Chapter Twenty-Two
Ty
The light pouring through the sunrise-style window on the wall beside the tub caused red and blue to dance across the bubbles of Sonya’s bath. Her gaze was cast out over the view of the back gardens with the lake stretching out beyond it. Soap bubbles teased her chin as she repositioned within the claw foot bathtub that sat in my loft. The image of her blurred, then disappeared. I wiped the steam from the glass shower walls yet again, desperate to watch her a little longer. For at least the fifth time that afternoon, I was tempted to go to her and ravish her again. But after last night’s amazing sex and the marathon session this morning, I did not want her thinking that is all she was to me.
So I forced myself to stay put, rinse the shampoo from my hair, and be content with the memory of our multiple sex sessions. And oh, what memories they were. This morning proved that she already possessed a varúlfur’s amazing endurance. But it was more than endurance. It was like we were synched.
The harsh ring of an ancient rotary-style phone cut through the quiet of the loft. My cell ringtone. I shut the shower off, grabbed a towel to dry the side of my face, and picked up the phone. It was the police getting impatient about my statement regarding the truck bombing. I promised the man on the other end of the phone that I would be in within the hour. I could not have them getting suspicious that I might seek out my own justice, especially since I would. I toweled off, ran a comb through my short locks, and pulled on a pair of boxers and shorts.
My eyes drank Sonya in without the steamed up wall between us. The bubbles were enough to make me ache. My tongue slid out and ran along my upper lip, dipping between my fangs.
“Damn, woman, you look fine.”
I shook my head, grabbed the towel off the leather chaise, and held it out to her. “As much as I would love to spend the entire day making love to you, I have to go to the police station. How do you feel about a ride in my Porsche?”
For a moment, her eyes widened, a vulnerable and touched look came over her, but it disappeared too quick, as though she were trying to hide it. Grinning, she rose from the water and stood there a moment with suds rolling down her body. I cursed softly in Icelandic and took a step closer. Just before the towel I held could slip from my hands, she grabbed it from me. Very slowly, she wrapped it around her body and tucked the end between her breasts.
“I’d love to go for a drive with you,” she said, making it sound deliciously dirty.
Groaning, I grabbed hold of her hips and pulled her to me. We melted together for an intense moment. Long before I was ready, I forced myself to draw back, knowing if I did not, I would not make it to the police station yet again. The look of desire and almost pain in her eyes made me feel a little less desperate for not wanting to let her go.
“Damn lögreglu. I really did not want to leave this room today,” I said as my fingers ran along the edge of her towel.
She laughed and turned away. “Best get it over with. Besides, I’d like to see this book you have. Maybe we can stop by your office,” she said as she began to towel off.
Now there was an idea. I had been itching to reread that book ever since I saw her mark. It bothered me that I could not remember much about the legend, but then it was hundreds of years old and was scarcely told anymore. The book had sat on the shelf in my office for the better part of a decade. Despite my beliefs that Raul was a raging idiot, I could not pretend her having that mark was coincidence. He might not have chosen her because of it, but someone more calculating might have pushed him in her direction. Just before she got her shorts to her hips, my hand brushed across her birthmark.
“Sure thing,” I whispered in a thoughtful voice.
She rose up on her toes, full lips reaching for me. I bent and kissed her, long and sweet. So I did not lose control and tackle her, I kept my fingers tucked into the belt loops of my shorts. The clean scent of soap and shampoo mingled with her spicy scent in a heady concoction that almost made me lose control. Breath coming in short gasps, I spun away, grabbed my T-shirt, and pulled it on. Sonya made an appreciative sound as I walked away.
How was it I had become so good at controlling all of my emotions except for those involving her? We would be lucky if we made the drive to town in one shot without having to pull over.
…
The second I pulled up to the single-story red brick building, Sonya began to breathe harder. Thanks to my varúlfur hearing I could hear it even though she tried to hide it. In a heartbeat, she was out of the car. Her eyes darted from the police cruisers parked out front, to the hint of razor wire around the corner, and back to the road we had pulled off of. I killed the ignition and got out. She jumped when I laid my hand on her arm.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She shook her head and swallowed hard before answering. “I don’t like police stations.”
I moved my hand to rest on top of hers. “Because of your dad?” I asked.
A few measured breaths later she answered. “Yeah. I was just a kid when he was arrested for murder. Too many prison visits when I was little.”
Gently, I peeled her hand from the door handle, and wove my fingers through hers. She gripped my hand as if it were a lifeline.
“I am sorry, I cannot imagine how hard that had to be,” I said. Not to mention the fact that she had only recently found out her dad had not killed a man in a drug deal gone bad, but had killed him to save her from being kidnapped.
She shrugged. “It was what it was. I wish I had trusted that he was the man I had always thought he was, and not the one the police made him out to be.”
I glanced around us, eyes going from the parking lot to the road, then back to her. No one was around. I did not want to leave her here alone, but I could not expect her to go inside with me either.
“I’ll be fine here. If anyone at all pulls into the parking lot I’ll come inside,” she said.
“If you even smell someone strange—”
She stopped my words with a quick kiss. “I’ll come right in.”
I drew in a long breath, considering my words carefully. “I know you can handle yourself, it is not that. Even with Lars and the others out looking for who did this, I still worry. The truck bombing makes me worry about how far they are willing to go.”
“Not as far as I’m willing to go to stay by your side,” she said.
The level of conviction in her words thrilled me for more than one reason and made me smile. Nodding, I rose from the car and stared at her a moment before leaving. Those brown eyes, so full of confidence, stared at me from behind a half curtain of her ebony hair. If it came to a fight she would be in trouble. A few weeks of training to fight was not enough for someone who had no natural inclination or desire to do so. I hated the way my chest tightened at the thought of anything happening to her. A bad feeling tried to tug at me, but I wrote it off as an overprotective instinct resulting from having mated with her so recently. I would only be gone a few minutes.