Mile High with a Vampire by Lynsay Sands

Fifteen

“Wow. I didn’t expect this.”

Quinn lifted the paint roller off the wall and turned to blink at Jet when she saw him standing in the open door of her house, staring at the brown wall of the entry that she was painting a pale blue-green color. Looking at Jet now, she realized that it was a paler version of his eye color. Wondering what that meant, if anything, she tilted her head and asked, “What didn’t you expect?”

“This.” He gestured around the room. “To find you painting, of all things.”

“Oh.” Quinn smiled faintly, and turned to dip the roller in the paint tray, ran it back and forth on the washboard section to remove the excess, and then turned back to the wall to continue painting as she said, “I always hated this color, so I just decided to get rid of it.”

“Okay,” he said with amusement, moving into the entry. “I’m guessing you didn’t pick it, then?”

Quinn shook her head. “Patrick. He liked dark colors.”

“I wonder what it indicates that in your dreams you’re making changes to a house you no longer own.”

Quinn blinked and then spun around to look at him again. “This is a dream?”

Jet nodded. “Pretty sure. I mean, it’s not like Patrick could have picked colors for your house in Italy. He was dead before you moved there. So, this must be your house in Albany, which someone else now owns. So, I hope it’s a dream, or we might both get arrested for trespassing soon.”

Quinn stared at him, and then back at the wall with a small sigh. She was painting someone else’s wall in her dream. Or painting her own wall from the past. Whichever way you looked at it, it was a waste to paint a wall that wasn’t hers anymore. She dropped the roller brush in the paint tray and wiped her hands on the jean shorts she’d never owned in real life, and led him out of the house. But she stopped on the porch to peer around at the houses on the street.

“Your old stomping ground?” Jet asked, looking around as well.

“Yes.” She sighed the word, sadness filling her.

“Seems perfect,” Jet announced, taking it all in. The quiet houses, lush lawns, beautiful full-grown trees everywhere.

“It was a good place to live. Good neighbors, good neighborhood . . . But when I came out of the turn it was already sold and gone and I was told I’d have to live somewhere else.”

“Something else you lost, then,” he said quietly.

“Well, yeah,” she admitted. “But—” She broke off as a yippy little French bulldog came running up onto the porch, barking and snapping at their ankles.

“Oh, dear, no, Rufus. Behave,” an older woman with short, dyed red hair called ineffectually as she hurried up the walk. “Bad boy,” the woman crooned, scooping the dog up and cuddling it as she reprimanded in a singsong voice, “You’re such a naughty boy. Yes, you are. Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss.” She suited action to words, plastering little kisses all over the squirming dog’s head.

“Morning, Mrs. Lawson,” Quinn said with resignation.

“Oh, good morning, Quinn dear. Isn’t it a nice day? Where’s Patrick? And who is this? My, my aren’t you a strapping fellow?” she added, petting Jet’s arm with excited eyes. “My goodness, a woman could be forgiven for adultery with a tempting man like you around.”

Jet gave Quinn a What the hell? look and she grinned with amusement, her irritation with Mrs. Lawson slipping away. This might be a dream, but Mrs. Lawson had been an annoying busybody of a neighbor with a little mutt that liked to terrorize everyone in real life too. This was some part of Quinn’s mind that had decided to remind her of that and brought the woman to her porch to do so.

Mrs. Lawson hadn’t been the only irritant here. There were neighbors a couple of houses down who had thrown parties nearly every night in the summer, playing raucous music all afternoon and evening. That had driven her crazy when she went to bed early and tried to get extra sleep for a big operation the next day.

“Turns out the neighborhood maybe wasn’t so perfect,” she told Jet. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Where?” he asked at once.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly, searching her mind, and then suggested, “Take me to your favorite place.”

“My favorite place,” Jet murmured, and then he suddenly grinned.

Quinn supposed that grin should have warned her. The next thing she knew they were in—“Six Flags?” she asked with disbelief.

Jet shrugged, but he also blushed a little. “I always wanted to go here as a kid, but of course with my mother that was out of the question. But Abs and I came here our last year of high school. And we had a blast,” he said, smiling widely as he looked around at the food stalls, the rides, and the people milling about. Then his gaze returned to her. “Do you like roller coasters?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been to a theme park before,” she admitted self-consciously.

