Python's Embrace (Bitten Point Book 3) (5 page)

“So you like girls then?”

“Yes.”

She cocked her head. “What about me?”

Did he look as taken aback as she felt? There was being forthright, and then there was balls out on the table, directly asking.

Shit.
What is wrong with me?

Blink and the scenery changed. She was in a cell now, a cell whose walls she’d memorized.

“What is wrong with me?” she asked again, not that anyone bothered to answer.

A glance to her side had her gasping.

The needle moved toward her arm steadily, the glass vial attached to it full of an amber liquid with hints of darkness.

Don’t touch me with that.
Yet she couldn’t move, not a single limb, pull as she might. The straps on the gurney held her tight.

They’d tied her down like an animal because they were treating her like an animal. No better than a lab rat.

“This will only hurt a little bit,” the man said. He bore a fringe of white around his crown, and his facial skin held the creases of time. He wore the long white coat of a doctor yet didn’t wear a stethoscope around his neck, nor did she like his bedside manner. After all, what kind of doctor tied down their patient?

A mad-scientist type.

“Don’t touch me,” she growled. “Don’t you dare.”

Another face came into view, sporting a smirk wide as a barn door and begging for a smack. “This is what happens to little girls who come snooping.”

“What are you afraid of me finding?” she challenged.

“Nothing now. You’ll have more important things to worry about in a minute than whether or not our operation is on the up and up. Staying alive being the first and foremost.”

“You can’t do this,” she repeated, eyes frozen to the slow descent of the needle. She thrashed as hard as she could, her slight frame twisting, yet not even coming close to loosening her bonds.

No escape. They’ve grounded me. I’m caged
. Her breathing came fast and furious while her heart pounded.

“No,” she screamed as the sharp tip of the needle pierced her skin.

No one listened.

The plunger depressed, and liquid fire entered her veins.

S
tanding in the doorway
, a voyeuristic perv, Constantine knew he should go.
I need to go
. And farther than two feet from the door this time so Aria could shower. He truly meant to leave her alone, except her eyes glazed over and he knew her mind went wandering again, leaving nobody home to pilot the body.

Already in motion, he caught the way her body tensed then relaxed all at once, letting gravity yank at her.

Once again, Aria fell, and once again, he caught her, but only because he slid under her baseball style so she landed in his arms and lap.

He prevented her from getting hurt yet…
She wouldn’t be fainting in the bathroom, though, if I hadn’t pushed for her to shower.
What she really needed more than a bath was more rest and some food.

“That’s it, little birdie, back to bed you go.”

“Little birdie as a name is utterly offensive,” she snapped with a touch of heat.

“Says the lady calling me angel.”

“Would you prefer I call you little birdie?” And, yes, the brat did aim her gaze downward.

“Ain’t nothing little about me,
chickadee.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Are you seriously trying to antagonize me?”

“I would never do that,
starling.
” He did have to bite the inside of his cheek at that one.

Exasperation blew between her lips. “Stop it.”

“Or what?” he challenged.

A sly look entered her gaze. “I see what you’re doing. If you want to kiss me, just get it over with,” she dared back. “I know you want to.”

Damn her, he did. “I don’t,” he lied.

“Why am I so utterly certain you’re lying about that?” she mused aloud.

“Your animal instinct is guiding you, even if you don’t recognize it.”

“It should guide me to some water and soap. I reek.”

“No water. Bed.”

“I am totally taking a shower,” she stubbornly insisted as she pushed at his chest and struggled to get off his lap.

“Like hell. You just about face-planted again.”

“At least this time there’s no poop.”

“You remember meeting me?”

She grinned. “I guess I do. So see, I’m fine. Getting stronger every minute. I got faint because I remembered something.”

“Are you sure it’s a memory?”

“Pretty sure, that or I have a sick imagination.” As she told him what she recalled, his eyes widened.

“They injected you with something. Now we really need to get you to a doctor.”

Short hair flew and whipped her cheeks as she shook her head. “No.” She pushed hard enough to get to her feet. “We can’t tell anyone.”

“We have to tell someone,” he argued. “Cynthia and my friends are still looking for you.”

“Fine. We’ll call her and let her know I’m alive and to stop looking. But we’re calling after my shower.”

She did seem much steadier. Also, he knew the reviving effect of a shower after a strenuous night. Firemen often came home exhausted, dirty, and needing a moment to clear their mind and wash the world from their skin.

“As my
dove
commands.” Rising also to his feet, Constantine leaned over and peeled the vinyl shower curtain back, revealing the smooth, seamless plastic shield he’d installed during a long weekend after he tore out the cracked and stained tile.

“I am going to peck your eyes out,” she grumbled as she brushed past him, lifting a foot to step into the tub.

“I’ve got something better you can pet.”

