Worlds of Obsession (Celtic Otherworlds) (16 page)

Chapter 16

             
Back in his own room, Bastien shoved off his jeans and collapsed back onto the bed.  He was still keyed up and there was no way he would be getting any more sleep.  His cock throbbed as if in agreement, and he scrubbed his hands over his face again and stared at the ceiling.  Liv had gotten under his skin somehow, in a big way, and he didn’t know what to do about that.  If she were his female, it would be simple:  he would go to her room and tell her she belonged to him.  Then he would take her, as many times and in as many ways as he wanted.  He would slowly undress her… no, he would tear her clothes off, because he wouldn’t be able to wait another second to be buried deep inside her body.  Anything slow would come later, after he had taken the edge off.  Then he would thrust into her, all the way to the hilt in one long, delicious stroke, and she would take him all and cry out with the pure ecstasy of it. 

He remembered, even after all this time, how good it felt to sink into a woman’s soft flesh and forget everything else but
pleasure.  Bastien took his cock into his fist and a frustrated groan rumbled in his throat.  Unfortunately for him, Fomoirian males needed to be inside a female to climax.  Another damned quirk of their biology, and one that was particularly aggravating for a male with a painfully hard erection and no female to relieve it.  Damned if he hadn’t been tossed out of one personal hell and into another.  He wondered if this new hell might ultimately be much worse than the first.

             
As he lay waiting for sleep or the dawn, whichever came first, he thought about Liv.  She was so unlike most of the other females he’d ever met.  She was strong and adventurous and smart.  Intuitive, and unafraid.  And lovely beyond compare… sensual, sexual… perfect.  Everything he could ever have wanted in a female, and more.  Fuck, this was not helping!  His gaze landed on the door to her room, and wondered if he should perhaps chain himself to the bed to keep from going through it.  Knowing that she was so close and that he couldn’t go to her only made him realize how lonely he was… had been, for a very long time.  He barely knew Liv Johnston, yet when he was with her, he wasn’t lonely anymore.

***

              Liv was angry.  Yes, that was the only way to describe what she was feeling right now.  Except perhaps
frustrated
.  Yes, throw that in there too.  Mere moments ago she had been experiencing the most amazing, toe-curling, panty-melting kiss she could ever have imagined, so good that she wondered now if she
had
imagined it, and now she was lying alone in her bed.  Discarded.  Abandoned.  He
had
to have known she was putty in his hands.  What man turned down sex?  Unless… oh god!  She had never even considered whether he had a girlfriend.  Or a wife. The though made her stomach clench, even though she knew the fact that he was apparently some sort of
demon
should probably be outweighing whether he was married in her mental freak-out.  It wasn’t.  She had known there was something different about Bastien from the moment she saw him, and truth be told, she had always known there was something different about her, too.  Somehow, all of this felt more natural to her than anything before.  She still had a lot of tough questions, and her true parentage topped that list with a star on either side.  But… she was going to be okay.  Strangely, never in her life had she felt more comfortable and at peace with herself than she did right now.  The
rightness
of it all was settling over her like a soft, warm blanket, and she finally fell asleep knowing without a doubt that she was right where she was meant to be.

              The next day, Liv woke up long after sunrise, and though there was no clock in the room, she had a feeling it was late enough that she had already missed breakfast.  She took a shower, pulled on her jeans without any underwear, put on her bra, and decided her shirt was just too gross to wear again.  She filled the sink with water and soap and put her dirty shirt and panties in to soak.  Maybe Bastien had something she could wear, after all it was his fault that she was here with no clothes.  Or here at all, for that matter. 

She knocked on the door between their rooms, but there was no answer. 
She tried the knob and found it unlocked, so she went in, her gaze taking everything in, as she realized how little she actually knew about him.  Almost nothing, really. 

The bed wasn’t made, and the sheets were tangled up into a tight ball, as if he’d had a very restless night.  Well, good.  So had she.  His bag was sitting on the foot of the bed, so she went over and peeked inside,
rifling through his clothing and pulling out a black tee.  Apparently, black tees were the only shirts he owned.  She pulled it over her head, and though it was far too big, it was better than nothing.  And it smelled faintly of
him
… her eyes moved to the pillow he had slept on last night.  Without another thought, she picked it up and pressed it against her face, breathing in his scent.  Almost immediately, her heart picked up its pace, and a rush of heat hit her hard between her thighs.  Wow, this guy had some potent pheromones.  She put the pillow back reluctantly and set out to find Bastien.  They really needed to talk and get some things straight.

             
She found Conan instead.  He was in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables.

             
“So you’re the cook around here too?” she asked with a smile.

             
He smiled back.  “Only sometimes.  Bastien is out, but he’ll be back a little later.  Is there anything that you need?  Some breakfast?”

             
“Thanks, but I’m not all that hungry.  Can I help you cut those up?  I really have nothing else to do.”

             
“If you’d like.”  He handed her a knife and pushed a pile of carrots in her direction.

             
Liv cut the carrots methodically, trying to make each slice the same size.

             
“Conan, can I ask you something?”

             
“Of course, lass.  What is it you want to know?”

             
“This is a huge house… er, castle, is it always so empty?”

             
“No… no this is kind of the off-season.  Sometimes we have quite a few guests.”

