What Lies Beneath

Landon.

She was right, of course. Shutting me down did something painful to my brain. She was still my mate. That wouldn't change. Not ever. She could be married with three kids, and that wouldn't make me any less hers. Funny thing about mates. It had more to do with you than your partner. A mate was for life. Endless or short, it didn't matter.

She was sleeping in my arms at the moment. She looked at me with such anger when she told me we were nothing. She was wrong about that, but she was right about something else. I could have had everything, and I was choosing nothing. She thought it was me being scared. It was me trying to, for once, do the unselfish thing. She deserved to get a human life. Not this miserable endless one. Jaxon would find out the hard way that death would have been better for him. He'd now have to watch his sister grow old and die. Her humanity was nothing but a nail in my coffin. I didn't want to be around for the day the Link broke.

So I needed to make the most of my time with her. This room felt so small. Like it was just us and the bed. Even with her mortality, it felt endless. It had taken four hundred years of swimming, but I'd finally found The Good Times. I'd reached the shore and I'd get to slip away again with knowledge I hadn't known before. Like the universe or God was cutting me a break in the end. Soothing me as the last of the lights turned out.

Mila's eyes opened, and she figured out how close we were. She looked up at me with coldness and hurt before she shoved herself away and got off the bed. I watched her walk off to the bathroom, taking her clothes with her. I wanted to follow her. I wanted to pick her up and hold her against the wall so that she couldn't walk away from me. I wanted to tell her I loved her and that I thought I could get better for her.

But that would be a lie.

She came back out in shorts and my sweater. Was that to piss me off or to tempt me? Clearly, she didn't understand what it did to a man when his girl was in his clothes. Or she did know, and this was a punishment? A clever one at that. But my mind was a mess, and I wasn't a good-enough man to let her be.

I stood from the bed, realizing that I was mostly naked. She seemed to like it when I was naked. I tugged on her rolled-up sleeve. "Chilly?"

She didn't look up as she shoved clothes into her bag. "Yeah, I slept with a corpse last night."

That's fair. But I wasn't a fair man. So I slipped my hand under her sweater, and rested it on her stomach, pulling her back against my chest. "I happen to know how to warm you up."

She was very still as she warned me. "I'll punch you if you tease me, Landon Crane. I swear to God."

Why not test the limits? She threatened, but she wasn't stopping me. My hands moved down, finding the button of her pants. Two seconds, and it was undone. She didn't tell me to stop. Then I undid her zipper, moving slowly and letting my fingers brush against her.

"Not what working partners do." She sighed.

I brushed her damp hair over her shoulder and started kissing her neck. She still didn't tell me not to. "Good thing I'm not your partner then." My hand went down her stomach, and my fingertips went under the band of her panties, but not enough to make her moan. It was enough to make her heart race and goosebumps to appear all over her soft skin.

"Landon," she said my name quietly. "This isn't fair."

"I don't play fair, darlin'. You should know that by now." I held her tighter to me, and her breath hitched as my hand moved further down.

I was only touching her for a few seconds before she moved my hand away and turned to face me. Her big green eyes looked up at me with abject hope. "Please, if you want me, then you can have me. However you want, I'm yours. I can be your mate, or I can be your friend. It doesn't matter as long as you stay with me. Won't that make it better? Maybe if we're not actually together, it can be okay for you."

I wouldn't be able to do that. I'd known her only a little while and I couldn't keep my hands off her. "I don't know about that."

She didn't get angry. "I don't see the harm in trying. You can leave any time. I'm not chaining you by the leg."

"Do you really think that I can travel around with you and not find my way to your bed?"

She smiled, and her hands went to my stomach. "I didn't say that. If you're worried about Jaxon, I bet we can work around that."

She was kissing my chest, and I felt evil for it. She didn't want only half. Even if I stayed with her, friend wouldn't cut it for either of us. We'd end up sleeping together. I might even forget why I'd said no in the first place. I couldn't let that happen.

She took my silence as consent and said, "How about you lie on the bed and let me take care of you."

There was literally nothing that sounded better than that, but I couldn't let it happen. I tilted her chin up and kissed her softly and slowly. She knew it was a no.

