Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) (4 page)

“
W
hat a douche
.” Marissa couldn’t help the phrase after she heard his comment to Belle. Here he was, asking for her, checking her out, and making a pass at Belle. Douche, for sure. Completely disinterested in interaction or conversation, she spun around, going back to her onions, tears, and thoughts. Except she wasn’t that lucky. Belle followed her, the door swinging in and out on its hinges, in and out again after Belle released it.

“He’s hot. Like, wow. Hot. Have you ever—”

“No,” Marissa interrupted, trying to keep her tone even, but her foul mood was worsening after that encounter. She shouldn’t take it out on Belle, though. “He’s probably a cheater, just like every other...”

Marissa didn’t feel the need to finish her sentence. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The whole time she was griping, Belle was gushing. Normally Belle would stop to tell her that not all men were like her ex. That some men were good. But not today. Today she was too busy gushing.

Gushing about how hot this new guy was. Gushing about his pecs, his ass, his eyes, his arms, his face—everything. Marissa fought the impulse to tell her to stifle it.

In the dining room, the phone rang.

And again.

And again.

It didn’t look like Belle was going to answer it.

Marissa wiped her hands on the towel, ran to the dining room and picked up the cordless phone. “Two West Two.”

“Ms. Sanchez?”

Him. His voice. Finn. She recognized his voice.

She coughed. Then she couldn’t stop. What the hell? What was wrong with her? And why was he calling her? She croaked out a “Yes?”

“I just wanted to apologize for upsetting you this morning. Not my intent, at all.”

Why would he call her to apologize? Why not simply tell her when he came back to get dessert, as he’d told Belle he was going to do?

Maybe he didn’t want Belle to know he was talking to her? Player. Cheater. Douche. Marissa dismissed him from her mind. “You’re fine.” Okay, not the thing she’d meant to say, not the way it could be interpreted. “What I meant was, it’s fine. No problem.”

There was silence on the phone. He either wasn’t speaking, or he’d hung up, or they’d been disconnected.

Either way,
she shrugged, and hung up the phone.

Marissa tripped over a backpack on the floor in front of the counter. She picked it up, then dropped it behind the counter next to the cash register and headed back to the kitchen.

“I kind of like him.” Belle was droning on—still, as if Marissa hadn’t just left the room.

As if the ass hadn’t just called Marissa and tried to talk to her. As if he hadn’t just tried to sweet-talk her.

As if.

Marissa fought to keep the bitterness she felt at his duplicity from showing. She forced a smile to her face. “I couldn’t tell.” Marissa tried to widen the smile, to make it reach her eyes, to keep from snapping what she wanted to say, which was something along the lines of,
I’m losing my restaurant. I’m losing everything. And you’re drooling over some guy? A douche of a guy, actually. Really?

Okay, she needed an attitude adjustment. She really did. It wasn’t Belle’s fault. It really wasn’t that guy’s fault, either. And Marissa seemed to be affected by him as much as Belle was. Okay, maybe not as much, but a whole lot more than she wanted to be. She shoved the onions into the reach-in, threw the cutting board in the sink, and made her way back to the dining room.

If he showed up to have dessert with Belle, she’d buy his dessert and let Belle sit down and visit with him. They could call it a date. She’d surprise Belle with that nice gesture when he came.

Ugh. She tried to quell a spark of jealousy.

If,
the voice of doubt said.
If he shows, because you know that men don’t follow through.
But Dad always did, she argued with the voice. The one that said everything she never wanted to hear. She hated that voice.

S
he’d hung
up on him. She did. It shouldn’t matter. But yet...

Hunger roared in Finn’s stomach, demanding satisfaction. He ignored it and went back to the hotel room, where at least the temperature would be tolerable compared to the Houston heat and humidity.

He stripped off his human clothing and lay on the cool bedspread, allowing his Asazi form to return. He closed his eyes, but the images of the dark-haired, green-eyed spitfire wouldn’t go away.

Finn reached for the remote, turned on the television and tried to immerse himself in the interests of humans.

He could not. The programming held little of interest, and Marissa would not stop plaguing his mind. He had time to kill before returning to Two West Two
.

