"Be better versions of themselves?" Matild suggested when she hesitated.
Holly nodded.
"Sadly, age doesn't always mean wisdom," Matild said solemnly. "Some do improve with age, shedding the rough edges of youth and growing into good people. But others . . ." She shrugged. "Depending on their experiences, immortals can get twisted up by time and events and go rogue. That's why we need men like Justin out there." Patting her hand gently, she added, "Immortals are no better than mortals as people, Holly. They just have longer to make mistakes. Fortunately, they often also have the time to fix those mistakes."
Holly was silent for a moment as she doctored the coffee Mrs. Bricker set before her and then she glanced at her and said, "You're being very kind to me, considering."
"Considering what?" Matild asked.
"Considering your son used his one turn on me and may now never get to claim his true life mate," she said solemnly.
Matild smiled faintly. "But you are his true life mate, dear."
Holly shook her head firmly. "I'm not. I'm married. And I don't intend to break my vows."
"Then Justin may have to wait until your husband passes," Matild said with a shrug. "Fortunately, he is young. Very young for finding his life mate. Few are that lucky. If he has to wait fifty years or so for you, he can do it. We'll help him through it."
Holly sat back, a confusion of thoughts running through her head at those words. The reference to James's someday passing actually hurt her heart. He had always been a part of her life. She couldn't imagine a life without him in it. But aside from that, she didn't understand why this woman was so certain she was Justin's life mate. Decker and Anders hadn't seemed to think so. They'd seemed to think he was deluded.
"Would this be the same Decker and Anders who told my son that you love dogs, cats, wine, fish, flowers, picnics, nature shows, and everything to do with nature?" Matild asked mildly as she fixed her own coffee.
Holly stared at her with surprise, and then realized that the woman had read her mind. It was a bit disconcerting when these immortals did that and she couldn't wait to learn to block them from doing it.
"Yes," she said finally.
"Then is it not possible that they were lying about your being his life mate as well?" Matild asked.
"Why would they do that?" Holly asked. "And why are you so sure that I'm a possible life mate to Justin?"
Matild hesitated, her head turned toward the door as if she were listening to something from another room that Holly couldn't hear, and then a frown flickered briefly on her face as she said with distraction, "Because I've read both your minds and you're perfect for him, dear."
Holly's mouth tightened at the claim. It made her wonder what the woman had found in her mind that made her think she was perfect for her son.
"Oh." Mattie clucked under her tongue and stood up to move back to the coffeepot. Pouring two more cups, she carried them toward the door saying, "I'm just going to take the boys some coffee and check on them. Have a cookie. I baked them myself."
"It is the most ridiculous situation," Justin growled, pacing his father's study like a caged tiger. "She is my life mate. I've turned her. But I can't claim her. And I'm not even allowed to tell her what I can offer her as her life mate. How great it will be. About the life mate sex, and the shared pleasure, and the shared sexual dreams and the--"
"Justin, life mates share a good deal more than sex."
Justin whirled toward the door at those short words from his mother, and watched with resentment as she entered carrying coffee.
"I was talking to Dad, Mom," he growled with irritation.
"Actually, you were talking to both of us," she announced dryly, pushing a coffee at him before moving on to deliver the other to his father as she continued, "You were complaining so loudly it was impossible for me not to hear, and your voice was growing in volume. I thought I'd better come inform you of that before Holly overheard your whining."
"I wasn't whining," Justin muttered and then grimaced because he knew he had been and said, "Well, if I was, I deserve to, don't you think? This situation is some kind of hell."
Sighing, Matild turned from giving his father his coffee and eyed him sympathetically. "I know it must seem so to you right now. But the situation isn't as dire as you've convinced yourself."
"The hell it isn't," he argued with amazement. "My life mate is married. I can't claim her."
"You are forgetting one thing," his mother said solemnly.
"What's that?" he asked shortly.
