The Dark-Hunters (13 page)

And now a hero.

But most of all, he was a great mystery to her. There was a lot about him she was dying to know. And one way or another over the next month, she was going to learn it.

When they reached the Praline Factory on the top floor, Grace bought two fudge-pecan pralines and a Coke.

Without thinking twice, she held a praline up for Julian. Instead of taking it from her hand, he leaned forward and took a bite while she held it.

He savored the sugary confection in a way that drove heat through her body, while those searing blue eyes stared at her as if he were wishing she were what he feasted on.

“You were right,” he said in that low tone that sent shivers over her. “It is delicious.”

“Wow,” the female clerk said from across the counter. “That’s some accent you got there. You must not be from around these parts.”

“No,” Julian said. “I’m not.”

“So where you from?”

“Macedonia.”

“Is that out in California?” the girl asked. “You look like one of those surfer types who hang out on the beach.”

He frowned. “California?”

“He’s from Greece,” Selena supplied for the girl.

“Ah!” the girl said.

Julian arched a censoring brow at her. “Macedonia isn’t—”

“Buddy,” Selena said around her mouthful of praline, “around here you’d be lucky to find anyone who would know the difference.”

Before Grace could respond to Selena’s harsh words, Julian placed his hands on her waist and brought her right up against his steely chest.

He leaned down and caught her bottom lip between his teeth, then gently stroked her lip with his tongue.

Her head swam from the tender embrace.

He deepened his kiss an instant before releasing her and stepping back.

“You had sugar on your bottom lip,” he explained with a devilish smile that displayed his dimples to perfection.

Grace blinked, amazed at how hot and cold his touch made her. “You could have just said something.”

“True, but my way was far more enjoyable.”

She couldn’t argue that.

Quickly, she stepped away from him and tried to ignore Selena’s knowing smile.

“Why are you so afraid of me?” Julian asked unexpectedly as he fell in by her side.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“No? Then what scares you so? Every time I come near you, you cringe.”

“I’m not cringing,” Grace insisted.
Damn, was there an echo?

He reached out to put his arm around her. Grace quickly sidestepped him.

“You’re cringing,” he said pointedly as they got back on the escalator.

Even though she was on the step below, he braced his arms on each side of her, then leaned his head close to her own. His presence surrounded her, enveloped her, and made her strangely giddy and warm.

She stared at the strength of his tense, tanned hands on the belt behind hers. The way the veins stood out to emphasize the power and beauty of them. Like the rest of him, his hands and arms were gorgeous.

“You’ve never had an orgasm, have you?” he whispered in her ear.

Grace choked on her praline. “This is not the place to talk about it.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked. “That’s why—”

“That’s not it,” she interrupted him. “As a matter of fact, I have.”

Okay, it was a lie, but he didn’t have to know that.

“With a man?”

“Julian!” she snapped. “What is it with you and Selena that you think you can discuss my personal life out in public?”

He dipped his head lower, down to her neck so close that she could feel his breath falling against her skin, smell the warm, clean scent of him. “You know, Grace. I can give you pleasure the likes of which you can’t imagine.”

A shiver went over her. She could easily believe that.

It would be so easy to let him prove those words.

But she couldn’t. It would be wrong, and no matter what he said, it would bother her. And deep down, she suspected it bothered him, as well.

She leaned back ever so slightly and met his gaze. “Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want it?”

He looked shocked by her words. “How can that be?”

“I told you. The next time I get intimate with a man, I want more than just his necessary parts involved. I want his heart.”

Julian stared hungrily at her lips. “I can assure you, you wouldn’t miss it.”

“Yes I would.”

Flinching from her as if she’d slapped him, he straightened.

Grace knew she’d struck another nerve. Wanting to discover more about him, she turned to look up at him. “Why is it so important to you that I give in? Does something happen to you if I don’t comply?”

He laughed bitterly. “As if anything could be worse.”

“Then why can’t you just enjoy your time here with me without any…”—she lowered her voice—“sex?”

