Blessed (15 page)

She poked her head in the room. “Hey, guys, I'm not feeling too well. I'm going to hit the hay.”

Ryan and Chrissy were sitting close to each other on the couch, holding hands while talking in low voices. Kyle frowned at her and stood. “Hey, are you okay? Want me to help you into bed?”

He came across the room and put his hand on her forehead. His cool palm felt good. She had never noticed before, but he had lovely brown eyes and a dimple in his chin. She felt a burp coming on and backed away saying, “No, I'm okay, but thanks anyway.”

She darted into her room and closed the door on his frustrated face. After letting out a big belch, she pressed her hands to her stomach and made a sour face. Yanking open the mini-fridge next to the door, she grabbed a container of water and shook out two antihistamines from the bottle in her desk drawer. As another burp came up, she added some Tums for good measure.

Turning on the fan at the end of the room, she took her hair out of its bun and climbed the ladder into her loft. The wood of the ladder felt rough against her palms; she could feel every grain of it. When she stretched out in her bed, her sheets felt as smooth and slippery as silk against her body. It felt wonderful to rub her legs against her sheets.

As she lay back in the dark room, she thought she heard the door handle turn, but no one came in, so she flopped her head back onto the pillow.

After tossing and turning for ten minutes, she scooted her pajama pants off and tugged the sheet over her. Her skin felt as though it was buzzing, and when she licked her lips, they tingled. Her clothes felt too tight on her body, but she wasn't about to sleep topless in front of Chrissy. They were friends, but not that good of friends.

The allergy pills finally started to kick in, and she fell into a deep sleep.

She dreamed of Aiden. They were in the backseat of her car looking over the lake in her hometown. It was night, and the glow of a full moon illuminated his face. It made his eyes look black, and his cheekbones cast dark shadows into the hollows beneath. He leaned forward and kissed her gently, light, tiny movements all over her mouth and cheeks as his scent of amber and cedar washed over her. His kiss was magic, sinking into her skin and dancing along her nerves.

“Eliana,” he said with a soft moan before he began to kiss her more deeply. She groaned back into his mouth, more turned on by those soft kisses than from hours of foreplay with her past boyfriends. She wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, pulling back to trace the contour of his lower lip with the tip of her tongue. She fit perfectly into his arms, and their energy stroked against each other in a way that made her shudder against him.

He began to lean forward, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. She felt his heart beating against her palm, and he felt so warm and good. “Be still.”

He obeyed, and she continued to tease his lips with the tip of her tongue, holding his face between her small hands. He managed to hold still until she gently bit his lowered lip, and then, with a growl, he pulled her onto his lap. She felt the hard length of him through his jeans, and she ground on him, her gasp echoing his. He repositioned himself so he lay long and hard against her slit. She rocked against him again and whimpered when her clit ground over the firm head of his cock through his jeans.

Feeling nothing but her panties between herself and his jeans, she looked and saw she wore a cheerleader's uniform. And there were pom-poms on the seat next to her.

“Why am I wearing a cheerleading outfit?”

“Because this is my dream, and I like cheerleaders,” he said with a devilish grin. The thought startled her out of her sleep. She woke up enough to roll over and fall back into a more natural, and dreamless, slumber.

****

Outside her door, Kyle jerked at the stuck doorknob. His friendly smile turned into a snarl, and his eyes squeezed into angry slits. He had put enough aphrodisiac onto the pizza to have her begging for a man between her legs right now. He was only too happy to satisfy her with some dick, but she was on the other side of the door, and there was some blasted protection spell on it. He didn't think pounding on the door and demanding she let him in would be the best idea right now. David wanted him to seduce her with finesse, not take her with force.

Kyle backed up and glanced into the small lounge area. Chrissy and Ryan were kissing as if they were trying to eat each other's face. Ryan had no idea what was going on and Kyle wanted to punch the idiot’s face in as his frustration built into a burning rage. He was just another brainless jock tool Kyle had used to get closer to Eliana. When he’d heard Ryan talking about Chrissy, he knew he had a way into their room, and he talked Ryan into the pizza idea. It should have been easy, but no, by some fucking stroke of bad luck Eliana’s roommate happened to be a witch strong enough to ward her bedroom door against evil.

