put it on and concentrate on me and no matter where I am, I’ll come to help you. I swear it.”
For a moment, he thought she was going to give it back. But then she simply tucked the Think-me into her purse and nodded.
“Thank you, Raze,” she said quietly. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Please call me if you need me,” he told her. “I’m not sure why you need money so badly and I can tell you don’t want to tell me. But if there’s anything I can help with, let me know and I’ll come running. I promise you that, Lucia.”
She nodded again and he thought he saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. But she turned away before he could be sure.
“Goodbye, Lucia,” he said quietly.
“Goodbye, Raze.” Her voice was muffled and she swiped at her cheeks before digging the keys to her vehicle out of her purse.
Raze felt his heart throb with longing. If only he could call her back and put his arms around her! If only he could bond her to him and make her his forever and adopt her little family as his own to love and protect!
But he couldn’t. For a hybrid like him, it was next to impossible.
So he watched her get into her own vehicle and drive away, his heart full of unspoken love he knew he could do nothing about.
Nineteen
Luci cried all the way home. Seeing the big Kindred again had been like opening a wound. On the way up to the Mother Ship, she had been hoping that she was at least partly over him. But when she looked into his mismatched eyes and heard him say he loved her but they couldn’t be together, it hurt all over again, almost as badly as it had the first time.
Why can’t I stop loving him? she asked herself desperately. How did I fall for him so quickly and why can’t I let him go?
There seemed to be no answers to those questions and she sobbed her heart out as she drove, feeling worse than she had before.
It was cathartic to get her grief out, but when she finally parked in the garage of her apartment building, Luci dried her eyes and made herself stop.
There’s nothing you can do about it, she told herself firmly. So just get over it. You have other things to think about now.
Taking a deep breath, she got out of the car, clutching her precious package from the Scent Shop to her chest. She might not have Raze, but she did have a way to save her family. And that was a lot better than nothing.
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to open the package that night. She felt too miserable and tired and emotionally wrung out to even think of doing what had to be done at the moment. She went right to bed and spent all the next day with her kids, making Play Dough creations and baking cookies—just trying to de-stress.
It wasn’t until Saturday night when her mom was gone home and the kids and animals were all settled down for the night that Luci locked her bedroom door, sat on her bed, and opened the black wrapped package the Scent Shop salesman had given her.
Inside was a long white dildo every bit as big as the black one in the glass case the two-nosed man had shown her. To Luci’s relief, it wasn’t completely rigid. Instead, it was made of slightly squishy, gel-like material which seemed like it would give a little and bend with her body while she wore it. Thank goodness for that!
There was also a packet of lube, presumably to help her get the dildo into herself in the first place and a plastic-type baggie which she was supposed to seal it up in when she was finished.
Luci wasn’t surprised by any of this, but the last thing she found in the package was perplexing. It was a small, perfectly circular sphere with shiny, mirrored sides about the size of a tangerine.
Luci picked up the sphere and stared at it uncertainly. What in the world could this thing be for? Also, hadn’t the two-nosed man said something about instructions? Where were they? Was there some special way to do this or was she just supposed to put the huge dildo up inside herself and keep it there for a couple of hours?
As these questions were occurring to her, the silver sphere began to buzz and vibrate in her hand.