by Aja James
*** *** *** ***
It was the barely-there touch on her shoulder that decided Grace.
She would stay for a meal with the impostor Azor Ahai and take him home with her afterwards.
If the rash of sparks that his glancing touch generated was any indication, sex with him would be nigh incinerating, and she was in a state of utmost arousal this night.
Grace sat down and waited for the stranger to likewise settle in the seat across from her.
Her arousal wasn’t due to him, though aesthetically speaking, he was a priceless work of art:
Golden-honey waves of hair streaked with sunlight, perfectly symmetrical and evenly spaced features, dark blonde brows arching elegantly over heavily lashed bright blue eyes, the type of blue that sapphires envied.
A blade of a nose that drew attention to sculpted cheek bones and the fundamentally masculine hollows beneath, a wide, full mouth that looked like it smiled a lot, bracketed by faint grooves that hinted at dimples.
There were adjectives that most people might use to describe such a face. Handsome was too bland. Beautiful did not do justice to his overwhelming maleness. Gorgeous suggested something showy, not quite authentic.
This man knew full well the impact his looks had on others, and used it to further his own goals—like finagling a dinner with Grace even though he must know that she didn’t buy his impersonation. But he didn’t dwell on his magnificence (was that the right adjective?); he didn’t invite attention.
He used it like a shield. A mirror to deflect attempts to see beyond the exterior. A mask that hid the man inside.
Grace’s adjective for him was: intriguing.
And as she was hardly ever intrigued by anything, she decided to see how this would play out.
But equally, she simply wanted to jump his bones. Because his touch set her afire.
It was the closest she’d ever felt to a human being apart from her aunt Maria, who had raised her since she lost both her parents seventeen years ago.
But not the same kind of closeness.
Grace tried to differentiate the two feelings in her mind.
She wasn’t good at identifying feelings much less categorizing them. Her psychiatrist was amazed she could identify feelings at all given her unique case of Asperger’s, though putting a name to her “condition” wasn’t quite accurate—scientists hadn’t found the explanation yet for the faulty wiring in her brain.
Perhaps even in her DNA.
She tapped into her very limited emotional bank now and decided that the closeness she felt toward her aunt was soft and warm and safe.
Whereas the closeness she felt toward the male seated across the table from her was sharp and volcanic and extremely dangerous.
But she was intrigued.
His touch seemed to switch on a part of her that had always been dormant, and this alien part of herself pulled Grace into his orbit like steel flints to a Neodymium super magnet.
In an inner voice she’d never heard before, that part of her shouted Take him! Lock him up somewhere and throw away the key! He’s the answer to all of life’s questions. Your life. Your questions. And the holy grail of puzzles that you will never solve but take endless pleasure in trying.
Hmm. Maybe her arousal was infinitesimally due to him.
More to the point, it was that time of the month for her.
Every month, her hormones surged for a couple of days. Every six months, it lasted more than a few days, a two-week period during which she was especially aroused. She supposed every woman had her own cycles, and this was hers. Which was why she chose a sex partner every six months since she first discovered intercourse with the opposite sex at the age of twenty.
She was already isolated from the world because of her “condition.” She couldn’t relate to or interact with others like normal people. But during this time, when the planets aligned in her own peculiar solar system, she felt alive. She felt fundamentally female.
And she needed a male to fill and fulfill her.
So for the couple of months leading into her sexual crisis, she hunted one down and dragged him home to feed her inner beast.
She intended to devour this particular male.
As she speared him with her unblinking stare, he finished ordering for both of them, handed their menus to a flustered waitress who couldn’t stop grinning at him like a teeth whitening commercial, and looked back at her.
He blinked rapidly at the intensity of her gaze, as if trying to snap himself out of hypnosis.
Yes, magnificent one, her inner harlot coaxed, succumb to my will and obey all my commands. These next two weeks with me will be the best you’ve ever had.
Grace was not boastful. Not even to herself. She pored over and studied every line and footnote of sex instruction manuals she could get her hands on, online and off.
Especially the tantric sex manuals. When her mind fixated on something, she was nothing if not thorough. And she’d practiced quite diligently on willing partners over the years that she felt her skill in this area had just about reached perfection.
This male was strong.
Though he was taken aback or perplexed by her unwavering gaze, he hadn’t yet melted into a puddle under the hot rays of her stare. He neither tugged at his collar nor bobbed his Adam’s apple in nervous swallows. He simply sat there and looked steadily back at her.
Perhaps he was intrigued by her as well.
“I hope you like my choice for you,” he said, “You didn’t respond when I asked what you want to order, so I took the liberty of ordering for us both. I seem to recall that you like seafood, especially of the shellfish variety.”
She didn’t comment, too busy sifting through the pieces of the puzzle that was this male.
One, he was definitely not her blind date. But he pretended to be.
Why?
Two, he obviously had special skills or special friends to be able to hack into the ultra-secure, exclusive chat room only cyber geeks of a certain caliber could get into, and he hacked the identity of a hacker.
