Eleven
"She doesn't like picnics on the beach," Justin muttered to himself with disgust as he paced the room he was using while here.
He should have realized. Justin briefly berated himself for not knowing, and then more fairly thought, well, okay, how could he know that? But, really, once she'd said that bit about picking sand out of everything for the first part of her life it had made perfect sense. He didn't care for picnics on the beach himself for that very reason and he hadn't spent years doing it. He should have arranged the picnic on the lawn instead. No sand there.
And she didn't like fish with the head and tails on. That one, he definitely should have thought of. He knew she liked fish, Anders and Decker had found that out for him, but he was sure a lot of people who liked fish would probably be turned off by the head and tails and skin being left on. He should have considered that possibility and prepared trout almondine or something.
As for the flowers, of course it hadn't been appropriate to give them to a married woman. And, of course, he'd gone over the top with them.
Justin peered out the window, mentally kicking himself. He should have been more subtle and avoided such an overt gesture. He should have bought flowers and put them in the kitchen, maybe in the hallway and living room too, as if for the whole house to enjoy rather than filling her room with them and sprinkling petals on the floor.
The thought made him flush with embarrassment. He'd been waiting in the kitchen with anticipation when Gia had returned from Holly's room. Like a fool, he'd fully expected Holly herself to come running down. He'd hoped she'd throw her arms around him, kissing him excitedly as she thanked him for the flowers. Instead, Gia was the one to come down, and when he'd asked how she'd reacted to the flowers, Gia had hesitated and then admitted, "She asked if someone died."
While he'd stood gaping in dismay at this news, Gia had gone out to the garage. Justin's upset had only increased when the woman had come back inside seconds later with a rake. At first bewildered, he'd then been mortified when she'd explained they were for the petals. The women were concerned about stepping on them and staining the carpet.
Flushing, Justin had taken the rake from her and hurried upstairs. It had been his brilliant idea to strew the petals around, he would clean it up. Determined as he'd been to clean up the mess himself, he'd also been extremely relieved to not run into Holly as he did. He'd heard rustling from her bathroom and known she was in there, so had worked at top speed to remove the petals before she came out. He'd just gathered the last of them and stepped out of the room when he'd heard the bathroom door open.
Justin knew he should have taken the failure of his first two attempts at wooing her as a sign, and given up there and then. Instead he'd plowed determinedly forward with the second part of the plans he'd made that day while she was out with the others. The minute they'd left, he'd called in an order for the flowers that had filled her room, paying the exorbitant fee for express delivery. He'd then called a local gourmet restaurant to order the meal for their picnic. After cleaning up the mess in her room, he'd rushed out to the garage to fetch the picnic basket and blanket. He'd found both of them earlier and stowed them out there so that she wouldn't see them until he was ready. When he'd come back in the house, Dante had mentioned that Holly had just gone out to take a jog up the beach, and Justin had thought it a sign that this attempt at wooing her would definitely work. He wouldn't have to find an excuse to get her down to the beach and surprise her with the picnic, she was already there. He would set the scene and she would come back from her jog, see what he'd done, and blush with pleasure and embrace him.
"Yeah, right," Justin muttered to himself on a sigh. He followed that up with shaking his head with bewilderment. Why were his efforts going so wrong? Hell, he had harassed the other men horribly about their stumbling about while trying to claim their own life mates, and here was he, with actual inside information about what she liked and didn't like and everything he did backfired on him.
Groaning, he scrubbed his fingers through his hair and then massaged his temples miserably. Justin wanted to give up. He wanted to just pack his bag, head to the airport and fly back to Canada. But he couldn't. First off, Lucian had ordered him to train her. But more important, she was his life mate . . . and unless he wanted to spend the next several centuries or even millennia alone, he had to make this work. He had to convince her that they were life mates . . . the old-fashioned way.
Damn, it would be so much easier if he could just take her to bed. One round of life mate sex and she would forget she even had a husband. Unfortunately, that was not allowed. It would be considered undue influence if he deliberately seduced her knowing how the nanos would send them up in flame. So if he wanted to avoid the pain, and keep his position as an Enforcer, sex was out.
