Chapter Five
Waiting for Cassandra to come out of the gallery hadn’t been enough time for Edmund to cool off. She strutted out like a woman on the warpath. Her eyes narrowed on him. If looks could kill, she would have struck him a mighty blow.
He held out the vanilla latte.
She snatched it from his hands. “You can stop following me.”
Edmund’s jaw began to tick, a sign of his frustration. The rest of his body remained the epitome of relaxation. He leaned against the building. “I’ve been searching for too long to walk away from you.”
Didn’t she know wherever she went, he could find her?
He shouldn’t have marked her. He’d gotten excited, eager at his discovery.
“You’re just going to have to wait. Drake’s got his scales in a flush. It’ll take a bit for him to cool them off again.”
“Then it is not safe for you to return to your place. We can wait at mine.”
Cassandra opened her mouth, then shut it.
A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth. Last night she’d fallen asleep against him. Her head slipping down and resting on his lap as a pillow. He’d ran his hands through those silky strands of her dark hair. Throughout the night he’d listened to her cute little noises, imagining what she would sound like in the heat of their mating.
“So, you were spying on me too?”
Edmund’s smile faltered. A large thunderstorm cloud loomed against the buildings in the distance. The dark underbelly cast a gloomy shadow while morning sun illuminated the whiteness of the cloud directly above. “I think it is best we take our leave, don’t you?”
“You were spying on me!” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “Who the hell do you think you are? Do you have any idea how messed up things are because of you? I can’t even go in and work at my own studio. My gallery.” She turned her back to him and paced the room to calm her racing pulse before rounding on him again. “And now, thanks to you and Drake, I can’t even go home to my own apartment. Plus, who knows what Drake has told Margaret. Drake won’t rest until he makes me part of his disgusting horde. And if he can’t have me, then he’ll make sure no one else does. Margaret won’t stand in his way if she thinks I’ve betrayed her and then my family…” She grabbed his cotton shirt. “My family.”
Edmund took her hand. He shared her feelings of distress. It came with the bond of the mark. His heart twisted and squeezed with a sense of terror flooding his veins. He pulled her hand from his. His thumb smoothing over the mark on her wrist, the bond not strong enough between them yet to become visible. Her latte slipped from her other hand. Hitting the pavement, the lid popped off and the scented drink splashed against his boots.
“You’re safe with me. I’m not going to allow anyone to harm you or your family.” His eyes on the incoming storm.
“You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think I do.” He brought her wrist up to his lips. “This mark…” He kissed it, darting his tongue out to trace it against her flesh. “It binds us together as one. The more we are together, the stronger the bond. Everything you think. Everything you feel. We share.”
Her quick intake of breath told him she felt it too.
She regarded him with a magnetic gaze, pulling him closer by a force he couldn’t resist. Like the strong winds building in the storm approaching, he felt it rising inside. Thunder cracked like a whip and he stiffened against her.
She had to feel it. If not now, she would in time.
He put all those feelings into his gaze.
He placed her hand on his chest, over his heart.
Her tongue darted across her lips.
His pulse drummed in his neck. He slid the back of his knuckles down her forearm. “Can you feel it?”
Her arm reached up, wrapped around his neck, pulling him down. She lifted on tiptoes and her lips met his. His head swam as her lips parted, inviting him in. With one hand he cradled the back of her neck, and with the other he caressed her hip.
Her body pressed against his. They fit together like two pieces crafted to mold as one.
She clutched at his shirt, pulling him closer.
He’d never tasted a mouth so sweet.
Blood pumped, every nerve ending in his body on fire.
And then… rain fell, like a bucket poured over top of them, as the dark cloud in the distance caught up with them.
Cassandra’s lips still tingled. A mad dash to the parking garage had only left her drenched and out of breath. It hadn’t reduced the residual sensation of his kiss or the realization she’d been the one to kiss him. Against her better judgment, she’d given into her attraction to him. She blamed it on the mark. Like two magnets that couldn’t be easily separated, she couldn’t even shake his hand from holding hers.
Out of the pouring rain, his dark cotton shirt clung to him, tracing the chiseled lines of his abs.
“We have to get out of here.” She yelled above the roar of the rain pounding against the parking garage. She’d parked on the first level. She pointed in the direction she wanted him to follow.
“Leave it. It will be harder for him to track us if we take mine.” Edmund led her to the third level of the parking garage. He had parked his slick silver Suzuki Boulevard around the curve, on the other side of a cement beam. A few other vehicles dotted the parking level, but it didn’t appear anyone else was around. “It’s storming. You can’t be serious.”
“The storm will pass. We’ll need to find a place to hang for a while, or at least until we can entice Margaret out of her hole.”
“Why are you after Margaret? It’s never been about acquiring an egg, has it?” She shivered, cold from the rain and the drop of temperature inside the parking garage.
“She made the mistake of coming to our island and trying to steal the fiú of our pendragon.” He pulled her in his arms, the heat radiating from him tempted her to snuggle closer.
“She must know you’re after her. Rumor has it a deal went south recently. That’s why she went on holiday for a bit.” Cassandra hadn’t done anything. And yet, she found herself mixed up in this. Edmund needed her to find Margaret. She needed him for protection.
Most importantly, who would protect her from him?
There it was, that sly grin of his. “You know what I am thinking.”
He lifted her chin to cover his mouth with hers in a kiss that said he did.
She trailed kisses across his jaw. She rubbed her cheek against his as she nipped and kissed her way down his neck. He smelled like hotel soap, Ivory clean and fresh like new rain.
She slid her hand up into his thick mass of shoulder-length hair. He turned his head, recapturing her lips.
Cassandra stilled beneath him. Rain. She didn’t hear the roar deafening her ears. She pulled back from him. Her chest rose and fell sharply, while he shifted his weight, and her eyes fell to the source of his discomfort.
“Get on,” he said.
Cassandra licked her kiss swollen lips and tore her eyes away from his arousal, lifting her gaze those his magnetic eyes. Tingles burst inside her belly. It was more the thought of where she’d need to put her hands to stay on than straddling all that horsepower that frightened her.
“I’ve never been.” Screw your head back on, Cassandra. “I’ve never ridden. What I mean is…”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. Worrying about where she’d put her legs, how she’d mount didn’t seem as important as feeling the heat of him pressing against her.
“I’ll get on first.” His mouth drifted over hers, a teasing brush of warm, soft lips as he reached down and hiked up her skirt. Cassandra didn’t move. “You can’t ride with it down.”
An electric current zinged up her arm as she reached for the handle bar, adrenaline for her first time riding a motorcycle. “Don’t we need helmets?”
“You can wear mine. We’ll stop and grab an extra on the way.” He placed his hand over hers, tilting up the bike. He mounted, settling back into the seat.
“Where are we going?” He guided her onto the motorcycle behind him. Seattle was hot and muggy enough, but the heat emanating from Edmund’s body made her well-aware of his proximity. Her chest pressing against his back, electric shocks zinged her again.
“I think you have a place in mind.” His hand reached back, placed her feet to rest on the pegs. She wrapped her arms around him.
“I do, but this is still an invasion of privacy, you know. I don’t have a clue what you’re thinking.”
“You don’t?” He looked back at her, reached across and brushed her hair aside.
She willed her pounding heart to steady “How would I?”
“You will.”
She leaned into him. And when his hand slid up her leg, up her thigh, her legs tightened around him.
He kissed her forehead, his hands retreating. “I think it’s time we take a ride.”