Safeword: Storm Clouds (2 page)

Kendra noticed three men playing pool who seemed to have a good camaraderie going. One of the men was quite tall, he would probably be at least six or seven inches taller than her, yet he was well proportioned and very comfortable in his skin. She liked the way he moved, the way he observed the pool game and made his shots, the way he looked at this friends, the way he smiled, and the way he laughed. He noticed her looking at him and he raised his beer to her in a relaxed grin, held eye contact until she smiled and raised her drink in return, and then he turned his attention back to the pool table and his friends. She waited until it looked like his beer was getting low and got the attention of his waitress and told her to take the three of them another round and tell them it was on the house and to nod her head back towards that corner of the bar so that it would be clear that Kendra had sent the drinks.

He acknowledged the drink to her when the waitress put them out on their drinks table and relayed the message, but he finished the pool game with his friends before walking over to her.

As she watched him walk over to her she took in his good looks. Light brown hair with golden highlights, and Kendra had a feeling they weren't put there with a bottle but with time in the sun. He had beautiful blue eyes and a perfect nose. He was built like those Abercrombie models with abs that make you want to trace them with your tongue. The body of an Abercrombie model with the hair and grooming habits of a GQ model. Did it get any better than that?

"It seems a thank you is in order, so," he raised his beer a few inches, "thank you."

"You are most welcome. It looks like the three of you have some sort of celebration going on, it was the least I could do."

"Yeah, my buddy asked his girlfriend to marry him last night and she said yes. I'm the last single guy at this point, so my friends kind of insisted that I come talk to you. I was going to, even if you hadn't sent the drinks over."

"And are you single because you are against relationships, or just because you haven't found the right girl?"

He looked thoughtful, but answered casually, "Last year, maybe a little of both. This year, probably the latter. I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie and I tend to scare most women off once they get to know me."

She didn’t think he was feeding her bullshit, she didn’t smell any deceit in his words. Interesting.

"And with a line like that, some of them will be scared off before they have a chance to get to know you. Tell me, why are you so scary?"

He wedged a foot up on the lower rung of a bar stool and casually propped his hip against the top. "My hobbies include rappelling, kayaking, skydiving, and hang gliding. Three years ago I made it to within a few football fields of the summit of Everest but the weather wouldn't cooperate to let us make an attempt for the summit."

Yep, full of life. Perfect. She wanted to get him alone. She wanted to spend time with that soothing voice, those beautiful eyes, and the scent of sunshine and self assurance and raw male that were mingling together. She wanted to touch him. She wanted him to touch her. What could she say to make that happen? She settled for, "Are you a good hang glider?"

He gave her an appraising look, as if that was an unexpected response and she had just become more interesting. "One of the best. I'm also certified to teach, if you want to learn."

He took a drink of his beer, giving himself time to think, then responded with, "Too dangerous at night, but I'd be happy to take you tomorrow."

"No deal tomorrow Mister Adrenaline Junkie. I'll go with you tonight, not tomorrow."

Another appraising look and then, "You're serious?"

"Quite serious. The moon is almost full and it's plenty bright outside. I have excellent night vision and the night is calling to me. My name is Kendra, by the way."

"Eric. Nice to meet you. I think."

"You aren't sure?"

"I've been told I don't value life, that I have a death wish. But the opposite is true. I value life enough to fully live it. And now I find myself wondering which is the case with you. Something tells me you're the same as me, you value life enough to truly live it. But I just met you, and before I take you on a night flight I'd like to be sure of your reasoning."

Kendra hadn't intended to feed from anyone tonight. She wanted to form some kind of attachment first or it was only marginally better than bagged blood. But this man was so
alive
. She was tempted to get a taste of him tonight even without forming an attachment. But, she didn't want to have to make him forget anything, which also meant she couldn't actually tell him there wasn't much danger to either of them in hang gliding at night since Kendra could fly. They'd just be doing it for the rush, for the feel of the night whooshing by them as they flew like birds on the wind. When Kendra took to the skies it was a magical thing, a metaphysical thing - wind wasn't really necessary. She'd love to soar in a hang glider and have the feeling of maneuvering through the air, using the wind to stay aloft. Since she couldn't assure him there would be no danger, she said, "Like you said, you just met me. All I can do is tell you that I don't have a death wish, there really isn't any way for me to prove it to you. I can tell you I'd love to feel the rush of the wind on my face, the feel of soaring through the night sky, but I guess there is no way for you to know I'm speaking truth."

He studied her eyes, then said, "You work here?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "Not exactly. There are a dozen or so clubs and restaurants in town that I help manage, as a group."

"And I just happened to catch your eye?"

"Yeah. You're, I don't know. Alive. Comfortable in your skin. I could feel your energy from across the room."

He was quiet again, considering, then seemed to make up his mind. "Alright Kendra. I'll take you on a night flight, but not tonight. I've got rappelling gear for two in my car. You want an adrenaline rush tonight you'll have to live with doing it in a harness hanging off the side of a mountain."

Her heart did a little flip flop, which was ridiculous, but she didn't argue with it. "Deal. Do we leave now or do you need to spend some more time with your friends?"

"We were drawing things to a close. They'll be thrilled to see me leave with a woman."

"Let me grab my purse from the office, I'll be back in a few minutes."

Chapter Two

Eric said she'd need to be in loose jeans and athletic shoes so they decided to drop by her house so she could change clothes and leave her car there. They would ride to the rappelling spot together in his Land Rover. Eric had jeans on and said he had shoes to change into in the back of the Land Rover.

