Love Beyond Expectations

  Ruby looked between them before she squeezed his hand. "We'll figure it out."

  "Good."

  She tugged on him until he left the other man behind them. After a second, when he felt certain Leonardo couldn't hear them, he said, "What's going on?"

  "I think he might be having a nervous breakdown. I'm not sure but I suddenly don't want him involved in this. If we need help, we'll ask one of the others. Let's just leave Leonardo…alone."

  He walked next to her. They hadn't decided if they were going to work on his problem or hers. Hell, they'd never even discussed if they should do these tasks together at all. Maybe it made more sense to split up, temporarily, to accomplish both endeavors.

  His heart turned over at the thought. No, now that he'd found her, he couldn't let her go. Ever.

  Wow. That sounded downright…crazy. And felt perfectly normal at the same time.

  "I take it we're going to see your preacher." They'd been walking for some time and not said a word.

  She smiled at him. "Unless you have a good way to pop back to your brother and bring me with you."

  "I wish I had that kind of control. I'm really still beholden to the whims of fate when it comes to where and when I arrive and go."

  "Hmm." She made a funny noise in her throat, and his cock jumped to attention. He really, really wanted her. Swallowing through a dry mouth, he tried to think of something, anything, else.

  Nothing seemed to work. Even the way she walked turned him on. The sway of her hips and the little way her feet took two steps to keep up with every one of his.

  "What are you staring at?"

  She had stopped moving, and he'd barely noticed. Her blue eyes were huge as they stared up at him. She swallowed, and the muscles in her throat clenched. As he bent over, he felt like a man possessed. If he didn't taste her skin, he might go insane.

  He'd be lost if she stopped him. With a quick tug, he had her in his arms. There were far more romantic places to caress the woman he'd been fantasizing about for months than the sidewalk outside of a hospital on a rainy night. Still, the silence of the evening surrounded them while the now-misty rain touched their skin, making everything feel suddenly like a fairy tale.

  Pressing down on the spot on her neck where her pulse thundered, he inhaled her scent. "For months, I haven't been able to sleep because all I could think about was you."

  She sucked in her breath as he gently kissed her, laying a small touch to her skin. "Really?"

  Light. I have to keep things…easy. Somehow.

  He smiled at the sound of her voice becoming breathy. "You barely knew I existed."

  "Not true." She pulled back to look at him, running a hand down his cheek. His groin hardened. "I hid from you. I can't tell you how much time I spent trying to avoid you."

  He blinked. What did she mean? "I think that might be worse."

  "No." She laughed. "Because I didn't know what to do. I never felt anything for anyone before. I thought there had to be something wrong with me. And then you showed up, all handsome and European. I practically melted into a puddle every time I saw you."

  "French."

  She shook her head, her blonde hair caressing the top of her shoulders. "What?"

  "I'm not European, I'm French."

  Ruby raised both eyebrows in a gesture that showed off amusement in her eyes. "You're a little touchy about that. You know you're not actually French. None of us are what we thought we were. As Outsiders, we're something else entirely."

  "I'm always going to feel French." Even as he said the words, he wondered if they were true. Would there come a time when he would feel like something other than human? Would he come to think of his family as not his?

  But those thoughts rapidly left his mind because Ruby's shirt fell slightly down and he got a good view of her cleavage. His mouth watered. Would she let him caress her right there on the sidewalk? A man could dream…

  The ground began to shake beneath their feet. For a second, he thought he imagined it until Ruby gasped as she grabbed onto his shirt.

  "What is going on?" she shrieked. He picked her up in his arms like he could protect her from being swallowed up by the ground beneath them.

  "Earthquake?" What were they supposed to do in a situation like this? He'd never been in one before.

  "I don't really think we get them here."

  "Then it's not natural. Unless something weird is happening right now with the shifting of the plates beneath our feet." He highly doubted it. It seemed more likely to him that the same son-of-a-bitch who had tried to kill her earlier in the coffee shop had come back for another try.

