Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [743]
As he disconnected the call, the front door lock slid open. Claire came in, cautiously peering inside the house to make sure he wouldn’t be in the path of the light that spilled in around her.
“Hi,” she said, smiling as she closed the door and he stood to greet her. “You’re naked.”
“And you should be,” he said, struck by how rapidly his body responded to just the sight of her. “How was the shopping?”
“Successful.” She lifted two filled grocery bags in one hand and an armful of department store bags in the other. “One of these bags is for you,” she said, holding up the one bearing a men’s clothing store logo. “One is a set of sheets and pillows, and the rest is for me. I can’t wait to put on something fresher than these stale old things from home.”
Reichen walked toward her, his intentions blatantly clear. “I think I should help you.”
Her answering smile was quicksilver and playful. It killed him that he was going to have to take that away from her. “You’ll have to catch me first.”
She dropped the groceries in the foyer and bolted for the stairs with the clothing bags rustling at her side. Reichen lunged after her, taking one step to every three of hers. He caught her halfway up to the second floor. Her startled shriek dissolved into laughter… then, before long, the breathless moans and sighs of a woman well pleasured and fully sated.
That evening, as Claire toweled off from a long, hot shower, her body was still humming from the hours of lovemaking she’d spent with Andreas. She walked out of the en suite bathroom and found him lounging like a negligent king on the bed. One long, muscular leg was stretched out to the end of the mattress, the other bent casually at the knee. He was propped up on the pillows, his right arm tucked behind his head. The glyphs on his torso, arms, and thighs were still alive with color, but slowly muting toward the golden hue of his skin.
And even at rest, his sex was impressive.
She couldn’t get used to seeing him naked; it always stopped her dead in her tracks so she could pause to admire him. The slow curve of his lips said he knew precisely what the sight of him did to her, and his male ego—not to mention other parts—were proud to be noticed so regularly and appreciatively.
Claire broke the spell his naked body seemed to cast over her and walked to pick up the fresh clothes she’d set out for herself. She slanted him a wry look as she pulled the tags off the pair of jeans and the pale gray sweater. “You’re bad for me, you know that?”
“Undoubtedly,” he replied, but while she was joking, he seemed grimly sober. He seemed preoccupied somehow, as though dark thoughts weighed him down. She was about to ask him what was wrong when he got up off the bed and walked toward her, bringing a clingy black wool skirt with him. “Wear this tonight instead of the jeans. The tall boots with the heels, too.”
She looked up at him, uncertain.
“I want to take you out. You can show me around your old hometown.”
“A date?” she asked, undeniably thrilled by the idea.
Part of her wondered about the fact that the whole day had passed without Andreas mentioning Wilhelm Roth or the business with the Order that still awaited him in Boston. Not that Claire wanted any of those things to intrude on their time together, but she wasn’t naive enough to think that a few hours of sex—really amazing sex—would make him forget the vengeance that was driving him.
As she looked at him, she knew a moment of worry that this was perhaps a pleasant lull before a storm. That she might wake up and find this brief escape with Andreas had just been a dream. She waited for this perfect slice of time to shatter and fall to pieces around her feet.
But Andreas’s smile now was just as charming as ever, even more so, when her body was still warm and buzzing in the afterglow of his lovemaking. “It’s been a long time since I asked you out on a proper date, Claire. Will you accept?”
“Yes.” She nodded enthusiastically.