“What?” He looked amazed, and then said solemnly, “Oh, Quinn, you’re a theme park virgin, and I’m so going to enjoy popping your cherry. Come on.”

Grabbing her hand, he rushed her through the crowds of people to something he called the Iron Rattler. Dreams were a lovely thing and they didn’t have to wait in line for the ride, but instead rushed up and just hopped in. She screamed and laughed her way through that ride and several more before he dragged her off to an ice cream cart, and then they wandered along, contentedly licking their cold treats.

“I can’t believe you’ve never been to an amusement park,” Jet commented after a moment. “Didn’t Parker ever want to go?”

“He never asked to go. Although Pet did take him to Disneyland once and he apparently had a great time,” Quinn said, frowning as she recalled that. She should have taken him to Disneyland, she thought now.

“We should take him somewhere when this is all over. He’ll probably be shocked that his staid, very professional mother is a closet coaster junkie,” he teased.

“I am not,” she laughed, bumping him with her hip.

“You are,” he said with amusement. “Tell me you aren’t having a blast.”

“All right, fine. I’m having fun,” she admitted. “But man, is it always this hot here?” she asked, plucking at the neckline of her T-shirt and lifting and lowering it to allow some air inside.

“Yeah. It is hot,” he murmured, glancing around. “It was blistering the day Abs and I went, so I suppose my mind just gave us the same kind of day. But I wonder if I can—Oh, look! The Texas Tumble. That’ll cool us off.”

“What’s the Texas Tumble?” Quinn asked when he grabbed her hand and started hustling her through the crowds.

“A water ride,” he told her with a mischievous grin. “You’ll love it.”

Despite the misgivings his expression gave her, Quinn did love the raft ride, and it definitely cooled them off. She was completely soaked by the end, and much cooler than when they’d started.

They were stumbling away from the ride, laughing and telling each other their favorite parts, when Jet suddenly said, “Oh, my, it’s a good thing this is a dream.”

“Why?” Quinn asked with amusement.

“Because you’d be arrested for indecent exposure otherwise,” he teased, his gaze dropping to her chest.

Quinn immediately glanced down to see that her T-shirt was soaked and now see-through, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. She stared blankly for a minute, pretty sure she hadn’t set out to paint her house braless in a T-shirt so thin it turned opaque when wet. Jet must have done it, of course, she thought, and lifted her head to look at him with raised eyebrows. “Another one of your contributions to the dream?”

“It is supposed to be shared sex dreams,” he pointed out with a small smile, raising one hand to brush his knuckles lightly over the nipple of her breast once, and then again.

Quinn swallowed as she watched her nipple grow hard and erect under the attention.

“And,” he continued, brushing her nipple again, “what guy doesn’t fantasize about his girlfriend getting all wet so that her T-shirt is plastered to her body and see-through?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, clasping his arm to steady herself as she swayed toward him.

“Of course, in the perfect dream, that’s followed by her finding him irresistible and throwing herself at him,” he added in a near whisper, and she lifted her face to his again. When she saw that he’d lowered his head, she slipped up on her tiptoes and kissed him. That was as much throwing as she knew how to do. It was enough. Jet’s arms were immediately around her, pulling her close and lifting her as he straightened.

Quinn immediately wrapped her legs around his hips, her hands clutching at his shoulders as his tongue thrust into her mouth. She felt his hands clasp her bottom and squeeze and knead even as he urged her closer, and she allowed her own hands to roam, sliding them over his muscled shoulders, and down what she could reach of his back as he devoured her mouth with his.

She had no idea how they ended up lying down, but when he broke the kiss and lifted his head, she was staring up at him, the sun behind him, shining in her eyes and blinding her briefly as he began to tug her T-shirt up. Quinn closed her eyes and helped, yanking the wet cloth out of her jean shorts and up over her breasts. She would have happily removed it altogether, but he didn’t give her the chance. Greedy, he covered her breasts with his hands and kneaded briefly, then shifted one hand to cup it around one breast so that he could take the nipple into his mouth and swirl his tongue over it.

