Dead Over Heels (15 page)

“I walked into a door.”

“A door made of metal spikes?”

He groaned as she shoved a hamburger under his nose. “This thing is burned black on the outside and I just
know
it’s raw on the inside.”

“You have to eat.”

“You’re a shitty cook.”

“Well, consider it your just reward for past treacheries. Eat!”

He scowled at her, snatched the burger away, and took a big bite. He masticated for a moment, then said, “Dead cold in the middle, I knew it.”

“Shut up.” She handed him a glass of milk, and he drained it in three swallows. “Who did it?”

“I was in a car accident.”

“With how many tractor trailers?” She whipped out the washcloth and set about cleaning the blood off of his face, ignoring his efforts to push her away while he gobbled the burger.

“Cain, stop fussing, it’s been a long damn day.” He batted her hand away like it was an annoying insect.

“Saul, for Christ’s sake, will you cough up already? You—wait a minute.” She leaned forward and took a sniff. He tried to inch away from her but the couch was at his back and he had nowhere to go.

She sniffed harder. “I know that smell! That’s Geoff the asshole! Oh my God! I will
kill
him! He is
dead
! So totally, stinking, fucking dead!”

“Actually, Ms. Nosy Parker, he’s back in the hospital.”

“Completely massively dead! Wait. What?”

“He got out today. So I went to have a chat with him about how not to treat people I’ve secretly been in love with for twenty-five years. He disagreed.” Saul touched his left eye, puffing and a hideous greenish brown. “Vehemently. But, as the saying goes, you should see the other guy.”

“You went after
that
guy? By yourself?” She threw up her hands and he flinched. “Sorry. But Jesus Christ, Saul! What has gotten
into
you this week?”

“I have no idea,” he said dully.

“If you had that big a beef you should have gone to the Pack leader! Or let me handle him!”

“Ha! Not likely.”

She ignored that. “Not picked a fight with someone like that. God, he could have broken your stupid
neck
.”

“So? That would solve a lot of problems for you, wouldn’t—aaaagggghhhhh!”

She’d punched his bad leg again. “Now you’re just sounding like a jerk. A pissed-off jerk.”

“Which is,” he admitted, “usually your job.”

“I just cannot believe you went after him!”

“I felt guilty,” he admitted. “Really, really guilty. You—I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen you cry and he made you—he—y-you—and your shirt w-was all torn and he’d h-hit you a-and—a-and—”

She kissed him to shut him up.

S
he kissed him as gently as she knew how, delicate butterfly kisses on his mouth, his cheeks, his swollen nose, his bruised eyes, his forehead, and he brought his arms around her with shocking strength and pulled her onto his lap. She gently parted his lips with her tongue and he sucked it greedily into his mouth, making her gasp.

“Wait,” she said, pulling back. “Not to sound like a cocktease, which I’ve already been accused of this week, but you’re awfully banged up. Maybe this isn’t such a good—”

“Are you kidding?” he said, heaving himself off the couch with her in his arms. “And let this chance go by?” And with that he actually
ran
with her to his bedroom, dropped her on the bed, then started pulling off his clothes as quickly as possible.

“If you don’t quit,” she said, trying not to laugh as a sock sailed past her ear, “you’re going to hurt yourself again.”

“Shouldn’t you be naked by now? No, wait. I want to do it.”

“Bossy.”

“It’s been a weird week.”

So she let him ease her shirt off, pull her shorts off, divest her of panties and bra. Then he was on top of her, his broad chest settling against hers as he kissed her, sucking her lips into his mouth and gently nibbling at the tender flesh. She groaned into his mouth—it
had
been two years—and arched against him when his big warm hands covered her breasts.

She ran her hands down his broad back, feeling the smooth muscles beneath the skin, praying Geoff the asshole hadn’t cracked a rib or worse. She ran her fingers through his black pubic hair and grasped his cock, feeling the velvety length pulsing against her hand. He was—my, my.

“Saul, you are hung like a
horse
.”

“Stop that,” he groaned, “if you don’t want to be done before we really get started.”

