The Tempting: Seducing the Nephilim. D. M. Pratt

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СКАЧАТЬ the bathroom doorway towering above her, naked with his erect cock jutting into the room. It looked more like a weapon than a penis to Eve. When she could tear her eyes away from his raging erection, she looked up into his face. His expression was dreamlike and placid as if he were sleepwalking.

      “Beau,” she whispered.

      He didn’t look at her. He just stared wide-eyed into the room. Hearing his name, his erection melted and he turned and left without saying a word. Eve turned off the shower and listened as Beau’s footsteps padded down the hall and descended the back stairs. What the fuck was the only thought that passed through her head.

      She reached for a plush towel, gently dried herself and applied pear-scented lotion on her skin. Every inch of her skin ached as if it had been bruised, but there were no visible marks and the simple act of lotioning her body calmed her. Her hands vibrated with the slightest tremor like an old woman with weak muscles struggling to do the most mundane of tasks. Eve brushed and braided her hair into a long single plait. Her first step made it clear her legs were still weak. She dressed in a simple, pale green shift dress that gathered at her waist and had her favorite bone buttons running up its front. Carefully, she walked from her room, through the guest house second floor and down to the nursery. She suddenly felt concerned for her son’s safety. The look in Beau’s eyes haunted her. First she would take care of Philip, then she would deal with Beau.

      Philip’s room was peaceful and warm. Streams of soft yellow light reached through the window, flickering from harsh to soft, illuminating the chiffon curtains as they danced on the warm breeze that slipped in to fill the room. His nursery was the color of a summer sky with voluminous ivory clouds painted on the walls and ceiling. The color deepened into a periwinkle as it reached the bassinette and the clouds faded, allowing a tiny constellation of stars to splatter across the ceiling above her baby’s head. Eve tip-toed closer and looked down at her son with his black satin curls. He looked up at her. His eyes were the darkest brown she’d ever seen, the color of pure, bittersweet, dark chocolate found in the best Swiss candy. Sometimes, in low light, she would gaze into Philip’s eyes and feel as if she were drowning in two dark, shimmering pools of liquid velvet. His eyes seemed to pierce her soul. He knows I am losing my mind, she thought. His knowing stare held her. No matter how hard she tried, she was unable to look away. Again, she felt a rush of fear as she fell into her son’s eyes. He knew and then he would gurgle and smile and reach for her finger or pull her hair and the icy feeling of fear melted away and Eve fell in love all over again. Philip smiled up at her and Eve reached into his crib and gathered him up into her arms.

      After her strength returned, she and Philip would walk in the gardens and orchards surrounding their mansion, breathing the soft air of spring, then summer, and now the chill of fall. The unseasonably frosty nights had destroyed any fruit still left on the trees and turned the leaves from light green to a dark emerald and jade forest. It wouldn’t be long before the deciduous trees, the sycamore and elm, did their dance of color and turned to shades of gold, orange and burgundy, before dropping to the ground so she and Philip could play, roll around, and throw them into the cloudy blue sky and laugh as they watched leaves drift, caught on the swirl of an autumn breeze.

      Noticing the changes in weather reminded Eve of the many arguments she and her journalist friends had had about global warming. Eve suddenly realized she had not had a single thought about her career as a journalist since her prince charming had awakened her from her sleep. She felt a traitor to her feminist side and for a long moment she missed her job and Southern Style Magazine. Eve pushed the thoughts from her head. I’ll think about that tomorrow, she shrugged. Eve started to laugh out loud when she realized she was emulating a very famous southern belle. The Gregoire mansion could never be her Tara. She was not a southern belle, nor would she ever be. It went against her northern nature and for that, she was actually grateful.

      Eve wiped away her tears, smiled and kissed Philip’s head. “Your mommy is a very silly mommy,” she whispered.

Chapter Three

      Eve’s best friend Cora Bouvier had given birth to a beautiful baby girl she named Delia, short for Delia Jacqueline Bouvier. The fact that Beau was the father and about to marry Eve was, in true southern tradition, not discussed. Most days Cora and Delia would come to the estate, Cora to help with the decorating and Delia to play with Philip. The children were young, but both had a keen and urgent awareness of one another that Eve could not help but feel seemed well beyond their age. When Eve would sit in the tree swing on the back lawn while Delia and Philip explored the warm sun to play with an array of toys scattered around them on soft blankets, she would find herself gazing at Delia’s head of dark black curls and look into her eyes, which were the exact same sky blue as Beau’s. She would shake the thoughts of how Delia looked more like Beau than Philip. She wanted to feel betrayed, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t. Cora was her best friend in ways Eve could never explain and that she and Beau sought refuge in each other’s arms the night her doctor told them Eve would probably never wake from her coma was somehow forgivable. It was, according to both, only one night. And what if she had died? What then of her soul mate, her son and her best friend? Mostly, Beau and Cora having loved each other was a good feeling. Mostly.

      Now and again though, something about this awkward gothic romance novel—absurd and melodramatic—reality involving her husband-to-be and father to her best friend’s child upset her stomach and made her head spin. Because she loved them both, Eve asked them to search their hearts, to make sure their love and their life together wasn’t what was supposed to be. They’d had months to get to know each other and she’d had only one dance. Eve felt she had a mysterious déjà vu with Beau, while Beau and Cora had actual time on their side. Eve wanted to say she would step aside. She wanted to say she understood their bizarre circumstances were unprecedented and who was she to stand in the way of their love. But she couldn’t force the words past her lips. Both Beau and Cora had insisted that their coming together was because they both loved her so much. When faced with the idea they were losing her, they had comforted each other once and from that union, Delia was conceived and born.

      Eve saw the sincerity in their eyes and believed their words, which gave her some peace. Yet, it was hard to see them when they looked at each other or hugged hello or good-bye, laughed or shared their little girl as she played with her half brother … how could she not wonder about what feelings still lingered in Beau or in Cora? Even more unnerving was the feeling Eve experienced when she looked into Delia’s eyes; some unexplainable connection that made her want to cry. Hormones, Eve thought, fucking hormones. Then she would push the fears away, give Delia a hug and set her down to play on the blanket, happy to watch as she crawled to grab Philip’s hair and make him giggle with delight. Hormones she’d remind herself again and again, but months had passed and that excuse was wearing thin.

      Mornings would come, nights would go and her world was by all who looked in, perfect—and it was, except for those raw snippets of demon-filled nightmares that as of recently had found their way into bizarre daydreams carrying with them shadowy details that repeated in the terrifying nightmares she’d fought so hard to hold at bay. For months she had been winning the battle on her own, refusing to take the narcoleptic medication that would have prevented her from breast feeding Philip. Her therapist, Dr. Honoré, suggested she face her dreams head on. She’d offered hypnotherapy, but Beau insisted Eve not even consider such an idea.

      “No drugs and no hypnosis,” he all but pleaded.

      Dr. Honoré smiled pleasantly and told her the offer stood if Eve ever wanted to reconsider. In some hidden recess of her mind Eve knew she needed to face the demons in her dreams especially if they meant she might be going insane. That possibility frightened her; a need no less powerful than the need of an alcoholic to taste that next drink was her hunger to understand. Dr. Honoré said the day would come and when it did, understanding it could free her. Her fear was that СКАЧАТЬ