Chapter Forty-Eight
The following evening, just as the sun was setting over Caldwell and the cold night was coming once again, Allhan rubbed his gritty eyes and shuffled his feet off his bed.
As his bare soles hit the carpet, his head pounded from one hell of a tension migraine so he gripped his toes into the short nap and thought of that old movie Die Hard.
Testing out the theory that you could calm yourself by doing curls with your phalanges, he quickly decided that theory had just been movie magic.
The teeny tiny workout didn’t do anything for the iron lock of stress at the nape of his neck.
But at least he hadn’t done something impulsive and stupid down by the river close to dawn.
In the end, he’d decided to be smart instead of aggressive.
Even as every hot-tempered, testosterone-injected neuron had fired like rifles in his brain, some part of him had kept himself together enough to know that it was a death sentence to go over there.
For Carmen. He didn’t give a damn what happened to him, but if he rushed across the waterway all half-cocked and crazy, against a trained and armed slayer—who clearly had at least one accomplice?
The barely managed seesaw he’d put himself and his sister on was going to tilt into at least one grave.
He needed logic and strategy, not emotion. That was the only acceptable way to proceed, and he’d spent the entire day doing nothing but thinking—
As his phone went off with a text, he closed his eyes and prayed it wasn’t a picture of his sister mutilated beyond recognition.
Except it was his Samsung.
He brought the thing up and saw the number. “Denne…?”
In a scramble to read her message, he nearly dropped the cell, but he managed to sign in.
I need to see you tonight. Come to Sal’s.
“Do not do this,” he said to himself. It was just going to torture them both.
And yet his fingers flew over the screen to respond: Coming soon as can
Unfortunately, a quick check of the time told him that if he went out now, he was going to be toasted into oblivion. In twenty minutes, though? He’d just have a sunburn.
He could live with that.
Heading to the bathroom so he could distract himself, he turned on the shower and checked his face in the mirror. He felt so different inside that it made sense the face staring back at him was that of a stranger.
And not just because he’d been through the change.
As he met his own eyes, he ran his hand over his jaw and then picked up his electric razor. He didn’t have much stubble, so a single pass was all he required. Then he was under the hot rush, and quick about the cleaning, especially when he got to what he’d always referred to as his private area.
His soapy hands paused as he gripped his dick.
Quick, vivid memories of Denne flooded his mind and senses, and the next thing he knew, his palm was sliding up and down his shaft.
With ever increasing speed, he jerked himself from the ridge around his head to the base of his arousal, up and down, faster and faster—
The memory of the sound his female had made in his ear as she started to orgasm kicked off the coming, and he had no idea how many times or how much he ejaculated. He just knew that he had to slap his free hand on the slick wall of the shower to keep from falling as he kept releasing and releasing.
The scent of dark spices that rose up all around him told him everything he didn’t need to know about what he felt for Denne.
He’d overheard the other males at work talking about how it was with bonding, and he now knew it was all true.
If she called on him, for anything, at any time, he was never going to tell her no.
Nineteen minutes later, he was in his uniform of jeans and a hoodie and leaving his room, and the silence out in the living area was once again a relief.
He didn’t want to have to explain why he was going out at a dead run, and besides, there was a very good possibility he was throwing off that telltale scent even after he’d soaped himself down thoroughly.
Well, not as thoroughly as he’d cleaned his damn wanker.
No wonder that was the vernacular for the thing.
Out in the corridor, Allhan rushed to the stairs, and then up-and-outed himself through the series of checkpoints until he was exiting the yellow Colonial’s front door.
He didn’t even bother to hide his dematerialization, and of course he knew the address of the restaurant.
He’d looked it up as soon as he’d gotten back from tossing that kitchen knife into the river for her.
When he re-formed on the roof of Sal’s—because it was the safest option as he didn’t know the layout other than a quick glance at the website—he was relieved to find a parking lot with only one vehicle in it.
A silver truck with black wheels.
Over at the building’s ledge, he jumped down and landed on the snowpack by the rear door. As he tested the handle, the metal panel opened wide—
He scented Denne immediately.
And there she was, stepping out into a corridor.
“Thank you for coming—”
“How could I not—”
There was an intense pause as they both fell silent.
Then they rushed forward at the same time, their mouths meeting with desperate, fumbling passion.
As he kissed her, he had the sense she was drawing him into some kind of office, but it could have been back out into the snow and he wouldn’t have cared.
And even after everything that he’d done to himself in the shower, he was instantly ready for her—and going by the gorgeous perfume of her arousal, he knew it was the same for his female.
Back against a desk, paperwork hitting the floor because she shoved it off. There was a clatter, too—a laptop maybe. Or a lamp? Telephone? Who the fuck knew. Who the hell cared.
Clothes were roughly shed, his hoodie and t-shirt tossed into the corner, his jeans undone—and that was when he lost it, and ripped her button-down clear apart, little disks flying everywhere.
Her breasts were everything he needed to get to and he worshipped her with his mouth as she contorted her lower body and shoved at her black slacks.