“I had no
idea
.”

“Please stop talking,” he begged.

“Yeah, that’s not really my style. It’s—” He kissed her, effectively shutting her up, and she wrapped her legs around his back as he eased into her, inch by delightful inch. He was panting, harsh gasps in her ear, and moving with maddening slowness. She beat his back with her fists but he ignored her obvious urgency and sucked a nipple into his mouth.

“Saul, for Christ’s sake,” she groaned.

“Please s-stop talking.”

“Saul,
please
!”

So he obligingly slammed into her and she screamed at the ceiling as sparks exploded in front of her eyes, as he thrust and shoved and pushed, as she tightened her grip on his hips and grabbed his ass and sank her fingernails into him.

Her orgasms were like fireworks—one, two, three,
much
better than anything she’d been achieving on her own in the last twenty-four months—and still he thrust, still he pushed inside her and withdrew and pushed again, and the sweet agony exploded through her
again
and she shrieked his name.

“Oh, God, Cain!” he cried, and then he shivered all over and she could feel him pulsing inside her, filling her up, warming her from the inside out, and she shuddered once more in answer to his pure male need.

They lay locked together, gasping.

“Oh my
God
,” she said at last.

“Please don’t spoil it,” he murmured into her neck.

“Saul, where have you
been
all my life?”

“Wherever you’ve wanted me to be.” Pause. “Idiot.”

She laughed. “Ooooh, love the sexy pillow talk. I may melt.”

“I actually don’t love you; now that I’ve had you I think I hate you.”

“Oh, you liar.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, and kissed her again.

N
ow, don’t go getting a swelled head,” she told him at breakfast. He’d woken her up twice in the night, once to take her from behind, once to lick every inch of her body.

He peered at her over the paper. “No, not at all.”

“Just because you’re the most fantastic lover ever doesn’t mean I’ve magically fallen in love with you overnight.”

“Oh, you love me,” he said casually. “You’re just a little slow on the uptake.”

“That is just what Darrell said,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Never mind. Eat your eggs, you’ve still got two black eyes.”

“My eggs,” he commented, “are runny.”

“You think I cook for anybody, you ungrateful ass? Eat!”

“Runny and you put too much milk in them.”

“Shut up!” she howled, and threw an English muffin at his head. He handily dodged. She tried to calm down. It was difficult, when all she wanted to do was rip his clothes off and fuck him on the kitchen table.

Saul
, of all people! Who’da thunk it?

“What I am trying to say,” she managed through clenched teeth, “is that we should date.”

“I was thinking more like getting married.”

“Date,” she continued doggedly, “and on or around my birthday, if we think it’ll work out, we can get married.”

“Oh.” He chewed, blank-faced, then said, “I’d rather get married right now.”

“You ass! Jesus, I love you.” Then, horrified, she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean it!”

“Yes, you did.” He looked unbearably smug.

“It just sort of slipped out! Like—like verbal diarrhea.”

“You,” he said, “should write greeting cards. You’ve got such a way with words.”

She threw another muffin at him, which he snatched out of the air and devoured in two bites. “Date!” she practically screamed. “We will date! And in two weeks,
maybe
we’ll get married.”

There was a polite rap on the door, and he instantly got up.

“No, stay put and eat. I’ll get it. Maybe Geoff’s back for round two.”

“Doubt it.”

She went to the front door, opened it, and saw her Pack leader, Michael Wyndham, standing on the front step.

“Cain! Congratulations!”

“Huh? I mean, good morning, Michael.”

“As soon as I heard the great news I went to work.”

“Huh?”

“Jeez, you’re kind of slow on the uptake, aren’t you? I’ve got the paperwork all arranged.” He handed her a sheet on thick vellum.

A marriage certificate.

And Michael, of course, was licensed to marry them.

“Saul!” she screamed, almost crumpling the license in her fist. “You—manipulative—prick!”

“Wedding day jitters?” Michael asked kindly.

“Aren’t you going to invite him in?” Saul called from the kitchen.