Seething, Kyle stormed back to his dorm room. Locking the door behind him, he turned on his computer and began going through his layers of security to access his secret files. The first file he opened was one named
Eliana
. Kyle clicked through dozens of pictures of Eliana, all taken from his cell phone as he stalked her. The need to hurt, to maim, to kill filled him and he took a deep breath, struggling for control. As much as he wanted to he couldn’t give into his instincts. He had to blend in, be the all-American college boy that no one would suspect the kind of monster he was beneath the skin.

With a fond smile, Kyle opened a file named
Butterfly
. Inside were pictures of a young blond woman in a T-shirt with a sparkly butterfly on it. As he browsed through the file, Kyle began to fondle himself through his pants. Image after image of the woman flashed by, each detailing a different torture, a different expression of pain or disgust on her face, at least while her face was still recognizable. By the end she was little more than breathing meat and he shuddered with pleasure as the memories of her long, exquisite torture filled him.

He didn't know who most of the women his goddess, Eris, asked him to punish and kill were. A letter would arrive for him and inside would be a picture of the girl and specific instructions where she would be at a certain time and date. Kyle would be there, waiting for her with his backpack full of knives, bleach, lighters, and other fun toys. Then he would play with them, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days and his goddess would reward him with fresh victims for his good behavior.

Soon it would be Eliana's turn, and he couldn't wait. Opening the human anatomy book next to his computer, he went back to planning on how to keep her alive for the longest time possible and in the most pain.

Checking the address on the directions one more time, Eliana slowed her car down and counted the house numbers. With no sidewalks, the wide street was flanked by mature trees that butted against high brick walls. Intricate wrought iron gates, often with the owner's initials on them, guarded vast winding drives. The glimpses through the gates showed huge houses and stately grounds.

Pulling into the driveway that led to Aiden's house, she drew in a deep breath to calm her nerves. Rolling down the window of her old car, she leaned out and pressed the green button on the keypad with a speaker in front of the massive black iron gates.

“Um, Eliana here to see Professor Klemenson.”

A few moments passed, and then there was a small buzz as the gates swung open before her. Aiden's gate had a series of steel runes in the center that gleamed in the sunlight. She drove up the winding black driveway, past manicured old trees and golf-course-green grass. The house itself looked like an English country mansion. Leaded glass windows sparkled in the sun, and ivy curved artfully over the white walls and exposed wood beams.

She parked her car next to a giant clay planter that held a riot of flowers. More of these pots flanked the massive wooden front doors. She should have dressed up more for this visit, like in a ball gown or something similar.

As she approached the wide, dark wood doors, she smoothed her sweaty palms on her jeans. Standing there, she was gathering the courage to knock when the doors opened and Aiden stood there, smiling at her. As always, his mere presence undid her. Images of her erotic dream flashed through her head, and her hormones did a happy dance at the idea of spending the rest of the day alone with him.

****

Aiden opened the doors and studied Eliana, drinking in the sight of her as if they had been separated for weeks rather than hours.

She wore a tight pink shirt that showed off the full swell of her breasts, and her hair hung in a braid down her back. The shirt highlighted how small her waist was, and a tiny portion of her smooth, tan lower belly showed. He wanted to lick that little strip of skin. Her jeans hugged her hips, and she had a gloss on her lips that made it look as though she had just licked them.

His thoughts flashed to the hot dream he had of her last night. He had to get it out of his head before he had to hide an embarrassing bulge in his pants from her. All morning he’d been lecturing himself on behaving professionally, of reminding himself that Athena wouldn’t want anyone who wasn’t a virgin, but all his good intentions vanished the moment he looked into her melted silver eyes.

She gave him a sassy grin and put a hand on her cocked hip. “What, no butler?”

