Ocean-blue eyes met his and as her plump lips parted, he was lost to any semblance of reasoning. He moved over her, skimming his knuckles across her cheek while her gaze never wavered from his.
“And I can’t help myself around you,” he said softly.
Her gaze fell to his lips.
Heat coiled inside of him, ready to invade every part of his body. Ready to invade hers. “Your costume becomes you.”
“I’m Poppy Holland,” she said.
At that moment he didn’t care if she was the granddaughter of Anastasia or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She was entrusting him with one of her most guarded secrets, and he wasn’t going to ruin it by saying something so incredibly stupid as I know.
“Brilliant.”
She frowned. “No, you don’t understand. I’m Poppy—legendary bewitcher of men.”
“That you are.” He wriggled his eyebrows at her and she groaned. “It solves a problem for me, actually.”
Her nose wrinkled. “It does?”
“I couldn’t decide on who I was tonight, but the answer is obvious.”
“It is?” She blinked and blinked again.
“Have I told you how particularly adorable you are when you answer in two word sentences?” he asked with a laugh.
“Sasha.” Her breasts rose above the neckline as she moved into a sitting position.
“What are you wearing underneath?” He traced the curve of one soft mound and her breath hitched.
“Steampunk.”
“Never heard of that particular line.”
“Harrison Collins is my dad,” she said and he looked up in time to see her lashes sweep down, hiding her eyes from him.
“Skye’s too?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Summer?”
Black lashes flickered. “Summer is my cousin, not my sister. But she—we—let everyone think she’s the oldest.”
Summer’s warning rang in his ear. “To protect you.”
Rose covered her mouth with her hand and then let it fall to her throat. “Oh, God, Sasha—I have to go. I don’t care what Harrison does to me. I need to see Ivy before Summer leaves with her.”
Why would her sister leave? It didn’t matter. In this he could help. He pulled her to her feet. “Need my car?”
“Yes.”
He handed her the keys. “Need help out of that dress?”
“What?”
“You can’t drive in that.”
“But I don’t have anything else to wear.” She looked down at her costume and then back at him, panic filling her eyes.
He unbuttoned his jacket and slung it over the sofa. “I have an idea.”
“We can’t make love right now.”
He fingers hovered above the third button. “Later?” Danger gleamed in her eyes and he quickly added, “I’m giving you my shirt and jacket to wear. They should be long enough to cover your very luscious derrière. ”
Rose’s cheeks flushed bright pink.
His cuff links were next to go. “The sight of my glorious chest shouldn’t cause too many women to swoon.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just the women?”
“Quite right—the men, too.” The shirt joined his jacket and he caught Rose staring at him. More specifically at his chest. After having his nipples pierced for over six years, he usually wasn’t aware of them, but at this moment he was conscious of everything. The way his nipples tightened around the metal rings. His cock stirring to life as she moved closer.
“When I first saw you tonight, all I could think about was getting my necklace back.” She blinked twice and he suppressed a grin.
That was not the first thing she thought. He could feel the connection between them as soon as their eyes locked. He’d been sure she felt it, too. But it wasn’t enough. He’d betrayed Rose by withholding information from her. And he had nothing to offer her.
With a heavy sigh, he reached for the clasp at the back of his neck. Even if was the right thing to do, it was the last thing he wanted. Last night, as he counted cracks in the ceiling of the room he’d rented from the local bed and breakfast, his fingers wouldn’t leave the damn thing alone. It was as if she were in bed with him, comforting and making him ache for her at the same time.
“It doesn’t belong to me anymore.” She pushed a stray curl behind her ear. “I thought it did, but it’s yours.”
“Turn around, love,” he said, his voice hoarse as he tucked the pendant under his collar. Thankfully she did as he asked and he set to work on the tiny buttons running down the back. The dress slid off of her shoulders and fell to the floor. After catching sight of what it had revealed, he nearly did the same. She was wearing a corset—laced up the sides—that constricted her waist into waspish proportions and a garter belt.
