Blood Ties

13. Hot

Quinn woke up with warmth wrapped completely around her. Her head was still nestled on a soft, fragrant pillow, one that smelled vaguely of clean aftershave and mint. It took her a moment to remember she was on the opposite end of the country than normal, and she blinked her eyes opened, looking down.

Large hands were clasped around her waist, and she remembered that she had fallen asleep in Adam’s bedroom and in his bed. In the light of day, everything they’d talked about the previous night seemed less scary, and she realized how silly she’d been then—frightened of things that probably wouldn’t come after her, supernaturals that were most likely just as scared of vampires as they were of other species. Being frightened of something or someone different was never going to be something that went away. Anything with a mind would want total control, which was fine in and of itself, but was not attainable by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyone who said new experiences were the best experiences was either lying to themselves or was truly a brave individual.

“Adam?” she mumbled in a croaky voice and started to pull herself upright. His arm was like a lead weight, and she had to shove it off her side a bit before he was waking up and looking up at her as she sat upright, partially still covered up by thick blankets. A yawn worked up her throat, and she blinked sleepily at him and gestured to his arm, which was still clutched around her side. “Ya mind? I’m human, so I still do irritating things like pee and stuff.”

Adam rolled onto his back, letting go of her while looking up at the ceiling before back at the alarm clock on his side of the bed. His. He already was sharing the room with her in his head. He hoped for much longer than just last night. God, he hoped. Mentally, he was already wondering what his mate wanted for breakfast, and from the sounds of it, everyone was already awake, though they probably had gone to bed a little earlier than they.

He smiled and sat up before rubbing his eyes sleepily. For a year at least, he hadn’t slept this well. Worry about his mate, what she was doing and who she was doing it with, had consumed him. Having her here and willing to start fresh was healing something inside him, and he walked out into the hallway just as his father was passing by.

“Hey, Pop.” Eli stopped and turned around, his eyebrows lifting on his forehead as he took his son in. He lifted his head as if he smelled something and smiled.

“She slept with you, didn’t she?”

If Adam had blood in the way humans had blood, he would have flushed a deep crimson. “In the same bed, yes, but we just talked. I told her a little bit about the supernatural world. I think it scared her, so I brought her in here because she didn’t want to be alone.” He paused and mirrored his father’s grin. “She did agree to a redo. She wants to start over as if the kidnapping never happened.”

His father was happy, but still looked grave. “That’s excellent, Adam. It shows that she’s feeling something toward you, but you still have to be supremely careful, son. Tread lightly and think before you act. One more thing that you f**k up could lead to disaster. It’s both good and bad that she agreed to this so quickly. Fresh off something like this, she could just be waiting for you to mess this thing up. Best thing I can tell you is to comfort her, keep her happy and safe. After a while, she’ll realize that you truly are looking out for her and don’t mean any harm. I think to some extent she knows that already, but with the way you kidnapped her, she’s bound to be a little cautious out of the starting gate. You say something, you do it. Promises kept always. In the meantime, is there anything I can do?

Adam nodded his head. “Yeah. I was thinking the first thing I should do is to give her back her cell phone. She’s probably anxious to speak to her parents again and get in touch with the university. If I want her to trust me, trust all of us, I think that’s the first step.”

Eli nodded and jerked his head for Adam to follow him. “I keep it in the study so it doesn’t get me distracted. After you gave it to me the last time, it kept blowing up with notifications, so I charged it and turned the damn thing off completely. I don’t know if it was her parents or her ex that’s been texting or calling, but it was bloody aggravating. It was either turn it off or toss it out the window and getting her a new one. Actually, that’s not a bad idea at all. I mean, her phone’s not bad, but who is she really going to call besides a few friends and her family—maybe a couple of teachers. I don’t know, but she can easily upgrade to a new phone and have all her contacts updated in it, then change her number. Have her think about it. She’ll be able to get in touch with all the people she needs to and not one more. Her boyfriend might finally give up then.”

Adam winced and followed his father into the study. He watched as Eli opened the small drawer in the desk, took out the phone and held down the ON button until an apple appeared on the screen. He nodded after a few minutes when he saw it power up, walking over to him and handing it off. “You’re sure about this?”

His son nodded. “Positive. Besides, she doesn’t actually know our precise location, and I noticed her GPS wasn’t pinging with anyone else’s in her settings. I checked that since I assumed that you didn’t.”

Eli shook his head reluctantly. “No. Did you do it right away though?”

It was honestly the first thing he should have done, probably. Adam had been so eager to be with her and explain things, he’d simply forgotten and had lucked out. “I-I didn’t. You’re right. I’ll be more careful.”

In all ways, he wanted to add. He couldn’t risk being stupid now. Not when everything was at stake.

***

Later on, after breakfast, Adam handed the phone over to Quinn while they sat outside in the backyard, looking at the pool with the hot tub attached. It was January, but still warm enough for a quick dip if they wanted. Since she didn’t have any bikini or swimsuit, they just laid out under the sun, which was thankfully high in the sky and warming them.

“I bought you some bathing suits and bikinis if you wanted to at least take a soak in the hot tub. You interested?”

Quinn looked over at him and nodded her head after a moment. She shouldn’t have been surprised since he seemed to be overprepared for everything.