Constantine didn’t usually resort to bawdy flirting. Where these dirty innuendos came from he couldn’t have said. Probably Daryl’s bad influence. Yet, he’d known Daryl for years and never used them before, so why now? Why her?

Most women would have retorted with shock at his bold words. Rejection was possible, too.

What he didn’t expect was Aria, with a mischievous glint in her eyes, to pop a pearly-toothed grin. “You’re the man with all the bold words. Well, let’s see how you stack up when under pressure.” Aria stepped fully into the shower and lifted her arms. “Take the shirt off. I dare you.”

She didn’t just do that.

She had.

I dare you.
Those three words were the downfall of many a man. Constantine would like to say he held the strength to resist. He didn’t. See, he believed in the man club, the one with a double-standard, fucked-up sense of rules. The membership card might only exist in the minds and thoughts of men, but that didn’t make it any less real or potent. And he knew his damned card would get shredded for sure if he didn’t strip the shirt off the sexy woman in the shower.

I must do this for the sake of mankind.

Gulp.

Be strong.

While his T-shirt hung loose on Aria’s frame, it didn’t dangle much past her hips. He could practically see the vee at the top of her thighs.

I never did see if she trims or not.

Personally, he liked a girl who went natural. Something to nuzzle.

Water from the shower began to spray the white cotton she wore, making it cling, especially around her chest.

How could he have thought before her breasts were too small? Never. He gladly admitted his mistake. They were perfect. Two perfect round domes with protruding peaks begging for his mouth.

“Are you going to do it,
angel
?” Her words teased huskily over his skin.

Do. Her.

No, wait. She meant something else. The shirt. The shirt had to come off.

On stiff legs, he clambered into the shower, placing himself across from her. Given the tight fit, it put him close to her.

She peeked at him. “Not leaving yourself much room to take the shirt off, big guy.”

He leaned down until his mouth hovered just over hers. “I need to be close to do this.”

Rip.

O
kay
, this might really make her a whore, but holy fucking hot. When Constantine gripped that shirt and tore it in two as the last of his words brushed her lips with hot air, it was like seriously off the charts, sexy, hot.

“Challenge met,” he murmured, brushing his mouth ever so lightly over hers. “Now shower, my smelly duck.”

Before she could screech at him, he fled, leaving only his soft chuckle floating behind.

He also left behind one really aroused woman, one who wanted to chase him down for vengeance, the naked kind, but also a woman who found herself laughing at his deviousness. “A point for the snake.”

And a thank-you. Things got pretty intense between them for a moment. Events might have gone from “help me” to “fuck me” with just a single kiss. Even if she’d been a slut in her previous life, it didn’t mean she had to be one now. Time to get her head out of her pussy and back onto what happened around her.

As she stood under the spray, its reviving heat stimulating every part of her body, she reviewed a few key facts from what Constantine explained to her.

One.
I am in danger.
In and running from it by the sounds of it.

Two. Someone had done something to her. Injected her with a foreign drug. As such, she couldn’t necessarily rely on her instincts or even her rationality. Did the fluid they inject her with cause any kind of mental impairment or an as-yet-unknown physical one?

As she lifted her face into the hot water, she wondered if her amnesia was related to the injection.

It didn’t take long to clean herself. She didn’t want to waste time. Now that she seemed recovered, at least bodily wise, she had to find some answers.

Such as, what do I look like?

So far in her visions, she’d seen other people. Oddly enough, while she had a sense of self, she had no visual image to go with it.

Stepping from the shower, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her moist body. She tucked the corner between her small breasts, cinching it.

Over the vanity, she spotted a mirror. She stood before it, hands braced on the vinyl top that held a pink, seashell-shaped ceramic sink. Very retro.

I’m stalling.

The steam from the shower clouded the mirror, and she leaned forward to wipe at it with her hand. It didn’t take long to clear a swath and see herself.

This
is
me.
While she didn’t recall seeing her image before, it still seemed familiar. Aria stood pretty short, which she already knew. She noted other facts, such as the fine bone structure, the pointed chin. The finely arched brows. The long, sloping nose. The thin lips with the slightest indent on the top. Her hair, shoulder length and bobbed. With a…

“Aaaaah!”

Her shrill scream brought Constantine running. He skidded into the bathroom. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“My hair,” she gasped.

“What about it?” he replied. “It’s clean. Wet, though, but there’s a dryer under the sink if you need one. No big emergency.”

“Not that, you idiot,” she grumbled. “Look at this.” She yanked a hank of it in the air for him to inspect.

“Yeah?” He blinked at her.

She explained slowly, as if to a moron. It was that or smack him. “It’s white.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you get it?” she exclaimed.

“No.”

Such a man. They never noticed what was right in front of them. “It’s not supposed to be white.”

