front of the house. The blinds at the front window were 55
Stephanie Julian
opaque but left in enough light for her to see everything clearly—and she clearly saw what appeared to be a rip in the air in the middle of the front room.
Ellie shook her head. Okay, maybe she’d fallen and knocked herself silly at the park this morning. Maybe all of this was a hallucination—which would suck big time, because the best sex she’d ever had would only have happened in her head.
But at least that would explain why her brother Justin appeared to step out of that rip, along with a gorgeous redheaded woman.
Ellie blinked a couple of times but her brother didn’t disappear. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.
Justin shook his head as if to clear cobwebs, noticed her and lifted his hand in greeting.
She heard him say, “Let me explain,” before she closed her eyes and let the darkness on the edges of her vision take her down.
56
Seduced in Shadow
Chapter Four
“Why the hell didn’t you warn her? Or at least keep her in another part of the house? Shit, she didn’t need to see that. Gods be damned, Antonin. What were you thinking?”
As Justin continued to ream him a new one, Antonin tuned the guy out. He’d caught Ellie just before she slid off the chair then carried her to the sofa in the living room, telling Justin to go to the kitchen and wait.
Justin hadn’t wanted to but his blood-bound mate Scarlata, her voice pitched too low for him to hear, had tugged on Justin’s arm until he’d followed, still swearing at Antonin.
Justin was right of course. Antonin should have kept Ellie upstairs. But he’d been worried her brother would freak when he realized they’d had sex. It shouldn’t matter.
They were both consenting adults and it really wasn’t any of Justin’s business what they did. But he’d wanted to spare Ellie any embarrassment and he was fucking sick of being unable to answer her increasingly difficult questions.
Antonin shook his head to make sure his ears were covered. It was an old habit, hard to break. But when you’d lived in the human world as long as he had, you learned a few things about hiding.
Ellie’s eyelids fluttered and finally she opened them enough to stare into his eyes.
“I’m usually not a fainter,” she said right off, making him smile. “But you’ve got to admit it’s been kind of an odd day for me.”
He wanted to kiss her but settled for tightening his arms around her. “Ellie, are you okay?”
“Yeah. But,” she grimaced and swallowed hard, “did my brother really just…materialize out of thin air in the front room?”
57
Stephanie Julian
He nodded, keeping his gaze on her. “Yes, he did.”
“And you’re a…a linchetto ?”
He nodded again.
Ellie appeared to mull that over, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. He wanted to kiss her so she’d stop before she hurt herself.
Lifting one hand, she slid her fingers into his hair so she could push it back behind his ear. Her digits stroked along the outer edge from the lobe to the tip, sending a shiver of pure eroticism through him. She touched his ear with the same reverence she’d stroked his cock earlier.
And now he had a hard-on.
Her lips parted as she drew in a deep breath and their gazes locked.
“Is someone finally going to tell me what’s going on now? Because I’m afraid the next thing you’re going to tell me is that I have to choose between the blue pill and the red pill.”
He smiled at her Matrix reference, relieved that she’d retained her sense of humor.
“Good movie, but no, there are no pills. There are things you don’t know however.”
Her mouth twisted. “That I figured out for myself.” She looked over his shoulder then twisted her head around to look behind them. “Where’s Justin?”
“In the kitchen. Do you want me to—”
Ellie put her fingers over his mouth and shook her head. Then she wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled him
Lesley Pearse
Taiyo Fujii
John D. MacDonald
Nick Quantrill
Elizabeth Finn
Steven Brust
Edward Carey
Morgan Llywelyn
Ingrid Reinke
Shelly Crane