by Shelby Reed
“He thinks you like me more than you should. Or more than he’s comfortable with,” he quickly added.
“I see.” She lifted her chin and stared at him. “So what was the problem?”
“He says it’s my fault. That I’m encouraging it.” He turned his head to meet her eyes. “He’s right, you know. I am encouraging it.”
Astonished pleasure tightened the muscles in her stomach. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
“But I believe you will, eventually.”
Kate stopped on the shoulder of the road and set her hands on her hips, forcing her breathing to slow, even as her pulse soared off to heights unknown. “Gideon, look. I barely know you. In a very short time I’ve learned that you’re a horticulturist, a widower, that you look good naked, and that you’re extremely private, and obviously for good cause. Whatever holds you back from pursuing a…a romantic relationship is your business. I’m not prying.”
He moved closer to her, his expression impossible to read, half-hidden behind the reflective lenses. “You sound like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Do you think everything will stay as sensible and rational as you make it sound if I kiss you?”
Her heart jolted into another frenzied dance. She had to tilt her head back to see his face. “I have no way of knowing that unless you kiss me.”
Before he could respond, a semi-truck roared by them on the two-lane blacktop, followed by a dusty SUV and a beat later, a dilapidated sedan. Then silence fell again, a disturbing stillness, as though even the early evening breeze had paused to see what would happen next.
Nothing happened. Gideon looked at her; she looked back at him, waiting, and for what? Bemused, Kate made a wide berth around him and began to run again. He could lag behind and ponder the what-ifs. She was going to finish the three miles and get on with her life.
“Cut left at the path,” his voice came suddenly behind her, and she nearly stumbled. How had he caught up with her so quickly and quietly? His approach had been utterly soundless on the pavement.
Panting more from turbulent emotion than exertion, she matched her pace to his and jogged beside him under a canopy of verdant trees, where the woodchip path wound onward into a shadowy hammock. It was dark in the woods, as dark as if dusk had already fallen. A moment later Putnam Creek appeared, a narrow chasm rushing through the damp, shaded terrain.
Kate slowed and stopped at the base of a thick oak, where she rested her hands on her knees, gulping in breaths. Gideon’s gaze burned into her, but she wasn’t about to engage him. She meandered down to the creek’s edge and stared through the dimness at the crystal water flowing gently over mossy stone and leaves.
His presence behind her stung her skin, raised the hair on her arms, as though he radiated electricity and she was too close to the current.
“You’re overheated,” he said, in a soft, insinuating tone that made her want to wobble to the ground in a gelatinous puddle.
She ventured a look at him. “That’s right. Overheated and annoyed.”
Gideon shook his head and blew out a slow, steady breath. “You know, for a long, long time I’d forgotten what it feels like to be a teenager, and suddenly it’s all coming back to me. I don’t know what it is about you, but every time I get around you I have thoughts, only they’re not just thoughts because they seem to flow right out of my mouth—without any help from me, I might add. That officially makes them statements, and inappropriate ones. You’re doing a great job with Jude, and God knows I don’t want to run you off. My intentions are honorable. I—”
“Gideon.” She took a step toward him, heart fluttering like a trapped moth in her chest. “Take off your sunglasses so I can see your eyes.”
He glanced skyward, studied the shadowy branches overhead for a long, uncertain moment, then carefully slipped the aviators from his face. His gaze was liquid, black as Egyptian ink as it searched hers, then shifted lower, to her lips. He stepped closer to her, and his thumb came up to brush the base of her throat.
“Mosquito,” he explained, his mouth quirking.
“Damn bloodsuckers,” she said huskily. “They’ve always liked me, for some reason.”
“Oh?” He took another step that brought his shoulder nearly against her nose. “That’s funny.”
“Not really. I was the only one in the family that would get eaten alive on camping trips. Of course I had the darkest skin, so I think it must have something to do with melanin.”