Who was he?
Three, had she been chatting online with him all along or with the real Azor Ahai? Well, not the real one. There was no such thing. But the man who used the handle.
It was disturbing to think that she’d shared intimate bits of herself with an imposter. Slightly more disturbing than sharing with a complete stranger online in an anonymous chat room, anyway.
Four, he was quite ridiculously attractive, not just in looks but in the confidence with which he carried himself, the aura of raw power about him, the primal sexuality that all but magnetized the particles around his person like an energy field.
Even Grace, who usually experienced the world within a mental bubble of her own making that muffled most sounds and sensations, could feel his pull, like gravity.
Why was he going on a blind date with anyone, least of all her?
Five, where did his accent come from? He spoke in fluent American English, but with a crisp enunciation, grammar and vocabulary that seemed misplaced in the twenty-first century. The preciseness with which he spoke suggested that he either picked up the American accent later in life or learned English as an auxiliary language.
“A bit of wine?”
He didn’t wait for her reply—wise, since she hadn’t said a word since they sat down—and poured some into her goblet.
Grace wasn’t a fan of alcohol. It ate at her control like mild acid. She disliked anything that disturbed her perfect management of everything around her, especially her own person. But some small sips of wine on a night like this, when she was practically vibrating with sexual tension, wouldn’t go amiss.
Weird. She was starting to think like the way the stranger spoke. Like she was an actor in a Jane Austen movie.
“Where are you from?”
Grace blurted the question out loud, too curious to stop herself. She realized after the fact that she’d interrupted him mid-sentence.
He pau
sed ever so briefly before answering, “Born and raised in England. But I’ve lived a number of years here in the States.”
That explained his accent. Half of one question answered. Still didn’t explain why he sounded so… anachronistic.
“Who are you?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but then she added, “Who are you really?”
He took some time before answering, cutting his medium-rare ribeye with an elegance that Grace had never witnessed before.
She watched, riveted, as he put the perfectly proportioned bite into his mouth and chewed silently with the same immaculate sophistication.
Her gaze fixated on his sensuous lips and sharp, angular jaw as it flexed in ways that made her thighs clench under the table. When his smooth, pale throat undulated in a swallow, her core shuddered in response.
Oh, she definitely chose him because of him. A realization that was new and alarming for Grace.
“My name is Devlin Sinclair,” he finally answered. “And you?”
Grace regarded him closely. She could always tell when people lied. She herself lied with no hindrance, though she seldom saw the need to. She could beat any lie-detector test. All you had to do was truly believe in what you say. Most psychopaths and sociopaths had the same ability.
No wonder the FBI took her into custody.
“Grace Darling.”
He smiled a little, crinkling the corners of his bright blue eyes.
“Lovely name,” he murmured, and she felt the compliment ripple over her skin like a gentle caress.
He paused in his methodical demolishment of his steak to regard her, as if just realizing something puzzling.
“Why aren’t you eating?” he asked. “The food here is quite good, as you should know, since you come here at least twice a month.”
Ah, so he’d done his own reconnaissance on her. Grace didn’t recall telling him about this habit.
“I’m not hungry,” she replied.
He dabbed his mouth gently with his napkin and took a sip of wine.
“Have I ordered the wrong items?” he inquired solicitously. “We can go somewhere else if you like. I—”
“For food.”
Her interjection was so abrupt that he gave her his full attention.
“Pardon?”
“I’m not hungry for food.”
“What would you like to—” he started the question, but she interrupted again.
“I want to go home.”
*** *** *** ***
The “date” was not going well, to put it mildly.
Devlin considered the female conundrum before him.
He couldn’t get her to hold any semblance of a conversation. Not even to engage in pointless small talk. She was so awkward and abrupt. He’d never met anyone like her in all his life, which was really saying something.
And now he was about to lose all the months of meticulous planning and infiltration he’d done to find her, engage her attention, build some semblance of a relationship.
He couldn’t afford to lose her now. He had to think of something fast.
“Surely there is something I can offer you before I escort you home,” he coaxed with another melting smile. “Some pastries and coffee or a walk through the park? The night is still so young, and I have been waiting so long to meet—”
“I want to go home,” she repeated in the same non-negotiable tone. She put her napkin on the table again.
Devlin switched tracks.
“If you insist. But allow me to escort you.” He rose and circled behind her chair, helping her out of it, though she avoided his touch.
She didn’t wait for him to put a few bills on the table to pay for their half-eaten—rather, his half-eaten meal for she hadn’t touched hers at all— before heading determinedly to the restaurant exit. Devlin lengthened his strides to catch up.
By the time he caught up with her, she’d already hailed a taxi and was getting inside. He ducked inside as well and closed the door just as the cab took off.
What an exceptionally strange woman, Devlin thought, as he huffed a breath after his mad dash out of the restaurant to keep up with her.