His eyes flared. “Enjoy what? Enjoy getting to know people whose faces will haunt me for eternity? Do you think I enjoy looking around here knowing that in a few days I’ll be pulled back into a blank, empty hole where I can hear, but I can’t see, can’t taste, feel, or smell, where my stomach churns constantly from hunger and my throat burns with an unquenchable thirst? You are the only thing I’m permitted to enjoy. And you would deny me that.”

Tears pricked the backs of her eyes at his words. She didn’t want to hurt him. Truly, she didn’t.

But it had been a very similar ploy for sympathy that Paul had used to get her into bed, and that event had torn her heart out.

After the death of her parents, Paul had claimed to care about her. He had been there to comfort her and hold her. And then when she had finally trusted him with her body, he had hurt her so badly, so cruelly, that even now it cut her all the way to her soul.

“I am so sorry, Julian. Really, I am. But I can’t do this.” She left the escalator and headed back through the mall.

“Why?” Julian asked as he and Selena caught up to her.

How could she explain it to him? Paul had hurt her so badly that night. He had had no regard for her feelings. She had begged him to stop but he had persisted.

“Look, it’s supposed to hurt the first time,” Paul had said. “Jeez, just stop crying. I’ll be finished in a minute and then you can leave.”

By the time he was finished, she was so humiliated and hurt that she had cried for days.

“Grace?” Julian’s voice broke through her whirling thoughts. “What is it?”

It took all her strength to hold her tears back. But she wouldn’t cry. Not out in public. Not like this. She would not be pitied.

“It’s nothing,” she said.

Needing a breath of fresh air, even if it was hotter and thicker than steam, she headed out the side door of the Brewery toward the Moonwalk.

Julian and Selena followed.

“Grace, what made you cry?” Julian asked.

“It’s Paul,” she heard Selena whisper to Julian.

Grace glared at Selena as she forced herself to calm down. Drawing a ragged breath, she turned back to Julian. “I wish I could just fling myself into bed with you, but I can’t. I don’t want to be used that way, and I don’t want to use you! Can’t you understand that?”

His jaw tense, he looked away.

Grace followed his gaze and saw a group of six rough-looking bikers headed in their direction. Their leather outfits had to be stifling in the heat, but they didn’t seem to notice as they ribbed each other and laughed.

It was then Grace saw the woman with them. A woman whose slow, seductive walk was the female equivalent to Julian’s graceful, loose-limbed saunter. The woman also possessed the kind of rare beauty that would best any actress or model.

Tall and blond, the woman wore a skimpy leather halter and tight short-shorts that hugged a figure Grace would kill to possess.

And the woman was slowing down, falling behind the men as she slid her black sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to stare straight at Julian.

Inwardly, Grace cringed.

Oh, good Lord, this could get ugly fast. None of the scruffy, tough-as-nails bikers looked like the type who would tolerate their girlfriend looking at another guy. And the last thing she wanted was a fight on the Moonwalk.

Grace grabbed Julian’s hand to pull him in the other direction.

He refused to move.

“C’mon, Julian,” she said urgently. “We need to get back inside.”

Still, he didn’t budge.

He glared at the bikers as if he wanted to kill them. Then, before she could blink, he shrugged off her hold, and rushed forward. He grabbed one of the men by his shirt.

Dumbfounded, Grace watched as Julian punched the man in the jaw.

C
HAPTER
6

“You worthless piece of…” Julian let out a string of curses that would make a sailor blush.

Grace’s eyes widened. She didn’t know what startled her most, Julian assaulting the unknown biker or the language he used.

As he pummeled the biker, the man fought back, but his fighting skills were nowhere near Julian’s.

Forgetting Selena, Grace ran toward them, her heart hammering as she tried to think of what she should do. There was no way she could get between the two men. Not at the rate they were trying to kill each other.

“Julian, stop it before you hurt him!” the biker woman cried.

Grace froze at the words.

How did she know Julian’s name?

The woman danced around as if trying to help the biker thwart Julian. “Honey, watch out, he’s going to … ouch, that had to hurt!” The woman cringed in sympathetic pain after Julian hit the biker in the nose. “Julian, stop hitting him like that! You’re going to make his nose swell. Ew, baby, duck!”