“Somehow I doubt it.” His lashes dropped, a warning of the provocative thoughts he might be entertaining. “If you’re planning on this being a strictly professional relationship, Ms. O’Brien, you should go back to Sister Oaks right now.”
She glanced at his lips. They were made for kissing. Just looking at them made her mouth water. “Are you warning me, Mr. Renaud?”
“Not anymore. Now I’m kissing you.”
Kate closed her eyes. His finger hooked beneath her chin, nudged it up, his breath whispering across her lips.
It seemed like an eternity passed before his mouth finally touched hers. When it did, the earth undulated and her hands flew up to grasp the front of his T-shirt. She clung to him, lips parting beneath his, breathing him in as his tongue made a gentle, tentative foray inside her mouth. The air around them crackled with electricity, hot, white, dangerous. A sudden, chaotic mêlée of flapping wings and shrill cries rose from the branches high above their heads, as though the kiss disturbed the very birds in this sacred, hushed place.
Kate was lost. She unfolded against him, her fingers sliding into his hair, caressing its cool, rich thickness as she met the sultry dip of his tongue with her own, and reveled in the murmuring sound that rose in his throat.
His arm slid around her waist, pulled her up tight, heart to heart. Against her, his body felt chiseled from stone, from the lean muscles of his torso to the hard ridge of his erection, burning her belly through the thin layers of their running attire.
In response to his unashamed arousal, her body softened, went wet and aching as her hips strained toward him. She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist and squirm closer. He excited her more than any man ever had, and she rubbed against him like a languid cat, craving more.
But Gideon kissed her with oddly restrained hunger; she sensed it in the tightness of his shoulders beneath her hands, and she didn’t want his restraint. She wanted him wild and dizzy and burning up, the way he made her feel with just the slow, languid coupling of their mouths.
Still he withheld his passion, never relinquished control, and when he lifted his head, she knew it was over.
Clearing her throat, she said in a shaky voice, “See? I’m still rational, just like I told you.”
“I could fix that. But we’d both be sorry. I have to let you go.” He released her and walked a few steps in the direction of the estate visible through the trees, his hands on his hips. A runner walking off the thundering effects of an explosive sprint. “Come on, it’s getting late.”
Bewildered and still vibrating with unrequited need, Kate followed him into the clearing and fell into a brisk walk beside him. Silence hung like a privacy curtain between them again, heavy with fading desire and growing confusion.
She didn’t like games. She wouldn’t play his; she had nothing left to gamble.
The greenhouse came into view, and her steps slowed as they passed it.
“Do you object to me peeking inside?” she asked abruptly, looking for an excuse to avoid having to walk beside him in stifling wordlessness all the way to the house.
“Go ahead.” He stopped to open the door for her.
Inside the small, transparent building the air was laden with humidity, the glass roof panels beaded with moisture. Kate forgot her embarrassment and indignation as she wandered up the narrow aisle between flats of crimson rosebushes, some blooming, some just sprouting leaves. The scent of roses draped the air, rich and spicy-sweet, the perfume of centuries. Beneath that lingered a green aroma like t
he earth, limned with the pungent decay of compost and fertilizer.
Astonished, Kate stopped at the worktable in the back and swiveled to find Gideon still hovering at the door, his expression unreadable. “I’ve never seen so many roses.”
“The bush on the flat behind you…that’s what I’ve been working on for the past decade.”
She glanced back and her gaze fell upon a small, thorny bush climbing like spindly, crimson-black fingers from a weathered terra cotta pot. The tightly folded rosebuds were as black as a moonless midnight sky.
“This one’s not dead, is it?” She reached out and gently fingered a fragile bud, found it silky, and very much alive.
“It’s a black rose. The only one of its kind.” Gideon let the glass door click shut behind him and moved toward her with his peculiar, graceful deliberation, his outstretched hands gliding over the tips of the bushes as he walked, as though the ruby and crimson blossoms were children bowing beneath his caress.
Swallowing the knot of emotion that had formed without explanation in her throat, Kate gazed at the fledgling bush, seized by the desire to see the blood-onyx buds unfolding, laid open and fragrant, as black as its creator’s eyes.
