Clasping her shoulders, Glen slipped out from behind her and knelt in front of the bed.
She rested her hands on his shoulders, feeling almost intoxicated by him, by his touch. By his warmth. Humans were always so warm. “You don’t have to…” To her surprise, she felt her cheeks grow warm.
“Of course I don’t have to.” He tugged on her slacks, taking her thong panties down with them. “Relax,” he whispered.
She gripped his shoulders, meaning to push him away. This…it was too intimate. But then his warm breath brushed between her thighs and she felt herself melting. She couldn’t resist, even if she wanted to.
Threading her fingers through his golden hair, Fia tipped her head back, letting her eyes shut. Everything faded; the tick of the ceiling fan, the overwhelming blue of the Starfish room…even the mallachd, the curse that haunted her.
Fia leaned back until she rested on the bed, her legs falling over the side, Glen between her knees. Waves of pleasure washed over her. First gentle, then stronger. His tongue…his fingers.
Fia moaned. Panted. Gasped.
“Let it go,” Glen encouraged. “It’s all right.”
“No. No, it’s not.” She sat up, only opened her eyes halfway. Tonight, for the first time when they made love, she saw Glen and not Ian. “I need you,” she admitted. “I need to feel you inside me.”
Holding her gaze, he rose to his feet. She unhooked his belt and pushed his clothes down over his slender hips. Still half on the bed, half off, she lay back again, parting her legs for him. He placed his palms on hers and pushed down as he pushed in.
Fia gasped, lifted upward, taking him in. Wanting every part of him she could have for the brief moment.
“Fee…” he whispered.
Tears stung her eyes. He sounded so…sweet.
Fia turned her head away, squeezing her eyes shut, using her legs to pull him tighter to her. Deeper.
The moment of tenderness passed and he pushed into her.
Fia could hold back no longer. Glen came a moment later.
She vaguely recalled both of them crawling into the bed. Falling on the pillows, his arm comfortably around her. It seemed so natural to drift to sleep, naked limbs tangled.
The next thing Fia knew, the room was dark and the clock beside the bed was glaring red at her. It was 1:17 A.M.
“Sweet Mary, Mother of God!” she swore, easing out from under Glen’s arm and slipping out of bed, leaving him asleep on his stomach, his arms flung on either side of him. She grabbed her clothes and eased out the door. Tiptoed to her room, and hurried to get dressed.
Chapter 22
The council meeting. She was going to be late. Standing in her room in the dark, Fia hopped on one foot and then the other, pulling on a pair of jeans. She skipped the bra. Threw on a T-shirt and hooded sweatshirt to ward off the midnight chill. She was out the door and hurrying down the sidewalk in front of the B and B in less than five minutes.
As she reached the street, she got a weird feeling and turned back to look at the dark, sprawling Victorian house. It was a moonless night, heavy with cloud cover. In the distance, she could smell rain.
She threw back her shoulders, trying to physically shake off the chill.
No lights burned in the attic windows. No curtain shifted. No one was there, but she couldn’t dismiss the feeling that something wasn’t right.
Not enough sleep. Too many Alfred Hitchcock movies, she told herself.
She turned around and bumped into something thigh-high on the sidewalk. The thing hissed and Fia practically jumped out of her skin.
“Sweet Mary, Mother of God, Arlan! Do you have to do that?” She glared at the sleek tiger staring up at her with giant yellow eyes and twitching whiskers.
Sheesh. You’re jumpy tonight, he telepathed.
She stepped around the giant cat. “You would be, too, if you had a guy always creeping up behind you, looking like an animal that was about to eat you.”
“Is that all I am to you?” He morphed into his human form. Tall, handsome, two-day-old beard. “I’m just a guy?”
“I’m late to council. You’re late.” She kept walking.
He followed. “Not going.”
“Why not?”
“I got the watch.”
She glanced at him impatiently. He was wearing a flannel shirt and goose-down vest. “What watch?”
“Human watch.” He tilted his head in the direction of the house.
“Glen?” She walked on, her stride long, her footfalls heavy. “I didn’t know anything about a watch.”
Fia had thought that settling up with Joseph would make her feel better, but now she’d just moved on to a new set of worries. This really pissed her off, sept decisions being made without including her. After all, she was a member not only of the general council, but the high council, as well. “Why are you watching Glen?”
He stopped and glanced in the direction of the dark house. “I should get back on duty. You’ll hear about it tonight.”
“I don’t want to hear it from them; I want to hear it from you, Arlan. What’s going on?”
He exhaled, avoiding eye contact. “There’re some people wondering if he has something to do with this. Him showing up when the senator had already requested you.”
“That’s ridiculous! Bobby was dead when Glen was called in.”
“I know, Fee. Something about a plot. It doesn’t make sense, but they’re scared. Particularly of humans. At the very least, they’re scared that with all his poking around, he’ll see something he shouldn’t and then decisions will have to be made.”
Decisions will have to be made. There were various ways, over the years, that the sept had dealt with humans discovering the truth about the Kahills, or learning something that might lead to such a discovery—none of them pleasant.
Again, Fia felt uneasy. Something just wasn’t right in the night air.
“That’s ridiculous.” She threw up
