Chapter Forty-One
Charlize woke, stretched, rolled onto her back—and a small wrapped box appeared on her belly.
“Merry Christmas.”
She gazed sleepily at a bare-chested Breen, who was propped on an elbow next to her in bed. “Aw, man.” She fingered the ribbon on the present. “I didn’t get you anything. I’m sorry. I didn’t think we’d be spending Christmas together.”
Up until her cathartic session with Karrell four days ago, she and Breen had still been living apart, and immediately following the session, she’d been in no state to think about Christmas. The holiday had always been a complete washout for her anyway, the day spent cleaning up regurgitated eggnog and whatever broken ornaments her mother’s drunken gestures managed to knock off the tree. Plus her brother would usually be sitting sullenly in a corner, complaining about yet another girlfriend breaking up with him, never bothering to take into account that he’d cheated on her—like he did with all of them.
It’s easier to be a rebel than Miss Responsible, isn’t it?
Charlize closed her eyes. Maybe. But she also felt pretty exhausted from creating chaos.
“Are you okay?” Breen asked quietly.
She opened her eyes and looked into his golden gaze. “Yes.” She smiled a little. How had he ever thought he was too much of a bonehead to help her? He’d been nothing but helpful during these last few emotional days.
For the whole first day after her cathartic session, her tears had been on a hair trigger. The slightest thing made her break down—and Breen had been there to hold her through every soggy episode. He took complete care of her, gently steering her around her apartment, making sure she ate, showered, dressed in her pajamas, finally putting her to bed and lying down next to her. Who would’ve guessed how wonderful it was to have someone look out for her?
Day two, the worst of her emotions exorcised, she did what Karrell told her to do: viewed Olivia’s death through her eyes of today—an adult’s eyes. She doubted she would’ve been able to do this as effectively if not for the therapist putting eight-year-old Kristara in front of her.
Guilt has warped your memory into something quite unfair, I think.
It wasn’t your fault.
You were just a kid!
She was just a kid back then. It was true—really, really true.
You deserve to be happy.
She was coming around to accepting this idea, too, and Maylie Nichita had a lot to do with it. Nothing could ever completely compensate for Charlize not having been fast enough to rescue Olivia, but, by God, the day before yesterday she had been fast enough. She’d saved little Maylie’s life—something she wouldn’t have been able to do if she’d been even one millisecond slower. And she would’ve been slower if she hadn’t trained nearly her whole life as a marathon runner. And she wouldn’t have trained as a runner if not for what happened to her sister. So in Charlize’s heart, she was granting this win to Olivia.
“And your knee?” Breen continued with his check-in. “Doing okay too?”
Her skid-out on the cave floor had earned her eight ugly, crosshatched stitches on her left knee—another thing Breen was being relentless about looking after.
“Yep,” she said. “A little sore, but that’s all.” She should probably down some ibuprofen before heading to the Nichitas’ Christmas brunch.
Breen picked up a strand of her hair and wound it around his finger, her curl eagerly following his lead. “So are you going to open your present now or what?”
She mugged a face. “Can’t we wait until I have something to give you too?”
His eyes glowed from beneath the inky sweep of his lashes. “It’s enough of a present for me to sleep in the same bed with you.”
“Ah.” She gave him a slumberous look. “But we did more than sleep last night, didn’t we?” They’d made love—slowly, gently, tenderly. It’d been the most mind-blowing sex of her life. Who would’ve guessed her heart could fill with so much warmth and joy, that she had so much love inside herself to give?
He gave his finger a little tug and her curl bobbed off. “We’re onto something new here, aren’t we?”
She made a contented sound. “Hmm.”
“So, uh, for the sake of starting things off with a clean slate. I have to fess up—we could’ve been having sex all along.”
She opened her eyes all the way, “What?”
He grimaced. “Yeah, Toni made up all the shit about us having to be acting like a married couple in order to screw. But don’t get mad at her,” he rushed to add. “She just did it because she knew I was a bonehead and needed help getting you. If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me for going along with it. Although I would add that I really, really wanted to get you.” He paused. “So are you?”
“Mad?” She released a long breath from the depths of her lungs. She couldn’t seem to bring herself to be. Breen had really, really wanted her, and it was incredibly sweet. “It seems to me, Breen, that we’re two people who were never supposed to end up together, so right now I’m only feeling grateful for all the forces out there that made it happen.”
