7
Cara
I blearily made myself a cup of coffee in the kitchen, navigating my way through the utter mess of dirty plates and half-eaten food.
I was still waking up, and I found myself picking over the fuzzy remnants of a dream I had last night. Except about two sips into my coffee I nearly dropped the cup on the ground when I remembered it wasn’t a dream.
I yanked my shirt up and touched my stomach where I could still feel an echoing memory of icy cold and the impact of a creepy girl’s fingertips.
“Nice belly button,” Zack said. “But it’s not ladylike to show it off like that.”
Parker was sitting at the breakfast table with his laptop open. He didn’t even look up before he spoke. “The belly button is the most disgusting part of the human anatomy. End of discussion. Please put that away.”
I yanked my shirt down and glared at Parker. Then I set down my cup and rushed over to hug Zack when I remembered where we’d left off last night. “Oh my God, you’re okay.”
“Uh, yeah. Those tacos were highly questionable, but it wasn’t anything a good night’s sleep couldn’t sort out.”
I pulled back, searching his face for any sign that he was messing with me. “The tacos?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “The tacos.”
“The tacos,” I repeated, nodding. “Right.”
I finished my breakfast while the rest of the guys straggled down to eat.
Mooney was dating some girl from the track team now and it led to a grossly immature bout of innuendo jokes from the rest of the guys. Parker hijacked the conversation when he decided to explain how likely it was that entire civilizations of mole people could actually live beneath us and we’d have no way to know. But nobody asked about last night.
I kept waiting for the interrogations to begin. My roommates were as overprotective as it got, and none of them even hinted that last night had been unusual. They didn’t even seem to remember the broken wall at the Mercer house or any of the fear they’d had for me just last night. In fact, the whole city seemed to have forgotten about the tantalizing Mercer House Mystery as the news had called it overnight.
Maybe I was losing my mind. In fact, I was starting to think that might be preferable to the alternative. Because either I was losing my mind, or the world was turning itself upside down right in front of me.
My suspicion of going crazy only got stronger a few hours later when I was finishing up my classes. All morning, I’d felt a growing sense of unease. It started out on the level of being cramped in an airplane seat for too long. Just a case of restless legs and the need to stretch them.
But hour by hour, the feeling of unease intensified. It turned into something almost like hunger, but for some flavor I couldn’t identify. By the time my classes were done for the day, I was done fighting it. Something almost physical was pulling me in a certain direction. I turned my body toward it and started walking. The momentary relief I felt was enough to compel me to run.
Every step closer I got felt like an immense weight off my shoulder, so I ran and ran with no idea where I was going. All I knew was that each step was like the relief of emptying my bladder after drinking a jumbo-sized coffee and trying not to leave class to pee through a two-hour lecture.
I was out of breath and sweaty when I finally stopped outside a manor house in one of the historic districts of Savannah. I found myself walking up the steps to the front door and knocking. You are absolutely losing your mind, Cara.
Except something kept replaying in my mind. I could still see the blurry impression of the man who had saved me. I could remember sensing that he knew I would come find him again.
When the door opened, I got my first full-resolution look at the man from last night. And wow, it was quite the look.
He was dressed in a severely outdated set of formal clothes. His dark hair was thick and kind of begging to have my hands run through it. He had a fascinating combination of squared off, rugged handsomeness but with such perfect skin that I couldn’t decide if he was pretty, gorgeous, beautiful, or sexy. All I knew was my breath caught because I’d never seen anyone quite like him and I’d never seen eyes like those. They were surprisingly dark, but oddly captivating and expressive.
He also had the most immaculate, thick black eyebrows that formed a perfectly roguish little swoop above his eyes. They were brows made for suggestive glances and playful, lopsided arches.
“Um,” I said. Hearing my own voice felt like getting hit with an ice-cold bucket of what the hell am I doing. “Believe it or not, I have no idea how or why I’m here.”
“You’re here,” he said breathlessly. He was watching me like a dog might watch a strip of bacon.
“For some reason.” I laughed a little, more out of discomfort than finding any real humor in the situation. Why was a man as bone-breakingly hot as this guy looking at me like he wanted to strip me naked and give me the best sex of my life? “I don’t even know your name, let alone why I came.”
“I’m Lucian Undergrove. Come in,” he said, gesturing.
But he didn’t move from the door, so when I stepped forward, I was forced to brush against his body. The simple contact of my shoulder against his firm stomach was enough to make my blood feel like it was about to boil. The man was built out of lean muscle and sharp lines.
I pressed the backs of my hands to my cheeks, feeling how incredibly flushed I was.
What the hell?
But when I looked at the man, I saw he wasn’t doing much better. He looked like he was barely holding something in.
“Don’t try anything funny,” I said, summoning some courage I didn’t quite feel. Worse, I was pretty sure I actually wanted him to try several funny things that started with the removal of clothing. “I bite,” I warned.
“Me too,” he said, the corner of his mouth twisting up sexily. His eyes were absolutely smoldering, and I thought I was probably burning about fifty calories a minute with how much heat my body was generating around him.
“What’s happening?” I asked. I didn’t ask the real question on my mind. Why do I feel an overwhelming urge to jump your sexy bones even though I don’t know you?
His nostrils flared out with each breath he took in. “It’s the bond,” he explained. “It will be strongest at first and fade with time. Sit. It will be better if we’re not quite so close.” He took a merciful step away from me and motioned to a chair in his old-fashioned living room that was lined with deep red wallpaper, stained brown wainscoting, and plush rugs.
I felt like I needed to get farther from the man, because I was worried I was going to do something absolutely insane if I didn’t. I rushed over to the chair and sat, breathing out a brief sigh of relief once I was seated.
He moved to the other side of the room, clearly making an effort to keep his distance as he planted his hands on the back of a couch across from me.
“The less you know, the safer you will be.”
I suppressed the vivid, erotic images that were already playing like a flipbook in my mind. Sweaty, exposed skin. Moving bodies. Lips pressed together.
The fantasy version of this guy had the most impeccably firm buns I’d ever laid mental eyes on, too. My mouth was practically watering.