The Taking (23 page)

Regan saw the fierce look of determination on Felix’s face and swallowed her protest instead of him. Falling back onto the bed, she had barely hit the mattress when he was inside, entering her with a brutal thrust that had her gasping.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes lolling into the back of her head, her fingers fluttering in the air, their path toward his hair forgotten.

“Open your eyes,” he said in that rough voice she had gotten accustomed to, as he moved inside her with hard rhythmic pushes.

Regan forced her eyes open and looked into his cerulean ones.

It was at that moment, when her orgasm burst, and his followed on the heels of hers, that she fell deeper into the abyss of pleasure than she ever had in her entire life.

Regan wasn’t sure what the rules on cuddling with Felix were, so she lingered on her side of the bed, satisfied and replete enough that it didn’t even really bother her that they weren’t touching. He had just kissed, sucked, and caressed her enough to save her from touch deprivation for the next year.

Except that Felix reached over and pulled her onto his chest. Even better.

“How long have you had your shop?” she asked, curious about him, about his lifestyle, his beliefs. He fascinated her, and she loved to hear him talk.

“Forever.” His thumb skimmed her upper arm.

Well, that was specific. “Were you raised in New Orleans?”

“Yes. On North Rampart Street”

“Really? That’s such a different world from the suburbs, so exotic almost. I don’t think I know anyone who was raised in the Quarter. What did your parents do for a living?”

“My dad was a businessman, but he didn’t live with us. I don’t think his wife would have appreciated him living with his lover and their illegitimate child.”

No, that was not a suburban family arrangement. It shocked her, but Felix didn’t say it with any particular emotion. He just sounded sleepy, relaxed.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“For what? It was a long time ago. My parents were together for twenty some years. My father just wasn’t going to divorce his wife for financial reasons. It worked well enough for them.”

Regan pondered that. She didn’t think for one minute she could share her lover with another woman. Call her selfish, but she wanted to be her husband’s priority, his love, his passion. Which made it an even greater mystery why she had married Beau. Then again, that was the picture he had painted for her. The reality had been harshly different. She wondered what marriage to a man like Felix would be like.

Not that it was wise to contemplate that, even in theory. She would just wind up hurt. But that didn’t stop her from snuggling closer to him, caressing his chest with her fingertips the way he was touching her arm.

“Were you raised with voodoo or did you do that on your own as an adult?”

“My mother practiced in secret and she taught me. My father wouldn’t have approved. It wasn’t until he died that I decided to make a living at it.”

“Are you glad you chose this career path? I think it sounds freeing, to be able to take your passion, your beliefs, and earn a living with them.”

“It’s not a career. And if I had to do it all over again, I would change a lot of things. Selling dolls to tourists isn’t fulfilling. That’s not voodoo.”

She raised her head off his chest and looked at him, wanting eye contact, wanting to understand him. But he was staring at the ceiling. “What is voodoo?”

“Do you know,” he said, his fingers still tracing patterns on her skin, “that the voodoo God Danbala is as old as humanity, and as such, he no longer speaks ... he uses the hissing of the snake to communicate. So the chanting of the ceremonies is that of the snake.”

Sometimes in her conversations with Felix, Regan felt like she’d missed a directional signal, indicating they were turning right or left. This was one of those times. “Snakes. Great,” she said. “My favorite.”

“If you listen, it might have something to tell you of value.”

He had definitely gone left and she was still standing in the intersection. “You want me to listen to a snake?”

Felix finally turned and looked at her. “Your snake. Listen to your snake.”

She’d get right on that. Feeling frustrated, Regan said, “This is all new to me, you know. Until I bought this house, I was just an average twenty-nine year old woman who liked to shop for sweater sets and pencil skirts and enjoy a good meal in a nice restaurant. I don’t understand all of this ... otherworldly stuff.”

“Yet you collect cemetery art and believe in ghosts. I don’t think you were ever quite the nonbeliever you’d like to think you were.”

Maybe she didn’t know what she had been. Who she was now. Or where she was going. This divorce was supposed to be a new beginning, the end of drama in her life, and yet she felt like she was being plunged into something bigger than her, in her very own house. Something she didn’t understand at all.

And she was, as of two hours ago, sleeping with a man she didn’t understand at all either.

“Maybe you’re right” Regan rolled off of him and onto her own pillow, suddenly feeling petulant.

“Go to sleep, Regan, and dream of happy things. Dream of playing on the beach with Moira.”

Heart rate jumping, Regan flipped back over and stared at him. “How did you know my sister’s name was Moira? I never told you that.”

He frowned. “I don’t know. You must have told me.”

