Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (23 page)

Yeah. That was
one
of the reasons he wanted her
sleeping
right now. The other was that it was becoming harder and harder to remember that the crap he was telling her was…crap. He had to be one hundred percent convincing when he looked into her amber eyes and told her, with utmost sincerity, that he loved her.

He wasn’t surprised to find that he was a damn fine actor. Didn’t hurt in his line of work either.

He couldn’t love her, of course. That wasn’t in the cards for him. But it
was
an interesting, and extremely dangerous, game he was playing, seeing just how deep he could go into shark-infested waters before he had to pull back.

Was it good or bad that just
looking
at her made him want to devour her? That just
looking
at her made his body jerk and pulse and made him almost manic to bury his cock deep inside her? 24/7.

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He watched her in repose. God, she was beautiful. Thick, dark lashes rested on her lightly flushed cheeks. Gently he brushed a heavy strand of honey-brown hair off her face; it clung to his hand. Instead of releasing it, he rubbed the silky filaments between the tips of his fingers. She smelled of warmth and light and color.

She stirred and muttered and hazily brushed his hand away from her face, but didn’t waken. His heart turned over as he thought of her response to him earlier. Fresh need stirred.

He hadn’t known it could be like this. Resting his head against the high-backed leather seat, Caleb watched the even rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed.

Four months ago he hadn’t known she existed. Now he wondered how he was going to let her go.

He suddenly had a flash of memory of a long-ago summer. The picture was crystal clear. Crouching beside the small, man-made lake outside the solarium at Edridge Castle, his older brother Gabriel beside him. They’d been seven and eight. Brilliant orange and gold koi swam lazily beneath the shining transparent surface of the water. The sun beat down on their heads as if summer would never end.

“Do you think he’ll stay longer this time?” Caleb had whispered, grubby fingers rippling the surface of the lake to tempt the hungry fish. Gabriel had caught one with his bare hands last week, and Caleb wanted to see what a fish felt like.
Slimy I bet,
he thought with relish.

Gabriel picked at a scab on his knee. “Leaving day after tomorrow.” He sounded as if he didn’t care if their father stayed longer or not.

Caleb wished
he
didn’t care so much. “I’m not going to fix that cut again if you’re going to keep picking at it.” Disappointment made his voice sound angry.

“It’s good practice for you.”

He was pretty proud that he was in charge of “fixing” all the injuries around the castle, but his brother
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was annoying him today. Next time he fell off his bike, Caleb decided, he’d let him bleed for a while.

“Yeah. Whatever.”

A yellow fish the size of a monster bumped his thumb and he froze, eyes glued to the koi’s opening and closing mouth. “Ew, gross. The fish’s
kissing
me. Yuck.” He left his hand where it was. “Are you sure?”

“Been five days.”

He and his brothers had seen their father twice. Once the night he’d arrived. And yesterday for breakfast. “I guess.” Caleb cupped his palm under the fish’s belly. “How do I do this again?”

“Close your hand carefully—
not too hard
—and pull her out quick. Hey! You did it.” His brother slapped him on the back as Caleb brought the fish out in a sparkling spray of water. “Good job.”

His chest swelled with pride. It wasn’t easy; it wiggled and wriggled like crazy, but he cupped the golden fish in both hands, caged against his chest. “I’m going to keep her in my room.” She didn’t feel slithery and slimy at all. She was so pretty. And felt smooth and silky, like the cover on his mother’s bed.

Mine,he thought.

Gabriel ruffled his hair, which annoyed him. “Put her back, Caleb. She’s not a pet. You can’t keep her.”

Caleb pulled away. “Says who? I caught her. I get to keep her. I’m going to train her to do stuff.”

“She’ll die.”

His chest hurt. “No, she won’t.”

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“Yes,” Gabriel said, sounding way older than eight. “She
will.
Throw her back in, dirtwad.”

Weird damn thing to remember, Caleb thought, cupping Heather’s cheek and feeling her warm moist breath on his palm. He hadn’t thought of those koi in years. He’d have to check them out next time he went home.