But what about dream sex?
Justin blinked as that question ran through his mind. The fabled dream sex that life mates were supposed to enjoy even if they were unacknowledged life mates. Let them sleep in the same vicinity and they experienced apparently incredibly realistic sex dreams about, or perhaps with, each other. He wasn't sure which it was since he'd never experienced them.
And why was that? He suddenly wondered with concern. They should be experiencing sex dreams if they truly were life mates. Biting his lip, he considered the matter briefly, then headed out of his room in search of Gia.
He checked the living room first, but while Dante and Tomasso were there watching television, there was no sign of Gia so he continued on to the kitchen. Much to his relief the woman was there and alone. She was seated at the table with a nearly empty bag of blood at her mouth and a book open on the table.
Justin eased into the room, allowing the kitchen door to close behind him, then moved to stand by the table, waiting patiently as Gia finished feeding. It only took a moment.
"Holly went to bed," Gia announced after tearing the now empty blood bag from her fangs. "Her hours are all screwed up after the last couple of days and she said she was more tired than hungry."
"Oh," Justin nodded, but then asked with concern, "She didn't eat?"
"No. But she did have blood. Three bags," Gia assured him, and then smiled and added, "She brought her teeth out on her own and went to it like a pro."
"Good, good," he murmured, and glanced to the fridge, considering having some of the chicken and salad he'd packed in their picnic. But he wasn't really hungry at the moment, which was unusual. Justin was always hungry.
"What's going on in that little head of yours?" Gia asked suddenly, drawing his gaze back to her to see that she was staring at his head with a concentration that told him she was reading his thoughts. After a moment, she arched an eyebrow. "Dream sex?"
Justin sagged and then pulled out the chair across from hers and sat down before blurting, "I haven't had any dream sex with Holly. That's something that happens with life mates, but it hasn't happened with us. Maybe she's not my life mate. Maybe this has all been a terrible mistake. Maybe I turned the wrong woman. We--"
"Justin," Gia interrupted. When he paused and peered at her uncertainly, she said, "I do not think you have even slept at the same time yet. How can you have shared dream sex if only one of you is sleeping?
He blinked, and then quickly ran back through the time they'd spent together since that night at the funeral home. "I did sleep while she was in the turn. Not much, mostly nodding off now and then in a chair beside the bed, but--"
"I hardly think it likely that she would have any kind of dreams while going through the turn," Gia said dryly. "Nightmares perhaps, thanks to the pain, but not dreams, sexual or otherwise."
"You're probably right," Justin said with a grimace.
Gia nodded. "Anders mentioned that you watched over her the night she returned home. Did you both sleep then?"
"No. I sat on the roof outside her window and watched her sleep," he admitted quietly and when her eyebrows rose, he shrugged. "Lucian said watch her, so I watched her. Besides, it w
as a steep roof. I was afraid I'd fall off if I fell asleep. And I did have to watch for anyone spotting me."
"I see," Gia murmured and then pointed out, "Well, I'm quite sure you haven't slept at the same time as Holly since arriving here."
Justin shook his head. "I went to bed after the boys carried you two sleeping beauties to your rooms."
"You didn't sleep though. Not unless you sleep pace." When Justin blinked, she said, "I woke up when Dante laid me in my bed, and then I couldn't get back to sleep so I got up, bathed, painted my toenails . . ." She shrugged. "I heard you pacing through most of the night."
Justin bowed his head, not denying it. Worried and fretting over how close Holly and her husband must be after actually growing up together, and how difficult that was going to make it for him to woo her, he'd found it impossible to lie down and relax enough for sleep to claim him. He'd spent most of the night, pacing his room like a caged tiger. The rest of it he'd spent lying in the bed, staring at the ceiling, his brain running around in circles until he'd given up and got up. Skipping sleep like that had meant that he'd had to take more blood than usual to get through the day without feeling like yesterday's lunch, but . . .
