Gypsy Moon (Page 44)

“Just so you know, today is one of those days where I actually hate you for not being here,” I add in conclusion as I clear my throat. “So if there’s a third dimension where you’re listening to all this, hopefully it’ll give you the incentive you need to come back so I can hate you to your face. I could really use you right now, Anna.”

I stop whispering to her when I see something blur in front of the window, and Arion’s eyes collide with mine through the glass like he’s surprised to find me there.

It’s a brief exchange.

In the next instant, the window is open, and hands slide around my waist from behind. He really is incomprehensibly fast to go from outside and in front of me to directly behind me without me seeing the movement.

“Missing me, love?” he muses, lips pressing to the side of my head.

I don’t answer as he releases me, and I listen as he moves around the room.

“If you’re tired at all, now’s the time to grab some rest before they get here. We’ll be on task starting then, and there won’t be time for rest after that. Not for a few days,” he states conversationally, as if it’s a casual sort of thing to be vague about.

I don’t bother doing anything aside from flopping onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling, as the mountains of information flood through my mind, along with all the chaos I’ve endured most recently.

He returns with the bottle of scotch in one hand, and a half-full glass in the other, drinking it absently, as he studies the label.

“Some things have improved. Some haven’t,” he says idly, abandoning the glass and bottle on the nightstand, as he slides into bed next to me.

It’s weird how careful he is not to touch me when we’re in the bed, as opposed to when we’re…anywhere else. But in the bed, you could put a line of pillows between us.

“She wasn’t ready to truly be dead,” I tell him, feeling his confused look on me as I move closer to him.

“Who’s that, love?” he asks, staying still as I end up tucked against his side.

My head goes to his shoulder, and his arm tentatively slides around my waist, his hand barely resting on my hip.

“Anna,” I say softly, tracing a circle on his bare, very firm chest, idly wondering why he’s still in a towel. “She only died because she wanted to stay by my side, and then she went out of her way to avoid the worst of the decay.”

He doesn’t say anything, his arm remaining gingerly around me, as I move my head over more to be on his chest.

“But she wasn’t ready to be gone, or she would have moved on naturally to wherever it is ghosts go to find true peace. For all I know, she’s stuck in some hellish void somewhere, and I helped her kill herself.”

I feel his lips pressing against the top of my hair, as he gives me a gentle kiss to starkly contrast his less-than-gentle nature, to put it mildly.

“I honestly don’t know what limits life-and-death have. I stopped caring when I could no longer die,” he confesses. “But she was dead before she met you, love. Wherever she is, I find it hard to believe she’s blaming you for anything.”

I stay quiet after that, wondering if it’s even possible for me to try to sleep. No such luck.

I think about Idun and wonder if she’s as obsessed and fixated on chasing them as they believe, even though she’s been up for months and hasn’t bothered to even somewhat interrupt their lives.

I wonder about Anna and if she’s miserable.

Then my mind drifts back to Arion, as he continues to just hold me with one arm that has relaxed against me.

After an hour of being perfectly still, I’m positive Arion has drifted off.

My head is in too many places at once to sleep right now.

My eyes stay fixed on the towel that is starting to naturally loosen around his hips.

He doesn’t move or react in the least when I kiss a spot on his chest, which means I should let the man rest. But when I chance a glance up, I find him quietly staring down at me with a hooded look, like that’s what he’s been doing for the past hour.

His gaze stays steady as I kiss his chest again, and he remains still, as I gently rake my lips up his chest.

Since he’s up…

“Honestly, explain the difference between Arion and Ace, aside from the alpha vampire bit,” I say quietly.

His eyes dart over mine before his gaze sweeps down to my lips that are hovering just above his chest.

“As far as you’re concerned, the alpha vampire bit is the only difference,” he says, keeping his voice low.

“And as far as everyone else is concerned?”

He just stares at me for a second, before shrugging a shoulder. “I have reasons for the things I do. You’ll eventually come to trust that. Needn’t worry, though, love.”

