“You’re a very talented sculptor.”
“Blacksmith,” Daphanie corrected automatically. She didn’t think of herself in terms of art but of craft. “Sculptors make decorations—things that are nice to look at, but not good for much else. Everything I make has a function. I like things that can multitask.”
Which made it doubly confusing to her why she found this single-minded, single-purposed man so damnably attractive. At first, she had clung to the hope that her reaction to him at the club had been a one-time deal, a fluke caused by adrenaline, dim lighting, and the novelty of being rescued by a big, handsome hero. That hadn’t lasted past Sunday morning. Every time she looked at him, her stomach recommenced its trapeze lessons. For days, it had felt like a tent at Ringling Brothers below her rib cage.
“I thought blacksmiths made horseshoes.”
“Not in the last hundred years.” It was her stock answer. She’d gotten that response once or twice in the past when revealing her profession. “Farriers fit horses with shoes that were most likely mass produced in a factory using heavy machinery. Some blacksmiths with specialized knowledge of equine anatomy will work with farriers to custom make shoes for individual horses with special needs, but unless you’re in England, the word ‘blacksmith’ only refers to someone who works with and shapes black metals, like iron or steel. I’m a Brooklyn girl. What I know about horses I got from reading Black Beauty when I was eight.”
“Understood. But you don’t need more light to ‘work with and shape black metals’?”
He had finished prowling the room and come to a stop on the other side of her worktable. He wore the same black jacket he’d worn on Saturday night, but he had it open and pushed back so that he could slip his fingers into the front pockets of his black denim jeans. With his casually untucked button-down of blue and black stripes, he looked like something out of the pages of GQ. Daphanie didn’t think that was very fair considering her own work uniform of a grungy tank top and baggy cargo pants, but she had to give him points for actually paying attention to her minilecture.
She deducted a point from herself for the thrill of excitement she felt at his showing so much interest in her work.
She emptied the crate and stacked it on top of the others at the end of the table. While she did like to keep a fairly neat work space, at the moment she cared more about keeping her hands busy. The Guardian’s steady gaze made her feel antsy.
“Nope. Bright light actually makes it harder to work. The ability to shape metal depends on bringing the iron or steel to the correct temperature, and the easiest way to tell when it’s reached that state is by watching the color—red, orange, yellow, or white. Bright light washes out the color and makes it hard to know when the temperature’s right. Indirect light supplemented with artificial light sources work best.”
“Then I should call and cancel the window washers who were going to clean off the seventy-five years of grime that’s blocking all the light from coming in here?”
“What?” She snapped her head around, inadvertently meeting his gaze and catching the glint of something devilish within.
His serious expression never shifted.
Daphanie blew out a breath. “Nice. You finally open your mouth to do something other than ask me where I think I’m going, and all you can do is mess with me. Can you really not think of any better way to spend our time together?”
* * *
Asher tried to read the woman’s expression, but he had to admit he wasn’t particularly good at interpreting human emotions. Most of the humans under his protection had either been too frightened of the threats to their lives, too grateful for his protection, or too intimidated by his demeanor to express anything more complicated than abject fear and the occasional fit of panic. He could read neither of those things on Daphanie Carter’s face.
Nor could he read any indication that she’d meant her last question the way he’d taken it. As an invitation to share all the many, many ways he could envision spending time with her. Ninety-nine percent of which were completely naked.
Her expression revealed none of the lust that had clawed at his own belly almost constantly over the last few days. In fact, her expression told him little. Her face always had a guarded look to it when she knew he was watching.
That didn’t stop him, however, from studying her closely. Maybe if he looked hard enough, evaluated long enough, he could begin to fathom why this ordinary human woman maintained such a hold on him.
Her features couldn’t account for it. Though humans might count her dusky skin, dark, slanted eyes, and bladelike cheekbones exotic, Asher had seen more unusual. Hell, he’d seen more beautiful. Her full lips might look soft and lush and infinitely kissable, but he’d kissed hundreds of women. Her slim, curved figure might exhibit surprising strength in the taut, defined muscles of her back, arms, and shoulders, but he’d known female demons who could lift tractor trailers over their heads without mussing a hair. If no one part of her appeared any different or more or better than the thousands of others he’d seen, why in hell should the sum of them have haunted him without respite for the past three days?
Every moment of his time, since that first meeting on Saturday night, the thought of this woman had tormented him. She’d slipped, soft and temptingly bare, into his dreams as he slept. She had whispered in his mind when he tried to eat or read or perform his daily tasks. She had even possessed the utter gall to steal his attention, wholly unbidden, when he should have been focused entirely on his work. Even in his thoughts, the human refused to recognize her place, which was to be nothing more than a job.
That had been his mantra since he’d escorted her home from the nightclub. His job, his purpose, was to protect humans from the dangers of the supernatural world around them and never before had he had the slightest trouble separating his work from his personal inclinations. Could he truly allow a woman—an ordinary, human woman—to undo all these years of discipline and control?
