Kiss of Moonlight (3 page)

Whoa
. Tam bit back an involuntary gasp. Sweet heaven, the guy was…hot. Not pretty-boy cute. Not run-of-the-mill handsome. His features were a little too hard, a little too sharp for that.

No, this was a woman’s wet dream.
Masculine and confident.
Experienced.

Shaggy black hair fell almost to his broad shoulders, the bangs brushing his perfectly straight nose and gorgeous, high cheekbones before he shoved them back. His square jaw had a covering of black stubble and his eyes were narrowed against the sun. She couldn’t see what color they were.

She wanted to get close enough to see. After the hell she’d gone through eight months ago, it shocked her to realize her libido still worked. She’d thought…

What? That she’d never want to have sex again?

No. She wouldn’t let the bastard take that from her. She’d enjoyed sex, what little of it she’d had. She knew she would again. What that monster had done to her had been an aberration. Not sex.

Sex with
this
man would be amazing.

Not that she was going to have sex with him. She didn’t know who he was or why they were here. But she was about to find out.

He and the girl got out of the car and started walking to her door.

She pulled away from the window as they got close, not wanting them to catch her watching, like some creepy old lady afraid of her own shadow.

They weren’t talking now, almost as if they didn’t want to spook her. The knock, when it came, sounded almost muted.

As if they knew…

Idiot, of course they didn’t know. She’d never seen them before in her life.

The knock came a second time and she automatically moved to answer it.

Her heart began to pound but not in fear. She almost didn’t recognize the difference because she’d lived with the fear for so long.

No, this was anticipation.

Because of him.

She ran her fingers through her longer-than-normal hair, thankful for once that the straight blonde strands never tangled. She eased open the door, trying not to give any hint of the emotions roiling in her gut.

“Can I help you?”

The girl stood in front of the man, smiling at her with a wide grin. The man’s bulk nearly overwhelmed her slight figure.

“Hi. I’m Cat and this is my dad, Kyle. We live down the road and since we only just noticed that you moved in, we came to say hi. And invite you for dinner. We’re having a cookout tonight. Dad’s pretty good with the grill and—”

The girl cut off as the man put his hands on her shoulders. “And my daughter tends to run at the mouth. Sorry about that.” He stuck one of those hands around the girl toward her. “Kyle Rossini.”

She took his hand without thought and immediately lost herself in his warmth. When was the last time she’d let anyone touch her?
A month?
Two?

God, the man had huge hands, tanned dark by the sun.
As was the rest of his arm and probably his chest as well.
She didn’t see any tan lines, including one on his ring finger.
Minus a ring.

“
Tamra
.
Tamra
…Johnson.” They didn’t need to know her real name. It wasn’t like they were going to become best buddies. She wasn’t going to be here long. This was only a brief stop before she moved on.
Again.

He nodded as they shook then released her before she could pull away.

“So were you related to Old Man Johnson?” he asked.

“Ah yes, distantly. I inherited the property. Did you know him?”

She’d never met her great-grandfather. Her mom had told her the old man had died almost twenty years ago, leaving his property to his granddaughter, Tam’s mother. Tam hadn’t even known about the property until she’d gone through her mother’s legal papers last month and found the deed.

And she’d decided it would be the perfect place to pull
herself
together before she continued her life.
If she could.

The man nodded. “Yeah, I met him a few times.”

She couldn’t tell from Kyle’s expression what he thought of her great-grandfather. According to her mom, the man hadn’t been worth their time.

“Do you remember him?” he continued.

“No, I was only three when he died.”

Kyle’s gaze dropped for a second and she swore she saw him wince.

“Soooo,” the girl, Cat, spoke up as if she couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer. “Can you come to dinner? We’d really love to have the company.”

Tam hesitated. She hadn’t expected to interact with other people while she was here.
Didn’t know if she had any small talk in her.
But the fact that she’d been talking to the dogs every night probably meant she missed human contact.

And she couldn’t honestly say she didn’t want to get to know this man. There was something about him, something that made her want to spend time with him.

And the girl.
She was…soothing, even with all the energy that seemed to crackle off her.

Tam looked up, and up, at Kyle, and got caught in his topaz gaze. Strangely, they reminded her of the dog’s eyes from last night. How weird was that?

Blinking, she shifted her gaze to the girl. They probably thought she was some kind of freak. A dinner invitation didn’t take this much deliberation.

She tried out a smile, hoping she still remembered how. “Sure, I’d love to come.”

* * * * *

“Cat, it’s just a cookout. It’s not like I’m going on a date.”

Cat’s sigh sounded so much like her mother’s Kyle almost checked behind him to make sure Margie hadn’t appeared. “Gee, Dad. Do you even know what that word means anymore? Just wear the clothes I picked out for you. And hurry up. She’ll be here soon.”

Cat turned from the door of his bedroom and headed toward the kitchen, where she started banging bowls around and gathering ingredients out of the fridge, leaving Kyle to finish dressing.

He had to admit he’d been stewing about what to wear as he took a shower.
Which just pissed him off.
This wasn’t a
fricking
date.

Yeah, so why are you acting like a teenager going to a dance?

Because he was an idiot, that’s why.

Grabbing the t-shirt off the bed, he pulled it over his head.
Plain black but not as loose as he normally wore.
He turned toward the mirror and realized the tight fit emphasized his shoulders, chest and arms.
Tinia’s
teat, he looked like a hard-ass biker with the tattooed runes on his left arm and the muscles bulging.

He’d probably scare the girl away.

Except the shorts kind of balanced it out, made him look a little more normal.

Yeah, like the reformed convict down the street doing his lawn.

“And they have a pocket for your knife,” Cat had noted when she’d set them out. “So you can still be armed even while being fashionable.”