“How do you know that? Did you remember something else?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember that
this
isn’t supposed to be white.” She shook the offensive chunk.

“Are you sure about that? Because you had it when I first met you.”

His reply took her aback. “What do you mean it was already there?”

“I didn’t see it when you first crawled out of the muck on account you were so dirty.”

She scowled at his reminder.

“But after you rinsed, I saw it. And you’ve had it ever since. Although”—he reached out a hand to touch the white band—“it does seem wider than before.”

“This is great. Just great. First I’m apparently being chased by something in the swamp after being missing for a while. Then I find out I’ve been injected with some weird sort of mutant virus.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

She glared at him for his interruption. “Oh please, you don’t believe that for a minute. And now, look at this, white hair. It’s wrong, I tell you. So wrong. I’m only twenty-four.”

“You remembered your age?”

She blinked as he took her completely off topic. “I did. Damn. That’s weird how stuff keeps filtering its way back in.”

“And you’ll remember more, I’m sure, once you eat.”

“Food?” At the mere query, her stomach rumbled. “Yes, food. I could totally go for some fried calamari right now.”

“Seafood? Did I say you were an eagle? More like a seagull. Get dressed and we’ll go get some.”

She shook her head. “Impossible. I don’t dare go out until I remember more. And, besides, you said I had to call Thea.”

“Calling Cynthia will only take a few minutes. Then we can pop out.”

“I have no clothes.”

“Actually, I found some of Renny’s stuff in the dryer. My mom has this habit of stealing hers and Caleb’s and my nephew’s laundry and doing it.”

“That’s a weird habit.”

“She’s got a laundry fetish. It’s harmless. Now stop stalling.”

At his gentle tug, she followed him from the bathroom back to his bedroom, where Princess lay on his bed, glaring at Aria.

“I left you a pile of clothes…” He trailed off. “That’s odd. I could have sworn I left them on the bed.”

“Are you talking about those?” Aria pointed to a puddle of fabric on the floor.

“Princess. Did you drag those clothes onto the floor?” He gave her a stern voice, one meant to chastise.

His dog rolled onto her back, four paws in the air, and gave him puppy eyes.

It was stupidly cute. So cute. Aria steeled herself against it. However, Constantine melted like a marshmallow over a hot flame. “Who needs a belly rub? Does Daddy’s sweet girl need one?”

Aria sighed before she muttered, “That is seriously pathetic.”

“I think someone is jealous you’re getting a belly rub, Princess,” the jerk smugly retorted, fingers tickling someone other than Aria.

Oh hell no. He’s mine. He’s…

The jealousy came on fast and furious. She needed to counter it. Needed him to go away—and stop scratching that damned dog.

“I am not asking you for a belly rub.” She whipped the towel off and flung it to the floor. “But I do have a magic button that likes getting stroked.” She arched a brow at him, and she could have laughed when he fled the room with a shouted, “You play dirty.”

I might, but damn, it’s fun.
It would be even more fun if he stayed instead of running.

Quickly, she dressed, the clothes he’d found loose on her, but at least they covered all the important bits.

With a tentative tread, she exited the bedroom and made her way down the hall. Just out of her sight, she could hear a cupboard slamming shut along with a drawer.

The home didn’t have an open floor plan, so she went from a hall right into a simple kitchen and found Constantine. He had his back partially turned from her as he poured them hot water from a kettle into mugs.

“I don’t drink tea.” She preferred coffee. Black. And strong enough to make her feathers protrude like quills. Another fact about herself.

“Me either. I’m not big on caffeine, but chocolate, on the other hand”—he handed her a mug—“is the beverage of champions.”

Hot cocoa? She raised the cup to her lips and breathed deep of the rich cocoa scent. “Nice.” Actually heavenly. She plopped onto a stool, closed her eyes, and inhaled again, triggering another mental movie.

Her finger crooked around the handle of the fine china cup. A peek over its rim showed it held hot cocoa, with little marshmallows bobbing on the surface. Steam rose and tickled her nose with the rich chocolate smell.

Aria raised it to her lips and took a sip, just a tiny one so she didn’t burn her tongue. Her taste buds exploded with pleasure at the perfect mix. Sweet, with a hint of bitter to showcase it.

Very yummy and how nice of the lady who ran the bed and breakfast to make it for her. Even better, the owner of the B&B had delivered it to her door.

Talk about excellent service.

“Pancakes and bacon sound all right, dearie?” the owner of the B&B asked as she set a domed plate on a small table by the window that had a pair of facing chairs.

“Sounds awesome.” Aria took another sip of the hot cocoa then a long pull of the liquid. A hearty breakfast sounded like just the thing she needed before she went out and began her research on the town and, more specifically, Bittech. She’d arrived only the day before and had spent the afternoon and evening familiarizing herself with town and the local bar.