Adam pointed over to a shed in the corner, speaking. “I put all the items in the changing cabana. Instead of having to go in and out of the house and getting everything wet and slippery, I had that installed on the back patio. Easier too, unless you have to do the wash. Then we just bring it inside the laundry, but you can still keep the interior free of bleach smells.”

She stood from her spot with a little help from Adam, and walked over to the closed-in cabana. It looked relatively new, and he pointed her toward a door that was on the far end.

“Through that door, there’s a small room with a closet. Looks almost like a linen cupboard, but it’s filled with swimsuits and bikinis.” He paused. “I didn’t know what would be your style, so I ended up buying anything that caught my eye.”

She nodded back to him, curious. “Uhm, okay then.” Walking to the door, she opened and closed it behind her. It must have had motion sensors built into the overhead lighting, because the moment she walked in, recessed bulbs in the ceiling flickered on, and she blinked in surprise.

“Oh my.” She whispered that to herself after opening the one door in the room. There had to be at least 30 bathing suits and bikinis, and she started looking through them from left to right, as if reading a script.

One bikini immediately caught her eye, and she pulled it out. A brilliant green, almost the exact same color as Adam’s eyes, and she was suddenly smiling, unable to help it. Like it called to her, she stripped down and pulled the bottoms up her body first. She was just starting to tie the back of her bikini when she was startled by a knock on the door.

“You almost done?” Adam sounded eager, and she hurried to knot her ties in the back.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” she called as she walked toward the door a moment later. When she opened it, she was taken aback at Adam’s attire. He wore the same color green trunks, and she clasped her hands in front of her after jumping slightly. “Uhm…”

“Yeah,” he whispered as he looked at what she was seeing. They’d both gravitated toward the exact color, and his eyes brightened with his smile. “Weird, huh?”

She bit her lip. “A little, yeah.”

But maybe not so much if they were in the initial stages of bonding. After all, his father had bought matching bedding and curtains that were the same color as Cassie’s eyes all those years ago. They’d been replaced over and over again, but he couldn’t seem to change his preference in colors.

Not that he wanted to, either.

“I turned on the hot tub while you were changing,” he explained. Should be warm enough to hop in in a few minutes. Probably be too warm in the afternoon—or maybe not. This year’s winter has been milder, seeing up to 80 degrees instead of 70 or so. I, uhm, actually wanted to talk to you about your phone.”

“Oh?” She turned to him as they sat in chairs closest to the hot tub. Her phone was still placed in the spot she’d sat at before getting changed into her bikini.

“Yeah. My dad said that either your parents or your ex-boyfriend have been blowing up your phone so bad he had to turn the damn thing off. I didn’t know if it was important, but just in case, I wanted you to have it back so you could tell.”

She muttered a few curses to herself. “Probably just Marc trying to figure out why I dumped him again. I swear, his tenacity is great for studying to be a lawyer, but it sucks on a personal level.” Walking over to the phone, she opened it and saw that her suspicions were correct. Her ex had blown up her phone with almost a hundred text messages. Since the volume on the device was turned off, she looked up at him when it vibrated in her hand. “Didn’t we block his number?”

“Uhm, yeah, but do you have a secondary app that let’s you see blocked numbers and messages? It could be coming through that.”

“I don’t think so? Then again, I didn’t set up my phone and rarely use it outside of talking to my parents or Marc. Friends usually texted or we used that Telegram program for voice if we weren’t able to text. Oh, or they have that FaceSpace of MyBook things too. I don’t have either of them, so I kept my circle small or to just those I needed to get in touch with. It’s whatever.”

She continued to check the notifications and realized that some were from fellow students that were wondering where she was over the weekend.

“s**t. I have one from my dance teacher,” she grumbled before opening up the text. “She’s wondering where I was this morning. I always show up to dance. It’s my worst subject, I swear.”

Adam took in her limber legs and thin physique. She was graceful when she walked, that much he’d seen. “Why worst subject?”

She looked over at him before answering, shooting off a text that she would email the teacher later. “I guess I’m not bad at it, per se, but it’s not my favorite. I love acting and singing, and the dancing is just something that is a part of that. I want to be in musicals, so unless I can find my inner ingenue, I push myself to do better all the time at dancing. It’s difficult to do all three, and I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember. It was my first love, and I was convinced to sign up for drama when I was in high school. Turned out I liked that too, and it became my passion. We always did one musical and one play per year, and I usually ended up getting a big part in each. Junior year, my music teacher started getting me to look for schools for a career in the dramatic arts, so I got my choices in order and started to prepare early. The competition was fierce, but I got enough out of grants and a scholarship from the school that I could get a place off-campus eventually. They insist that you live in the dorms the first two years. It was nice, but I was glad to get my own place this past year. We had roommates in the dorms, sometimes 3 or 4 at a time. You never got any privacy unless everyone else was at a party. If you had a boyfriend—or girlfriend—it was a bit of a cockblock.”

“So, what did you do when you wanted privacy?” He was dying to know how often she got to be intimate with someone that wasn’t him. Somehow, he needed to know.

“It didn’t always work out, and sometimes we used the practice rooms in the music hall for…extra-curricular activities. Even then, it was 50/50 whether anyone would know what was going on. Only some of the rooms were sound-proofed.”

Adam smiled and tested the water in the hot tub before looking up at her. “It’s ready to go. You in?”

She smiled and nodded her head. Adam held out her hand and pulled her up easily before walking to the edge and stepping into the hot, bubbling water.