My Dangerous Pleasure (11 page)

“Goodness. Why don’t you just rent a truck and go get your things? Ten friends and free beer and pizza would take care of it.”

“Because.” He stared into the distance and tried not to think about the reasons why. He never really talked with the women he took up with, other than to give a few details about the normal job he didn’t really have, sports, or maybe current events. Mostly, he got right down to business with them, and they were all fine with that. Paisley was easy to talk to, though. “Sometimes it’s better to start over.” He clicked off the TV and stood up. “She’s here.”

Paisley looked confused. Oops. She couldn’t feel the magekind or free kin the way he did. “Who’s here?”

“Gray. My friend Gray. With stuff for you to wear.”

Paisley shot to her feet when he went to the door. He looked at her from over his shoulder. Her eyes were wide and staring.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“How do you know it’s her?”

Good question. He needed a plausible lie to answer her, and he couldn’t think of one. His phone rang, and he reached for it. Caller ID said it was Gray. He lifted the phone. “Because she’s calling to let me know it’s her.” Iskander took the call. “Hey.”

“I’m right outside. I have this thing I have to do, and I’m late.” Meaning, Iskander knew, she needed to take care of someone for Nikodemus. “Can you come out to the car?”

“No problem.” He closed the phone and glanced at Paisley. “Be right back.”

Outside, Gray tapped her horn.

As soon as Gray saw him come out, she opened her door and set everything on the street. She was driving off by the time he got to the bags. He trotted back to the house with three big shopping bags with twine handles. Paisley was standing by the window with her phone in her hand, ready to call the cavalry for him.

“Here you go.” He put down the bags and made a big deal of locking the door and throwing the dead bolts. He watched her walk back to her purse and drop her phone inside. The two bulkier bags were full of bottles, boxes and cartons. He recognized sugar and chocolate and that was about it. He held out the last bag. “Enough clothing to get by, I think.”

She peeked into the bag he handed her. She looked touched and grateful and, well, like she might break his rule about crying. “Honestly. I don’t know how I’m going to repay you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Just bless you for all this.” She swiped a hand underneath her eyes. “Please tell your friend I said thank you.”

Iskander smiled. “Will do.”

She headed for the bathroom to change, and while she was gone, Iskander checked the closet again. The body had vanished, as it should have. He returned to the living room when she came out in a pair of dark jeans that showed off her legs and a dark brown T-shirt that intensified the red and gold shades in her hair. The clothes fit like a dream. One of his dreams, but still. She’d brushed her hair and fastened it into a ponytail.

Paisley cleared her throat. “Everything fits.”

“I’ll say,” Iskander said.

On cue, her phone started ringing.

C
HAPTER 9

P
aisley headed for her purse, tense out of habit now because these days, Rasmus was always the person calling her. Iskander leaned over, snagged the strap of her purse, and held it out to her. The muscles of his upper arm bunched and tightened, and for an instant she saw him as a complete stranger, a man of uncertain intentions who was bigger and stronger than she was.

The sheer masculinity of him took her aback, even aside from the plain fact that he probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds. Iskander Philippikos was a man, pure and simple. An image flashed into her head, him with some unnamed woman, naked and having sex, touching, entering. She resisted the urge to take a step back and instead took her purse. “Thanks. I think.”

He shrugged.

She fished out her phone and flipped it open; then she did take a step back, until she was just out of Iskander’s reach. She didn’t recognize the number on the screen. That wasn’t unusual since she got referral calls for catering or special-order cakes and pastries all the time. The unknown number didn’t mean much. Rasmus was in the habit of calling from different numbers. “Paisley Nichols.”

She knew it was Rasmus before he spoke. “I’m sorry I had to destroy your apartment.”

Whether it was her expression or the tension that shot through her, something must have telegraphed her reaction, because Iskander jumped to his feet. She took a deep breath, trying to control the familiar anger, frustration, and guilt for not figuring out how to make the man understand she wasn’t interested. “Leave me alone. Can’t you just please leave me alone?”

“I cannot do that,” Rasmus said over the phone. The hollowness in her stomach grew big enough to swallow her up. She recognized the manic undertone in his voice from all the other times she’d heard him when he was frustrated. He wasn’t irrational yet, but he would be soon. “You must understand I’m serious. When we work through whatever prevents you from seeing that we belong together, when I’ve made you understand, you’ll know I am right. My future depends upon you, Paisley. You must help me. We belong together.”

She pulled the phone away from her ear to disconnect the call, but Iskander held out his hand. With a shrug, she dropped the phone onto his palm. At this point, she didn’t care who dealt with Rasmus. Let the whole city of San Francisco try.

“Rasmus Kessler?” His eyes were practically glowing. She’d never met anyone whose eyes could look like that. Goodness, his expression was dead serious. He looked as angry as she felt, and that was strangely comforting. “She’s in Nikodemus’s territory.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, as if he expected Rasmus to know what that meant. She sure didn’t. Who was Nikodemus? What was his territory? And why would Rasmus care when he didn’t seem to care about anything else that ought to matter?

She tried to recall her earlier sense of Iskander as a stranger, but this time it failed. He was just her landlord. The guy who cashed her rent checks and fixed her leaky sink. Maybe he was, in his own way, as deluded as Rasmus, because he was acting like he was some kind of übercop. Whether he was someone who lived off rental income or who had sold a software company for millions before he was twenty-five, he wasn’t equipped to deal with Rasmus and his craziness.

