Quest (Shifter Island Book 4) Page 9

  “You want to dance, pretty lady?”

  Allison looked up from her drink to find a good-looking blond smiling at her. She glanced away, but it didn’t deter him.

  “No strings,” he said. “Just a dance. Feel like gettin’ my groove on.”

  He didn’t seem predatory, didn’t look like his hands would be all over her before he’d even offered her his name. In fact, he seemed very gentlemanly as he gestured toward the dance floor—almost as if this were some sort of nineteenth-century cotillion and he intended to kiss the back of her hand when their dance was finished.

  That was a show, of course; his way of breaking the ice.

  She thought it was charming.

  “Sure,” she said. “Okay.”

  He was a good dancer, it turned out: very quick on his feet, very much at ease, talented enough that some of the other couples stopped dancing to watch him. When the song ended, he made a little bow, then leaned in to ask if she felt like sticking around for another song or two.

  A quick look around told her that only Pats, who was busy texting someone, had returned to the couch. The band they’d come to see wasn’t due to take the stage for at least another half an hour, and Allison couldn’t imagine sitting on the couch for that long. She’d end up obsessing about Luca, wondering where in the world he’d gone and if he was all right.

  So she danced, right up until the band was due to come on. By that time, her partner had built up a sweat, and when he brushed a kiss against her cheek, she could feel the warm dampness of his skin.

  “Thank you for the company,” he said with a big smile. “Came here needin’ to burn off some excess energy.”

  “And did you?” Allison asked.

  “I did.” He paused. “I wonder—”

  For just a moment, she wondered too. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m with—I have—there’s—”

  “No worries. You enjoy the rest of your evening, all right?”

  The crowd swallowed him up as if he’d never been there at all. She stood staring at the place where he’d been for a minute, then she turned and went back to the couch and ordered another drink.

  When she got back to the motel, Luca—to her great surprise—was there waiting for her. He was sitting on the bed, propped up against a heap of pillows, and was surfing through the few channels available on the TV.

  He didn’t look any more at ease than he had the night before.

  She closed the door behind her and kicked off her shoes as she moved into the room. Walking barefoot on that well-worn carpet didn’t seem like the best idea in the world, but her toes were so badly in need of a stretching that she gave in, even though she could feel grit digging into her skin.

  “You were with Julie?” he asked quietly.

  Allison nodded. “Her bachelorette party. It was… all the bridesmaids. We went to a club to see a band she likes.”

  “You had a pleasant time?”

  “Mostly.”

  He was barefoot too, she noticed, although he was otherwise fully dressed. His hair was rumpled, and there was a scratch on his cheek—though oddly, it seemed to be nearly healed. She didn’t remember it being there last night. No; she was sure it hadn’t been there last night.

  “You?” she asked. “Did you—was your day all right?”

  “It was difficult.”

  He put the remote down on the bed, but he hadn’t turned the TV off. She couldn’t tell whether he was interested in talking or not. Then his nose twitched a little and he sniffed at the air.

  He could smell that other man on her, she realized. He could smell it from where he was sitting, several yards away.

  “I danced with someone,” she said, doing her best not to sound defensive. “It’s what you do at parties. At a club. You dance.”

  “Did you kiss?”

  “No, Luca. I didn’t kiss him. I danced.”

  He didn’t say anything more, so she tossed her purse onto the dresser, then struggled to unzip her dress. She’d managed to work the zipper down only a few inches when he got up from the bed, and he lowered it the rest of the way. Then he stepped back so she could pull the dress down over her hips and take it off.

  “I’d like to take a shower,” she told him. “I feel kind of grungy. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  That was an odd answer. Yes, what? She was grungy? Her taking a shower was okay with him?

  Rather than try to puzzle it out, she went on into the bathroom and slipped out of her underwear. She’d discovered that morning that the motel had an ample supply of hot water, and she was anxious to stand under the spray for a while, letting the heat relax muscles that had gotten tight and cramped during the evening. Rather than remain on the couch, Gina had insisted that they all move up toward the stage, where two of the band members had put on quite a sex-tease of a show for the benefit of the bride-to-be. Their set had lasted more than an hour, and being jammed in amongst the crowd for that long, standing on high heels, had done a number on Allison’s back and legs.

  She let out a long groan of pleasure as the water cascaded down her back. She would have liked a long soak in the tub, but it was narrow and shallow, not the right size for a real bath.

  She’d make do, then. The shower would be good enough.

  Then, all of a sudden, Luca was stepping into the shower with her. He pulled the plastic curtain back into place, then stood behind her, very close but not quite touching her. He seemed to be waiting for something.

  He crooned a little, very softly.

  Then he reached around and cupped her breasts in his hands, trapping her nipples between his fingers. He leaned his upper body against hers and kissed her shoulder, then licked and nipped at it as he kneaded the soft flesh of her breasts. He was already hard; she could feel his cock pressing against her buttocks. She was humming a little herself as she curved against him, and the sound turned into a soft yelp as he moved his right hand down to her sex and began to tease her most sensitive spot.