He angled himself slightly toward her in the backseat of the cab so that he could observe her in close proximity.
She sat toward the center of the cab and stared straight ahead out the front window, completely ignoring his presence, though the better part of their thighs and knees touched, given the confined space.
While he noted with practiced ease the landmarks and street signs they drove past, the better to retrace their location if he needed to find her again, Devlin focused most of his energy on studying this perplexing human cyber genius.
Surely he could discover some weakness, some way to get closer to her.
He’d managed to keep her interest in the chats, after all, even if all they talked of was code and programming.
Once in a while, they debated the mysteries of the universe, like why the sky was never green or brown, though it reflected every other color of the rainbow; whether there were extraterrestrial beings and worm holes; and whether the events of Matrix the movie could ever become reality.
Random, disjointed curiosities that either one of them thought of in the moment.
He’d managed to get her to reveal some personal information too, like the fact that she’d always wanted pets but could never keep anything living alive. He was the one who suggested that she start with something easy like fish. Then graduate to a hamster or similarly docile rodent. All would be contained. In tanks or cages. Manageable.
Next thing he knew, she’d taken his advice and bought two goldfish.
He then encouraged her to name them so she’d feel a stronger sense of responsibility and closeness to them, the better not to forget to feed them and clean their tank. Hence, Antony and Cleopatra got their names, despite the fact they were both male fish. She said she’d been watching an old movie marathon on TV and the names stuck.
Encouraged by the fish surviving past the one month mark, she’d gone out and gotten a chinchilla, passed by a Miu-Miu store on the way home, which inspired her naming of it, and voila—a contained, manageable family of four was formed.
Devlin had felt a vicarious sort of satisfaction himself when she’d proudly shared her new addition.
Surely, he could find a way to get through to her now, when they were squeezed together in the backseat of a bloody cab.
Devlin was just a smidgen frustrated. He’d never tried so hard to gain a female’s attention before. All the smiles and smoldering glances and charm he threw at her slid off of Grace Darling like raindrops from a duck’s well-oiled feathers.
He couldn’t even coax a smile from her.
She refused to engage in conversation. She interrupted just about every train of thought he started. It was as if he was sitting alone at the table talking to a wall that bounced back his conversation starters like racquet ball shots.
The one thing she did do aplenty was stare at him.
Unblinkingly and unnervingly.
He wondered what her thoughts were while she stared. Probably her mind was blank, like her expression. Or perhaps her thoughts were written in code, and only someone of the same as-yet-undiscovered species could decipher them.
Such an odd woman.
And coming from a vampire, this was saying something.
He looked at her now, taking in her nondescript brown hair, knotted into a haphazard bun on the back of her head, her slender, boyish figure, a very slight bosom, and knobby knees.
She was not what he’d pictured in his head while chatting remotely with her. Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager was what he pictured. Someone with a super-processor for a brain, a robotic personality and the bod of a goddess.
No, the real Grace Darling was definitely not that, at least with regards to the body. The rest of Devlin’s imagination fit her to a T.
Her profile wasn’t bad—a nice slope to her brow, a straight, pert nose,
well-defined but largish lips, and a pointy chin. Her neck was long and graceful, quite deserving of her namesake; her eyebrows prodigiously thick and expansive, nearly meeting together in the center. Her eyes were an unremarkable brown but framed by sooty, long, extravagant lashes that spread around them like spider’s legs, or perhaps a centipede’s.
Huh.
Devlin wasn’t terribly romantic with his portraits tonight, which was a surprise. He could always find attractive things about any woman, no matter her background, race, shape or stature. He was a connoisseur of women, after all. They were one of the three loves of his life.
Right up there with great food and the thrill of hunting.
And yet, his assessment of Grace Darling’s physical attributes wasn’t altogether complimentary. Though he wouldn’t go as far as to say she was unattractive.
She was… intriguing.
But just as he started to percolate some inspiration around the ways she intrigued him, she interrupted his thoughts.
“We’re here.”
Chapter Two
The taxi jolted to a stop and Grace got out without waiting for Devlin to disembark first and open the door for her.
He never understood this aspect of modern women, in particular American women. Were they so independent that they couldn’t appreciate gentlemanly behavior? Did they never think that some men simply enjoyed being a gentleman?
After some two hundred years, Devlin would always behave according to the principles and manners that had been ingrained in him since birth. Not because they were habits he couldn’t shake off but because they were part of who he was, part of the man he was.
Well, bloodsucker now.
He rapidly scoured his mind for ideas. How could he get this strange, Sphinx-like woman to invite him inside? Surely there was a—
“Come inside,” she intoned with nary a trace of emotional inflection. Not excitement, anticipation or nervousness.
But at least she saved him from thinking up an excuse to impose on her.
Devlin was about to thank her for her invitation when he met her eyes.
Her pupils had fully swallowed her irises. Her stare was so intense now that it actually gave him pause.