The biker didn’t duck, and Julian caught him one hard blow to the chin that made him stagger backward.

Totally befuddled, Grace looked back and forth between the woman and Julian.

How could they possibly know each other?

“Eros, baby. No!” the woman shouted again, waving her hands around her face like a bird about to take flight.

Selena moved to stand beside Grace.

“Is that the Eros Julian was trying to summon?” Grace asked.

Selena shrugged. “Maybe, but I never thought of Cupid as a biker.”

“Where’s Priapus?” Julian demanded as he grabbed Eros and forced him back against the wooden railing above the water.

“I don’t know,” Eros said as he struggled to loosen Julian’s two hands from his black T-shirt.

“Don’t you
dare
lie to me,” Julian growled.

“I don’t know!”

Julian tightened his grip as two thousand years of pain and rage swept through him. His hands shook while he held Eros in his fists. But worse than his desire to kill was the unrelenting questions that screamed through him.

Why had no one ever answered his summons before?

Why had Eros betrayed him?

And how could they have done this to him, then walk away and leave him to suffer?

“Where is he?” Julian asked again.

“Eating, belching, hell, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in forever and a day.”

Julian pulled Eros away from the railing. All the wrath of hell was branded into his face as he released him.

“I have to find him,” Julian said between clenched teeth. “Now.”

A muscle in Eros’s jaw twitched as he brushed his hands down the front of his T-shirt to straighten it. “Well, shaking the shit out of me isn’t going to get his attention.”

“Then maybe killing you will.” Julian reached for him again.

Suddenly, the other bikers started for Julian.

As the men closed in, Eros ducked Julian’s blow and whirled to stop his friends.

“Leave him alone, guys,” Eros said, grabbing the one closest to him by the arms and pushing him backward. “You don’t want to fight him. Trust me. He could rip your heart out and feed it to you before you hit the ground dead.”

Julian scanned the bikers with a glare that dared any of them to approach him. The cold, lethal look terrified Grace and she held no doubt he could do just what Eros said.

“What are you, crazy?” the tallest one asked as he raked a disbelieving stare over Julian. “He don’t look like much to me.”

Eros wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and gave a half-grin as he saw the blood on his thumb. “Yeah, well, take my word for it. The man has fists like a sledgehammer and the ability to move a hell of a lot faster than you can dodge.”

In spite of his dusty black leather pants and torn T-shirt, Eros was incredibly handsome, and lacked the worn-out look of his companions. His youthful face would have been very pretty if not for the dark brown goatee surrounded by a three-day growth of whiskers, and the military cut of his hair.

“Besides, it’s just a little family squabble,” Eros said with a strange glint in his eyes. He patted the biker on the arm and laughed. “My kid brother always did have a nasty temper on him.”

Grace exchanged a stunned, disbelieving gape with Selena.

“Did I hear that?” she asked Selena. “Surely he can’t be a brother of Julian’s. Can he?”

“How would I know?”

Julian said something to Eros in ancient Greek. Selena’s eyes bulged and the smile faded instantly from Eros’s face.

“If you weren’t my brother, I’d kill you for that.”

Julian’s gaze shot daggers. “If I didn’t need you, you’d already be dead.”

Instead of becoming angry, Eros laughed.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” the woman said angrily to Eros. “You better remember he’s one of the few people capable of carrying out that threat.”

Eros nodded, then turned to the other four bikers. “Go on,” he said to his friends. “I’ll catch up later.”

“You sure?” the tall one asked, sliding a nervous look to Julian. “We can hang if you need us to.”

“Nah, it’s all right,” Eros said with a dismissive wave. “Remember, I told you I had to meet someone here? My brother’s just pissed at me, but he’ll get over it.”

Grace stepped back as the bikers walked past her. All of them except for the stunning woman. She folded her arms across her leather-clad, amply endowed chest and eyed the two men warily.

Oblivious to her, Selena, and the woman, Eros walked a slow circle around Julian, looking him up and down.