He flexed his fingers and stepped back. Shapely legs encased in nude stockings with silver threads weaving up the sides caught the firelight. His mouth went dry and a cross between a moan and a groan left his throat.
“Consequences,” Rose said as she bent over to grab his shirt.
To hell with consequences. He cupped her elbow, turning her face him and tilted her chin up. He bent his head, already tasting her kiss.
The door burst open and they jumped apart.
David Turner poked his head in, disgust filling his face. But Sasha knew it wasn’t directed at Rose. Only him. Always him. Not that he could blame the bloke.
“This isn’t what it looks like.” Rose jerked his shirt around her, a guilty flush creeping up her neck.
It was exactly what it looked like, Sasha wanted to say. Or it would’ve been. He cast a critical eye on the Sheriff’s costume. Of course the man was in uniform. “Originality not your strong point either?” Sasha asked, silently daring the man to say something.
“I need to speak with Rose. Alone.”
“Give me a minute.” Turning Rose to face him, Sasha helped her with the buttons, then draped his jacket around her slender shoulders. “I’ll go wait in the hall.”
“It’s okay, David.” She gave Sasha a tremulous smile. “Sasha can stay.”
“What time did you get here?” David asked, ruining Sasha’s moment of sweet victory.
“Eight. My date was very punctual,” she said with a raise of her brows.
Sasha rolled his eyes and mumbled, “Of course he was.”“Romanov come with you?” The sheriff gave him a pointed look.
“No.”
“What’s with this line of questioning?” Sasha asked, annoyed and mildly panicked.
“I really need to go to Jemma Leigh’s and get Ivy. Summer’s back.”
David cursed. “You really don’t know about the explosion, do you?”
Her eyes widened until the blue was a thin line around the black. “What explosion?”
“I kinda hoped you’d been the one to do it,” the sheriff muttered.
“Do what?” Rose asked, her voice rising as she turned around to face the sheriff. She grabbed Sasha’s hand and squeezed.
David shifted his stance and took off his hat. “I don’t know how to tell you, honey.”
“For the love of God man, spit it out,” Sasha growled.
“An explosion from your greenhouse made Strawberry Grove catch on fire. Hayden Laws said he’d never seen a house go up that fast—not without help.”
The room went silent, not even the clock on the mantle dared tick.
Hysterical laughter came from Rose’s mouth and Sasha tried to soothe her, but she pushed him away. “I don’t need your comfort.”
“The fire department’s doing the best that they can, but it’s out of control.”
A gust of wind blew the windows open, lifting the drapes as lightning split the sky. Thunder boomed, shaking the entire house. The party-goers let out shouts of laughter, thinking this was part of their entertainment.
Thunder boomed again, books and expensive vases falling to the floor.
Rose turned, shoes silent on the hardwoods as she stalked to the closest window. Her hands were fisted at her side.
Sasha stared at her back, the fine hair on his neck rising as his jacket seemed to float off of her and land on the sofa. But it was only the gust of wind. It lifted his hair at the roots. “You need to come away from the window, Rosebud.”
“When I’m done.” Her voice was strangely calm.
Suddenly, the heavens opened and rain poured from the sky.
“That should help,” she said.
“Who set your house on fire?” David shouted over the next boom of thunder. “Nobody would blame you if you were the one that did it. But if someone else were to blame, I’d—”
“I didn’t do it,” Sasha blurted, the need to convince her that he had absolutely nothing to do with destroying her home imperative. “I swear on my mother’s life—”
“I know you didn’t, Sasha.”
He nearly dropped to his knees at her easy acceptance. Just like before, when he told her about his uncle’s schemes. Whatever it took, he’d make it up to her.
She cast a glance over her shoulder, her blue eyes glowing eerily as lightening flashed. “Go home to Missy, David. She’s about to go in labor.”
