“Hi,” she murmured, looking up at him through her lashes. He watched her throat move with a hard swallow. “You… you look nice, Mr. Bounds.”
He glanced down at himself. There was nothing particularly noteworthy about his appearance aside from the fact that his suit was handmade for him. Like everything else in his life, he wanted the clothing he wore to be both beautiful and sophisticated, a stark contrast to everything his life had been in his youth. Sometimes that meant he wanted a flashy car, but other times it meant he simply wanted a suit that was perfectly made, with the best fabrics, by the most skilled tailors money could buy.
He looked like he had good taste, but Zia looked good enough toeat.
Harlan pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, desperate to relieve some of the ache, as he shook his head. “Not as good as you,” he argued. He let out a hard breath that steamed between them. “You look gorgeous.”
He watched, fascinated, as her olive skin turned rosy with a blush. Would all of her flush that pretty, dusky pink?I hope so.
“Thank you.” Zia reached behind the door and unhooked a simple black coat and purse, her smile shyly pleased.
Harlan took a step closer to help her into her coat, seizing on any opportunity to be closer to her. When she looked up at him with surprise, he merely nudged her back, urging her to slip her arms into the sleeves. Her warmth filled the space between them.
The scent of her, lush and sweet, was a heady perfume he couldn’t get enough of, no matter how deeply he breathed.
When she was tucked into her coat, he took a reluctant step back to allow her to lock the door. That done, he offered her his elbow. Zia’s hand was small, the pressure of her touch as light as a feather, but even that contact was enough to stir dark instincts.
Take her away. Hide her in the manor. Sip and lick and fuck until she never wants to leave your side.
Harlan pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth again.Patience!
“Pretty car,” Zia noted, oblivious to his struggle as he carefully escorted her over the gravel. “My brother Arif would lose his mind if he knew I was riding in something like this.”
Harlan opened her door and watched her slide onto the butter-soft leather seat. “Would he be as happy knowing there was a vampire driving it?”
Zia wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think he’d care. My brothers have never been very interested in my love life.”
Halfway through closing her door, Harlan paused. “Aren’t brothers supposed to be overprotective?”
He knew she had five of them — a number of siblings that was absolutely unimaginable to him. All he knew about such things came from media and Atticus, who was himself a violently overprotective big brother. Even if he didn’t have Atticus’s example, he couldn’t imagine anyone, let alone a herd of brothers, not wanting to swaddle Zia in cotton wool.
She shrugged. “They leave that to my mother.”
“And how would your mother feel about you going on a date with a vampire?” Not that he cared, really, but he hadn’t survived this long by not scoping out threats. If any of Zia’s family objected to his place in her life, he would have to find a way to eliminate the obstacle.
Her lips puckered as she thought about her answer. “She probably wouldn’t be a fan. She was dead-set on me marrying and bonding with one of my brother’s friends for a long time. He was anaccountant.” Her nose wrinkled. “She thinks I can’t handle stress, so she worries about me spending time with…”
“Predators?”
She flashed a bashful smile. “Yes.”
Harlan dared to reach down to brush a curl from her forehead. “Did she ever consider that you might be safer with a predator who can protect you than someone who can’t?”
“No,” she murmured, eyelids fluttering, “I don’t think she has.”
Forcing himself to step back, Harlan hummed and gently closed the door. There was no escaping temptation, though. By the time he slid behind the wheel, the small cab of the car had already filled with her mouthwatering scent.
Gods help me,he thought, hitting the ignition with a little too much force,I don’t know how I’ll make it to the restaurant.
Harlan slanted a look over his shoulder, his jaw tight, as he pulled out of the narrow driveway and onto the main road.
Seeing a flash of light in his rear view mirror, he felt a little more of his anxiety over her safety ease. He was not ignorant of the risk he was taking, bringing Zia out into the open with him. Two days prior, he received word that the fierce and ancient head of the Amauri family, Dora Amauri, had passed away, leaving her grandson as her heir. Of course, as was the way with these things, a power struggle began immediately. Old friends and informants claimed that the family had split into three factions, sending ripples of violence out far and wide.
While he hadn’t been disturbed in two years, he worried that eventually one of those ripples would reach him now that he had something he couldn’t bear to lose. It was one thing to handle upstarts looking to make a quick name for themselves. It was quite another to take on Julius Amauri, the bloodthirsty bastard who once held the leash around Harlan’s neck. Only Dora’s favor had stopped him from hunting Harlan like a rabid dog when he left the family.
With the Amauris split and Dora’s grandson Felix struggling to fend off his power-hungry cousins, there was nothing to stop Julius from seeking him out.
His only hope was that Julius would be too busy trying to win the Amauri war to think of his old protégé. If he gotreallylucky, the piece of shit would die early.And bloody.