“This is the one you’ve been cross-breeding,” she said, voice hushed with awe.
“Yes.” He paused behind her, reached for the pair of shears on the table by her hand, and moved to snip a stem from one of the bigger bushes sitting to the right. “This is called the Midnight Rose. It’s my magnum opus, you might say. Have one of the house staff put this bud in a vase for you, and it’ll open and scent your room.”
She took it from him, careful of the thorns, which seemed unusually long and sharp—somehow appropriate for the daunting darkness of the precious flower Gideon had created.
His fingers brushed hers as the stem changed hands, then he folded his arms across his chest and rested a hip against the table. “I’m sorry if I disconcerted you by the creek. I lost my head.” He slanted her a look of amusement. “Of course, as beautiful as you are, you must be used to it.”
Kate met his gaze without blinking. “Are you used to it, as beautiful as you are?”
“I’m not used to losing control,” he said. “I want you to stay as Jude’s teacher. I want to do nothing to jeopardize your comfort here.”
“Then don’t kiss me again unless you mean it.”
He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Fair enough, Ms. O’Brien. I’ll just have to keep my council…and my hands to myself.”
She said nothing, only followed him from the greenhouse. She wouldn’t lie and tell him that she wanted his distance. Not when her limbs still trembled with weak delight from the kiss they’d shared, and from the knowledge that more passion simmered between them after a few short days of acquaintance than she could possibly make sense of.
Chapter Five
The black Audi sliced through the night, flying along the ribbon of highway at breakneck speed. Gideon wasn’t normally a reckless driver; his own immortality hadn’t yet robbed him of respect for life, but the need throbbing through him drove him onward, his foot heavy against the gas pedal, his fingers white-knuckled around the steering wheel.
Kate. Her name reverberated through his mind like a relentless caress. He’d wanted to devour her—her soft, vulnerable mouth, the delicious warmth throbbing beneath her breast as it rose and fell in rapid time with her breathing. A muscle leaped in his jaw as he thought about licking the salty dampness from her upper lip, sinking his fingers into the softness of her hips, pulling her up tight so she could feel the steely desire roaring through him.
He could have yanked her down there on the side of the creek and thrust inside her wet, hot flesh until she screamed with pleasure, sank his teeth into the pulse at her neck and drank himself into oblivion. Like the old days. Before he’d ever cared about something as unattainable as salvation, before he’d known what it meant to love with every ounce of his inhuman heart, only to lose again, and again, and again. He wanted Kate, but he’d wanted redemption longer. Tonight, neither was forthcoming.
As always, his thoughts arrowed straight to the single jewel in the whirling vortex of his existence. Jude. God. There was no feasible cure for him, no cure for an endless life of endless suffering, and Gideon had no way of knowing whether his son had inherited immortality, too. Jude was aging; that much led Gideon to believe his child might be more human than aberrant. A blessing, but for how long?
How long until the vague explanations were no longer enough? Jude was so damn intelligent, so perceptive, almost shrewd. And he was growing…changing. Behind those soulful black eyes a man lingered, waiting to emerge. It was just a matter of time until Gideon had to tell him the truth, that it was possible to be born half-human, half-monster, but how did one describe the existence of half a soul? Every time Gideon looked into Jude’s face, the brightness and purity of the boy’s spirit shone so clearly…how could half a soul radiate such intensity and harbor a flip side of darkness that stamped him destined for hell?
He crested the hill and the sparkling lights of Roanoke unfolded before him. Somewhere in the curves and dips and rises ahead, Delilah waited. Gideon could sink into her, drive and crush and take, and then she’d take in return. His blood for hers. A fair exchange of sustenance, and an even more satisfying transaction of carnal pleasure. He could shake off his lingering humanity like an unwelcome mantle in her arms.
Delilah…heartless, murderous, and oh-so delectable. A bad habit, and a necessity. He increased his speed and shoved Kate O’Brien from his mind, banishing the never-ending tug of mortality, if only for tonight.
