Pleasures of the Night(3)
“I like your voice. Is that a brogue? Where are you from?”
“Where do you want me to be from?”
“Whatever.” The footsteps padded farther away. “Show yourself out. I’m not talking to you anymore.”
Aidan laughed softly and admired her spirit. She wasn’t cowed, despite how miserable it must be to be alone in the dark. “You know what your problem is, Lyssa Bates?”
“You and your friends bugging me?”
“You don’t know how to dream. All the endless possibilities of your mind—all the places you can go, the things you can do, the people you can be with—and you’re not indulging in any of it.”
“You think I like sitting here in the dark? I would love to be on a Caribbean beach right now, rolling around in the sand with a hot guy.”
The door shut with a tremendous booming sound, and he heaved out a breath. He had no idea what to do now. Nurturing, healing, all that mushy stuff…he wasn’t good at any of it.
“What would Hot Guy look like?” he asked. Sex he could do. And honestly, for the first time in a long time, he was actually looking forward to it. There was something about the irreverent way she spoke…
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, her voice settling into one area. “Tall, dark, and handsome. Isn’t that what all women want?”
“Not always.” He moved toward her, sifting through her memories for past examples of what she considered hot.
“You sound like you know.”
He shrugged, then remembered she couldn’t see him. “I’ve had some experience. Keep talking so I can find you.”
“Why can’t we talk like this?”
“Because”—he altered his course to the left—“I would rather not raise my voice.”
“It’s a very luscious voice.”
His brows rose. “Thank you.”
Luscious was not a word he’d heard in regard to his voice before. The compliment made his cock twitch, and the damn thing was so jaded, it hardly ever did that without physical manipulation. It certainly had never done that without visual stimuli. “I like your voice, too. I picture you being very pretty.”
Rifling through her mind, he saw that she was indeed attractive, but tired, with red-rimmed dark eyes and a slender frame.
“Well, we’ll be sure to keep the lights out then.” She sounded sad. Normally he would be backing away quickly from such emotion. Lust and anger were all he could afford to experience. He couldn’t care too deeply about anyone’s fate. Not even his own.
“There are those of us who can help you,” he said softly.
“Which one? The one who came last night and imitated the voice of my cheating ex-boyfriend?”
Aidan winced. “Bad choice, but with the door in the way, I’ve got to hand it to him for even picking up on that much.”
She laughed, and the throaty sound was very different from what he had expected to hear. It was vibrant, full of life, a taste of the woman she’d been before whatever had happened to fuck her up.
“The other night they sounded like my mother.”
He lowered to a crouch beside her. “To comfort you. That was smart, considering how close you are to her.”
“I don’t want comfort, Aidan,” she said, yawning.
A heady floral fragrance filled his nostrils, and wanting more of it, he sat down with his legs crossed. “What do you want, Lyssa?”
“Sleep.” Her sweet voice was so wearied. “God, I just want to go to sleep and rest. My mother talks too much to let that happen. And your people keep pounding on the damn door. The main reason I let you in was to shut you guys up.”
“Come here,” he murmured, reaching into the darkness and finding her warm, soft body.
As she curled against his chest, he created a wall behind him and settled, stretching his long legs out in front of them and holding her close.
“This is nice,” she breathed, her breath hot as it gusted through the opening of his tunic and grazed his chest. Her weight was slight, but she was full-breasted, a discovery that both pleased and surprised him. “It was your voice, too.”
“Hmm?”
“Why I let you in.”
“Ah.” He stroked the length of her spine, soothing her, whispering assurances that made no sense to him but sounded good.
“You’re almost hard enough to be uncomfortable,” she grumbled, wrapping her arms around his waist. “What the hell do you do for a living?”
He buried his nose in her hair and breathed her in. The scent was fresh and sweet. Innocent. While this woman had spent her life healing small creatures, he’d spent an eternity fighting and killing. “I keep the bad guys away.”