  Well, he wasn't going to let them. He'd just found this woman. No one would take her from him.

  She weighed nothing. He ran, not knowing or caring where they went as long as he could get away from the shaking ground. It felt like he could hear the earth calling out to him, and it wanted Ruby.

  He shook his head. This was no time to get delusional. Far too much was at stake for him to lose his mind.

  "Christophe, put me down."

  "No." Anger surged in his blood. This girl…Ruby…she belonged to him. End of story. He would run the entire earth if he had to in order to keep her safe.

  "Be reasonable. We can't outrun an earthquake if it wants to follow us."

  Her words made sense, but they did nothing to undo the madness threatening him. Safe. He had to get her somewhere where she'd be protected.

  "Christophe. Use your brain. If this is magic, that's how it has to be countered."

  Use his brain. Yes. He studied, he reasoned, he learned. He didn't go running off like he was some kind of bruiser who could take on the world.

  "It's okay. You can put her down." On the street, in front of Christophe, looking none the worse for wear for being jolted around stood a man Christophe had not met before.

  "My name is Kal. I'm one of you. An Outsider. Ruby knows me. Tell him I'm okay."

  "He's Kal. He's okay."

  Christophe could hear tightness in Ruby's voice that he feared did not come from the shaking ground but rather from the fact that he seemed to have lost his mind and couldn't stop his caveman act.

  He cleared his throat and set her down even though it made his hands shake with wanting to grab her and haul her up against him.

  Kal extended his hand. "Both of you touch my fingers."

  Ruby did as he said, and Christophe wanted to pounce on him and pound him into the ground to punish him for touching Ruby.

  "Calm down, big guy." Kal rolled his eyes. "I have my own soul mate. I'm not after yours. Put your hand on me too."

  Ruby's eyes met his gaze. "Kal has been at this a lot longer than me. He really knows a lot about this stuff."

  "What I know could fill about two pages of notes. But this, I know how to do."

  Christophe placed his hand on top of Kal's noticing how tiny Ruby's fingers were in comparison to his and Kal's. God, this woman really defined the word petite.

  "Now, close your eyes and concentrate. Think about wanting the ground to stop shaking."

  It couldn't be that simple. Close his eyes and concentrate? Inwardly, he scoffed. This was going to turn out to be like the time he'd tried a meditation class. He didn't seem to be built for sitting around and thinking about his feelings.

  What a waste of time…

  Beneath his feet, the shaking ceased. He opened his eyes just as Kal took away his hand.

  "More than two of us together and we can manage small acts of magic. Like stopping the ground from shaking. His making it do so was a small trick. Very beneath Sebastian. I think he wanted to play with you."

  "So all we have to do as Outsiders is close our eyes and wish the evil away?"

  Ruby laughed, rubbing his arm. "I wish. He got us at the mansion earlier today. Big mess. No wishing him away. I think we just got a temporary reprieve."

  He was going to have to study all of this more carefully. It had been years since he hadn't been the most
knowledgeable person in the room on any topic that interested him. But this "being an Outsider" thing made him feel like a child who couldn't keep up with the class.

  "And you." Kal indicated him with his chin. "You feeling a little bit crazed?"

  "Um." Christophe scratched his head. Sometimes he wasn't certain if he understood every definition of the words being used around him. "By crazed, are you asking me if I have a mental deficiency?"

  "No." Kal looked up at the sky before he held Christophe's gaze again. "I'm asking if you feel like you're crawling out of your skin. If your temper is up. If you are behaving erratically?"

  He thought about his run from the hospital with Ruby in his arms. The feelings he'd not been able to ignore or control. Yes, they might be called…crazed.

  But he had no intention of telling them to the stranger in front of him, whether or not they shared some kind of Outsider heritage.

  "No. I don't know what you're talking about."

  Ruby stroked his arm gently. Did she know he lied?

