Out of This World

over his gorgeous baby blues.

Why were men allowed to have such pretty eyelashes? It just didn’t seem fair. “Bite me,” I whispered again.

“Say it one more time,” he promised in a low voice that sent tingles down my spine and to other places as well, “and I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

I was tempted. Oh God, how tempted. There was just something about this new alpha-ness, the quiet fierceness of it and the utter confidence. He seemed both alien to me and yet almost unbearably familiar at the same time, and I stared at his mouth, the words on the tip of my tongue.

“Say it,” he dared silkily.

A dare, damn it. I couldn’t pass up a dare. “How about I do it instead?” Holding his gaze, I cupped his jaw and sank my teeth into his lower lip.

Shock held him immobile as I lightly tugged, then stroked my tongue over the sting of the bite.

When I straightened, I was breathing unsteadily, and he was looking pretty flustered.

“Um,” he said.

Yeah. Um.

He brought his fingers up to touch his lower lip, which was still wet from my tongue. “You take every dare that comes your way?”

“You know I do.”

His eyes went soft and dark and dreamy, and my thighs tightened in reaction to that. He went to push his glasses high on the bridge of his nose before remembering he wasn’t wearing them. “We’re not kids anymore,” he said carefully.

“Did anything about that feel childish to you?”

He let out a rough laugh, but his amusement faded quickly, and he hauled me close, making me gasp as his teeth sank into the flesh between my neck and shoulder, the bite a definite aggressive sexual claim.

I shuddered with need, but he gently set me away from him and turned me toward the laptop. “Now we’re even,” he said, and typed in the password.

I had to blow out a breath before I pushed his fingers away and clicked on the main menu, and then on the financial application, and ran right into another password-protected area. “Huh.”

He leaned over my shoulder, his arms on either side of mine, surrounding me with his body. “What?”

It would be appealing to turn in his arms and let him bite me again, then kiss me, then…And yet it was one thing when I was chasing him. Then it was fun, it was easy, it was playful.

A game.

But more than that, and it scared me. He scared me, because I knew he wasn’t playing at all.

And if I did this, got involved heart and soul…God, what would I do without him when it was over? I couldn’t bear to think about it, so I tried the password again, but it didn’t work here. Incredibly aware that our faces were close enough that a strand of my hair had caught on the stubble of his jaw, that he was watching me and not the screen, made breathing difficult, if not impossible. I closed my eyes and concentrated on another password. Nothing. Just like old times. I tried typing in Gert’s name, Marilee’s name, Axel’s name-

A sticky-note program suddenly opened, and a pop-up sticky appeared in a pretty pink color and fancy font:

Did you really think it’d be that easy?

Stunned, I sat back, staring at the computer screen. “She knew. Whatever’s going on here, Gertrude knew all about it.”

“Strange family you’ve got, Rach.”

“Tell me.” I chewed on my lip for a moment, considering. My great-great-aunt Gertrude had always been a loner. I could remember my mother sighing in frustration when another invitation to a family gathering was politely declined.

“Just as well,” my mother had always said. “She’s too looney to mainstream.”

“Looney how?” I’d asked on any number of occasions.

“We don’t discuss it,” my mother had always replied. “Let’s just say she thinks she can…do things.”

I had to wonder what things. Like see through stuff? Like using superhuman strength? I picked up the Blackberry and turned it on.

“Check her calendar for the entries before she died,” Kellan said.

Not surprisingly though, her social engagements were nonexistent. She’d kept track of her grocery list, and of requested supplies, of the number of guests going in and out-

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Kellan asked over my shoulder.

I looked at the entries again. “What?”

Reaching his arms around me, he took possession of the Blackberry, pointing out the Fridays of the last month. “Each has a star.”

“So?”

“So yesterday was Friday. What happens on Fridays that would warrant starred entries?”

We looked at each other.

“The swap,” I whispered.

“And there are dots on Sundays. Fuck.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “What’s going to happen tomorrow?”

I got up, went to the bottom file drawer and pulled out the whiskey. We each drank two fingers straight from the bottle.

“Jesus,” Kel said, blowing out a breath. “Strong stuff.”

I could have used two more fingers. “Kel?”

He’d gone back to fiddling with the Blackberry. “Yeah?”

“Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”

He looked up, grimaced at the fear that had to be written all over my face and pulled me in for a hug that felt more real than anything had since…since he’d kissed me. Burrowing in tightly, I closed my eyes and just held on. “I mean, maybe we could hike out of here.”

“Rach, it’s too far.”

On the other side of the closet, door someone rattled the handle.

Kellan set me aside and quickly moved through the clothes in the closet, putting his hand on the door handle, holding the door shut. With his other hand, he lifted a finger to his mouth, signaling me to be quiet.

Marilee had just walked in, not concerned with being seen. Whoever this was clearly didn’t want to be seen.

I put both my hands over my mouth and concentrated on breathing. We watched the handle turn from side to side as someone very quietly tried to come in.

Kellan kept his hold, his T-shirt stretching at the shoulders, his jeans falling off his narrow hips, his hair wild as always, easily preventing the door from opening in such a way that the person on the other side of it probably imagined it was a jammed lock.

“Who’s there?” Kellan mouthed to me

I focused on the wood, and gasped. “Serena and William,” I mouthed back.

Kellan blinked. He hadn’t expected that, and truthfully, neither had I. What would two guests want in Gertrude’s secret office?

And, if they’d never been here before, how did they even know this office existed?

On the other side of the door, the two of them looked at each other, shrugged and walked away.

“They’re gone,” I whispered.

Kellan came out of the closet, looking lean and rangy and spoiling for a fight. “I want to know what the hell is going on.” He paced the small office, which meant he could stride two whole steps before having to whip around and repeat the process. Tension and grimness rolled off his broad shoulders, and so did unused adrenaline.

I stood, and stepped into his path. “Hey.”

He didn’t look at me, so I held on when he started to stalk past me. “Hey.”

He wasn’t happy when his gaze met mine. Not even close. “What?”