Stay (11 page)

“
You remember my friend Chloe at the club? Well, she never saw you,” he said. “She thought I was playing some joke on her, talking to myself. It was like you were invisible to her and I could have sworn she looked right through you at one point. You looked so surprised I had seen you, but I didn’t put it together until this morning.” His hand threaded through my unbraided hair.

I shut my eyes and remembered the look on his face when he picked me up off the glass-littered tile floor. Bating my breath
, I found the courage to try and explain.

“You look so much like
him. It terrified me when you saw me because I thought he was toying with me. Even after everything he did to me I feel as though no time has passed, as if none of it matters anymore.”

“Baby, I want you to look at me,
” he said.

I opened my eyes and his tenderness crushed my last resolve to pieces. He was lost too, his loneliness so closely mirrored
in my gaze.

“I thought these were contacts at first
,” he said with a grin. “Nobody has eyes like yours. But they’re real, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“What can you tell me?”

“A
nything. I am forbidden to lie,” I said.

“What are you?”

I was unwilling to tell him just how long. “I’m not sure. But I am no longer human, haven’t been for a long time.”

He swore under his breath, shook his head and to my surprise he
chuckled. “That’s kind of sweet, babe.”

“Sweet? This is a good thing?”

“Well, at least it means I ain’t crazy. When your skin started changing colors in the shower, I thought I was tripping for sure.”

“You are
such a strange human.” I marveled that anyone else would have already forgotten what they had seen. What made Cain different?

“It’s a well-known fact,” he replied. “
So why are you here?”

“I was called to you and Lissa,” I said and felt my happiness squeezed from me like a sponge. “
It is my job to protect true love, I suppose.” Confusion clouded his aura like an opaque silver fog. So I added, “I came here to rescue your true love, Cain, yours and Lissa’s.”

His reaction was not what I expected. Rather than rant and rave, comprehension fell over him like a wet blanket
, until determination replaced his defeat. “Rona, I hate to break it to you, but I’d say it’s too late for that.”

“Impossible,” I denied
, not because I didn’t agree with him but because I feared losing everything all over again.

“But you don’t know that for sure, do you?” He propped his head on his arm and smirked.

I turned onto my back with a huff and said, “I am cursed, Cain! For over two thousand years now I have not been able to feel love, just the pieces I feed off of others.” I hesitated, though. Hatred, sorrow and pain were emotions I understood well, my constant companions.

“
You feel this?” he asked, before reaching and snatching my chin into another heated embrace.

The kiss was different,
for he was trying to convince me by actions rather than words that I was wrong. He rolled onto his back and pulled me on top with him. I couldn’t help being a willing participant, not when the taste of him was so bittersweet.

Almost
instantly I pulled out of his reach. “We can’t!” I pleaded with him, but he lifted his head off the pillow and captured my mouth again. Cain slid his hand into my hair and he pulled me back into him. All further protests came out as a moan and this only drove his passion further. Soon it became less a mission to convince me and only a need for more touch, a stronger thrill, to feed the temptation.

I would
have never stopped unless he clasped my arms and pulled me gently away. With my hair hanging as a straw-colored curtain around us, blocking off the rest of the world, I leaned down for one last kiss. His smile was only made brighter by the contrast of his darkly bronze skin.

“You want to try telling me again you didn’t feel any of that?”
he asked huskily.

I shook my head and sighed when he lowe
red me into his embrace. As we calmed from our most recent high I wanted to deny him. I wanted to make him forget me so he could find his true love. But tomorrow the snows would begin to melt. Tomorrow Cain would return to his life and the woman he truly loved. So I would be selfish just this one night.

Once he fell asleep
, I lay awake and cherished our stolen time together. In the dark I whispered the truth to him I couldn’t admit to myself.

“
I love you
.”

-ellen

Chapter 10

Awakening

Overnight, the blizzard was broken and the sun reclaimed the city at an exponential rate. Weather scientists were baffled by the sudden turn and blamed it on some phenomenon they named global warming. I listened to the relieved sighs of the families around us. Heat meant work and money and food. For the first time in two days horns blared outside in the streets.

I crawled up Cain’s body as he slept and watched his softened features. I
’d never realized how much of an effort he made to keep up his mask. Dimly dawned light was kind to his scarred face. Before the cruel scar that marred his features he must have been considered ethereally beautiful. His chest was marked by tattoos I did not know the meaning of. His jaw was pronounced and square at the chin, dusted in the stubble he had forgotten to shave the day before. His lips were full and his chief tool for expression. How often had I watched those lips curve and dimple into the slightest of fond smiles? Before I had captured his affections, I’d thought his mouth a harsh thin line which I knew now he gathered together in defense. The scar which began below his neck and grooved up the side of his mouth and just shy of his eye was new.

It was the lingering pain of his old wounds that
made me press my lips to his collarbone. I intended to stop there with a lingering caress. But so close to the knife’s trail I could almost hear the echoes of his pain. So I traced the scar up his neck with soft kisses. Even as he stirred I continued, blinking back tears when I reached his chin and paused at the corner of his mouth.

The chest beneath my palms hitched and his hands hovered
over my back. Before I could lift my chin he cupped my face and pushed me up to look at him. We breathed in time, into each other. Something shifted in his eyes as they cleared from sleep and pierced mine. Our kiss was hungry and tasted of desperation. Perhaps he saw in my eyes the truth that we could never be, even if we might belong.

