The Dark-Hunters (31 page)

“Grace,” he said as he stuck his head back into the bedroom. “You’re still running late.”

She laughed as she slid her high heels on. “I’m going, I’m going.”

When they got to the front door, she realized he didn’t have his shoes on. “You’re not coming today?”

“Do you need me to?”

Grace hesitated. She actually liked being able to have lunch with him and tease him between sessions. But then, she was sure it was boring for him to sit up there hour after hour, waiting for her. “No.”

He gave her a hungry kiss. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Reluctantly, she let go and hurried out the door to her car.

*   *   *

It was one of the longest days in history. Grace sat at her desk, counting the seconds until she could get her patient out the door.

When five o’clock came, she gave poor Rachel, the bum’s rush for the door, then quickly gathered up her things and went home.

It didn’t take her long to get there. She frowned as she saw Selena waiting for her on the front porch.

“Something wrong?” Grace asked as she joined her.

“Not hardly. But I’ll give you a word of advice, break that curse. Julian is a major keeper.”

Grace frowned even more as Selena left her and headed to her Jeep. Bemused, she opened the door.

“Julian?” she called.

“I’m in the bedroom.”

Grace headed up the stairs. She found him lying in a most yummy way on the bed with his head propped up on one arm, and a single red rose lying on the mattress before him. He was so incredibly gorgeous and inviting. Especially with those dimples flashing, and with a light in his celestial blue eyes that could only be called impish.

“You look like the cat that ate the canary,” she said quietly. “What did the two of you do today?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing,” she repeated doubtfully. Now why didn’t she believe that?
Because he looks just a little too mischievous.

Her gaze fell to the rose. “For me?”

“Yes.”

She smiled at his clipped, short answers, and dropped her shoes by the bed before pulling off her hose.

Looking up, she caught Julian’s very interested stare as he craned his neck to watch her. He smiled again.

Grace picked up the rose and smelled its sweet fragrance. “It’s a nice surprise,” she said, kissing Julian on the cheek for it. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he whispered, running his hand along her jawbone.

Reluctantly, Grace withdrew and crossed the room to place the rose on the dresser and open the top drawer.

She froze. Lying on top of her clothes was a small hardcover copy of
Peter Pan
with a big red ribbon tied around it.

Gasping, she took it in her hands and untied the ribbon. As she flipped to the first page, her heart skipped a beat. “Oh, my God, it’s a signed first edition!”

“Do you like it?”

“Like it?” she said, her eyes misting. “Oh, Julian!”

She launched herself at him and rained kisses all over his face. “You are so wonderful! Thank you!”

For the first time, she saw him look embarrassed.

“This is just…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced to her closet. The door was slightly ajar, and the light inside was on.

Surely, he hadn’t …

Slowly, Grace approached it. She opened the door wider, and looked inside.

Joyous tears filled her eyes as warmth spread through her. Her shelves were again covered in books. Her hand shook as she reached out and ran it over the spines of her new collection.

“Am I dreaming?” she whispered.

She felt Julian behind her. He wasn’t touching her, yet she could feel him with every pore, every sense of her body. It wasn’t physical, but it was earth-shattering. And it left her breathless.

“We couldn’t find all of them, especially your paperbacks, but Selena said we got the most important ones.”

A single tear fell down her cheek as she saw copies of her father’s books. How had they managed to find them?

Her heart pounded as she glanced at all her favorite titles:
The Three Musketeers, Beowulf, The Scarlet Letter, The Wolf and the Dove, Master of Desire, Fallen, The Lawman Who Loved Her,
on and on it went until it made her dizzy.

Overwhelmed and giddy, she let the tears fall down her cheeks.

She turned about and threw her arms around Julian. “Thank you,” she wept. “But how? How did you do this?”

He shrugged, then reached up to wipe away her tears. It was then she noticed his hand.

And what was missing from it.

“Not your ring,” she whispered, seeing the light skin on one of the fingers of his right hand where the ring had been. “Tell me you didn’t?”

“It was just a ring, Grace.”

No it wasn’t. She remembered the look on his face when Dr. Lewis had asked to buy it.

“Never,” Julian had said. “You’ve no idea what I had to go through to get this.”

But after hearing his stories of his past, she had a good idea. And he had sold it for
her.

Trembling, she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him fiercely.

Julian froze in shock as her lips touched his. She’d never before reached out to him in such a manner. Closing his eyes, he clenched his hand in her hair, letting it spill down his forearm as he moaned into her mouth.

His head spun from the taste of her. From the feel of her. From the way she kissed him as he’d never been kissed before—

With the whole of her heart.

It shook him all the way to his cursed soul.

In that moment, he truly wanted time to stand still. He didn’t want to live another second without her in it. Couldn’t imagine a day when he didn’t have her by his side.

He felt his control slipping. The pain of madness sliced across his head and his groin simultaneously.

Not yet!
his mind shouted. He didn’t want it to end. Not right now. Not when he was so close.

So close …

But he had no choice.

Reluctantly, he pulled back from her. “I take it you like that, as well?”

She laughed at him. “Of course I do, you crazy man.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest.

Julian quivered as unfamiliar emotions tore through him. He enveloped her with his arms, feeling her heart beating in rapid time with his.

If he could, he’d stay like this, holding on to her forever.

But he couldn’t.

He stepped back from her.

She looked up, her brow wrinkled.

He smoothed the frown away with his hand. “I’m not rejecting you, my sweet,” he whispered. “I’m just not feeling like myself at the moment.”

“The curse?”

He nodded.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Just give me a minute to fight it.”

Grace bit her lip as he moved stiffly to the bed. It was the only time she hadn’t seen absolute, fluid grace in his movements. He looked as if he could barely breathe, as if he had a terrible ache in the pit of his stomach. He wrapped his hand around the bedpost so tightly that she could see his knuckles protrude.

