Sherry raised her gaze from the notepad and glanced around when sudden silence fell over the room. Drina stood in the kitchen doorway, a large, full coffeepot in hand and a stricken look on her face. Harper stood at the head of the table peering down at his feet, his expression a combination of frustration and sadness, and Basil was eyeing Stephanie with pity. As for Stephanie herself, the teenager had returned to her place in front of the pan of brownies, but now simply stared down at the squares, her shoulders slumped.
"Didn't someone promise me brownies?" Sherry asked with forced cheer. "Here I am slaving away at my list and yet I'm the only one without a brownie."
"Right." Stephanie stiffened her shoulders and returned to cutting, muttering, "We can't have that."
Sherry swallowed back a sigh and peered at her notepad again, but her vision was a bit blurry, her eyes glazed with tears.
Eleven
Sherry finished brushing her teeth set her toothbrush on the counter next to Basil's and then turned to the door, only to pause. It was late, after 2 A.M. and Lucian was supposed to come in the morning, so they weren't likely to get much sleep, and still she was dithering about going to bed. She'd already brushed her teeth three times.
Grimacing, she turned back to the sink and eyed the woman who peered back. A nervous woman in a short, rose-colored lace nightgown that she might as well not be wearing since everything showed through it. Still, it wasn't like Basil hadn't seen everything already.
"Seriously?" she whispered to her reflection. "You've already had sex with the man multiple times, but now you're nervous because you're sharing a room with him?"
Her reflection didn't respond, and Sherry rolled her eyes and lectured, "All you have to do is open the door, walk out there and climb into bed. Preferably without tripping and breaking your neck or otherwise humiliating yourself."
"Sherry?"
She turned sharply to the closed door. "Yes?"
"Are you okay?" Basil asked with concern, and then sounded confused as he added, "Who are you talking to?"
Sherry glanced back to her reflection and whispered, "Now see what you've done?"
"What did I do?"
Muttering, "Damned immortal hearing," she opened the door. Basil stood just outside in light blue cotton pajamas and a dark blue robe. He looked so damned debonair . . . like he was used to being in strange bedrooms with women he'd only met days ago.
"Nothing," Sherry assured him when she realized she hadn't responded to his comment, and then she admitted with a little chagrin, "I was just talking to myself."
"Oh." He looked relieved at this news and smiled, his gaze sliding down over her with pleasure. "You look lovely."
"Thank you," she squeaked, and moved past him to hurry to the bed, her only thought to hide herself under the covers. God, she was such a ninny.
Sherry climbed quickly to sit in bed and tugged the covers up to her neck. She then held them in place with one hand and forced a smile for him.
Basil still stood across the room, a rather bemused look on his face. She supposed she couldn't blame him. She was acting like a terrified virgin on her wedding night. Clearing her throat, she patted the mattress next to her with her free hand and asked, "Aren't you going to come to bed?"
Basil eyed the spot but shook his head. "No, I think it's probably better if I don't."
"What?" she squawked with surprise.
Turning to pace to the chair that sat in the corner of the room, he settled himself in it and said solemnly, "Honey . . . we need to talk."
"Oh, God, really?" Sherry groaned, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead with the fingers of one hand. According to the movies, "Honey, we need to talk" was code for "I'm about to dump your ass."
"Really what?" Basil asked uncertainly.
"The breakup speech," she said grimly, dropping her hand to scowl at him. "Let me guess, this is all going so fast and we need to slow it down."
"What?" he asked with bewilderment. "No, of course not. Honey, you are my life mate, I will never break up with you."
Sherry narrowed her eyes, but he looked so earnest, she actually believed him. Relaxing a little, she asked, "Then why are you way over there?"
He smiled crookedly and admitted, "Because if I come any closer I fear I will not be able to refrain from ravishing you, and we need to talk first."
Refrain from ravishing? He was so cute, Sherry thought, and let the blankets slip a little so that it rested just above the neckline of her nightie. Basil's gaze immediately dipped to follow the movement and she saw his hands clench on the chair arms. Suddenly feeling more cheerful, she said, "Sure. What do you want to talk about?"
