Semi-Magical Page 4

  But Riddick wasn’t done just yet. He went harder, faster, his movements strong and confident, but he was losing control. She could feel it in the tightening of his muscles, the catch in his breathing. The fact that she could make a man like him lose control never ceased to amaze her…or turn her on. In fact, it turned her on so much that a third orgasm snuck up on her and threw her totally off-guard.

  And that’s when Riddick finally let go. He cursed and groaned as he buried himself in her as deep as he could and came loud and long, just like she had.

  Riddick collapsed on top of her, bracing his weight with an arm on either side of her head, and buried his face in her hair. His heart pounded against her, seeming to keep time with her own.

  Harper felt like a limp, sated, puddle of noodles. “That was intense,” she said, her face still pressed to the desk, her breathing still rough.

  He let out a slow, satisfied sigh. “That’s what happens when I spend a week away from you. Every time I heard your voice on the phone was foreplay. Seven days of foreplay, basically.”

  She laughed. “We could’ve had phone sex. Maybe that would’ve taken the edge off.”

  He eased out of her and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “There’s no substitute for the real thing.”

  Harper smiled and rolled over to face him. “Was it worth the wait?”

  He leaned in and rested his forehead against hers. “Always.”

  She gave him a quick kiss before standing up and trying to find her pants. He must’ve ripped them off and tossed them over his shoulder, because she found them flung over the umbrella rack by the door.

  Only when she was pulling up her pants and he was tucking himself back into his jeans did her sex-induced amnesia clear up. “I really did need to talk to you about something important,” she said.

  “Uh huh.”

  She frowned. “Do you not believe me or something? Do you think you can just distract me with sex every time you want to avoid a conversation?”

  He smirked at her, and she barely refrained from throwing her shoe at him. “Smug bastard,” she muttered. “Just because you distracted me with sex this time doesn’t mean that’ll always work.”

  “Fine,” he conceded. “I’m sorry I distracted you with sex.”

  His tone said the exact opposite, Harper noticed.

  “But,” he went on, “the last time you came charging in here telling me we ‘really need to talk’ was when Tiny stopped selling cheesy tots at The Rag Tag and you wanted me to threaten him into making them for you.”

  “Well, he was being unreasonable,” she grumbled. “But this time I really did have big news! I mean, I get why you’re skeptical, because I might have abused the ‘we really need to’ phrase in the past.”

  There was that damn smirk of his again when he said, “Maybe once or twice.”

  She scowled. “But if you’re going to choose to not believe me when I say we really need to talk, we’re going to need a code word or something. When I really have big news I need to discuss with you, I’ll give you the code word, OK? I agree to never abuse the code word, and you agree to never ignore the code word. Make sense?”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Why not? What’s the code word?”

  She thought for a moment. “The code word is…kerfuffle.”

  He raised a brow at her. “Kerfuffle?”

  “Yep. It’s a great word. Wouldn’t normally come up in conversation. If I say ‘kerfuffle’, you’ll know I’m about to tell you something serious and you aren’t allowed to distract me with me your tongue. Or your fingers. Or your dick.”

  Riddick shook his head, dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose, and said, “Fine. So I assume you’re calling kerfuffle now?”

  “Big kerfuffle. Huge. Maybe the biggest kerfuffle ever.”

  He gave her an arms-wide, hit-me-with-it gesture, so she did. “Adrianne is at my mom’s house with Haven. They’re having a sleepover so that they can be like Anna and Elsa. Oh, and I think my dad tried to recruit her into his super-secret Sentry 2.0 plot, so we need to up our game and figure out how to stop him to keep her safe.”

  She gave him a minute to process all that. It was a lot. And for a guy who didn’t normally even have that many emotions, let alone discuss and process them…well, it was a big ask.

  But after a full minute and thirty seconds of slack-jawed, narrow-eyed processing, Riddick asked, “So…she’s with us now?”