  "Right." Kal nodded. "Well, I'm going to get going, head into the hospital, find my soul mate. Did you meet Isabelle?"

  "Briefly." She'd shown up and gone right in to Leonardo and Marina.

  "Boy, I can remember when I first tuned into her. Things went askew everywhere. I couldn't control my aggression. All of my powers went haywire. That was a really, really intense time." Kal raised his eyebrows. "Have a great night. See you guys back at the house."

  It didn't look like he'd fooled Kal either. He shook his head. Focus. He had to find some. "Let's go find your preacher. The sooner we do, the sooner we'll be getting to the demon and recovering Colin."

  "Sounds like a plan." Ruby chewed on her bottom lip. "I'm afraid I was counting on Drew, who is now missing, to be the one to know how to break into the preacher's office. I'm not much of a thief."

  Christophe put his hands in his pockets. He couldn't be much help there either. Growing up very, very rich, he'd never had to rob anyone of anything. He could simply go out and buy whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it.

  "It's too bad we can't simply wish ourselves a key. Close our eyes and concentrate on a key. See if one of them just shows up."

  Ruby smoothed the wrinkles on his coat. "That closing your eyes and concentrating thing really threw you."

  Subtlety had never been his strongest suit. "It just seemed so…provincial. Close your eyes, concentrate. Like every cheesy horror movie about psychics out there."

  Ruby laughed, rolling her eyes. "We're not psychic."

  "Well, you and I are not. Maybe some of the others are."

  The woman who had dominated every spare moment he'd had for months strolled a distance in front of him before turning around. "I agree with you. I wish I could simply say I wish I had a key and then I'd get one."

  A flash of light surrounded Ruby. He gasped and jolted forward. What the hell? As quickly as it formed, it disappeared. She stood unharmed, staring at her hand. His heart felt like it might explode. For a second, he'd thought something horrible occurred…

  He blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what he witnessed. She held a key in her hand.

  "Is that a…?"

  She nodded, answering his unfinished question. "Seems to be."

  "And it zapped right into your hand. Because you asked for it." His head pounded. "Did you concentrate really hard?"

  "No." She stopped staring at the key and regarded him. "I get things. That's my gift. If I think too long about an object, it can appear in my vicinity. Usually in a large quantity. Like, for example, garbage bags. If I need one, I think about it, and then the next time I go into the apartment it's filled from top to bottom with garbage bags."

  Christophe looked around even as he pulled her into his arms. If keys were about to start wildly flying through the air, he didn't want her to be struck and hurt in any way by the objects.

  "I don't think it's going to work that way this time. It felt different."

  "How so?"

  He put his arm around her shoulder and moved her forward. How on earth would he ever keep this precious person safe? He'd been put on the planet to do so. The thought rolled around in his brain. Yes, he'd been sent to the planet to be with Ruby. To protect her.

  They'd been brought together, meant to always be as one. One of them should never have been separated from the other. He started to sweat. How did he know this? Why did he feel so sure?

  Soul mates. My god, how had he ever done without her?

  "Christophe?" He could see the way her pale skin gleamed in the streetlight in contrast to the night around them. "Are you okay?"

  "No." He grabbed her face in his hands. "The preacher is going to have to wait. Colin. I can't think of him. All I can focus on is you."

  Her pupils dilated, looking even bluer. "Christophe…"

  Even the way her name felt on his tongue felt like a gift. "Can't you feel this thing between the two of us?"

  A tear rolled down her cheek. "It's like an ache I've always had and didn't even know existed. Now, I'm wondering how much longer I can live without making it go away."

  He wiped away the wetness with his thumb. "Ruby, I have to kiss you."

  "God, please."

  He met her, mouth to mouth. The few touches they'd had earlier did nothing to prepare him for the way it felt to fuse his lips to hers. He'd been made for her, and like a drug he needed to live, her warmth invaded his soul, making him well for the first time ever.

