time. Therefore he was giving her permission to mess around. She wasn’t like that. She didn’t want to play the field. Now that she’d found him. She didn’t want to discuss what Ryan had done, or how it made her feel. Desperately she searched for a safer subject, one that didn’t reveal the depths of her feelings for Jay. He seemed to be distancing them, so she’d better follow unless she wanted to make a fool of herself and sob all over his chest. “Did you s-see Drew?”

“He’s fine. Discovered the library.”

That would explain why Drew’s phone call to her earlier was terse. Too eager to get back to his room full of books. A
new
room full of books. “Is he better?”

“Almost completely.”

She walked toward him, nearly tripping over another kitten. She picked it up.

“Did he try to hurt you?”

“No.”
Now that the sun had dipped below the horizon, she was the equal of any mortal. The thought hadn’t crossed her consciousness. Ryan wouldn’t have taken it that far. If she’d said no, he would have accepted it. She was almost sure of that.

The light of a smile touched Jay’s eyes, but didn’t affect his mouth. “I found these in the barn, and I didn’t want Digger to get them, so I decided to collect them up and put them somewhere safe. But the ladder fell, and Ryan caught me.”

“Good catch.” Jay nodded to Ryan. He squared his shoulders and walked forward, holding out his hand. “Sorry about last night. I guess the beer around here is stronger than I’m used to.”

Ryan’s brows arched in surprise. “Sure.” He touched Jay’s hand briefly, a gesture of acceptance for the apology. She didn’t imagine the flash of denial she read in her lover’s mind. Jay didn’t like Ryan. He’d continue the polite frostiness neighbors sometimes showed each other, even in Texas, where everybody tried to get along.

“Is your new employee working out?”

“I guess. I told my foreman to look after him. I can always use someone who knows his way around a horse and has the patience to cope with the visitors. Some of them get a mite overexcited. We tell them all the safety procedures, and then they try to break them.” He frowned. Ryan liked rules. He knew where he stood with them. He’d told Lucille as much last week when she’d suggested he have an extra beer. One for the road, he’d said, was a dangerous practice. He turned his attention to Lucille. “I wondered if you wanted to come to the Sauciere next week for dinner.”

Jay made his decision. He walked to her side and put his arm around her shoulders. “If Lucille goes with anyone, it’s with me.”

“That’s a bit Neanderthal.”

Jay blinked—the only sign he’d heard her, before he gave Ryan an affable smile. “Of course, if Lucille would rather go with you, I can’t stop her. It’s her choice.”

Ryan sent him a look that left Lucille in no doubt about what he thought about Jay’s climb-down. A man would claim his woman. Like a parcel from the post office, she presumed.

“It is my choice,” she said firmly. “I’m not a bone for dogs to fight over, so I’ll let you know, Ryan. Thanks for thinking of me.”

She pulled away from Jay and went kitten hunting. She wouldn’t have the men handling her like a package either.

Ten minutes later by the light of the electric hurricane lamp, she had the seven little animals and their larger mother rounded up and corralled. Jay found an old tray in the corner of the barn and secured it on the basket loosely with a piece of twine. “What now?” he asked her.

“Would you take them?” She tried puppy eyes on him. “You have a big spread. You must need cats in the barns to keep the rodents away.”

“A good cat is worth a dozen traps,” Ryan said, amusement at Jay’s predicament turning up the corners of his normally tight mouth.

“Then you take them.” Jay thrust the basket at his rival. “My managers look after that kind of thing.”

“You don’t like cats?” she asked. She adored them. The only reason she didn’t have any was Digger, who didn’t tolerate any other animal but himself and the kind that found its way into his food bowl.

“I like them fine. But not when they’re in the way.”

“In the way?”

He shot Ryan a hard smile. “You got it wrong.” When he turned back to her, she saw nothing but amused tenderness in the depths of his dark gaze. “You take care of the livestock first. Then you go for the kiss.” He tilted her chin and met her gaze for a fraught instant before he touched his lips to hers.

His kiss was different from Ryan’s. It started gentle, but he flicked her lips with his tongue, and she let him in. They kissed as if they’d been doing it for years, practiced and fulfilling, but just as exciting as the first time.

When they broke apart, they were both breathing more heavily.

Ryan remained where he was, basket in one strong hand, watching them with grim purpose. “You’ll move on,” he said. “I won’t.” He brushed past them, knocking Jay’s shoulder, and crossed the yard to the outer door.

She didn’t remember leaving it open, but she must have. That lock was awkward.

“I hope the kittens will be all right,” Jay remarked coolly. “Does he lose his temper often?”

“Never,” she answered. It was true. Jay got to Ryan like nobody else she’d ever met.

Jay was still staring after him, although he’d gone up the street, out of sight. “There’s something about that guy…” He shook his head. “I guess years of chasing enemies has made me paranoid, or maybe close proximity to his relatives has tinged him with some sense.” He grinned. “But then, the paranoid get to live another day. Usually.” He gazed at her, his expression unreadable.

Instinct warned her not to enter into his mind. She might not like what she could read in him right now. He seemed too serious, thinking of something past her understanding. But that might be just her private paranoia.

Hers was of being outed by the people she grew up with, the people who accepted her as one of them. She accepted her fear as inevitable. Maybe others who were different in some way felt the same. It certainly gave her comprehension of other minorities; that was for sure. “The kittens will be fine. They’re with their mama. He’ll probably put them in one of his barns, nice and cozy.”

He smiled down at her. “Not only beautiful, but a lover of nature. How about a roll in the hay?” His mock growl made her laugh, and she temporarily forgot her worries. He did that to her, this vampire with a troubled past, as nobody else had done before.

