Текст книги "Next-Door Incubus"

Автор книги: Emilia Rose

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

CHAPTER 22

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Dani

“And here are your Fervor Crisps to-go.” The waitress placed two brown bags with a black heart-shaped logo on our table. I gently closed my eyes, breathing in the sweet—almost sinful—aroma.

From across the table, Kasey smiled at me with her freshly painted lips. “Have you ever tried Fervor Crisps?” When I shook my head, she slapped Eros on the shoulder and furrowed her brows at him. “You haven’t made her any?”

Eros clenched his jaw for the hundredth time tonight. “Kase-” he started. My fingers lightly dug into his thigh, hoping that it’d calm him down. It was as far as I had gotten flirting with him. He and Kasey had been bickering the whole night.

Kasey took my hand. “Eros makes the most delicious ones that you’ll ever taste.”

I raised a brow at him. “You bake?” He gave Kasey one more hard look, then smiled sheepishly at me. My eyes widened. “That’s so cute!”

All I could picture was Eros in a tiny white apron with flour in his hair, rolling dough—if that’s even what they were made of.

His cheeks tinted pink, and he took my hand from Kasey. I drew my finger over his ring, feeling its warmth from within it. Eros held my hand to his chest, and I gazed at him. The dim light from above accentuated his sharp features, yet they looked inviting somehow. “I’ll make them for you sometime,” he said softly.

Kasey pointed a manicured finger at him. “And take her to The Lounge. They have some good Fervor Crisps too.”

“What’s The Lounge?”

Eros narrowed his eyes at Kasey and pulled me out of the booth. “It’s a bar,” he said slowly. “We’ll be going now.” After snatching one bag, he tugged me through the crowded restaurant, leaving Kasey, Aarav, and Mycah all smirking wickedly at me from the table.

Alone time—finally.

As soon as we reached the car, Eros gazed at me from the driver’s seat. The moon gleamed through the windshield, lightening his dark eyes. He placed a hand on the back of my black leather seat, leaned forward, and said, “I’ve been waiting all night for this,” with that husky voice of his.

My heart thumped against my chest. Here goes nothing. I crossed one leg over the other, my black dress riding up my leg. I turned toward him and fingered the collar on his shirt. “For what?” I asked, holding eye contact.

He drew his nose against mine and smirked. “For this.” He leaned in, snatched the warm bag of Fervor Crisps from my lap, tore it open, and pulled out two pastries, grinning like a maniac.

Heat crawled up my cheeks, and I shifted awkwardly in my seat when he handed me one. Great, Dani, you try to act sexy when all he wanted was some damn Fervor Crisps.

In one bite, Eros stuffed one into his mouth and groaned. “Mmmmm, it’s so good.”

Doughy like an éclair with a thin layer of sugar and powder coating the outside, the Fervor Crisps were only about a finger length long, but they looked delicious.

He relaxed against the back of his seat in pure delight, eyes shutting softly. There was a bit of white powder on his bottom lip. I wanted to wipe it off, but he looked too peaceful. I just wanted to savor the moment.

Once he swallowed, he nudged my Fervor Crisp closer to me. “Go on,” he said. “You’ll like it.”

When I bit into mine, my mouth filled with intense creamy goodness and thick rich dough. Sweet with a pinch of salt. I moaned softly. “How haven’t I eaten one of these before?”

Eros grabbed another one and broke it apart, letting the milky cream ooze from the middle. “They’re not popular around here.”

“Oh. Are they popular where you used to live?”

He tensed and slowly chewed his food. “What do you mean?”

“Like your home?”

“You mean where my family is from?”

I furrowed my brows at him. “Uh… yeah…”

After gazing out of the foggy windshield for a few moments, he clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Yeah, they’re popular in Hell.”

“Eros, I’m being serious,” I said. Was his family so bad that he didn’t even want to tell me about them?

The dashboard lit up with the name Luci, and I clenched my jaw. Why did she keep calling? Nearly every time that I drove with him, I’d see her name. Missed call from Luci. Incoming call from Luci. Voicemail from Luci.

Breathe, Dani.

Eros and I weren’t a thing yet. I couldn’t get jealous over such a stupid girl’s name. So, I gazed over at him and brushed a stray piece of hair from his face. “I won’t judge you. You can tell me.”

He looked so chillingly distant. Nothing like that boyish grin he had a few moments ago. “I told you that you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into with me. I need to be sure that you’re going to be okay when you find out.” He played with his ring, making it spin around his finger.

I wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. I was ready for any family-related problem that he could throw at me. From growing up without parents to my experience listening to Dr. U’s patients talk about all the family problems that they had, I had a decent grasp on how to handle wild family drama.

“Okay,” I said quietly. “I can wait for whenever you’re ready.”

The dashboard lit up again with Luci’s name, and Eros forwarded the call to voicemail and started the car.

After the dreadfully silent ride home, Eros walked me to my door. He placed his hand on the doorframe and grabbed my hand with the other. “Sorry for being so pissed tonight. Kasey sometimes just…” He took a deep breath. “Gets on my nerves.”

“It’s okay.”

“I wanted it to just be the two of us.” His voice was soft, vulnerable almost, and that boyish smile was back. “I hope you had a good time even though it didn’t turn out how I wanted.”

I handed him the bag of pastries and smiled. “I did.”

He opened it and pulled out the last one. “Share it with me.” He pushed it in my direction, but I pushed it back.

“You first.”

His green eyes sparkled, and he bit into it. White cream oozed out of the center, nearly dripping onto the ground, but he caught it on his finger before it ruined the carpet.

I gazed up at him, smirking. Think sexy, Dani.

I grasped his wrist and pulled his hand to me. My lips wrapped around the tip of his finger, and I slowly sucked off all the sweet creamy goodness. He swallowed the rest of his food, eyes widening. With a light pop, I pulled his finger out of my mouth and licked my lips.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath, lips parted just slightly. His eyes were a hazy green.

My fingers trailed down his chest, just like I had seen Kasey do with Aarav, and I wrapped them around his belt loops and pulled him closer to me. I brushed my lips against his ear. “I bet yours tastes better.”

His breath hitched. And, for a moment, I celebrated the slight advantage I had over him.

He regained his composure and pushed me against the door. “I bet you’d love to find out,” he said. When he grinded his hardness into my hip, I let out a small moan, my eyes fluttering closed.

Calm, Dani, calm.

“I love the sounds you make,” he murmured against my ear. Heat rushed to my core.

Stop it, you’re stronger than this.

My fingers relaxed under his belt loops, totally mesmerized by his scent. I moved them to the front side of his pants and grasped his hardness through them. He was so big.

“It’s all yours, Dani. All you have to do is beg.”

My hand moved down his length, and I felt him tense under my touch. He was confident, but I had an effect on him. I continued, knowing it was driving him crazy.

“I’m not going to beg for you,” I said against his ear. “I don’t need you to please me.”

He tensed, harder this time, then pressed his fingers against the front of my dress, wasting rubbing them in small circles. He slipped them under my dress and into my underwear, playing with my folds. “Do you think anyone else could please you the way I can?”

I pressed my knees together, smirking, and pushed him away. “No, and I don’t plan on trying to find anyone else.” His eyes were dark, and after weeks of waiting I just wanted him to thrust me against the wall and fuck me senseless.

But I wasn’t going to beg.

“I’m perfectly capable of pleasuring myself.”

His eyes darkened, and he smirked. “You’re going to touch yourself?”

I paused for the briefest moment, trying to gather my thoughts. He was always so blunt. I opened my door, gave him a once over, and smirked. “I’d ask you to come in, but I’m going to be busy for the rest of the night.”

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CHAPTER 23

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Dani

“Oh, my gosh!” Kasey screamed over the phone. “I bet he was drooling when you shut the door on him. He was probably thinking about you all night.”

I shrugged on my coat, giggling. “I don’t know about that, Kasey,” I said. But I was definitely thinking about him lying in bed with me, hand around my throat, fingers trailing down the center of my chest, touching me in places that I had only ever dreamt.

After I shut the door on Eros last night, I laid on my bed—candle crackling softly in the corner, fingers sliding into my underwear—and thought about the night. Oddly enough, most of my thoughts weren’t occupied with the incident in the hallway, but by the one in the car. When Eros said he didn’t want to tell me about his past until I was ready.

I rested my forehead against the cold living room window and sighed. “I told you that you don’t know what you’re getting into with me.” He had said it like he had told me those exact words before, but he hadn’t. I only remember him saying that in my dream, and that wasn’t even really him.

Maybe I was just remembering wrong, because the more dreams I had of Eros, the more they seemed real. Dream-Eros and Real-Eros were starting to blur.

