In Heat (In Heat Shapeshifter Romance Series #1) (10 page)

She nodded.

“All right. I grew up at my family home, but spent a lot of time at school, or abroad. My parents believed in a good education and that meant boarding school. Alistair didn't mind, but I did. I didn't like being sent away from my family.” He frowned and then it melted away when he looked at her. “That probably makes me sound like I'm a big baby.”

“Not at all. I've not really got any family. My parents are moving abroad for their retirement, thank God, and I barely see my sister. She's always so busy. We try to get together every so often to catch up but we just seem to be drifting apart.” She took another sip of champagne. It really was delicious. The bubbles popped on her tongue, making her senses tingle. “How much younger than you is Alistair?”

“How did you know he was younger?” His expression turned curious.

“Just a hunch. Older siblings always seem to be more mature, especially when it comes to boys.”

“Only two years older.”

“But what a difference, hmm? Simon told me all about your brother. He thought it was about you. I knew it wasn't.”

Erik leaned back, his look darkening for a split second before it softened again. “Let me guess, all manner of nasty little tales.”

She nodded. Her head spun slightly.

“Let's not talk about him,” Erik said and moved closer again, shifting forwards in his seat.

He topped up her glass and his knee brushed against hers under the table. A thrill ran up her legs over the slight touch.

“I've travelled extensively, have an interest in martial arts, and I'm very interested in you,” he said, his voice low enough that she thought she'd misheard him at first. “Tell me about you. Tell me your hopes and dreams, your childhood, family. I want to know it all.”

Intense heat burned her cheeks, setting them on fire. She hadn't been imagining him saying that he was interested in her then. She tried to think of what to say, wanting to make it sound exciting so he would think she was worthy of the interest he had in her.

Before she could speak, his hand was on hers, resting over it, engulfing it. She looked at it. His fingers toyed with hers. Either he was shaking or she was. Or maybe it was both of them. He looked unsettled, not his usual confident self. His seductive smile and façade had slipped, revealing to her the man beneath. He really was interested in her, and, by the looks of things, he didn't care if her childhood had been boring and her dreams were impossible. He just wanted to know more about her.

“Kim?” he said, a nervous edge entering his eyes. “Tell me about the things you want in life. Do you want the whole husband and kids package?”

Her heart set off at an alarming speed and she couldn't breathe. She grabbed her glass of champagne and gulped it, choking as it tried to go down her windpipe. He slid around the bench seat and was beside her in an instant. She closed her eyes, holding her throat. His hand gently patting her back and his concerned words made her tremble. The patting became a slow rub as she began to get control of her breathing. His warm palm moved in gentle circles against her bare back, tantalising her and drawing her focus there. She remembered the feeling of his fingers against her shoulders in the lift. Her stomach tensed as heat settled in her abdomen.

She turned to him and smiled, feeling ridiculous. His question had caught her completely off guard. She knew it was just a question, not a proposal, but it had been the last thing she'd expected.

“I've never thought about it,” she said, her voice still strained. “I'm only twenty nine...no...I do. Life goes by so quickly doesn't it? Too quickly. You can't dilly dally about things you want.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he said and refilled her glass and his.

She noticed that he wasn't moving back to his side of the table. Her thigh was hot where his was pressed against it. As he shifted in the seat, they rubbed together, making her leg hum and tingle. She wanted more contact. She wanted his hand back in hers, his mouth to her ear as he whispered sweet words into it, and their bodies pressed hard against each other.

Preferably naked.

E
rik smiled when Kim looked at him, her eyes wide and cheeks flushed. She looked hungry, and as aroused as she smelt. He could understand. The dreams had him thinking five steps ahead of where they were now too. He couldn't get them off his mind. Every time he looked at her, he thought of the thousands of times he'd touched and kissed her, caressed her and watched her face as she melted in pleasure along with him.