“I’ve just been trying to be considerate,” he finally responded, leaning against the table she had placed between them. Actually, they seemed to have done that by mutual, unspoken agreement, and he couldn’t argue with the wisdom of it. “You made it clear that you find my presence to be an intrusion, so I’ve done my best to be as unobtrusive as possible. I thought that was what you wanted.”
That request had even factored into his discussion with the alpha of the Silverback clan. The man had been waiting to speak with Asher when he returned to escort Daphanie home from her visit to the Winters’s house on Sunday afternoon. That had surprised Asher for two reasons: one, he hadn’t previously made the acquaintance of Graham Winters, let alone suspected the Lupine knew who he was; and two, he hadn’t quite known whether he believed Daphanie when she’d claimed a close relationship with so many key figures on the Council of Others. He had wanted to believe it, sure, because it could potentially have made his life easier. Or so he’d thought.
When was the last time he’d been so damned naïve?
Winters’s talk had made it clear that Daphanie’s close association with the Council only complicated the situation. While it gave her the advantage of powerful friends capable of keeping her out of harm’s way, it also made those same powerful friends inordinately concerned with her welfare. And since powerful people rarely had much free time to spare, it made them turn to him to aid in ensuring her safety. Asher could hardly refuse to help. He might not fear men like Graham Winters and Rafael De Santos, but neither were they the kind he wanted to count among his enemies. He felt certain they made much better allies.
“I wanted for none of this bodyguard stuff to be necessary,” she grumbled, “but since that’s apparently water under the bridge, now I just want to not feel like I’m some sort of strange museum exhibit that you can’t decide if you find fascinating or revolting. Or just boring.”
If she only knew. He had never viewed Daphanie Carter in terms of a museum exhibit. He was much too aware of her warmth f
or that. Her warmth, her scent. The sweet, plump curve of her breast beneath her—
He swore silently and hauled back on his libido.
“I think the last word I’d ever use to describe you is boring,” he managed, hoping she wouldn’t notice the tightness in his voice. “Or did you think my life is more exciting than what’s happened to you over the last few days? Because if it were, I’d have worn myself out a long time before this.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”
Asher would have been happy to offer her the kind of flattery she wouldn’t have to question, but somehow he couldn’t be certain of how she would react if he described exactly how enticing he found the firm, lush curve of her ass. He might intend the remark as flattering, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she took it as an insult. He found her that confusing.
It would have helped if she’d reacted in any kind of predictable way to him. Somehow Daphanie Carter didn’t seem fazed by his default tactic of silent intimidation. Since she hadn’t responded to D’Abo’s loud and blustery intimidation, either, he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe he should just take the safe road and do what she wanted, help her with her metal sorting. At least if his hands were busy, he couldn’t give in to the temptation to see if her dusky skin felt as soft as it looked.
He leaned into the table and cleared his throat. Maybe there was another way to win some points here.
“You know”—he shifted and frowned—“I’ve begun to think … perhaps … that I haven’t exactly been … well, that maybe I could have done a little more … that I never acknowledged … how big of an intrusion this is. On your normal life.”
She watched him impassively. “You think?”
“Excuse me?”
“You think this is maybe almost as big a pain for me as it is for you?” she repeated slowly. “I mean, sure you have to spend all your time staring at me sort steel pipes, but I have to put up with being watched. I have to accommodate my life to the presence of someone who doesn’t know me, doesn’t particularly like me, and has no apparent interest in so much as conversing with me. Do you think that might be a touch intrusive?”
Asher winced. For hell’s sake, did she have put it quite so … truthfully?
“Yes,” he said. “I think it is.”
“Hmm.”
That was it, the sum total of her response. She met his gaze steadily, her almond-shaped eyes clear and unblinking. She offered him no quarter, no wiggle room, not the barest shred of mercy.
Shit. She was going to make him say it.
Asher ground his teeth together until his jaw muscles screamed in protest. He would never normally use this kind of language, and definitely not in front of a woman, but she’d backed him into a corner. What else could he do?
“I apologize,” he finally ground out, the words rolling off his tongue as quickly and easily as stone-cold molasses. He practically had to reach in with his fingers to pull them out of his mouth. He hoped she was happy with herself.
He decided maybe he shouldn’t ask her that.
To his surprise, his words had the effect of a magic spell. In an instant, her expression softened, her brown eyes melting like bittersweet chocolate. Her posture shifted, shoulders lowering, muscles relaxing, and her mouth quirked in a smile that conveyed as much sympathy as amusement.
“Apology accepted,” she said. “You still with me?”
He stared at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Are you still with me?” she repeated. “Feeling okay? The apology didn’t kill you?”
“Very funny.”
The smile widened into a full-fledged grin, one that broke over her face like the early morning light, softening and illuminating it all at once. “See, it was at least a little bit funny. And that, my friend, is what I see as your main problem in life: you take everything too seriously. You need to lighten up. Then maybe the idea of admitting when you were wrong wouldn’t feel quite so much like unanaesthetized surgery.”
