Bitten by Cupid (31 page)
He grabbed his backpack and hauled her to her room. She kicked at him, sending him falling forward. He regained his footing quickly, grabbing her before she could dart to the door.
“You’re feisty. I like that.” But she could see anger burning in his eyes.
He shoved her into her room, where she lost her balance and fell onto the bed. She tried to crawl off the other side, feeling like a caterpillar with her arms tied behind her back. He grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her back up. He turned her around so that she was lying on her back facing him, her arms under her. He smiled as he climbed onto the bed. With a vicious kick, she sent him stumbling backward. He bumped into her dresser, and several bottles of perfume crashed to the floor, filling the room with the scent of…Intuition.
I have to do this for Adrian. I’ve got to get out of this and get to him.
She scrambled off the bed as he regained his balance. She aimed a kick right at his crotch. He doubled over with a groan. She darted past him, struggling to free her hands.
“Get back here, bitch!” he growled.
She felt the rope around one hand loosen. He raced out of the bedroom and blocked the front door. She ran to the kitchen, eyeing the butcher block knife set in the back corner. He came up behind her fast, shoving her hard. She lost her footing, falling forward. She landed on the floor with a thud, her forehead banging against the tile. A white flash exploded before her eyes.
Stay with it. Don’t lose it now.
He turned her over. The world came back into focus. His face flushed with rage. Behind him…the pot handle hanging over the edge of the stove.
“All right,” she managed in a muffled voice. “Just don’t hurt me.”
“Like I think you’re going to play nice now.” He yanked her to her feet.
The ropes were just loose enough so she could turn and grab the pot handle. She flicked her wrist and sent hot, melted chocolate spewing across his face. Boiling water from the pot beneath it scalded his arms. He screamed and wiped at his eyes.
She turned her body to pull open the oven door. He blindly reached for her. She ran. He stumbled over the door and fell onto it, and his garbled scream was even louder this time. With the gag she couldn’t yell loud enough to alert the neighbors, but he was making plenty of noise.
She ran to the front door and turned her body around to fumble with the lock. Facing the kitchen, she saw him writhing in pain. He rubbed the backs of his hands over his eyes to clear away the chocolate. His arms and palms were red and blistered. He looked at her with a kind of hatred she had never seen before. “I’m going to kill you, bitch!” He came at her.
She turned the dead bolt and twisted the doorknob. Pulled the door open. And screamed at the sight of a bloody man reaching for her.
“Adrian!”
A gash on his head was bleeding down into his eyes and over his face. He was weaving back and forth. “Are you all right?”
One of the neighbors opened her door, then a second door opened. An older woman gasped.
Adrian grabbed her and pulled her to the right. She turned to see Dale, blistered and covered in chocolate, grabbing for her.
The neighbor woman said, “See, Frank, I told you this neighborhood was going down the tubes.”
“Hold it!”
Two police officers ran up the stairs, guns pointed. One of them took in the scene, and said, “What the hell?”
She pointed to Dale. “He’s Kiss and Kill Cupid! He tried to kill me.”
Though both cops pointed their guns at him, the expressions on their faces were confused and wary.
“I’m Adrian Kruger. I called you.”
“You’re under arrest,” one officer said. When he reached over to cuff Dale, he screamed in pain.
“She’s the one who tried to kill
me
!”
The officer cuffed him anyway, careful of the burns. “We’ll get it all sorted out at the station.”
The other officer radioed a coded message to someone, then looked at Adrian. “The medics are coming in now.” He looked at her. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
She nodded but was more worried about Adrian. His heart was pounding fast. Too fast. She pulled away to look at him. His face was the color of white chocolate.
He touched her mouth, her cheeks, wonder on his face. “You’re all right. You’re alive.”
She nodded, her eyes tearing up. “So are you.” But she wasn’t so sure of that, not yet.
The medics came running up the stairs. Adrian said, “Check her first.”
“No, I’m fine. He needs attention now.”
One checked his pulse and blood pressure, and the other checked the gash on his head. “We’d better take you in.”
“I’m fine—”
She squeezed his arm. “Go. I’ll take the car and meet you there.”
That he didn’t argue spoke volumes about his condition. The two medics helped him down the stairs.
One of them turned to her once Adrian was inside the ambulance. “You have a head injury, too.”
She touched her forehead and winced in pain. “Just a knot.”
“We’ll take her to the hospital,” one of the officers said. “Another unit is on the way.”
She watched the ambulance take Adrian away, her heart both heavy and light. He was alive. But she so wanted to be with him.
Another police car arrived, and the female officer introduced herself and escorted Kristy to the car. She felt light-headed, either from her forehead whack or the adrenaline draining out of her body. By the time she reached the hospital, she was chilled and trembling.
There would be questions. The officer had said something about each of them being interviewed separately. She and Adrian would have to tell the police everything, including his visions and her ability to hear people’s thoughts. It would all have to come out. But if Adrian was all right, she could handle everything else.
Epilogue
Kristy snuggled with Adrian on his leather couch. Since he’d been released from the hospital the day before, she’d been taking care of him.
“I could get used to this,” she said.
“What, living here?”
“Taking care of you.”
“Mm.” He stroked her hair, brushing it back from her face. “Me, too. I could get used to you living here, too.”
“Are you asking me to be your roommate?”
“Would I sound crazy if I asked you to be my wife?”
She sat up to look at him. He was serious. Her heart tripped. “My definition of crazy has changed since I met you.” She arched an eyebrow. “
Are
you asking me to be your wife?”