Iskander caught her eye and rolled his as if he’d been reading her mind. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to him. With the index finger of his free hand, he traced some kind of mark on her forehead. He ended with a tap that felt hot when his finger landed.

She reeled back, off balance and dizzy from the contact.

“Paisley Nichols is under my protection now,” he said into the phone. A smile spread across his face, like he was enjoying whatever Rasmus was saying. “You send anyone to my place again, and he won’t come back, either.” He waited a bit and said, “Mess with her, Kessler, and when I find you, which I will, I will rip out your heart.” He disconnected and looked up with a grin.

Paisley took back her phone. Her forehead burned where his finger had tapped her. She’d heard about pressure points that, when triggered, could make a person collapse. Was that what he’d just done? She swallowed against a swell of nausea. “Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment,” she managed to say, “but isn’t it more effective if you make a threat you can actually carry out?”

Iskander laughed, and Paisley figured it was because he agreed with her. Then she saw his face and realized that wasn’t it. He believed what he’d said. Her stomach rolled over again, and Iskander’s face blurred. The stripes down his face seemed to be glowing. They weren’t. They couldn’t be. She blinked and rubbed her forehead. Nothing came into focus. No matter how hard she focused, she saw two Iskanders, both of them with glowing blue eyes.

“You okay, Paisley?”

The ocean roared in her ears. “I’m fine.”

Only she wasn’t. The room spun, and her forehead burned something fierce. Lord, she was going to heave.

Iskander said, “That should
not
have happened.” He caught her before she hit the floor. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the floor with her brain floating around in circles inside her head. Iskander crouched at her side, his phone to his ear. She was dizzy. Really dizzy, and her head hurt.

“Harsh? Situation here.” He had a mostly whispered conversation that at times sounded like gibberish to her. Then he pushed on her shoulder. “Harsh says for you to lie down.”

She lay back. Iskander grabbed her legs and put her feet on the seat of a chair. The spinning sensation slowed.

“She’s a resistant,” Iskander said into the phone. “I know.” He took her wrist in one hand. His eyes, still an unreal blue, lost focus while he counted. “Fifty-three. Well, that’s how many I counted.” He looked at her. “Hypowhatsis. What the hell does that mean? Oh. Harsh says you probably have low blood pressure. It can make you faint if you don’t sit down quickly enough.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Any better?”

“I think so.” His fingers were warm around her wrist. Her head stopped spinning.

Iskander let go of her wrist and listened to Harsh. “I can’t ask her that. No.”

“What?”

He actually blushed. “He says I have to ask you this.”

“Go on.”

He closed his eyes like he was hurting somewhere, then opened them and said, “Are you pregnant?”

She laughed out loud. Her thoughts were more coherent now. But not quite enough, considering the next words out of her mouth. “You have to have sex in order to get pregnant, and for that you need a social life, which I don’t have. So, please, tell Dr. Marit that I am not pregnant. Bless his heart.”

“No,” he said into the phone. He listened some more. He ran a hand through his hair and avoided looking at her. His cheeks flushed red again. “No fucking way, Harsh. I am not asking her that. You ask her.” He pressed the phone to her ear. “Harsh has a question for you.”

She took the phone. What was worse than asking a woman you barely knew if she was pregnant? “Dr. Marit?”

“When was your last period?” Harsh asked.

Oh. She glanced at Iskander and found him staring at the side of the room. Great. Now her periods were going to be his business.

Over the phone, Harsh said, “It’s a routine question for women of childbearing years. I’d like to be sure there’s not an easy explanation for your fainting.”

She turned her head and lowered her voice. “Maybe two weeks ago?”

“Are you on any medications?”

“No, sir.”

He certainly sounded doctorlike now. “Ever fainted before?”

“Never.”

Iskander was still holding her hand, she realized, even though they weren’t looking at each other. And she was all right with that. His embarrassment was kind of sweet.

“How are you feeling now?” Harsh asked.

“Better.”

“Think you can sit up? Let me know how it goes if you can.”

“Yes, sir. I think I can.” She swung her legs off the chair, and Iskander’s hand tightened around hers. He helped her sit. Her head wasn’t spinning anymore. “Sitting up now. I think I’m okay.”

“Give the phone back to Iskander,” Harsh said. She handed over the phone, and after he talked to Harsh some more, Iskander had her open and close her eyes while he stared into them. His eyes were the most amazing blue.

“Yeah, they’re doing that.” To her, he said, “How’s your head feel?”

She touched her forehead. The spot where Iskander had touched her was sensitive, but at least she didn’t feel like her brains where moving around in there. “Better, I think.”

He relayed the answer and after some more listening, disconnected the call. “He says he thinks it was probably the stress of your totally shitty day and for us to call him if it happens again or you get worse.”

She stood with another helping hand from Iskander. “I feel fine now.” She touched her forehead. An echo of the burning sensation that had started everything remained in her head.

Iskander stooped for her phone. “You need to turn this off.”

It rang while he was holding it. He checked the number, and an odd little smile curved his mouth. “Rasmus,” he said to the phone without answering it. “Will you never learn?” He turned off the phone, then snapped open the back cover and removed the battery before she could stop him.