"You must be exhausted. You should really go to bed now," Gia said with a grin. "You will probably have those shared dreams everyone goes on about."
Justin started to smile in response, but the smile died before fully formed and he didn't move from his chair. Instead, he dropped his head on his arms on the tabletop and moaned, "I can't. They might consider dream sex as undue influence."
"What?" Gia squawked at the suggestion, and shook her head, waving the idea away like a cat batting away a pesky mouse. "Do not be ridiculous. They can hardly punish you for your dreams. You have no control over those."
"Yes, but I do have control over whether I sleep at the same time as Holly," he pointed out sadly.
She snorted at the words. "Did Lucian not insist that you are to train Holly yourself?"
"Yes," he agreed miserably.
"How can you do that if you are sleeping when she is awake and awake only when she is sleeping?" she asked pointedly.
He sat up slowly, hope rising within him.
"You have to sleep, Justin," she said firmly. "And you cannot be punished for dreams you have no real control over."
"You're sure of that?" he asked dubiously. In his experience, Lucian could blame you for whatever he chose.
Gia clucked her tongue and pulled a cell phone out of her pocket. She quickly punched buttons then placed the phone to her ear and waited. It took a couple of moments before her call was answered and she said, "Buonasera, Lucian. Did I wake you?"
Justin grimaced. Lucian was a grumpy bastard at the best of times. Tired, he would be completely miserable, he was sure.
"Mi scusi. I will make this quick, si?" Gia said. "Tell Justin to sleep, per favore."
Blinking, Justin raised his head, eyes widening.
"Si. He has not slept since you left. He is exhausted and going through more blood than he should to make up for his lack of--Si. Un momento." She held the phone out to Justin.
Eyebrows rising, he took the phone and pressed it cautiously to his ear. "Yeah?"
"Go to bed," Lucian growled. The order was followed by a click as he hung up.
Short and sweet, that was Lucian, Justin thought as he handed the phone back to Gia.
"You heard him, mio caro," Gia said, a slow smile spreading her lips. Winking at him, she added, "You cannot be punished now if you go to bed and have the shared dreams. You were ordered there."
"Yeah, but it probably didn't occur to him about the shared dreams," Justin pointed out. "Especially if you woke him up and--"
"That is not our problem," Gia said, unconcerned. "He ordered you to bed, so go to bed."
After a hesitation, Justin muttered, "right," and stood to head for the door.
"Sweet dreams," Gia called out on a laugh.
He merely nodded in response as he pushed through the door. Justin wasn't sure Gia was right and he would avoid being blamed for any shared dream sex that might occur once he slept, but Lucian had ordered him to bed. Surely that would at least mitigate any punishment? He didn't know, but was desperate enough to take the risk. He needed to know for sure that Holly was his life mate, and that he hadn't given his one turn to a woman who would never be his.
Of course, her being his life mate didn't guarantee he would ever gain her agreement to be his mate. There was still the problem of her being married. But at least if she was his life mate he might be able to claim her eventually . . . in twenty or thirty years maybe, when her mortal husband died. Maybe even ten or so, if the fact that her husband was aging while she was not became a problem. It at least gave him hope he'd briefly lost when he'd realized they hadn't experienced the shared dream sex that plagued life mates.
Justin picked up his pace as he started upstairs, his mind now thoroughly entrenched in what might be coming. From what he'd heard, even dream sex with a life mate was better than the real thing with a non life mate. He had no idea if that was true, but had every intention of finding out.
Holly shifted restlessly onto her back and opened her eyes. She had been tired when she'd come up here to her room, but was now finding it impossible to go to sleep. Maybe she should have had some of the chicken and potato salad Bricker had prepared for their picnic after all. Or maybe having the blood before bed had perked her up and washed away the weariness. Whichever the case, she wasn't sleeping now and that fried chicken and potato salad she'd put into the refrigerator was practically calling out to her like a siren's song.