He smiled, his pitter-pat-there-goes-my-heart chip peeking out.
Her toes just about curled off her feet. “How did you come by this, anyway?” She tapped his fang. “Your chip?”
Heat flared in his eyes.
Oh, he liked his fangs touched, did he? Store that one away for later use.
“Pandra punched me in the mouth,” he told her.
She burst out laughing, the jerky movement of her belly bouncing Breen’s present off.
“What?” He set the present back on her stomach.
“I don’t know. I just wasn’t expecting that answer.” Her laughter drifted off. “Next chance I get, I’ll have to thank her.”
His eyebrows eased up. “Why?”
“Your chip was the first thing that made me fall for you.”
His brows lifted higher. “Fall?”
“In love.”
His smile widened. “Wrap that up in a bow, and you just aced Christmas.”
She kept gazing at his mouth, heat stirring in the more tropical regions of her body. “God, you’re killing me with that chip.” She slid her fingers through his too-long bangs, then pushed back through the rest of his hair, skimming down to the nape of his neck.
She tugged him forward for a kiss, and his mouth came down on hers, lips parted, jaw turned. She sighed from deep in her chest as the lust factor between them instantly spiked high. His kisses always ran heavy on possessive and hungry, and she loved tasting the feral power in him—sexy, knowing and feeling the untamed wildness that lurked beneath the quiet exterior. The erotic movement of his tongue against hers steadily melted her brain to oatmeal, and when his rigid cock prodded her thigh, her inner passage clenched, strongly and eagerly. But…
She nudged his shoulder.
His head came up. His pupils were wide and his fangs long.
“I don’t think we can mess around,” she said huskily, “and still be on time to the Nichitas’ house for Christmas brunch.”
“We have time,” he said and stole between her thighs.
Sneaking late and unnoticed into the Nichitas’ festively-decorated living room wasn’t going to happen. The moment Charlize walked through the front door, the room exploded in deafening cheers and applause.
She wasn’t a woman who blushed easily, but she did now, and with a lot of heat. Smiling gamely at the partygoers, she spoke from the side of her mouth to Breen, “We’re late.”
Breen’s hands dipped into his pockets. He gave her a lopsided smile and shrugged.
Marissa barreled up and threw her arms around Charlize in a strangling hug. “Thank you so much for what you did for our little girl, Charlize. I never got a chance to tell you.”
Dev was right behind his wife, wending his way through the crowd, holding Maylie in one arm. The little girl had a small fist loosely tangled in her daddy’s shirt, like she knew where the muscle resided in her family, and she wasn’t letting go for nuttin’. Not until she felt safe about the world again.
Dev planted his free hand on Breen’s chest. “Sorry, Dalakis,” he said, pushing him away from Charlize by a few steps. “But you’re just going to have to deal with this.” Dev hooked the back of Charlize’s neck in the crook of his elbow and pulled her against him in a one-armed bear hug. “Still don’t have words,” he said through her hair into her ear. “Because there aren’t any. Just…” He leaned back and looked into her eyes. “Thank you.”
She swallowed tautly. “That was perfect, actually.” She set a palm lightly on Maylie’s back. “How’s she doing?”
Dev released Charlize. “Clingy and shaken.” He tugged affectionately on his daughter’s foot. “But getting better.”
Poor kid…although at least at some point Maylie would feel safe and sure about her world again. Kids got over stuff when they had loving parents to see them through the hard times.
“Hey,” Dev added, “you guys need champagne. Come into the dining room.” He strode off.
Marissa appeared in front of Charlize again. “Nice necklace.”
“Oh, thanks.” Charlize touched the pendant. It was a tiny silver whisk on a silver chain. “Breen’s Christmas present to me.”
“Is it?” Marissa cast a dancing glance at Breen, then slanted a knowing brow.
“Attention, everyone!” Dev called out. “Time to toast Charlize, savior of our little Maylie.”
Charlize peered through an arched entryway leading from the living room into the dining room.
Dev was standing beside a buffet table set with a selection of hors d’oeuvres and several rows of champagne flutes. He gestured Breen and Charlize to come.
They went.
Grabbing a couple of glasses, they turned to face the gathered merrymakers.
“To Charlize!” Dev held up his glass in toast.
