Bitter Sweet Love

Dez moved so quickly that I didn’t even have a chance to prepare myself. One second he was a foot from me, and the next, his hand cupped the back of my head, his fingers threading through my hair.

My heart leaped into my throat when I realized what he was going to do. I opened my mouth to protest, but it was too late.

Dez kissed me.

Chapter Three

Astonishment poured into me, shorting out my senses. Part of me was too taken aback to do anything but stand there. My fist burned to connect with his jaw. How dare he kiss me after all of this? Without even saying hello, for crying out loud? But the feather-light brush of his lips stunned me.

The roar of many voices swirled through the atrium, deafening me to everything except the sound of my own heartbeat. In the back of my head, I knew that was also a part of the tradition. A kiss to seal the claim before the entire clan, but the last time I checked, I hadn’t accepted crap. That snapped me back to reality.

Dez tightened his hold around the back of my head and snaked an arm around my waist as I started to pull away. The pressure on my lips increased when he pulled me against him. Every thought scattered. His chest was rock hard and broad against mine, his arm a steel band even I couldn’t break. Heat pooled low in my stomach at the profound sound rumbling up his chest. My pulse thrummed when the kiss deepened. Somehow my hands ended up on his shoulders and I wasn’t pushing him away.

My first kiss...and it was everything I’d imagined it to be, with the exception of there being an audience for it. But it was hard to acknowledge them or their cheering and whistles. Flames scorched my already heated skin. Dez’s lips moved against mine, working the tight seam open. I gasped, wondering where in the world he’d learned to kiss like that. Jealousy flared like a beacon on the heels of that thought. Okay. I didn’t want to know how he’d learned.

Someone cleared his throat loudly. “As thrilled as I am that you are happy to see my daughter, I do believe you can stop now.”

Dez slowly lifted his mouth, breathing heavily as he tipped his forehead against mine. The quick glimpse of his eyes showed the pupils dilated, and the irises were a deeper blue, like a pair of shimmery lapis lazuli. He closed them, exhaling raggedly. “Jasmine.”

At the sound of his deep voice, so different than I remembered, I broke his hold and jerked away. Stepping back, I placed my hands against my flaming cheeks and then lowered them, folding my arms over my breasts. Confusion swelled in the wake of conflicting emotions. Happiness. Fury. Excitement. A whole lot of lust. And then another heaping of anger. Added to the fact that his reappearance was so sudden, I didn’t know what to make of it all.

Dez’s eyes never left my face. Not for one second since we parted. The stare was as intense as the sensation of being pressed against him, as searing as his kiss. The door to the front lawn loomed beyond him and I had an urge to make a run for it.

I was slow to pick up on the chatter around me, but it was my father’s words that cleared my thoughts of the haze.

“So it’s settled,” he said, causing my jaw to hit the floor. “The ceremony will take—”

“Wait!” I spun toward my father. “Nothing is settled.”

“Excuse me?” Dez said, speaking two words for the first time.

I ignored him. “Nothing is settled. I have not accepted the claim.”

A hush fell over the gathering clan. Needless to say, this was about to get a whole lot more awkward.

My father’s brows furrowed, and I was acutely aware of Dez moving to stand beside me. “It didn’t look like you were going to say no a few seconds ago.”

Dez touched my arm. “Jas—”

A sick feeling bloomed in my stomach at the use of his old nickname for me. Stepping away from him, I met his stare. “No. You do not get to call me that.” I kept my voice low, but I knew we were being overheard. The clan, mostly male, was worse than old ladies when it came to gossip and drama. “You do not get to walk back into my life and—”

“Okay,” my dad said diplomatically. “I think you two need to talk.”

I tipped my chin up. “I’m not sure there’s anything to talk about.”

Dez held my stare for a moment and then looked away, a muscle thrumming along his jaw.

“Jasmine, the pair of you need to come to terms. You have seven days to make a decision. No reason to make a hasty choice.”

“My decision isn’t—”

“We’ll talk,” Dez interrupted, grabbing hold of my arm in a firm but gentle grip. “And we won’t need the full seven days.”

I glared up at him. I was tall, but Dez towered over me now. “Oh, it’s so good to see that your arrogance hasn’t changed.”