Basil hesitated and then forced his gaze back to her face. "Do you recall what Stephanie said earlier tonight?"
"Which time?" she asked, letting the blanket drop a little more so that the top half of her breasts, visible through the lace nightie, were on display. She might as well have been bare from the nipples up, she noted with a quick glance down, so wasn't terribly surprised when Basil seemed to find it a little harder to pull his attention upward this time.
He did, though, eventually, and then cleared his throat, frowned and asked, "What was I--?"
"Stephanie," she reminded him sweetly, feeling incredibly powerful in that moment.
"Oh yes." Basil nodded, his gaze slipping down to her lace top as she let the blanket drop altogether. She was pretty much fully exposed now, her breasts visible through the lace, her nipples a darker rose than the nightie itself. They were also erect, she noticed, and felt a blush curl up over her cheeks. It was amazing how quickly you could go from feeling like a ninny, to feeling powerful, to feeling like a shy schoolgirl, Sherry thought.
A tearing sound drew her gaze back to Basil to see that he was clutching violently at the chair arms now and had apparently done some damage to the material. More importantly, though, her nipples weren't the only thing in the room that were erect. Basil had popped a mini-tent in his lap.
Confidence restored and the sense of power surging back within her, Sherry slid out of bed, and this time she did not scamper, but walked with slow and what she hoped were sexy steps to stand in front of Basil.
He was reaching for her before she'd even stopped walking, his hands clasping her upper hips and pulling her forward when she would have halted.
Sherry grabbed for his shoulders to keep her balance, and then gasped in a breath of air when he closed his mouth over her nipple through the lace. She felt his tongue move, rasping and shifting the cloth across her nipple, and she moaned as heat instantly poured through her. So distracted was she that she didn't even notice that his hands had left her hips until she felt cool air on her stomach. Just as she realized that he'd pushed her nightie up to just below her breasts, Basil released her nipple and ducked his head to lick her stomach above her belly button.
Suddenly self-conscious about her body again, Sherry started to retreat, but Basil let the nightie drop over his head and grabbed her hips again to hold her in place. He murmured something as well, but she didn't have a clue what it was. Words could get a bit garbled when you tried to talk while licking your way down a woman's body.
Gasping, Sherry grabbed for his head to keep from falling when Basil suddenly forced her back a step and slid to his knees in front of the chair. His tongue never once left her skin as he made the maneuver, and she would have been impressed but was too busy gasping again, this time in shocked pleasure as he ran the fingers of one hand lightly across the damp flesh between her legs. Even as her body responded to the caress, he withdrew his hand to grasp her left leg and shift it over his shoulder. Basil then dipped his head between her legs to caress her with his tongue instead.
Sherry was pretty sure her heart stopped then. She was also pretty sure she wouldn't be able to keep her balance long and so was relieved when he suddenly lifted her off her feet, turned on his knees and dropped her in the chair he'd just vacated. That relief only lasted until he reached out to grasp her kne
es and raise and spread her legs, draping one over each arm of the chair. The position left her open to inspection. Sherry immediately tried to sit up and close her legs, but he was having none of that. Planting his hands firmly on each thigh, Basil held her in place, then bent his head to minister to her again.
The first rasp of his tongue this time brought a cry of pleasure, and Sherry had the inane thought that it was certainly a good thing that Stephanie's room had soundproofing. But it was the last sensible thought she had as Basil reduced her to nothing more than a trembling mass of moans, groans, and cries that ended in a shout that could probably be heard twenty floors below. It was followed by darkness.
Sherry opened her eyes slowly, at first confused as to what she was doing sitting in the corner of the bedroom. But then she realized she was splayed there like an abandoned doll and quickly shifted her legs together and sat up, tugging her nightie down to cover her decently.
"I would have done that for you, but I was afraid if I touched you I wouldn't stop."
