Bitten by Cupid (15 page)

She stared at him, her brows drawing down with confusion. Had he forgotten that night? Forgotten why he left?

Or was he only pretending, as she was?

She shrugged, pulling that mask of indifference more firmly into place. “You were busy. As was I.”

“You’re mad at me. I don’t blame you.”

Mad?
“I’m not mad, Zeeland. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not anything with regards to you.” She swallowed hard, forcing the lie. “I barely remember you.”

His mouth tightened, and he watched her, studying her. A single dark brow rose. “You barely remember the man you offered your virginity to?” he asked softly.

She flinched. Goddess, she couldn’t do this. “Let me go, Zeeland. I was young and foolish, and you’d turned my head. I’m not that girl anymore.”

His thumbs slid along the fabric covering her collarbones, but she felt the warmth of his flesh right through the dress. “So you feel nothing for me, now?”

“No.”

“Not anger?”

“Why would I be angry?”

“Not resentment?”

“Again, why?”

He released one shoulder and lifted his hand to brush his knuckles lightly over her cheek.

Her heart tripped, sensation racing over her skin. Her pulse began to pound as she watched his eyes darken.

“Not desire?” he asked softly.

“Don’t.
” Julianne jerked away from his touch, stepping back out of his reach as the old humiliation rose to swamp her. How could he…? He’d acted like she was a slut for offering herself to him ten years ago and now…now he was treating her like one?

She whirled away from him, but he caught her before she’d taken a step.

“Juli…”

Tears burned her eyes. If they started falling, if he saw them, her humiliation would be complete. “
Let me go
,
Zeeland.
”

“Dammit, Julianne,
talk to me.
What just happened? I always used to be able to read you, but I’m lost here. I’m sorry for abandoning you ten years ago. It was unforgivable. But I did it for a reason. A reason I always assumed you knew.
Don’t you know why I left?
”

He gripped her jaw and lifted her face, forcing her to look at him.

She had to blink back the tears to see him through the moisture. “Don’t make me say it, Zee. I know. I saw the look of horror on your face. I heard the anger in your voice when you ordered me to my room. I felt the disgust in your hands when you pushed me away.”

She’d been five years too young, but she hadn’t wanted to wait. She’d loved him too much. Wanted him too badly.

To her utter humiliation, the tears began to fall. To her mortification, Zee began to smile. It was a sad smile that didn’t meet his eyes, but it was a smile all the same.

“You were wrong, sweetheart. On all counts. It wasn’t disgust or anger I was feeling. Not with you. I’d been riding a razor-sharp edge of control with you for two years. Wanting you. But you were too young. My control had been thinning by the day because you were starting to feel the same. I could see the desire in your eyes, but you were too young!”

Julianne shook her head. “No.” He couldn’t just rewrite ten years of her life.

But Zeeland didn’t stop. “And when you offered me your virginity that night, it was all I could do not to haul you into my arms and cover your mouth with mine. If I had, I knew deep inside my soul, I wouldn’t have been able to pull back. I would have given you exactly what you asked me to, exactly what we both wanted. So I pushed you away with the last ounce of strength I possessed and ordered you out of my reach before I broke the law of our kind. And I left, putting an ocean between us so I couldn’t lose my resolve until you were of age.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew.”

“Why didn’t you ever call? I thought you forgot about me.”

Zeeland groaned. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. If I’d heard your voice…I don’t think I could have stayed away. Instead, I talked to Serenity and Gray. I asked about you, checked up on you, nearly every day, Sunshine. Nearly every day.”

She stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and wonder. “I didn’t know. I knew they talked to you, but they never told me you asked about me.”

“I asked them not to say anything. I suppose I was afraid you’d try to find me.”

“I might have.” If she’d known he still cared. If she’d realized she hadn’t sent him away in disgust. Her heart tried to lift, tried to shake off ten years of carrying the weight of that night, but something still didn’t fit.

“If you stayed away because I wasn’t of age, why didn’t you come back when I turned twenty-five?”