He laughed and held the door open for her. “No, I don't have a butler. I do have a housekeeper, a gardener, and a cook. But that's only because I'm too lazy to wash all these windows, I tend to kill rose bushes, and I can’t cook anything more advanced than spaghetti.”

She laughed again, then glanced around with wide eyes, and he felt strangely proud to show her his house. He found he wanted her to know him better, to be comfortable around him, and to share himself with her. Basically, he wanted to impress the girl he was falling in love with. He cursed himself for his foolishness and tried to sternly remind himself that she was off limits.

“So, how long have you been a drug dealer?” she asked.

“What?”

She grinned at his expression and made her way over to an oil painting on the wall of the Eiffel Tower at night. “Well, I'm pretty sure most professors can't afford mansions on a teaching salary. And if they can, then I need to start looking into getting a teaching doctorate.”

He sighed and led her over to the small, dark wood table with a marble top across from the stairs. A large gilt mirror framed them as she looked at the pictures on the table and he took a moment to study their reflection. He was taller than she was, but she seemed framed by his figure rather than dwarfed by his body he stopped behind her. She studied the pictures on the table before them, so he didn’t think he noticed his careful examination of her reflection until she looked up. Her exotic silver eyes met his in the mirror, and he stepped closer, close enough so the line of her back was touching his front. Without a doubt he was playing with fire, but he couldn’t be near her without wanting to touch her. He sucked in a deep breath, loving the sweet notes of her psychic scent. With a start, he noticed her nipples harden beneath her shirt as she watched him. He dropped his eyes and stood next to her, distracting them both by holding a small picture.

“This is my mother and father on their wedding day.” The picture was of a beautiful blond woman with flowers in her hair. A tall, dark-haired man, who was dipping her back for a kiss with a roguish smile, held her in his arms. His parents looked impossibly young and he wondered what they would think of Eliana.

Putting the picture back, he gestured to the house around them. “All of this belongs to my family. We own several houses around the United States and ancestral homes in Norway and Ireland.”

“Must be nice to have your pick of mansions,” she murmured as she wandered over to the sitting room off the massive foyer.

He followed her in and sat on one of the delicate cream silk couches. She ran her hand over the elaborate carvings on the fireplace. “It is, but I also have a job by living here.”

Turning her head to look over her shoulder, she gave him an impudent smile that he wanted to kiss off her lips. “What, do you have to make sure the floors are vacuumed, and the pool is clean?”

“No, this house is also a Sanctuary.”

“You called it a Sanctuary. What do you mean by that?”

She selected a seat on a blue brocade chair across from him as he continued. “A Sanctuary is a place where Creation Chosen can go to find safety and a place to rest and heal if the need to. In modern times, it's mostly used to house visiting Chosen or Chosen who have been recently moved to the area. In the old days, it would be a place where the Chosen could go to find refuge if they were being hunted.”

“So it’s like a safe house?”

“Yes, and my mother helped design it. She takes her role as Chosen of a battle goddess seriously and has basically turned it into an elegant fortress. Much like my Hummer, she outfitted my mansion with the latest in home protection.”

He watched her fingers stroke the brocade of the chair and wished it were his chest. Standing, he offered her his hand and pulled her from the chair. She was such a little thing to hold so much power over his life.

Giving himself a mental shake, he led her over to the marble mantel she had been admiring. With a thumb and pointer finger, he pressed scrollwork in the marble in two different places. The front of the mantel seamlessly rolled down, and a velvet rack with guns, ammunition, and two swords rolled out.

She gasped. “Holy shit. How very James Bond of you, Aiden.”

He put a arm around her waist as he turned her to face the windows looking out onto the drive. “The windows are bulletproof. The outside of the house has six-inch slabs of stainless steel over concrete. There are motion detectors, heat detectors, chemical detectors, safe rooms, weapons, secret rooms, secret passages, and escape tunnels. Before you leave I’ll give you the code for the front gate and the security system. If you ever need somewhere safe to go and I’m not with you, come here.”