She glanced across the room at that announcement and spotted Basil standing, staring out of the window. He must have turned at some point to see her straightening herself, but right now he had his back to her, his hands clasped behind him.
"Er . . ." she said weakly, and then shook her head when nothing followed.
Apparently, she was not the most brilliant of conversationalists at the moment.
"The turning," Basil said suddenly, and she glanced to him with confusion.
"What?"
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," he explained with his back still to her. "I wanted to talk to you about the turning and what Stephanie said about it."
"Oh," she breathed, and then tried to recall what the girl had said. Oh yes. "That I didn't want Leo to turn me."
"Yes," he said solemnly, and finally faced her. She couldn't help noticing, though, that he avoided looking below her neck. The man was still hot for her . . . and she liked that about him.
"Your face," Sherry gasped, standing up with alarm as she noted the red round circle on his left cheek.
Basil waved away her concern. "Apparently when we passed out after . . ." He waved again rather than say what he'd been doing to her, and then continued, "I think I fell back and smacked myself in the face as I did." He smiled wryly. "At least it is the only conclusion I can come up with . . . and my hand was on my cheek when I woke up."
"Oh," Sherry murmured and settled back in the chair again, supposing there were more embarrassing positions he could have found himself in.
"That was very naughty of you, by the way," he said suddenly, and Sherry glanced to him again.
Managing an innocent expression, she asked, "Whatever are you talking about?"
Basil snorted, apparently not buying it, and accused, "You deliberately distracted me."
"All I did was cross the room," she said with a shrug. "It's not like I pulled my nightgown down and did the boobie dance in your face."
"The boobie dance?" he asked with a frown.
"You know, jiggling my boobs in your face."
Basil licked his lips, a faraway look on his face that suggested to her that he was imagining just that, and then his expression cleared and he scowled once more. "You are distracting me again."
Sherry stared, the sudden urge to hug him briefly overwhelming her.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked warily.
"Like what?" she asked softly.
He hesitated and then admitted, "I'm not sure how to describe it. Either as if you want to eat me up or slap me."
Sherry burst out laughing at that. Talk about not being able to read expressions. Shaking her head, she smiled and said, "I'd be happy to eat you up. It only seems fair to return the favor."
Basil groaned. "Sherry we have to talk about this."
Relenting, she stood and moved to the bed. This time she laid down in it rather than sit, and then she pulled the covers up to her armpits and rested her hands on top. "All right. Talk."
Basil breathed out a sigh and moved to perch carefully on the bottom corner on the opposite side, about as far away as he could get in the bed. When she simply waited patiently, he finally said, "I think Stephanie is right."
"That I don't want to be turned by Leo?" Sherry asked.
"Yes."
"Okay. I understand that, and you're right, I wouldn't want Leo to turn me," she admitted.
Basil nodded, and then took a deep breath and blurted, "So, perhaps I should turn you to prevent that happening."
Sherry froze. She was quite sure her heart actually stopped, or at least skipped a beat. She hadn't been expecting this. She was supposed to be able to just enjoy what was happening between her and Basil and worry about the rest of it later. This wasn't worrying about it later.
"Sherry?" he queried solemnly.
"I . . ." She paused, licked her lips and then admitted, "I don't think I'm ready for that yet, Basil. Everything has happened so fast. We need to slow down and think about this."
"That sounds eerily like the breakup speech you mentioned," he said dryly.
She grimaced and sat up in bed, not caring that the blankets fell away. "Basil, we only met a couple days ago and you're asking me to do something that can't be undone."
"To prevent you from suffering Stephanie's fate, which also cannot be undone," he said quietly.
"Yes, but . . ." Frowning, she peered down at her hands and then bit her lip and asked, "But what if we don't work out? What if you grow tired of me?"
