I tilted my head back against the
pastel green wall of the day spa, relaxing just enough that I could feel every
ache and pain in my body. Man, I was looking forward to this massage.
The doorhandle on one of the
client rooms twisted, and a fraction of a second before the door opened, I
stiffened. Heat sang through my body and, furious, I stuffed it away, stifling
a groan. Not Ty. For a brief moment I panicked, wondering if Bianca had mixed
things up and booked my massage with Ty—something I’d asked never to happen
again after that first time—but I forced myself to breathe and relax, keeping
my eyes closed. Bianca ran her day spa with a golden heart and an iron fist;
she wouldn’t do that to me.
Still, as Ty exited the client
room and crossed the waiting area, footsteps soft on the rugged floor. I felt
more than heard him pause in front of me, every sense in my body standing to
rigid attention.
Steady breath in, steady breath
out. Steady breath in, steady breath out. I’d managed to successfully ignore
him through all of our infrequent encounters since that first massage, and
today would be no different.
In front of me, he sniffed. “I
clearly need to have a word with Bianca,” he muttered, and I couldn’t tell if
he was including me in his audience or not. “That lounge needs replacing, and
some things around here are getting downright old and worn.”
I managed to avoid choking on my
disbelief until he left the room, though I could still see the back of his head
disappearing down the stairs, so doubtless he heard me. Whatever. I didn’t even
care. Stupid, arrogant, jerk-faced twat. Just because he was so
pretty that girls fell over themselves to be near him, he’d decided he was
God’s gift to humanity. Well, I wasn’t falling for it, even if it had been
the best bloody massage of my life. I was not some stupid, vapid piece of
arm-candy for him to play with. Urgh.
I slammed my head back against the
wall just a little too hard, and winced. Moron! Imbecile! Arrogant
peacocky slimeball!
“Ellie?” Bianca’s soothing voice
halted my litany and I sighed, forcing away the negative energy encounters with
Ty always left. “Your turn, honey.”
Damn him. I was going to enjoy my
massage. He was not going to ruin this perfect moment of relaxation. Firmly
shoving thoughts of stunningly gorgeous manwhores from mind, I followed Bianca
into a treatment room.
*
* *
I slid into my regular seat at Felici’s
just as Nana and Lydia, my older sister, were handing their menus to the waitress.
“I’ll have the usual,” I said as the waitress raised an eyebrow at me.
She nodded and swept away, leaving
behind a cobalt blue bottle that sparkled and dripped with condensation.
“So,” I said, pouring water for
everyone, “What’s new?”
Lydia shrugged. “Nothing much. I was
just moaning about how much working retail during the holiday season sucks.
Though at least Ty is on this afternoon, so things won’t get deadly boring
until he finishes up at six.”
The glass I was reaching for slipped,
tipped, and sailed towards the floor. Nana, with characteristic lightning
reflexes, caught it before it had barely left the table, deftly setting it
upright and relieving me of my water-pouring duties.
“Ty works at the boutique as well?” I
said, aiming for nonchalant.
Nana smirked, and I pointedly ignored
her.
Lydia nodded. “Oh yeah. He does mornings
in the spa and afternoons downstairs in the storefront.”
I made a careful mental note to avoid
the boutique in the afternoons. Not that I needed much help with that; Dusk
Alley was a designer boutique selling women’s clothing, jewellery and cosmetics
that was at least four times out of my price range. I’d known they were
affiliated with the day spa, but I hadn’t realised they shared staff. I guess
it made sense, especially for the cosmetics and beauty product sales. Whatever.
Irrelevant.
I shoved the whole issue aside and
turned to Nana. “So, I was thinking of hitting up the department store this
afternoon. I need some clothes for work. Do you want to come?” Not only did Nana
have impeccable taste, she also had an almost bottomless bank account that she
had no qualms sharing with her only two surviving family members.
She nodded decisively. “Yes,” she said.
“It will be illuminating.”
My eyebrows knitted in puzzlement, but I
let it pass. Nana was well known for her bizarre comments and apparently
unconnected observations. “Sure,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Swing by Alley when you’re done,” Lydia
said. I’m stuck there till eleven tonight. I’ll take my break when you come.”
Nana was already agreeing
enthusiastically, and I groaned. So much for avoiding the place.