Dez’s lips tipped up in one corner. “I think you’ll find that a lot hasn’t changed.”

“I don’t think I really care.” I tried to pull away, but he held on, his grin going up a notch. “Seriously.”

His eyes glittered with challenge and something else I couldn’t put a name to. “We’ll see about that.”

Finding privacy inside a houseful of people who obviously had nothing better to do with their time than eavesdrop proved difficult. We could’ve gone upstairs to my room or the one that used to be his, but that seemed too intimate and would’ve been too much for me right then. I was already off kilter enough.

We ended up outside, in the garden along the back of the mansion. The moon glinted off the stone walls built around the peaceful patch of land. On any given night, you could find a couple sneaking off among the thorny rosebushes and juniper trees. Not that anyone needed to sneak. Wardens were almost always in the way of making babies, but perhaps it was the appeal of doing something seemingly naughty. I honestly didn’t know.

“You look beautiful.”

I stared at the roses. At night, their petals looked like black velvet. “Do you really think that’s going to get you anywhere?”

“I’m not trying to get anywhere.” His voice was closer, and a tingle of awareness skimmed down my spine. “It’s the truth. You were always something to look at, but damn, you’re beautiful, Jasmine.”

My heart jumped at his words no matter how badly I wanted to remain unaffected. A cool breeze stirred my hair and caused the hem of the stupid gown to float around my calves.

“Look at me,” he cajoled, tone gentle, even a little bit teasing.

I rolled my eyes. “I was serious inside, Dez. There’s nothing we need to talk about.”

“Are you sure about that?” His heat warmed my back, warning that he was closer still. “Because the way you kissed me tells me something totally different.”

“The way I kissed you?” I spun around and had to take a step back. He was right there. “I didn’t kiss you, you jerk. You kissed me.”

“Technicalities,” he murmured, and in a flash of a heartbeat, he was so close we were breathing the same air again. “You kissed me back.”

Although that might be true, I’d be damned before I admitted it. “I was too shocked to think clearly. Trust me, it won’t be happening again.”

“Is that so?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes.”

He dipped his head so we were eye level. “I’m going to have to disagree, Jas. That was only our first kiss—and it wasn’t even a real kiss.”

If that wasn’t a real kiss, what the hell kind of kiss did he consider real then? I pivoted on my heel, stalking off down the path.

Dez followed silently for a few seconds. “This wasn’t how I expected you to greet me.”

My mouth dropped open as I stopped in front of a stone bench. I turned around slowly. “Are you serious?”

He stared at me in a way that made me wonder if he’d lost brain cells during his absence. Dez wasn’t stupid. He was very much the opposite, so how could my reaction to him be a surprise?

Staring at him, it was hard to reconcile the young man I’d once known with the male standing before me. Tears burned the back of my eyes, and when I spoke, my voice was hoarse. “I had no idea what happened to you.”

He closed his eyes, tensing. “Jasmine—”

“For three years, I didn’t know if you were alive or dead!” A knot rose in my throat. “No phone calls. Not even an email or a text. Nothing. How could―” My voice cracked and I turned my head, inhaling deeply. “I didn’t know what to think.”

He cupped my cheek, his thumb smoothing down my face, chasing something suspiciously wet. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying.” Stepping sideways, I hastily wiped at my cheeks. “It must be sprinkling. I think the weather was calling for showers.”

Fondness seeped into his striking face, and I didn’t want to see it. “You’re still a terrible liar.”

“Shut up,” I muttered, clearing my throat. “And you have nothing to say for yourself?”

His brows pinched. “I’m sorry.”

I gaped. “That’s it?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Jas.”

I crossed my arms. “Oh, I don’t know, I might be able to grasp an explanation if you speak slowly and use small words.”

Dez’s eyes flared bright for an instant and then dulled. “I know you’re not stupid.”

“Doesn’t seem that way.”

“Look, I’m not entirely proud of why I left and it’s not something I really want to get into right now.” He thrust his hands through his hair, causing strands to stick straight up between his fingers. “Can we put that to the side, at least for the moment?”

