MYTHE & MAGICK.
by SHILOH WALKER.
To my editor Pam, the Wondrous One.
To my kids Cam and Jess-my world revolves around you two. I love you both.
And to my husband Jerry. My real life fantasy... I love you.
AVALON.
Chapter One.
June 1999
If he was honest, it was that cool, icy composure that had first attracted him. She was like a rose encased in ice, and he was drawn to bring her out. And G.o.d help him if any of their co-workers had any inkling just how poetic his thoughts became when Seth thought of Erin.
Her hair fell halfway down her back in razor-straight silky tresses of pale, pale blonde, brows just slightly darker arching over pale, ice-blue eyes. Her skin was ivory and peaches and as soft as satin.
And the taste of her...
Man, the taste of her was pure s.e.x. Again, she brought peaches to mind, hot juicy, ripe peaches just plucked from the tree. She was addictive.
Erin Sinclair was every man"s dream. She offered no promises, accepted none, asked for none. She didn"t steal the covers at night and didn"t presume that simply spending the night meant a wedding ring. In bed, she was hot and wild and everything Seth could hope for.
Yep, Erin Sinclair was every man"s dream.
Every man but Seth Porter.
Because she was every bit as distant as the stars.
And he was head-over-heels in love with her. Seth wanted nothing more than to promise her the moon, and have her make the same promise back to him.
Currently, the object of his brooding thoughts sat some fifteen feet away, calmly working on a report in the midst of the chaos of the bullpen. All around, voices were raised, the voices of pleading suspects, weeping mothers, raging fathers, hara.s.sed overworked public defenders, and under it all, the voices of the detectives that worked the 53rd precinct of Avalon Police Department.
Avalon. Man, what a joke. This city was as far from perfect as it could possibly be. Oh, it had a well-to-do area where the doctors and lawyers drove their Mercedes with lily-white, smooth hands, where the lawns were manicured and green and lush.
But that area was small, isolated, an island surrounded by crime, corruption, and chaos. The rest of Avalon sat so far apart that they may as well have been in different countries, never mind the fact that they shared the same area code.
Seth Porter was from that part of Avalon, where prost.i.tutes, druggies, and derelicts ran wild. Seth was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, plain and simple, and had no qualms about admitting it. His father, most likely Italian, had taken what he wanted from his momma while she worked as a c.o.c.ktail waitress and part-time stripper at a sleazy Avalon night spot called The Lady of Avalon. If he had promised her the world and a diamond ring and a ticket out of this h.e.l.lhole, Anita Porter had never mentioned it to Seth.
Instead she accepted the fact that she had been naive and started working double shifts, saving as much money as she could before she started to show and got booted out on her f.a.n.n.y.
After that, she had applied for a job at the precinct and for some odd, completely obscure reason, had landed it, and worked there to this day. She"d worked her way from the janitorial staff up to secretary, did a brief spot as dispatcher, and then worked her way into the archives. Anita ran her own little kingdom in the precinct with an iron fist and even the most hardened, jaded detective knew better than take a file from her precious room without signing it out.
And heaven help him if he kept it any longer than she felt was necessary.
Seth threw his pen down on the table and shoved the report away. Glancing at the clock, he scowled, realizing just how late it was.
Erin. He could tune out everything in the bullpen, the voices of the d.a.m.ned, the smell of unwashed bodies and tobacco and stale alcohol, the clacking of typewriters and the hum of computers and modems.
But he could not, for the life of him, block Erin Sinclair from his mind.
Erin truly was a lady of Avalon, the daughter of one of the well-respected, well-to-do members of the inner set. Mr. Eric Sinclair had run the top accounting firm in the city, and had his hand in some of the finer real estate pieces in several of the surrounding cities. He had been upright, he had been honest, and he was a decent enough person, even if he did have a bit of a stick up his a.s.s.
Mrs. Eric Sinclair had been a society lady until her death eight years earlier. Seth laughed to think of anybody ever calling that powdered, pampered and perfumed lady a housewife.
Not that she couldn"t cook, he knew. Her chocolate chip cookies were reputed to make a grown man beg from a hundred yards away. If that was where Erin had learned the recipe, then Seth knew from experience, it was fact.
Erin, their only daughter, borderline genius, honor student, graduate of Yale, was one of the detectives out of vice.
Why she had chosen to become a cop was beyond his comprehension, but she was a d.a.m.n good cop, razor-sharp instincts, a good eye, and fair.