When she pulled away from me, her eyes were closed, and she sighed. "You're breaking my heart here, love." "I'm sorry."

She pushed away from me and fixed her shorts. "I told you that if I gave in, you'd take a step back. I'm not angry with you, but you can't do it again. Please."

I nodded and left to shower.

After I was done, I came back out, making sure my shirt was buttoned all the way. I didn't want to upset Mila anymore. Worse than her being angry was her being hurt. She just looked so heartbroken. I wanted to make it better. Maybe I could lie to her. If she just thought I was leaving to go back to wandering, then she might be all right. She wouldn't expect to see me ever again anyway. She wouldn't have to know. It would be a lie, but a kind one.

I was terrified of her waiting around for her entire life, thinking I might come find her. What if she didn't let herself move on because of me?

And now her brother was a vampire. I didn't doubt he would take care of her. He just won't know how to do it right. She wanted to settle, make a family. All I wanted for her was that life.

Then give it to her. A voice was tugging at my mind. It told me that I could be what she needed. That I could find light with her. That was the whole point of this end I'd chosen. I didn't have a reason to live, so I wasn't going to. But now there was Mila. She was so much more than enough reason to stick around. She thought my suicide had something to do with her. Or, at least, why she wasn't enough to stop me. She didn't understand that it had nothing at all to do with her. But now I didn't want it. Not really. I wanted to stay with her. I wanted that damn house and that damn dog and that little boy she was talking about. What would it do to her to be around someone like me for a lifetime? Would I smother her light?

****

We had been driving for a few hours in silence. We had to figure out where to go from here, and the silence wouldn't work for that. I'd gotten her breakfast, but it was almost time for lunch. I wanted her to talk to me. I felt like I was drifting to the line, and I wanted to see how long I could flirt with the idea before sense came back to me.

After we got finished with the drive thru, I pulled into a parking spot. "Get in the back," I told her. She stared at me. "Why?"

"Because we're going to sit back there and have a nice little chat about nothing important."

I moved to the back and Mila very reluctantly came with me, bringing our food and drink. She never seemed to comment on how I only ever got one drink for the both of us to share.

Mila sat right next to me and passed over the drink. "Why are we doing this?"

I didn't have a good answer, so I skipped it. "Sorry I touched your naughty bits this morning."

She laughed, but she seemed upset with herself over it. "Well, you've done worse, so I guess it's fine."

"Worse? Those worse actions made you say my name in a way I didn't know was possible."

She rolled her eyes, and the stray hair that she didn't catch in her ponytail brushed her face. "I'm sure you get it all the time."

I smiled. "Nope."

She eyed me dubiously. "Am I supposed to believe I'm the only girl you can get off?"

"I wouldn't actually know."

She blinked. "Huh?"

Here it comes. “I can hardly remember what I was doing a week ago, and I was with you."

"So you just have a terrible memory? You can't remember getting a girl off?"

"Well, I'm sure it happened," I lied, "but I'm not positive. And I know for a fact it wasn't like it was with you." I have every sound and every breath memorized. That wasn't something I could forget. "Sure. So it's just been a while then?"

"Yes." If she knew how long, she would most definitely make fun of me. It wasn't really my fault that I cared so little about sex. I didn't care when I was human, and I only cared now if it involved Mila. "How long?" Of course she asked.

"Long enough."

I was still impressed with myself that I'd done as well with her as I had, since everything I'd done with her was the first time. Also not my fault that I'd come from a time where that just wasn't done in the kind of company I kept. Horrid, but it didn't make it less true. An orgasm of any kind wasn't something a girl would ask for, let alone oral sex or touching, and a man didn't always know that he should do it. It wasn't that I didn't think women mattered, I just hadn't been taught to take care of them. I knew better now.

Mila took the drink back and sipped on it. "So you must be pretty hard-up now, huh?"

I laughed. "I'm just fine."

"Are you?" Her nose twitched as she smiled.

"You're the one who had to take a cold shower."

"Not the same thing. I can't be hard-up because I've never slept with anyone."

I guess she could believe that if she wanted to. It was also entirely my fault for any needs she had suddenly developed.