Never mind. We’d go in, find Lydia, and
drag her out for a break. The chances of running into Ty were entirely minimal.
Everything would be fine.
*
* *
“I’ll just be a second,” I assured Nana
as I ducked into the bathrooms. We’d spend a good couple of hour clothes
hunting, and all of the resulting outfits were nicer than what I had on now. If
we were going to stop past the boutique to collect Lydia, my chances of running
into Ty were absolutely minimal, thank heavens—but I wasn’t about to give him
more fodder for insults if I could avoid it. Old and tired. Prat.
Locked safely in a stall, I surveyed my
options. The navy was too formal; the silver too attention seeking. I settled
on a neutral-toned skirt that showed off my butt and a red silk blouse with
fluttery cap sleeves that managed to actually make me look like I had cleavage
for a change. The whole outfit was sophisticated and chic yet effortless, the
neutral skirt enriching the light brown of my hair and the red blouse the best
possible colour for my skin tone.
I pulled it all on, slipped on one of
the many pairs of gorgeous new shoes—it was so shallow, but I did love Nana’s
bank account—fluffed my hair, and headed back out.
Nana whistled. “Don’t you look special,”
she said.
I smiled distractedly, running my
fingers along the blouse’s neckline. “It’s missing something,” I said. “I need
something around my neck.”
Nana shrugged. “If you say so.”
I loaded my bags back into the trolley
and marched off with it determinedly. Three times Nana tried to draw my
attention to jewellery stores that we passed, but I knew exactly the one I was
after.
We rounded the corner: Dusk Alley. Chewing
the inside of my lip and narrowing my eyes, I made a beeline for the back of
the store, where their jewellery display was located.
Nana caught up after a few moments, and
eyed the dazzling array of entirely over-the-top necklaces, the lightest of
which looking like it had to weigh at least a pound. “These aren’t really what
you’re looking for, dear,” she observed candidly.
I shrugged, stifling my irritation at
the truth of her words. “I thought they’d have a bigger range. This one’s
okay,” I added, pointing out a silver-filigreed piece with a floral
motif.
Voices erupted around the end of the
aisle and I froze. I will not turn around. I will not turn
around. I realised I was checking myself out in the mirror to make
sure the outfit was sitting right, and jerked my gaze away. “Or this one.” I
reached for another necklace to my left, conveniently allowing me to turn my
back on the approaching Prince of Twathood.
Nana, of course, turned towards him.
“Oh, I see. Of course.”
Was it permissible to hit grandmothers
for being smug? If it had been Lydia I’d have whacked her for sure.
“I’ll just go wait out the front, I
think,” Nana continued, oblivious to my glares. “My feet, you know. And my
hips. And my back.” She hobbled away to the tables out the front, looking every
day of her age—which I’d never seen her do when she wasn’t up to mischief.
Urgh.
I was too busy fuming at her retreating
back to realise that Ty had gotten within range.
“Can I help you?” he said, eyes
dancing.
No. I was not looking
at his stupid eyeballs. I whirled back to the jewellery display. “That one,” I
said primly. “I’d like to try it on please.”
He reached for the necklace that hung
just out of my reach, brushing past my shoulder in the process. I jolted at the
energy his touch sent through me and ended up three feet away down the aisle.
My stupid reflexes were always a little unpredictable, but they always seemed
worse when he was around. This had been an utterly stupid idea. So what if he
thought I looked old and tired? Why did I care what he thought?
“Here.”
I turned back to him, expecting to see
the silver filigree. Instead, he held a ropey, glimmering creation I could have
sworn wasn’t on the shelves a moment ago. It was a single necklace, but made up
of tens or maybe even hundreds of strands; I couldn’t quite get a fix on it to
figure it out, and the threads it was woven from seemed unnaturally fine and
soft, like spider’s silk, the beads tiny and delicate as dewdrops. It glimmered
gently in the fluorescent lights of the store, and I stood motionless,
transfixed.
“Do you like it?” There was a depth of
emotion to Ty’s voice that I’d never heard before, and my heart skipped a beat
in response.
“Yes,” I breathed, awkwardness and
irritation forgotten.
Ty beamed and my pulse skipped again.
Saints, he was beautiful. Too beautiful, like a dangerous snake, but as he
moved towards me with the necklace in hand, I was powerless to break the
spell.
