The Dark-Hunters (5 page)

Grace locked the sliding glass door and begged for patience.
And Selena calls
me
stubborn.

The phone rang. Answering it, Grace heard Bill’s voice asking for Selena.

“It’s for you,” she said, handing the phone over to her friend.

Selena took it. “Yeah?” She paused for several minutes and Grace could hear his excited chatter. By the sudden pallor of Selena’s features, she could tell something had happened.

“Okay, okay. I’ll be right home. Are you sure you’re all right? Okay, I love you. I’m on my way—don’t try and do anything until I get there.”

A horrible stab of fear knotted Grace’s stomach tight. Over and over, she saw the policeman at her dorm room door, heard his dispassionate voice:
I’m sorry to inform you …

“What is it?” Grace asked.

“Bill fell while they were playing basketball and broke his arm.”

She released her breath in relief. Thank God, it wasn’t a car wreck. “Is he all right?”

“He said so. His friends took him to a doc-in-the-box and had it X-rayed before they dropped him off. He told me not to worry, but I think I better get on home.”

“You want me to drive you?”

Selena shook her head. “No, unlike me you’ve had one too many glasses of wine. Besides, I’m sure it’s nothing serious. You know what a worrywart I am. You stay here and enjoy the rest of your movie. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. Let me know how he’s doing.”

Selena gathered up her bag and dug out her keys. As she started out the door, she paused and handed the book back to Grace. “What the hell. Keep it. It should give you a good laugh for the next few days while you remember what an idiot I am.”

“You’re not an idiot. Just eccentric.”

“That’s what they said about Mary Todd Lincoln. Until they locked her up.”

Laughing, Grace took the book and watched Selena walk out to her car. “You be careful,” she shouted out the door. “And thanks for the gift, and for coming over.”

Selena waved before getting into her bright red Jeep Cherokee and driving off.

With a tired sigh, Grace shut and locked the door, then tossed the book on the sofa. “Now don’t go anywhere,
love-slave.
”

Grace laughed at their silliness. Would Selena
ever
outgrow such nonsense?

She turned off the TV and took their dirty dishes to the kitchen sink. As she rinsed out the glasses, she saw a bright flash of light.

For a second, she thought it was lightning.

Until she realized it came from
inside
the house.

“What the…?”

She put the wine glasses aside and walked toward the living room. At first she didn’t see anything. But as she came flush with the doorway, she
felt
a strange presence. One that made the hair on the back of her arms and neck rise.

Cautiously, she entered the room and saw a tall figure standing in front of the couch.

It was a man.

A handsome man.

A
naked
man!

C
HAPTER
3

Grace did what most any woman would do while confronting a naked man in her living room. She screamed.

Then she ran for the front door.

Only she forgot about the cushions that were still on the floor where they’d piled them. Tripping over two, she went sprawling.

No!
she silently cried as she landed in a painful heap. She had to do something to protect herself.

Terrified and shaking, she scrambled through the cushions, looking for a weapon. Feeling something, she pulled her hand up, only to find a pink bunny slipper.

Dammit! Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the wine bottle. Grace rolled toward it and grabbed it in her hand, then whirled to face her intruder.

Faster than she could react, he wrapped his warm hand around her wrist, tenderly immobilizing it. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

Good gracious, but his deep masculine voice was rich, with a thick, lilting accent that could only be described as musical. Erotic. And downright yummy.

Her senses dulled, Grace looked up and …

Well …

Quite honestly, there was only one thing she saw, and
it
made her face hotter than Cajun gumbo. After all, how could she miss
it
since
it
was just an arm’s reach away. And
it
was such a large
it,
too.

In the next instant, he knelt by her side and gently brushed her hair out of her eyes. He ran his hands over her scalp as if feeling for an injury.

Her gaze feasted on his chest. Unable to move or look past all that incredible skin, Grace fought the urge to moan at the intensely wicked sensation of his fingers in her hair. Her entire body burned from it.

“Did you hit your head?” he asked.

Again that strange, glorious accent that reverberated through her like a warm, soothing caress.

She stared at the wealth of golden, tawny skin that seemed to beckon her hand to reach out and touch it.

He practically glowed!

Compelled, she wanted to see his face, to see for herself if the whole of him was as incredible as his body.

As she looked up, past the sculpted muscles of his shoulders, her mouth dropped. The wine bottle slid from her numbed fingers.

It was
him!

No! It couldn’t be.

This couldn’t be happening to her, and he couldn’t be naked in her living room with his hands in her hair. Things like this just didn’t happen in real life. Most especially not to average people like her.

And yet …

“Julian?” she asked breathlessly.

He had the sleek, powerful build of a finely toned gymnast. His muscles were hard, lean, and gorgeous, and well defined in places she didn’t even know a man could get muscles. On top of his shoulders, his biceps and forearms. His chest and back. His neck to his legs.

You name it, it bulged with raw, masculine strength.

Even
it
had started to bulge.

His golden hair fell in haphazard waves around a clean-shaven face that looked as if it really had been carved from stone. Unbelievably handsome and captivating, his face was neither pretty nor feminine. But it was definitely breathtaking.

Full, sensuous lips curved into a halfhearted smile, displaying a set of dimples that cut deep moons into his tanned cheeks.

And those eyes.

Gracious!

They were the clear celestial blue of a perfect cloudless sky with a tiny band of dark blue highlighting the outer edges of his irises. His eyes were searing in their intensity and shining with intellect. She had a feeling his looks, really
could
kill.

Or at the very least, devastate.

And she was certainly devastated at the moment. Captivated by a man too perfect to be real.

Hesitantly, she reached out and placed a hand on his arm. She was amazed when his arm didn’t evaporate, proving all this was just a drunken hallucination.