Spying the files, he tossed the remote on the bed and sat up. When he flipped the top one open, he found himself looking at that green-eyed vision’s driver’s license photo. Marissa Secilia Sanchez. Target 41. Suddenly, knowing what would happen to the women mattered. He never paid attention to rumors or whispers, especially ones that didn’t concern or involve him, but he’d heard stories about what had happened to human women in the First Wave. His grandmother was an exception, because the Asazi in charge hadn’t counted on his grandfather falling for a human. His grandfather hadn’t even counted on that.

That had changed a few things. First, she was taken out of the isolation that the human women of the First Wave had been put into. She was brought to live with the Asazi, to assimilate. She did a good job, but no other human woman was allowed to do that. She wouldn’t have been, either, except Finn’s grandfather was a top-ranking general in the army. The others weren’t about to tell him no.

Finn had heard that things were different now, that Asazi technology had improved, that the dangers and methodology had changed.
Live female humans are no longer needed. There is no reason to accommodate transporting them.

What in the curses’ name did that mean? If not live females, then—

A brief image of Marissa—pale, eyes clouded over in death—crossed his mind.

He didn’t want to think of that. He looked at the cell phone, wanting to call Kal, to ask for details. He punched the headboard, trying to jar the visual away.

He fought the urge to call Kal, his Asazi sensibilities battling with his human urges, his military training fighting his emotions. He couldn’t call Kal. That would create complications, draw attention to his human qualities, his ability to remain objective. These types of assessments of him would derail his military career. They’d lose respect for him and he’d be lost behind a desk, forever. No assignments, no missions, no excitement, no promotions. Just a dull, dreary, cubicle-centered life.

Then what were his options? He paced the room, picked up the remote again, flipped channels mindlessly.

His image in the mirror caught his eye, actually catching him off-guard. Not because he was in his Asazi form, but because his usual shimmering green hue had been replaced with orange undertones. Green represented calm. These orange undertones were becoming more pronounced with every second.

Orange. The color of anger. A color and an emotion that rarely made its appearance in Finn. He’d always worked hard to control his emotions. And he’d always succeeded. He prided himself on that success.

Evidently he wasn’t succeeding this time. He didn’t want to see his angry orange Asazi color. He’d sooner take on his human form. He muttered a curse, controlled his pulse, manipulating it, beginning the conversion to human once more. His wings folded, receded. His skin became a ruddy human color once more.

He flicked the remote. One channel. The next channel. Another one. And another one. And another.

Loud moans stopped his rapid procession through the channels. A woman was on the screen, one with long dark hair, nude, sitting astride a man, rocking herself on his body. Her head was thrown back, hands cupping, caressing her breasts.

A strange sensation, an unfamiliar one, not unpleasant, tugged at Finn’s groin area. A glance confirmed what he hadn’t yet experienced in his human body. His male member was standing at near-bursting attention. He wrapped a hand around his thickness and was rewarded with a jolt of pleasure.

On the screen the woman dismounted, pushing herself off the man, revealing his own thick, swollen member, glistening with her juices. She leaned over him, and the camera closed in on her face as she lowered her lips and took him in her mouth. A moan erupted from the man.

Finn stroked his erection in the same rhythm that the woman on the screen lowered and raised her head, seemingly swallowing the man’s erection in its entirety. A shudder coursed through Finn’s body and a drop of liquid seeped out from the slit on his pulsing, mushroom-shaped head.

The camera panned away from her face and circled around her body, momentarily focusing on breasts that swayed with every motion as she bobbed her head and swallowed the man’s thickness.

Then the view changed, completing a trip around her body, finally closing in on her sex. Mesmerized, Finn stared at her swollen, dripping center. He stopped stroking, transfixed. As if sensing his need to see more, she spread her legs, revealing a dark pink interior that pulsed and flexed, as if it was playing a peek-a-boo game he couldn’t tear his gaze from.

He hadn’t noticed when he resumed stroking his shaft, fingers firmly wrapped around that swollen part of his body. But he was very aware now that he was doing it, and the faster his hand moved, the shallower his breathing became.

The effect was natural, yet foreign. Asazi didn’t practice these base human actions even though they had the same body parts.

