Chapter 27
CHANTAL IS ROCKING AVEN, BUT he’s not having it. “Come here,” I soothe and bounce him in my arms. My heart is still racing, my skin searing with desire.
Chantal blinks at me blankly, my body betraying me. “How did the con-ver-sation go?” she asks, overly annunciating to make a point.
Oh shit. That part. Rocking Aven, I dart my gaze around the room.
“Well, that part didn’t go so well, I guess. Not as we hoped.”
“Not as you hoped?” she says, sitting on the bed. She looks tired, and guilt immediately hits me. While I was making out in the kitchen, she was taking care of my baby.
“Well, he…he doesn’t remember.”
Her nostrils flare, and her bottom teeth sink into her top lip. “What do you mean he doesn’t remember?”
“He had just drunk the blood of a drunk man. He says it’s a blur, that whole encounter.”
Sighing, she stands, walking to her closet. “Why am I not surprised?”
The reality of it slowly hits me. I was so consumed with Bastian, his feelings, his anger, that I forgot what this meant for us. We were hoping it would be the answer, and it’s not.
“Shit, Chantal. Shit.”
She crooks an eyebrow as she pulls on a pair of jeans.
“What are you doing?”
“I need a drink. I mean, I wasn’t too optimistic that he would have all the answers in the first place, but I was hoping for a miracle. And now…I need a drink. And a night with Edu. Should cure me right up.”
“Mother is going to kill me.” I sigh, plopping on the bed.
Pulling on her boots, Chantal blows out her cheeks. “It’s not over, baby girl. It’s locked in his memory somewhere. You just gotta find it.”
I look at her beautiful face, the hope I needed sparking in my chest. I think about that for a moment. “You’re right. We need to jar those memories. Find out what he was doing that night. What cologne he was wearing. Go back to where it happened.”
“Yes. You should be able to find it.”
“You’re a genius, Chantal. Thank you.” I stand, stretching one arm around her as Aven fights sleep in the other.
Chantal looks at him, her voice softening to a whisper.
“I’m just able to think clearly without a hot man I want to fuck standing in front of me.
Well, until I see Edu.” She kisses my cheek and then Aven’s.
“Keep your parents up all night, little man.” She says before telling me she’s taking the car.
I visit with Cassius and Bastian for a short while but decide to go to bed once Aven cries to be nursed.
I feed the baby and change him into his jammies, his little legs kicking, his mouth yawning, eyelids fighting sleep.
We fall asleep together because there’s no better feeling, one I’ve become addicted to—sleeping with him in my arms.
Deep in the night, I awaken to Bastian writhing in our bed.
“No! No,” he cries, eyes glued shut, yet his mouth twists in agony.
His knuckles are clenched around the sheet, this nightmare taking him somewhere dark, somewhere treacherous.
I press my hands over his clammy forehead, commanding the nightmare to stop.
In moments, he’s turning on his side, his breaths softening, his eyes going from pinched shut to gently closed.
I watch peace take over and wonder what he was just battling.
I eventually drift back to sleep but wake to a note on the pillow.
Getting air
One of the baby monitors is gone, which means he can see us both sleeping. I grab the other one and pull on a robe. Aven sleeps soundly and will do so for another thirty minutes at least.
I knock on Chantal’s door, and she automatically reaches for the baby monitor, us both so used to baby duty.
It’s still dark outside, the sun rays barely peeking over the horizon as my gaze darts around, looking for Bastian on the beach, on the deck, but he’s nowhere I can see.
“Down here,” he calls from under the deck, so my bare feet pad down the steps to find him sitting in a beach chair, his bronze chest bare, with only his gray sweatpants on.
“Aren’t you freezing?” I ask as he looks up, but that’s not what I should be asking.
“There’re still traces of vampire in here, I think.”
I shiver, sliding onto the table in front of him, pushing aside the baby monitor, and dangling my legs over the edge.
He shifts his head, his jaw resting on his thumb, looking me up and down.
“Are you okay?”
He tilts his head up, biting the inside of his cheek while he contemplates. My heart races, scared of the answer. Scared to hear that he is not okay, that he is crumbling.