This is the last time
, I told myself as his tongue passed between my lips and drove me to new heights. When I pushed my hand against his chest for leverage he moaned, wrapped his strong arms around me and tugged me back fiercely.

The electronic ring
of his cell phone broke up the sound of lips and locking flesh. Cain shut his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine. I glared at the jarring piece of machinery.

“Shouldn’t you pick up?” I asked, borrowing the modern phrasing
. Though I was far more ancient than any buildings in this city, I paid attention to some things.

Cain ignored my question in favor of the skin covering the pulse in my neck.
His fingers dug into my sides for one last tug, before he released me and grumbled under his breath. He threw himself at the accursed device. Annoyance was replaced by dread as he read the screen and placed it to his ear.

“Yeah? Oh, hey
, boss… okay…” His eyes met mine and then lingered on my tousled blonde curls hanging all over his black band tee.

I sank back against his lap
and felt very satisfied when he screwed his features up, battling pleasure with heated concentration.

“
Yeah,
I gotcha, be there in ten,” he finished. After letting the phone slip from his hand he sighed and threw his arm over his eyes. “That wasn’t very nice,” he mumbled.

“What wasn’t very nice?” I innocently batted my long lashes at him, unable to hide my grin.

“This,” he replied.

I screeched when he leapt up,
wrapped me in his arms and then laughed when he began to tickle my sides. My mouth opened wide with surprise as tears escaped my eyes because of the forgotten sensation.

Cain
flipped us around so I was pinned beneath him.

Giggles stuttered my breath until I realized his teasing fingers had stopped to grip the sheets on either side of my head. Slowly
, he lowered his hips onto mine and I gasped as we molded perfectly together.

“Much as I would rather st
ay right here with you all day,” he began in a playful tone, “I have to go back to work. Seems like the storm cleared up enough for them to clear the roads and the Man don’t wait.” He breathed in deeply, hesitated and I could feel the weight of things unsaid through our connection. Tenderly, he leaned down to taste my lips once again.

No better farewell could I have dreamed of in all my hundreds of lifetimes.

I watched as he readied for the day and he watched me as if any second he feared I would disappear.

He gave instruction
s as he rushed from room to room. “I’ll lock up the doors behind you. Don’t leave for any reason, not even if someone bangs on that door screaming, you hear me? We don’t need anybody asking questions until I know that guy you keep mentioning ain’t coming after you. But if anything happens you can go across the hall to my neighbor, Ms. Nguyen, for help. She’s a real cool lady and won’t ask any questions.”

It was a pity he had to throw so
many layers over his fine chest, I decided as he dressed. From my current vantage point, I could not understand how Lissa ever chose another over him.

“Club ain’t opening tonight so I shoul
d be back around five, okay?” Cain stood at the foot of his bed, fully dressed for what I knew was to be grueling work. Hopefully the sun had done its work and he wouldn’t suffer too much.

I nodded, then said,
“I’ll be fine. I’m stronger than I look.”

He turned to leave,
braced his weight against the doorframe with his hands, and then rapped it twice. “Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you later.”

I
nodded eagerly as I gathered my bare legs against my chest and watched his breath catch in his throat. Cain seemed to struggle only another moment before crossing the room in three swift strides. With practiced ease he grabbed me by the waist and hauled me up into his arms for another heart-pounding kiss.

I didn’t know if I could survive any more of these. Already I felt myself breaking into pieces at the thought of wa
tching Lissa fall into his arms and the day I would be forced to walk away from him forever. So I kissed him back. I dragged my fingernails over his short-cropped hair and pressed my forehead to his.

“Please don’t leave me,” h
e whispered and I nodded.

If only I could tell him the truth.

After ages
spent living like a wraith, walking through walls and drifting through floors and ceilings, I wanted to try something new. Minutes after Cain left, I donned my dress and one of his smaller leather jackets for protection against the cold. After stuffing my cloak into one of the deep inside jacket pockets I walked through the door.

A
mashed hubbub of people filtering through the building awaited me on the other side. Cain’s flat was on the fourth floor and the stairs connecting the top and lower levels were close to his door. Several people had gathered in the hall and were whispering in hushed voices, glancing about with suspicious eyes. Children chased each other up and down the stairs and somewhere the baby we often heard was wailing.

I knew I must look crazy standing there grinning like an idiot, but it had been so long since I
had felt like I
belonged
anywhere.

“You need something, sugar?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin, but was more surprised I hadn’t noticed the tiny woman approach until she was already standing in front of me. Her dark, eastern eyes appraised me with calculated intensity. She stood at least a head shorter than me. Her silver-streaked black hair was twisted and held in place by a scarf and her wardrobe looked to be from a time gone by. But there was mischief in the twist of her ruby lips. She puffed her cigarette with glee, sizing me up as if I were a brand-new doll.

“Well
, you just gonna stand there all day?” She used the thickly smoking stick to point at me before taking another drag.

If anything my smile only grew as I replied,
“Ms. Nguyen, right?” When the woman made no move to reply, I tried again. “Cain told me you were a friend.”

The aged woman waved
away the haze that was drifting between us and cackled. “Friends, eh? Well I guess so. Used to be, people who called me friend were paying me for the hour. Good thing my no-good ex made me respectable, huh?”