With the Asazi, offspring were designed and planted in order to create better beings, whereas humans left these things to chance and emotions labeled as lust or love. And look where that got them. Nowhere, as far as the Asazi were concerned.

A part of his brain forced his hand to still, but he couldn’t contain it for long. He started again. He couldn’t refrain from the strokes that brought the intense pleasure.

Had it not been for human emotions, be they lust or love, his Asazi grandfather would not have claimed his human grandmother or created his half-human mother.

He pushed those thoughts aside.

A sensation of flying through a vortex seized him. The woman on the screen was remounting the man’s shaft, lowering herself onto him in a smooth, gliding motion, piercing her inner core with his shaft.

Her full posterior was inviting. Finn’s hand moved faster, gripped tighter. The vortex intensified. For reasons he couldn’t understand, green eyes and a set of full breasts crossed his mind. And stayed. Marissa. Target 41.

The vortex spun out of control. Finn ejaculated, filling his hand and exploding onto the dresser.

He sat on the bed, exhausted, drained, confused.

Sleep came easily, but it was short-lived. He awoke to a hotel room that was fully lit and a TV emitting the white noise of static.

Still confused, he knew one thing. Until he was certain of what was in store for Marissa Sanchez, 41, he wasn’t turning her over to his cousin.

He picked up the cell phone and typed an email message to Kal.

Rearranging order. Target 41 out of town. Proceeding to 42.

Finn pressed send and picked up 42’s file.

I
t was almost midnight
. Two West Two
was quiet; everyone was gone. It hadn’t been a busy night, but Marissa was tired. And she was in a bad mood, a hell of a bad mood. If she’d have cared to admit it to herself, part of it was probably attributable to that man. That... She searched for a better word than ‘man’, but couldn’t bring herself to call him a douche again, even in her own mind, especially since he stirred up a whole mess of feelings inside her. Conflicted feelings. Confusing ones, too, since she didn’t get where they came from or why they existed.

It had to be a combination of stress, fatigue, and shock from all this crap. What else could it be?

The guy called Finn hadn’t come back to the restaurant. He hadn’t come for dessert with Belle. Nor did he come for the backpack that Belle said belonged to him. Marissa glanced at the black and gray backpack. She wanted to know what was in it. Yes, she was curious about this man.

But she shouldn’t. No, she shouldn’t. She put her hand on the zipper.
You know better than to open other people’s stuff, even if you’re curious.
She yanked her hand back.

But what if it held some information that would help her get it back to him? Should she look in there to find it?
You know better. You just want to pry, maybe even see him again.

She didn’t want to admit to that, so she turned away from the backpack. He’d come back for it if it was important.

But what if it contained medicine that he needed? Like, if he was a diabetic or had heart issues?

A body like that?
Her inner voice scoffed.
As if that body would need medicines.
His image flashed through her mind. That was a fact.

She reached for the light switch, banishing Finn’s body and face from her mind. A good night’s rest would give her a fresh perspective.

And maybe give you some answers to your problem.

That was true. She had no more clue what to do about the restaurant than she’d had this morning when that jackass at the bank had jerked the rug out from under her feet.

What could she do, though? Nothing. She scrubbed at her face with hands that hurt from chopping vegetables and carrying large entrée plates all day. Yep, there was nothing she could do.

Or was there? Surely she could do something about it? Couldn’t she? If she had the money to buy the chunk of property the landlord was selling, the chunk that included Two West Two. Wouldn’t that solve the problem?

Maybe, maybe not. There was still the issue with the declining business.
Yeah, but what if I offered catering? Hired a catering manager?

Sure, with what money?

That again. It all boiled down to money, didn’t it?

The door chimed.

What the hell. James hadn’t locked the front door when he left. Marissa froze. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the bat by the register.
Like that’ll help if the intruder has a gun.

“Marissa?”

That voice. She knew that voice. Joey. Her ex. She released her grip on the bat, her fingers still stiff from fear. “Yeah.” Her voice betrayed her anxiety. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.

“Why is the door unlocked? You need to talk to James about that.”

“I know. What do you want?” She couldn’t keep the civility from draining from her tone. She had no reason to be nice to him.

“Nice to see you, too.” Sarcasm colored his voice. He raised his hand, holding a bottle of wine. “Your favorite.” He was still hot. Corporate hot. Conservative hot. Not dangerous hot.