Pain sliced through her at the sight and she wanted to comfort him. More than ever, she wanted to help him.

In fact, she wanted him …

She wanted
him.
Period.

Grace’s jaw dropped as the full impact of her thoughts swept over her.

She loved him.

She truly, deeply, and most profoundly loved him.

How could she not?

Her heart hammering, Grace swept her gaze over the books in her closet. Memories assailed her. Julian the night he’d appeared and offered himself to her, Julian loving her in the shower, Julian comforting her, making her laugh, Julian coming through the top of the elevator to save her, and Julian lying on the bed with the rose as he watched her find his gifts.

Selena was right. He was a major keeper and she never wanted to let him go.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, but she caught herself. Now wasn’t the time. Not when he was in such obvious agony. Not when he was vulnerable.

He would want to know.

Or would he?

Grace considered the repercussions of telling him. He didn’t like it here in her time. She knew that. He wanted to go home. If she told him how she felt, he might stay for no other reason, and if he had no reason of his own to stay, he might grow to resent her for keeping him away from all he’d once known. All he’d been.

Or worse, what if it didn’t work out?

As a psychologist, she knew better than anyone all the problems that could crop up in a relationship and destroy it.

One of the biggest reasons for breakups was the lack of common ground to build on between two people who shared nothing but physical attraction.

She and Julian were about as different as two people could ever be. She was a plain, twenty-first-century psychologist and he was a gorgeous second-century
B.C.
Macedonian general. Talk about a fish and a bird trying to find a place where they could both live!

Two more different people had never been born and forced together.

Right now, they were both basking in the newness of the relationship. But they didn’t really know each other
that
well. What if in a year’s time they weren’t really in love?

For that matter, what if he changed once the curse was lifted?

Julian had told her that he’d been a different man back in Macedonia. What if part of his current charm or his attraction to her was from the curse? According to Cupid, the curse made Julian feel compelled toward her.

What if they broke the curse and he became someone else entirely? Someone who no longer wanted her?

What then?

Once he gave up his chance to go home, she was sure he’d never have another one.

Grace struggled to breathe as she realized she couldn’t even say to him, “Let’s try and see what happens.” Because once he made his decision, there would be
no
second chances.

Grace swallowed, wishing she could see into the future like Selena did. But then, even Selena was wrong at times. For Julian’s sake, Grace couldn’t afford to be wrong.

No, there would only be one acceptable reason for him to stay. He would have to love her as much as she loved him.

And that was about as likely as the sky falling in on her head in the next ten minutes.

Closing her eyes, Grace winced at the truth. He could never be hers. One way or another, she would have to let him go.

And it was going to kill her.

Julian drew a ragged breath and released the bed. He gave her a tenuous smile. “That hurt,” he said.

“I can tell.” She reached to touch him, but he stepped back from her like a man who was about to come into contact with a snake.

Grace dropped her hand. “I’ll go fix dinner.”

Julian watched her leave the room. He wanted to go after her so badly that he could barely refrain. But he didn’t dare.

He needed a little more time to compose himself. More time to quell the fire coursing through him, threatening to overwhelm him.

He shook his head. How could her touch give him such strength, and yet at the same time make him so incredibly weak?

*   *   *

Grace had just finished making canned soup and sandwiches when Julian joined her in the kitchen.

“Feeling better?”

“Yes,” he said, sitting down at the table.

Grace circled her spoon around her bowl while she watched him eat. The fading sunlight caught in his hair, highlighting it. He sat perfectly straight up in the chair and every time he moved, a surge of desire tore through her. She could watch him all day and never grow tired of it.

Worse, what she really wanted to do was get up, go over to him, and sit in his lap. Then run her hands through those golden waves as she kissed the daylights out of him.

Stop it!
If she didn’t get hold of herself, she would succumb to that urge!

“You know,” she said hesitantly. “I’ve been thinking. What if you did stay here? Would it be so bad to live in my time?”

The look he gave her quelled her. “We’ve already had this discussion. I don’t belong here. I don’t understand your world, your customs. I feel awkward and I hate that.”

Grace cleared her throat. Fine, she wouldn’t mention it again.

Sighing, she picked up her sandwich and ate it, even though what she really wanted to do was argue.

After they finished dinner, Julian helped her clean the kitchen.

“You want me to read to you?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, but she could tell there was something wrong. He was guarded with her, almost cold.

She hadn’t seen him like this since he’d first appeared.

Grace went upstairs and got her new copy of
Peter Pan,
then came back downstairs. Julian was already on the floor, piling the cushions for them.

She took her seat, lying perpendicular to him and propping her head against the side of his stomach. After turning to the first page, she began to read.

Julian listened to Grace’s smooth, lilting voice, all the while staring at her. As she read the words, he watched her eyes dance across the page.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t touch her, but against his will, he found himself reaching to stroke her hair. The contact of it against his skin made him burn, made his groin tighten even more as he ached to possess her.

While the silken sable strands of her hair caressed his fingers, he let her voice take him far away from here. To a place that was so comforting, it almost felt like the elusive home he had searched eternity for.

A place where only the two of them existed. There were no gods here, no curses.

Just them.

And it felt wonderful.

Grace arched a brow as she felt Julian’s hand leave her hair and reach for the top button on her shirt. She held her breath in hopeful expectation, yet she also hesitated.

“What are you—”

“Keep reading,” he said as he worked the button through the hole.

Her body growing hot, she read the next paragraph. He undid the next button.

“Julian—”

“Read.”

She read another paragraph as his hand moved to the next button down. His actions were making her crazy as her breath quickened, her heart pounded.