* * * * *
“Where’s your room in this labyrinth?” Kate asked Jude as they sat across from each other at the kitchen table.
He shoved aside his plate and sighed. “In the east wing on the second floor, near my dad’s.”
“Know how many bedrooms are in this place?”
“Nope.” He smiled a little. “Want to go count?”
“Sure.” Kate sensed he was as restless as she, and probably for a similar reason—Gideon. He hadn’t told her where he was going; she’d overheard him say something about Roanoke to Jude as he ruffled the boy’s hair on the way out the kitchen door. He’d looked good enough to eat, showered and freshly shaved, dressed in black and sporting a calf-length, black duster that managed to render him delicious and dangerous at the same time. Damn him if he was on a date, or worse, tangled in the sheets with some sexy, noncommittal siren, mere hours after he’d kissed Kate into oblivion on the bank of Putnam Creek. Damn him and then some.
Loneliness pervaded every inch of the estate in his absence, as though the life force had departed with him when he drove away for the evening. Neither Kate nor Jude had eaten much dinner; Betty whisked away their barely touched plates with a disapproving frown before she left for the night. All through the house, it was disconcertingly quiet.
Upstairs, Jude hesitated in front of the hunt scene and studied it, head tilted. “The dog looks—”
“Don’t even tell me.” Kate breezed past it and up the stairs to the east wing. “I’ll never sleep tonight.”
He dashed to catch up with her and they started down the dim, narrow hall. Brass sconces illuminated the wainscoted walls on both sides; the runner beneath their feet was a plush collage of crimson and gold. Kate counted six doors on one side of the hallway, five on the other.
“This is my room,” Jude said, pausing at the third room on the right. “Want to see it?”
“Absolutely.”
He swung open the door, switched on the light, and Kate stuck her head inside to glance around the large, rectangular room. Heavy plaid drapes covered two floor-to-ceiling windows. A bulky four-poster bed sat between them, half lost beneath discarded clothes and rumpled bedcovers.
“It’s messy,” she declared with a smile. “Just as I suspected.”
“My dad won’t let the maids pick it up. I have to.”
“I agree with
that.” She wandered inside, her gaze taking in the tender, funny, bittersweet trappings of a thirteen-year-old’s world. Wrestling posters, a computer with Japanese animation screen-saver, stuffed animals shoved conspicuously between a highboy and the wall, a game console and television surrounded by a slew of video games. She glanced at a shadow box lined with figurines. “You collect Star Wars figures?”
“I used to.” He sounded embarrassed, so she quickly bypassed the collection to gaze at the assortment of photographs on the wide dresser.
Immediately her attention zeroed in on a woman perched on a playground swing. She had long, dark hair, exotic features and laughing, fawn-colored eyes. Lush figure, sensual features. Instantly Kate knew. This was a woman to capture Gideon Renaud’s heart. “Jude, is this your mother?”
“Yeah.” He stopped beside her and reached for the frame, his hair flopping over his forehead as he examined the picture. “That’s before I was born.” He set it back by the mirror with exquisite care, his face an impassive mask. “I don’t remember her. She died right after she had me.”
“Yes, Mrs. Shelton told me that. I’m sorry.” She studied the various childhood photos, observing his gradual development from infant to adolescent. He was flawlessly photogenic. No stiff, classroom poses. All images captured from real life…as real a life as Jude’s illness had allowed him to lead. “Who took these wonderful pictures?”
“Mostly my dad. He likes photography.”
“You don’t have any photos of him.”
He released an exasperated huff of laughter. “I said he liked photography, not having his picture taken. He hates that more than anything.”
“I wonder why.”
“I don’t know. He’s weird. All the ones I’ve seen of him, his face is turned.” He straightened a couple of frames in the collection, then glanced up at her. “He doesn’t like mirrors, either. He doesn’t have any in his bathroom or in his bedroom. Want to see?”
