His arms closed around her and held her close until she was once again steady. It felt like time had stopped. For the moment it felt like all there was in the whole world was her and this man, and she didn’t even know his name. All five of her senses were consumed by him. The feel of his tough hands on the small of her back, the feel of his fine cotton shirt brushing roughly against her cheek.
The smell of him was intoxicating. She could smell the richness of the earth on him mingled with spices she could not identify but that made her heart speed up none the less. For a minute she struggled to remember how she had come to be in this position. It felt as though her mind had been wiped clean and nothing that had come before her being wrapped up with this man mattered anymore.
But then something occurred to her, and it was enough to pull her out of her weightlessness and back into the harsh reality. Even with her face pressed up against his chest, she couldn’t hear a heartbeat. Was that normal? You always saw in movies or read in books that a person could hear, could even feel the heartbeat of another. Maybe that was all just sentimental bullshit to achieve a particular dramatic effect, but Megan didn’t think so.
Something about the absence of heartbeat in this man struck her as strange, as wrong. It was enough to make her take a quick couple of steps back and really look up into his face for the first time. Not that doing that really helped her at all.
He may not have had a normal heartbeat thumping in his chest, but he was absolutely gorgeous. Like the kind of handsome you only ever saw in a magazine or on the silver screen. His skin was as white as the moon, whiter than hers, which she hadn’t really thought was possible before actually seeing it.
He had dark brown hair with hints of red threaded through it that made it look like it was lit from within and a five o’clock shadow that also showed that red. His eyes were an icy blue and the features of his face were so defined that they could have actually been carved by a master sculptor. He wore simple yet perfectly tailored and probably very expensive clothes and the overall effect he achieved was daunting, to say the least.
“Is something the matter?”
“Um, no. No, I’m sorry. Was I acting like something was?”
“Not really,” he said with a little smile that made her heart speed up even more, “it’s just that you were staring at me. I thought something might be the matter.”
She had been staring at him. Great. Perfect. Somehow talking to him made her feel even more vulnerable than she had felt with those terrible men who had fully intended to have their way with her. He was just completely disarming in a way that she didn’t feel like people really were anymore. She couldn’t figure out why, but there was something about him that reminded her of a Jane Austen movie and that was definitely not the kind of guy she was used to interacting with.
“I’m sorry, I, I-”
“Philip.”
“What?”
“Philip,” he smiled again, “my name is Philip. I figured that if we were going to have such an uncomfortable exchange we might as well exchange names. So my name is Philip Smith. And you are?”
“Oh! Megan. My name is Megan Wright. Sorry, I guess I’m a little bit flustered. But thank you. I just realized I haven’t said that yet. Thank you for stepping in for me. I know a lot of people wouldn’t do something like that. Especially in a city like this.”
“In a city like this, huh? Are you not a fan of New Orleans?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know. I guess I haven’t thought about it before. I like part of it, but it isn’t a very forgiving place, is it?”
“Forgiving. Interesting choice of word. No, I don’t suppose it is. Although sometimes forgiving isn’t the most important thing. Would you agree?”
Would she agree? Would she? She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure that she really knew anything right now. She wasn’t even completely sure what they were talking about at this point. For that matter, she wasn’t sure why she was talking to him at all, or why she was still standing right beside the dumpster she had been forced behind. Did she think she was safe now? Did she really?
True, this guy Philip had gotten rid of the guys who had accosted her, but that didn’t mean he was safe and she would be an idiot to think that he was. She was still standing in an alley with a guy she didn’t know at all in a less than desirable part of town. In the dark.
Let’s not forget that part. She had started her ill-fated walk at dusk, which was her favorite time of day and when she liked to walk and clear her head, but it was well past dusk now. It was pitch black outside and the moon, which had been a promising one, must have gotten shy because it was currently completely shrouded in cloud coverage. The only light to see by was the garish light dispersed from the sporadic and only sometimes working street lamps, and it made everything look distorted and foreign.
She needed to get out of here. Now that she had started to think about what had happened to her and what she was doing, she couldn’t stop thinking about it and she could feel a blind panic taking root deep inside of her gut and radiating outwards like a sickness. He must have been able to see it on her face, too, because he took a small step back from her, giving her a wider circle of personal space and holding up his hands palms out to show her that he meant no harm.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, his voice melodic and very nearly hypnotic in its soft tones, “sometimes I ask questions I probably shouldn’t. I have a curious mind and I don’t always wait to get to know a person before trying to pick her brains.”
“No, don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just need to go, that’s all. I think I really need to get out of here. I’m sorry.”