I started to tell him no, but a look of vulnerability had crept into his eyes and as much as I wanted to hold him down and make him tell me everything, I couldn’t hurt him. He’d deserve it if I did, but the memory of him crying on my shoulder, holding on to me like I was the only anchor in his world, was too fresh.

“I’ve missed you, Jas. You have no idea,” he continued, reaching toward me again but stopping short of touching me. “I thought about you every damn day. All I wanted was to get back to you and the clan. But mostly you. Always you.”

Shaking my head, I held my arms more tightly around myself, as if I could keep my heart from getting outside my chest and doing something stupid. “I don’t think you understand. I can’t forget these three years. I can’t forget that you left because my father announced he wanted a match between us. Just because you decide you want me now after doing God knows what, you think I’d be with you? I’m not desperate.”

“Wait.” He barked out a laugh. “You think I left because of that? Are you insane?”

I shot him a droll look. “You’re really not helping your case.”

“That is not why I left, Jasmine. You can believe me.” He stalked forward, and I found I couldn’t move. “I have never lied to you.”

“No,” I whispered. “You just left.”

“It didn’t have anything to do with what your father said. I promise you.” Just the tips of his fingers touched my cheeks, but it was still a shock to the system. “Let me prove it.”

Our gazes locked, and I could feel my heartbeat in my veins and the warmth of his body, even though he barely touched me. Dez lowered his head, and the breath caught in my throat. Was he going to kiss me again? I couldn’t let him, but I also couldn’t deny the bittersweet swelling of yearning, of wanting something that could easily turn back around and strike where it hurt most.

He didn’t kiss me, though. “I want you, and I know you feel the same way. Neither of us could’ve changed that much. I believe in that. And I want you.”

So many times over the past three years, and even before then, when I was old enough to recognize how I felt around Dez, I had dreamed of this moment. But if what he said was true, then why had he left me? Why didn’t he have anything to say except I’m sorry? Accepting the apology was the easy way. Truth be told, it was what my heart wanted, but it wasn’t the only thing I wanted.

I closed my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“Seven days.” His nose brushed my cheek and his warm breath blew over my ear, causing me to shiver. “Give me these seven days, Jas. Please.”

He hadn’t said why he left and he hadn’t professed undying love for me, but an idea sprang to mind, and once it took root, it flourished. Excitement rose like a budding flower. “Only on one condition, and still, I make no promises.”

Dez chuckled in a way that was infuriating and yet wholly sexy. I blinked my eyes open. Had he sounded like that before? He pressed his palm to my cheek. “What is the condition?”

I took a deep breath, concentrating on my words and not on how his hand felt. “There are things I want to do.”

Interest flared, deepening the hue of his eyes. “What things?”

“Not what you’re thinking,” I said dryly, although the idea of those things was interesting. “I’ve never been anywhere and I want to go places. I want to see things.”

His eyes narrowed, but my muscles tightened when his hand slid to my neck, threatening to wreak havoc on what I was trying to accomplish. “Where do you want to go?”

“New York City. Washington, DC. Maybe even Philly,” I said in a rush. “I want to walk through a mall without a horde of males guarding me. I want to learn how to drive a car and not have someone give up on me when I grind the transmission.” Driving wasn’t necessary. Obviously. We had wings. We could fly, but driving...driving was so divinely human. “I want to go skinny-dipping.” At that, he looked way too engrossed, so I hurried on. “And I want... I want to hunt a demon.”

“Jasmine, that’s unacceptable. Demons aren’t—”

“Those are my conditions.” I squared my shoulders. A little wisp of guilt poked at me. I was using him to get what I wanted, and that wasn’t right, but when would I have this chance again? As a female Warden, there was so little that I could do. “Take them or leave them.”

He held my stare for so long that I was sure he was going to say no. Then I’d probably choke-slam him―I knew how to do that because he had taught me. “And I have seven days to help you do all that?”

That wasn’t a no. My hope grew. “Yes. You have seven days and then...well, then we’ll see.”

Dez sighed deeply, as if I was asking him to raise the Titanic, and then he kissed my forehead. “Okay. You’re on.”

Chapter Four

Face shoved into my pillow, I groaned. It was early and beyond the four walls of my bedroom, I could hear the soft calls of birds chattering with one another. I wasn’t sure what stirred me awake.

