Eyes of Ice (Eyes of Ice Erotica Series) (9 page)

“Just a formality?” Cecelia repeated
under her breath, as no fewer than two hundred pairs of darkening eyes turned to stare at her in mingled expressions of shock and interest. She felt a jab of panic, and gripped Andrew’s arm a little tighter.

“They’re just curious,” Andrew said
evenly. “They knew you were coming.”

He continued to lead her forward, and Cecelia saw Devon making his way through the crowd, a tall, raven-haired woman on his own arm.
So much for Mags
, Cecelia thought dully and somewhat distastefully. But as they drew closer to the clan, Cecelia could fully identify the expressions on the faces of many of the individuals there.

“Are they – can they – smell me?” she asked in a horrified whisper, recognizing the looks of hunger and yearning on the perfect, porcelain faces.

“Yes. That’s natural,” Andrew said, in measured tones, the way one might speak to a spooked animal. “I told you, Cecelia, I won’t let them hurt you.” His voice was low, and Cecelia, still panicked, wondered if it mattered. Surely everyone could hear him trying to calm her.
Maybe they can even smell my fear.

Cecelia shot a glance up at
Andrew’s face, and saw the resolved expression there. Beneath the crisp lines of his suit, his shoulders were resolutely squared. As tall and thin as he was, he was solid, and steady beside her. His eyes were sky blue.
The best night of my life
, she reminded herself faintly.

Devon stood before them
all too soon, and Cecelia dedicated herself to hating his attractiveness with all her might. She tried to imagine how ugly he would be if outer beauty reflected inner traits, and the more realistic she made that image of Devon, the more her other fears faded.

“Good evening, Cecelia,” he said, performing a slight bow. “May I introduce Alexandra Orwell?”

The exquisite being on Devon’s arm extended a near-white hand to Andrew, and Cecelia – now knowing nothing about Alexandra but her name – was determined to hate this woman as well. She, like Devon, was unacceptably attractive, and appeared to be well aware of this fact. Her black hair shone against her white skin, and fell in an undisturbed wave over her shoulders, brushing the bodice of her rose-colored gown. Her cheeks glowed with the same rose color, and Cecelia thought that she looked almost doll-like. Vampire Barbie.

Cecelia
watched as Andrew inclined his head to kiss Alexandra’s hand. She felt a ripple of jealousy, and then surprise, as Alexandra extended her hand to Cecelia, turning her wrist to indicate that Cecelia should merely shake it.

“Cecelia Hardwicke?” she inquired, in a mellow, lilting voice. “Devon’s told me about you.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Cecelia replied automatically, wondering what on earth Devon could had told this exquisite creature.
Eighteen-year-old human, contents perishable?
Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Alexandra laughed, quietly and kindly.

“He thinks well of you, don’t worry,” she said, full lips curling into an easy smile as she laid a hand
affectionately upon Devon’s chest.
She’s teasing him
, Cecelia realized with incredulity, as Alexandra concluded: “Our kind admires bravery.”

Devon shifted slightly in annoyance, but Alexandra pretended to ignore him, her smile still fixed upon Cecelia in encouragement.
Even her smile was flawless, her teeth white and gleaming.

“I’m not brave,” Cecelia protested, her blood pounding in her ears from the pressure she felt
resurfacing. Devon was looking at her with eyes like jet blue lasers, as if determined to cut her to her core. Alexandra opened her mouth to clarify, but astonishingly, it was Andrew who beat her to speech.

“You are,” he said, and leaned in
closer to Cecelia; his lips brushed her cheek lightly, compassionately.
If Devon truly was the kind of predator he seems
, Cecelia thought, daring to glance at him,
his hackles would be raised in fury right now
. Even so, she saw a muscle in his neck clenching and unclenching with restrained emotion.

“
I think well of Devon, also,” Cecelia said, though she could not deliver this line to Devon’s face. She found herself staring at her reflection in the gleaming marble floor. She swallowed, hard, then made herself raise her head. “My kind admires loyalty.”