He reached for me and I turned to face
the mirror, back to him so he could fasten the jewellery around my neck.
Instead, he laid one end of it across my forehead and directed me to hold it in
place while he arranged the rest of the multitude of strands through the back
of my hair, half catching it up in a style that seemed at once impossibly
complex and incredibly simple.
He fastened the catch on the jewellery
just above my left ear and dropped a strand of hair to cover it. I stared at
myself in the mirror, lost for words. The necklace—headpiece—whatever it
was—had glimmered before, but in my hair it fairly shone. I felt like I was
wearing a headdress made of moonlight that seemed to pulse gently in time with
my breaths.
“Stunning.”
I glanced up at Ty in the mirror,
surprised to see his eyes shining wetly. That instant was enough to break the
spell, though, and I turned. “Let me show Nana,” I said. “I mean, let me see
what she thinks.”
He stepped back, deferential. “Of
course.”
Out the front of the store I found Lydia
engaged in vibrant conversation with Nana, who sat with her back to me. Lydia’s
eyes widened as she spotted me and paused midsentence. Nana twisted in her
chair to see what Lydia had seen—and her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh,” she said as I drew close. “Oh,
Elyena. You have it in your hair.”
I shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh,
well,” I said, tugging on the strands across my forehead. “Ty thought he’d try
something different.”
“Ty did this?” Nana asked. She turned
back to her table and busied herself in her copious handbag before I could reply.
Irritated, I snagged the necklace and
tugged it down over my face. I shook my hair free from it and twisted it around
to hang around my neck. There. Much better. Stupid Ty and his stupid ideas.
What was he playing at, anyway?
“There,” I snapped at the table, Lydia
already engrossed in a new conversation with Ty and Nana still rummaging in her
bag. Seriously, would it kill them to focus on me for more than a second? “Is
that better?” I twitched the luminous white strands that trailed down my chest,
still beautiful, but lacking the glorious beauty they’d had in the mirror just
before.
He narrowed his eyes critically at me.
“The shirt does alluring things to your cleavage, I’ll give you that, even if
it does emphasise your wide shoulders. I still wish you’d let me trim your
hair, your forehead’s getting completely lost…” He trailed off under my glare.
“No?”
“I meant about
the necklace.” I thought my voice was remarkably calm for someone
struggling against the impulse to commit homicide.
Beside him, Lydia laughed. “I’m sorry.
I’ve been training him for months, and he’s still barely housebroken.” She
turned to him. “Ty, what’s our mantra? Answer the question…”
“Nothing else.” He nodded. “Answer the
question, nothing else.”
They repeated it again together before
dissolving into giggles. Ty reached across the table and tugged at Lydia’s
hair, and she shrieked with mock outrage. Before I knew it, a chase was in
flight—though I wasn’t actually sure who was chasing whom as they ducked back
into the store and circled around racks and clothes stands.
Ty caught Lydia for an instant, and I
frowned in sudden realisation. This whole pantomime was starkly familiar: ten
or fifteen years ago, it had been me and Lydia. My frown
deepened and I watched closely for tell-tale glances or stray caresses, but as
far as I could see, it was true: this wasn’t flirting, it was sibling
horseplay.
“Everything okay?” Nana’s voice cut
through my thoughts and I turned, startled.
“Hmm? Oh. Yes.” I glanced back at the
two idiots still causing chaos in the store. “Everything’s… fine.”
Nana’s eyes twinkled with something
unreadable that tugged at my stomach, and I shook my head. “I’ll just, uh, go
put the necklace back.”
“Yes, dear,” she said. “You can try to
do that if you like.”
I rolled my eyes at her theatrics and
headed for the back of the store. I tuned out Lydia and Ty’s ridiculous noise
and hunted the display shelf for a place to hang the necklace. Oddly, there
didn’t seem to be any empty hooks. I ran the necklace through my fingers,
glancing down at where it hung limply around my neck. It was pretty—magically
so—but it lacked the sparkle, the mysterious something else I’d thought it had
when Ty had first put it on me.
On a whim, I faced the mirror and tugged
the necklace back up into my hair, trying to mimic the style Ty had created.