She weighed the pleasure of slamming the door in his face against the consequences of slamming the door in his face, then grudgingly stepped aside so he could enter.

Then she trotted down the hall to the kitchen. “This doesn’t prove anything! I’m not signing that thing today!”

“Well,
I
am.” He was scraping the rest of his runny eggs into the garbage disposal. “You can sign it whenever you’re ready.”

“Which might be a long damn time, Mr. Planned Everything without Telling Me! Ever think of
that
?”

“Ticktock, Cain. You’re thirty . . . when?”

“You
know
when!” she yowled.

“So,” Michael said from behind her, “who’s signing this thing? Say, Cain, remember that bet we made when we were just kids, about how we wouldn’t get mated until we—”

She snatched the thing out of his hand. Saul handed her a pen. She signed it with an angry slash. Thrust it at her (groan) husband. Who also signed it.

“Okay,” Michael said, looking at them doubtfully and taking the certificate back. “As you know, you’re now legally married, but we’d love to have a formal ceremony for you at the Manor. When you’re, um, not so stressed. Maybe in a week or two?”

“I’m not stressed. I’m fucking
married
.”

“Well, ah, congratulations seem to be in order for the, um, happy couple.”

“You bastard,” she told Saul.

Her husband smiled and handed her a glass of raw eggs.

“You’ll pay,” she warned him. “For the next fifty years, you’ll pay.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” he said, and kissed her for a lovely long time, and at one point Michael cleared his throat and left, but they didn’t notice.

B
ored, I crossed the carpet in five steps, climbed up on Sinclair’s desk, and kissed him. My left knee dislodged the phone, which hit the floor with a muffled thump and instantly started making that annoying
eee-eee-eee
sound. My right skidded on a fax Sinclair had gotten from some bank.

Surprised, but always up for a nooner (or whatever vampires called sex at 7:30 at night), my husband kissed me back with knee-weakening enthusiasm. Meanwhile, due to the aforementioned knee-skidding, I slammed into him so hard, his chair hit the wall with enough force to put a crack in the wallpaper. More work for the handyman.

He yanked, and my (cashmere! argh) sweater tore down the middle. He shoved, and my skirt (Ann Taylor) went up. He pulled, and my panties (Target) went who-knew-where. And I was pretty busy tugging and pulling at his suit (try as I might, I could not get the king of the vampires to
not
wear a suit), so the cloth was flying.

He did that sweep-the-top-of-the-desk thing you see in movies and plopped me on my back. He reached down and I said, “Not the shoes!” so he left them alone (although I noticed the eye roll and made a mental note to bitch about it later).

He tugged, pulled, and entered. It hurt a little, because normally I needed more than sixteen seconds of foreplay, but it was also pretty fucking great (literally!).

I wrapped my legs around his waist so I could admire my sequined leopard-print pumps (don’t even ask me what they cost). Then I grinned up at him, I couldn’t help it, and he smiled back, his dark eyes narrow with lust. It was so awesome to be a newlywed. And I was almost done with my thank-you notes!

I let my head fall back, enjoying the feel of him, the smell of him, his hands on my waist, his dick filling me up, his mouth on my neck, kissing, licking, then biting.

Then my dead stepmother said, “This is all your fault, Betsy, and I’m not going anywhere until you fix it.”

To which I replied (really quite logically), “Aaaaah! Aaaaah! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH-HHHHHHHH!”

Sinclair jerked like I’d turned into sunshine and spoke for the first time since I swept into his office. “Elizabeth, what’s wrong? Am I hurting you?”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

From my vantage point, my dead stepmother was upside down, which somehow made it all the more terrible because, contrary to popular belief, you
can’t
turn a frown upside down.

“You can fuss all you want, but you’ve got responsibilities, and don’t think I don’t know it.” She shook her head at me and in death, as in life, her overly coiffed pineapple-blonde hair didn’t move. She was wearing a fuchsia skirt, a low-cut sky blue blouse, black nylons, and fuchsia pumps. Also, too much makeup. It practically hurt to look at her. “So you better get to work.”