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“Have you noticed any strangers here?”
“Huh? You mean besides you?” Julie forced another laugh and took a bigger bite of ice cream, still wildly hoping the frozen treat would cool off the heat building inside. “You’re kidding, right?”
She waved her spoon at the closed swinging door separating the kitchen from the living room. “Everyone here is a stranger. Parties are free-for-alls in this town. One person tells someone, who tells someone else who tells someone and—” she paused for yet another bite of ice cream “—you get the picture.”
He scowled and his eyes narrowed. “That’s what I thought.”
Julie took another bite and momentarily savored the swirl of caramel as she studied him. Okay, maybe she wouldn’t need help. What she’d need was a cold shower. Every cell in her body was tingling. Those eyes of his were downright hypnotic. She could almost feel herself leaning in toward him and it took everything she had to lean back instead.
His gaze swept the kitchen again, as if looking for something he’d missed in his first perusal. Finally, though, those eyes came back to her and she swallowed hard.
Still, he hadn’t threatened her and she wasn’t about to let him know she was even the slightest bit worried. She waved her empty spoon at him, sweeping up and down. “You’re an actor, right?”
“No.”
“Really?” Was it hot in the kitchen? Or was it just her body lighting up like a bonfire? “Because you’ve got the whole mysterious man of the night thing going and—”
“You should leave, too.”
“Excuse me?”
“Leave,” he repeated, reaching out to grab her upper arm. “Now.”
His hand touched her bare arm and heat sizzled into life between them.
One of them definitely had a fever. She just wasn’t sure which one.
He let her go almost instantly, and his eyes narrowed as he watched her. Like he was blaming her for that short burst of fire.
Stepping back from him, Julie said, “It’s one thing for you to throw Don Juan and the bimbo out, but this is my house.” At least one third of it. And right about now, she’d be really happy to see either Alicia or Kate come marching through that door. The kitchen seemed to be getting smaller. And hotter. “I’m not going anywhere. But I think you should.”
Kieran MacIntyre felt the fire still burning his fingertips and a part of him stood back and wondered at it. Through the countless centuries he’d been wandering this earth, he’d never experienced that jolt. He’d known others of his kind who had and in the beginning, he’d even been jealous of it.
But as time passed and the years piled up behind him like dirty beads on a piece of string, he’d learned that he was the lucky one. He had no distractions to keep him from the hunt. He had no other to worry about. He didn’t have to concern himself with agonizing over the loss of a Mate when he’d never found one.
Until now.
He’d first become aware of her three months ago when she’d called his home trying to set up an interview with him. Naturally her request was rejected, but he’d looked her up online and had been immediately intrigued. Her photo had haunted him since and he’d made it his business to keep a distant eye on her. Until tonight of course, when he’d been forced to confront her.
Stray curls of dark red hair escaped from the ridiculous ponytail she wore at the top of her head. Her green eyes were huge in a pale face sprinkled with just a few golden freckles. Instinct pushed at him to grab her. Hold her. Tip her head back, taste her neck, feel her pulse pound beneath his mouth. Fill his hands with her breasts and bury himself in her heat.
His body roared with life and a hunger he’d never known before. And he didn’t want it. Didn’t need it. He’d survived for this long without a Mate and he’d done a hell of a job of it, too. He’d never liked complications. Not in life and certainly not since his death. Easier by far to keep his distance from the mortal world, do his job and then fade from the memory of everyone whose life he’d touched.
Better to be alone.
Count on no one but himself and the other Guardians.
But she smelled sweet. Fresh.
Alive.
The floral shampoo she used clung to her seductively and he wondered if her skin would taste as good as she smelled. Her high, full breasts rose and fell quickly with her agitated breathing and her eyes seemed to get bigger, wider, as she watched him.
Did she sense the connection between them?
Could she have any idea at all about what was to come?
“Who are you?” she asked quietly, her whisper almost swallowed by the noise drifting to them from the adjacent room.
Who was he? An interesting question. Guardian? Warrior? Knight? Too many answers and not enough time.
He took a step closer, and she moved too, backing up until she bumped into the kitchen counter behind her. She jolted in surprise and dropped the carton of ice cream to the floor.
She couldn’t know. Couldn’t even imagine the world he moved through.
His gaze locked with hers, Kieran moved in even closer, dipping his head, letting her fill him with scents that drugged him, that poured through him like rich wine.
His heartbeat thundered in his chest.
He had no time for this. And yet, he knew he couldn’t leave her without one taste. Since he first saw her photo, he’d known this moment would come—now, he wouldn’t waste it. Cupping her cheeks between his palms, he took her mouth, intending only a brief, hard kiss that would assuage the sudden, all-encompassing need raging within. But one brush of her lips to his and he was lost.
She sighed into his mouth and her lips opened for him. His tongue swept into her depths and he felt himself drowning in the heat of her. Senses overloading, his body felt engulfed in flames. She sighed again and the soft sound spiraled through him like knives, tearing through a centuries old apathy as if it were fragile silk.
Her breasts pressed to his chest, he felt the thundering beat of her heart as if it were his own. It shuddered through him, pounding in his head, his blood.
She dropped the spoon and it clattered on the tile floor like a warning bell.
Kieran groaned, let her go and reluctantly stepped away, willing his body into quiet. The instinct to take her was strong, nearly overpowering. She trembled, eyes wide, and he wanted to lay her down on the floor and lose himself in the heat of her.
“Wow,” she said softly, “you’re really good at that.”
He rubbed one hand across his mouth and refused to admit he was shaking. He had no time for this. No time to be distracted by something he wasn’t going to claim anyway.
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