Free Raising Hell by Julie Kenner Page B

headed out of the classroom to find Delilah in the reading room.
    “She’s not here,” Carrie said. “I thought she was with you.”
    “With me?”
    “You’re the only one around her being a bad influence, Mr. Front Page of the Tabloids.”
    Nick spread his arms, indicating the center. “I don’t see any paparazzi around right now, Carrie. You want to explain what your problem with me is?”
    Carrie crossed her arms over her chest and stared him down, her dark eyes flashing. “She’s been acting differently ever since she’s started modeling for you.”
    “Different how?”
    “Wilder. Party girlish. It’s almost like she’s a different person.”
    “Maybe you’re just jealous,” he said coolly. “This is what she wanted, right? To be a model? Do you have what you’ve always wanted, Carrie?”
    When she didn’t answer, he pressed the point. “Don’t deny Delilah her happiness just because you haven’t found yours.” He turned and walked out, clearly the victor in their minor skirmish, but the taste of success was bitter, not sweet.
    He checked the rest of the facility, but couldn’t find her. Finally, he went back to the reading center. To his relief, Carrie wasn’t there. He found the director and asked if he knew where Delilah was.
    “Hasn’t been in for two solid days now,” the older man said, his words a surprise considering Nick had walked to the center each day with Delilah by his side. “I assumed she was sick.”
    Nick frowned, but said nothing. He supposed that sick was one way to put it.
    He headed out of the facility and scoped out the street. Not much nearby. Some shops. A few office buildings. A deli. And a pub.
    He decided on the pub, although when he first stepped inside he had his doubts. Music blared from a jukebox, and combined with the sound of voices and pool balls clicking, the cacophony was so much Nick could hardly hear himself think.
    He found her there, nursing a pint at a back booth, her skirt hiked up and her foot on the booth beside her. Her position revealed all, and gave the burly cretin in denim and a flannel shirt sitting next to her plenty to stare at. The view was so enticing, in fact, that the man was almost drooling.
    “Take a hike,” Nick said, sliding in on the other side of Delilah.
    “Screw you,” Paul Bunyan said, getting up and demonstrating to everyone in the bar that he fully fit the nickname that Nick had just saddled him with.
    “I said leave,” Nick said, and for the first time in centuries, he called upon his heritage to make his will be done. The man stared, then blinked, then turned and walked out the door.
    Nick pushed the man from his mind, turning instead to Delilah. “Are you okay?”
    “I was,” she said, “until you scared my date off.”
    “Date?” he repeated. “You were going to go out with that guy?”
    Her mouth curved up. “Well, maybe it’s too much to say I was going to go out with him. But I wouldn’t have minded letting him take me to the back. You know what I mean?”
    Nick had a sick feeling in his stomach that he knew exactly what she meant. He also knew that the only reason those kinds of thoughts were in her head were because of him. He stood up, held out a hand for her. “Come on.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “We’re leaving,” he said. “In case you forgot, the only reason we were at the arts center was because of you. We should be back at the loft, working on the portrait.”
    “Oh, right.” A slow smile spread over her face, and she drew in a breath, her hands brushing the front of her shirt as she exhaled. “I love the way you touch me when you paint me.”
    “I don’t touch you when I paint you,” Nick said, trying to control a frustration that was building in him like wildfire.
    “Sure you do. Maybe not with your hands, but you touch me.” She leaned closer, her lips brushing his ear as she whispered. “I think about it all the time. I was sitting here, actually, thinking about you