Michele Hauf - Beyond the Moon

Verity performed a twirl right there because she felt light, despite the events of the previous evening. She didn’t want to think about that darkness. Tonight she would enjoy spending time with a handsome man.

Her mother would turn over in her grave.

“Just in it for the adventure,” she reminded herself, knowing her staunchly warned heart would never allow her to actually fall for a hunter. Any man, for that matter. Because just when she began to let down her guard and welcome in love, she had gained a stalker.

She walked on light feet to a door impressed with rococo carved wood scrollwork. She decided it must lead into Rook’s bedroom. Glancing over a shoulder to ensure he was still in the kitchen, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

A bedroom was a person’s thumbprint of their personality, and what an interesting study of the stoic knight. This was his sanctum.

Grays and blues designed the room’s color scheme, with the parquet floor painted a soft gray, much like in her attic bedroom. Calming and serene. Verity released her breath and then inhaled the subtle blend of cinnamon and myrrh. Exotic scents for an equally exotic man.

She decided suddenly that Rook was chocolate yuzu. She had a tendency to assign macaron flavors to the people she knew. Crisp and delightful on the outside, with a surprising tang on the inside.

Smiling at her assessment, she wandered inside the room. Again, little furniture, as if to collect possessions would somehow clutter the man’s vita. She liked that. Some who lived many centuries tended to collect hoards of material things. This home showed restraint. Control was certainly Rook’s mien.

A large turquoise velvet tufted ottoman—must be a match to the couch—sat near the window. Next to that a cloth yoga mat was spread out before an altar that featured a stone Buddha with tumescent belly and a gleeful grin.

“Disciplined,” she further assessed the man. “Yet also open, and…” her eyes fell over the bed “…so sensual.”

The middle of the room offered a peek beyond the tight-fisted control. A king-size bed sat beneath a fall of turquoise fabric tied up to allow entry to the innermost sanctuary. It resembled a harem hotspot, a post where illicit and exquisite pleasures could be had.

Verity tapped her lips. Such fantasies she could entertain beneath that gossamer fabric.

Keeping to the wall that hugged the living room, she tiptoed over to the wardrobe. Drawing her fingers along the steel front, she decided the modern-styled piece felt out of place in the room. A hinged door was open a crack.

Chewing the corner of her lip, she vacillated between whether or not to peek inside. She hadn’t done so out in the living room, but here, so far from the kitchen…?

She slid a finger between the crack in the wardrobe, and the heavy steel door glided toward her to reveal not clothes but—

Bloody Hecate, it’s an armory.

Must be the weapons he used when engaged in hunting. Dozens of titanium stakes were lined along the back of the wardrobe. Pistols and a crossbow and an assortment of blades. She marveled over the throwing stars she’d only seen used in movies. Ninja stuff. Did he use all this in the fight against vampires?

Daring to draw her fingers along the cool column of one of the stakes, she took it and held it, finding it was much lighter than expected. A flashlight was twice as heavy. Careful with it, she knew that the actual stake part came out of one end with some kind of release mechanism—

“You take that snooping thing seriously, don’t you?”

Startled, Verity squeezed the titanium column. The stake sprang out, jerking her arm back to hit Rook in the chest with her elbow. He wrangled her wrist and spun her around, an expert offensive move that he may have only practiced on vampires previously.

“Uh.” She gasped and looked from the deadly stake, pointed toward his chest, to his smirk and those laughing blue eyes. “Sorry?”

“Be careful. That thing could take out an eye.”

“Or a life,” she whispered, releasing the weapon to him. He extracted it from her shaking fingers and set it inside the cabinet. “I’m sorry. It was open a little, and I—well, I did say I was going to snoop.”

“You should be chastised for such daring.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “And I’m of a mind to do that.”

“But I was just…uh…” She sighed and lifted her chin, losing all powers to reason as she fell into the depths of his intimately delving stare.

The man answered her astonishment with a kiss that landed on her mouth as softly as a butterfly. But as their lips joined, the too-gentle pressure demanded they seek one another more forcefully. Pulling her body against his, he claimed her in that moment. His fingers moved along her hip and curled, forcing her closer. His other hand swept through her hair and clutched it aside her cheek. He tasted like the herbs he’d used to season the meal, which mingled with the wine lingering on her tongue. His mouth seared fire against hers, teasing her to match his urgency.

And she did.

Every part of Verity shimmered, seeking, grabbing, wanting this delicious connection to never stop. It was as though she had not been kissed for centuries, and finally, exquisitely, she was being fed the life she had never known she needed.

Rook’s hand swept down her derriere and his fingers traced along the ruffles that hemmed her miniskirt, his fingertips every so often touching the bared skin between skirt and thigh-high stockings.

Verity pressed up higher onto the tips of her toes, clinging to his shirt collar to keep him at her mouth. She needed his breath. Their connection made her feel as powerful as she did when throwing fire. Combustible, that was the word for this embrace. And if she could, she’d melt right into his arms. May he lay her across his vast bed of untold exotic pleasures and continue his exploration with a million more kisses.

Suddenly the kitchen buzzer tinged, and he abruptly pulled away from her. Verity gasped, stepping on her tiptoes to maintain balance at the loss of such utter sensual strength. The kiss had completely discombobulated her in the best way possible.

He bracketed her face with his hands. “Dinner’s ready.”

Screw dinner. Another kiss, please?

Seeming to completely dismiss that he’d just kissed her silly, Rook closed the wardrobe doors, secured the latch, then strode out of the room.

Verity obediently followed him into the kitchen and sat when he pulled out a chair for her. Her body was still in the bedroom, crushed up against his powerful build. Her mouth was at his…

Licking her lips to savor the taste of his chastising kiss, she pressed a palm over her heart. So fast, it rushed toward something she hadn’t thought to ever know. Excitement, adventure, romance. It all sounded deliciously decadent.

Yet he’d walked away from the kiss as if it had meant nothing more to him than, well, peeling away the rind from the lemon as he’d prepared the meal. Perhaps he was not as enamored of their embrace as she had been. Or maybe it had simply been as he’d stated: a punishment for her snooping.

If so, then what other kinds of mischief could she get into that required such admonishment?

Play it cool, Verity. It hasn’t been that long since you’ve been kissed. Why the silly swoon this time? He’s just another man. Take it slow or you’ll end up in another wacky relationship with a stalker.

But Rook wasn’t any other man. They had met for a reason, and she wanted to learn why.

When he offered white wine, she held up her goblet. Its scent was ridiculously strong, and she picked it out, even over the herbs and cooking aromas. “Raspberries?” she guessed.

“Very good. A friend of mine owns a vineyard in the south of France. They plant raspberries and peaches within the vines.”