  “I ran,” he said close to her ear. “I ran a long way, until I thought I was lost. I slept. Then I ran some more. Then I came back.”

  He was rubbing her rhythmically with the tip of his index finger as the tip of his middle finger nudged inside her.

  That wasn’t enough. It wasn’t anywhere near enough.

  “Not in here,” she groaned. “I’ll fall. I don’t want to fall. I need to get out of the water.”

  He wrapped his free arm around her and held her so tightly that for a moment she could barely breathe.

  “I won’t let you fall,” he told her.

  Somehow, without loosening his grip for even an instant, he turned her around, lifted her up, and lowered her down onto his cock. Yes, yes—that was what she’d needed all day, all evening, that whole time she’d spent in the club with other bodies jammed so close to hers. She’d needed him, just like this: filling her to the brim, thrusting up into her, holding her so close that she thought it might be possible for them to become a single body. She wrapped her legs around him, ankles crossed just below his tight, solid butt, and rode him until her head started to swim.

  They’d made love in the shower at the other hotel, but it was nothing like this; this was so right, somehow, so complete. He was kissing her as though he wanted to devour her whole, plunging deep inside her—like a diver, she thought. Like a diver soaring off a towering cliff into sharp, clear, cold water.

  The water was turning cold, turning into icy needles all over her body, but it felt incredibly good.

  Luca, hot and urgent inside her. The water, cold against her back.

  His strength seemed to have no limit as she bounced against him, taking every possible inch of him as her pleasure grew and grew. When she reached the edge she clung to him, her heels digging deep into his butt, her fingers biting into his shoulders and neck—and relief seemed just out of reach.

  But he seemed to know what she needed, how to push her that last litt
le bit. He’d found the soap and had slicked up his hand, and as she began to weep with need, he thrust a finger up into her backside.

  The sensation was so new, so sudden, that it sent her cascading over the edge into a pleasure so deep that she threw back her head and screamed.

  She let herself drift after that, kept her eyes closed as he helped her stand on her own feet again, apart from him.

  She felt him bathing her tenderly, head to toe: working shampoo through her hair, then rinsing it out; soaping her shoulders, her back, her breasts, her belly and legs. He teased at her sex a little, but the pressure was too much now, and when she winced, he took his hand away.

  When he was finished, he turned off the water, toweled her dry, then carried her over to the bed and laid her down. Her eyes were still closed—God, how she wanted to go on floating on this quiet sea of his touch, his care—but she heard him walk away. A moment later he was back, and he settled her underneath the covers where it was warm and she could fully relax.

  Finally, he turned the TV off, then the lights, and he crawled into bed beside her. He lay there silently for a couple of minutes, and it seemed that things couldn’t possibly get any better.

  Maybe this was what babies felt like: fed, pampered, tucked into a warm bed.

  “This is part of my duty to you,” Luca whispered.

  In a way, it sounded as though the words weren’t coming from him, but from somewhere far away.

  “Duty?” she murmured.

  “To care for you. To worship you with my heart and my hands.”

  And your cock, she thought distantly. He couldn’t leave that out of the equation; it had felt too good.

  The thought made her smile.

  “I thought there would be no doubts,” he went on, stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I had thought that when I saw you, when I found you again, all my questions would be answered. Instead, there are more questions. Many of them—so many that I can’t sort them out. I think… being here among so many humans has confused me. Made me afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That I will fail you. That I am not a worthy mate.”

  Puzzled by the despair in his voice, Allison shifted over onto her side so she could look at him. “Luca…”

  “I’ll ask you one more time. Will you come home with me? To the island?”

  He sounded like a child, a small boy who had seen his hopes dashed one by one. He wasn’t making a simple request; it was a plea. Four years ago he had tried his best to persuade her to go with him. Now he sounded as though, if she didn’t agree, he might genuinely die.

  But there was nothing there for her. He would be there, but she couldn’t imagine that that would be enough.

  Not for the rest of her life.

  “I can’t, Luca,” she whispered. “I just—”

  She tried to say more, but he pressed a finger to her lips to silence her.

  “Sleep, then,” he said quietly. “We’ll both sleep. And maybe the gods will show us the right path to take, in the world of dreams.”

  He turned away from her, nestled into what she thought might be a comfortable position, and let out a long, deep breath.

  All she could think was, I hope so.

  Fifteen

  All day Friday, they barely saw each other.

  That was best, Allison told herself. The sex with Luca was beyond fabulous, just as it had been four years ago, and she felt an undeniable pull to be with him, one that seemed to grow stronger the farther away from him she went. But what was that? she wondered. Helene and Russell had mentioned their bond several times, but the connection between them had to involve more than great sex. They’d made a home together, and had raised a child who was now a grown man.

  Could she and Luca possibly be together that long? He cringed every time she mentioned the mountains, or her home, or her job—but she couldn’t imagine abandoning all that. One piece of it, maybe, but not all of it.