"Sherry," he began, and then paused and stood to move around the bed to sit next to her hip and take her hands. "I know that all of this is a lot to take in. That until a couple days ago you did not even know we existed in your world let alone that there was such a thing as life mates, but please believe me when I tell you that this will work out and I will never tire of you." Squeezing her fingers, he said firmly, "We are life mates. That is a bond that cannot be undone and will not fade with time. It will live and thrive for as long as we do. So long as we are both alive, no one and nothing can come between us. It is as simple as that."
Sherry stared at their entwined hands for a moment, but finally shook her head. "I need more time."
Basil sat still as a statue, his mouth tight, and then he said, "You don't have to agree to be my life mate now. Just agree to let me turn you."
Her eyes widened incredulously. "But what if you did that and we split up?"
"I am willing to take that chance to keep you safe. I would rather have you alive and immortal and not with me, than dead and never mine," he said grimly.
Sherry stared at him for a moment, amazement overwhelming her. She didn't know what to make of his offer. What did it mean? She needed to think. "Can you please just give me a little more time?"
Basil closed his eyes and then confessed, "I am afraid of losing you. I have waited for you for what feels like eons, and I am terrified that Leo will snatch you away from me and either kill you or turn you himself, which could also kill you or make you insane." Eyes opening, he said, "I am afraid that if I don't turn you, you could be lost to me forever."
Sherry met his gaze squarely as she said, "I'm sorry for that. But when I make the decision, I don't want it to be for the wrong reasons. I want it to be based on our feelings for each other, not because we're afraid of what Leonius Livius might do." She hesitated and then said, "Please tell me you understand."
Basil was silent for a minute, and then, rather than answer, he slid one hand around her neck, pulled her face forward and then kissed her. It was a deep, hungry kiss, and felt very like the ravishing he'd mentioned earlier.
Sherry was so relieved that he wasn't stomping out of the room in a snit, she immediately responded, her upper body molding itself to his as her hands glided up his chest, around his neck on either side and into his soft, short hair. When he tightened his arms around her and stood up, taking her with him, she went willingly. Her legs slid out from under the covers a
nd fell against his, then took her weight when he set her down.
Basil reached for the hem of her nightie then, and Sherry raised her arms so he could tug it off over her head. Once it was a crumpled heap on the floor, though, she reached for the tie of his robe. She'd barely started to tug on it when he caught both her wrists in one hand and held them firmly as he removed the undone tie himself. She didn't resist when he quickly bound her hands with one end of it, but simply watched with curiosity.
He kissed her again then, his tongue thrusting almost violently into her mouth, and then pushed her backward. Sherry fell across the bed with a surprised gasp, and then glanced up as he knelt one knee on the top of the bed by her head and laced the other end of the robe tie through the wooden slats of the headboard. She glanced to his face worriedly when he finished, half afraid he intended to turn her anyway, without her permission. But he merely stood up and began to undo his pajama top, his eyes feasting on her as he did.
Once finished with the buttons, the top hit the ground next to her nightie. Sherry bit her lip as her gaze skated over his chest. Then her eyes dropped to watch him hook his thumbs beneath the waistband of his pajama bottoms as he shoved them down.
Basil stepped out of them and then crawled onto the bed and up her body to kiss her again. He then leaned up on one hand, hooked his other arm under her back and lifted her upper body until he could close his mouth over her breast.
Sherry moaned as he suckled and laved at first one breast and then the other, and then she gasped in startled surprise when he nipped at the sensitive tip of one before releasing it and easing her back to the bed. His eyes were glowing silver and turbulent as he straightened and let his gaze slide over her, and she knew he was as affected by what he was doing as she was. He was feeling her pleasure, it was bouncing between them, expanding with each pass, and she thought he was struggling with it, trying to prolong their pleasure. Or perhaps he was trying to torment her for refusing his offer and agreeing to the turn. If so, he was torturing himself as well.
Distracted as she was with her thoughts, Sherry was caught by surprise when he suddenly leaned forward to brush his hand lightly against the core of her before thrusting a finger inside her with a vigor that startled a yelp from her. That yelp was followed by a moan as his thumb found her sensitive nub and began to run lightly back and forth over it, and then around it in circles.