David smacked his hat against his thigh. “Don’t you start that crap with me. Tell me who set your damn house on fire so I can arrest his ass.”
The lights went out and lightening flashed again, gifting Sasha with her silhouette.
“Sasha?” Her voice was reedy thin.
“Yes,” he croaked.
“I need you.” As if in slow motion her knees gave away and her body began to crumple to the floor. He managed to catch her before she hit the hardwood floor, her sweet frame soaked by the rain and ice cold where their skin touched.
“Does that answer your question, Sheriff?”
Turner worked his mouth for a moment and swiped his hand over his face. “Not by a long shot.”
“Bloody right,” Sasha agreed.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Want to tell me what happened back there?” Sasha turned the heat up in the car, giving her a sidelong glance. He fiddled with the controls, turning the radio up. The volume was low enough for conversation, but loud enough to hear the local DJ share what costume was the most popular this year.
Rose cast her gaze at the patrol car in front them, trying to convince herself that maybe the explosion had only set a part of her house on fire. That maybe the firemen had caught it in time. “I passed out.”
“Rose, you made a storm appear out of nowhere.”
“People can’t control the weather.” If she could, Holland Springs would be in The Guinness Book of World Records for the most assholes struck by lightning in one town. She laced her hands together in her lap. “They were calling for storms tonight.”
The DJ reminded everyone to watch out for isolated evening thunderstorms.
“Convenient.”
But it wasn’t. Nothing was. If things had been left up to her, she’d be saying good-bye to Ivy. Telling Summer all the little things she needed to know about her. Giving her sister the baby book she’d made. All the pictures she’d taken. Well, not all of them. A few she’d keep for herself. “Summer won’t wait until tomorrow to leave.” A lump formed in her throat, almost as large as the boulder sitting in her stomach.
“We’ll only stay as long as they need you, then I’ll drive you to Jemma Leigh’s,” he said. “I’d like to say good-bye to Ivy, too.”
She turned to look at him, the glow from the dashboard highlighting the stark lines of his face. Her heart pinched. “You’re really going to miss her?”
He nodded once and applied the brake as the patrol car slowed and made a left at the intertwined dogwoods that stood behind the Strawberry Grove street sign.
Sasha did the same, the bump as the tires hit the gravel making Rose sway slightly. She breathed deeply, clutching her hands tightly and wishing for her cross necklace. There was no way she could look. None at all. She closed her eyes like a coward.
The car quit moving.
“Christ.”
Her eyes flew open. She tried to speak but only air rushed out and a strange sort of croaking in her throat.
“I’m so sorry, love.” He grabbed her hands, squeezing them.
Nothing in her life had prepared Rose for the sight that greeted her. Her own American horror story come to life.
Flames licked at Strawberry Grove, ravenous as it ate the almost three hundred year old structure. Fiery fingers reached for the sky, engulfing the roof and two chimneys. Paint peeled like skin from a rotted corpse. Blown out windows like empty eye sockets. Missing doors like mouths opened in a forever silent scream. Great billows of smoke so black that it blocked the moon’s feeble attempt to shine. Ashes floated through the air, blanketing the firemen, their trucks and anything else nearby like dirty snow.
Obviously, the rain from the storm hadn’t helped, but maybe that’s what started it in the first place—the lightning from the storm and not a person. It happened all the time, so why should her house be spared?
No, not her house. Her home, her safe haven where no one judged her. Where her family had lived for generations. Where Ivy had rolled over the first time, where she changed Ivy’s first diaper, given Ivy her first bath and listened to her coo at Blackbeard.
It was where Rose had taken her first steps and said her first words. She and her sisters’ height, yearly measured and marked on a wall by the back stairs. Giggles and secrets shared under the cover of darkness. Chasing butterflies and Blackbeard in the front yard. Helping her mother pick flowers as she and her sisters learned each one’s proper name and uses. Things she’d never do for Ivy, not at this home. And now that Summer had her back, not at any other.