He probably shouldn't have skipped the more formal questions about her youth and her life, but he'd had to know if she had any intention of ever settling down with someone. He knew that in this day and age that didn't mean marriage and kids, but a mating was as close to a marriage as he could get. He had eternity ahead of him. That was a few name changes or rebirths. It usually worked the same way. They'd have kids that people knew about but no one saw. These apparent replicas of them would miraculously enter the world at the time when their parents had apparently died. The cycle would go on. He didn't mind being reborn in the public eye now and then. He was sure that some people thought his family were cursed. So many generations had died horribly and early in their life. The paperwork involved made it a pain, but a necessary one if they were to avoid discovery.

His thoughts drifted away when he reached out a little with his senses and felt Kim watching him. He liked that feeling. The intense passion she stirred whenever she looked at him was almost overwhelming, but at the same time, it was nice. He knew that when he looked at her, she felt something similar.

Sipping his champagne, he thought of another question to get her talking again. He was probably making her uncomfortable by sitting this close to her and not speaking. He told himself that he should go back to his seat opposite her, but sitting next to her was bliss and he didn't want to relinquish it just yet.

“So what's life like for you? You've heard about my years spent locked away at a boarding school, and my family.”

She smiled a little smile, a hesitant one. He'd noticed earlier that she looked nervous about telling him about herself.

She drank a mouthful of champagne and swallowed it as she leaned back into the seat, nestled close to him. She was near enough that he could feel her, sense her a hair's breadth away. All he had to do was lean a little.

He closed his eyes when her arm touched his, their sides pressed against each other for a split second. She breathed in sharply, and then sighed. He smiled and looked at her, watching her teeth tease her lower lip. When she finally looked up at him, he was stunned to see she didn't look at all embarrassed or awkward about what had happened.

If anything, she looked as though she wanted it to happen again.

He slid a little closer when she took another sip of champagne, using her momentary distraction to narrow the gap between them.

“Life? Well... it's day in day out isn't it? I mean, it probably isn't for you. You're probably like those people in Heat magazine, swanning about on your yacht with babes hanging off your arms and a permanent grin,” she said, looking nervous again as she neared the end of her sentence.

“Not at all,” he said in a low voice, edging a little nearer. He stared at her mouth, fascinated with the way she kept teasing her lower lip. He'd die if she let him do that. He licked his lips, imagining kissing her and sucking her lip into his mouth. Damn, he'd die a happy man though.

He was so desperate to feel her mouth against his that a kiss could probably kill him. Even if that were true, he'd still beg her to do it.

She was looking at him, brows raised, as though there should have been more to what he'd said and he'd forgotten to say it.

“I only meant that I don't own a yacht, and I don't want girls hanging off my arms.”

She smiled. Her eyes shone with a little more confidence. They dropped to his mouth when he smiled, and stayed there, focused intently. He could sense her want and what she was thinking. She wanted that kiss, wanted to kill him just like he was silently begging her to.

Leaning towards her, he got as close to her as his sense would allow. Her eyes closed, hiding their dark depths from him, and her brows rose slightly into an expectant look. It was right there for the taking. All he had to do was let himself snatch this opportunity. She was asking him to kiss her.

He picked up the bottle of champagne.

“Want some more?” he whispered, his mouth close enough to hers that she'd only have to move an inch for them to touch.

He begged her to, pleaded her to find that confidence inside her to make the first move so he wouldn't feel wretched like he knew he would if he kissed her. This had to be her decision. If it was his decision to make, he could have swayed her by kissing her in the lift, or on the roof, or even in the park. She had to choose this, choose him.

And he had to tell her just what he was inside.

He didn't know how she was going to react to that. In the visions, she'd sometimes seen him start to change, and she'd heard the way she made him purr. Was it enough to prepare her for the reality of what he was? To her, shape-shifters were the stuff of books and movies, not real life.

She was staring at him as he stared at the table. He could feel her eyes boring into the side of his head and an unanswered question hung heavily in the air between them.