No, that arm was real. Real and hard and warm. The skin beneath her palm flexed into a powerful muscle that made her heart pound.

Stunned, Grace could do nothing but stare.

Julian arched a puzzled brow. Never before had a woman run away from him. Nor discarded him after she’d spoken the summons’s chant.

All the others had waited in expectation for his incarnation, then fallen instantly into his arms, demanding he pleasure them.

But not this one …

She was different.

His lips itched to smile as he swept his gaze over her. Her thick, sable hair fell to the middle of her back, and her light gray eyes looked like the sea just before a storm. Gray eyes flecked with tiny bits of silver and green that shone with intelligence and warmth.

Her smooth, pale skin was covered with little light brown freckles. She was every bit as adorable as her smooth, accented voice.

Not that it would have mattered.

Regardless of her looks, he existed only to serve her sexually. To lose himself in the savoring of her body with his, and he fully intended to do just that.

“Here,” he said, taking her by her shoulders. “Let me help you up.”

“You are naked,” she whispered, looking him up and down in astonishment as they came to their feet. “You are
so
naked.”

He tucked the ends of her sable hair back behind her ears. “I know.”

“You are naked!”

“We’ve established that.”

“You’re
happy
and naked.”

Confused, Julian frowned. “What?”

She looked down at his arousal. “You are
happy,
” she said with a pointed glance. “And you’re naked.”

So, that was what they were calling it in this century. He would have to remember that.

“And this makes you uncomfortable?” he asked, amazed by the fact that a woman would mind his nudity when no one ever had before.

“Bingo!”

“Well, I know a cure,” Julian said, his voice dropping an octave as he stared at her shirt, and the hardened nipples that jutted out from the thin white material. Nipples he couldn’t wait to see.

To taste.

He moved to touch her.

Grace stepped back, her heart hammering. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She was just drunk and delusional. Or she must have whacked her head on the coffee table and she was unconscious and bleeding to death.

Yes, that was it! That made sense.

At least it made a lot more sense than the deep humming throb that burned through her body. A throb that begged her to jump this guy’s bones.

And they were such nice bones, too.

When you have a fantasy, girl, you definitely go all the way. You must’ve been working too hard lately. You’re starting to take home your patients’ dreams.

He reached out for her and cupped her cheeks in his strong hands. Grace couldn’t move. All she could do was let him tilt her head up until she looked into those penetrating eyes she was sure could read her soul. They hypnotized her like those of a deadly predator lulling its prey.

She quivered in his embrace.

Then, hot, demanding lips covered her own. Grace moaned in response. She’d heard all her life about kisses that made women weak in their knees, but this was the first time she’d ever experienced one.

Oh, but he felt good, smelled good, and he tasted even better.

Of their own accord, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, broad and rock-hard. The heat of his chest seeped into hers, beckoning her with erotic, sensual promise of what was to come. And all the while, he ravished her mouth masterfully like a Viking marauder bent on total devastation.

Every inch of his magnificent body was pressed intimately against her own, rubbing hers in a manner meant to heighten her feminine awareness of him. And oh, baby, she was aware of him in a way she’d never been aware of any other man. She slid her hand down the sculpted muscles of his bare back and sighed as they bunched beneath her hand.

Grace decided right then and there that if this was a dream, she definitely didn’t want the alarm to go off.

Or the phone to ring.

Or …

His hands roamed her back before cupping her buttocks and pressing her hips closer to his as his tongue danced with hers. The smell of sandalwood filled her senses.

Her body molten, Grace explored the taut, corded muscles of his naked back with her palms as his long hair swept against the back of her hands in an erotic caress.

Julian’s head swam at her warm touch, at the pleasant feel of her arms wrapped tightly around him as he ran his hands over the bounty of her soft freckled skin.

How he loved the sounds she made as she responded so provocatively to him. Mmm, he couldn’t wait to hear her scream out in release. To see her head thrown back while her body spasmed around his.

It had been so very long since he’d last felt a woman’s touch. So long since he’d last had any human contact at all.

His body was white-hot with desire, and if this were anything but their first time, he’d devour her like a morsel of sweet chocolate. Lay her down and ravish her like a starving man at a banquet.

But that would have to wait until she was used to him.

He’d learned centuries ago that women always swooned from their first union. And he definitely didn’t want this one to faint.

Not yet anyway.

Still, he couldn’t wait another minute to have her.

Scooping her up in his arms, he headed for the stairs.

At first, Grace couldn’t think past the incredible feel of strong arms surrounding her with heat—of a man actually picking her up and not groaning from the effort. But as they passed the large wooden pineapple at the base of her balustrade, she woke up with a start.

“Whoa, buster!” she snapped, grabbing on to the carved mahogany pineapple like a life preserver. “Just where do you think you’re taking me?”

He paused and looked down at her curiously. In that instant, she realized that as tall and powerful as he was, he could do anything in the world he wanted with her and she would be powerless to stop him.

A tremor of fear thrummed through her body.

Yet for all the danger, some part of her wasn’t afraid. Something in her gut told her he wouldn’t intentionally hurt her.

“I’m taking you to your bedroom where we can finish what we’ve started,” he said simply, as if he were discussing the weather.

“I don’t think so.”

He shrugged those wonderfully broad shoulders. “You would prefer the stairs, then? Or the couch perhaps?” He paused and looked about her house as if considering his choices. “Not a bad thought, actually. It’s been a long time since I took a woman on—”

“No, no, no! The only place you’re going to
take
me is in your dreams. Now set me down before I really get mad.”

To her shock, he complied.

Feeling a little better once her feet were safely on the ground, she ascended two steps.

Now they were eye to eye, and on a little more equal footing—that was, if a person could ever
be
on equal footing with a man who possessed such innate power and authority.