"That you only can't claim her yet," she said, and then pointed out, "You do have one very large advantage over her husband, son, and that is time. You are immortal. He is not. All you have to do is be patient and wait for him to die of old age or whatever end Death deals him and she will be yours."
Justin stared at her blankly for a moment and then exploded. "Are you insane?"
Matild blinked in surprise and then gave a short laugh. "No, I don't think so. But then they do say if you think you're crazy you're not, so perhaps if you think you're sane you're really crazy." When he didn't even smile at her words, she sighed and asked, "What is wrong with my reasoning?"
"You must be joking," he said grimly. "There is no damned way I can just sit by and wait fifty or sixty years for that bastard husband of hers to die."
"Why not?" she asked reasonably.
"She sleeps with him," he snapped, furious at the thought of having to stand idly by imagining Holly sharing a bed with her husband for fifty years or so. He couldn't do it. She was his.
"He has a point, Mattie," his father said solemnly.
"Oh . . . yes . . . I see," she said with a frown, and then brightened suddenly. "But darling, you are forgetting something else."
"What's that?" he asked dubiously. Certainly the last thing she'd claimed he'd forgotten had not been terribly helpful.
"She is immortal now. He is not. She will be able to read his mind and you know how impossible it is to live with someone when their every thought is open to you."
That one had possibilities, he admitted. But . . . "She can't read minds yet."
"Then I suggest that is the very next thing you teach her," his mother said firmly.
Justin hesitated and then asked, "But what if I teach her to read minds and she can't read him? What if he's a possible life mate for her too?"
Her expression turned somber at that question and then she simply asked, "Do you not think it is better to find that out as quickly as you can, so that you can move on if it is the case?"
"The chances that her husband is a possible life mate to her too are pretty slim," his father said reassuringly.
"Are they?" Justin asked. "They grew up together. Have all the same experiences, and have loved each other all their lives." He paced across the room restlessly and then whirled back to ask, "Just how the hell do nanos decide who would be your perfect mate?"
"I don't know," his father admitted quietly.
Sadly, Justin didn't know either . . . and that worried him.
"Your parents are . . ."
Justin shifted his gaze from the road to Holly when she hesitated and suggested dryly, "Weird?"
Chuckling, she shook her head. "No, not weird," she assured him and then added, "If anything, my parents get that crown. They dig up dead people for a living . . . and they like it."
Justin smiled faintly, his concentration returning to the road until she said, "I was kind of impressed, actually."
That drew his attention again and he arched an eyebrow. "Why? Because my father was as handsome and charming as myself?"
Holly laughed outright at his words, but then admitted, "Yes, your father is handsome, and yes, he looks almost exactly like you . . . and yes, he was charming."
"Where do you think I got it?" he asked lightly.
She shook her head at that, but said, "Actually, what impressed me was how your parents are together. They seem still to love each other after so very long together
," she said with obvious admiration, and then grinned and added, "That or they put on a good show for visitors."
"That wasn't a show," Justin assured her. "They really do love each other that deeply after all this time."
"Pretty impressive," Holly murmured.
"Not so impressive," he assured her, as he turned onto the street where Jackie and Vincent lived. "They're life mates. All life mates are like that. The nanos are good at pairing up couples."
When Holly didn't respond, Justin glanced over at her, but her face was turned toward the window. He couldn't tell how she was reacting to what he'd said, but his guess would have been that she was reacting with resistance. She was so damned determined to stay married to her mortal . . .
"Anders and Decker said you probably couldn't read me because of the head trauma I'd taken," Holly blurted suddenly. "That there was damage that still needed repairing, and obviously there was. I couldn't remember everything that led up to my fall at first."
Justin was silent as he turned into the driveway to the house. But once he'd pulled into the garage and shifted into park, he turned to peer at her solemnly. "I couldn't read or control you before you fell, Holly," he said quietly. "Why do you think I had to chase after you? If I'd been able to control you I would have just made you stop before you ever left the crematorium."