“Come over later! You need to give Mycah and I all the gossip,” Kasey said.

“I’ll be over after work.” I smiled and hung up the phone.

Outside the window, the city was covered in a thin layer of snow that I would have to trudge through on my way to Dr. U’s office. But, honestly, I’d rather just be curled up next to Eros, watching the snow fall from the warmth of my apartment today.

I wrapped a scarf around my neck and opened the front door. But when I heard Javier and Eros arguing out in the hall, I shut it softly—still inside my apartment. For a moment, I debated whether or not to listen. I could almost hear Mom scolding me for eavesdropping on their conversation, but I was already going to Hell. So, I pressed my ear to the door, anyway.

“Your father says to bring her to our family dinner,” Javier said.

“No,” Eros said, voice stern. I had never heard him so irritated before.

“He says that you don’t have a choice if you want your banishment to be lifted.” Javier’s voice rose with each word.

“I don’t care what he says. I’m not getting her involved in this.”

“They know about her. She’s already involved, Eros.”

There was a loud bang against the hallway wall, and I jumped back. I hoped that Javier wasn’t getting physical with Eros.

“Did you tell them about her?” Eros shouted. My eyes widened. Oh, God, he was angry.

Another loud bang. “She can be your key back to the fucking family!” Javier said. I frowned at the door. What was going on? What kind of family were they from? And how was I the key back to it?

Eros paused. “No.”

Javier growled. “Why are you so stubborn? I fucked her boyfriend, so you could finally take her, but you refuse.”

“I never asked you to do that,” Eros said, distaste so clear in his voice. “You didn’t even do that for me. You did it to hurt her, you wrathful bastard.”

“But you’re glad I did, aren’t you?”

I waited for Eros to answer—my heart hammering against my chest—but was met with silence. After a long pause, he finally said, “Why do you want me back so bad? Mother and father don’t.”

His words sounded so empty, like this had been going on for quite some time now and he was numb to the pain. I grazed my fingers against Mom’s pendant. I couldn’t imagine what Eros was going through. His parents were still alive and well, yet he didn’t want to see them. My mom was dead, but I’d trek through Hell to see her one last time.

For the next week, I didn’t see Eros once—not even in my dreams. Maria mentioned that he came over a few times, but I was always conveniently not home. I hoped that he wasn’t ignoring me.

Maria had been busy with Zane, and Kasey was distracted by Aarav and Mycah. I tried to stay occupied by volunteering at the food pantry downtown during my lunch break and at the ice-skating rink after work—desperate to take my mind off of the loneliness that came during this time of the year. But, each night, I sat in my room alone wondering how I was going to get through the holidays with no one.

Since Dr. U was the only person who I saw consistently this past week, I had asked her to go with me to the Harmony Grove Nursing Home to deliver holiday joy to the residents—like Mom and I used to every winter. Trevon and I had planned to go together again this December but those plans obviously fell through.

When we arrived, a nurse led us to a recreation room where people in wheelchairs were watching TV. While the room was a bare white color, there seemed to be an almost divine aura in the air. Dr. U handed me a candy cane and nodded to an elderly man sitting near the window in a maroon recliner, grinning at me like Mom would.

As I approached the man, he smiled. “What an angel,” he said in a soft, fragile voice. He reached for my hand with his wrinkled one and squeezed.

I knelt by his side, placing a hand on his. “What’s your name?”

There was a twinkle in his eye. “All dressed in white and that halo on top of your head,” he said. My smile tightened, and I gazed down at my ugly Christmas sweater and black leggings. Definitely not dressed in white and definitely hadn’t been acting as an angel would lately. He cupped my face and tilted his head. “Beth! Beth!” he said.

A nurse appeared at our side.

He raised a shaky hand and pointed to me. “He sent me an angel!”

She placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear. “This is Mr. Bennett. He’s been hallucinating lately. Don’t worry about it.” Then she beamed at him. “Her name is Dani!” she said loud enough for him to hear. “She has come to wish you happy holidays!”

Mr. Bennett gave me a crooked grin and rested his head against the back of his recliner. “I can finally have a peaceful sleep.” He paused for a few moments, squeezed my hand tighter, and turned back to me. “Thank you.”

I nodded my head. “You’re welcome…”

He closed his eyes, hand slowly falling from mine.

“Mr. Bennett, why don’t we get you to your room?” Beth said.

He didn’t respond.