Something soft whispered down my bare skin. I moved my arm, trying to shove it under the covers. The fog of sleep cleared a little when the sensation traveled along my shoulder, skipping over the thin strap of my tank top. I huddled down under the covers, bringing my right leg up. I hit a rather immovable obstacle.

The rest of the haze of sleep cleared when a deep chuckle rumbled through the room, sounding way, way too close.

What. The. Hell.

Flipping onto my side, I sat up, pushing at the hair that had fallen into my face. Two pale blue eyes framed with dark, reddish lashes met mine.

“Good morning,” Dez drawled, lounging on his side as if he had every right to be in my bed.

I jerked back, gasping. Would’ve tumbled right off the bed if his hand hadn’t shot out, catching my arm. He pulled me across the bed, so close that his scent, a mixture of the outdoors and a cologne I couldn’t place, was everywhere.

“What are you doing in my bed?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Was I still asleep? “And you couldn’t have waited until I got up?”

“Nope.” He brushed a lock of hair over my shoulder, his fingers grazing my skin. “This isn’t the first time I’ve woken you up this way.”

“But that... that was before,” I sputtered. He did the same with another strand of hair. My toes curled at the slight contact of our flesh. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“No one knows.” He leaned in, eyes glittering with amusement, and I was sucked back several years. “It will be our little secret.”

I blamed being half asleep, because I couldn’t formulate a response. I was at a loss as to how to handle Dez. When we were younger, being close like this had been safe. Because we’d been little kids just sharing a bed, and even when we grew older, I’d been too self-conscious to make a move of that kind on him.

Dez’s gaze traveled over my face slowly, and a flush followed. I tensed when his stare dipped lower. The thin tank top left nothing to the imagination.

Nothing was safe about this.

For a moment, I froze. The way he stared at me... well, when any other Warden looked at me that way, I felt nothing more than annoyance, but I wanted Dez to look. A strange fullness expanded my chest and it was suddenly too hot in the room.

One side of his lips curved. “I could get used to... this every morning.”

I sucked in a breath when his lashes flicked up. Yanking up the cover, I glared at him. “Keep dreaming, bud.”

He chuckled as he stretched out, resting his cheek on his fist. “Do you have studies this morning?”

“No. I’ve finished. I’m done.” All the Wardens were homeschooled and, as with humans, most of us completed our studies around age eighteen. We were provided with a lot of book smarts, but many of us, especially the females, had no real sense of the world. I peeked up at him. “Why?”

“Good. We can start on those conditions you mentioned now.”

“Now?” Stretching up, I looked at the alarm clock. “It’s not even seven!”

He grinned. “You have a lot of conditions and I’m not wasting a moment.”

Well, I’d kind of brought that on myself.

“And I also have a condition,” he added.

“What?” I sat up, eyes narrowing. “You can’t do that now. We already agreed—”

“We didn’t sign a binding contract, Jas,” he said dryly as he pushed up. As big as he was, he took over the whole bed.

“What is your condition?”

My insides coiled tight at the slow smile that crept over his face. “That we complete each of your conditions with a kiss.”

I gaped at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he murmured. “You’re getting something out of this, so should I.”

“Well, that’s real nice to hear.”

He shrugged large shoulders.

“My company should be enough,” I shot back.

“Your company is, but take it or leave it, Jas. You want to do these things and I want you. And you want to play this game, so I’m going to play.”

The stubbornness he’d displayed as a boy when he wanted something hadn’t changed. Usually it had been reserved for arguments over video games or wanting to hunt before he was old enough, but never had it been about me.

My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at him. I had the sinking sensation that somehow the conditions I’d established last night had played right into what he wanted―and now he had the upper hand.

You’d think a Warden, with his ability to phase and turn his skin into granite and rapidly heal, wouldn’t be petrified of being inside a car.

But Dez looked as if he was going to be sick.

Both hands were planted on the dashboard as he stared out the windshield of the SUV. “Right! Turn the steering wheel right!”

I turned right and the car jerked to the side, tires uneven on the shoulder, jolting us. “Sorry.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have taken the SUV,” he grumbled.

I giggled.

