7. The Shower Scene
The Shower Scene
Silk sheets, candles, me standing in red lingerie, and Micah, wrapped in shadows, so close I can’t breathe.
Every dream I’ve ever had is about to come true. I know he can hear my heart pounding, and I let it show him how I feel. How I’ve always felt.
He grasps my arms, and a shiver shoots down my spine. I lean forward as his eyes drift to my barely covered breasts. They darken with intent, and then his mouth is lowering toward mine.
But that’s not how it happened, and shame floods me as I thrash in my tangled sheets seven years later.
I almost scream at the figure looming over me as my eyes fly open. My hand automatically reaches for the gun loaded with silver-tipped wood bullets resting on my bedside table.
In reality, a Vamp or a Lyco could rip me apart before I got off a shot, but it gives me a sense of comfort and control to have it close.
As my head clears from my unsettled sleep, I realize an attacker would have set off all my alarms if they had managed to get past both the bio-scanner and retinal scanner at my front door. My micro would be going crazy.
‘That’s not exactly the reception I was hoping for.
’ Jake’s smile is decidedly wolfish as he takes in my sleep-tousled hair and his t-shirt that only covers so much of me because of his height.
I’m not exactly short, and it rests just below my thighs, and I can see his appreciation of the amount of leg on display.
My adrenaline rush subsides slowly as I blink on the holo-lights in my bedroom.
Jake scents the air, and I know what his heightened senses are telling him.
I smell of the need that built in my sleep, which is still pounding through me.
Damn Micah to all seven circles of hell.
I see him once, and it all comes flooding back.
Before my boyfriend can question why I’m so turned on, I lunge at him. But instead of plastering my mouth to his, I run my hands frantically over him. He grabs them and holds them against his chest. That’s when I realize he’s wearing the same clothes he was in jail.
‘Thank God,’ is all I can manage to get out of my constricted throat, before I burst into tears.
The past thirty-six hours catch up with me in an avalanche as I grip his worse-for-wear t-shirt like a lifeline. I don’t need to be strong for him. I can be just Eve, the worried girlfriend. Later, I will be Detective Sinclair and get him off the murder charge.
Jake licks my tears, his canines scraping against my cheek. His eyes have gone feral, a glowing amber-green, as if there’s a physical threat against me. The hairs on my body stand up, and it’s not from fear. Sometimes, the Protective Alpha thing really does it for me.
The mood in my bedroom instantly shifts. Jake gives me a short, bruising kiss, then steps away from my bed, leaving me kneeling in front of him, sheets tangled beneath me.
‘I have something to ask you,’ he says, his eyes still glowing. ‘But first, I need a shower. Care to join me?’
He doesn’t need to ask me twice.
Somehow, he maneuvers us into the bathroom with his mouth devouring mine. The water is on, our clothes strewn across the tiled floor in moments.
Running my hands over his shoulders, chest, down to the tightly-packed muscles in his abs, I feel a mix of desperate need and relief.
Jake rakes his eyes over my body, hands molding to my breasts, teasing me until my head tips back against the wall and I arch into his touch. My hand drifts lower until I can grasp him, pumping up and down to the sound of his feral groans.
But when he starts to drop to his knees, I stop him. As much as I want his lips and tongue and canines tipping me over the edge, I want him inside me more. This isn’t the time for a slow build-up of desire.
My gorgeous boyfriend holds me up easily as he takes me against the shower wall, sinking into me so deep I’m not sure where he ends and I begin. There’s nothing gentle in it, as if we both need the release of tension, the proof he’s really out of jail, that we will make it through this nightmare.
Every thrust sends me spiraling higher, fire sparking in my veins.
I hold onto his shoulders, his hands on my hips to anchor me as I ride him.
Jake slips one hand between us, right where I need him most, and I unravel with his name on my lips.
Lightning shoots through me as I clench around him, and with a roar, he spills into me.
He captures my mouth, working me through the last of my orgasm until my legs are shaking around his waist, and he’s the only thing holding me up.
‘You paid my bond,’ Jake says once we’re toweled off and dressed. It’s a statement, but I hear the undertone of a question.
