Falling for Cyn Read online

  And then he’d spoken that one word in his gritty, tight voice, as if he hadn’t spoken in months. The word itself brought forth all sorts of connotations she didn’t really like in men—possessiveness, jealousy, control. But for some reason—coupled with all his other attributes—that one word, mine, had sent a hot bolt of lust shooting straight to her insides. She’d never felt anything like it before. Cynthia could feel all her endorphins race to her lower abdomen, the tightly coiled place directly inside her uterus, calling her reproductive organs into action.

  The bad-boy vibe he gave off was almost palpable, like just being in his presence would make someone become like him. But it was also sort of helpless, as if he couldn’t help himself and regretted it. His whole demeanor screamed at Cynthia to take him home with her and tuck him into bed, feeding him decadent treats and spoiling him rotten to teach him goodness.

  Of course, the physique peeking at her through his wrinkled clothes spoke of other things he could do in her bed that wouldn’t go along with teaching goodness.

  In fact, everything about him made her want to be bad. Very bad.

  Cynthia dwelled on the vivid image which had accompanied her on her walk to her car—the two of them having some seriously fantastic sex. It had only been a brief thing, only a picture her imagination had conjured up, unlike anything she’d ever actually experienced—like a scene from a movie. It would bear exploring, later, in bed, but she had other things to think about right now.

  God, what shitty timing.

  She had her last radiation treatment tomorrow, another effort to shrink the tumor before surgery. Cynthia knew it would deplete her physical resources, so she tried to eat all of her dinner—takeout Indian food—in order to have some leftover reserves. It never really worked for her, but she did what she could to minimize the effects of the procedures.

  Cynthia considered herself a pragmatist. She knew everyone died eventually, some before others. Her particular condition was life-threatening, and likely to kill her. The doctors performing the surgery weren’t optimistic, giving her a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the tumor removal.

  They’d been more optimistic last year, when it was ovarian cancer, treating it with radiation, chemo, and surgery. When they’d declared the cancer gone, she’d gotten her hopes up. Stupidly.

  Hopes fell when the cancer came back and metastasized into a brain tumor that was likely to kill her. That’s what she deserved for taking her health for granted.

  Cynthia had resigned herself to the fact she probably had a month to live her life, which was why it was so important for her to finish her work on the fragrance. She didn’t have children to leave behind, no other body of work to continue on her existence after her death. So she would leave this one little mark on the world—her fragrance to find love.

  And it was working. She wrote notes of her experience going home. She’d counted thirty-seven men and eight women who’d reacted to her scent on the street and bus. That was success. She’d try it out again in a social setting, as much as she didn’t really like to go to bars and clubs. Cynthia would do it in the name of research.

  But she couldn’t get her mind off the man in the street. She decided to write him up in her notes, although without as much detail as she recalled with his physical appearance.

  One subject, in particular, seemed to lose control in my presence, though whether it can be attributed to the fragrance or some other malady on his part is yet to be determined. He ran into traffic to speak with me, getting himself hit by a taxi in the process. While he didn’t appear to be hurt, it was alarming, nonetheless.

  A prickling along her hairline made Cynthia look around. She felt like she was being watched, though her apartment was on the third floor and anybody looking in the windows would need a ladder to do it. Her curtains were drawn, as was her habit, so that couldn’t be it. Gazing into her dimly lit living room, she told herself she was alone and being silly.

  Sighing at herself, Cynthia got up and took her laptop to her bedroom, deciding a hot bath was in order.

  “What’s that smell?”

  Damien felt a small amount of regret for spying like he was, but not much. At least, he assumed that’s what the shrinking feeling in his lungs was. He knew he should feel bad for following his woman around, the one he now knew was named Cyn, because that’s what her friend called her.

  And now he knew, without a doubt, she was his. That’s the humor The Boss had found in this situation. He’d given him Cyn. Sin. Perfect, really.

  He couldn’t compel her to do his bidding or else this would be so much easier. That was another reason he was sure she was the one. But he was still wary about it, nonetheless.