We passed our drink back and forth, and Mila kept stealing my curly fries. She smirked when she did it, as if she was challenging me to stop her. I didn't, of course. Why would I when she looked so adorable trying to annoy me? "How much longer?" Mila asked. "Is Knox's place clo—"

There was a banging sound before the door was thrown open. Three men with knives were standing outside, obviously thinking we were cornered. No guns this time. Too loud in public, I guessed.

I wasted no time launching myself at them. They should know better now. I'd been fighting all my life. Three men wouldn't put me down. The first thing I did was throw my fist into one of the men's ear. He stumbled away, and I was left with two in my face.

"Stay in the car!" I yelled to Mila. She would want to fight, not caring that she wouldn't stand a chance. She was only human. If she got hurt again, I would end every last person that Knox had ever met. I wouldn't watch Mila die twice. I got a knife from the man who tried going for Mila. Wrong move. I stuck it in his neck, and she watched him fall. Dead before he hit the ground.

They knew my name. Knox and his people. They had since I started picking them off. How they found us today, I didn't know. Normally I was not in once place long enough to be found. I passed through a town in hours. This was all putting Mila in danger.

I had no time to do this. We were in public, and it would be a matter of seconds before someone saw us. I could disappear; Mila probably could too. I didn't want to be the reason she ran this time. She didn't need more fear in her life. They kept sending demons, and that was their mistake. Now that I had Mila's Familiar blood in me, I was so much stronger than before. Vampires were in short supply. So they were sending what was disposable. These bastards didn't even have useful magic. It was too easy for me.

Mila was in the driver's seat when I snapped the neck of the last man. There were no visible witnesses, but that wouldn't last. I could see cars about to turn in. The second we pulled away, they would see the bodies.

I ran to the passenger's side door and got in. Mila went to drive, and I grabbed her hand. "Not yet."

She stopped and looked in the same direction that I was. When we were clear, I told her to go. We were back on the freeway. With any luck, we'd be long gone before anyone could find us. It would be only a matter of minutes before the bodies were found. That was all we needed.

"Are you okay?" Mila asked in a panic. "You didn't get hurt, did you?"

I smiled at her worry. "Not a scratch. I promise."

"I'll kick your ass if you're lying."

"I'm not lying."

"YOU BETTER NOT BE!"

Okay, and I just fell in love with her again.

I tried to reassure her a dozen times, but I didn't think she'd be happy until she examined my entire body herself. And I would be more than happy to let her do that. There was only a tiny chance I'd say no if she offered to touch my naughty bits. There were only so many times a man could say no when a girl was offering to do new and amazing sounding things to him. How the hell had I not cared about sex for so long...

She was only driving for an hour before I decided I had to take over. She was far too twitchy, and that simply wouldn't do. She pulled over on the side of the road, and we got out to switch.

Mila pushed me up against the van and pulled my shirt up. "If I find so much as a scratch, I will be very, very unkind to your naughty bits."

I held my hands up. "Do what you will."

She kept looking, patting me down to see if I'd wince. I didn't, of course, but I let her keep going. Then she was done.

"Happy?" I asked.

With pure attitude, she crossed her arms and said, "No. I'd be happy if I had my brother, and if my boyfriend would just man up and admit he was my boyfriend."

I looked to the side. "I'm four hundred-"

"Three-hundred-and-ninety-nine," she corrected.

I sighed. "I'm nearly four-hundred. I am too old to be anyone's boyfriend."

"Well I'm young enough to be some old guy's girlfriend." She was smirking when I looked back.

I was on a dangerous road, but I had to correct her. "Since neither of us legally exist, we'd never be able to make it official, but vampires mate for life. They have the same issue, of course. A few hundred years go by, and the paperwork is meaningless. Much like it is now. So if we were together, since you're my mate, really we'd just be married. As married as we ever could be."

Her smile was just a bit shy. "I'm definitely young enough to be some old guy's wife. You have a lot of money too. That only makes it more appropriate."

Cars started coming along the road, and I decided it was time to go. "We can go a bit longer and get a hotel."

"Are we sharing a room again?"

"As if I'd let you sleep away from me." I walked around the van and got in. She was a little slower, but she was smiling when she closed the door.