  At the same time, she couldn’t imagine asking him to leave his life on the island. Clearly, it meant everything to him.

  It made her resent Julie and her stupid wedding. Everything that had brought her here in the first place. Then it all broke her heart, and she found herself close to tears half a dozen times during the day: during the impromptu shopping trip Gina arranged for the bridesmaids, during lunch on the patio of a café near campus, and during Julie and Matt’s rehearsal dinner.

  Definitely during the wedding rehearsal itself.

  She did her best to smile, to act genuinely happy for her friend, because she was happy for Julie. By the end of the rehearsal dinner, Julie was speaking to her again, if a little warily.

  You can do this, she told herself.

  But after the wedding—then what?

  “If we stayed here,” she said to Luca quietly on Friday night. “Here, in town. What would you do?”

  “I would work.”

  He said that firmly, as if he’d already given the question a great deal of thought. And maybe he had, even though he’d never mentioned staying here, even at the beginning of their relationship. The city was big enough to offer a variety of job possibilities, but it was a quiet place—not really on anybody’s map. If not for the college, it probably wouldn’t exist at all. Allison hadn’t ever considered staying here, working at a bank or a law office, or in some position at the college. It simply wasn’t a destination, someplace you’d want to stay.

  But could she? Could they?

  No. She could see it in his eyes: he wanted to go home. Be with his family. His… his pack.

  She went to sleep Friday night almost certain that Luca was preparing himself to say goodbye a second time.

  “You can come to the wedding if you like,” she told him the next morning. “Jules has told me about fifty times that it’s fine if you come. They had a couple of people back out, but they’ve already paid for the dinners.”

  Luca was looking at her pensively from his seat on the bed. Once again, he was holding the TV remote, but he hadn’t turned the TV on, which made her think he was toying with the remote just to have something to do with his hands. When he didn’t respond right away, she turned away from him to look at herself in the mirror.

  She and the other bridesmaids would be getting ready for the wedding at Julie’s mother’s house—hair, makeup, putting on those awful tulip-yellow dresses—but she needed something solid to start with.

  A smile. Something close to an upbeat attitude.

  “I would be alone there,” Luca said.

  Yes, that was still a problem. She’d be sitting at the head table with the rest of the bridal party during the reception. She could dance with Luca, of course, but he’d need to sit with strangers. Eat and drink with strangers. Try to make conversation with them.

  And, she supposed, fend off at least a dozen women who’d try to hit on him.

  “It’s up to you,” she told him.

  She thought he’d bow out, that he’d say he’d much rather stay here in the motel room and watch TV. Or go back out to that old, abandoned farm and roam around. Or… whatever.

  She was astonished when he said, “I’ll come.”

  “Why?” she blurted.

  “I should… ‘get out more.’ Try harder to fit in.”

  For the thousandth time, she thought back to the time they’d spent together while she was in college. Her memory tried to tell her that they’d spent most of that time alone together, but other bits and pieces kept creeping back in. They’d gone out to eat pretty often. To the movies, to concerts. They’d taken picnics to the park. She’d never thought he was standoffish. He was no hermit. True, some of his conversations with her friends and classmates had devolved into bickering matches, but he was no less sociable than a lot of the other people she knew.

  His seat at the reception would be among a mixture of couples Julie had told her were friendly.

  Maybe he’d have a good time.

  And later on, they could come
back here and…

  No. She couldn’t think about that. Today of all days, she had to put her best foot forward. She owed that to Julie.

  A glance at the clock told her she still had a little time left before she needed to head over to Julie’s parents’ house, so she sat down beside Luca on the bed and leaned in to kiss him softly. At first, he didn’t seem enthusiastic; then he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and kept the kiss going.

  A minute later, as she drew back, she asked him, “Was your brother’s wedding nice?”

  “It was very joyous.”

  “Were you… joyous?”

  “Perhaps not as much as I should have been.” He looked away for a moment, then abruptly brought his eyes back to her, and his gaze was sharp and piercing. “I had been attacked a few days before. Someone made assumptions that weren’t… He thought I wanted to claim someone.”

  “‘Claim’ them? How?”

  “A woman. He thought I had treated her badly.” He groaned. “I did treat her badly.”

  Then, with his words tumbling over each other, he told her what had happened: that he’d grown up with someone named Katrin who had come to love him, and everyone—including Luca himself—had assumed they’d eventually get married. But he’d come here, and had become involved with Allison, and after he’d returned home he had all but shunned poor Katrin.

  She didn’t know that he’d pined for her for four years. That he’d rejected the love and devotion of someone else in favor of longing for something that wasn’t going to happen.

  That still might not happen.

  But this certainly wasn’t the right moment to have that conversation, not with time rapidly running out. If she showed up at Julie’s parents’ house even a few minutes late, it would derail Julie’s special day. More than likely—as Julie had said it would—it would ruin their friendship forever.

  Something tugged at her, down deep inside, insisting that she stay here and talk things out with Luca until they’d come to a decision—no matter what it might be—but that wasn’t possible.