“I’m…adjusting.”
“You had a nightmare,” I say.
“I had a nightmare.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I absolutely do not want to talk about it.”
I lean back on my arms, swinging my legs between us, and he stares at them, and when he looks up at me, I can hardly swallow.
Yearning seizes his eyes, his tongue wetting his bottom lip as he places his hand on the back of my ankle.
“What I do want to talk about…what I can’t stop thinking about, is being inside you.
” His jaw tightens, his roguish hair sensually out of place.
“I tell myself, the first time in so long should be special, but there’s the baby, and we are in so much trouble, and I’m such a wreck that planning a romantic experience is not very easy at the moment.
” His hand slides up from the back of my ankle, stopping behind my knee.
“But I don’t think I can take any more waiting. How about you?”
My thighs clench together, jarringly turned on by him, by the look in his eye, the way his finger caresses behind my knee, and the warmth of his breath between my legs.
So I open them wider, exposing my panties to his line of vision, and use one hand to slowly untie my robe.
His lip curls up, lids heavy with the sight before him. “So you agree? Waiting is stupid?”
I lift a foot, place it on his knee, and raise my eyebrows, desire humming through every limb. “Fuck waiting,” I whisper.
He laughs at that, licking his lips, and pulls the knee he’s been caressing onto his other leg, his hand winding up the inside of my thigh.
“Are you sure? I can’t be slow and gentle right now, and that’s what you deserve.
You deserve something special.” His hand stops when his thumb ever so softly presses against my panties but doesn’t move.
Just sits still between my legs. My body tenses, the power that thumb has, awakening every cell in my body.
It had been asleep for so long, as long as he was gone, and now I feel alive again.
I slide the robe from my shoulders, the breeze dancing across my bare skin, my nightie making me feel exposed in the open air, under the deck.
He bites into his lip, his restraint close to snapping.
“Fuck me now and make love to me later. We have the rest of our lives for special.” I grind myself against his thumb.
“Right here? Outside?” His words are tense, like he’s about to crack, and I grind harder against his thumb because it’s not even light out, there’s no one here, and I need him right now.
“Okay, fuck waiting,” he says and bolts up, pressing his waist between my hips, pushing my legs wider, my insides begging to be spread open by him. God, I’ve dreamt of this, needed this, wanted this for so long.
He sighs, hands reaching up under my nightie, grabbing each side of my panties, and I lift up, allowing him to slip them off and toss them behind his head.
Gripping my neck, he pulls my lips to his, his mouth consuming mine like I’m the best thing he’s ever tasted in his life.
My body vibrates under his touch, a touch it’s been craving for so long, a touch that remembers every trace of my skin, knows every curve of my figure.
This is happening, this is real, this is heaven.
“I just want you to know,” I whisper frantically between kisses.
“I’m going to cry. But please believe, it’s the happiest fucking tears of my life.
” He pauses, blinks, then presses his lips back on mine, kissing me so deeply, so softly, my legs clench around his hips like they could crush through his bone.
And they spill over, the tears of desire and heat and utter bliss.
Pulling away and pushing a strand of hair from my face, he clasps his hand against my cheek while his eyes pierce mine.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to only see happy tears on this face from here on, okay?
” His finger slides inside of me, spiraling over my sensitive flesh, his green eyes glued to mine, as I suck in a gust of air. “Tell me you’re happy, baby. Tell me.”
“I’m so fucking happy, Bastian,” I cry, clenching around his finger, tears streaming down my face. My hand wraps around his wrist that holds my face, my body writhing against his touch.
“Good.” He nods, his fingers making my body ignite like the sun, like I’m a human ball of fire.
“Look at me, Aster. Look in my eyes,” he groans as the friction builds and builds, the magic his finger works causes my legs to quake, and the power those eyes have over me.
The intensity destroys me, carrying more power than any witch could ever wish for.
How those green orbs hold me captive in their gaze, the fortitude, the worship. I am melting under him.
And then his fingers are gone and my breath is hot and my lungs are aching for more.