Chuckling softly, Pet picked up the dish towel and moved to his side. When he turned off the water and remained bent over, allowing the water to drip off his face, she pressed the towel into his hand and then stepped back as he straightened and dried his face and hands. Lowering the towel then, he turned and raised an eyebrow in question. “Better now?”
“Mostly, but you missed some on your neck,” she said, and held her hand out for the towel.
He gave it up at once and Pet stepped forward and then frowned. It was the same problem as before. The man was ridiculously tall, and while she generally liked tall men, it could be pretty inconvenient for tasks such as this. She could reach his neck, but it would mean standing chest-to-chest with him to do it. Arching one eyebrow, she said, “Either you have to bend over, or I have to get the chair again.”
Santo grinned at her annoyed words and then simply picked her up and set her on the counter next to the sink. He followed that up by stepping forward until his stomach brushed against her knees.
Pet stared up at him wide-eyed for a minute and then let her breath out on a small sigh and reached up to wipe at the spots of dry blood on his neck. It was a simple act, nothing sexual about it, and yet his closeness, the way his heat and scent enveloped her and the way his eyes were traveling over her as she worked made it feel very intimate. Trying to ease her own discomfort, she asked, “I’m guessing Mr. Purdy’s cousin doesn’t have Renfield syndrome?”
“No,” Santo agreed solemnly, his Adam’s apple moving in his throat.
Pet nodded, unsurprised by the answer. “He’s immortal?”
“Sì.”
When he didn’t offer more, she stopped wiping and leaned back to meet his eyes. “Someone you know?”
He hesitated and then admitted, “We suspect he is a known rogue.”
“A known rogue?” Pet asked with a frown.
“A rogue we have encountered before,” he explained.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “But what is a rogue?”
“An immortal who has broken our laws.”
“So he’s a bad immortal,” she said carefully.
“Sì.”
Pet bit her lip, her heart and mind both suddenly racing. She’d encountered bad immortals before . . . as a child . . . and they had torn her life and her sister’s apart. Now another one had popped up right next door to her sister’s home.
Santo caught her under the chin and lifted her face so he could see her expression. She tried to school her features into one of unconcern, but apparently not quickly enough, because he frowned and rumbled, “Do not be afraid. I will keep you safe.”
Normally, a comment like that would have annoyed Pet and she would have told him she didn’t need his protection. It was her standard response to men who wanted to play the protector, which was pretty much every man she met. For some reason, people equated her small stature with her being the equivalent of a child, someone to be humored, coddled, and sheltered from harm, but not to be taken seriously. It could be pretty damned irritating. But Pet knew what immortals could do, and how dangerous Purdy’s cousin could be, and she was afraid. This was one time when she knew she couldn’t defend herself properly. Even worse, she couldn’t defend Parker against a bad immortal if he chose to harm him.
“Pet?”
Her gaze had drifted down to his chest while she thought. Pet lifted her eyes now to meet his, and blinked when she noted the silver growing in the black of his iris. Instead of stars in a dark sky, the silver was gathering and growing to block out the black, like mercury in a thermometer expanded when the temperature rose. It was absolutely beautiful, she thought, and then realized his eyes were coming closer.
His head was slowly lowering, Pet realized. As if he intended to kiss her. She recognized that, and had plenty of time to rebuff him, but didn’t. She was curious, so she lifted her head to him and let her eyes drift closed and then his mouth was on hers.
Nothing could have prepared her for that kiss. Or, at least, not for her body’s response to it. The moment their lips made contact, that earlier tingling she’d experienced when he’d pressed her hand to his chest exploded between them like fireworks on the Fourth of July. It started where his lips met hers but shot to every corner of her body, faster than electricity could travel.
While her mind was briefly stunned by overloaded synapses, her body responded like a sponge, soaking up the pleasure and expanding with it. Goose bumps rose on her skin, her nipples hardened and extended like rosebuds seeking the sun, and her arms moved of their own volition to embrace him as he stepped between her knees to get closer.
A shiver of pleasure slid through Pet when she felt his hands clasp her at the waist, and then his tongue urged her lips apart and she opened to him. As her own tongue greeted and dueled with his, her back arched, pressing her eager breasts against his huge chest, and her hands clutched at his back, pulling him closer to allow it.