She nudged his arm gently. “Mr. Bennett?” When he didn’t respond again, her eyes widened. “Oh, my goodness.” She retrieved another nurse from the next room, and together they shuffled out all the other residents.

I just stood there, staring down at Mr. Bennet with wide eyes. Did—did he just die in front of me?

Dr. U placed a hand on my shoulder. “Dani?”

I nudged his arm, but he didn’t move.

Holy Hell.

He was really dead.

Beth ushered us out of the room, telling me that he was an elderly man and that I had nothing to worry about. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Dr. U brought the car around front—deciding it would be best to leave early and come back next week. I scooted in and stared at the windshield with teary eyes. I didn’t know what to think. Everything was going from bad to worse. Trevon cheated on me. Eros was ignoring me. Now, someone just died right in front of me. What would happen next?

Everyone was leaving me.

When she pulled up to my apartment building, I still sat there. “Dani,” she said. “Are you okay?”

My lips trembled. “No, I—I…” A tear slid down my cheek. “My boyfriend cheated on me, my friend is ignoring me, a man just died in front of me, and Mom is dead.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “No, I am not okay.”

It was probably just the stress of the holidays or the pure shock that I was in, but it seemed like everything hit me at once. The pain of Trevon’s heartbreak. The distance Eros was suddenly keeping. And the hurt in my heart since Mom’s murder.

Dr. U was right. I should’ve talked about this with someone.

She curled an arm around me, pulled me closer to her, and just held me like Mom used to when I was younger. I remembered her fingers gently stroking my hair after story time each night. I’d beg her to tell me every tale she had about all of the monsters in this world. Four-year-old me was obsessed with them at the time. I’d sit in her lap and listen to the passion in her voice. I’d tuck my face into her side and let my tears soak her shirt, overwhelmed with a sense of sadness when she always ended with: “And there may be monsters who haunt your dreams or lie under your bed, but the scariest monsters are the ones that hide behind the faces of good people.”

And, right then, I didn’t know who in my life was one of the good monsters or the bad. Everything was getting harder and weirder and too confusing to understand anymore. I didn’t even know where I stood. Was I the heavenly angel like the old man had said or the hellish sinner that Eros had made me? Maybe I was both.

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CHAPTER 24

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Dani

When I walked into the apartment, Maria was standing in the kitchen—dripping wet—holding a bath towel around herself. “There you are.” She placed her phone down on the counter.

I peeled off my coat, tossed it over the side of one of the kitchen chairs, and gave her my strongest smile. “Here I am.”

On the counter, there was a brown paper bag with my name written across the side of it. She looked down at it and smiled. “Looks like you whipped Eros into shape real quick. He’s baking for you and everything.”

“Baking for me?” I asked, grabbing the bag. Inside, there were six freshly baked Fervor Crisps. “Eros brought these over?”

“A few hours ago, said he’d be back later to see if you got them.” She winked and walked toward the bathroom. “So, you better be ready for when he does!”

I pulled one out of the bag, sunk my teeth into it, and sighed. My heart felt fuzzy just thinking about him making these for me. It was definitely needed after watching someone die right in front of me.

Someone knocked on the door, and I immediately jumped up. Eros. He was here already, and I looked like I walked straight out of Hell with my puffy eyes and smudged mascara. I ran my fingers through my hair, hoping that I would look somewhat presentable, and hurried to the door.

I couldn’t wait to finally see that damn sexy smirk after a week of being ignored; I couldn’t wait to tell him about today either, to get it off my chest.

When I pulled the door open, my eyes widened. Not Eros. Definitely not Eros.

Trevon was standing awkwardly in the hallway, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Dani,” he said. “Can we talk?”

All I wanted was to slam the door in his face and give him what he deserved, but I also wanted to know why he was here. Why now? Why more than two weeks after cheating show up at his ex-girlfriend’s front door?

“We’re not getting back together,” I said, grinding my teeth together.

He took off the baseball cap that I bought him, and I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. “I know.”

For a good minute, I just stared at him. Trying to figure out why he was here. Wondering if I should really let him in or just let him wallow in his own misery.

“Zane, is that you?” Maria asked, walking out of the bathroom with a mascara stick in her hand. When she saw Trevon, she dropped it, eyes widening. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just here to talk,” he said, fiddling with the hat.

Maria picked up the mascara and pointed at me. “Don’t let him fool you into thinking he wants to get back together. He’s still screwing Javier.”