“Is she asleep?” Lark asked, suddenly appearing without fanfare, butt perched on the arm of the seat across the aisle.

“Yeah, she is.” So much for enjoying the moment, Caleb thought ruefully. “That’s interesting.” He motioned to the spiked black leather dog collar around Lark’s throat, which she wore with a skintight LockOut suit. “Do you bite?”

She wiggled her eyebrows, both pierced with rows of little silver balls. “Often and well,” she assured him in her lilting, husky voice, amused. “But not you, Middle Edge.”

Caleb grinned, relieved. “What’s up, beautiful?” She actually was quite lovely under the Goth makeup and assorted piercings. Not that he’d ever been interested. No spark.

She stood for a moment before crouching down beside his seat, giving him a quite spectacular view of a nice pair of—

“Up here.” Lark pointed two fingers at her eyes. “Interview process starts next week for Master Wizard. Do you think Duncan will run?”

“Ask him.”

“I did. He wouldn’t tell me.”

“There’s your answer then.” He pointed to the pile of small foil bags of cashews on the tray table across from him. “Pass me those, would you? Thanks.” He tore a couple pouches open with his teeth.

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Amusement sparkled in her eyes. “You know what
that’s
about, don’t you?”

“What what’s about?”

“Your craving for nuts and the rest of it.”

He frowned. What the hell was she talking about?

“You have couvade syndrome.”

“I’m going to hate myself for asking,” he said, tossing a small handful of nuts into his mouth. “But what the hell is couvade syndrome?”

Her lips curved. “Comes from the French word
couvee,
which means ‘to hatch.’ In other words, Middle Edge, you’re having a sympathetic pregnancy with your Heather.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s been researched and is quite real, believe me.”

He wasn’t
sure
if she was jerking his chain or telling the truth, for Christ’s sake. “How do I get rid of it?”

Losing the nausea would be nice.

“The only cure I’ve heard about is—birth.”

“Jesus! Will I go into labor too?” The thought was too horrific to imagine.

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“Nope. That she’ll have to do alone.”

Thank God. “Any more intel on Shaw’s client list?” He ate a couple of nuts, which settled his stomach, which in turn made him damned nervous. Sympathetic pregnancy. Ah, man, that was too weird.

“The Blazing Path has been added to the list of those we know about. Which explains their low profile for the past year,” she said dryly, resting her arm on his armrest to look at Heather.

“Hard to buy weapons when your banker splits with all your cash. We’re backtracking to see who else has been quiet in the last year. Shaw had an excellent reputation. His clients trusted him to take care of their money, invest it, bulk it up. Pretty surprised after twenty, twenty-five years of trust to find out that he was greedy. It’s not like they can file a complaint with the FDIC. They didn’t know he’d placed their offshore accounts in his own offshore corporation. One messy lump sum. Another transfer to a Swiss account, and voilà. The man has a death wish, apparently. There are a lot of angry factions out there looking for blood. She’s really pretty, isn’t she?”

Caleb digested the specifics of the situation, then glanced down at his sleeping bride. Lark was dead on.

Heather was beautiful. “I don’t want her hurt, Lark. No matter what happens.”

“As long as your protection spell works.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“No reason. You amped it up, right?”

BARI, ITALY

SATURDAY, APRIL15

0850

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From Rome’s
Leonardo da Vinci/Fiumicino
they’d boarded a domestic flight to Bari, one of the largest cities in southern Italy. And just under a hundred miles from their final destination of Matera. Caleb’s adrenaline kicked in. Ninety miles to Shaw.

Heather was sound asleep, her head on his shoulder. Picking her up in his arms before everyone started to deplane, Caleb teleported outside the small terminal, bypassing security and the crowds clogging the building, which was always congested since it was the hub for plane, rail, and bus travel in the area.

The air outside was blood temperature, and stank of diesel fuel, stale sweat, and strong cigarettes. The smell pushed nausea up his throat, and he had to swallow hard to control his queasy stomach. Great. Just f-ing great.

