Page 37 of Immortal By Morning
Knowing it would cause her pain, Abril fought the urge to turn her head quickly to look at him. Instead, she turned it very slowly. He was standing with his back to her and digging treats out of the container by the time she was able to see him. Abril wasn’t sure if she was happy or not over the fact that he was dressed now. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been wearing nothing but a towel. Actually, no, she realized. He’d lost even that in her room when he’d... she killed that thought immediately since the memory of what they’d done wasn’t just making her blush wildly, but was making her slightly hot and bothered.
Really, the last time she’d seen him had been in her dreams. He’d been wearing dress pants, she thought now in the hopes of driving the image of a naked Crispin out of her mind. But the memory of the wet dream she’d had about him did not ease her embarrassment or make her less hot and bothered. While their passion in the dream had been a little gentler and more of a slow burn, it had just been ratcheting up to volcanic levels when Crispin had suddenly disappeared from it.The only saving grace was that he couldn’t know what she’d dreamt of after he’d left her.
“How are you feeling?” Crispin asked as he turned to give the treats to Lilith. The Labrador had abandoned her the moment she heard him open the ceramic container and was now sitting pretty in front of him.Tramp, Abril thought.
“Abril?” Crispin queried, starting around the island now that Lilith was taken care of.
“I should feed Lilith,” she murmured rather than answer his question. If she told him how she was really feeling she’d sound like a crybaby, because she felt pretty horrible just then.
“I already fed her,” Crispin said solemnly. “Both breakfast and lunch.”
“Wait. What? It was nighttime when last I...” She started to shake her head, and then caught herself. “Now it’s not just the next morning, but after lunch of the next day already?” she asked with dismay. “Where is my phone? Gina usually calls after lunch. She’ll freak if I don’t answer.”
“It is all right, sweetheart. Your phone is right over here on the island,” Crispin said reassuringly and ushered her down the island to the seat she’d been using since the men’s arrival. Abril suspected she should be offended that he did so by taking her arm like she was a little old lady he was helping across the road, but at the moment her brain was taken up with the fact that he had called her sweetheart.
“Here, see, she has not yet called. You did not miss anything. All is well.”
Abril just stared at him. The man was talking to her like she was a wild horse he was trying to keep frombolting. Or a crazy person, she thought. But even that didn’t overly distress her. He’d called her sweetheart.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Crispin said suddenly, sounding almost alarmed.
“Like what?” Abril asked, her gaze moving over his lips as she recalled the pleasure they’d given her.
“Like you want me to kiss you and caress you and—”
“I do,” Abril breathed, interrupting his list of all the things she liked best about him so far. A list that was making her hot and wet. A sensation that only increased when his head began to lower toward her. Knowing he was going to kiss her, she licked her lips and started to tilt her head slowly upward to meet him, then let her eyes close. A bare moment later, she opened them again because he hadn’t given her the expected kiss.
“Dani said no sex,” Crispin told her with regret.
“Maybe you could just kiss me,” she suggested, suddenly almost desperate for him to do so.
“She also said no excitement,” he announced. “And kissing you is one of the most exciting things I have ever experienced in my very long life. Hopefully, the same is true for you.”
Abril stared at him wide-eyed, quite sure she never heard anything so sweet in her life.
“Are you hungry?” he asked suddenly.
She briefly considered saying yes in a suggestive manner, but then remembered she would soon no doubt have a phone call from Gina. The last thing she wanted to do was answer that call sounding all out of breath from messing about with Crispin, so she let the idea go.
For one minute, she didn’t answer his question.Instead, she concentrated on her body and any messages it might be sending her. But she wasn’t feeling any hunger pangs. In fact, she was concerned about whether chewing might hurt her head right now too. That thought in mind, she decided waiting a little bit before she ate might be a good thing. Hopefully, once the shot Dr. Dani had given her kicked in, the pain would ease enough to allow her to try to eat.
Before she could say as much to Crispin, the soft drone of voices coming from the living room grew louder and then Roberts led two men into the room. Four men, she realized, when Roberts and the other two were followed a moment later by two additional strangers. No—she corrected as another man now entered—five. There were five new men she’d never seen before now in the kitchen with her besides Crispin and Roberts.
“It cannot be a coincidence,” one of the newcomers insisted firmly. He was a tall man, with ice-blond hair and an air of authority about him. She eyed him with curiosity as he moved around Roberts to get to the coffee machine. Retrieving a cup from the cupboard as if he lived there, the man poured himself some coffee and added, “You know how I feel about coincidences.” He shook his head and turned to lean against the counter, the freshly poured coffee in hand as he said, “First, there are bodies found in the garden and then an immortal breaks in?” He shook his head firmly. “They have to be connected.”
“What is an immortal?” Abril asked, making her presence known.
Sixteen
Abril froze when the men who had just entered the kitchen turned as one to stare at her. She hadn’t thought her question of what an immortal was would be a problem, but the silence and the expressions the men wore were suggesting the question was unwelcome. As she waited for one of them to respond, she found her gaze ranging over the group.
Like Roberts and Crispin, the five newcomers were all handsome. They were also all aged somewhere in the mid to late twenties. Each man was dressed in black, whether that was black jeans and T-shirt, or black leather pants and T-shirt. Three of them even had similar features to Crispin. In fact, the only way that any of them differed was that their hair color ranged from platinum blond to almost black and the length of their hair ranged from short to shoulder length.
They look like a bloody boy band, she thought. She could imagine teen girls throwing themselves at them,begging for autographs and squealing happily over being in their presence.
A short bark of laughter from one of the men caused a sudden shifting amongst all of them. Most of which consisted of them all turning away as if to hide their expressions. It was followed by choking sounds, and throat-clearing coughs, along with shaking shoulders that suggested they were laughing at her. Although she couldn’t imagine why asking what an immortal was would cause such amusement.
Wondering if her head injury had made her misinterpret things, or perhaps her hair was standing up in all directions, Abril shifted her gaze to Crispin in question. But he seemed just as confused as she was, and merely stepped closer to her in support. The moment he did, she asked in almost a whisper, “Who are these men? Are they also homicide detectives?”
