A Demonic Bundle (58 page)

“I
like her,” Ellina said, after Jo exited.

Maksim didn’t respond, nor did he look toward the empty doorway, though every fiber of his being wanted to look. To go after Jo. To tell her he loved her, too.

“So you have gone and fallen in love while I was away. I can’t believe it.” Ellina giggled, thoroughly pleased.

“Don’t believe it, then,” Maksim said. His sister was always annoyingly perceptive.

“So you are denying it?”

“Yep.”

Ellina sighed. “That’s silly.”

“Well, you know me, silly to the bitter end.”

“You are going to have a bitter end, if you don’t get a clue.”

“Where’s that cat?” Maksim said, pretending to search for the animal. “I’m going to put you back in him.”

She laughed, undaunted by his threat.

“How did you end up in a cat anyway?” he asked, glad for another topic than his feelings for Jo.

“I’m not sure, honestly. I was on my way to find Vittorio, to warn him about his mother. Do you know this woman, Orabella? She’s Vittorio’s mother and she’s crazy.”

Maksim nodded, albeit noncommittally. He wasn’t about to reveal he’d had a relationship of sorts with the woman. Of course, only to find out what happened to Ellina, but that hadn’t worked out terribly well.

“Anyway, I was on my way to find Vittorio, to warn him his mother had learned how to make demons do her bidding, when I suddenly found myself in a cat. And a male one at that. Not pleasant.”

“Do you think this person is still a threat to you?” he asked.

Ellina shrugged with her usual blithe spirit. “No. I think it was a practical joke. Probably those twin brothers of ours.”

Maksim had his doubts about that, but didn’t bother to say anything.

“So are you going to go find Jo and tell her you love her, too?” Ellina asked casually.

“No.”

“Well, that’s silly, because it’s clear you do love her.”

“No, I don’t.”

Ellina placed her hands on her hips, suddenly reminding him of Cherise. The realization he wouldn’t see her again made his chest ache.

“Okay. I do love Jo.”

“Ha! I knew it.”

“But for the first time in my existence, I’m going to do something unselfish. I’m going to walk away. Jo deserves better than me.”

“How can you say that?”

“She does. I can’t be a father to her child. Not a good father.”

“Jo’s pregnant? I’m going to be an aunt?” Ellina’s eyes lit up.

“It’s not mine. It’s a long story.”

“Oh.” She seemed slightly disappointed, and he understood that feeling all too well.

“Why do you think demons can’t be fathers? Our father was a demon.” Ellina pointed out.

“And would you call him a good one?”

Ellina shrugged, giving him a look that said he had a point.

“Besides, I can’t even read Jo’s thoughts to tell whether she really wants me or not.”

Ellina made a face at him, stating she thought he was a moron. “You don’t need to jump in her head. She told you how she feels. And after seeing you all red and in need of serious lotion.”

Maksim shook his head. “That’s the other thing. I jumped in her head once, which was selfish enough given what I knew it could do to her. I knew I couldn’t read her thoughts. Yet, I did it again—and for the same damned selfish reasons. I’ve hurt her. I’m the reason she could see you. And she’s seeing her sister because of me. How can I tell her that I did that to her?”

“Easy. Just tell her.”

Ellina had a way of making things sound so simple. But how could Jo forgive him for making her see the sister whose loss devastated her once. Now it was devastating her all over again.

“No. I’m doing this. It’s what is right.”

With that he focused, willing himself back to Hell, back to where he belonged. He disappeared in a puff of smoke and lingering scent of sulfur.

Three weeks later…

Jo attempted to focus on her work, but she kept thinking about Maksim. She was furious with him, frankly. Every day she kept waiting for him to come to his senses, but so far he seemed determined to be stupid.

While Jo had learned so many things from her experience with him. Not the least to let go of her fears. Fears of failure, fears of losing control, fears of the past.

She’d even confronted seeing Kara again—with the help of Ellina. Kara had come to her because she’d known all this time Jo blamed herself. She’d just been trying to contact her, even though her attempts had seemed scary at the time. They were just a little girl’s way of trying to get her attention.