Not knowing anymore what was real and what was imagined, Regan flopped back down, suddenly wanting to cry. “Did I tell you she died of leukemia when I was four? She was only six. That stuffed monkey was supposed to be buried with her. I was afraid for Moira, being closed in that box, and I didn’t want her monkey to be in the dark either. And I wanted to keep something of her because they told me I’d never be able to see her again. So I took the monkey and hid it before my mom could take it to the funeral home.”

Felix shifted closer to her and brushed her hair off her face. Regan closed her eyes tightly, trying to stave off the tears. She had no idea why she’d just told him that. She had never admitted the full truth of Moira’s monkey to anyone, not even Chris.

“Oh,
cherie,”
he murmured. “I’m so sorry you had such a huge loss at such a young age.”

His lips drifted over her forehead and Regan sighed. It was a relief to finally unburden herself of the truth, even if it didn’t change it.

“It’s time to let go of your guilt. Your guilt for living, for laughing, for keeping a toy when you were young and confused. Just let it go, and do whatever you want with your life.”

Swallowing hard, Regan forced her eyes open. It amazed her that a man she had known for such a brief amount of time could understand her better than her parents or the man she had married.

“Is that what my snake says?” she asked lightly.

Felix smiled. “Yes.”

Then he kissed her, a soft lingering press of his mouth on hers, before retreating to the other side of the bed. “Go to sleep, beautiful Regan. Release your snakes.”

Regan closed her eyes again, and felt Felix’s hand reach over and brush her cheek. Sighing, she quieted her mind and let it all go.

Felix watched Regan sleeping, her hands tucked up under her cheek. He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought her ordinary looking. She was a delicate, ethereal beauty, her compassion in her eyes. She was the kind of woman who loved with all of her heart, even at the risk of having it hurt.

He wasn’t doing her heart any favors by being there with her. She was still vulnerable from her bad marriage, and she was falling for him, he could see it in her expression when she spoke. It was just infatuation, obviously, since that was all women ever felt for him. They merely took, never gave. And it would fade.

Yet with Regan, for the first time since he received his immortality, he was tempted himself. There was something about her unselfishness, the way she asked about him, seemed genuinely and truly interested in him, that was puzzling. Pleasing. It brought to the forefront the loneliness he’d been ignoring and taunted him with possibilities that could never be.

He wanted a woman to love him. To really and truly love him.

But that was something he was never entitled to, what the consequence of his greed was. No woman could love him.

Yet, when he watched Regan, at peace in her sleep ... he ached for her to give him that.

She wasn’t like other women he’d dated, women who simpered and flirted and laughed. Women who thought he was strange, but were willing to overlook it for the sake of hot sex or to brag to their friends that they’d nailed a voodoo practitioner. No woman, then or now, had ever understood him, or even desired to understand him.

Until Regan.

He had been telling the truth about spending the night with women. He had never, not in his entire existence, slept in the same bed all night with any woman. In the previous century, it hadn’t been possible or practical given the strictures of society and the fact that most of his lovers were wealthy white women. Then in later days, he hadn’t wanted to. It was much easier to leave after sex, still in control of his emotions, than to hang around hoping for intimacy that would never arrive.

While he intended to stay the whole night with Regan, it didn’t look like he was actually going to sleep. He was wide awake, body satisfied but mind restless.

By being there with her, he had done something he couldn’t take back, and while he wanted a lot of things—wanted to protect her, wanted to enjoy her company, wanted, wanted, wanted—he was worried.

If his presence caused her pain, he would never forgive himself.

Climbing out of bed, he shook his head at himself. He’d told her about his mother. His parents. He never did that. Never. He wasn’t sure what had possessed him with Regan, except that maybe it was because she was the first to ever ask.

Moving in the dark to the chest of drawers, he touched the cool marble top, looking at the sopping piece of torn paper that he’d tossed on top of the original mailing envelope.

“Camille,” he said, under his breath, so he wouldn’t wake Regan. “Are you here?”

The room was silent. There was no movement at all, including from Felix, as he stood still and listened, watched, felt.

Nothing.

There didn’t seem to be any presence in the room, and the only sound was the soft whisper of Regan’s breathing.

“Camille,” he said again, more forcefully. “Show yourself.”

No response, not even a rustle of a breeze.

He almost walked away, climbed back into bed with Regan, but he realized if he never dealt with the past, how could he ever find a future? Some small, stupid part of him still wanted to believe that one did exist for him. Hope was too strong of a word for it, but if righting the wrongs of the past made the present more tolerable, he would embrace that.

Besides, he owed Camille.

Opening one of the French doors, he glanced back at Regan. She didn’t even shift on the bed, but slept deeply, the covers up to her chin.

He stood in the doorway and faced the room. “Camille, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for any part I had in your pain and suffering. Most of all, I’m sorry for your death. Talk to me. Tell me what it is you want.”

Felix sat down on the floor in the house he should never have entered and waited for an answer.

He never got one.