She was already on the move while she was talking, trying very hard to get around Philip without him really realizing what she was doing. Because now that she had decided that she needed to move, she was painfully aware of the fact that he was standing in between her and her only escape route. She was like a caged animal, very much at the mercy of Philip’s whims.
“Wait! Please, just wait a moment.”
“No really,” the panic was rising higher and she was almost certain she was going to start screaming, “I think I need to just go. Please, just excuse me.”
She thought that he wasn’t going to move and she knew without a doubt that if he didn’t want her to move, she wasn’t going anywhere. She had watched him pick that huge man up like he didn’t weigh anything at all. He had to be a million times stronger than her and close to a foot taller. And then there were the other differences, the ones she couldn’t articulate or even really quantify, but that she knew deep down inside of her bones were there, regardless.
But why? What did he want from her? If he had intervened out of a desire to play the part of the Good Samaritan, his job was done. She was (relatively) safe and all she wanted was to get home. If he wanted something other than that, she had no idea what it was. She just wanted to be somewhere else than where she was.
She tried to slide past him, figuring that maybe if she caught him off guard she could make a break for it. But his instincts were far more refined than hers and she had hardly moved at all before one of his massive hands was wrapped around her upper arm. He wasn’t trying to hurt her, she knew that somehow, but he had a firm enough hold on her that she wasn’t going to be able to pull herself free.
“Let me walk with you. We can grab a drink somewhere.”
“No, really, that’s OK. I’m fine.”
“I believe you. Do you think I’m suggesting a drink because I don’t think you’re OK?”
“Um, I don’t know. I guess so.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I might just want to spend more time with you? We could go anywhere you like. Or, better yet, come back to my home. It’s safe and I have a fully stocked bar. I believe that I could make you anything you like.”
OK, was this guy for real? He wanted to take her home with him? Before that suggestion she had thought there was something different about him, something me
nacing and not quite natural. Now she thought he might just be an asshole. What kind of guy tried to pick up a chick who had just been attacked? Maybe he was one of those kinds of guys who got off on women who were feeling particularly vulnerable, or maybe not.
Maybe he was in the middle of living out his superhero fantasy and he wanted her to fulfill it to its completion for him. Something like that most definitely seemed like a possibility. Whatever it was, and she really didn’t care, one thing she could see for sure was that he was definitely too good looking for his own good.
It was beyond presumptuous for him to ask her to come to his house when he knew nothing about her, which made her think that he was arrogant enough to believe that she was going to say yes. That rubbed her the wrong way and she yanked her arm backwards, her fear of him momentarily forgotten.
“Are you for real right now?”
“I’m sorry?”
“No, I’m sorry. I must be mistaken. For a minute I thought that you were trying to get me to come home with you. Was I mistaken?”
At least he had the decency to look surprised and a little bit taken aback. She had a suspicion that he wasn’t used to people talking back to him like that. Actually, it seemed pretty likely that he had never been turned down after propositioning a girl. He was honestly that good looking and even as annoyed as she was, she could see that it was hard to turn down a guy who looked like a more mysterious version of Brad Pitt.
It was probably one of the reasons she was so annoyed by the whole thing. Even in her current state, part of her wanted to say yes. She could still feel his strange hands on her back and smell his musk lingering on her clothes. It was distracting. It made her feel slightly drunk and off kilter and that was the most annoying part of all.
She didn’t want to be the kind of girl who got her head turned so easily by a good looking man. She was twenty-seven years old. She wasn’t a baby or some giggly high school girl. She hadn’t even been that girl when she had been in high school. She had literally never before had such a physical reaction to her attraction for a man and her immediate reaction to it was to rebel. There was not a chance on God’s green earth that she was just going to melt because this pretty boy had made a move on her. She was going to go home. That was what she was going to do.
“So you’re offended. That I want to spend time with you. Interesting.”
“Interesting?” Ugh, the response was dripping with condescension which made her feel even angrier. Just who the hell did this guy think he was?
“Yes, interesting. Most people are flattered when another person expresses interest in or appreciation for them. You seem to operate differently.”
“I guess I do. Can you let me go now?”
He held on for another minute and despite the pervasive cold of his skin, Megan felt nothing but heat. There was a renewed sense of that electricity she had felt upon their first physical contact and she was afraid that if he didn’t let go soon, she would cave.
She would throw out all of that indignation she had just expressed to herself and she would do exactly what he was asking her to. But he dropped his hand and then she was free. Free of the physical constraints he represented and clear of the fogging effect he had on her brain. She took a quick step forward and then she was halfway to the sidewalk.
She was on her way and she wasn’t going to look back. She was NOT going to look back but then he cleared his throat, so quietly that she wasn’t sure it had actually happened at all, and then turning back was exactly what she did. She was several feet away from him now but looking into his eyes still resulted in such a strong pull that she almost went right back to the place where she had just stood.