Odd, because until this moment, Asher would have defined his main problem in life as being oblivious humans blundering their way through the world of the Others in unenlightened folly.
He probably shouldn’t mention that, either.
He watched while she swept the scattered remains of packing straw off the table with brisk, economical motions. She appeared perfectly willing to go about her business and forget both her previous anger at his insults from the other night and her own much more recent insult to him. When would humans begin to make sense to him?
“That is it?” he demanded, stepping around the end of the table and grasping her wrist. She stopped her cleaning to glance up at him. “The apology has been issued and now we forget about it?”
“That’s how apologies are supposed to work. If I hung on to being mad at you, what would be the reason for you telling me you were sorry?”
Since he wasn’t entirely sure of the reason he’d apologized in the first place, he felt unqualified to answer that question. Hell, at the moment, he felt unqualified for a lot of things, including for dealing with this baffling woman.
“So we go on from here,” he said, mind struggling to catch up.
“We go on from here. So why don’t you try answering my original question?”
“What original question?”
“Do you think you might be willing to do something more useful and less unsettling than just sitting there watching me all day?”
Ah, that question.
Asher debated the answers he could give her—that he needed to be alert to threats and therefore couldn’t let himself get distracted in her presence. That he would be glad to help out as long as she realized that everything else took second place to guarding her. That what he really wanted to do was strip her naked, lay her down on the dusty workbench, and make her scream with pleasure.
Somehow, none of them seemed quite right.
Asher Grayson maintained a strict policy regarding women—he never let any of them close enough to interfere with his work, and he never became intimately involved with humans. The first part stemmed from the fact that as a Guardian, his work wasn’t an occupation so much as a part of his identity. He couldn’t possibly allow another person, and certainly not a woman, to become as important to him as his own sense of self. The very idea was alien to him.
The second part stemmed entirely from experience. Human women, in his estimation, were too fragile and entirely too young for him. Oh, he cared little for the concept of chronological age; live a couple of centuries and counting the number of one’s years started to look a bit ridiculous. No, when he claimed that human women were too young for him, he meant in their souls.
He’d spent his entire existence taking care of humans, keeping them out of trouble, or rescuing them from it when they stumbled in despite his best efforts. They possessed so little awareness of the world around them that he had begun to suspect eons ago that they wore their ignorance as a badge of honor, maintaining the blinders on their eyes because it was just easier to pretend that things like the Others didn’t exist. Keeping the supernatural relegated to the world of fairy tales and ghost stories seemed to help the humans sleep at night, but in Asher’s eyes it made them look … pathetic. Like babies, they felt no need to see the world beyond their immediate surroundings, and the idea of forming some sort of attachment to someone who struck him as little more mature than an infant …
Frankly, it wasn’t just unappealing; it was downright distasteful.
And yet, somehow, Daphanie Carter made him want to make an exception, to break his own rules. When he looked at her, spoke to her, drew in her scent, he almost forgot she was human. Or else he had stopped caring.
Asher didn’t know why the compulsion had the power to drive him forward, but he had to know. He used his grip on her wrist to tug her to the end of the worktable, shifting her around the worn and rounded corner until the scarred wood no longer served as a barrier between
them. Now the only thing separating them was space, and he closed that with a single step.
He bent his head toward her and breathed deeply, taking in the subtle scents that clung to her skin—wood and metal, smoke and woman, sweet citrus and the heady, honeyed earthiness of myrrh. He heard a tiny catch in her breath, quick and barely audible. The sound rushed through him, tangible evidence that she shared at least a little of his madness.
The skin inside her wrist felt like living satin beneath his touch. He shifted his fingers and felt her pulse leap. Slowly, he skimmed his palm higher, barely touching, and her skin rose toward him, roughening with awareness. Gooseflesh, it was called, but all he felt was warm, resilient woman.
From beneath heavy lids, he watched her sway closer and exulted. He curved one hand around the point of her shoulder and onto her back, urging her even closer. The other, he lifted and cupped about the nape of her neck, feeling the heavy fall of her ponytail brush against his knuckles. She quivered beneath his touch, and hunger threatened to overwhelm him.
Her breath huffed out, a soft caress against his cheek. He rubbed it against hers, his stubble catching and rasping her smooth skin. His lips brushed the delicate curve of her ear and parted to whisper.
“I can do all sorts of things other than stare at you, Daphanie,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “I could touch you. I could stroke you. I could caress you. Or, I could just do this.”
Then he turned his head, aligned her mouth beneath his, and let himself feast.
Seven
For generations, the Others maintained a policy of secrecy, going to great lengths to conceal their presence from the human race. Naturally, this resulted in a rather insular community in which marriages and pair bonds between Others and humans remained rare. While such unions are still considered unusual, it would hardly be accurate to claim they never occur.
Black Magic Woman Page 9