My Reluctant Warden (9 page)

For a few seconds, the only sounds in the room were that of utensils, glass, and porcelain. Then he said, in a decidedly toneless voice that didn’t reveal anything about how he felt, “I have done it in the past myself. Not in a while. And it’s been even longer since it was from someone unwilling.”

When I looked up at him, his gaze was on me, but it didn’t meet mine. He was staring at my neck. I could have sworn I could feel the touch of his fingertips on my pulse point again. I swallowed hard, then took a deep drink of wine, closing my eyes for a second as I tilted my head back.

“Angelina,” he whispered. “Please don’t be afraid of me.”

I met his eyes and shook my head. “I’m not afraid of you,” I said, my voice trembling a little. “Just the opposite. I’m scared about what it means that I’m not afraid of you.”

He was about to say something when Stephen returned. He took away my empty plate and Morgan’s empty mug, and asked where we’d take dessert.

“How about the sun room?” Morgan mused aloud.

I wasn’t sure if it was a question for me. I offered a questioning, “All right?” and already Stephen was moving away.

“You have a sun room?” I asked, too surprised to hold back the words.

He stood and came around the table, helping me out of my chair.

“I do,” he said with a smile. “And again with the surprised tone.”

He offered me his arm again and I took it, although I made a light huffing sound.

“Well excuse me for being surprised that a vampire would want a sun room. I thought you couldn’t go into the sun.”

He led me out of the room, gently patting my hand on his arm.

“Of course you think that. A lot of work has gone into establishing vampire myths as you know them. The sun thing is mostly that. A myth.”

My curiosity was piqued. How could I not want to know more when I was walking side by side with a vampire?

“How can it be ‘mostly’ a myth?” I asked.

He opened another door, revealing a staircase, and we went up together.

“We don’t burst into flames when we’re exposed to sunlight,” he explained. “But it does weaken us. We move like normal humans in the sun, and our senses are duller. If we remain in it for too long, with no shade and no respite, we get what humans might think are really bad sunburns, and they take much longer to heal than any other type of wound. That’s why those of us who hunt do so at night, when they have a physical advantage over humans.”

Not a particularly reassuring thought, but then again he’d said he didn’t feed from humans, and he kept making a distinction between himself and vampires who did.

“What else is a myth?” I asked.

We reached the top of the stairs, and he freed his arm from me to step ahead and open the door.

“What about the mirror thing? I know that’s a myth because I’ve seen…”

I’d meant to say I’d seen Miss Delilah’s reflection, but words failed me. He’d led me ahead of him into a dark, warm room. When I stopped two steps inside, he turned on the lights, and suddenly I was in the middle of a tropical forest.

*

When Miss Delilah had sent me on the quest for an elusive black orchid, I visited quite a few greenhouses to talk to the artists—really, that’s what they are—who try to marry beautiful plants to create new, even more beautiful hybrids. It had all happened in the middle of summer, and walking from the hot, humid streets into the hot, humid spaces the plants required was an exercise in endurance.

Morgan’s ‘sun room’ was just as hot and humid, but somehow in the middle of winter and even though I’d come from inside a warm house, it felt much more comfortable. Or maybe I was too stunned to pay much attention to any discomfort.

As far as I could tell, the room covered a large part of the roof of the building. Glass panels were everywhere. So were flowers.

Now, it wasn’t merely flowers in their pots, lined up on shelves. When I said I entered a tropical forest, I wasn’t exaggerating, or at least not much. The trees were planted in pots—pots so large they had to require a crane to lift them, but pots nonetheless. And while the trees would have grown much taller in their natural habitat, they still climbed a good fifteen feet up to the glass roof. The orchids clung to the bark, like they would have halfway across the world, the aerial roots exposed and sucking in moisture from the environment. A sweet smell permeated the air, like a hundred different perfume notes melding into an olfactory symphony.

“This…” I turned on one spot, my gaze unable to settle down from all there was to see. My voice dropped to a tone I’d used in churches as a child. “This is amazing.”

Morgan was all but beaming.

“Of all the art in this house,” he said, reaching to touch a flower with his fingertip, “this is the one that is truly priceless. Nature didn’t create these shapes for recognition or fame, and it didn’t pick these colors on a whim. It took centuries or more to perfect each flower. And they will continue to evolve when both of us are long gone.”

When our eyes met, he blinked and looked away. Of all things, he seemed embarrassed. Did he feel he’d said too much? Revealed a part of himself he’d rather have kept hidden?

It reminded me of the balcony when his words and eyes had given me a glimpse of what a lonely soul he was. He’d just granted me another peek, and this time all I’d seen was beauty.

I didn’t let myself think. I took one step toward him. A second one, and we were toe to toe. With the most delicate of touches, I brought a hand to the back of his neck and pulled gently. For a second, maybe not even that long, he resisted. But then he yielded and tilted his head down, his arms coming up to encircle my waist and draw me closer. Our lips pressed together.

As far as kisses go, this one wasn’t half as hot as the air around us, but it was sweeter. I hadn’t started this for heat. I just wanted to let him know I’d heard him—his words and how they resonated against his soul—and that he had nothing to be embarrassed about.

It could have turned into something else, like on the balcony, but a discreet cough behind Morgan broke the moment.

“My apologies,” Stephen said. “Will you still be wanting dessert?”

Morgan and I pulled apart. Stephen was standing five feet away, his eyes averted. He was holding a different tray from the one he’d served dinner with, on which a single plate carried a generous slice of chocolate cake and two flutes of champagne were filled almost to the brim, topped by a layer of bubbles.

Morgan looked at me; he must have noticed that the cake had caught my attention because I could hear the grin in his voice when he said, “We do, yes. Thank you Stephen.”