She blinked in surprise at that. "You couldn't read or control me then?"
"No," he assured her, having to fight himself to keep from reaching for her.
Holly stared at him briefly, a struggle taking place in her eyes, and then she turned and reached for her door handle, saying, "It doesn't matter. I'm married."
Justin watched her get out of the car and hurry into the house. Then leaned back in the driver's seat with a sigh. She was going to fight this to the bitter end. Which meant his only option was to get them to that end as quickly as possible. His parents were right. His best bet was to teach her to read and control mortals and then reunite her with her husband . . . and hope like hell that Holly could read and control him. Because there was just no way she could live with the thousands and perhaps even millions of cuts that knowing every little thing another person thought or felt about you would bring. She just hadn't experienced the pain of people's thoughts yet.
Slipping out of the car, he entered the house. Much to his surprise Dante and Tomasso were not eating at the kitchen table . . . nor were they eating in the living room. The dynamic duo were actually taking a moonlight dip in the pool.
"We need to teach Holly to read and control minds," Justin announced grimly as he stepped outside.
Dante slicked his damp hair back from his face and turned to peer at him. "Sounds good," he said, then slammed an open palm in the water bringing Tomasso's swimming to an abrupt halt. When his twin swam to the edge of the pool and surfaced to peer around, Dante announced, "Justin wants to start teaching Holly to read and control minds."
"About time," the giant growled, running a hand down his face to brush away the water.
"Right. Now, how the hell do we do that?" Justin asked. He'd never actually been a part of training a new turn in reading minds, and didn't really see how it would be done. It was hard to explain the concept of searching out a person's thoughts to someone who had never done it. It wasn't like hunting Easter eggs or anything as concrete as that.
Noting the glance the twins were exchanging, Justin frowned and raised his eyebrows. He then waited patiently as the two men pulled themselves out of the pool and retrieved their towels.
Running the towel over his large chest and then up his arms, Dante said, "We do what we did with Jackie."
"Which was?" Justin asked curiously when the other man paused to concentrate on drying his hair, throwing the towel over his head and rubbing it roughly with both hands over every part of his head.
Justin had to bite back a smile when Dante pulled the towel off of his head. The man looked like one of the Bouviers after his mother had bathed and towel-dried them. His long hair now stood up every which way.
Running his fingers through the knotted mess, Dante pointed out, "Even young immortals can hear the thoughts of other immortals because they project their thoughts. Right?"
"Right," Justin agreed.
Dante shrugged. "So, we start by projecting our thoughts to her as loud as we can. When she begins picking that up easily, we project them with a little less power, then less and less until we are merely leaving our minds open and she is searching out our thoughts. Then we take her to mortals to try."
Justin stared at the man for a moment and then said slowly, "That's brilliant."
"Why do you think Lucian wanted us to help you?" Dante asked with amusement. "We might be pretty boys, but we're not stupid."
"No, you're not," Justin agreed on a chuckle.
"We'll start first thing tomorrow," Dante announced.
"Why not now?" Justin asked, fighting disappointment.
"Because you've had her out all evening," Dante said patiently.
"She'll be tired," Tomasso added. "She needs to be fresh."
"We also need no distractions and no interruptions," Dante added. "So you aren't invited."
Justin stiffened at this news. "But I'm the one who is supposed to be training her. Lucian said I was responsible for--"
"You can take her out to the mall when we get to the point where she can read with some competency and needs to practice reading and controlling mortals," Dante said with a shrug. "But until then, leave her to us."
Justin scowled, reluctant to leave her to these two men. Actually, it wasn't so much that he was reluctant to leave her with them. He trusted Dante and Tomasso. He just didn't want to be away from her. She was his life mate, which meant he was naturally drawn to her and wanted to spend time with her. Shifting unhappily, he asked, "How long do you think it will take to get her to the point where she needs to practice reading mortals?"
Dante and Tomasso exchanged another look, and then both shrugged.
