Talk about addictions. The way she felt around that male, when he looked at her, touched her, kissed her, was so amazing, she could see herself getting hooked on the buzz—thus the whole counting-down-the-hours thing. The trouble with all that, however, was that he wasn’t something that could be bought and consumed like pot, or ice cream, or wine. He was a separate, independent entity, and it was funny, the fact that he’d chosen to be with her, even if just over the phone, was part of the high.
He was picking her. Out of anyone on the planet—
Paradise stopped in the middle of the aisle. Something had fluttered to the ground and she picked the thing up with a frown. It was a picture, an old-fashioned Polaroid type, the kind with the glossy square in the center and the white matte part that was small around three sides and big at the bottom so you could hold it and write on it.
The image was so blurry it was indecipherable, something red and pinkish with stripes.
“Peyton, really,” she muttered.
God only knew what he was doing while he was high. He’d been known to rock some crazy, psychedelic stuff and try some really weird things—which, of course, he delighted in telling her about.
With the image in her hand, she shuffled down to the exit, thanked the doggen driver, and then opened her mouth to call for her buddy. He’d already dematerialized with Anslam, though, so she put the photograph of his bedspread, or his carpet, or his bathrobe, or his frickin’ martini in her pocket.
“Did you help Craeg with his little problem?” Novo said from the shadows.
Paradise turned as the bus headed off, stones crackling under its tires. “You lied about all that.”
“Did I?” The female smiled in the cold moonlight. “I don’t think I did. And I was right, wasn’t I. He needed you, and only you.”
With a flush, Paradise remembered Craeg’s body up against hers, his arousal pressing into her belly.
Not a little problem, she thought to herself. Not at all. It was big, and thick, and—
“Well?” Novo prompted.
“That is none of your business.”
“So prim, so proper. S’all good, though. Glad you kids had a good time. That’s what life should be about—and I figured that you guys wouldn’t get it together without some help.”
Paradise had to laugh. “You do not look like the matchmaking type, Novo.”
“I’m branching out.” The female shrugged her strong shoulders under her black leather jacket. “That’s why we’re all here, right?”
For a split second, Paradise was tempted to invite the female over. She’d never actually had a true friend. In the aristocracy, your social position determined who you were allowed to be seen with—and God knew none of the cousins she had had to make small talk with had been of much interest to her. Plus you couldn’t trust them. Females like that were competing for a limited group of highly desired males—which made them as cutthroat as a school of piranha.
It was The Bachelor times a hundred.
Besides, Novo kind of knew about Craeg, and that made Paradise feel less like she had anything to hide—and the female certainly seemed sexual enough to have had some experience in the seduction department. Maybe a lot of it. Opening her mouth, Paradise—
Remembered where she lived.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she mumbled.
“You’re not pissed off at me, are you?”
“No, I’m not at all.” As she blushed, she was glad it was dark and the tree canopy cut out most of the moonlight. “I’m kind of grateful, actually.”
Novo pulled another one of those shoulder squeezes of hers. “Have a good rest of the night and day. See you tomorrow.”
Paradise lifted her hand. “Bye.”
When she was left alone, she let her head fall back and looked at the stars. Then she moved her satchel to her chest, wrapped her arms around it and dematerialized herself.
Re-forming on the lawn in the exact place she had the night before, she was hoping to feel a little less foreign in familiar territory.
Annnnnd that would be a big fat Nope.
Striding up to the front door, she felt just as much distance as she had the night before. This time, though, the separation was tied to Craeg.
You know that ache you’ve got right now? The one between your legs? I’m going to show you how to take care of that by yourself. And you’re going to make me come when I listen to what it sounds like.
Just the memory of his deep, husky voice saying those words turned her body into a blast-furnace—to the point that she wanted to take her parka off even though it was forty degrees. And yet at the same time, she looked up to all those glowing windows—and wanted to vomit. The idea that she was going to get on the phone, and probably end up naked, while a male who her father wouldn’t approve of walked her through it all? In the room she’d grown up in? While her father was in the house? Females like her weren’t supposed—
“Oh, fuck that,” she muttered as she started walking for the door.
Life was too damned short, and Craeg was too damned hot for her to waste time feeling guilty when she was doing nothing wrong in the larger scheme of things.
Remember, she told herself. You’re never getting mated. You’re free.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“I lied.”
As Axe spoke up, Butch looked across the rose-and-vine kitchen. The male was leaning against the countertop by the stove, his arms crossed over his chest, his head tilted down so that there were great shadows where his deeply set eyes should have been.