Damn, he loved his kid. But he fucking hated that she knew he needed to carry a concealed weapon.

“Dad, honestly.
You’re worse than a girl,” Cat called from the kitchen. “I can hear you sighing all the way out here. Just put the clothes on and come help me. Jeez.”

Yep, someone should just take his balls and hang ’
em
in a closet somewhere.

Since his combat boots didn’t exactly go with the ensemble and Cat hadn’t bothered to put any shoes out for him, he went barefoot, which he preferred anyway.

From his bedroom, he stepped into the main room. He’d built the one-story house in the traditional Etruscan style, one long, straight rectangle with a living room in the front of the house, dining room in the middle and kitchen at the back, no walls to separate them. Only the two bedrooms and bath flanking the dining room and kitchen were enclosed with doors.

The open floor plan allowed him to see everything except the bedrooms and bathroom. Cat needed some privacy.

Since he’d left the decorating to Margie and his sisters, he couldn’t take credit for the laid-back style of the rooms. The weathered gold walls, leather furniture and dark wood kitchen hinted at old-world elegance, which he loved. Left to his own devices, he’d have bought a couch, a recliner and a TV and been done with it.

“Thought you had everything ready, Kitty Cat?”

He’d taken care of marinating the steaks and shrimp, and the baked potatoes already sat on the hot grill. As soon as
Tamra
showed up, he’d throw on the meat. Cat had said she’d take care of everything else and luckily for him, his girl was a damn good cook. And she enjoyed it.

She’d made a tomato-mozzarella salad, the scent of fresh basil hanging in the warm air. Fruit salad chilled in the fridge and a strawberry pie cooled on the island.

Cat looked up as he approached, her wide grin making him smile in return.

“Whoa, Dad, you clean up pretty good. Maybe we need to sign you up for one of those calendar deals. We could call it Bad Boys of Etruscan Magic.”

He snorted as he fished a beer out of the fridge. “Sweetheart, I think the sun’s getting to you. Hey, did you talk to your mom today? I saw her number on caller ID.”

“Yeah, just checking in.
I told her about your date tonight.”

Fuck
. “Cat. You didn’t.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Of
course
not.
Lighten up, Dad. And don’t frown at Tam like that. You’ll scare her away.”

And maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. She’d been in his head all morning. He’d tried to work on the car but he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d told him last night. He’d finally abandoned the car for the computer.

And battled an impotent rage when he’d
Googled
Tamra
Johnson.
It’d taken him a little while to dig up the stories, because her real name was
Tamra
McMillan. But once he had, he should’ve called her to cancel their not-a-date right then.

He was worried that when she came into his house tonight with her shadowed eyes, he might go caveman on her. Wrap his body around hers, lock the bedroom door behind them and convince her she was meant to be his.

Which would never happen because his bed was the last place Tam needed to be right now.

Cat’s sigh ripped him out his thoughts. “You’re hopeless, you know that. I mean, I get why you’re all, like, ‘
grr
’,” she held up her hands like claws, “but she’s almost here—”

The doorbell rang, cutting off whatever insight Cat was about to impart. Probably something he didn’t really want to hear.

Cat gave him a look and pointed at him, her expression making it clear she was going to keep a close eye on him. He let his lips curl in a smile. His baby wasn’t much of a baby anymore. And the young woman she was becoming made him so damn proud, sometimes he thought he’d burst.

He reached out to tug her hair but she sidestepped, throwing another warning glance over her shoulder as she headed for the door.

As she opened it, Kyle’s entire body stiffened as he caught
Tamra’s
light clean scent on the warm September air.

His muscles tightened, desire beginning a slow boil through his system.

Gods be damned, why the fuck was this happening now?

Wrong damn time.
Wrong damn girl.

She was too young, too damaged and too fucking
eteri
. Only the faintest trace of an old power lingered in her blood, so diluted it was almost impossible to detect. She had no magic. Hell, she probably had no idea magic existed and would run screaming if he told her what he was, what Cat was.

But while his brain said no, his body burned for her.

As a child, he’d been raised to believe he would mate another
lucani
, keep the blood lines pure, the magic strong.

Then, as an adult, he’d decided the whole life partner thing wasn’t for him. He never wanted to give that much control of himself to another person. Never wanted another person to control his pelt…

Of course, he’d never planned to have a child either but the Great Goddess
Uni
had seen fit to screw that up.

Still, he’d never regret Cat. He’d never known how much joy a child would bring, how much light Cat brought to his otherwise dark world.

Tamra
had shadows in her wide
eyes,
shadows that made him want to howl.

Cat ran at the mouth as she reached for
Tamra’s
arm and practically pulled her into the house. Cat ignored her flinch, smiling at
Tamra
as if she were a long-lost friend, as if Cat had been deprived of female companionship for years.

When Cat stayed with him, miles from the
lucani
den and even farther from her home with her mom and Dan at the
boschetta
, she didn’t have another female around to talk to. It was just the two of them.
Working on the car, going for runs, working on her hand-to-hand, watching movies at night.

Vaffanculo
, he was a clueless bastard. Of course Cat missed other females.
Stuck out here with no one to talk to but him, getting grease under her fingernails working on the car and falling into bed by nine thirty because she was so damn tired.

Back at the
boschetta
, she was surrounded by women. Her powerful
arus
, the magic inherent in all those of Etruscan descent, made her an integral part of the community.

Here, he still treated her like she was ten. And as much as he wanted to pretend otherwise, she was almost sixteen. And mature for her age.

He had no clue why she still agreed to spend these weeks with him but he was damn grateful she did. Why would he want to deny her the chance to interact with another woman?

Even if he wanted the woman with a completely irrational need.

Besides, Cat would be good for
Tamra
. His daughter had already coaxed a smile out of Tam, who looked as if she was relearning how to do it.