"Couple days," Tomasso said when they turned back to Justin.
"Maybe as many as three," Dante added. "But no more than that."
"Three days!" Justin complained with dismay. Three days of staying away from Holly? That was like asking him not to eat for three days, he thought, and then recalled that it wouldn't really be three days until he saw her again. He would still have their shared dreams while they were sleeping. That thought made him smile. He supposed he could survive three days of avoiding her in person as long as he had the dreams to look forward to. In their dreams was where he could hold and kiss and lick her wet, eager body and--
Justin's thoughts ended on a squawk as Dante gave him a shove in passing that sent him flying into the pool. He surfaced quickly, spitting out water and cursing, but even so, heard Tomasso laugh and say, "Nice one, brother."
"He needed to cool off," was Dante's response as the two men went inside.
Justin swam to the edge of the pool and leaned his face against the cold tiles with a sigh. He had needed to cool off. His thoughts had brought on an erection. But then thoughts of Holly often did that. The woman was like a drug in his blood. At first it had just been the idea that she was his life mate that brought on his interest in her, but after that kiss in the kitchen to bring on her fangs, and especially after the shared dreams . . .
Damn, she was addictive and he just couldn't get enough. Aside from that, the more he got to know her, the more he actually liked her.
After dispensing what advice they could, his parents and he had joined Holly at the table in the kitchen to visit. Justin had mostly watched and listened as his parents had drawn Holly out, and he'd liked what he saw and heard. She was smart and sweet, with a good sense of humor, and she'd been kind and respectful to his parents. He even admired her determination to stick to her marital vows. He didn't like it, but it showed she had honor.
On top of that, while she'd screamed like a crazy person when Octavius had come charging out of the house, later she'd asked to g
o out to the kennels to see the dogs his mother obviously loved so much. Justin was pretty sure she hadn't done it because she had any great desire to see them, herself. He knew she'd caught him looking out toward the kennels several times during the visit. He'd wanted to see Octavius again before he left. She'd sensed that and braved her fears so that he could see the dog he'd nursed as a puppy. She'd even slipped one hand through the gate to allow the dogs to smell and lick her fingers. She'd trembled as she'd done it, but she'd done it. It gave Justin hope that someday she might actually get over her fear of the beasts.
Yeah, he had it bad for Holly. She was quickly becoming the focus of his life, the only thing he could see clearly. He just worried she would never allow herself to feel the same for him. That she would stick doggedly to her marriage vows and sacrifice all that they could be together.
Sighing, Justin pulled himself out of the water and sat on the edge of the pool to dry.
Fourteen
Holly set her toothbrush on the side of the sink and quickly rinsed her mouth, then stepped out into the bedroom, only to pause and eye the bed warily. If this was the Garden of Eden, that bed was her snake. Well, okay, not the bed, but the dreams she might have in it. They were temptation incarnate . . . and as she'd feared, they had made her look at Justin differently today. Recalling the feel of Dream Justin's hands and lips on her body and the excitement and passion she'd felt with him, she'd found herself staring at his hands and mouth that day, and wondering if they could give the same pleasure to her waking body. She'd also found herself paying undue attention to his physique in his tight clothes. Dream Justin had nothing on the real Justin's body.
Where James was wiry with the slightest paunch, Justin was built like a man who lifted weights. Not with big brawny muscles like Dante and Tomasso, but with muscle and definition.
Holly grimaced guiltily at comparing her husband to Justin in her head. It wasn't fair. Aside from that, she'd never seen Justin even near a weight. She suspected his perfect form was thanks to the nanos. James didn't have that advantage.
Sighing, she walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it. But she didn't lie down right away . . . mostly because she wanted to. She wanted to throw herself under the covers, close her eyes, and sink into sleep in the hopes that she had more of those amazing erotic dreams about Justin. And there lay the problem. Her enjoyment of and desire to have those dreams made her feel as guilty as hell.