Clucking under her tongue, she tossed aside the sheet and blankets covering her and got out of bed, switching on the bedside lamp as she did. Pausing as she took note of the pajamas she'd bought that day and now wore, she briefly considered changing into clothes or grabbing a housecoat, but really, was there any reason to? They were flannel after all, with dancing bears in pink tutus on them. She'd thought they were charming when she'd bought them, and they were cute as could be, but they were hardly skimpy or seductive. No one would accuse of her of trying to seduce anyone if she were caught out in them.
Smiling faintly to herself, Holly headed out of her room only to pause again as she stepped into the hall and found it in darkness. Everyone else had obviously gone to bed too, which was rather surprising to her. She'd thought vampires were night people and that she would naturally fall into that pattern too once she'd got more regulated. But it seemed she was wrong. The house was as silent as a tomb, and as dark as the cemetery had been the other night.
Not wanting to turn on the hall light and wake everyone, Holly reached for the wall and began to ease carefully toward the end of the hall, feeling her way when she got close to where she thought the steps were. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she grasped the railing to make her way cautiously down those as well. It was a relief when she reached the main floor without breaking her neck, and she moved a little more quickly along the hall to the kitchen, where she turned the light on the moment she pushed the door open.
Bright light immediately poured down over her and she slid into the room with a little sigh. The idea of returning upstairs without light was not a pleasant one and Holly decided that after she'd eaten she'd search the drawers for a flashlight or one of the candles Justin had used at dinner the other night, so that she'd have light for the return journey. With that problem solved, if only in her mind, she headed for the refrigerator and the fried chicken waiting inside.
She had removed the food, set it on the counter and was just reaching into the refrigerator for the potato salad when her gaze caught on the can of spray whip cream. Grinning, she grabbed that instead, the idea of the sweet, creamy foam doing more for her appetite at the moment than either the chicken or the potato salad. Probably because it was one of those things she'd had to avoid in the past. When she was mortal and diabetic, she'd had to be very careful of what she ate in an effort to keep he
r sugars balanced. But now . . .
Not even thinking first, she popped the plastic lid, tipped her head, aimed the spout into her mouth and shot a wad of lovely whipped cream onto her tongue. She'd just lowered her head and closed her mouth on the sweet treat with a moan of pleasure when the kitchen door opened.
Lowering the can to her side, Holly spun guiltily in the open refrigerator door to see Justin entering the kitchen. He wore a pair of low slung, red plaid pajama bottoms and nothing else. His feet were bare, but more important, so was his chest, and she found herself gaping at the sight. Holly had thought the man was good-looking from the start, and the tight T-shirts he wore showed off that he had a nice figure, but not nearly as much as nakedness did. Dear God, the man was all sculpted pecs and rippling abs as he entered the room.
Realizing that her mouth had dropped open and the wad of rapidly dissolving whipped cream was in danger of drooling out, Holly closed her mouth and swallowed guiltily just as he took note of her presence.
"Hi," he said, his voice husky from sleep.
"Hi," she responded weakly.
"I see I wasn't the only one who was hungry," he added wryly, moving toward her.
Holly muttered something that even she found unintelligible and instinctively backed up a step as he neared. But she came up short when she bumped into the open refrigerator door. Fortunately, her action made Justin pause a couple of steps away. Or maybe he'd planned to stop there, she acknowledged as he surveyed the chicken on the counter.
"There's potato salad too," he announced, turning his attention to her again.
"I know," Holly said and then just stood there . . . staring at his chest. It was obvious the man did not sunbathe. His skin was pale enough she doubted it had ever been exposed to the sun's rays, but that didn't take away from the beauty of it. Justin could have posed for Michelangelo or one of those other artists who sculpted the male form. He was perfect, with large, hard-looking pecs above a stomach that bragged an eight-pack rather than six and rippled down to the start of a V that disappeared under the waist of his pajama bottoms. In that moment, Holly thought that she would have given a lot to see what those plaid pants hid, but then she remembered that she was married and closed her eyes to try to banish the temptation along with her vision of him.