He watched her for long minutes, his expression at once thoughtful and pained. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

But she knew. At some time during those ten years, she’d stopped mattering. Nothing had really changed at all. Maybe he hadn’t left for the reason she’d thought, but in the end, it was all the same.

“Zeeland, it happened a long time ago. We’re not the same people we were then.” He had no idea how true that was in her case. She wasn’t what either of them had thought.

Zeeland cupped her face in his hands, his brown eyes warm and soft as he looked down at her. “I stayed away too long, Julianne, but I’m here now.” His thumb traced her cheekbone, his touch sending small shivers of delight skating over her skin.

His expression tightened, his eyes turning impossibly darker. “I haven’t stopped wanting you.”

His words sent a rush of damp heat straight to her core, as her pulse leaped into a fast, erratic pounding.

But with the flood of desire came dismay. This was worse than his probing questions. How could she push him away when all she wanted to do was to lean into his touch?

She steeled herself against the warmth of his fingers and the heat in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Zeeland, but I no longer feel the same way about you.” To her relief, her words came out with just the right amount of regret and pity.

But his expression told her he didn’t believe her. Not one bit.

Lightly, he brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip, startling a soft gasp from her. She told herself to move, to back away, but she couldn’t. His touch snared her in a net of sensations. Wonder sang through her heart. He’d never been horrified by her. He’d wanted her all along.

But it was too late.

“You’ve never been a liar, Julianne,” he said softly. “Don’t lie to me now.”

Her whole life had turned into one huge lie. “Zeeland, let me go.”

Instead, he lowered his face as if he meant to kiss her. Panic shot through her. She’d wanted this for too long. Too long. If he kissed her now, she’d be lost.

She turned her head. His lips brushed her cheek, his breath stirring the wisps of hair at her temple.

A shudder went through her. “Don’t.”

He ignored her whispered plea, trailing kisses along her cheekbone, around the curve of her ear, and down her jaw.

Her body shivered and burned. “Zeeland,
please.
”

He held her prisoner with her own need as his lips trailed lower, to the sensitive skin of her neck. Teasing, licking. How many times had she dreamed of this? Of Zeeland taking her into his arms as a man does a woman? Of Zeeland
wanting
her?

“Zee.
” On a shuddered sigh, she reached for him, her will crumbling beneath the weight of her longing. Her trembling hands gripped his head where it dipped low against her neck.

He inhaled deeply, as if he would take her inside him and never let her go, then slowly raised his head and met her gaze, probing her secrets.

Fear skittered through her, then vanished at the sight of Zeeland’s beloved face, fierce and gentle, and dark with passion. For her.

“You really are attracted to me,” she breathed, hardly able to believe.
Ten years
she’d thought him disgusted with her.

He laughed, but the sound was low and strangled. “
Attracted
doesn’t begin to describe it, Sunshine.” He dipped his face to hers, and this time she didn’t turn away.

The first featherlight brush of his mouth against hers exploded her senses, nearly buckling her knees.

How many years had she dreamed of this? Yet the dream was nothing compared to the reality.

His lips moved over hers, soft as silk, yet warm and demanding, the pressure increasing moment by moment, the kiss becoming more insistent, more desperate.

Gripping her head with gentle fingers, he slanted his mouth over hers and parted her lips with a single stroke of his tongue. Julianne gasped, then moaned as he dove inside her mouth, staking his claim.

Her senses spun at the clean, masculine taste of him. Her body shuddered, heat flowing through her limbs, pooling between her legs. She melted against him, her hands sliding up and around his neck as she gave herself up wholly to the kiss. To Zeeland.

His arms tightened around her, pulling her close enough to feel the beat of his heart, to feel the hard, pulsing length of his erection against her stomach.

He swept the inside of her mouth with his tongue, exploring every surface, every indentation as if he were learning the feel of her. She moaned with pleasure as his hand gripped the back of her head, slanting her head one way, then the other as he sought to deepen the kiss.