He’s sitting at my kitchen counter while I brew some extremely strong coffee. If the shower didn’t wash away the last of the sleep and my unsettling dreams from me, the smell of caffeine does.
I almost deny it, but what’s the point of semantics? He can find out easily enough, and I don’t want to keep this from him.
‘Not exactly,’ I hedge, deciding how I want to play it, how much to reveal.
‘Where did the five million come from, Eve?’ Jake’s voice is dangerously low.
I have my back turned, pretending to adjust the coffee machine. But I can hear the Alpha in his voice, the sheer overwhelming dominance. It’s not a tone he usually uses with me.
‘I’m not stupid, so don’t treat me like I am,’ he says with a growl.
Spinning around, coffee forgotten, I school my face as I answer, barely holding back from crossing my arms. He’s leaning his forearms on the countertop, golden-brown hair damp against his neck. My past is not his fault, and I can’t take it out on him. He has a right to know the truth.
‘Fine. If you must know, I got it from Micah Saint James,’ I say as casually as I can manage, as I banish thoughts of Micah.
No big deal.
‘You just went to the head of the New York Coven, one of the most powerful Vampires alive, and he gave you five million in crypto?’ Disbelief wars with suspicion, and I can’t blame him.
‘Yes,’ I answer, focusing on the sound of the coffee beans grinding behind me to keep my cool.
‘Care to tell me why he would do that?’ Jake’s eyes were pure Wolf, green flecked with amber, his lengthened canines showing, hands clenched at his sides as if he’s afraid his claws will burst out. I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that he knows more than I’ve told him.
Now would be the perfect time to come clean.
Only Ruby and Micah know of my teenage crush, my complete humiliation, and the reason I left the Coven and Micah behind.
But over the years, I think Jake suspects something more than the party line I throw out.
He knows Micah saved me the night my parents were murdered, but I’ve been deliberately vague about the finer details of my involvement with the Coven.
And I have never mentioned living at Micah’s castle with him.
Not in the three years Jake and I have been in a committed relationship.
‘I guess because I asked nicely,’ I try to play it off with a shrug and a smile that falls woefully short.
I can see his battle with the Wolf prowling close to the surface, but he’s never lost it with me. I’ve never been afraid of him, of the animal beneath his skin. Not once.
‘He doesn’t want a Pack war in his city. He’s getting the Vamps to put their ears to the ground to see what they pick up,’ I tell my boyfriend, hoping to defuse the escalating situation with a reasonable excuse.
‘And what was the price? What does he get for his five million? And don’t tell me world peace. War between Janus’s Pack and my own won’t impact the Vamps all that much.’ Jake’s body is still, controlled, but I can see the battle on his face, the primal violence in his eyes.
Freezing, every thought eddies from my mind. I can see him assuming the worst, and I know I have to say something. Just not the whole truth. Not while I’m still confused about my far too vivid dream earlier.
Because I don’t want Jake to know I was rejected, not because of any residual feelings I have for Micah.
‘Dinner,’ I force out. ‘He gets one dinner with me.’
My Werewolf boyfriend moves faster than I can see, leaning over me with both hands on the counter, hemming me in. Normally, it would be hot. Even knowing Jake, knowing he loves me, fear slides like ice down my spine.
‘And you agreed?’ He’s not usually territorial about me. We don’t have that kind of relationship. I’ve seen it with other Weres, both male and female, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
‘It’s one meal. And he doesn’t even eat, so it’ll be quick.’ I try once again to diffuse the tension that’s ratcheting unchecked between us. This is not a version of Jake I know. I feel strangely off balance. Part of me wants to snap that I can eat dinner with whoever the hell I want.
‘Why don’t you finally tell me exactly what happened between you and that Vampire.’ His voice is a low growl as his claws punch out, digging into my countertop.
I only just stop myself from flinching. Apparently, he didn’t find my comment amusing. I’ll deal with the damage to my kitchen later.
‘I’ll assume the stress of the last day is to blame for you treating me as if I’m one of your Pack.
Because I’m not. I’m a fucking detective.
And your girlfriend. And you are not my Alpha.
