Scorched Ice (Fire and Ice #3)(80)
His anguish over not being able to help her engulfed her. Then she felt his relief over the end of The Commission. She got a brief glimpse of what he’d seen from that last woman before his overwhelming desire for her dragged her deeper into the depths of ecstasy.
Later, she lay against his side, her fingers tracing over the carved ridges of his abdomen. “You have a way of making me forget,” she murmured.
“You have a way of making me remember.”
She lifted her head and propped her chin on his chest so she could gaze into his eyes. “Remember what?”
His fingers slid over where the scar on her temple had been. “My humanity. I’d long believed it destroyed.”
“You found your humanity again before me,” she reminded him.
“I stopped killing before I found you. I was trying to do better, but until you entered my life, I never fully understood why I just didn’t give into my nature again. I care deeply for the others, but giving in would have been so much easier than struggling every day. Now, I know I was waiting for you, and you are worth every uncertain second of that wait and more.”
Tears burned her eyes again and slid free. She tried to blink them back. “You have no idea how weird it feels to cry when you don’t have eyelashes,” she said.
He grinned at her before drawing her toward him until their lips brushed while he spoke. “I’ll be happy to make you forget all about that again.”
CHAPTER 28
Three months later
“You’ve waited all these years to get married, are you sure you want to do it in Vegas?” Quinn asked as she handed Hawtie her bouquet of white roses.
“It’s Sin City, honey, and one thing I am is sinful,” Hawtie replied with a swish of her rounded hips.
“Yeah you are, Red,” Julian drawled from where he sat in the booth behind them. His arms were stretched casually over the back of the booth while he watched them.
“Hush, you,” Quinn said. “You shouldn’t even be in here.”
“It’s only bad luck for the groom to see the bride, and if you put me out there with her groom, there may not be a wedding,” he replied.
Quinn frowned at him, but Hawtie chuckled and stepped forward to peer at herself in the full-length mirror hanging on the wall of the small dressing room. She turned back and forth, carefully examining herself. The deep red dress she wore hung to mid-thigh and was cut low in the front to emphasize her ample cleavage.
At six foot, Hawtie was taller than many men, including her groom, but even with her height, she was entirely womanly with her lethal curves. In her fifties, Hawtie could still turn anyone’s head when she strutted by with her hips swaying. There was a reason she’d been called Hawtie the Body since she was a teen, and the clinging dress she wore showed off that reason.
It had been three months since she’d seen last seen Hawtie and Clint. The two of them had been busy traveling in their RV while Quinn had been in Canada with Julian and the others. She and Julian had left Canada a couple of times in order to meet with Vern and some other vampires, but for the most part they’d spent the past three months with Cassie, Devon, and the children.
Quinn had hated to say goodbye to all of them and leave the warm environment they’d created for the children to thrive in, but it was time for them to meet with the vampires in Oregon. When she’d told Clint and Hawtie that she would be heading to Oregon soon, they had asked her to meet them in Vegas on her way there and she’d happily agreed. She’d squealed in delight when they’d announced that they were getting married while she was here.
Hawtie’s smile caused her warm brown eyes to crinkle when she turned to Quinn. “I think I’m ready to go.”
Quinn grinned at her as she briefly adjusted the small tiara on Hawtie’s upswept auburn hair. Behind her, Julian unfolded himself from the booth and rose to his feet with supple ease. Quinn gathered her own bouquet of red roses from where she’d left it on the table.
Her eyes flicked to the mirror before she could stop them. The memories of the fire didn’t come screaming to life like they had for the first couple of months after it, but the blistering heat of an imaginary flame licked at her skin before she abruptly shut the memory away.
She ran her hand over the soft brown hair sticking nearly an inch off her head now. Her eyebrows and lashes had come back in, but it was neither of those things that gave her a shock of memory every time she caught her reflection.
She knew, with more time, she would get used to not seeing her scars, but their disappearance was still too new for her. Her finger briefly traced over one of the remaining scars on her palm before she turned away from the mirror to face Hawtie.
“Let’s go!” Quinn declared brightly.
Hawtie squeezed her arm before Julian took hold of Hawtie’s hand. He led her to the doorway and pulled the door open. They stepped out into the main area of the small chapel. Clint, Chris, Melissa, Luther, Dani, and Lou were all standing in the room, waiting for them. Clint’s lined face broke into a broad grin. He threw his shoulders proudly back as he surveyed Hawtie from head to toe.
“You look beautiful!” Clint declared.
“I know,” Hawtie replied. “You’re not looking so bad yourself.”
And he wasn’t. Clint had somehow managed to get his bushy gray hair under control without a baseball cap, and he surprisingly wore a sports coat well. Quinn never would have believed Clint could look at home in anything other than jeans and a flannel, but she was completely wrong.