  He watched her sniff delicately, her pert little button-nose expanding briefly while she inhaled. “I’m not sure. It may be a by-product of the fragrance. I’ve been smelling it a lot lately. Do you not like it?”

  “It smells like rotten eggs or something. Like sulfur.” Cyn’s friend’s nose wrinkled in distaste, but Damien was watching Cyn’s reaction to it. It was him. They were smelling his scent.

  Her pulse in her neck was racing, blood pumping through the veins under her milky-white skin so hard he could almost hear it. Her body temperature rose a few degrees, and the skin on her cheeks flushed while her pupils dilated.

  “I like it,” she mused, looking around the room they waited in.

  It was definitely a waiting room. Damien could tell one of the women was there for the other one, but wasn’t sure which just yet. He didn’t much care for this sterile place, but it was where she was, so he was here, too. He just needed to find a way to talk to her again. To make her understand she belonged to him, she was chosen for him. She was his.

  The wariness persisted, even though he knew better. The Boss wasn’t one for trickery. That was his job. At least it had been. Damien found himself glad to be leaving it behind. But the future was still uncertain.

  “How’s the fragrance stuff going, anyway?” her friend asked.

  Cyn smiled. “It’s going great, actually. I wore some last night and could have dragged any number of men home with me.” She waggled her eyebrows at her friend and giggled, a sound that filled Damien with light. It could be shining out of his pores for all he knew. It was a warm and loving sound he wanted more of.

  “Oh God, Cyn. You didn’t!”

  “Yes, I did.” Pride tinged her voice, and Damien found himself smiling for her.

  “Couldn’t it be dangerous, though? I mean, the FDA has all those rules in place for a reason, don’t they?”

  Cyn waved her hand in dismissal. “Not for fragrances. It’s going to be when we declare the fragrance actually does something that they’ll require testing.”

  “What about reactions? What if you’re allergic to it?”

  “But I know what’s in it. I’m not allergic to any of that stuff.”

  “What if it works too well? You could be raped by some psycho who can’t control his urges around you.”

  Damien missed her response because he was too busy with his own reaction. There was no way he’d let that happen to Cyn. His woman wouldn’t be put in danger like that, not from anyone. The growl rose from his chest before he had a chance to control himself and the women looked around the waiting room, alarm etched on their features.

  They didn’t see him, as he was cloaking his image, but he needed to be quieter.

  “What the hell was that?” Cyn’s friend whispered, eyes darting wildly around the room.

  “I don’t know, maybe a piece of machinery in the back? Some equipment gets pretty noisy, sometimes.” Cynthia seemed distracted.

  It was then that an Amazonian nurse, dressed in pastel pink scrubs, came and called a name.

  “Cynthia Peterson.”

  Cynthia Peterson. Now he had a full name to go with his woman. He liked it.

  And he also knew she was the one who was sick. That explained the pain yesterday that had been etched in her features. He should hav
e sensed it in her, but he’d been too drawn to her to notice much besides the physical. And now he was in this building filled with sickness, where he couldn’t focus on just her, so he’d have to wait. Instead, he followed his woman back to the tiny rooms filled with machines and watched them strap her down and fill her with radiation. His gut twisted with the realization. Who in the hell knew emotions were so damn physical?

  Shit.

  He bit his lip, hard, to quell the rising groan inside at the picture of Cynthia stoically lying on the gurney and wheeled in front of the machine targeting a part of her head, pointing poison into her.

  Damien was aware of how far medicine had come since the days of leeches and humors. But he still couldn’t sit still and watch his woman being pumped full of radiation. It was akin to a battlefield amputation or blood-letting. His stomach turned inside out, and Damien realized he was about to throw up. How that was possible, he didn’t know; he hadn’t eaten anything in years. Not since Chinese food with Grace. That was the last food he’d ingested, but here he was, about to empty an already empty stomach.

