Suzanne Johnson - Elysian Fields

Quince Randolph, king of the creepy non-human stalker types, was not on my bucket list. I tossed my hand up in a casual wave and turned left toward Alex’s house. Traffic crawled along Magazine Street, even on a Wednesday night, and my heart took on the rhythm of a hip-hop song blaring out of someone’s open car window.

I paused at the bottom of his front steps. Was I going to do this? I didn’t have to do anything. Just go in and have a beer. He might be busy, after all. The man wrote reports for the Elders like it was going out of style. Or he might have Leyla in there, or another woman.

Spurred by the gentle sound of a clucking chicken inside my head, I rang his doorbell and swallowed hard when I heard footsteps crossing his living room.

And there he was, as big and solid and sexy as the day I’d met him, but more than that. I hadn’t known then what a good man hid beneath the sometimes-Neanderthal exterior. A kind man. A kind man wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and no shirt, with abs to get lost in and hip bones flashing temptation. I was so in over my head.

“You just gonna stand out there all night?” He moved aside and I had no choice but to go in. He closed the door behind me. “What’s wrong? You look—”

“A beer,” I said. “I look like I need a beer. Or were you busy? Is someone else here? I can come back another time.” I turned back toward the door. This had been such a bad idea.

“Don’t leave.” He gave me a puzzled look and walked toward the kitchen. “Nobody’s here. I downloaded some new music—something you’d like, in fact.”

I stopped in the dining room and smiled at the achingly sweet voice of Zachary Richard. “I didn’t know he had a new CD out.”

My first real date with Jake had been to see Zachary Richard. That was also the first time Jake had almost lost control of his wolf while he was alone with me. Now, with the clarity of hindsight, I saw that I’d put so much pressure on him to adapt it was no wonder he snapped. Alex and I both had been guilty of it.

“It’s an older one—found it online.” Alex returned with two bottles of Abita and handed one to me. “So what’s up? How’d the meeting go with the vampire?”

“The vampire meeting went okay.”

“It went okay? That’s it?” He watched me for a second, brown eyes intense. “DJ? What the hell’s wrong with you? Do you want to talk about the blood test?”

I jumped when he put a hand on my arm. “No.”

He reached over and took the beer out of my hand, set both bottles on the table, and pulled me into the living room. “Sit down and spill it. I’ve never seen you this nervous.”

No kidding. You’re at the top of my pre-loup-garou to-do list was a little flip. I want to fall into your arms and forget everything else was melodramatic. I had no idea whether I love you was true or not. “You remember the question you asked me this afternoon at Six Flags?”

He frowned. “You mean about how you set the clown on fire?”

God, how dense was this man? I punched him on the arm. “Later. On the swings. I changed my mind.”

Understanding dawned on his face, followed by surprise and a chaser of amusement. He thought I was joking. “Really?”

“Go for it.” Before the words left my mouth, embarrassment baked my face from the inside, and his dark eyes softened from laughter to heat.

“Why the one-eighty?” His voice was low and silky, and his gaze dropped to my mouth when I bit my lower lip. This was too damned awkward. What had I been thinking?

“Well, if you’re going to talk it to death, never mind.” I got up with every intention of marching back to my house and dying of humiliation—it would solve a lot of problems. He reached out and grabbed my arm before I got out of grabbing range, and pulled me onto his lap.

“Shut up.” He cradled my jaw in his hands and touched his lips to mine. His body heat enveloped me, and my heart adjusted its rhythm to keep time with his, or the other way around. That wonky shapeshifter energy had gone into hyperdrive, buzzing over my skin and tightening my nerve endings.

I slid my hands from his shoulders to his hard chest, feeling a mark I’d never seen on his right pec—because I was always chastising myself for looking. A crescent shape faintly lightened his skin, and I ran a finger over its raised edges.

“What’s this from?” It was too perfectly shaped to be accidental, plus shifters can heal just about any kind of flesh wound without scarring.

“Enforcer’s mark,” he mumbled, his lips worrying at my neck and his fingers under the hem of my sweater.

“So when you—”

He stopped nuzzling and lifted my chin to force me into eye contact. His intensity sent a rush of heat right to my gut, and farther south. “Are we going to talk about work?” His voice was rough.

Struck mute, I shook my head, and in a movement too fast to track, he reached up, fusing my mouth to his. A soft moan came from one of us, I wasn’t sure which. One hand twined in my hair and the other stroked the bare skin of my back as his lips and tongue made me forget . . . whatever it was I’d been thinking about.

His light eve ning stubble scratched delicious heat across my neck as he got up with barely an effort, pulling my legs around him. He walked us to the bed and lowered me not so gently, pausing long enough to ease off my boots.

“Are you sure?” Alex’s eyes were glazed and hungry, his breathing ragged.

I sat up and hooked my fingers under the hem of my sweater.

He stayed my hands. “My job.” He pulled it over my head slowly, then pulled down the straps of my bra, following his fingers with his mouth. “So. Damned. Beautiful.” His voice rumbled against my skin.

“Yeah, you are.” My fingers eased down his chest, across the ridges of his belly, and rested them on his hips a few moments before reaching for his jeans. He pulled back to help.

“Nope. My job.” I laughed, pushing him to his back and taking charge like I knew more than I did. He didn’t seem to mind a little clumsiness, raising his hips to accommodate me. Nope, he didn’t mind a little clumsiness at all.

Jeans and socks and underwear hit the floor at some point too, but I lost track of everything except Alex’s lips and heat and his busy, talented hands—at least until my brain kicked in briefly. “Wait,” I gasped, “do you have, you know . . .”

“Ungh.” He rolled off the bed and disappeared into the small bathroom. Cabinets opened and closed with frantic slams. “Aha.”

He reappeared with a box of condoms and pulled one out. Plenty more remained in case we got overly enthusiastic. Not that I was worried about disease—shifters can’t carry diseases as far as I knew. But the last thing I needed was a wizard-elf-loup- garou-shifter kid baking in the oven. Ye gods.

The break had given us a chance to catch our breath, but the heat hadn’t dissipated. He caught my wrists and pinned them over my head on the pillow with one hand, shifting his weight, and we began to move in tandem.

He groaned and slowed his movements—agonizingly slow. “You doing that on purpose?”

I bit his ear. “Don’t stop,” I gasped. “Doing what?”

His voice was strained. “Your magic’s buzzing all over my skin. Feels so . . .”

Must not have felt too bad, but I couldn’t ask because he hit a spot that wiped out all rational thought.

Early morning sun slanted through the blinds and backlit odd shapes across my closed lids. I snapped my eyes open. Alex was propped on an elbow, watching me like a cat sitting outside a fishbowl. Alert, patient, predatory.

“Morning,” I croaked, then a smidgeon more awake. “Do I smell coffee?”