by Michele Hauf
That was the vow he and all knights lived by. And he took his vows seriously. It had been he and King who had penned those very words.
Rook had served the Order for four centuries. He could mark countless thousands of vampire kills to his stake. He’d witnessed evils no man should ever have to relive in his nightmares. Now was no time to go soft and start chasing some woman’s frilly skirts because he was horny and she had a soft, kissable mouth. And even softer hair that he liked to tangle his fingers into.
Punching a fist into his opposite palm, Rook marched down the sidewalk toward the Metro station.
Three times was all she was willing to give a guy? How many times had he seen her now? Twice? The time in the café didn’t really count. Maybe. Hell, had he used up all his chances already? So did that mean she didn’t date?
Apparently she’d dated the vampire Frederick Slater. And the asshole must have warranted more than the standard three-date maximum.
The idea of Verity kissing a vampire put a bad taste in Rook’s mouth. Though he shouldn’t hold her past against her. He’d certainly had his share of questionable flings. A man can’t always be particular when he’s spent centuries on the prowl. Nor had he a bias to breed, save werewolves. He kept his distance from them, mainly because the males fiercely protected their females with claws that could slice a man in half.
It is not her familiarity with a vampire that troubles you. It is her fire.
“Shut up, Oz.”
You need her to find your soul, and you know it. I will be damned if I am going to let you pout and stomp your boots because the woman had a life before she met you.
“You’re pushing it, Oz.”
And why is that?
“I can find my soul without Verity’s help!”
Fine job you have done of it thus far. The witch can identify the vamp who stole your soul. You need her. Do not fuck it up.
Ignoring Oz’s rant, Rook paused at the corner of a utility building and pressed his spine against the sharp brickwork. When was the full moon? He wanted to let the demon out to work off some of his steam. Less than a week, if he judged the shape of the waxing moon correctly.
Spinning the stake at his side, he sharpened his focus and stared down the street, seeing nothing yet feeling the city crush up around him. So much in Paris had changed over the centuries. The pace was faster, the air dimmer, the people more varied and the noise constant. Tourists wandered every nook, street and sidewalk. Yet very much, such as the buildings, the streets and the river, hell, even life and the ever-present hum of humanity, remained the same.
Much like him?
Oz was right. It wasn’t the vampire ex-boyfriend who poked at his ire. Verity’s performance with the fire had stirred up memories of Marianne. He had loved her like he had never loved another person. She had been his world.
And he had destroyed her.
Setting his jaw, Rook struggled to pull away from the memories that wanted to tear out his heart, a heart he’d only managed to bandage and hold together over the years because he did not have a soul to fill it with the emotion and compassion upon which most humans thrived. But had it ever completely healed?
Did he deserve another chance at such bold and blissful love?
Did he want it?
Why was he asking himself such questions? This thing with Verity was a flirtation. A tango of lust and desire. And Oz was right. He needed her knowledge to do his job.
Hell. Truth? He wanted Verity. For reasons beyond what she could do for him and the Order. He wanted to sink his fingers into her long hair and pull it over his face, to lose himself in the violet darkness and find a place next to her body. To slip inside her mouth and indulge her taste, her heat, her whimpers of desire.
He simply wanted Verity Von Velde.
Slamming a fist against the brick, he pushed off from the wall and marched back in the direction from which he’d come.
Twenty minutes later, he knocked on Verity’s door.
When the witch opened the door and her royal blue eyes flashed wide, Rook took her head in his hands and kissed her soundly. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t quite succumb as compliantly as he desired. In fact, she was the one to break the kiss.
“Really?” she asked, her tone still tight from their argument.
“Sorry,” he said, “but I’m not leaving this anger hanging between us. Tonight we’re going to learn things about one another we may not want to know. But damn it, we’re both going to enjoy the ride.”
And he tugged her hand and walked toward the stairs because he guessed her bedroom was up the stairway at the end of the hall.
Chapter 7
Verity knew exactly what the hunter had in mind as he strolled past her bed, then over to her spell area. He glanced across the table scattered with spell accoutrements but didn’t linger in curiosity.
She was still angry with him. And she was not. He’d accused her of being a fang junkie. Sort of. Kind of? Okay, so he’d had to ask. Their argument had been stupid. He had no right to get upset over any man she had dated. Yet she could understand a hunter having trouble with her having dated a vampire.
So what next? Did he seriously think he could march into her house and toss her across the bed and ravage her?
Sounded…not awful.
She teased a strand of hair across her lips, eyeing the handsome man who paced before her spell table. He wore Order gear, from the sleek black leather coat with a bladed collar to the steel-toed boots. He was some kind of knight in black armor. And she wanted a peek beneath that armor. Hell, she wanted to see the man exposed, skin bared and muscles flexing.
“Why me?” she asked.
Rook tilted his head and smiled at her. It was a smoldering, knowing grin that delved beneath her clothing and tickled her skin. She warmed to his catty tease and straightened her shoulders, awaiting an answer.