             
“And you take care of them all by yourself?”

             
“Oh heavens, no.  When we anticipate a crowd, there are other employees who can be here on short notice, but I’m the permanent… caretaker, if you will.”

             
“Well, it certainly is beautiful here.  Is Bastien married?” 
Way to be subtle, Liv
.  But she needed to know.

             
Conan stifled a little laugh.  “No… Bastien doesn’t have a wife.”

             
“Ow!  Shit!”

             
Conan dropped what he was doing and rushed over.  “What is it lass?”

             
Liv grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her finger.  “Nothing.  Just a cut.  Ewww… I think I got blood on the carrots though.  Do you have a Band-Aid?”

             
Conan looked confused.  “Why would we have any Band-Aids here?  There aren’t any humans.”

             
Seriously?
  “In case someone gets a cut?”

             
He pulled her hand into his.  “Let me see.”  He unwrapped the towel and though there was a spot of blood on the cloth, there was no sign of the cut that caused it.  “You see?  All better.”

             
Liv turned her hand over and over, looking for the place she had just cut herself, but it was nowhere to be found.  Not even a scratch.  “But there was blood…”

             
Now Conan looked confused and
worried
.  “Yes…” he said slowly.  “But you’ve healed.”

             
She shook her head.  “Instantly?  Nobody heals that fast.  Wait… what is going on here, why aren’t you surprised?”

“There’s nothing strange about it lass, we all heal that quickly.  See?”  He took the knife and drew it swiftly across his thumb
, making Liv draw back and screech.  But no sooner had the deep red blood welled up, than the cut started to disappear.  Until it was gone, closed up like it had never been there at all.  Conan wiped the drop of blood on a towel and smiled at her reassuringly.  “Nothing strange about that.”

             
“But I’ve been cut before, lots of times, I’ve never healed that quickly…”

             
“But you were younger, perhaps not yet mature.  Did you not have someone older to heal your cuts for you?  Now that you have come of age, your body can heal itself.”

             
“Just like that?”

             
“Just like that.”

             
Liv swayed slightly on her feet, her mind dizzy. 
Gran
.  Did Gran know about all this?  Who
was
she?  Definitely not the person she’d always thought she was.  She thought back on all the times she’d asked about her parents, and all the times Gran had neatly evaded her questions, usually with the promise of cookies or a trip to the park.  Truthfully, she knew nothing at all about her own past.  Nothing about her own family.  Her entire life was now just one big mystery.  Lately she had spent way too much time asking either ‘who are you?’ or ‘what am I’, or vice versa.

“Conan?”

              “Yes?”

             
“I think I need to lie down.”

             
He brought her down a hall to a comfortable looking room with a sofa, and she collapsed onto it.

             
“Is there anything I can bring you lass?  Some water?”

             
“I think I just need to be alone for a minute…”

             
Liv closed her eyes.

              The war hammer was falling, coming closer and closer, swung by the huge arms of something… monstrous.  She tried to roll out of the way, but hands latched on to her ankles and she skidded to a stop in the thick mud.  The hammer fell.  She felt the sting of the beginning of the blow, and she knew it was all over.  “Bastien!”  She called out with her last breath, or at least in her mind, she did.  The next thing she knew, she was in a dimly lit room with stone walls.  Waxy, dripping candles burned in ornate iron fixtures, and huge, colorful tapestries hung on the walls.  She went over to the largest one for a closer look.  It was a finely woven depiction of a woman, lying in the mud with her throat slashed on one side, a few trickles of blood just reaching one breast.  Liv screamed.

             
“Wake up!” 

Someone was shaking her. 
Liv’s eyes flew open and she drew in a breath to scream again.

“No…
Liv it’s me.  Bastien.  You were dreaming.  It’s all right now, you’re safe.  You’re safe.”  He was stroking her hair, his fingers running through the thick strands without thought as he searched her face, and she collapsed against his chest with a little sob.  “Tell me about it, baby.”

“No… I… it was only a dream.  I… I’m sorry I
bothered you.”

             
“You didn’t.  I was just in the kitchen.”  His hands tangled in her hair and stilled, pulling her a little closer, a little tighter.

             
She felt the deep rumble of his voice where her cheek was pressed against him, and the warmth of his body and his clean, masculine scent filled her senses.  Her heart started to beat faster, as it always did when she was near him.  She looked at her hand, where it was laid against his chest, the dusky light making her skin look white beside his dark colored shirt.  “Thank you… I mean, for coming to check on me.  I don’t mean to be so much trouble.  If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even have to be here… maybe you should just let me leave?”

             
He let out a long breath.  “Maybe I should at that.  But I find that… I don’t really want to.  Not yet.” 
Perhaps not ever.

             
“I don’t want to leave, either”, she admitted softly.  “But I… I want to get to know you Bastien, really know you.  But the thing is, sometimes I have the strangest feeling that I already do.  It makes no sense to me, that I’ve trusted you from the very beginning, even when you practically kidnapped me.  I have no idea why.”

             
“Some things in this world just never make sense, no matter how hard we try to see them as they really are.  I feel the same way about you, Liv, like I know you more than I should.”

             
“How old are you?”

             
Bastien gave her a crooked smile.  “Do you really want to know?”