Gasping, Quinn arched into the caress, a long “Ahhhh” of sound slipping from her mouth, and then she was tugging at his hair, urging him back to kissing her. Once he was, she took him by surprise and rolled him onto his back, wanting to play with him now. But instead they both cried out as something crashed down on top of them.

Blinking her eyes open, Quinn glanced around at her room in the Enforcer house, and the IV stand lying across them. It was attached via a tube to her wrist, and when they’d rolled, she’d dragged it with her until it hit the side of the bed and fell over.

“Damn,” Jet breathed.

Quinn turned back to him, noting the disappointment on his face. He obviously thought she’d want to stop now. But she was straddling his hips, her T-shirt and bra caught about her breasts, and his erection nudging insistently against her through the jeans she wore.

The last thing she remembered before the dream was him holding her as pain had rocked through her body. Obviously, he’d gone for help when she passed out and somebody had hooked her up to an IV to make sure she got the blood she needed to repair her injury without her having to regain consciousness to consume it. He then must have fallen asleep next to her and joined her in the dream they’d then shared. But in bed, side by side, they’d started to live out their shared dream in reality again . . . and she didn’t want it to stop.

Reaching out, she pushed the IV away, uncaring when the catheter was dragged out of the back of her hand and taken with it as it fell to the floor. When she turned back to Jet, his eyes were open and he was watching her with a question on his face. Smiling, she shifted against his erection, and their eyes widened at the pleasure that it sent through them both. Then she bent her head to kiss him.

Jet groaned into her mouth with appreciation, and then his hands were on her breasts, kneading the small mounds as he kissed her. The sensation that stirred up in both of them was a thousand times more erotic and frantic than the dream pleasure had been, and Quinn rubbed herself over him again, grunting into his mouth when sharp pleasure shot through her.

She didn’t complain when his hands left her breasts, because they had dropped to the button of the jeans she’d fallen asleep in. He made quick work of undoing it, and then the zipper. Once those two tasks were done, he began to push the heavy material off of her hips. But it had nowhere to go. She was straddling him on her knees.

Growling into her mouth with frustration, he broke the kiss and sat up abruptly, taking her with him. He caught her by the waist and lifted her. Quinn immediately shifted her legs and pushed up into a standing position, then shifted to stand between his legs and finished pushing the jeans down. She tugged them off one foot, and kicked them off the other so that they hit the floor, and then gasped in surprise when he took advantage of the position and began to kiss the inside of one knee.

Turning back, Quinn caught his hair in her fingers to steady herself, and laughed a little breathlessly. “Jet, let me—” The words ended on a gasp as one of his hands slid up the inside of her thigh and found her moist heat. Moaning now, she closed her eyes and clutched his head with both hands, holding on almost desperately as his mouth trailed up her leg and his fingers caressed her. Her legs were trembling madly, her body tight as a bow, pleasure just coming into reach when he suddenly withdrew his wonderful, magical fingers.

Quinn opened her eyes, and then gasped in surprise when he caught her by the waist and tugged her down with him as he dropped back on the bed. Only her immortal-fast reflexes kept her from landing directly on the man’s groin and had her straddling him instead . . . with his erection hard and hot beneath her.

Smiling, she leaned forward to kiss him, her hair a dark curtain around their faces, and then she sat up, lifted herself until he sprang free beneath her, and then lowered herself onto his hot hard length.

Quinn was vaguely aware of his groan as she lowered herself, but it had been a very long time for her, and most of her concentration was focused on the feel of him slowly filling her, and her body expanding to take him. But when Jet reached between them and began to caress her, pleasure rolled through her, doubled, and rolled through her again.

Quinn began to move. She raised and lowered herself on him, vaguely aware of his encouraging words, gasps, and moans, even as those same sounds left her. But mostly her attention was on the pleasure rolling over her in increasing waves, and pulling tight inside of her at the same time until it exploded over them in a shower of darkness.

Quinn woke up on Jet’s chest and lay still for a moment, just enjoying his scent, his heat, and being close to him. But after a minute, she sighed and started to move, only to gasp in surprise when he suddenly rolled her onto her back and came down half on top of her.

“Hi,” he whispered with a grin.