He sat up, too, the bandage still on his head. “I hadn’t actually planned to ask like this. But yes, I am. I don’t want you to leave.”
“Are you sure it’s not your head injury talking?” She leaned forward and kissed him. “Just so I know it’s not, wait and ask me again when you’re feeling better. Until then, I’m here, and the answer will be yes, absolutely, you bet. By the way, you know that trip to Wimberly you’re sending me on? You’re coming, too.”
“I am?”
“Owen helped me make the arrangements. After all, you’re not supposed to go back to work for another few days. So why not make those days in that sacred cave you told me about?”
He grinned. “Why not, indeed.”
Owen had decided to come out, as it were. Unsure what Dale Soza might do while he awaited trial, the three had come up with an offense: integrate Owen’s story with the one Adrian and Kristy were writing about the Kiss and Kill Cupid incident. They were going to leave out some details, such as the psychic abilities and the fact that Kristy had suspected Owen of being the killer. The experience had helped Owen to come to terms with his past, and he was working through it with the help of a good therapist.
Kristy cuddled against Adrian again. The trip out of town would do them both good. The reporters were still hanging around trying to get their story. Dale, of course, had become the story he’d wanted to be, though not quite in the way he’d imagined. One of the neighbors had taken a picture with his cell phone and sent it to CNN, so a chocolate-covered screaming Dale was all over the news and Internet. Though the police hadn’t yet been able to tie him to the previous Kiss and Kill Cupid murders, they’d found an eyewitness who put him at the scene of the murder on Valentine’s Day morning,
before
the murder. They were building their case, and Kristy was their star witness. The district attorney was trying to keep her ability to hear people’s thoughts out of the whole thing. Luckily, Adrian’s ability was kept out of the reports altogether.
Adrian took her hand and slid his fingers between hers. “When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Your friend Lance is looking forward to seeing you. He’s made the cave into a kind of spiritual attraction, now, letting various groups use it for healing circles and meditation.” But she’d asked if she and Adrian could have the cave all to themselves.
Three days later, she and Adrian walked up the stone pathway, past a labyrinth, to the entrance of the cave. The moon was nearly full, hanging bright and bold in the sky. She held his hand as they ducked beneath the low entrance and stepped into the belly of the cave. Dim, colored lights did give the place a cathedral feel, as though a light was shining through a piece of stained glass.
They walked down an incline, and she readied herself to feel the chill she’d expect in a cave. Instead, warm, moist heat enveloped her. She looked at Adrian, who had a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “I didn’t tell you the water flowing into this cave comes from a hot spring?”
“No, you didn’t.”
They stepped up to the pool, and she sucked in a breath at the beauty of it. Lights strategically hidden among the stalactites and stalagmites washed a splash of colors over the cave walls and the spiky formations growing down from the ceiling and up from the floor. The water was moving slightly, casting undulating reflections across the cave walls.
“Wow, this place is amazing,” she whispered.
“Yes, amazing.” He was looking at her.
He stepped up to her and unbuttoned her coat, lifting it off her. Then he ran his fingers along the bottom hem of her sweater and pulled that up and over her head. All the while he looked at her face, and what she saw took her breath away as much as the cave had: love. He reached around and unclasped her bra.
He hadn’t worn a coat, obviously knowing how warm the cave would be. She pulled at his sweater, tugging it off him. He unbuttoned her pants, unzipped them, and pushed them down, where he knelt at her feet. He placed one of her hands on his back and lifted her foot, pulling off her boot. He did the same for the other boot, then pulled her pants all the way off, folding them and setting them on a stone bench. She undid his pants and realized he’d already taken off his shoes.
They stood naked, bathed in the colored lights. She wanted to look at his beautiful body, but she couldn’t take her eyes from his. He took her hand and stepped down into the pool, drawing her with him. The water was so soft she could hardly feel it, other than its warmth. It swirled around her as she sank into its depths. Beneath her feet, the floor was smooth stone.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, slowly spinning them around. He got no more visions of her death. They’d tested it many, many times.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’re right. It is magical.”
“It’s not just this place. It’s you.”
“It’s us.” She placed her hands on either side of his face, so handsome, even with the bruise and healing cut. “Marry me.”
“You must have been reading my mind.”
“I was reading your heart, I think. You know, we’ve had this mysterious connection between us right from the beginning. Do you think it’s because of our abilities?”
“They brought us together and created sparks between us, but I think it goes deeper than that.” He lifted his hand out of the water and pulled a ring off his pinky finger. The diamond glittered in the lights.
She laughed. “You were going to ask me to marry you here?”
He nodded, smiling. He slid the ring on her finger and kissed the palm of her hand. “You beat me to the punch. But that’s okay. Because I have a feeling nothing’s going to go as planned with you. And that’s fine by me.”
Since she was a kid,
JAIME RUSH
has devoured books on unexplained mysteries and psychic phenomena. She knew she would be published, marry a fabulous guy, and win a Toyota Supra. Missing the romance, relationship drama, and action of her favorite television shows—
X-Files, Roswell,
and
Highlander
—she created her own mix in the Offspring series. Kristy and Adrian don’t know it yet, but they’re Offspring, too.
Jaime loves to hear from readers (unless they’re deranged or don’t have something nice to say). You can reach her at PO Box 10622, Naples, Florida 34116 or through her website at
www.jaimerush.com
.
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This is a collection of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BITTEN BY CUPID. “Vampire Valentine” copyright © 2010 by Lynsay Sands. “Hearts Untamed” copyright © 2010 by Pamela Poulsen. “Kiss and Kill Cupid” copyright © 2010 by Tina Wainscott. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.