And just like that, her mind flew to Finn. Dangerous, hot Finn. “I hate wine.”

He tilted his head, the sexy way that used to drive her crazy. “Since when? You loved it when we were together. You drank it every time I bought it.”

That head tilt might have driven her crazy, but she remembered the shit she’d put up with from him. “You never asked. It’s all you bought. I indulged you.”

He put his hand over his heart, as if he was wounded, mortally wounded. “Ouch. Way to make me feel like a heel.” But there was still a twinkle in his eye.

Marissa was ready for him to be gone. “Why? Because you cheated on me?”

He recoiled, as if he was shocked she’d bring it up, or remember, or hold it against him. As if. “Does that keep us from being friends?”

“I’m not sure we ever were friends. Friends don’t rip their friend’s heart out over a piece of ass he met at the gym.”

Joey nodded. Acknowledging her point, probably not conceding it, if she knew him. “Just one drink. Come on. I know you’re having a rough time.”

Marissa pushed the tip jar to the corner of the counter. She’d let Belle handle that later.

Wait. Wait. What? What did he mean? “Exactly what kind of rough time is it you think I’m having?” She yanked the scrunchie out of her hair, releasing the curls, and scrubbed the tension away with her fingertips, all that without taking her eyes off Joey. Waiting, waiting for an answer to her question.

His Adam’s apple did a bob. She knew that bob oh-so-well. Joey was working on an answer.

She tapped on the cupboard, studied her nails. Damn, they looked bad. She missed the days of French manicures, of pampering. Yeah, well, that was a long time ago.

“Well?” she prodded Joey.

“I went to school with Rudy.”

Rudy. The a-hole at the bank. The one whose desk she’d hoped she’d scuffed.

“Your friend sucks.”

“It’s not exactly in his control, you know.”

“Why the hell is he discussing my private business with someone it doesn’t concern?”

“Wow, Marissa. You’re not retracting your claws in the least today.” He took a few paces in her direction, then detoured to the server station, where he picked out a corkscrew and two wine glasses. “It’s not a conspiracy or anything like that. Anyway, I thought maybe I could help.”

“Really? Like, what kind of help?” She didn’t trust him in the least. If Joey’s mouth was moving, he was lying. “You’re in car sales. What are you gonna do? Give me a job selling cars?”

He turned the corkscrew into the cork. Twisted it out and set it down. “Well, yeah, I guess, if that’s what you want. But I was thinking of something else. Something to help you keep Two West Two
.
”

He had her attention now, though she still wasn’t ready to buy whatever he was selling. “Keep talking.”

“I could give you the money, and you could make me a partner.”

Marissa opened her mouth to tell him there was no way in hell she’d sign any part of her father’s business over to him.

He raised his hand, stopping her before she’d even begun her protest. “There’s another option. Hear me out.”

She waved her hand like a cop controlling traffic, leading him forward. “Go on.”

“Marry me.”

“What?” She couldn’t have heard him correctly. Couldn’t have. There was no way. “Marry you? Why the hell would I want to do that? Why the hell would you?”

He took a sip of the wine he’d poured, then sauntered to the counter, still the same old cocky Joey, and handed her a glass. “Why don’t you just think about it before you give me an answer?”

Marissa set the glass down. She wasn’t even remotely interested in drinking wine. She hated wine. It gave her a headache. And right about now, Joey was giving her one too.

His option wasn’t quite the option he thought it was. It wasn’t the option that anyone who didn’t know Joey would think it was.

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Shuffling sounds made her hope that Joey was leaving. Without stopping or even opening her eyes, she said, “Lock the door, please.”

Taking a short nap on the cot in the back sounded good right about now.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump. She’d thought he was leaving, not walking her way. The hand resting on her other shoulder wasn’t quite the same shock, but when the hands started to travel down the sides of her body, cupping the sides of her breasts before drifting to her hips, she had to put the brakes on.

“Joey, I can’t even think straight. Give me some time.”

“Think about my offer.” His voice was soft in her ear. The same voice that used to make her body react to his touch.

He brushed his lips over hers.

She didn’t open her eyes until she heard the door latch and click.