“Hi,” she whispered back. “I thought you were still sleeping.”

He shook his head, his gaze sliding down over the bra and T-shirt tangled over her chest, and then dropping to her breasts when his hand pushed the cloth back up almost under her chin. “I’ve been awake forever. Just holding you and thinking of all the things I want to do with you.”

“What’s that?” she asked a little breathlessly as he caught one nipple between thumb and finger and began to roll and tweak it.

“Disneyland for real. Fishing. Camping. Oh, and a big barbecue with the Notte family there so I can show you off.”

When his words surprised a chuckle from her, Jet’s fingers stilled and he eyed her in question.

“Sorry, I was just kind of expecting a list of sexual positions or something,” she admitted with a self-deprecating smile.

“Oh, that would take centuries to list, and easily a millennium to act out,” he assured her, and then bent to flick her neglected nipple with his tongue while his finger and thumb returned to toying with the other.

Quinn closed her eyes as his lips closed over the nipple he’d been flicking, and when he began to draw on it, she groaned, “We have time.”

Jet froze and lifted his head. “We do?” he asked carefully.

Quinn nodded and pointed out, “We’re life mates.”

“I thought you weren’t ready for a life mate?” he said uncertainly.

“And I thought I was a monster,” she said solemnly.

Jet’s eyebrows rose at that. “You don’t anymore? Just because you know what happened with your parents?”

Quinn hesitated. “Let’s say, my eyes are open and I’m willing to consider that maybe this world isn’t black and white but shades of gray.” Reaching up she caressed his cheek gently. “You don’t look at me like I’m a monster. Or even a she-pire,” she added dryly.

Jet grimaced at the word. “I don’t really think of female immortals as she-pires,” he assured her. “How could I? Abs is one, and she’s still the same, wonderful gal I’ve always known,” he pointed out, and then explained, “She-pires is just a kind of defensive nickname.”

“Defensive?” she asked with surprise.

Jet nodded and turned his head to kiss her palm. “Immortals have some powerful mojo. I suspect it’s some kind of pheromone that the nanos send out to make you more attractive to us mere mortals. It probably makes us easier prey,” he added thoughtfully, and then shrugged. “Anyway, Jeff and a couple of other pilots warned me that it was easy to act a complete idiot around the immortals because of it. They said thinking of them as she-pires makes it easier to remember that what we’re feeling isn’t real. So I started using it too.”

“Oh,” she murmured with a small frown. “You don’t think that’s what’s happening now? For you?”

“No,” he said firmly. “Sweetheart, I’ve been mooning after you for four years without even seeing you and experiencing the benefits of immortal pheromones. I’m pretty sure this is life mate business.”

Quinn relaxed, but said, “I guess I should ask if you’re willing to be my life mate.”

Jet jerked his head up, his eyes going wide with exaggerated shock. “Why, Quinn Feiyan Meng, are you proposing to me?” he asked, and while she flushed bright pink, he said in wonder, “My stars, proposing to me. How thoroughly modern of you.”

“Have you been talking to Marguerite?” she asked suspiciously.

“About what?” he asked with confusion.

“She called me thoroughly modern too,” she explained.

“Ah. Then you must be. That or she’s also seen Thoroughly Modern Millie,” he added wryly.

“What’s that?” Quinn asked at once.

“What’s that?” he echoed with more feigned shock, and then smiled and said, “A really old movie that Mom-Marge loved. She used to make Abs and I watch it with her every time it was on the local classic movie channel . . . which must have been six times a year. I think the host had a thing for Mary Tyler Moore. She was one of the actresses in it,” he told her.

Quinn nodded, but said, “You never answered my question, Jet. Are you willing to be my life mate?”

Jet’s expression turned serious. “Yes, Quinn. I’d like that very much.”

Quinn sighed out a breath of relief, and then frowned slightly as uncertainty claimed her. Had she done the right thing? Was she really ready? Was he? Did he want to be turned, or was he just agreeing to be her lover? And could she bring herself to turn him if he did want to be turned? Oh, wait! What if he thought she had been proposing marriage? He had asked if she was proposing to him. Dear God, what if that’s what he’d thought? Not that she was completely opposed to the idea of marrying him someday . . . ten or twenty years from now, maybe. Or fifty. What was the rush? They had loads of time and—

Thoughts dying abruptly, Quinn turned her head slightly, a frown claiming her lips as she listened.