Soft strands fell over my forehead and caught my hair partially up; it wasn’t
quite how he’d done it, but… I tilted my head at the mirror and my heart
skipped a beat.
Slowly, tentatively, I reached up to
touch the gossamer strands where they glimmered and glowed like a slipped halo.
Something solid hit me between and
across the backs of my thighs. I flailed wildly for balance and found myself
clinging to—his head, as he pranced wildly around the store with me on his
shoulders, shouting, “Answer the question, nothing more! Answer the question,
nothing more!”
Oh saints, my
stomach’s showing. I tugged
awkwardly at my shirt, caught between momentary embarrassment and his wildly
infectious enthusiasm. “But what’s the question?” I shouted over the din.
He laughed. “The necklace! It
works!”
I laughed back, even though I had
no clue what he was talking about. “Yay?”
Ty performed some complicated sort
of movement that removed me from his shoulders and ended up with me in his
arms. “Yay?” he said, eyes oddly serious in contrast to the frivolity of the
situation.
“Well,” I said, waving my hands as
vaguely as I felt, “It works, right? So yay?” I still had no idea what
‘working’ entailed, but whatever it was, apparently this was Christmas for Ty.
He hugged me tightly to him and where our skin touched fire rippled through me.
Saints. I’d forgotten what it felt like to have actual proper skin contact with
him, not just accidental brushes I did my best to avoid.
It was like drowning, and it was
addictive, and it was probably just my imagination that my necklace halo was
glowing like it might go nova and Ty was holding me, touching me, and my hands
wrapped around the back of his neck and up through his hair and the air around
us burst into flame with perfect, glorious pleasure. Skin. I needed his
skin.
My stomach flipped as something
happened to gravity and I had a brief impression of broken plasterboard and a
flash of darkness before Ty lay me down somewhere soft, and all I cared about
was the touch of his skin, because it was beautiful, and perfect, and I nearly
sobbed as heat soaked through me, lighting up every fibre of my being and
chasing out fear and doubt and darkness—except just there, the very
seat of my logic and rationality; it remained unmoved, a cold stone trying to
catch my attention in the wave of heat.
“Wait,” I gasped. I needed a
moment to process this.
He ignored me, hands rubbing at my
shoulders just like they had that first time in—I took in the plush-rugged
floor, the pastel green walls, the ivory couches around the perimeter of the
room. We were in the day spa. I struggled semi-upright. “Wait! How on earth did
we…”
He paused, and I found the gaping
hole in the floor. Vague memories of a surge of power, of Ty springing upwards
ten metres or more to the roof – through the roof – through
the floor… I stared at him, wide-eyed, the magma flow of heat
suddenly halted. “What are you?”
“Happy,” he mumbled against my
shoulder.
I whacked him gently on the back
of the neck. “Answer the question,” I said.
“Nothing more,” he murmured,
nuzzling my neck. My skin fizzed where his lips touched, and I had to
concentrate to rap him on the back of the head.
“Yes,” I said. “Nothing more.”
He sat back, eyes clouded with
lust slowly clearing. “I am what you are, love: a child of the gods. Well, I am
closer than you: my mother was a true goddess. Your grandmother is the actual
godling in your family.”
My heart stalled. Child of the
gods? Me? Nana?
Actually, I had to admit that made
a hell of a lot of sense. Nana’s bizarre observations, her uncanny sense of
timing, her ridiculous physical abilities for someone her age… I blinked,
unsure what was more unsettling: that my grandmother was a godling, or that it
was dead easy to believe it.
“Hold on, wait,” I said, wriggling
further out from underneath Ty. “If you’re a godling, then…” I hesitated, not
sure how to phrase my question, and not sure I wanted to know the answer. A
godling. No wonder girls of all ages threw themselves at him. How many women
had he loved in his lifetime? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?
Cold logic was almost as good as a
cold shower. “No,” I said. “No.”
“No what?”
“No I am not going to be the
latest in a long line of floozies no. Not interested. I don’t care what you
are, I’m not available.”
His eyes widened, body and face
alike drooping in disappointment. “But Love, you feel it, I know you do.”
“Feel what?” I snapped, arms
wrapped tightly around my torso. I felt nothing that he didn’t manipulate me to
feel with his stupid godly powers.