“What?! What do you want?”
“Nothing. I want nothing from you. I only wanted to tell you that I live in that cream house off Carriage Lane. In case you change your mind and decide you want that drink after all. I’ll be up, there’s no need to worry about that. I’m a bit of a night owl.”
She gave an exasperated snort of disbelief and turned away from him, walking in the opposite direction as quickly as her legs could carry her. This time she really didn’t look back but she didn’t need to to know that he was still standing there and watching her go.
She thought that he would probably do that until she was completely out of sight. Was he expecting her to turn back again? He probably realized that if she did she would really be a goner. It felt pretty obvious to her, which was why she made such a furious point of not doing it even though now there was another reason for her to want to go.
Normally, if somebody told you that they lived on “that cream house” on Carriage Lane you would have no idea what he was talking about. For Megan, in this instance, that was not the case. She knew exactly which house he meant. It was one of the most beautiful and intriguing houses in the city and she was pretty sure that half of New Orleans residents and the tourists as well were dying to get inside and take a look at it.
Now she had her own personal invitation to do just that and there was a little voice inside screaming at her to just do it already! It was a voice she wasn’t listening to, but it was pretty freaking hard to keep her self-control. Megan had lived in a whole lot of different places in her almost thirty years and seen many different kinds of homes. None of them had ever captured her imagination more than that huge romantic white house behind the wrought iron gates set far back from the road with the tangled garden encompassing it.
It was a house that radiated mystery and a sense of somehow sorrowful romanticism and she felt herself drawn to it. She would find reasons to walk by it to get to the places she needed to be, even if it meant taking the very long way. She liked to be near it and to imagine who was inside and what those occupants’ story was.
Now she knew who at least one of those people was and he was giving her the invitation she needed to go exploring the home of her dreams. Saying no to that one was rough, like a child waking up on Christmas morning, looking at his heap of presents under the tree, and then saying “no thanks, I think I’ll pass.” Who the hell wanted to do a thing like that?! She did it, but she was pissed about it the whole way home and by the time she was outside of her rundown, drug den-looking apartment building she had almost completely talked herself out of going up to her own place.
There were so many reasons for her indecision that she couldn’t even begin to straighten them out inside of her own head. Part of it was that she was still badly shaken up by her run in with those shitty men. The idea of going upstairs and holing up inside of an apartment she was pretty sure a five year old could have broken into didn’t exactly sound appealing.
She could have called a friend and asked to stay with her, but she didn’t really have any friends. Not in the city, not good enough friends to ask for something like that. There were a couple of girls she worked with at the diner who she was friendly with but not the kind of friendly where they shared anything about their lives.
Megan really didn’t do that with anybody. She’d had enough tragedy in her life to make her skittish of people she didn’t know and the majority of the people she had grown up caring about were long gone. But she didn’t want to think about that. That was a story for another time.
So there was still that fear and overblown anxiety that came from a traumatically stressful situation, and there was the mystery house calling out for her to come and explore. And back behind those two very good reasons, there was Philip. Philip, possibly the most arrogant man she had ever met (although who knew, maybe she was misjudging him, or at least that’s what she told herself), who was also without a doubt the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.
The more she thought about it, the surer she was that he might actually be the most handsome man anybody had ever seen. And she couldn’t get him out of her head. It felt like it was actually getting worse, not better. All she could see in her mind’s eye were his eyes and the little smirk he wore on his face. She wanted to see him again. She wanted to wipe that smirk off of
his face, to break that cool and calm exterior he wore like a suit of armor.
The thing she would never admit, not to herself and sure as shit not to anybody else, was that she wanted to feel his hands resting on the small of her back again, too. She was crazy attracted to him, so immediately attracted to him that she did not trust the feeling at all, but whether she trusted it or not, it was still there and it was driving her crazy. She paced back and forth in front of her building for five minutes, fifteen minutes, and thirty minutes.
She paced back and forth until she couldn’t stand it anymore and then she took off, speed walking away from her home and towards Philip’s. Just to see the house, she told herself, just to finally get a look inside and maybe try and take him down a peg or two while she was at it. If he would still let her in. Part of her had a feeling that now that she was out of his sight she would be completely out of his mind as well. He could have met four girls right after she turned his invitation down and taken each and every one of them home.
She didn’t think anybody but her would even think of telling him no. By the time she was standing in front of the huge, beautiful home she was convinced that he wouldn’t even be there, but the massive iron gate was standing open for her, beckoning her to come inside. She walked timidly up the from walkway, suddenly feeling totally out of place and wishing she looked a little bit less messy.
Saved By Blood (The By Blood Vampire Series Book 3) Page 3