Those instincts were nothing short of miraculous. She could work a case like a terrier, gnawing and chewing at it until it all came together. It was uncanny, the way she could size a person up in barely a blink, know whether or not that person was the one she needed, or the one who would lead her to the one she needed.
And you couldn"t lie to her.
Most cops developed an instinct about cons and liars and could recognize them easily enough.
She didn"t recognize. She just knew, in a way that was downright eerie sometimes. That was how she had left her uniform behind so quickly, how she had become a detective after only two years on the streets.
Drumming his fingers on the desk, he continued to stare at her, a frown marring his features. Black, wavy hair tumbled over his forehead, and the scowl sat rather well on his poetically handsome face. His normally smiling mouth was compressed into a grim line, and his straight black brows pulled down over his deep, deep, brown eyes. High, chiseled cheekbones and a mouth that no plastic surgeon could ever hope to duplicate completed his face, a face that had started setting girls to dreaming before he even got to junior high.
Erin knew he was watching her. h.e.l.l, she thought with inner amus.e.m.e.nt, he had always watched her from the day she had left her uniform behind and entered the private sanctum of Avalon"s small detective force. Even before that, she suspected.
Idly, as if just noticing his scrutiny, she glanced up at Seth and smiled at him as a shiver raced down her spine. Just looking at him-even after two years of being his lover and friend-just looking at him was enough to make her mouth water and her knees go weak.
His lids drooped slightly as one corner of his mouth lifted. Erin"s heart starting racing as his eyes focused on her mouth before trailing down her neck and torso, lazily working back up again until he was once more staring into her eyes.
Something was bothering him.
Tearing her gaze away from him wasn"t as easy as she made it appear and that hot, lingering glance had her insides jumping, though she kept a clear, calm mask on her face. Seth Porter had always had the ability to make her body do a slow, subtle meltdown.
He could make her laugh, make her crazy, make her needy. He had already made her love him, something she had sworn she would never do.
She knew him like no other could, even though she doubted he understood just how well she knew him. Erin knew that he wasn"t happy with her, and she knew him well enough to know why.
Erin also knew, as much as it hurt, that there was nothing she could do about it.
She had no intention of getting any more involved with him. As much as she loved him, it wouldn"t be fair.
Not when she had known, from the time she"d turned fifteen that she would die before her thirtieth birthday.
Mentally, she sighed. She should have never given in to him. It wasn"t as if she lacked for male company. She had one or two friends who would have been glad to share a meal and the lonely nights with her, without her becoming too attached.
Attached? she thought, half-hysterically. Is that how you describe how you feel, Erin? Attached?
Erin could all but hear his muttered curse when she finally dragged her gaze away from him, returning her eyes, if not her attention, to the report before her.
Hurling his pen down on the battered, scarred desk, Seth shot to his feet and jerked his jacket on, automatically shifting the side holster he wore into place. d.a.m.n, it infuriated him the way she could shut him out, the way she could carry on during the day as though she hadn"t spent the night whimpering and moaning in his arms. When he was f.u.c.king her-hilt-deep inside that tight, sweet, pale body of hers-that was the only time she ever showed any emotion.
His heart was on his d.a.m.n sleeve for the whole world to see and Erin was able to sit there, making polite chitchat with their superiors as though she and Seth were mere acquaintances. While he wanted to throttle any man who so much as smiled at her, Erin merely chuckled with amus.e.m.e.nt when the ADA practically stripped herself nude and offered her small, lush body up to him.
He wanted marriage.
Erin wouldn"t even consider them living together.
Storming out of the bullpen, hands jammed into the pockets of his rumpled jeans, Seth wished wholeheartedly he had never given in to the urge to ask the ice queen out on a date.
Seth collapsed atop Erin, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, his large body trembling and soaked with sweat. Beneath the length of his long, rangy body, he could feel the shudders that still racked Erin"s subtly curved form, could still feel the aftershocks of her climax squeezing around him. The spasms that racked her body would linger and her p.u.s.s.y would hug his c.o.c.k for long minutes before she was done, and Seth would want to f.u.c.k her again before it was over.
The pale skein of her hair was held in one tight fist, as he buried his dark, swarthy face in the hollow of her neck, breathing in the soft, sweet scent of vanilla and peaches. Cupping the firm, smooth curve of her a.s.s in his hand, he groaned and rocked into her, grinding his narrow hips against her as she convulsed rhythmically around him, the hot creamy sheath draining him totally dry.