“This,” he whispered, and reached
out. His fingertip connected softly with the corner of my jaw, and I swallowed
at the melting heat that consumed me. His finger trailed down my neck, tracing
a blissful line across the hollow of my clavicle, lighting fire oh-so-carefully
down my sternum.
He pulled away and I remembered
how to breathe.
“See?” he said, still whispering.
“How can you deny it?”
I shook my head, tears burning my
eyes. I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I reminded myself frantically. “It
isn’t real.” My nails dug into my palms as I stared into his sea green eyes, so
full of sadness they seemed a mirror of my own. “Tell me…” I drew in a shaky
breath. “Answer the question.”
He nodded, gaze darting across my
face as though trying to unlock an enigma.
“How many other girls?”
He frowned, and sadness turned to
confusion.
I rolled my eyes, flicking away
tears with a quick finger. “Don’t give me that. How many other girls have you
played this game with, made… feel like this?” I wasn’t holding my breath for
his answer. I wasn’t.
His confusion deepened. “But Love,
I couldn’t.”
It was my turn to be confused.
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “I
couldn’t make someone feel like this. When I touch you, I feel
what you feel. I felt it that first time, do you remember? The massage?”
Saints, how I had tried to forget.
His touches had been perfectly innocent, utterly professional, but the fire
they’d awoken in me had left me reeling in terror; I’d never felt anything that
strong in my life.
A tiny smile played at the corners
of his mouth. “That’s when I knew.”
My heart pounded in my head, my
chest—and everywhere else. “Knew what?”
He was leaning closer, lips a mere
breath away, and I didn’t want to be a conquest, but Lydia hadn’t been flirting
with him after all, and now that I thought about it—really and truly thought
about it, without the filter of frustration and jealousy—could it be? Was I
really the only girl actually losing her head over this man, the only one
struggling not to throw herself at his feet?
“I knew,” he whispered against my
ear, and I almost couldn’t hear him through the ecstasy echoing through my
body, “that you were the one.”
“I don’t believe in soulmates,” I
whispered back, eyes closed, every sense in my body standing to attention as
his cheek tickled against mine.
“You don’t have to.” His lips
traced my jaw and I shivered. “Your heart recognises me, Love, whether your believe
in it or not.”
“Love,” I whispered, fingers
tightening in his hair. “Is that what this is?”
“It could be,” he said. “If you
wanted it to be.”
I luxuriated in the thought for
just a moment, before another one hit me. I bolted upright, narrowly avoiding a
collision with his nose. “Wait just one second here, buddy. Old? You think I
look tired and old?” His words from that morning rang in my ear. “Not to
mention, oh, I don’t know, my too-broad shoulders and my totally lost
forehead.” I glared at him, wishing that godling powers included the ability to
set someone literally on fire.
Ty laughed, a soft, throaty
chuckle that sounded far too appealing. “I knew you’d take it like that, and I
confess, I half hoped you’d be provoked into responding. But if you recall, I
said that some things around here were getting downright old and worn. I meant,
Love, your constant indifference. Not you.”
He tracked a finger over my
hairline, leaving tingling fireworks in its wake.
“That’s nice,” I said, pushing his
hand away, “But what about my shoulders? And my forehead?”
He frowned, confusion plain again.
“What about them?”
“You…” I squirmed, uncertain how
to voice my fears aloud without sounding insecure and needy. “They’re not ‘too
broad’, and, well, you know…?”
“Look at me, Love,” he said. “Am I
perfect?”
YES, my heart screamed. YES YOU
ARE BLOODY PERFECT. But I shoved the scrambling emotions away and forced myself
to look. Cold logic; cold shower; I could do this. And true, now he mentioned
it, his nose leaned a bit to one side, and one eye was slightly larger than the
other, and if I was going to be utterly picky then his forehead was probably a
fraction too large, and… “Oh.”
Ty softened into a smile. “Answer
the question, Love.”
“Lydia’s wrong,” I said.
His eyebrows quirked. “What?”
I grinned, eyes dancing. “The
answer. It’s not nothing more.”
Understanding lit his features.
“Oh? Then what is it?” He whisked a finger against the tip of my nose, and my
eyes rolled closed in pleasure.
“Everything,” I said. “Everything
more.”
He leaned down and kissed me, and this
time, I kissed him back.