  The rain picked up, increasing from a light dusting on their skin to a downpour. He didn't care.

  Together, they generated enough heat to warm the whole world. Ruby pulled back from him, and he touched the end of her nose, needing contact, to be constantly touching her.

  "I wish I could have a private room and a bed."

  He laughed, before horror slid up his spine. Were beds and rooms going to start flying around their heads?

  They both fell silent waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he exhaled loudly.

  "I wish I could just take us there."

  His power surged through his body. Seconds later, with her in his arms, they moved through space. Her scream rang in his ears. Had he controlled his own power?

  He hugged her tighter.

  Chapter Eight

  Ruby shook, her body feeling like it might never cease its rattling again. If not for Christophe's strong arms, she'd hit the floor. Where the hell had they gone? One second they'd stood on the street with so much sexual energy between them she thought a bomb might go off, the next instant they were swirling through nothingness going somewhere else.

  She had no idea what happened; the only thing she felt certain about was that she had not caused the moving through space. That had to be Christophe…or some other Outsider. Or, god forbid, Sebastian…

  "It's okay." Christophe sounded downright giddy as he squeezed her shoulders. "We moved through space to"—he looked left and right—"a bedroom. I don't know whose it is but someone's bedroom."

  Looking around, she laughed, wondering if she sounded like a lunatic. "It's my room. In the mansion."

  "I moved us." Why did he sound so happy? "Together. And I pretty much controlled it myself. I spoke aloud, and then I got to go to where I said I needed to go. That never happens. I'm always pulled out on a whim. No control."

  "That's great." She had to calm down. How did Christophe manage this on a regular basis? Her powers let her acquire weird objects, not bang in and out of places in swirls of nothingness with no warning.

  The key she held in her hand burned, and she looked down at it. Why did it hurt her? She held it up so Christophe could inspect it. "Does this look like anything weird to you? It's warming in my hand, almost painfully."

  "Hand it over."

  She gladly placed the object in the center of his palm. He curved his fingers around the key. "Feels cool to me, like the weather outside."

  "It's burning my fingers when I touch it."

&
nbsp; Christophe entwined their hands. "Your skin doesn't seem hot."

  "Are you suggesting I'm imagining it?" She bit down on the inside of her cheek. She really, really hated it when people doubted her experiences. It had been bad enough when she had been young and her grandparents had insisted the things she thought happened to her hadn't occurred.

  "No, sweetheart." He stroked a piece of her hair off her face. "Don't get all worked up. I'm simply saying I can't feel it. In the midst of all this lunacy, you think I question whether or not you can feel something I can't?"

  All right, now he turned out to be reasonable when she wanted to act just the opposite. "Christophe, I feel like I'm losing my mind."

  He stroked her hair, making her shiver. "I know. There's a lot going on right now."

  "One day I was living a relatively normal life. I mean, I had to hide things. Strange abilities no one should have and then—boom—the next day, I'm involved in an epic quest, trying to make sense of a language no one could possibly decipher, and there's life and death on my shoulders."

  "I understand."

  He really did seem to get what she meant. His eyes held hers, making promises of security he couldn't possibly deliver. Still, it had been a long time since anyone had even wanted to care for her. She blinked rapidly, knowing if she didn't get control of herself fast she'd start to cry.

  "Maybe I can make things start to feel better for you."

  Her insides melted. Men had never held much interest for her, at least not sexually. At least now she understood why. The universe had designed her for Christophe. It looked like her body had finally woken up to the idea of carnal desire.

  His words alone caused her knees to wobble.

  "This time when I kiss you, I'm not going to stop."

  She sucked in her breath. "That sounds…good."

  He raised an eyebrow. Why did he always come across as sophisticated when she felt so completely ridiculous?

  "I'd say…good…is an excellent descriptive word."

  He moved closer until their faces were almost touching. Her words sounded more like a sigh when she spoke. "You're always the professor. Complimenting my word choice?"