Raiden’s head came up, and he growled low in his throat, the gold Other flashing in his eyes and catching the sunlight. “Who the f-k are you?” He demanded. He did not release Lia, but she eased away, embarrassed and flustered to be caught wrapped around him so promiscuously, she tugged her leotard away from her skin, trying to hide the way her nipples pressed against it.
“I am Cael,” the man who leaned against the top rail of the balustrade that edged the porch was the same from the dance academy. She recognized him, immediately, and even in the shadows of the porch, he seemed to glow golden blonde, and clean-cut good looking – the polar opposite to the man who held her. “Cecelia Alexis? I saw your advert at the dance academy, for a room to rent?” He said to her with a crooked smile full of charm.
A man, she thought, used to winning people over with his looks, and entirely confident in the power of them.
“Oh,” her mind blanked. How long had he been waiting on her porch? Had he watched everything between her and Raiden? “Of course.”
Cael smiled brightly. “My flight got in today – I did not exactly have a lot of planning time before my arrival, so it was convenient when your friend and you hung the sign up directly before me.”
“Do you know this guy? Will you be safe with him?” Raiden asked very quietly, the magic of an alpha behind the tone, ensuring that he was not overheard by the blonde man on the porch.
“I am sure it will be fine,” she looked over his shoulder at Cael dubiously. The blond man grinned widely as he watched from the porch. There was almost a competitive one-up-man-ship triumph to Cael’s grin. “He is from my dance school.”
“Where is your phone?” Raiden asked, drawing her eyes back to him. She pulled it out of her bag careful not to put her fingers near the biting fairy. He opened contacts and entered his name and number in. “Call me if there is any trouble,” he told her meeting her eyes. “I can be here in less than five minutes if you need me.”
“Thank you, I am sure it will be okay,” she was touched by the offer, and her body still craved his against it.
“I will come back as soon as I can,” he didn’t want to leave her and he released her reluctantly, brushing a kiss across her forehead before stepping aside and watching her as she walked up the path to the front porch. “Will you be joining us for dinner, Cael?” He asked, his tone civil but carrying undertones cautioning the other man.
“Thanks, but I will be out,” Cael replied lightly, his eyes on Lia as she joined him on the porch. Her fingers brushed against the fairy as she searched within her bag, and she jerked her hand out of the way before it had the chance to bite her. “What have you got in there?” He wondered, amused.
“Everything,” she avoided answering as she found the keys. She opened the door and gestured for him to proceed her. She glanced over her shoulder at Raiden. The werewolf was texting on his phone but looked up as if sensing her eyes on him.
“Brock is on his way,” he said. “I will be back soon, Lia.”
“Okay, thanks,” she hesitated and then blew him a kiss, the movement feeling awkward and inadequate. She grimaced and ran down the porch steps to throw her arms around him. He laughed as he kissed her, and she ran back up the stairs to the door, feeling better.
As she closed the door, she heard the Ute engine start.
Cael waited just inside the door, close enough that she had to brush against him as she turned. His smile was brilliant, as if he had planned it exactly that way. It flustered her, however, and her heartbeat raced. Being silly, she told herself, Cael was just another dancer, there was nothing dangerous about him.
Other than the fact the man was devastatingly sexy.
“Your boyfriend?” Cael asked, easing out of her personal space and looking around the hallway with interest.
She looked up at him. He had the right physique for a dancer, tall, his shoulders broad and strong. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew his face from somewhere – maybe she had seen him dance, or on the pamphlets of the school. The not knowing was like an itch she could not quite reach in order to scratch.
“Yes. His name is Raiden.” It gave her a thrill to think of. She eased open her door as she passed it, dropping her bag onto the bed. She had to make an appointment at her GP and start some form of contraception, because she was certain that it was only a matter of time. There was something between them, something very physical, and, for the first time, she thought it might be worth the complications to her life to explore that. “My room,” she said to him when he leaned against the doorframe and ushered him out, closing the door behind her.
“He doesn’t seem to be your type,” Cael replied disdainfully, his attention still more on the decor then her romance. He stooped to peer into the display case filled with china dolls. “Creepy.”
She shot him a look from under her lashes. “I seem to have a type?”
He shrugged a shoulder as he straightened. “I don’t know,” he said with an easy smile. “You seem like the type to have someone… more civilized.”
“Civilized?” She repeated, bewildered as she led down the hall.
The house had not changed much in Lia’s lifetime. The same furniture, the same decorative plates and creepy china-dolls in the hallway, the same faded curtains, and threadbare carpets. The same pictures on the walls. The slightly musty smell of wallpaper and old carpet recalled many fond childhood memories.
Every time that Lia thought to change something, guilt prevented her from doing so. It was not as if her grandmother was gone, after all. Her ghost still wandered the halls, phasing between moments of coherency where she would interact with Lia, and moments where she seemed to be caught in memories of the past and not to know that Lia was there.
Perhaps if her grandmother had died and gone, as most people’s grandparents did, Lia would not be so hesitant about changing things, she thought.
Paris, of course, could not see her grandmother’s ghost, and was always baffled by Lia’s wish to change the house, but reluctance to do so.
As Paris had chosen the upstairs room, Cael would be across the hall from her. She opened the door and turned on the light. It was a plain room, basically furnished with what she and Paris had not wanted. With the dated decor, it was not a pretty space.
“It has its own bathroom,” she pointed out as compensation for the ugliness of the room.
He looked around. “It is great.” His tone was droll. He dropped the bag he held onto the bed.
“Great,” she smiled tightly staying in the doorway as he poked around the room and it’s tiny en-suite. “First month upfront, and we split utilities So, kitchen,” she said hastily, the bed behind him suddenly threatening.
She took him down to the rear of the house to the kitchen and dining area and showed him the refrigerator. “Paris and I split the grocery bill, but you don’t have to if you want to buy your own – just label it as yours. If you want into the group cooked meals though you will contribute. Alright?” She asked him, putting a hand onto the jar she and Paris used for groceries.
“Alright,” he said softly.
She looked up and met his bluer than blue eyes. He had moved closer her, so that he leaned over her, his pupils dilated. He was, she thought, very tall and just so handsome. And so familiar, as if she had seen the way that the light caught in the gold of his hair as he leaned down over her before, as if she had seen his face cast into shadow in just this way.
“How old are you, now, Cecelia?” He murmured, his voice dark and dreamy.
Her eyelids were heavy over her eyes, and she inclined towards him. His breath against her skin was like a caress. “Mhm? Nineteen.”
“That would explain it,” he said, his lips only a hair from her cheek. His hands closed on her hips and drew her against him, until she could feel the rise and fall of his stomach muscles as he breathed, and the throb of his erection against her. She could smell the slightly metallic residue of magic and wondered vaguely at its origin.
“Explain what?” She felt she spoke from a dream, her body heavy, weighted, and hot with desire. She wanted nothing so much as for him to lay her down upon the floor, or any surface, and strip her to the skin. She wanted to arc beneath him as he drove his flesh into her…
“The Lycan was a fool to leave,” he breathed into her ear. “You are on heat, ripe for mating.” She moaned, and his hands explored her curves, his breath heavy against her ear, leaving her in no doubt that as needy as she was, he shared the feeling.
She felt the cold tiles against her back and knew that he had lowered her to ground. His golden hair fell over them both, softening the harsh light from the light bulb. “But you are mine, aren’t you, Cecelia?” He said against her lips.