  Harper let out a relieved breath. He’d chosen to focus on the joy of having his daughter with him and getting to know her as opposed to the murder-y rage he most likely felt at the idea of Addy being in danger and needing protection. This was better than she ever could’ve hoped for. “Yes,” she said gently. “Addy is with us now.”

  He put his hands on his hips and nodded, then dropped his head. “Kerfuffle,” he whispered.

  Damn straight, kerfuffle.

  Chapter Six

  By the time Harper and Riddick got back to her mom’s house, everything was uncharacteristically quiet. Tina was upstairs helping Haven wash and braid her hair, while Seven and Addy were huddled together on the couch discussing something that looked very…intense. Lucas and Lucky, Marina and Quinn, and Hunter and Mischa had gone home.

  Seven and Addy looked up when Harper and Riddick walked in, and when father and daughter locked eyes on each other, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. The power in the room—both the emotional power of this moment and the actual power everyone had—was almost overpowering. Harper, who pretty much always had something to say, couldn’t even force any words out of her dry throat.

  She glanced back at Riddick and the look on his face brought tears to her eyes. The longing, the love, the sadness over all the missed years…it was all there. He wanted to grab Addy and hug her, Harper could tell. But he was rooted to the spot with his hand on his heart, trying to find words.

  Addy proved to be the strongest person in the room when she stood up, licked her lips, and took a step toward Riddick. “Look,” she began, “don’t say anything yet. Please. If what everyone here says about you is true, you’ll let me read you.” She extended a hand to him. “Take my hand and think about all the years we were apart before you say anything, OK?”

  Bless her cynical little heart, Harper thought. She wouldn’t be able to let herself believe anything he said, but she wouldn’t be able to deny anything she saw.

  Something told her Addy was going to be one hell of a powerful psychic when she grew up. And with a little training? She’d be unstoppable.

  Riddick was no amateur when it came to psychics. Being married to one and raising one had insured he was anything but squeamish when it came to having his thoughts read. He didn’t even hesitate. He reached out and sandwiched her tiny hand between his own and looked her right in the eye without so much as a flinch.

  She looked surprised for a split second that he’d acquiesced so easily, but once the visions started hitting her, her eyes fluttered shut.

  Harper watched her absorbing all those thoughts, all those feelings. Her expression changed as she held her father’s hand, flitting between sadness and anger and frustration, longing and desperation. Everything Riddick had felt over the years clearly registered on her face. Addy’s eyes were squeezed shut, but that didn’t stop tears from spilling down her cheeks.

  Riddick moved one hand to brush away her tears. “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he said, his voice even rougher than usual with emotion. “Please. I can’t take it. It’ll be all right. I promise.”

  She sniffled and opened her eyes, but made no move to pull her hand out of his. “I know it will,” she whispered. “You really did want me, didn’t you?”

  He dropped to his knees so that they were the same height and she was forced to look him right in the eye. “More than anything.”

  Well, you didn’t need to be a psychic to know he was telling the truth, Harper thought. The sincerity in his voice and his eyes were irrefutable.

  Addy kn
ew it, too, because it didn’t take her but half a heartbeat to throw herself at him, looping her arms around his neck and squeezing the crap out of him. He hugged her back with equal enthusiasm. Harper couldn’t hold back a little sob of her own. It wasn’t every day you got to see a Hallmark-Channel type family reunion right in your own mom’s living room.

  Seven, completely oblivious to all the emotion in the room, as usual, popped up next to her and said, “You guys took forever to get here.”

  Harper felt a blush coming on as she remembered why they’d taken so long to get there. Even though she actually got there really fast. Riddick had made sure of that. Heh. Who didn’t love a good double entendre? “Um…sorry. What did you guys do while we were gone?”

  Addy glanced up at her over Riddick’s shoulder and said, “Seven taught me eight ways to kill a man with a pencil.”

  Harper blinked at her, then turned to Seven, mouth agape. “You taught her what?”

  Seven shrugged. “We couldn’t find the Parcheesi board.”