Now Kara was gone. Both of them at peace.

Well, except for the fact that the man she loved was being ridiculous.

“Hey,” Ellina appeared in the doorway of her office. Since Maksim’s departure, Ellina had stepped in to help Cherise. It was wonderful, but the kids still missed Maksim.

“Hey,” Jo greeted the exuberant woman. Ellina seemed to have the energy of three people.

“I discovered something in my research last night.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“You and Maksim are bonded.”

“Excuse me?” Jo said, confused and not sure she wanted to hear anything else that would make her feel awful about him letting their relationship go.

“You are bonded. That’s why he couldn’t read your mind. That’s one of the ways it manifests.”

Jo shook her head, still not understanding what Ellina was trying to say.

“You two are meant to be together.”

See, that was just what she didn’t want to hear. She already knew they were meant to be together. More validation did nothing to make the loss any easier.

“And since you are bonded, you can call him to you.”

“What good will that do if he doesn’t want to be with me?”

“Well, I can’t help you with that. All I can do is tell you how to get him there.” Ellina smiled a cute, naughty little smile. “You’ll have to do the work to make him stay.”

Jo considered that information, then nodded. “Okay.”

She was miserable. She had to try again.

Maksim sat in a bar on Bourbon. He’d gone back to Hell for a while, but couldn’t seem to stay away from Jo. Oh, he hadn’t seen her. That would have been too difficult for him, but being in the same city was enough.

Well, no, it wasn’t enough, but it was all he was going to allow himself. She was better off without him.

He sat in Lafitte’s drinking his usual whiskey on the rocks, when suddenly he felt very strange. Like he was dematerializing, except he wasn’t doing it.

Next thing he knew he was in Jo’s apartment. She stood in the living room wearing a dress that had a plunging neckline showing the gentle swells of her breasts. The high waist tightened over the swell of her belly, which he was surprised to see had grown noticeably since he last saw her. The material was covered in bright flowers, reminding her of the bouquet he’d bought her just a day before they were no more.

“Jo? What’s going on?” He frowned, trying to understand what was happening.

She walked up to him, the sway of her hips, the sight of her lush body all holding him captive. Especially the enigmatic smile curving her lips.

“I brought you here.”

“You? How?”

“Well,” she stopped in front of him. “It turns out that you and I are bonded.”

Bonded? He’d wondered if that could be the case, but it still didn’t matter.

“Jo, bonding doesn’t mean we have to be together. It just means we have a connection. You can be with anyone you want. I won’t stop that.”

Jo shook her head, laughing slightly. “You are the silliest demon I’ve ever met.”

He raised his eyebrow. “And how many demons have you met?”

“That’s not the point,” she touched him, her fingers running along his jaw, down his neck. The caress sent fiery raging need throughout his entire body.

“The point is,” she said slowly leaning up to kiss the same path her fingers just did. “Is that I want you. And as a bonded female, I can have you.”

Maksim groaned. “Ellina told you?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She nipped his neck and he groaned. Damn, he’d missed her. The smell of her, the feeling. He turned his head and caught her lips, kissing her hard.

She moaned, melting into him.

They kissed for several minutes, hours, hell, he didn’t know. Finally he managed to gain a little sense and pulled back.

“Jo, how can you really want to be with a demon? One who was created to embody all the traits of someone who has hurt you?”

She smiled, gently touching his face. “Because of that very reason. You were formed to exist only that way, yet you have been better to me than any man. You turned away from your old nature to be what I needed. That’s more than any woman could possibly ask for.”

“But what if old Maksim returns?”

“Has he yet?”

“No,” he admitted. He hadn’t seduced, deceived anyone. He really was turning out to be a failure in the demon department.

“I can’t be disloyal to you. I love you.”

“Well according to your sister, once a demon loves, all his sins reverse.”

Maksim raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Jo nodded. “That’s what she said and she does research demons for a living.”

“Well, I think she may be mostly right. But I’m pretty sure my seduction techniques are still working fine.”

Jo laughed, the sound throaty and sexy as any sin he knew.