“You want me to answer that?” he asked. “If I do, then you have to take off those boots.”
She looked down over her thigh-highs. “You planning to do strip twenty questions?”
“Sounds like a good way to get to know each other better.”
Oh, that sexy smirk! In her mind Verity was already peeling the zippers down her boots and kicking them off. But only if he reciprocated.
“Okay. But I don’t think I’m wearing twenty things.”
“We’ll stop when you want to stop. Agreed?”
That sounded like an adventure she was willing to take. “Fair enough.”
“The blanket doesn’t count,” he added.
She tossed the quilt to the bed and asked again, “So why me?”
Shoving his thumbs in his front pockets, Rook wandered toward her but stopped between the bed and where she stood at the top of the stairs. Moonlight beaming through the windows twinkled in the crystals that hung like raindrops frozen mid-fall above their heads. The pale light also glinted in his hair and eyes, a wicked challenge.
“I didn’t choose you,” he said. “Some kind of weird destiny brought us together. But I liked you the moment I laid my hand on you.”
“Of course, you were copping a feel.”
He raised an admonishing finger. “You’re not allowed to protest the answer. I answered your question. Now, off with the boots.”
“If this is going by the officially sanctioned strip twenty questions rules, then it’s only one item at a time.” Not that she was aware there were any official rules, but it sounded good to her.
Verity bent and unzipped her left boot and toed it off. She stood on her other boot, balancing on tiptoes with her stockinged foot. “There.”
“Fair enough. My turn to ask the question.”
“This is going to be good. Oh, but so you know, the official rules of the game also states that all we
apons are counted as one item.”
He mocked a shocked look, then swiped away the look with a rub of his hand. Behind his fake alarm a smile emerged. “If the lady insists.”
“Just game rules. You understand.”
“Of course. It’s a good thing one of us is up on things like rules on intimate games. My question, then. Why would you date a vampire if you had no intention of letting him bite you?”
So he couldn’t let that one go, eh? Verity considered calling the game to an end. But no. If he wanted to play dirty by going straight for the personal stuff, she could go there too.
“I was attracted to the man, not the fangs. He was—and is—a smart man. I like intelligence.”
She wasn’t about to mention that intelligence was also tinged with malice, something she hadn’t clearly understood until they’d gone weeks into the relationship. That’s what happened when she broke her three-date rule. Nothing good.
Rook’s jaw pulsed, but he nodded subtly, accepting her answer. That muscle at the back of his jaw was his tell.
“Off with the weapons,” she said.
He spread his coat open to reveal the inner lining, crowded with assorted weapons. Pulling out a stake, he stepped back and set it on her spell table. Another stake and two more from loops inside the coat. At his back, he pulled out a curved blade, and from the top of his left boot emerged a stiletto. Hooked at his hip was a garrote, which he pulled out to display to her, eyebrow lifted gleefully, before setting it aside. A hand-sized crossbow also had been fitted inside the coat.
When he finally displayed a syringe, capped with a steel tip, Verity had to ask, “What’s that?”
“Is that one of your questions? If so, you’ll have to remove something since you deem to ask out of order.”
She sighed. “I suppose.”
He smiled widely and set the syringe on the table. “Holy water. Works on unbaptized vamps. The other boot, if you please.”
That had been a wasted question, but Verity didn’t mind at all as she unzipped and toed off the other boot. She wandered closer to the man who had revealed an arsenal to her as if it were nothing more than jewelry adorning his body. So many dangerous items sat upon her spell table. A sacred place that she hoped wouldn’t draw out the bad vibes that surely existed within the weapons. He had laid them there with playful and good intention, so she wouldn’t worry.
“What’s with the cat?” Rook asked next.
On to the questions. “Thomas? Oh, he’s a good friend. He’s a familiar.”
“You mentioned that.”
“He stops in once or twice a week for food and sometimes a chat. He’s quite the lady’s man.”
“Has he ever been your man?”
“That’s two questions.”
“I’ll remove two things.”
Running her tongue across her lips, Verity nodded her agreement. “Coat.”
He shrugged off the long leather duster, folding it inward to ensure the bladed collar was concealed, and tossed it over the weapons on the table.
“And…” she prompted.
“Answer the question first.”
“Me and Thomas ever get it on?” She shook her head. “Strictly platonic between us. There’s something about shapeshifters that does not appeal to me. Boots.”
The man bent to unbuckle the straps about the ankle of one boot and heeled it off. He stood there in one boot and waited for her to insist he remove the other.
She could play fair. Though it killed her that this was going so slowly. What did she want to know about the man that she dared ask? Favorite color or car? She didn’t care. Favorite sexual position? Oh, baby.
“Do you often play such games with women with the intended outcome resulting in nudity?”
“Not often.” His tone teased that she should have asked exactly what sort of games he did enjoy.
Rats. She should have worded that one differently.
“Stockings.”