Something in Devon’s hard appearance seemed to thaw, very slightly. He unlocked his jaw and said, his voice
sharp: “What loyalty have you observed in me, Miss Hardwicke?”

“To your family,” said Cecelia. “Andrew is your family, isn’t he?”

Alexandra’s hand fluttered to her mouth like a pale bird, her perfect countenance softening in an instantaneous reaction. Devon’s lips parted as if there was some response that he wished to make, but words failed him. His eyes shifted away, to some distant spot at the far end of the room, and he clamped his lips shut once more. His features were stony, purposefully devoid of expression and feeling. Even the vein in his neck had stilled.

“I like to think of him that way, yes,” Andrew said
coolly. “He is the closest thing that I have.”

There was a silence in which the only sound Cecelia heard was the thudding of her own heart and her uneven breathing. Alexandra, for the first time in their admittedly brief acquaintance,
looked panicked – she kept shooting questioning looks at an unresponsive Devon. And for his own part, Andrew would say no more.

“Always a pleasure, Miss Hardwicke,”
Devon said finally, directing his words over Cecelia’s shoulder to the distant wall. “Shall we, Alexandra?”

“Devon,” Andrew said, and something jerked painfully inside Cecelia. Andrew had sounded half as if he was saying goodbye, and half as if he was begging for Devon to stay.

But Devon did not glance at either of them, gliding from the room with an apologetic Alexandra by his side. The clan parted, and Devon and Alexandra continued, their way unobstructed, to the door.

Andrew lowered his arm, taking Cecelia’s hand in his, and turned to face her
, eyes downcast. Perhaps, Cecelia realized, this was because he was sad. His expression had been similarly unreadable earlier, in the restaurant, when he had been attempting to speak of himself.

“Did I do something wrong?” Cecelia wondered out loud, genuinely concerned.

“Not at all,” Andrew reassured her. “Come. There’s still the president and the board to meet. Then we can leave.”

The rest of the evening was uncomfortable
for a multitude of reasons. Cecelia could

not shake the sadness of Devon’s departure; she
now felt a palpably deep regret surrounding Andrew, though he gave no visible sign of his emotions beyond small displays of affection.

Those displays excited her
enough. Once more, he brushed a strand of hair from her face while gazing into her eyes, and occasionally, while listening to the discussions of the clan, he would squeeze her hand. When she felt this, Cecelia would look up at his face, startled, but find no more impression of his feelings there than a hint of the very smallest of smiles upon his lips, and a sidelong glance that made her feel like her skin was burning from the inside. That was enough.

Cecelia found herself living for those affectionate signals when the most uncomfortable. Andrew had been right, she did not have to speak more than a handful of times the rest of the evening, but the way the clan members
looked
at her made her squirm. It had been shades of Devon’s hunger with every meeting, and she was so caught off guard still that all subjects of conversation faded from her memory as soon as they were introduced. A few times, Cecelia felt the eyes of clan members lingering on her skin, her neck, and was unpleasantly forced to imagine them seconds away from licking their lips and pouncing upon her.
It’s like trying to carry on a conversation with a cobra
, she told herself in nervousness, as the president of the clan, an elegant, silver-haired woman in a lavender gown, fixed her with a penetrating stare and unexpectedly asked:

“What do you know of us?”

Cecelia fumbled to make an understandable sentence out of the hurricane in her head.
I know about blood donors and I’ve seen two hundred of you, and I could probably describe all of you to the police if I wanted to,
was all she could come up with, a reply that would end her life, she was sure, never mind Andrew’s promises for protection. As this flew catastrophically through her mind, Andrew gripped her hand tightly and then answered for her, his tone remarkably reminiscent of Devon’s authoritative drawl: “Only what I deem appropriate, Madame President. Nothing more.”

  
It was now Andrew’s turn to be captured in that devastating gaze. To Andrew’s credit and Cecelia’s amazement, he didn’t flinch.