“What is it?” Jet asked, watching her.

“I’m not sure. I hear . . .” She paused as the murmur of voices and the sound of soft footfalls distracted her, and then her eyes widened incredulously. Covering her ears, she gasped, “Oh my God!”

“What?” Jet asked with concern.

“I can hear Basha and Marcus,” she said with embarrassment.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “But why are you blushing. Are they having sex or something?”

“No,” she moaned. “They’re talking softly and dressing. Almost whispering,” she added with dismay.

“Umm . . .” Jet shook his head. “I’m not sure why that’s upsetting you.”

“Because they’re whispering and I can hear them well enough to catch every word,” she explained, and when he still looked uncomprehending, she added, “We have not been whispering or even trying to be quiet when talking . . . or other things,” she added pointedly.

“Oh,” he said with understanding, and then, “Ohhh.”

Groaning, Quinn slid out from under him and grabbed her jeans off the floor.

“What are you doing?” Jet asked with surprise.

“We left our clothes in the SUV at the mall,” she said with realization. As she noted that her jeans were inside out, and tried to right them, she muttered, “I hope they didn’t blow them up.”

“Quinn, honey, come back to bed,” Jet suggested, patting the mattress beside him.

Quinn opened her mouth to say no, but paused as her gaze landed on him in the bed. He had his clothes on and for a moment she was flummoxed. When had he put his clothes back on, she wondered, but then recalled that he’d never taken them off. The only thing they’d actually removed was her panties and jeans; her bra and T-shirt were still tangled and caught under her chin, and all they’d done with him was undo his pants and slip his cock out. Cripes.

“Quinn.” His voice was soft and sexy and she instinctively started toward the bed, but paused as she heard a laugh from the next room.

Giving her head a shake, she started to untangle her panties from her jeans and turn them both right-side out.

“Quinn, honey, so what if they hear us? We’re all grown-ups here, and you’re a medical doctor, for heaven’s sake. You know it’s natural and even healthy to—”

“I’m hungry,” she said, rather than explain that the good girl inside of her, or the side of her that had always tried to be the perfect daughter and wife, still held sway. She knew she’d get past that eventually, but eventually wasn’t now, and it was impossible for her to climb back into that bed and do all the things she wanted to with Jet when she knew every immortal in the house would probably hear.

“You go ahead and rest, and I’ll just go down and grab something to eat and see whether they brought our clothes back,” she said, stepping into her panties and pulling them up. Fresh clothes would really be nice. But this was all she had to wear right now.

“No. I’ll come with you,” Jet said, sliding his legs off the bed to stand. As he tucked himself away and did up his pants, he admitted, “I’m hungry too, now that you’ve mentioned it.”

Quinn didn’t say anything. She just concentrated on pulling her jeans on and doing them up. She ducked into the bathroom once she was done, to run a brush quickly through her hair and brush her teeth, and then returned to the room and smiled at Jet. “Ready?”

Nodding, he walked to the door and opened it, then waited for her to pass him and step out into the hall before following. Quinn paused to wait for him as he closed the door, and then glanced up the hall as the door next to hers opened and Basha led a tall good-looking man out of their room. The couple smiled when they saw them and waited for them to reach them before saying, “Congratulations,” as they turned to lead the way to the stairs.

“For what?” Jet asked with surprise, sliding one arm around Quinn as they followed.

“For becoming life mates,” Marcus explained with a smile over his shoulder. “I’m glad everything has worked out.”

Quinn felt Jet stiffen with surprise but didn’t look at him. She knew she was blushing like crazy. She could feel the heat in her cheeks as she took the words as proof that they had heard everything that had gone on in her bedroom. It was so embarrassing! And it made her decide that they should abstain from any more anything until they sorted out this issue with someone trying to kill her, so she could check into the Four Seasons and hopefully gain some privacy . . . unless they had immortals staying there or on staff. It was a decision she was sure Jet would not be happy with. But she couldn’t help that.