Verity took her time rolling down the black sheer thigh-high stocking, bending and giving the man a side view as she pulled it from her toes and tossed the sheer slip to the end of the bed. “Happy?”
“Immensely. And that was another question. The other stocking, if you please.”
Shoot. She had slipped. And she was rapidly losing her clothing, whereas he had a lot to go. Verity slipped off the second stocking with as much élan as the first, and this time she didn’t ask about his emotional state.
“What’s your favorite way to spend time with a man on a date?”
Now that was a good one. And she appreciated that he was attempting to learn how to please her.
Verity tapped a finger to her lips as she considered for a moment. She’d gone on many dates over the decades. Some wonderful, some worthy of Alka-Seltzer and a rewind. Others, well, having to pack up her belongings and physically relocate to get away from Slater topped her list of worst relationships ever. But Rook was only wondering about the good stuff.
“Any kind of interaction that involves paying attention to one another,” she said. “I like it when a man shows me that it is me he’s interested in. If you whip out your cell phone and start texting at any time when we’re together, then forget it. The other boot.”
“I don’t do the cell phone thing,” he said, “save to check in for work.” He removed the remaining boot.
Damn it, he was wearing socks. He also had the vest, shirt and pants remaining. Whether or not he was wearing Skivvies beneath the pants, she was now determined to find out.
Gripping the hem of her dress, Verity tiptoed across the gray-painted floorboards in front of the bed, sat and leaned back to study the handsome image of calm, sex and slayage.
“How often do you have sex when you’re dating a woman?” She had to know. He looked like a man who needed it often. Certainly he would have no difficulty fulfilling that need, either.
“As often as she desires me,” he replied.
Oh mercy. That left the interpretation wide open. Verity instantly narrowed it to every day.
“Dress,” he said on a husky tone that brushed her skin indelibly.
Verity stood and, fingering the dress hem, decided she was all in. This night could end only one way, and she wasn’t about to lose the game. Curling her fingers one by one under the hem, she tugged it up slowly, gliding her hands along her thighs and over her hips to reveal her black lace panties. Rook’s intake of breath delighted her. Up a few inches higher, and she exposed her stomach. She could feel the heat of his gaze follow the skim of the fabric as she pulled it to the bottom of her matching lace bra.
The man’s hands opened and closed near his thighs, anticipation drawing down his head so he watched her from an expectant downcast stare.
Finally pulling the dress off, she tossed it aside without a care, swished her hair over her shoulders, turned to the side and glanced coyly at him from over her shoulder.
“Gorgeous,” he said. “Would you make love with me, Verity?”
“Is that one of the questions?”
“It is.”
“I, uh…” A bold question. He should know the answer. Yet if he did not, and she daren’t speak it, then she’d never get another item of clothing off him. “Yes,” she whispered.
Her heartbeats thundered and she smiled, growing into the answer as quickly as the titillation of revealing her desires stretched through her body. Nipples hardening, she remained facing sideways to him, unwilling to give him the full tease just yet.
“Socks,” she said, then when he only removed one, she added, “I believe the official rules state that socks always come in pairs. Unlike a woman’s hosiery or shoes. It’s sort of universal that one must do them together.”
He gave her a doubtful quirk of brow but then bent to strip off the other s
ock. And Verity exhaled quietly, stunned he’d allowed her that silly made-up rule.
What to ask him next? She desperately wanted to know about the witch he’d seen burned to ash, but she didn’t want to take this teasing moment in that direction. So instead, she approached him, taking note that his eyes traced her breasts. Such regard made her nipples tighten even more. She basked in his admiration.
“What part of me would you like to touch first?” she asked.
“Your breasts,” he breathed out quickly. “I want to touch them with my tongue and squeeze them against my palms. Then I will suckle them until you moan and squirm against me.”
Verity blew out a breath and stepped back from him. If she stood too close, she’d touch him, and that would bring the game to an end she didn’t want to see happen yet. She had to keep her wits about her and not fall to her knees like some silly wanton.
“Vest,” she directed.
The man unsnapped the tight-fitted vest and dropped it to the floor, where it hit with a startling thud.
“That thing must be heavy. What’s it made of—wait!” She thrust out a hand. “Nix that question.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “I have better things to ask.”
“It’s lined with Kevlar,” he offered freely. “Comes in handy if I encounter a werewolf with claws out.”
“You fight werewolves often?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, and Verity realized she’d used another question. “Yes, let that be an official question,” she decided. “I didn’t think the Order slayed wolves.”
“We don’t, but sometimes a pack gets out of hand. It’s not unlikely to encounter a wolf while out hunting a vampire. I have to protect myself, no matter the circumstances. And no, I’ve not slain a werewolf. Yet.”
She sensed his desire to do so was strong. Hmm…
With an accepting nod, she waited for his next request. Either one would reveal so much, yet she was ready to expose herself to this man. To take in his gaze and feel it glide across her skin as if it were the fire with which she so often danced.
“Bra,” he said in that sex-laced tone that she could feel drip across her body. “S’il vou plaît.”