Stephen inclined his head and passed us. Morgan smiled at me and, with a gesture, invited me to follow Stephen. We passed more trees, more orchids, even some large boulders that served as support for yet more flowers.

At the center of the green house, a circle had been left open. Three paths radiated from it into the trees, including the one we’d followed. A rug of woven grass softened the concrete, with a chaise lounge and two armchairs, all made of weathered wood, set around a low, rectangular table of solid wood. The tree it had come from must have been massive.

Stephen set the tray on the table and gave Morgan a questioning look. At Morgan’s nod, he retreated.

“Will you take a seat, Angelina?”

I did, sitting in one of the armchairs. Morgan picked up both glasses and handed me one before taking the seat next to me.

“Would you be offended if I suggested a toast to Lilah?” he asked.

I’d been about to take a sip, but I froze and turned my eyes to him.

“She’s not my favorite person at the moment,” I said, unable to keep the anger I felt toward her out of my voice.

“I guess not,” Morgan said quietly. “And I understand, of course. I’ll keep trying to get her back here to release you, and I’m sorry you have to endure this… captivity.”

His mouth twisted on the last word as though it tasted foul.

It was true that I was trapped in Morgan’s house against my will, and I resented Miss Delilah for it. But at the same time…

“It is captivity,” I agreed. “But the company makes it easier to bear than I’d have thought possible.”

I couldn’t help but finish with a smile. Morgan reached toward me, took my free hand, and led it to his lips.

“The reason I am grateful to her,” he said, holding on to my hand, “is that even though she was deeply… misguided in the methods she used, she did allow me to meet you. For that, you’ll have to forgive me, I am glad.”

“Forgive you for being glad we met? Hmm, I don’t know, let me think about that.”

His chuckle rumbled like the deep purr of a big cat. It vibrated down my spine and made me shiver.

We clinked our glasses and each took a sip, but as good as the champagne was, it wasn’t quite what I wanted. I started to reach for the cake. Morgan got to it before me.

“Let me,” he said simply, his voice still rumbling.

He cut a small piece of cake with the fork, speared it, and held it out to me. When I leaned forward, he pulled back slightly so that I’d have to lean even closer. The spark in his eyes told me he knew exactly what he was doing.

Well, if that was the game he wanted to play…

I crossed my legs and rested an elbow on the armrest. I licked my lips and held his gaze as I leaned toward the chocolate goodness.

He’d been grinning, but his smile faltered when I closed my lips over the tines of the fork, pulled back slowly, dropped my eyelids to half-mast, and made a humming sound low in my throat.

The cake really was good—it was the same delicious treat Stephen had offered me at lunchtime—but yes, I was exaggerating a little.

Only a little.

Come on, if he was going to tease me, I had the right—no, the moral obligation—to tease right back!

The hunger in his eyes as he cut and speared another morsel of cake had nothing to do with chocolate. He held my gaze and presented me with a second bite. I ate this one with a loud, happy sigh. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and he moistened his lips, but he didn’t say anything.

“Don’t you want to try some?” I said when we’d gone through half the cake like that. “It really is very good.”

“I know it is,” he said with a half smile. “It’s my birthday cake, after all.”

I felt silly that that hadn’t occurred to me. I had caught a glimpse of the cake last night: it had been in the main foyer, surrounded by a crowd admiring the different tiers and sugar sculptures.

“Did you do the whole ‘song and candle blowing’ thing?” I asked. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

“No, you didn’t miss anything. I wasn’t really in the mood last night.”

A shadow passed over us, shaped like Miss Delilah. He turned the fork between his fingers and handed it to me, handle first.

“I wouldn’t say no to a bite now.”

I cut a small piece and offered it to him like he’d done for me. I expected to be teased like I’d teased him, but even so a wave of warmth spread through me as I watched him shut his eyes and close his mouth over the fork. He held it so tightly between his lips that when he pulled back, the fork and my hand followed.

He caught my wrist and held it in his hand as he finally released the fork and swallowed the piece of cake. His eyelids opened, and he dipped his head again, watching me from under his eyelashes as he pulled the fork from my suddenly nerveless fingers, set it and the plate aside, then turned my wrist up and pressed his lips there.

A jolt of electricity flashed through me at that delicate touch.

“Delicious,” he whispered, kissing my wrist again.

I’m not quite sure whether he tugged on my hand to invite me to join him or if it was my doing entirely. Whichever it was, I stood from my chair and let him draw me into his lap. I couldn’t straddle his thighs in the dress, not without it riding up to my hips, so I sat sideways with my back to the armrest. I curled an arm around his neck. He freed my wrist to twine his fingers with mine. His other hand was on my waist, stroking lightly.

He waited for me to lean down for a kiss. I took my time, back to teasing him, but I was teasing myself, too, because I craved the feeling of his mouth on mine again. And soon, there it was, with the deep flavor of dark chocolate clinging to his tongue and making me want more.

I freed my hand from his and ran it over his chest, seeking the light bump of a nipple under his shirt. When I found it, I teased it with a few flicks of my thumb before pinching it between two fingers. Morgan hissed into my mouth and kissed me harder still, stealing my breath. His own hand was playing on my legs, drawing circles and arabesques and slowly moving upward, where my thighs were pressed tightly together but only waiting for a caress to open for him.

Things were growing heated, and I found myself imagining making love up here, in the warm, humid environment, with those flowers all around us—Morgan’s very own paradise island in the middle of New York City. He, on the other hand, had something else in mind.

“Last night,” he murmured against my ear lobe, “you said you’d want a bed next time. Do you still want that?”