  Riddick let go of Addy, but stayed at her side as he stood up. He raised a brow at Seven. “Only eight?”

  “She’s very young,” Seven said reasonably. “The other four would be inappropriate until she’s eighteen. I’ll teach her then.”

  Riddick nodded. “Makes sense.”

  Harper frowned. “Please tell me you didn’t teach Haven any of that.”

  Seven scoffed. “Of course not.”

  Cue huge motherly sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God.”

  “She said she already knew all twelve.”

  Cue stern motherly stare at Riddick, who looked vaguely embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said, only sounding sorry that he’d been caught. Addy stifled a giggle behind her fist and Riddick winked down at her.

  Harper face-palmed. So much for their big, emotional, Hallmark-y moment. It would seem that Addy was now fully indoctrinated into the insanity that was Harper and Riddick’s life.

  God help the poor kid.

  Chapter Seven

  The next two days were fairly insane, even by Harper’s standards. Getting Addy settled into a new homeschooling routine—thank God Tina was willing to take charge of that, because math, science, and other…education-y things weren’t exactly Harper’s strong suit—hadn’t been easy.

  And arranging for extra protection for Haven—because you can never be too careful with the light of your life when deranged grandpas trying to build genetically engineered super- soldiers were on the loose—had taken some finagling, too. Turned out Haven’s preschool wasn’t 100% onboard with having two hulking dhampyres accompany her child to class every day. Made the other parents and kids jumpy, they said. Harper had resisted the urge to call them all a bunch of pansies and insisted that Nikolai and Quinn stick by Haven’s side all day anyway. As a compromise, she’d had them leave their weapons at home.

  Anyone who said she wasn’t flexible could kiss her ass, then fuck right off.

  Now all that was left to resolve was how to find her father, crush whatever pathetic little rebellion he was trying to stage, and toss him into the deepest, darkest pit that Midvale had to offer for the rest of his natural-born days. Easy, right?

  Yeah, not so much.

  Harper threw her hands wide in exasperation, leaning back in her chair at the head of the conference room table. “So none of you can find him? Seriously? It’s been months. How can anyone who was willing to take prisoners and blackmail me eight months ago be that hard to find?”

  Seven crossed her arms over her chest. “He got his ass pretty soundly kicked that day he came for you and Marina. His entire force of mercs was turned over to the Vampire Council, and the ones who didn’t swear their loyalty to Hunter and Mischa were tossed into Midvale. I’m sure he’s in hiding, biding his time, trying to come up with a new plan.”

  From his seat at Seven’s side, Lucas leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “The guy’s a ghost, Harper. He’s Casper. In the wind. Jason Bourne. Like fog coming in on little cat feet. Like—”

  Harper rolled her eyes. “I get it. He’s elusive. And ‘like fog on little cat feet’? Since when do you quote poetry, Lucas?”

  He cocked his head and raised a brow at her. “What, because I’m pretty, I can’t be cultured?”

  This time eyes rolled all around the table.

  Riddick reached over and grabbed Harper’s hand. “We’ll find him,” he said quietly.

  “I know we will,” she grumbled. “It’s just taking too long.”

  Suddenly, Benny sat up straighter and dropped his feet off the conference room table. “What if instead of trying to find him, we tried to lure him out?”

  “Like, set a trap?” Seven asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Look, he wanted that Sentry scientist, right? The guy in Midvale?”

  “Anton Kristoff,” Harper answered. “He did want him, but Hunter and Mischa questioned that guy. He’s a total nut job—and not the useful kind. He only communicates in word salad, and when Hunter read his mind, the guy didn’t have any coherent thoughts. He’s fried, probably from all those years in a cell by himself. The guy’s useless to us.”

  “But your father probably doesn’t know that,” Riddick said. “He probably still considers Anton the key to his whole world domination plan.”

  “And if we move him,” Lucas added, “the bad guys might make a run at him.”

  “Then we can grab one and torture him into giving up Harper’s father and wherever their base is.” Seven cracked her knuckles. “Excellent.”