There was no way in hell that I’d ever go back to Trevon.

“Maria, I’m sorry,” Trevon said. When she walked back into the bathroom and slammed the door, he sighed. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

I stood there, nostrils flaring. “Yeah, you did.”

He sat on a stool and rested his elbows on the counter, then pushed his head into his hands and took a deep and shaky breath. For some stupid reason, I had the urge to comfort him, but I kept my distance. He wouldn’t fool me again.

“Dani, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.” His gaze remained on the counter. I walked around it, so I was standing across from him. “It never should’ve happened. I should’ve broken up with you when it first started happening.”

I pressed my lips together. So, it had happened more than once. “Trevon, if you’re going to apologize to me, look at me when you do. At least give me that much respect.”

He picked up his head, and I noticed that his eyes were darker than they usually were.

“Are—are you okay?” I asked.

“I need to tell you something. I need to let you know all of it. I need to get it off my fucking chest.”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“It started when we went out with Eros, Javier, and Zane for dinner. I didn’t have to work that night. I was going to meet him at my place,” he said. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. It had been going on since they met?

“I don’t know why I did it. I just couldn’t help myself. In my heart, it felt wrong—so wrong. But I couldn’t resist him.” His chin trembled. “I never had that type of experience before—man on man—and I didn’t even think I was going to like it.”

“But you did,” I said.

“Yes, with him.”

“Have you tried with others?”

He looked away from me. “After you found out… but… I didn’t enjoy it as much. Maybe not at all.”

I paused. “How many times did you cheat on me?”

“A few.”

My heart ached. Did that mean three, ten, twenty times? I didn’t know. And that was just with Javier. Who knew if there were other women. A tear slid down my cheek, but I wiped it away with the back of my hand. “Who else?”

Trevon lifted his gaze and looked me right in the eye. “No one.”

I stared at him. “No one?”

“Samantha had flirted with me and tried to get with me, but I would never do anything with her.” He said it with so much honesty that I actually believed him.

He hadn’t been this open with me since the weeks before we met my new next-door neighbors.

“If you didn’t do anything, why’d you fire her?”

“Eros told me that he thought she spiked your drink during the party, so I reviewed our surveillance cameras and found that she did.”

What a damn bitch. That’s the only word I had for her. She deserved to be fired. She deserved to be put in jail for the rest of her life. She deserved to rot in Hell. I couldn’t believe that she did it, and her end goal was to get with Trevon—a guy who didn’t even want her.

So many emotions were rushing through me. I was angry at Trevon and at Samantha and at Javier, but all I could think about was that Eros believed me that night. He had cared for me when I was puking up my stomach on the side of the road and in the pouring rain.

Trevon fiddled with his fingers. His nails had grown longer since we had split. And as much as I hated feeling like this, I really hoped he was taking care of himself.

“So, are you with Javier now?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “Kinda.”

“Kinda?”

“I haven’t been feeling like myself for the past few weeks.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. It has nothing to do with it.” He snatched his hat and stood. “I should go.”

I walked him to the door. “Before you go, I have a question,” I said. He gazed down at me. There was so much pain on his face, so much heartbreak. “Have you always been curious about other guys?”

“No.”

I frowned. It didn’t make sense. If he was curious about guys, how could he want to have sex with him the first night that they met?

“But you were curious when you met Javier? How’d you know you wanted to try something with him?” I asked.

Trevon paused and scratched the back of his head. “It’s… stupid.”

“I don’t care.”

He lowered his voice. “I had a dream about him a few nights before I actually met him.”

My heart raced. “What kind of dream?”

“I really don’t think you want to know,” Trevon said, grasping the door handle.

I shook my head. “No, I need to know, Trevon, please.” Not only for my own sanity, but for another reason entirely.

“We were… uh… hooking up.”

I sucked in a breath. It was like the ones I had of Eros and the ones Maria had of Zane and Javier. Why were the guys next door suddenly in everyone’s dreams?

“Did you just have one dream?” I asked.

He put his baseball cap on and stepped out. “No,” he said. Okay, this was getting weirder by the moment. “Thanks for listening to me. I know you didn’t have any reason to. I just needed someone to talk to.” He nodded. “And good luck with Eros.”

I smiled softly. “Thanks.”

He turned and walked down the hallway; shoulders rolled forward—looking defeated.

“Trevon!” I called after him. “Take care of yourself.”

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