Page 28 of Resurrecting His Soul
“Trust me, I don’t plan to live here forever,” Allison said. “I love you, but that doesn’t mean I want to live in your boyfriend’s guest house for good. Still, you know I’m not going anywhere while this bitch is still a threat to you. I might not be able to beat her in a fight, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help you outsmart her if push comes to shove.”
“Oh, you’re definitely smarter than her.”
“No shit!”
They both laughed and Allison fell back onto the couch, mimicking Lisandra.
“So,” Lisandra said, “we’re both staying?”
Allison let out a long breath. “Yeah, we’re staying. For now. First sign of trouble—”
“I know,” Lisandra cut her off. “You’re yanking my ass out of here.”
“Damn straight.”
Allison leaned over and squeezed her knee. They spent some time just hanging out outside and enjoying the nice weather. Talking about things that didn’t matter. It was nice having time together, just the two of them. Lisandra might have fallen head-over-heels in love with Ricardo, but no one would ever take Allison’s place in her heart, and she never wanted to be faced with living a life without her. She would stop Melina herself if that was what it took to keep Allison safe, but for the moment she was just going to enjoy her best friend’s company.
ChapterEighteen
Ricardo
It was crazy how he had gone from spending the majority of his nights alone over four centuries to hating that he was spending one night alone after meeting Lisandra. Instead of sleeping he sat up all night repeatedly walking to the French doors at the back of the house to look across the yard towards the guest house. The guest house where Allison had drug Lisandra hours earlier. The lights never went out and neither of them left the house aside from the time he’d seen them sitting out on the patio. He opened the back door multiple times but shut it before he walked across the yard to pull Lisandra away from her friend. He would have loved nothing more than to have Lisandra all to himself, but that wasn’t fair to her. It was good that she had Allison on her side, even if it did mean sharing his time with Lisandra. In the grand scheme of things, Lisandra didn’t have a lot of time to spend with Allison. One day Allison would be gone, and he knew Lisandra needed to spend time with her friend while she could. Even if he knew Allison wanted her to leave. If he was a less selfish man, he would encourage her to leave with her friend. Melina was a threat. He couldn’t keep turning a blind eye to her outbursts, even if he had been the one to teach her to be so ruthless.
Sleep was out of the question, so he decided to lose himself in some mindless writing. It was something he had done as long as he could remember, even as a human. When he opened his laptop, he was surprised to see it was shutdown. He rarely shut it completely down, usually opting to just close the screen and allowing it to go to sleep. Maybe it had a power failure. Curious, he opened Chrome and pulled up the history. Everything from the past few days had been erased. Had to have been Melina. He never bothered cleaning the history, and he would have known if Lisandra had been on his laptop. Melina, on the other hand, had proven she couldn’t be trusted since she showed up and caught him kissing Lisandra that first time in the back yard. A sick feeling washed over him. Melina wouldn’t need to hide what she’d been doing on his laptop if it hadn’t been something she knew would piss him off. If Melina did anything to hurt Lisandra, he would not be able to live with himself.
Fear gripped him and he was out the door. He ran across the back yard and snatched the door to the guest house open so fast it flew open and slammed into the outside wall of the house with a loud crack. Lisandra was off the couch in a flash, putting herself between Allison and the door he’d just come through.
“What the hell, Ricardo?” Lisandra yelled. Her canines were extended and her body was stiff, braced for a fight. She looked pissed. Allison walked around her, rubbing her eyes like she’d just woken up.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he ran through the house, checking every room, and only went back to the living room once he was certain nobody else was lurking in or around the house. Lisandra still stood in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed on him. He could feel her annoyance like it was his own. It wasn’t the first time he thought he could sense her emotions, but this time he was sure it was her emotions he was feeling. It was strange, yet at the same time he liked knowing how connected they were. Of all the things he had experienced as a vampire, this connection with Lisandra was his favorite.
“Ricardo, what are you doing?” Lisandra pulled him out of his thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just had this weird feeling,” he rubbed at his chest, “and I needed to see that you were okay.”
“What do you mean?” Lisandra asked. Her arms dropped to her sides, and she seemed to let go of her annoyance.
Ricardo ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe it’s nothing, but someone used my computer and erased the history. Melina is the only one I could think of that would need to delete the history, and that means she was up to no good. The two of you have been over here alone for hours and I… shit… I just had to know you were okay.”
Lisandra closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a quick kiss. “We’re fine. We just fell asleep binging some Netflix.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her even closer. He buried his face in her hair and took a deep breath, inhaling her intoxicating scent. He whispered against her hair, “Thank God.”
“Uh, um,” Allison cleared her throat. “You two are cute and all, but you want to elaborate on why you were so worried Melina had gotten to us?”
“Nothing specific,” he said, “other than what I mentioned about her using my computer and trying to cover her tracks. I just had this sick feeling hit me when I found that, and my feet were carrying me here before my mind caught up to where I was going.”
“How sweet,” Allison crooned. “You were worried about me. Well, don’t I get a kiss too?”
Lisandra stuck her tongue out at Allison, and Ricardo grinned. “Back off,” Lisandra told Allison. “Find your own soulmate.”
“Soulmate,” Ricardo said. The corner of his mouth tilted up. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.” Lisandra laced her fingers in his hair.
“Hello,” Allison said. “If you’re going to undress each other, can you leave the room first?”
“Maybe we will,” Lisandra said.