  Damien fluttered outside, his ethereal form nothing more than a muddle of vision to humans. Once outside, he walked to a corner and made himself visible. As soon as he took a corporeal form, he started retching. He didn’t realize he actually had bile in his stomach until today. As he felt himself expel the acids, he closed his eyes, unwilling to see whatever it was coming out of him.

  Was this part of everything? Had the others done this, too? Had they watched their women being hurt, poisoned, unable to do anything about it?

  Yes. Yes, they had. That’s when the realization hit him. He’d done it to their women: Heaven, Grace, Hope, and Faith had all suffered. At his hands. He suddenly understood the fierce anger aimed at him from his brothers. He had done this to their chosen ones, and their retaliation had been completely justified. He finally understood.

  He threw up again, another sensation coupling with the upheaval of his stomach. It was like a rubber band tightening around his bowels, and he knew it for what it was. It was guilt. A human emotion he’d used against the humans many times in his days. Too many.

  Cynthia was sick. He’d been given a woman who was sick. He could curse The Boss for that, but he could also see the perfect irony that He liked so much. Damien needed to figure out how to cure her of her sickness, make her better, see her through this dark time. That was the irony. He wasn’t causing the darkness, he would cure it. That was how he would be redeemed.

  Meanwhile, his woman suffered.

  His eyes stung, and his face was warm and wet. He tipped his tongue out to taste the salty tracks streaming down his face.

  He was fucking crying.

  Using the backs of his hands to wipe his face, he sniffled, feeling like his head was going to explode while his insides felt so damned small. This whole sensation—sitting on the curb, sniffling back tears while his insides shrank into nothingness—was new for him. He explored it, as it was a brand new sensation for him, while at the same time wondering what he could do to make it all stop.

  He needed to do something to earn his brothers’ forgiveness, right? They hated him, though. That was something he was accustomed to, but now, he no longer wanted things to be that way with them. He’d acted like the spoiled younger sibling, wanting what they had, and he’d done everything in his considerable power to keep them from getting the wonderful things promised to them.

  Now he needed to make it right. That must be a part of all this, right? In order to gain his own redemption he needed his brothers’ forgiveness. Wasn’t that part of how The Boss worked? Shit.

  As he stood, he realized he’d been sitting there for almost two hours and had no idea if Cyn was even still inside. As if answering a prayer, the door opened, and she was wheeled out in a chair, looking fine, if not a little droopy.

  “Hey,” escaped his mouth before he thought about it.

  Cynthia and her friend both popped their heads over to him, but his Cynthia was all he saw. Her green eyes looked faded, almost the color of jade, instead of the deep emerald he’d seen earlier. Dark circles under them sucked all the air out of his lungs, and his breath caught in his throat. But she smiled at him, beaming a radiance which shone from her despite the illness he could suddenly smell more than the lovely scent of earthy floral and musky woman.

  “Hey yourself.” Her eyes swept down his body before landing on his face. Concern deepened in her eyes. “You okay?”

  He shrugged, no longer having any sort of frame of reference for ‘okay’. “You need a ride home?” He wanted to help her, needed to, but didn’t know how. He knew humans now had this inane desire to drive everywhere, and she didn’t seem any different.

  She pointed to the woman pushing her wheelchair over toward him. “I’ve got a ride, thanks.” Her voice sounded weak, and the chemicals radiated off her in waves, like an aura. How had he missed that? “I’ll see you later, okay?”

  He nodded, mute, unable to stop her from leaving him. He watched while her friend helped her into her car, her slight frame swallowed by the baggy sweats she wore.

  She did say she’d see him later, and that thought gave him a lightness he’d never felt before. He embraced the sensation, desperately willing it to overcome the helplessness as he watched her drive away.

  Cynthia managed to downplay Evelyn’s questions about the handsome stranger pleading exhaustion on the way back to her apartment. Of course, her friend was full of questions, when was she not? Even when there wasn’t a gorgeous guy hanging around, obviously interested in her, Evelyn was naturally curious.