If he lifted her dress and spread her thighs, would she push him away? No. Heaven help her, but no.

As if reading her mind, his hand slid down the curve of her back, cupping her rear, then began to pull up the hem of her dress.

Her heart skipped a beat.

The sound of male voices broke through the haze of lust a mere moment before the door opened behind them. Zeeland released her. Julianne whirled away, hiding her mortification as Grayson and two others burst into the room.

“There you are!” Grayson’s voice boomed. “We’re putting together a poker game. You in, Zee?”

Head down, Julianne made her escape, slipping between the men and out of the room, her cheeks flaming, her body shaking with need.

Her life had shattered. Everything she’d ever wanted was finally in reach of the woman she’d once been. But she was that woman no more.

Zeeland met Grayson’s look of expectation with a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair, willing his body to cool the heat that still raged through every cell.

“Yeah. Count me in.”

Dammit
,
Julianne.
He still didn’t know what had put the fear in her eyes. He’d pulled her in here for one reason, to find out what was scaring her. Not to kiss her. Not to force her to admit she wasn’t as unaffected by him as she pretended. Though both had been on his mind from the moment he’d returned, from the moment she’d greeted him, not with a smile and a hug, but with the cool, haunted eyes of a stranger.

He’d brought her in here to finally get at the truth, but the moment he’d had her alone, he’d forgotten everything but the fierce need to touch her, to taste her.

That kiss had been everything he’d known it would be and a hundred things more.

Yet the woman herself had become a mystery to him. A mystery he was determined to solve.

Chapter Six

Julianne paced her bedroom, her silky purple nightgown sliding around her legs as her agitated steps carried her from one end of the small space to the other. Though it was well past midnight, the laughter and loud voices still carried up from the floors below. The party remained in full swing.

But it wasn’t the noise keeping her awake. With nineteen full-time occupants and a regular contingent of guests, the Therian enclave was rarely a quiet place, even in the dead of night.

No, what kept her awake was Zeeland.

Her unsteady fingers touched her lips as her body burned with unfulfilled desire. Never had she felt so confused. Even after her mother died, she hadn’t felt this lost. Because there had always been others around her, watching over her. Protecting her.

There was no one to protect her now. No one to protect any of them.

Yet Zeeland was determined to try. His kiss had stirred up all the old feelings again. She’d feared she’d never stopped loving him. Now she knew it was true.

He’d known she was in trouble the moment he’d learned she was playing Beethoven. Even after all these years, Zeeland understood her.

She needed him so badly. Her friend, her confidant. Those strong arms that had always kept her safe.

How was she supposed to keep pushing him away when he was the only thing in life she wanted?

Maybe,
maybe
, if she could find that damned necklace, Melisande would go away and leave her alone. Then maybe her life would return to normal. Or as normal as it could ever be now that she knew she was part Ilina.

Running her fingers through her hair, she looked at the bed and knew she’d never sleep. She might as well search a bit more. This might be a good time to tackle the kitchen, the one place she’d yet to search adequately since doing so was bound to make noise. Why a necklace might be hiding in the kitchen, she couldn’t guess. But with the party in full swing, she could come up with some excuse for rooting in the cupboards, and no one would pay her much attention. Probably.

Unless Zeeland found her.

With a shudder that was as much anticipation as dread, she reached for her sweatpants.

A knock on her door had her dropping the pants back on the chair. She’d taken only a single step when the door swung open, and Zeeland stepped inside.

“Zee?”

“You’re not sleeping.” He closed the door behind him. “I’m going to stay right here because every time I get too close, I forget what I’m doing. Tell me what’s going on, Julianne. You’re scared, and I want to know why.”

She took a step back to keep from flinging herself into his arms. “You need to leave, Zee.”

“No.” His jacket was gone, and he crossed his arms over his broad, muscular chest. “You’re either going to tell me what’s going on, or you’re going to make love with me, then tell me. Your choice.”

Her body melted at his words, heat erupting in her chest and washing downward until she thought she might turn into a puddle on the floor.