Kendra lived in a house inhabited by a bunch of vampires. A very large house, close to nine thousand square feet, not including the shelter areas built under the yard that were in place for an emergency. She couldn't take him to her private rooms in the house without a bunch of questions since there were several security doors to pass through to make it to the basement living quarters. Needless to say, vampires are pretty cautious about their daytime resting spot. Her living quarters were quite luxurious, but hard to explain. She called the house from her car to tell them she was bringing a human home long enough for her to change clothes and they should make sure there was nothing out that screamed vampire. She told them she'd leave Eric on the main level to talk to them while she ran downstairs to change, and threatened them to be nice. Lucky for her, everyone currently at the house except for Gavin had to listen to her, and Gavin would be nice just because he was that kind of guy. Gavin was Abbot's second in command and he lived there as well. Abbot didn't live in the house, though he kept a room there so he could stay when he needed or wanted to.

When they arrived only Gavin and Fawne were on the main level. She guessed that Gavin had ran them all away from the main floor until her guest was gone so she wouldn't have to answer so many questions about why so many people lived there. Kendra made introductions and ran downstairs to change. She didn't take long with her super vampire speed so she was back upstairs in jeans and fashionable micro-fleece top and athletic shoes with her hair pulled back out of her face in less than five minutes. She figured if she was too fast it would arouse his suspicions, too.

That was a joke since the vampires all pretty much died at dawn whether they wanted to or not, and there would be no vampires awake to search after dawn. However, it let him know that she intended to come home tonight. More importantly, it would also give her an excuse if Eric wanted her to stay with him longer than she could. Sometimes she felt like Cinderella, needing to be home before sunrise not because her coach would turn into a pumpkin, but because she would turn into a corpse.

Once Kendra and Eric were in his Range Rover he asked her about her house and house mates. "You live in a beautiful house. Well, a mansion really, I don't think you can call that a house. And you must have made some interior decorator somewhere quite wealthy. Who do you live there with?"

"It's kind of complicated. They are like family to me, I guess. There's no kinky sexual arrangements going on between my house mates and I, if that is what you are wondering. Tell me, why has an adrenaline junkie chosen to live in Chattanooga?"

"Are you kidding? I'm an hour from the Ocoee River, one of the best places to kayak in the country. I'm also an hour and a half from the Lookout Mountain hang gliding launch, one of the best places in the world to hang glide. There are literally hundreds of places to rappel within an hour of the city, possibly thousands. I can make it to a dozen different backcountry wilderness areas from here within three or four hours if I want to hike. There are so many caves in the area it's a caver's paradise. There are enough mountains to climb in eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia and northern Alabama and western North Carolina to last me for the next fifteen years. And the Tennessee River runs right through the center of town. This is an adrenaline junkie's dream come true."

"What do you do for a living to support your adrenaline habit?"

He laughed. "I create video games for couch potato adrenaline junkies. I don't need to go into an office for that, I can work from anywhere in the world."

They talked easily as they drove up one of the mountains surrounding the city. Eric was twenty-five years old, and she avoided telling him how old she was by changing the subject when he asked. She'd been twenty-three when she was turned, but she had lived a very hard life and looked more like twenty-eight than twenty-three. Since she intended to eventually tell him she was a vampire, and she didn't want to lie to him, she would avoid questions that required a lie. When he stopped to get snacks she said she'd eaten shortly before she talked to him so she just wanted bottled water. Again, not a lie, she'd had some blood before leaving to go to TBR.

Once they reached the top of the mountain and drove for a bit he turned onto a dirt road. She looked at him quizzically and he said, "We can't do this on easily accessible public lands because they have rules against rappelling at night. If you're nervous about going into the woods with a stranger though, I'll understand, and we can do something else."

She smiled. “I think you're safe enough. Plus, you met my friends, they know your name and what you drive. If you wanted to take someone into the woods to do bad things to them I don't think you'd want to meet their housemates first. You'd have said that what I was wearing was fine."

Once they reached the top of the cliffs and turned the engine and headlights off he asked her if she wanted him to light the area up. She said she’d rather they just did this by the light of the moon, that she thought it should be plenty light enough once they let their night vision get used to the darkness. He gave a smile that told her he approved, and they got out.

Kendra watched him pull several things out of the back of the Range Rover, and then put what looked like carpet samples around the trees. He wrapped some sort of webbing around the carpet samples, and then attached the rope to the webbing. When he was done, each rope was attached to two trees, not one.

"What's with the carpet?"

"Ropes can hurt the bark, hurt the trees. The carpet protects the trees. Most people just use rope around something protective, but I don't like to depend on one tree, and the webbing is easier to work with when you are using multiple anchors. The way I've got everything connected here, with the ‘biners, the rope is pulling fairly equally on both trees so if one tree fails you've still got one tree holding you up. Also, with two trees sharing the weight, they are less likely to fail."

Kendra hadn't thought about the rope hurting the trees, but if this was a popular spot for rappelling she guessed the trees would eventually take enough damage to their bark that it could compromise them. Damn, this man was just doing more and more things to make her like him. Once he had the ropes ready to throw over the edge of the cliff he retrieved a shorter rope from the Range Rover and attached it to a big hook that had been wedged into the top of a large boulder, and then he began helping her into the harness, which involved a good bit of touching. She was getting a little bit turned on but was pretty sure she managed not to show it. There was no smell of arousal on him while he worked – he seemed intent on getting the harness right, more intent on safety than on flirting. She was both impressed and a little disappointed.