“As long as the seduction is only directed at me.”

“Only you.” He kissed her lingerly.

“I love you,” she murmured against his lips.

“God knows, I love you, too.”

“I
think we succeeded in having a very unusual wedding,” Jo said, snuggling up against her new husband, pressing a kiss to his bare shoulder.

Maksim chuckled. “Oh, I think we did.”

He cuddled her closer still, his hands stroking over her large belly. The man was obsessed with her pregnant body, which she had to admit she liked. Maksim always made her feel beautiful, even with swollen feet and a popped-out belly button.

“And you know which part I thought was the most unusual?”

He lifted his head to peer at her in the shadowy light of their bedroom, a huge master bedroom in a gorgeous house in the Garden District. Maksim’s wedding present to her.

“Let me see, was it the fact that you, very pregnant with another man’s baby, married me, a demon?”

Jo laughed. “No, that wasn’t what I was thinking about.”

“Could it be that most of our wedding party were lampirs?”

“And a half-demon,” she added.

“And a half-demon.”

“No.” Jo grinned.

“Hmm. How about the fact that the wedding band was all vampires?”

“And one werewolf,” Jo added.

“Right, and one werewolf.”

“Nope,” Jo said again with a little giggle.

Maksim smiled too, clearly enjoying her merriment. “Well, I can’t imagine what else could have made it more unusual.”

“That we went with devil’s food cake instead of the usual white cake with buttercream frosting.”

Maksim stared at her for a moment, then laughed. “You are too much.”

Jo laughed, too, then stopped when the baby kicked her hard. Maksim lifted his head, watching her bare belly. Both of them never ceased to be fascinated by the little person growing inside her.

“We are going to have, like, five more of these,” Maksim said, shaping his hand over her belly, smiling when their daughter kicked again. They’d been together for the sonogram that revealed Jo’s intuition had been right. They decided to name her Kara. Kara seemed to approve—because she had not reappeared to Joe.

“Let’s have this one first,” said Jo, although she already knew she wanted more, too. Maksim, who now admitted he’d originally only volunteered at the community center to be near her, turned out to be one kid-crazy guy. And he could now honestly sway he was a member of Big Brother/Big Sister. Damon was his little brother.

“You’re sure you don’t mind being married to a demon? Having a demon’s children?

Jo lifted her head to look at him. “Of course I am. And your sister seems fine.”

Maksim made a face at that. “Most of the time, when she’s not writing books that incite other demons to curse her into a cat.”

Jo raised up on her elbow. She frowned. It did seem Ellina had ticked off some powerful beings. More strange things had happened to her since escaping Boris. Not that Ellina took the occurrences as anything serious.

“Just the usual mishaps,” she’d said. Like nearly being run down by a car—not once but twice in as many weeks—was normal. Or that fact the her apartment had been ransacked.

Jo sighed, knowing Ellina’s heedlessness worried Maksim a lot.

“I have no regrets,” Jo said, wanting to draw his attention away from fretting. “I love being married to a demon. Even when you’re red and scaly.”

“Oh, we are not going to even speculate on how much you like my demon self. You kinky thing.”

She laughed. “Plus you are a pretty reformed demon these days.”

“Shh, you’re ruining my reputation.”

She laughed again, but the sound died on her lips as his hand sloped down over the swell of her belly, heading to the place on her body that always ached for his touch. He leisurely stroked her, her arousal slicking his fingers.

“Mmm,” he moaned. He loved her reaction to him.

“I do have one concern,” she managed to say, even though it was darn near impossible to focus when he swirled his finger like that—with just the right pressure.

Said finger paused.

“What’s that?”

“Well, you are never going to age and I will,” she said.

He was quiet, then said in a strained voice, “I will figure that out. We will be together forever.”

She smiled. “Well, I do have a plan.”

“You do?”

“Well, I do have four best friends who are lampirs. So I figured they could help me out. Would you be okay with being married to a lampir?”

“As long as the lampir is you. Then definitely.”

He kissed her and that talented hand of his started moving again. Oh, being married to a demon
was
unusual, but she was loving every minute of it.