More cheers rose.
Dev started to take a sip, but two young boys—a black-haired three-year-old and a blond five-year-old—careened around his legs. He had to maneuver an athletic sidestep to avoid getting knocked into by the boys. “Randon,” Dev called after the younger boy, “you and Garez want to chase each other, go out in the backyard. Monkeys.”
Breen leaned toward Charlize. “You ever think about having some of those?”
She turned to peer up at Breen, her heart fluttering against her ribs. She’d never considered having children, no…but because she hadn’t thought she deserved them. “Have you?”
“Lately.” He smiled, all Boyish Breen. “Yeah.” He bounced a fistful of her curls in his palm.
She chuckled. The champagne she held gently misted her hand as bubbles rose to the surface of the drink and silently popped. “Lately. I’d say me too.”
His gaze growing warm, Breen touched her jawline with the tip of his finger. “You’ll make a great mom, Charlize. You’re one helluva fighter.”
Her lips parted. She didn’t get a chance to respond, though.
Marissa came to stand in the archway, holding a chocolate cake on a silver tray. “I made this cake,” she announced, “to celebrate Charlize saving Maylie, but now that I’m looking at things, I think maybe this should be a bonding celebration cake for Breen and Charlize.” Her eyes twinkled. “They haven’t celebrated their bond yet, and, well…” She came forward and set the cake on the buffet, then grinned radiantly at the couple. “You two are truly bonded now, aren’t you?”
Breen’s mouth hitched upward, a mere twitch of a smile for everyone else to see. For her, there was so much more—all for her—layer upon layer of the true man.
You just have to agree to try to be in a relationship with me. Just try.
Charlize. No. Come on. That’s not what this was about.
I like you, and when I’m inside you it’s kind of impossible to ignore.
So, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to make you go back there.
I’m here, and not just because I’m physically bonded to you, but because I want to be here.
You were just a kid! It wasn’t your fault!
You’ll make a great mom, Charlize.
Happy tears pricked Charlize’s eyes. This man of few words had managed to breach a lifetime of dysfunction and defenses with the little he’d said, and now here they were, come full circle.
They’d met while Charlize was on a treadmill, and Breen was the one who’d made her stop running.
Slipping an arm around her husband’s waist, she hugged him close, her heart, like the champagne bubbles, overflowing in a continuous cascade of effervescence. “Oh, I’d say we are most definitely truly bonded.”
Breen smiled. His chip came out to play. And she was a goner for good.
* * *
I need your help!
If you enjoyed MOON-RIDERS, please consider writing a review on your favorite bookseller site. Even if it looks like there are enough reviews, bookseller sites look for “recent activity.” New reviews encourage them to decide that a book is still popular, and then they will show it to other, potential readers—and this is really great for an author!
Thank you!
Click to leave a review.
* * *
COMING SOON!
Book 5 in The Community Series.
WITCH MASTER
After his return to the Romanian warded lands, Octav Rázóczi betrays the San Diego Vârcolac to Zalina, leader of the Warrior Witches, revealing the existence of her hidden daughter, Hadley Wickstrum. Zalina deploys a band of her most powerful witches to obtain Hadley, putting the entire community at risk. Faced with their most uniquely powerful enemy to date, the warriors must rely on the experience of two men who have been newly minted into their ranks, Nicolae and Vasile Lazăr.
Thrust into a life away from the secluded mountains he’s always known, Nicolae struggles to adjust while also reveling in the chance to become his own man. Every day his body and mind open to new ways of being with Hadley, the woman he loves. But Hadley is still reeling from the shocking news of her true identity and doesn’t recognize the prize she has in Nicolae….not until she’s forced to relive a trauma, and Nicolae’s knowledge of the wild is the only chance she has of escaping the terrifying nightmare.
Click to be notified of this book’s release.
* * *
FREE companion novella to The Community Series!
Vampire versus Vampire Hunter…
When two natural enemies collide, unexpected emotions arise between them, and in the resulting turmoil that rains down on their separate worlds, their survival quickly becomes a matter of who is really the hunter and who is…
PREY
Click the link below to learn how to get your FREE copy of “Prey,” and to find out about other BONUS MATERIAL!
AND…
To receive a free copy of the first book in my award-winning military romantic suspense series, Wings of Gold.