Why hadn't he kissed her?

A furtive glance at her was enough to show him that what little confidence she'd found, he'd stolen it from her. He shouldn't have pulled away. He should have kissed her. How could he do that though without her knowing what she was getting into? This wasn't a brief fling, or a relationship that would last maybe two or three years, this was a life altering decision, for both of them. He couldn't go into this knowing that she would leave when she found out what he was. He wanted to be with her forever, and he had to be honest with her if he was going to achieve that.

She looked at her watch, frowning. A quick look at his revealed that it was getting late. The club would be starting to empty. He turned to face her when she leaned away from him, drawing the curtain aside a fraction and looking out into the main room of the club. She let the curtain fall closed again and smiled at him.

He drank the rest of his glass of champagne and opened his mouth to speak but she beat him to it.

“Do you want to dance?” Her voice shook badly and the nerves showed in her eyes.

His heart flipped and beat harder, sending the alcohol to his brain at double time.

He nodded dumbly.

She grabbed his hand and was immediately on her feet. When he slid out of the seat and came to stand beside her, she wobbled slightly and pressed her free hand to her head, smiling to herself. Clearly she wasn't used to champagne. He was going to tell her they didn't have to dance and that he should probably take her home, but when she looked up at him, all smiles and happiness, he couldn't bring himself to say the words. She wanted this, regardless of the fact she was a little intoxicated. He'd seen her sober. She wanted to be close to him. She wanted those fantasies to become a reality.

He just had to tell her and then he could make every single one of them real, just as soon as she knew about him.

Grabbing the bottle of champagne, he swallowed down the remains of it to try and shrug off his inhibitions and then smiled right back at her.

If she danced close to him, if she made it clear that she wanted to kiss him, then that was enough confirmation for him. He'd kiss her then. If she tried to take it further, he'd tell her about himself. He would.

Leaving the booth, he kept a firm hold of her hand and led her towards the dance floor. The music was fading as they approached and his heart missed a beat when he heard that the next one was a slow tune. He looked over his shoulder at Kim. She was still smiling, looking a bit giddy, and it was hard to tell whether it was the alcohol or whether the prospect of being in each other's arms was making her as dizzy as he felt.

He told himself to get a grip and then promptly did, sliding his arms around Kim the moment they were on the dance floor.

Kim smiled into Erik's eyes as she came face to face with him. The nerves she'd managed to suppress in order to ask him to dance had returned with friends now that she actually was. She took a deep breath and listened to the music, letting it soothe her and waiting for her head to stop spinning. It was just a dance.

She groaned quietly in her throat when Erik's hands tightened against her back, tugging her closer to him until their bodies were touching. He moved slowly with her and her hands trailed up his arms, gaining confidence when his gaze shifted to watch them, his eyes darkening. His arms tensed beneath her touch. She felt his muscles through his shirt. They were taut, powerful. They made her knees weak.

Her hands continued their journey and her breath caught in her throat when Erik's gaze moved back to meet hers. She stared into his eyes as her hands reached his shoulders. His body felt as good as it had looked this afternoon, and as good as it had felt in her fantasies.

She couldn't believe this was happening. A glance at her surroundings showed that it was mostly couples on the dance floor and some of them weren't even dancing, they were just kissing each other.

She swallowed, wishing Erik would kiss her. Since he'd said she looked pretty, she'd given herself leave to believe that her fantasies might just come true, or that he was at least going to kiss her tonight.

Surely you didn't get a girl's hopes up by telling her she looked pretty when you had no intention of kissing her?

Erik's hands sliding into the curve of her back brought her out of her thoughts and she found herself still staring deep into his eyes. She was lost in them, and the feel of the music drifting through her and the way he was moving with her. It was slow, sensual, bodies pressed close together until there wasn't room for air between them. She pressed herself against him a little more, showing him that she wanted this too.