Tony Rook, and a black town car, waited outside to drive them to Matera.

Rook glanced from Heather to Caleb. “I see your legendary charm has failed you. You’ve put the poor woman to sleep with your scintillating conversation.” He grinned as he checked her out, opening the back door so Caleb could put her inside the air-conditioned vehicle. “Man. She’s even hotter than the intel pics.”

Caleb settled her full-length on the backseat, bunching up his jacket to slip under her head. Rook’s observation had him taking another look. Hell, Heather wasn’t just hot. She was gorgeous. He touched her hair. The silky strands fell fluidly through his fingertips. As a blonde, as a brunette…He jerked his hand away, curling his fingers around the top of the door instead.

“Sleep,” he whispered.

“Hmm.” She turned over without opening her eyes. Her fingers spread open on her slightly rounded stomach beneath the thin cotton of her dress. She mumbled, “Love y—,” and was off again. Even fast asleep she was making sure their son was safe. Throat tight, Caleb resisted touching her again and closed the door carefully, shutting out the dozens of conversations being conducted at high volume all around them.

He and Rook got into the front seat of the car. Caleb checked that the window between the passenger and driver’s sections was firmly closed before getting down to the real business of why he was there.

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“Any activity?” he demanded as they wended their way slowly through a clot of cars, taxis, and buses jamming the street outside the small airport terminal.

“Nada,” Rook told him as they drove through the city proper to reach the road to Matera. The younger man expertly maneuvered the car through the narrow, congested streets, where the college kids double-and triple-parked their cars in total disregard of other drivers. “No ins, or outs.”

“Any sign of the tangos?” While none of Shaw’s clients had thus far tracked him down, every hour brought that possibility closer. And while he and his team would be more than happy to engage a few bad guys after they’d secured Shaw, Caleb didn’t want to have yet another element of danger brought into the mix. Not until he made sure Heather was out of harm’s way.

“Not yet.”

“You bring my Brazils?” Caleb asked, turning the air up high and angling the vent for best chill distribution. Grabbing what he hoped was a clean napkin from the stack on the dash, he wiped his forehead, realizing that his entire body was dripping with a cold sweat. His stomach cramped. The nausea was back full force. Weird. Very weird. Teleporting had never affected him like this before.

Could his powers be changing? Could Lark have it right? He didn’t know which answer freaked him out more.

“Glove compartment.” Rook’s voice held a hint of disbelief, but Caleb hardly cared, snapping open the door and feeling an intense sense of relief at the sight of a brand-new can of Brazil nuts. He pulled the lid off and poured a handful directly into his salivating mouth. Once the food hit his bloodstream, the nausea subsided, thank God.

“Man, you’re going to turn into a nut if you keep eating those things like that.”

“You only brought
one
can?”

“There’s a whole frigging
case
in your hotel room,” Rook told him with a puzzled glance. He thumbed the backseat. “How’d you persuade her to come?”

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“I married her,” Caleb said dryly.

“No shit?”

“No shit.” They lapsed into silence, driving through the city before Caleb spoke again. “Heather’s pregnant,” he told the other man baldly, picking two of the biggest nuts out of the can and eating them together with a satisfying crunch and grind.

Really. He felt better already.

Rook’s eyes gleamed in the lights from an oncoming car. “So, what?” he motioned to the can of Brazil nuts Caleb had clutched in his hand like a life preserver. “You’re sharing her cravings?”

“Say what?” Caleb stared across the car at Rook as if he was speaking Aramaic. The same Aramaic Lark had been sprouting, apparently. Damn it to hell.

“Cravings. You know. That weird phase pregnant women go through when you never know what they’ll be hungry for? My sister Lisa craved black olives and marshmallow cream.” He shuddered. “

Together.
Totally gross. I wanted to puke just watching her take each olive and dip it into a bowl of marshmallow cream.” Rook used one hand to mime the action as he drove. “Do you know how nauseating
gray
marshmallow cream looks? Especially with little black chunks in it?”