Seating herself at the chair, she grinned as the landlady whipped off the cover of the dome and revealed a plate stacked with fluffy pancakes and crisp bacon. She set her cup down, and it was promptly refilled.

“Thank you.” Odd how the words came out slowly. Actually, she felt kind of sluggish, maybe because the chocolate didn’t have the much-needed morning caffeine jolt. But sugar was a good substitute.

Aria chugged the contents of the cup, only to feel her eyes get heavier, the lids tugging down, trying to shut. The fingers holding the cup relaxed, and it fell, spilling hot cocoa everywhere. The cup wasn’t the only thing falling.

The pancakes provided a soft landing for her face.

“They drugged me!” Aria exclaimed as she snapped out of memory lane.

“Who did?” Constantine asked from where he leaned against the counter, both of his big hands wrapped around the super-sized mug.

“The lady at the B&B. What was it called?” She tapped her chin.

“Bedbug Bites,” he supplied.

“Yes. That’s it. The broad who runs it drugged my cocoa.” The nerve. Aria slammed her cup down, sloshing the contents.

He arched a single brow as he took a sip from his mug before saying, “Is this your way of saying you think I’m like her and trying to drug you with cocoa?”

She frowned at him. “Of course not. I trust you.” She really did. Odd that. “I’ll prove it.” She grabbed the mug and chugged the contents before slamming it down again. “Ta da.”

“I don’t suppose you recall anyone ever telling you that you’re crazy as a loon.”

“Would you stop with the bird names?”

“No.”

“You suck.”

“Any time.”

She glared. “Not everything is grounds for sexual innuendo.”

“That’s because you lack man-spective.”

“What’s that mean? On second thought, I don’t want to know.” Her tummy rumbled, giving her the out she needed. “What are you making us to eat? I don’t suppose you have some bacon?”

“No bacon, but I think we have some leftover chicken wings.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Cannibal.”

For a moment, a look of horror crossed his face. “I’m sorry—I didn’t think—”

She snickered. “I’m kidding. As far as I recall, I eat meat.” The innuendo proved too blatant to ignore, so she rolled with it. “I especially love sausage. The long, thick kind.” His gaze heated as she leaned forward and whispered, “The longer the better, so I can bite the tip off. Crunch.”

He winced. “I guess I deserved that.”

A giggle bubbled out of her. “Not entirely your fault. I think we’re both to blame for setting the other off. Before we totally make this awkward, where’s the phone so I can call Thea?”

“Use my cell.” He slid it to her across the counter. She snagged it and dialed. Then paused.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“How do I know this is the right number?”

“You don’t, so hit the call button and find out who’s on the other end.”

True. The worst that could happen was she dialed a wrong number. The phone rang and rang until a guy answered it.

“Hey, Constantine. What are you doing calling Cyn’s phone?”

For a moment, Aria froze at the unfamiliar voice. “Who is this? Where’s Thea?” Concern over a girl she barely remembered made her tense.

“This is Daryl, her boyfriend, and I am still trying to figure out—Cyn, hand that back.” The phone made a few noises as it got manhandled, but eventually, the static quieted and a perky voice said, “Cynthia here. Who am I speaking to?”

“Thea?”

“Aria! Is that really you?”

“Yes it’s me.” At least in body. The mind they still had to work on.

“Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“I’ve been around. Dealing with stuff.” Like a giant dude and his vicious dog.

As if sensing her stray thought, Princess barked at her, right by her ankle. Were there any arteries down there she needed to worry about? Just in case, Aria tucked her feet behind the rung on the stool.

“Where are you? I want to see you. Are you with Constantine? Is that why you’re calling from his phone?”

“Yes. No. Kind of. But you can’t tell anyone. I mean it, Thea. Not a soul can know. I think I’m in trouble.” Talking to this woman proved easy, familiar even.

“I think everyone in town is in trouble,” Thea said quietly.

“You should leave.”

“So everyone keeps telling me. Actually, Daryl is the biggest pain in the ass about it, but I’m not going anywhere. Where Daryl stays, I stay.”

“I told you we should have stayed in bed,” was his less-than-subtle shout from the background.

“I told you my mom was getting the new one delivered today.”

Thea’s mom was here? Aria could see her in her mind’s eye, buxom and with even wilder hair than Thea, holding out a tray of fresh-baked sesame seed cookies.

Perhaps Constantine was right. Maybe seeing and talking to people would keep jogging the memories.

“Your mom is in Bitten Point?”

“Dad, too.”

“Why? What’s going on? And since when do you have a boyfriend?” Because, as far as she could recall, Cynthia was single. Or so Aria thought. Kind of hard to tell with the memory thing.