  But Cynthia wanted to digest the man and his intentions before discussing them with Evelyn. God love her, she was a sweetheart, but she talked too damn much.

  Finally alone in her apartment with her own thoughts, Cynthia managed to collapse in her bed, snuggled under her covers to dream of the man on the sidewalk.

  And dream she did. He permeated her dreams, wearing nothing but leather pants and biker boots. The ultimate bad boy. His chiseled chest showed off muscles in places Cynthia had only studied in anatomy classes.

  The smattering of hair across his chest led down to the button on his pants, the muscular V of his torso pointing out untold delights behind his zipper.

  He was standing in the corner of her bedroom, in front of her book case, staring at her with intense black eyes framed by bushy, out of control eyebrows. The way he looked at her took her breath away, like he was starved for her. He exuded badness as if he wanted to do things to her she couldn’t possibly imagine. Dreaming, she licked her lips and offered herself to him with a caress of her own torso, pushing back her blankets in invitation, daring him to touch her the way he wanted. His eyes widened, piercing her as her fingertips trailed between her breasts and down her belly.

  His enormous hands clenched into fists, and she could see his control, held by a tenuous thread. She wished her dream man would do something, touch her, talk to her, anything. But instead, he stood there, staring. The air between them filled with lust, and her core clenched, needing to be touched.

  She complied, fingers circling her navel before plunging into her panties. He licked his lips, wetting them, his predatory eyes gleaming. His own hand went to the sizeable bulge in his leather pants, gripping himself. A tortured groan escaped his lips, sending a wave of heat across her skin.

  Cynthia couldn’t stop the moan escaping her lips as her fingers delved inside her own wet heat. She dipped them in, smearing her wetness up onto the erect nub on top as a deep, rumbling moan came from the man in the corner. He strode toward the bed like a panther, or something else, something more dangerous. He stopped himself with a visible effort, and Cynthia redoubled her efforts, trying to get his control to snap.

  Her body writhed and twitched under the ministrations of her fingers as the corner of the bed dipped under his weight. He crawled to her, the leather of his pants creaking, and his scent overwhelmed her. Her body pulsed with an orga
sm so intense, it arched off her bed as she shuddered through it.

  His eyes filled with something—appreciation, delight, even adoration—as he moved closer to her. Anticipation racked her body as she realized he was going to touch her. What would those hands feel like? What would his kisses do?

  As soon as that thought crossed her mind, everything in her dream changed.

  The man in her corner went from sexy beast to pure evil in a heartbeat.

  He physically changed—from a virile man in panty-melting leather pants, to a scaly demon with red, slit eyes—morphing into something purely vile before scooping her up in his claws. Everything around her dissipated, evaporating into darkness as Cynthia screamed, twisting her body to get out of his grip. The sexy dream turned into a nightmare, fast.

  Using his head, he burst through her bedroom window and out into the night, flying over the city, silencing Cynthia’s screams as she watched the buildings below. Too terrified to move, scream, or even think loudly, she stared with morbid fascination as they rose higher and higher in the night sky.

  This is only a dream. A product of the tumor. Nothing more. Any minute now, you’ll wake and be in your own bed. This will be over soon.

  Except they flew for what seemed like hours. Cynthia watched the city fade into the distance, replaced by farmlands and pastures to the north, then another city, then the ocean. Night turned lighter, the gray before dawn, and still they flew. Dressed in her camisole and panties, Cynthia was beyond cold, but didn’t dare do anything to warm herself, even if she could think of anything. The creature’s talons gripped her upper arms and the rest of her dangled below. She couldn’t imagine what might happen to her if he decided to drop her.

  Just a dream…

  Eventually, she was dropped, but in a cave that had mystically appeared. It had red walls with stalagmites dripping some sort of flesh-colored waxy looking substance. The walls held shapes of distorted human faces. As the creature landed near her, she couldn’t stop looking at the faces. They looked waxy, like they were melted, stretched out of shape, distorted. Yes, they were deformed faces somehow trapped in these stone walls.