’ If he wasn’t my boyfriend, I would be afraid right now instead of the feminine rage coursing through my veins.
Shit, I said detective first. I’m only making this worse. Time for some truth. Time to let Jake in. My anger exhales like a deflated balloon.
‘I don’t know.’ Placing my hands against his chest, I meet his hazel eyes with my green ones.
The claws retract as his arms come around me in apology. This is not the time to be fighting. I have a murder to solve, and he has a Pack to reassure.
‘I don’t know why he wants dinner after all this time.
I haven’t seen him in seven years.’ Jake’s hands move up and down my back soothingly as I suck in a deep breath and let it out.
‘You know Micah saved me the night my parents died. For some reason, he felt responsible for me, and I lived with the Coven for a while. And then at his castle, when it was too hard for the newer Vamps to have a human constantly in their faces.’
I never wanted to put Micah in an untenable position if one of them lost control because of me.
And secretly, I’d wanted him all to myself.
At seventeen, I’d been half in love with him.
By the time we moved to the castle when I was nineteen, I was completely in love.
Ruby calls it trauma bonding. I do not tell Jake that part.
He holds me tighter, my cheek pressed against his clean blue t-shirt.
He knows this part, the bare bones of my origin story.
Like Batman, only my parents were murdered in an alley by a rogue Vamp, and we weren’t loaded.
I have no idea how Micah knew what was happening, but if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be alive.
‘I had a small crush on him,’ I finally admit, my voice muffled against Jake’s hard chest.
His arms feel protective now, with no sign of his claws.
After three years together, he deserves to know the truth.
Well, the PG version of the truth. There’s no way he ever needs to know how I tried to seduce a several-thousand-year-old Vampire.
Just the thought of that night has my cheeks heating uncomfortably.
‘I was nineteen, what the hell did I know about love?’ I laugh, but even I can hear the bitter thread that runs through it. ‘In the end, I had to leave. To make my own way and follow my dreams.’
‘And become the badass detective who started the entire PPS.’ Jake pulls back, brushing my damp hair off my heated cheeks.
With a huffed laugh, I move away and busy myself with the espresso machine.
‘I did not start it,’ I refute as I tamp the ground coffee, set the portafilter, and concentrate on the extraction. ‘You make it sound as if I’m some vigilante going after justice.’
Without the mask, cape, or cool Batmobile. Or the billions that go with it. A friend at the Coven loved the old movies, and the story is still so popular that they continue to make holos about Batman and his own unique brand of justice more than two hundred years after the comics first came out.
Jake eyes me knowingly and smirks, one hip against the counter as I froth the milk. The ugly tension hovering between us breaks like a dam.
‘Can we agree that the PPS was your idea, my beautiful, incredible, persuasive girlfriend?’ He drops a kiss onto my forehead as I hand him the coffee.
I can’t argue with him about that. I put together the proposal for a special Paranormal Squad and pitched it to Butch Buchanan because I knew he would go for it.
And the higher-ups who made all the important decisions in New York saw the merit in it.
Implementing the first-ever PPS placated the humans, kept track of those with supernatural powers, and took the pressure off all the other detective units.
It definitely helped that I’d lived with Vampires for two years, and they trusted me- as much as Vamps trust anyone. And it was how I met Jake.
‘He’s a fucking idiot.’ Jake eyes me over the rim of his coffee, a smirk on his decadent lips.
It takes me a moment to understand he’s talking about Micah.
I’m not touching that comment with a sixty-foot pole.
First, he’s jealous, and now he thinks Micah is an idiot for not doing something about my crush.
But it feels as if we’re back on track after a small derail, so I dismiss the damage to my kitchen and what caused it.
‘You should go see your Pack. I have a lot of important things to do today, getting your ass off a murder rap.’ As I smirk at him, happiness radiating from every atom of my body and soul.
‘Soon.’ Jake’s low growl makes my toes curl and heat gather in my core.
Placing his coffee down with intent, he moves closer so that he towers over me. His eyes go feral, pure Alpha Werewolf, and I pull him against me with a laugh as his mouth crashes onto mine.