“We can’t go to bed yet. We have a whole night.”

He raised a brow, the devilish expression making him sexier, if anything. “We can get busy in bed—all night.”

His gaze rested on her, playful and intimate, but as she watched, the light in his eyes changed, going deeper. He lost his smile, and the amused rhythm of his mind set into a regular pattern as if he were using it to cover something else. She couldn’t tell what it was.

He glanced away, and she took the time to tell him, “I want to visit Drew. See how he is. I’m not working tonight.”

He sighed. “Now she tells me. We could have spent the day and the night in bed. Or are you sick of me already?” That last had almost a wistful tone, not an emotion she associated with Jay.

She’d never be sick of him. That was what worried her most.

INSTEAD OF GOING to bed, Jay’s decided preference, they climbed into his car, which he’d parked farther up the street, and he drove her to the ranch. He’d eaten dinner before he left with Drew, and discovered that what that boy didn’t know about his kind could fill several volumes.

What the fuck were their parents thinking? He’d checked in with Nathan, mentally opening a channel that his colleague could use whenever he needed. He heard nothing unusual, except that Nathan was forgoing sleep in favor of searching the land, hoping to pick something up, a trace, maybe.

Nathan had a mind like a steel trap and a nose for Talents better than a bloodhound’s for prey. If he couldn’t find anything, there was nothing to be found.

Jay took Lucille straight to the library and listened to the honeyed tones of their accents when the siblings greeted each other.

The rhythmic drawl was one reason he’d decided to relocate to Texas, the other being he was sick of Europe and his life there.

He left them alone and went to catch up with Thorndyke events on his phone. A shame telepathy didn’t work long-distance, but they had innocuous-sounding code words they could use on checks like this. Nothing, which was, he supposed, good news. He’d hoped someone had heard about the cell hereabouts. Just to make sure, he made a call on an encrypted phone he kept in a locked drawer.

A warm male voice answered. “Cristos.”

“How are you, my friend?” These days Cristos headed Department 57, but Jay knew him long before that. Useful to have a friend who had access to classified data.

“Fine, fine. Just checking something. Nathan Beaumont’s here. He’s one of yours, right?” All his instincts told him Nathan was on the level. However, when someone he cared very much about was in trouble, he would check and double-check to make certain he’d got his facts right.

“He was.” Cristos paused. “You know him?”

He could almost hear Cristos processing the information. “From way back. From before I was a Talent.”

“Ah. Yes, well. He had a hard time on a case recently. His team was halved before they got to the perpetrators. Once I debriefed him, I suggested he try something else. He’s damaged, Jay, needs healing. That’s why he made the change from the Department to Thorndykes, but he insisted on finishing this job first.”

“He was full-time?”

Not all the Department’s agents were full-time spies. Some of them were well-placed Talents and people who passed on information. Nominally the Department was part of the CIA, but in recent years it had moved farther and farther away. Its headquarters weren’t even in Langley, and in an organization of secrets, its existence and the people who worked there was the biggest secrets of all.

“Yes, he was. He had sidelines—most of you people do. He’s building on them now that he’s decided to throw in his lot with the Thorndykes.”

“Would you say he was sound?” The British word for honest, trustworthy. Typical understatement, but Cristos would understand.

“Totally. He never lets his private feelings get in the way of his work.”

That was what Jay needed to know. If Cristos said that, then Nathan was still the man Jay remembered. Or a part of him was. He was bound to have changed in two hundred years. Nobody stayed the same forever. Learning to cope with change was one of the trickiest lessons a Talent had to master. Not all of them did.

Sound
. A good word for a man with so many twists and turns Jay would never discover them all. Shit, he had difficulty discovering his own. After thanking Cristos, he cut the call and locked the phone back in its drawer. He sat for a while in silence, staring into space, thinking out the situation he found himself in. He thought about everything—about the increasingly strong feelings for Lucille, feelings he hesitated putting a name to. He came to no conclusion he felt comfortable with. Because once he did name those emotions, he could well be lost.

A sharp note pinged in his mind, a warning that a Talent was approaching him, and he knew which one. The subject of his recent conversation with Cristos. He checked the clock. Late for a ranch hand, past ten.
“Come right in. The living area.”

Jay went to his great room, where Lucille waited for him. He held out his hands, and she went into his arms as naturally as breathing. They shared a kiss, and he allowed himself the luxury of sinking into it. The door opened, and she jerked back.

Nathan strolled in naked as a jaybird. Unselfconscious as one too. Lucille gave a sharp cry and buried her face against Jay’s chest.

Jay chuckled. “You don’t know many shape-shifters, do you? Does it bother you?”

Nathan leaned against a built-in bookcase and folded his arms. “If I didn’t strip before I shifted, I wouldn’t have any clothes left.”

“Couldn’t you have brought some with you?” Lucille demanded.

Nathan grinned. “I could. Then I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of seeing you blush. You have a very pretty blush.”

“Comes from being a redhead.” She lifted her chin and shot a glare at him, keeping her attention firmly above his waist. “Seriously, doesn’t it concern you at all?”

“Nope.” He showed no sign of wanting to cover up.

The bastard had done this on purpose. Of course Lucille wasn’t used to other Talents. This was a challenge.

Jay’s immediate response was rejection. No, just no. In the past he and Nathan had shared women. But not Lucille. Then again, her reaction the other night led him to believe she might like the alternative possibility, and the one Nathan was partial to.

Would she want that? Carefully he touched her mind and found it. The vaguest hint of arousal, mostly covered by guilt when she’d realized it was somehow traitorous. Well, she would think like a mortal. To all intents and purposes, she’d been raised as one. No Talents except her parents and her brother. To distract himself he asked, “Do you have news?”