“This is neither the time, nor the place, Mr. Forrester,” the president informed him, frowning.
Maybe she was displeased by his undaunted reply. “We shall discuss this at our next meeting.”

“Understood,” Andrew replied shortly.

That was all. The president was clearly through with the exchange, for she turned to a tall man to their left and began a new, unrelated conversation.

A moment later, Andrew and Cecelia were heading for the door. Slowly, yes, stopping every now and then so that Andrew could contribute minimally to clan member’s
discussion or to greet a friend, but they were definite making their way toward the exit, Cecelia noticed with relief.

He led her to the car, and Cecelia all but collapsed in the back seat, exhaustion taking over momentarily. But only momentarily, for Andrew was kissing her before the driver had reached the first stoplight, and Cecelia would not dream of protesting. Like the day before, his kisses erased all sensation of
the outside world, consuming her. They grew closer and closer together in the back seat of the car, until Cecelia felt Andrew’s weight on top of her – not his whole weight, but the pressure of him, moving smoothly against her in a rhythm of his own.

“Andrew,” Cecelia whispered, as he kissed his way up her neck, and she felt she might cry out unintelligibly. He drew back, his eyes glittering in the darkness, and she could not tell if they were black, could only feel his warm breath on her face and his strong hands; one on her waist, the other on her bare shoulder.

“Yes?” he murmured.

Cecelia gulped. “I just … wanted to say your name,” she mumbled, tensing with embarrassment. The driver was a few feet away, behind a black
, soundproofed pane of glass, and the back seat of a moving vehicle had never felt so intensely intimate.

“I like that,” he whispered back to her. “Will you say it again?” It was half request and half a question. He dropped his lips to her ear, running his tongue along her earlobe and his fingers along her collarbone.

“Andrew,” Cecelia whispered back, and felt him tense against her, now. The car jerked to a halt, and Cecelia knew that they had arrived at Andrew’s apartment.

“Devon will be at Alexandra’s,” Andrew told her, quietly, still on top of her. His face was close to hers, his lips an inch from her own as he gazed into her eyes searchingly. “I want you.”

Cecelia’s breath caught in her throat. “Take me.”

Five

They entered his apartment in a rush, Andrew’s movements again too quick for Cecelia to follow with her eyes. At Andrew’s touch to a small control panel by the door, the lights lowered to a soft, amber glow, but this was all that Cecelia had time to register. Andrew had swept her effortlessly off her feet and carried her to the center of the room, where they stood, kissing, for a long moment. Cecelia’s hands were pressed to Andrew’s chest when Andrew’s hands drifted from her waist to linger upon her thighs. Cecelia trembled.

“Cecelia, this is your first time,” Andrew said. “I understand if you’re frightened.”

“I trust you,” Cecelia said.

“I’m not sure I trust me,” Andrew
said, his voice rough with suppressed emotion. “I’m not … good, like you.”

Cecelia blinked up at him. “I don’t need you to be,” she informed him, her voice just above a whisper. “I don’t want you to be.”

A noise halfway between a growl and a moan emerged from him, and the hair on the back of Cecelia’s neck stood on end. Before she had much time for fear, Andrew gripped her legs tightly and lifted her from the floor once more. A burst of movement and they were in Andrew’s room; he laid her upon the bed and on his knees at her side, reached for the neckline of her dress. In a moment he had pulled it down to her waist, exposing her bare skin to the amber lighting, and self-consciousness flickered over Cecelia. No one had ever seen her close to this naked before.

Skillfully, Andrew parted her legs and moved his hips between them, pushing against the folds of her once-flawless gown. Cecelia raised herself to her elbows, breathing raggedly, as Andrew rocked back, knees beneath her thighs, to slip her heels from her feet. He dropped them to the floor, his eyes still raking the near-nakedness before him. He reached forward, placed both his hands on her shoulders, and thrust her back to a laying position on the bed, his body now hard against hers, his hips at her hips, forcing her legs to open wider for his access.