When her body finally stopped shuddering, his arms closed around her as he turned and shifted, tucking her against his side. Closing his eyes, Seth gave in to the urge to cuddle her close as he so desperately needed. She snuggled up against him as she always had in the past, but it no longer gave him the hope that she felt the same way about him that he did about her.
d.a.m.nation, he loved her.
"Are you going to tell me what"s bothering you?" she asked quietly, tracing a path across his chest with the tip of her nail. Her lashes lifted slowly, revealing her pale blue eyes, warm and sleepy, as full of emotion as he would ever see them.
Catching her hand, he raised it to his lips, pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. "It"s nothing, Erin," he murmured, dragging the scent of her skin into his lungs. Even as he lied, he hoped she would call him on it.
But she merely sighed and laced her fingers with his.
Frustrated, Seth disentangled himself from her arms and sat up, hanging his legs over the side of the bed, the cold floor beneath his feet, while he stared into the dark room. "Erin, I hate this."
Sitting up, securing the sheet around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Erin asked calmly, "Hate what?" But she knew. She had known before she had even heard him unlock her door that night.
It was over.
"Not being able to be with you every night," he said, getting to his feet. Snagging his jeans, he tugged them on before turning to face her. She sat in the huge bed, sheets tumbled, hair disheveled, her eyes clear and placid, steady on his. Just looking at her had a fist closing around his heart. "I hate trying to pretend that we are just casual acquaintances when everybody who knows us knows that"s bulls.h.i.t."
"Seth-"
"I need you with me, not just a few nights a week. Always."
Finally, finally, something broke that calm. The word always. Her eyes dropped away from him, and she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. A sapphire stud glinted there, reflecting the dim light filtering through the window. "Seth, we"ve talked about this before."
Always? She didn"t have always. She had only a handful of tomorrows left and he wanted always.
"No. I"ve asked before, and you"ve talked around it. I want to know why you won"t make any promises, why you don"t want me making them to you," he said, shoving a hand through his damp, tumbled hair. "I love you, Erin."
Her slim, pale shoulders dropped and she lowered her head.
"d.a.m.n it, can"t you say it back? Just once? Even if it"s just a lie?" he demanded, planting his hands on his hips and glaring at her. His black curls tumbled onto his forehead, the muscles in his chest still gleaming from the sweat of their lovemaking. Just looking at him made her body ache.
And she was pushing him away.
"I won"t lie, Seth." But I won"t tell you something that will make it even harder for you when the time comes.
Closing his eyes, Seth dropped down on the bed, sitting on the edge, staring at the hardwood floor. "I can"t keep doing this, Erin," he said quietly, tiredly. "I love you; I think I fell in love with you that first night. But I want a life with you, not just a few nights a week, whenever it pleases you."
"Seth, it"s not like that."
Casting a glance over his naked shoulder, he said, "From my position, that is exactly what it feels like." Rising, he spotted his shirt lying next to her silk camisole. Grabbing both, he tugged the shirt over his head, and stood twisting the fragile silk around his large, gentle hands. "You"re everything to me, Erin. But I don"t mean the same to you. I deserve better than that."
Silently, not looking at her for fear his resolve would break, he took his keys, slid his feet into his well-worn loafers and left, her silk camisole crushed in his hand.
Behind him, tears slid down her pale cheeks. Biting her lip, she held back the sob until she heard the door close.
Into the silent apartment, she whispered, "I love you, Seth."
Sitting slumped at his desk, he stared at his computer, the resignation letter neatly typed, spell-checked, all ready to print out and sign. All he had to do was. .h.i.t the print key.
And give up what was left of his heart.
It had been nearly two weeks since he had walked away from Erin. Two weeks that had weighed heavily on him. Seeing her almost every d.a.m.n day, as composed as the first time he saw her, while he looked like h.e.l.l and felt even worse.
"I wouldn"t if I were you," a soft familiar voice said from behind him, a small loving hand resting on his broad shoulder.
"Mom," he said, staring at the screen, tuning out the chaos around him.
"That"s not going to make you feel any better. Only time can do that," she told him, squeezing. "It would rip you apart to quit this job."
"They need detectives everywhere," he replied, shrugging.
Anita studied him with gentle, knowing eyes as she shook her head and said, "Not like they need you here. And everywhere is not where you want to be."
"I can"t take being around her all the d.a.m.n time," he said through clenched teeth, keeping his voice low, even though he wanted to shout, wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands. "d.a.m.n it, it doesn"t even affect her. Two d.a.m.n years together, and she doesn"t give a d.a.m.n."