He’d asked her to dinner? What the hell had he been thinking? But since he’d already accepted he was out of his mind when he’d left his house and started driving toward the museum, it shouldn’t surprise him that he’d done something so foolish.
The moment he’d stepped through the curtains that sectioned off the exhibit and saw her standing there, he’d been mesmerized. Her long, dark hair was cascading in loose waves down her back; her head was tilted up toward the mammoth’s, as if she were engaged in an unspoken conversation with it—an intimate one given the way she was stroking the beast’s thick fur.
It should have struck him as odd, but it hadn’t. It somehow seemed she was right at home, the same as it had when she was standing in his office and when he’d seen her asleep in her queen-sized bed.
It would seem that Freya Cullen appeared right at home no matter the scene, and never had he felt it more than when he’d given in to the irresistible need to touch her.
To pull her close and feel her soft body against his.
To kiss the lips that he’d imagined engaged in a dozen naughty tasks since he first saw her.
On the drive over, he’d convinced himself he only intended to see her, that all he wanted was another glimpse of the woman who he’d seen in Sonya’s hotel room and then had miraculously appeared in his home the very next day. But one look at her, and he knew he’d been fooling himself. Right or wrong, he wanted her for more than just the medallion that was likely in her possession. And since he couldn’t strip her naked right there in the museum—even if he did have a feeling she would have been on board with his intentions—he’d had to contrive another way to get her alone.
So, dinner it would be. Then he’d drive her home, sink himself deep inside her gorgeous body, and find the medallion once she was fast asleep in blissful slumber. By morning, Freya Cullen would be nothing more than a sweet memory, and the medallion would be back where it belonged.
But the moment she appeared in front of the restaurant six hours later, he began to question whether one time would be enough.
She was sex and beauty personified in a knee-length black dress that would have looked conservative if it wasn’t for the slit up one thigh toward her hip and the back that was open all the way down to her waist. Her hair was pinned up, gathered around the crown of her head, and it made him itch to find the pins that would release the suave up-do and send the silky waves tumbling down her bare back.
She’d left the cab and started toward the front entrance where he stood conversing with the restaurant’s proprietor, but suddenly, he was forced to direct all his attention inward, focusing on keeping the fire in his core reined in while it threatened to blaze outward. She’d had the same effect on him earlier, both in his home and at the museum, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose control quickly—something that had never happened to him before.
She came to a stop in front of them, and it didn’t surprise him to see the man next to him looking her up and down like she was the most delectable dessert on the menu. What did surprise him was the surge of violence that rushed through him, and the considerable amount of effort it took to keep from pummeling the man into the next zip code.
Jealousy? That wasn’t characteristic of his over a woman he’d known for great lengths of time, never mind one he’d only met a few short hours ago—and who very well might turn out to be a ruthless enemy.
He shot the man a quelling look, and was mildly appeased when he nodded to Freya and made a quick escape inside.
“Hello, Freya,” he forced the words past lips that would rather explore her body than speak.
“An enemy of yours?” she asked teasingly and nodded in the direction of the man who’d just left.
“No. The restaurant’s proprietor, actually,” he said, and that was all he intended to say on the subject.
“Yikes. I’d say that had to be one nasty argument over the lobster salad. What did he do? Poison it?”
“I’m certain he did no such thing,” he bantered back, enjoying her company already despite the desire that bordered on painful.
She moved toward the door then, and he took advantage of the opportunity to touch her, to place his hand against her bare lower back and turn her away from the door. She looked up at him perplexed.
“The private entrance is around the side,” he said, and though she smiled back, he could see the worried look in her eyes as her thoughts turned inward. She was worrying over the bill, and he held back a chuckle. He had more money than he could spend in a dozen millennia; there was no way he was going to let her pay for dinner.
He escorted her around to the side entrance where a private dining room awaited them, but not five minutes into the first course, he knew it had been a mistake. At least in the crowded dining area there would have been distractions, things other than the woman across from him to focus his attention on, but not here.
Here, she filled up all his senses. He watched her as she talked, fascinated by the perfect shape of her cupid bow lips, and he couldn’t avoid noticing the way her pupils had dilated and the pulse in the delicate column of her neck had sped up. He breathed her in; the food’s aroma paled in comparison.
The scent of her arousal was driving him fucking wild. Presented with proof that she wanted him, too, there was no way he was going to make it through dinner. He wanted to see her naked on the table. He wanted to taste every inch of her body. And he wanted to drive every hard inch of his cock deep inside her and hear her scream out in ecstasy.
He was in the midst of contemplating how she’d react if he swiped the table clear and lifted her up on top of it when her phone rang from inside her purse. She apologized and rummaged through the bag in search of the ringing intrusion.
Seconds later, he knew the night was about to come to an abrupt end. Though she held the phone close to her ear, he could hear the conversation perfectly clear. There had been a break-in at her apartment, the woman on the other end of the line explained. The police had been called and were there now, and damn it, that meant there was a good chance the thieves had absconded with Sonya’s medallion.
But were they thieves at all, or had the creatures who had killed Sonya followed her medallion to Freya’s apartment?
“Cat! Is Cat alright?” she asked in a loud whisper as she pushed back from the table and sprang to her feet. The woman reassured her that her feline friend was just fine, but it did little to stem the urgency in her movements.
“I’ll drive you home, Freya,” he offered as soon as she’d hung up the phone.
“That’s really not necessary. I’ll call a cab,” she said, typing the digits into her phone, and he got the impression she wasn’t trying to be polite. She genuinely didn’t want him to accompany her and he wondered why. Had he misread her attraction to him? No. The proof still radiated from every pore of her body. It was something else then, though he recognized he was far too wrapped up in her to consider it logically at the moment.
She let him guide her out the private door they’d come in not long before, and then she took him by surprise, leaning up on her toes and pressing her soft lips against his.
He nearly lost it, the taste of her lips making him hungry for more; the feeling of her breasts pressed against his chest. And when she fitted herself closer against him and her abdomen pressed against his throbbing cock, he resisted the overwhelming urge to push her up against the wall and fuck her senseless.
He clenched his fists at his sides, digging into his palms so deep, he drew blood. But when the tip of her tongue slid along the seam of his lips, he knew he was in trouble.
The fire in his core blazed hotter than it ever had before. He needed to take her. Now.
He needed to find some way to cool the blaze, and it was the only thing he could think of. But at the same time, if he buried himself in her and couldn’t control the fire’s spread, what kind of danger was he putting her in?
“Miss? Did you call for a cab?” a man spoke from the car that had pulled up behind them.
She pulled away and darted for the cab without a word, as if she knew if she stayed there a second longer, she’d be in danger.
He stood there long after the cab had pulled away, trying to get himself under control. He knew two things for certain at that moment: he wanted Freya Cullen more than he’d ever wanted a woman, and she was absolutely, without a doubt, a bad idea. There was just something about her that wasn’t like any human he’d ever known, something that appealed to him on too many levels, and for the first time in his existence, he had no idea how to control it.
It wasn’t until several minutes had passed that he trusted himself to move and not pursue her, and as he strode toward his car, he realized that an evening cut short wasn’t the only problem that had arisen from the break-in at her apartment. How was he going to track down the medallion? And how the hell had that thought evaded him until now? The answer to the last question came easily.
Freya.
Yes, she was most definitely a bad idea.