  Benny shook his head at her. “You are absolutely terrifying, you know that?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been told it runs in my family.”

  “Fuckin’-A,” Riddick said, reaching out and bumping knuckles with his sister.

  “Do you think his men are watching Midvale?” Harper asked. “Do you think that’s why they came after Addy? To goad us into making a move on Anton?”

  Lucas lifted his palms in a who-the-fuck-knows gesture. “After what happened last time, there’s no way anyone’s coming after you, Seven, Marina, or Haven again. Addy would’ve been easier to get to, that’s for sure.”

  Harper frowned. “They didn’t take her. Surely they knew Cecelia would come to Riddick for help if they threatened Addy.”

  “They didn’t threaten her, though,” Riddick said. “They said they wanted to recruit her. Something’s not adding up.”

  “Well,” Harper said on a sigh, “I refuse to use Addy as bait to lure my dad out of hiding, so I guess there’s really only one way to make all the pieces fit. We’re going to have to bust Anton out of Midvale.”

  “I got shot at last time I tried to break someone out of Midvale,” Lucas said.

  Seven pursed her lips. “It all worked out fine, didn’t it?”

  He grinned at her and leaned in to press a smacking kiss on her lips. “Better than I could’ve ever hoped for.”

  Riddick made a gagging sound, and Harper rolled her eyes. “I figured we’d try for a more straightforward approach this time,” she said.

  Benny made a snoring noise. “Straightforward? Sounds like a snooze-fest.”

  “You think I can’t make straightforward fun, Benny?” Harper pouted. “You underestimate me.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Let me get this straight. You want me to give you my approval to break into Midvale and help a prisoner escape?”

  Harper fought back her impatience. “Hunter, I know you’re old, but I’ve explained this three times. What the fuck?”

  Hunter leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. “It doesn’t make sense. I can just give you permission to take him out. Why go to the effort of a prison break?”

  “Because I don’t want the bad guys to know I have your approval. If they think you’re involved, they won’t make a run at him. You’re way too scary.”

  He glanced over at Mischa, who was sitting on the corner of his desk. She shrugged. “It’s true. P
eople find you scary. This can’t be news to you.”

  “Most women find you super-hot, though, if that helps,” Harper said.

  His brow furrowed when Mischa confirmed, “They do. When she’s right, she’s right.”

  Harper nodded. “My cousin Selena said she’d like to lick you like a Popsicle.” Then she frowned and added, “I’d actually steer clear of Selena if I were you. I went to grab a piece of gum from her purse one time and found a roll of duct tape, some zip ties, and a really sketchy-looking unlabeled pill bottle. She’s, like, one rented panel van away from being a suspected kidnapper-slash-rapist, if I’m being honest.”

  He looked nonplused by that info for a moment, then sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose—the very picture of annoyed, put-upon alpha male. “If I tell you that you have my permission to do whatever you want at Midvale on the condition that no one gets hurt and there’s no major property damage, will you leave my home and let us never speak of any of this again?”

  Harper pursed her lips thoughtfully before saying, “Define major.”

  He pointed to the door. “Get out.”

  She jumped up and grinned at him. “Thanks, Hunter. I owe you one.” Then she gave Mischa a two-finger salute.

  Mischa just shook her head fondly.

  On her way out the door of Hunter’s home office, she ran—quite literally—into Lane, Mischa and Hunter’s daughter.

  “Hey, beautiful,” Harper said out loud and in American Sign Language. “Have you figured out how to take over the world yet?”

  Lane looked up at her with her big, dark, solemn, way-older-looking-than-five eyes and signed back a simple hello. Then the cute little punk smirked at her, letting her know that world domination wasn’t off the table just because she was wearing a Peppa Pig T-shirt and jeans with little pink hearts sewn on the knees.

  Harper watched as Lane sidestepped her, running into Mischa’s waiting arms. She wasn’t much of a crier, but even Harper’s eyes got a little misty at the sight of her best friend hugging her daughter.