Free Haven by Celia Breslin Page B

another took her neck from behind. Eyes closed, lips parted, she appeared to enjoy it.
    I glanced at my friends. Faith and Kai stared in wide-eyed fascination. Mark wore his best blank face, while Ren’s gaze targeted Alexander. Neither man was a happy camper. Nor was I.
    Where was my uncle? I wasn’t walking the undead gauntlet without a fanged escort. My eyes strayed to Alexander.
    “Stay here and put away your guns,” I ordered the boys. “We’re outnumbered, so let’s try not to antagonize the hungry dinner crowd.”
    I approached Alexander, running a hand along the piano’s smooth surface. Eyes closed, his body swayed, his long fingers gliding effortlessly across the keys.
    An accomplished musician. My favorite.
    Distressed gray jeans hugged his long legs. Charcoal-colored cotton stretched across his mouth-watering shoulders, enhanced by a dragon, wings spread across his impressive pecs. My hands twitched, wanting to slip under his shirt, glide over his skin and explore the hard planes of his chest. Maybe wander lower, until I slipped my fingers in the holes ripped in his jeans to tease the peekaboo flesh of his legs.
    Down girl. Rein in the lust .
    He bobbed his head in time to his playing. Unruly brown locks of hair lay in disarray against his cheeks. His lips, slightly parted, moved as if he sung under his breath. My body vibrated with need. I pressed both palms against the piano top to keep myself from brushing the hair away from his strong face and caressing his smooth skin as my lips kissed the curve of his jaw and nibbled on his full, lower lip.
    A sigh escaped me. He opened his eyes.
    Attacked by shyness, I stared at his hands while they continued their dance on the keys. He played a familiar song, something I’d heard as a kid. Disjointed images flitted, unbidden, through my head. A grand piano, a curtain of long black hair, hands as white as the keys they struck, me as a little girl with orange wild flowers clutched in one hand while the other ran through the major scales on that same grand piano. My piano...
    The music stopped.
    The silence snapped me out of the memory. His hands rested on both sides of middle C. I stayed focused on them, afraid to look into his eyes. My heart thudded, mouth dry, palms sweaty. What about him made me feel so unlike me? So nervous?
    “Hi.” His velvet voice brushed across my hands, up my arms, down my body. I shivered and looked up. Damn. Those eyes, in his gorgeous face. I tried to take a deep breath and failed.
    “Hi.” I extended my unsteady hand. “I’m Carina.”
    “Alexander.” His hand neared mine, but Faith and Kai yanked me back from the piano.
    “Hey,” I protested, every cell demanding I go back to him, touch him.
    “Rina, don’t touch him,” Faith pleaded.
    Kai squeezed my arm. “Yeah, what she said.”
    I jerked free. “Back off, you two.”
    Faith persisted. “Don’t do it. You’re not ready.”
    “Stop talking like Thomas,” I groused.
    “But he’s right. You can’t be with him until you’re whole. It’s too dangerous. Remember what happened the last time you touched him?”
    Oh, right. The whole not-breathing-almost-dying thing. She had a point but, “I need to. I want—” I willed her psychic mojo to understand what I struggled to say.
    He’s mine.
    Faith gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know. He’s the one. But you can’t touch him. Not yet.” She touched my arm, trying to offer comfort. “Be careful.”
    Alexander observed us, expression bemused. Heat flooded my cheeks. We acted like teenagers and now I had tomato face. Wonderful. I sauntered to the piano while my hormones cartwheeled in happiness. A hot undead guy I didn’t even know yet was my one and only. Mine . It was crazy, irrational, complicated. And exactly what I wanted.
    “So.” My blush deepened.
    “So.” His full lips curved upward and a rush of need slammed into me with all the subtleness of a Mack truck.
    God, I wanted to kiss his mouth, lick his