Santo’s hand began to slide up her sides then, pushing her cropped top upward until his thumbs rested against the bottoms of her breasts. When they stopped there, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding on a groan that was caught by his mouth, and then gasped as he finally let his thumbs slide up to run lightly over her aching nipples. Her body jerked in his hold like a racehorse leaping forward at the sound of a starter pistol, and her legs wrapped around his, pulling in an effort to get him closer. He was already tight against the counter, though, and instead of moving him, her efforts dragged her butt forward on the counter surface until they were pressed tight together.
Santo broke their kiss and threw his head back on a groan as they ground together, then just as quickly lowered his head again. But rather than kiss her, he nuzzled her ear and then kissed and nibbled his way down her throat, urging her to lean back as he made his way down to one breast. His mouth found her nipple through the thin cloth of her top, and he tongued and then sucked at it through the material briefly.
Gasping and murmuring with pleasure, Pet shifted her hands to his head and caressed his skull, urging him on. She wasn’t sure if he did it using his mouth or his hands, but suddenly the cloth of her shirt was gone and his tongue rasped against her sensitive skin without the barrier to temper it. Pet was nearly undone by the caress. Crying out, she dug her nails into his head, her hips shifting and grinding, and legs tightening so that she was riding the hardness pressing against her core. Just when Pet thought she was going to embarrass herself by orgasming through dry humping, Santo was suddenly gone.
Confusion at the abandonment drew her eyes open in time to see Santo’s strained expression. In the next moment, he’d tugged her shirt back into place, lifted her off the counter to stand on the floor, and then moved to the sink and turned on the water.
Grasping the counter to help her stay upright on her trembling legs, Pet stared at him blankly, and then glanced toward the doorway in surprise when the man named Zanipolo entered. Understanding struck her then. Santo must have heard his cousin enter the house. That was why he’d stopped. The knowledge made her feel a little better, and then she frowned slightly. Santo was a stranger, and an immortal. She never should have let him kiss her, and she definitely shouldn’t have responded as she had.
“Hi.” Zanipolo’s footsteps slowed as he noted her presence. “I didn’t think anyone would be up still.”
“I just came down for a glass of water,” Pet murmured, noting the way his interested gaze was sliding between her and his cousin. Santo didn’t even acknowledge his cousin’s comment and still had his back to the room. Pet wondered about that until she noticed Zani’s eyes drop to her chest and widen slightly.
Glancing down as well and saw that her nipples were still erect and poking at the soft material of her cropped top. She suddenly understood why Santo was keeping his back to the room. She’d felt him harden against her as they’d ground together and knew he was no doubt still sporting the proof of what they’d been doing in the form of an erection that would be making the front of his jeans bulge. Suspecting she was bright pink now, Pet mumbled, “Good night,” and made her way out of the room as quickly as her shaking legs would allow.
She was a little steadier on her feet by the time she reached the stairs, and feeling almost normal by the time she made it to the bedroom she was sharing with Parker. She was also feeling lucky. If Zanipolo hadn’t interrupted them . . .
Pet let out a shaky breath and paced to the window to look out. Her response to Santo’s kiss and caresses had been . . . unnatural. That was the only word she could think of to describe it. All he’d done was kiss her and caress and suckle her breast, and she’d . . .
Pet shook her head. She was quite sure that if Zanipolo hadn’t appeared when he had, she would probably be getting screwed on the kitchen counter right now. That just wasn’t her. And her response to Santo had been too much too quickly, and too desperate. She still wanted him. Or did she? Pet knew immortals could control mortals. Had Santo been controlling her? Making her think she wanted him, making her feel this aching need?
She wasn’t sure. Earlier in the kitchen when Marguerite and Parker had been there, she’d thought the man’s scent was intoxicating. Surely he hadn’t been controlling her then? But when she was trying to clean the blood away and he’d pressed her hand flat to his collarbone, her fingers and palm had tingled where they made contact with his skin. That tingle hadn’t stopped in her hand. It had run through her body, setting off alarms like a pinball hitting bumpers. Had he been controlling her and making her feel those things then? she asked herself again. Pet didn’t know, and because she didn’t know, it seemed better to just avoid him.
As soon as morning came, she’d take Parker home and pack some of his clothes while he got ready for school. Then she’d take him back to her place when she picked him up from school. They’d stay there until her sister returned, and maybe even after that.
It wasn’t just her unnatural attraction to Santo. Now that she knew that Mr. Purdy’s cousin was one of the bad immortals, she wasn’t risking Parker being here. She planned to get him as far away as possible from the lot of them . . . which was handy, because she was thinking that the farther she stayed away from Santo and his tingles, the better for her peace of mind.