His hand gently cups my cheek, as his other comes up behind my head.

“Believe it or not, Violet, I was once Idun’s monster, but I am no longer,” he adds.

“As long as they’re mine, you’re mine,” I sum up.

I’m starting to believe that his love for them may just be more than his love for her.

His gaze stays fixed to mine, while he presumably thinks about the perfect way to make me see things the way he sees them.

“The next words I say, you’ll never repeat to anyone,” he tells me, and I feel the throb in my temple that feels like the familiar one there when I’m forced to obey his last order.

My eyes narrow.

“Sorry, love, but if they ever learn that I watched them privately for any amount of time, they’ll be nothing but suspicious. I can’t afford that right now. Not when things are so close to being right again.”

He darts a glance at his phone as it vibrates, but doesn’t lift it, as he returns his attention to me, seriousness in his eyes as he runs his fingers through my hair.

I stay perched against his chest, since he enjoys just the feel of skin contact so much. To be honest, I’m enjoying the comfort of his touch, and that’s another level of concern to be assessed at a saner, future moment.

“Three and a half decades ago, I was finally able to break through with my projection,” he says in the quietest tone he can muster and still allow me to hear. “I did plot revenge for the other decades I was awake before then, but it fizzled out quicker than I expected when I saw the aftermath. They didn’t hate me; they feared me, Violet.”

He glances at the clock, but I think it’s mostly to break the eye contact, as his jaw tics.

“I bloody still thought we were just playing the game, until I had no choice but to simply listen, while they remained oblivious to my unnatural intrusion. I’d never been able to witness them in their moments of truth, and until then, I didn’t realize how guarded I’d also become. It’s as though the ages rolled on, and I somehow missed where and when it all went so wrong.”

He looks at me again at last.

“Idun broke the rules. Her game’s now over.”

“You’re the one turning this into a game for us. What are your rules for me, Arion? I feel I deserve to know.”

His lips tug up in one corner, and he slowly slides my leg over his hip. When I don’t pull away or tense, he starts pushing the bottom of my shirt up.

“You’re so soft, Violet,” he murmurs as he leans down and presses his lips against my throat. “So perfectly hard on the outside, and so tender underneath.”

A small breath hisses out of me when I’m barely lifted, and in the next instant, skin slides against skin. He’s hard and pressing against me, hands on my ass, as he nips at my throat.

“You don’t need rules,” he adds as the sound of the shirt tearing registers, seconds before cool air kisses my skin that was just covered.

One of his hands slides up my bare back, as he sits up, taking me with him until I’m perfectly straddled against him, hardly room for air between our bare bodies.

“It’s we who need the rules this time,” he says as I’m suddenly moving, feeling my back hit the bed, just as he pushes inside me.

My back bows in surprise at the abrupt entry, and my nails dig into his shoulders that I’m still clinging to, as he makes a tortured sound, his hips stilling at the deepest point inside me. My body rapidly, and very happily, adjusts to the abrupt intrusion, thankfully aroused just by the intimacy of lying with each other.

I drag him down by the back of the neck, and our lips fuse together, as I swallow the rest of his really guttural sound, drinking him in, giving up the pointless fight.

I’m the monster who happens to be incapable of staying mad forever, and I’m the pathetic monster who fell for the vampire when he was just a harmless ghost. And every single thing he does wrong seems to be eclipsed by all the very gentle things he does with only me.

“Brace yourself, love,” he whispers so softly I almost miss it. “It’s been a while.”

All thoughts in my head get quickly snuffed out, when his elbow drops beside my head. On the next rock of his hips, the large, four-poster bed slides with his body, and it slams into the wall with his thrust.

My breath catches in my throat as something inexplicably right happens with the next violent thrust that makes me feel just as wrong.

Then there’s a prick of pain when his fangs sink in without warning that makes me feel like a true masochist for enjoying it so much. The hint of pain is quickly followed by a soft, delicate kiss. It’s right on his favorite spot of my throat.