For six hours, we’d been in and out of the car and switching seats as Dez attempted to impart his driver’s education skills to me. We’d started in front of the manor, easing the SUV around the cul-de-sac and up and down the long driveway. It drew a lot of attention from the males and even more jests at Dez’s expense. He’d taken it in good stride and had been laughing up until the moment he’d deemed I was ready to take the SUV out on one of the many back roads that weren’t heavily traveled. We’d eaten a quick lunch and then hit the roads, and that’s when the real fun began.

Driving wasn’t so hard, I realized.

I straightened the wheel and smiled as he eased back in the seat, his legs stretched out, pushing against an imaginary brake. “It’s not that bad.”

He slid me a sideways glance. “You might want to ease off the gas pedal.”

My gaze dipped to the speedometer. Pushing sixty-five, I gripped the steering wheel as my smile spread to epic proportions. Trees blurred on either side of the narrow roads as I pressed down on the pedal, hitting seventy.

Dez braced a hand on the car door. “Remember, hands at the nine and three o’clock position.”

“I thought it was ten and two o’clock?”

“No.” He sucked in a breath. “Curve. Curve coming up. Slow down. Curve!”

I readjusted my hands and lessened the pressure on the gas, but my heart jumped in my chest as the SUV hugged the centerline. With the window down, wind blew through my hair and over my skin. “It’s like flying.”

“Except we’re in a several-ton death trap,” he muttered.

Laughing, I gunned it on the straightaway and giddiness swept through me. Driving for many Wardens wasn’t a big deal, not after they got their license and it became a method of getting from point A to point B, but there was something liberating in the tires eating away at the miles, in traveling almost as fast as we could fly. I was getting away from the house. I was escaping.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “It’s so... well, you’ll probably think it’s stupid.”

“I won’t. Tell me.”

“It’s freeing and it’s... normal and strange somehow.” I struggled to find the right words as we crested a hill. “Danika is the only girl close to my age and she’s always busy trailing after the guys, so she’s never been interested in this kind of thing or really anything I’m interested in.”

“She’s still trying to learn how to fight?” Amusement colored his tone.

My sister wanted to fight demons. That was never going to happen, but she’d manage to convince the males to train her for self-protection. “Yeah, and while that’s fun and passes the time, I like to...”

“Get out?”

I nodded again, silent as I remembered the past three years of being alone in so many ways. Dez had been my buddy, my partner in doing things I shouldn’t be doing, and when he left, a lot of things became impossible.

Dez shifted in the seat, his large body crammed into the spacious SUV. Seconds ticked by before he spoke. “Why didn’t you ask anyone else to teach you?”

“I did, but none of them had the patience or thought it was a good idea.” The constant irritation of being caged stoked to life like a fire. “They think that if we do this, then we’ll just run amok and get ourselves in trouble. That demons will find us and—”

“Demons will find you, Jasmine. They sense us just like we sense them. It isn’t safe for you to be out here without one of us.”

“I’m not weak.” I cut him a sharp look.

“I’m not saying that. You’ve never been weak. Not once.” His sincerity rang true. “But if you were ever to run into an Upper Level demon, you would not get away.”

I bit my lip. There were many types of demons. Most common were Fiends. They looked human and they were into general mayhem, breaking things down, starting fires, manipulating the emotions of large crowds. I’d heard they could be ferocious when cornered. Then there were Posers. They too looked human, but only for a short while, and they had one hell of an appetite, including the rare cannibalistic tendency. When they bit a human, things went downhill fast—like turning-into-a-zombie fast. There were dozens more, but most dangerous of all were the Upper Level ones—the princes and dukes of Hell—the very kind that had killed my mother and wiped out Dez’s clan. They were rare, but their threat was very real.

Suddenly, some of the fun was sucked right out of this experience.

“I’m sorry.”

His apology caught me off guard and I wanted to not be affected by it, but my chest spasmed.

“When I left, I knew it would impact you, but I didn’t realize all that it would change,” he continued quietly. “I didn’t think that you’d be alone, stuck there.”

“Stuck” was an accurate description. “Well, I guess in reality, you really didn’t owe me anything, right? You didn’t accept my father’s offer and you—”