“I’m jammed up,” she muttered as she twisted to the side.
While she attacked the laces on her boots, he went with her and stayed on her nipples, sucking at her, pretzeling himself to keep the contact tight. Finally, there was a resounding thump! and then she was pushing her pants off that one foot.
Back on the desk now, her hands at the front of his jeans.
Guiding him. The instant he was inside of her, pure lust took over.
The penetration was hard and deep and fast, and they both shouted.
He had thought he’d never feel this again, and he wanted to savor the experience, adding more memories to the precious few he had.
But his body was live-wire wild, the primal need to mate and mark more powerful than anything in the universe.
While he pounded into her sex, Denne’s nails bit into his bare back to keep her hold on him, especially as he started swinging his hips off the base of his spine so violently that the desk banged against the wall, the sharp metal beat ringing in his ears.
Funny, he didn’t have his headache anymore.
Not even as he clamped his teeth together and strained so much, he had to squeeze his eyes shut or risk having them pop their sockets and hit the concrete behind the desk like tennis balls—
With a hoarse growl, she called out his name, and stiffened from release. And the idea that he had done that to her, given this to her, was all he needed to start orgasming himself.
As he began coming into her, filling her up until she overflowed between her legs, all he thought was how he was right where he needed to be, servicing the female he loved.
Too bad he couldn’t make this a forever.
Denne didn’t give a shit about how hard the desk was under her, or the way her ass squeaked on the fake wood top. She also didn’t care about the laptop she’d shoved off, or the paperwork she’d messed up, or all the reasons that they shouldn’t be doing this.
Never again was she asking for details on the future.
That vow was the only thing she knew. Outside of this male.
Meanwhile, Allhan rode her like a beast, and and the raw, pounding sex was just what she needed. No duty with him. No courtly politeness. No arrangement of stars that might, or might not, be right. This was rank lust and passion, and she was not confused on any level about what they were doing.
As his surging, powerful body locked against her core, and his shaft kicked deep inside her while his come filled her up, everything was crystal clear.
Unfortunately, like all good things, eventually their orgasms slowed to a stop, and then they were just breathing together, their harsh exhales mixing, the still aftermath cooling down the heat.
As she looked up into his face, she stroked his smooth cheek. “You shaved.”
“I did.” He rubbed his jawline and chin against her palm. “I don’t want to scratch you while we… if we…”
“Do the sex?” She smiled, even though pain was just under her surface. “Well, that’s fine, but I would take the beard burn from you anytime.”
His pale blue eyes grew serious. “I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again.”
“Me, neither.”
The kiss they shared now was gentle, reverent. A reminder that passion without love was just body parts, a sneeze that offered nothing more than a brief, biological relief.
“Here, I must be crushing you.”
He was, but she liked it and could have stayed right where they were for the rest of the night, him buried deep inside her, his body a living blanket. Except as he shifted off and straightened between her thighs, the real world came back.
“Let me make you something to eat,” she blurted.
She had no fucking clue where that came from, but she wanted to draw this out for as long as she could—partially because she always needed more time with him, but also because she had no fucking idea where to start or what to say to him.
And as they both redressed—and she thanked God she always had an extra black work shirt in a drawer—she racked her mind for what she could do at Marco’s stove.
It wasn’t until they were walking out into the corridor that she realized she could handle scrambled eggs.
Those gas burners were sure as shit going to wonder why the amateur night, but whatever.
As they emerged into the kitchen proper, Al wandered around, looking at the stainless steel counters and equipment, the professional ovens, the dishwashers.
“I’m not hungry, actually,” he said.
“Me, neither.”
Al turned toward her, and the seriousness in his face was a total contrast to the volcanic need that had distorted his handsome features into a mask of sexual drive. That passion was all gone now.
“What do you need, Denne. Just name it and it’s yours.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Don’t even try. Just tell me what I can do for you.”
Denne broke their eye contact and did some wandering of her own, heading over to the salad prep area.
She thought about her vinaigrette ramekin stunt and wondered if that young woman was okay.
She hoped that the son was, too. And the human mother.
She wished them well, like you would people moving out of town.
Except she was the one who wasn’t going to be coming to Sal’s anymore.
Jesus, had she really decided that?
Yes, she had.
Marco would take care of the place, and no doubt hire one of his family members to be manager.
And in another decade, her father could decide who else he wanted to turn things over to—or if it was safe for him to come back here and be the chef.
A long-lost “cousin” of the iAm everybody had known fifty years ago.
“Talk to me,” Allhan prompted.
“I need to know something that you may not want to tell me.”
“Go ahead.”
She had spent all day long thinking about what had been on their charts and what everything meant.
And one of the conclusions she’d come to was disturbing.
Except she had to get real about everything, and the place where she was determined to begin was to nail down what she knew for certain about Al. Then she could focus on the rest of what the charts said, and disagreed upon.
“I need to know whether or not you ever killed anybody in your family.”