Gods, she knew he was just a man. He wouldn’t hurt her. Only the worst kinds of vampires still hunted people for sport, and it was considered deeply immoral to take blood from the flesh without consent.By most, anyway.
But that animal part of her brain did not recognize that valuable context. It only saw a predator’s eyes getting closer, closer, until they were barely a foot away.
Zia’s heart pounded against her ribs so hard she felt dizzy. Why did it have to be so damndark—
A blaze of light lit up the greenhouse.
She flinched, eyes closing against the sting, before she realized that she’d closed her eyes on a predator and snapped them open again.
Oh,she thought, quickly adjusting to what was actually a rather small light coming from the cellphone in his hand. Zia blinked. Her lips parted involuntarily.
Certainlyshe was not staring directly at a man’s naked, sharply hewn abdominal muscles.
Certainly—
The muscles, thrown into stark relief by the little cone of light, bunched in front of her eyes. Zia let out a squeak of alarm as the man in front of her slowly crouched down to her level.
In the light, she could just make out a striking face — heavy brows over hooded eyes, a lush mouth, high cheekbones, and a narrow, rounded chin. His skin was a coppery brown and his hair, pulled back into a long ponytail, was black streaked with locks of gray. Sweat sheened his temples, curling the fine hair there into soft whorls.
Her breathing sped up.
Her imagination had filled in the gaps of his appearance over the last several months, padding the impression of wide shoulders, the relative certainty of towering height, and the suggestion of long hair with an idealized Mr. Bounds, but the real thing was nothing like she imagined.
He wasbetter.
“Miss North?”
Her entire body jolted with surprise.He… knows my name?
Momentarily stunned, it took her a moment to grasp the position she found herself in. Mr. Bounds was in front of her. Mr. Bounds knew her name. Mr. Bounds was about to fire her. Mr. Bounds wasshirtlessand about to fire her.
Heart lurching, Zia shied away. Her back hit the cold wall behind her. “Ah, I’m— I’m sorry. Mr. Bounds, I didn’t mean to trespass. I’m so sorry—”
“Miss North,” he rumbled. The man had a baritone so rich, it damn near melted her bones. His gaze slid over her, scanning every inch of her face and neck with a dark, forbidding look. “Are you hurt? Did you have an accident? I have a healer on call. If you’re in pain, tell me now.”
Mortification threatened to choke the life out of her.Gods, he thinks I hit my head or something.
She had imagined meeting her mysterious boss a thousand different ways, butnoneof them were like this. Usually she’d grown a particularly gorgeous rose and he simplyhadto compliment her skill. Occasionally she imagined that they stumbled upon one another at a fancy party, have a torrid one night stand, and realize the next day that she was his estate’s rosarian. Sometimes, she even thought of what it would be like to have him stumble upon her in the greenhouse, tear off her shorts, bend her over the workbench, and—
Zia flushed, her embarrassment building to catastrophic levels. “I’m fine,” she croaked.
A deep, intense frown carved hard lines in Mr. Bounds’s handsome face. It was perhaps the single most frightening expression she’d ever witnessed. That frown was pure menace.
“You don’t sound fine.” He canted his head to one side. His gaze dropped to her throat. Voice lowering to a murmur, he added, “Your heart is beating irregularly, Miss North.”
Could a person die of mortification? She didn’t think so, but she had high hopes. “I… Ah, you scared me?”
“Let me look at you.”
Zia watched him settle his phone on the piled bags of soil to her left. Thick, corded arm muscle flexed under taut brown skin. Her mouth went dry.
She was so transfixed by the sight — Mr. Bounds, the shadowy figure of her fantasies, wasshirtless and a little sweaty in front of her —that she didn’t have time to worry before he skimmed his hands down her arms in one brisk movement.
Jumping at the sudden contact, she yelped, “What are you doing?”
“Checking to see if you broke any bones.” The tips of his claws tickled the backs of her hands before he dropped his palms to feel the contours of her legs. With a completely impersonal mien, he ran his fingers down to her ankles, rotated both of her feet, and then moved back up to probe at her scalp.
Zia was so flabbergasted by the entire thing that she simply sat there, holding her breath, and tried her best to vacate her body.
