Authors: Passion for the Game

Sylvia Day - [Georgian 02] (24 page)

BOOK: Sylvia Day - [Georgian 02]

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N
o one appreciated tradition, she thought with a spark of mutiny as she stepped backward toward the curb. Her gaze was trained on the hotel, counting floors and picking out the windows of the suite where she had grown up. Everyone wanted everything to change, all the time. Newer, improved, bigger, better. It was absurd. Some things deserved to stay just the way they were. And Callender House was one of them. Her father had entrusted her with it, and she wasn’t going to let him down.

It was a little disconcerting that she couldn’t pick out the old suite’s windows automatically, however. Once upon a time, she’d been able to do it in her sleep—she’d spent the first eighteen years of her life there, after all. She took another step backward, craning her neck as she counted up each floor, then over five windows—or was it six? The perspective was a little different now that she was taller.

She stepped backward again, squinting now, trying to remember—until a pair of very strong hands thrust her forward and a cab blared its horn.

She was still stumbling for balance when she heard something else hit the pavement with a wet splat, and then an irritable, “Oh, bloody hell.”

Uh-oh.

She grabbed a parking meter to right herself, and turned around to find a cabbie giving her a one-fingered salute as he drove off—and a rock star covered with what looked like a mocha latte, an exploded suitcase, and a dropped backpack at his feet. The sidewalk was littered with jeans and T-shirts.

He looked like a rock star, at least. First there were the faded jeans and what appeared to Olivia like motorcycle boots, black leather that had seen better days and plenty of wear. Then the layered shirts, a long-sleeved gray one under a short-sleeved dark blue one with Mick Jagger’s luscious pout on the front. Finally there was his hair, dark and shaggy around his face—and splattered with creamy white foam, just like his visage. And the white snakes of his iPod, which he pulled from his ears and shook over the sidewalk, spraying foam and coffee.

She swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry.
So
sorry. You don’t even know . . .”

“I can imagine well enough,” he said with a dry smile, shaking latte out of his hair like a wet dog. His eyes were gray, she noticed. Deep, stormy gray, and fixed on her face. “You and that cab would have ended in blood and tears, now wouldn’t you?”

“Um . . .” She knew, vaguely, that her mouth was hanging open, but she couldn’t seem to close it, much less find an intelligent response. She hadn’t expected the British accent. Something inside her melted into a warm puddle.

She’d dreamed about men like him. Well, “fantasized” was probably more accurate. In her sleeping dreams, men tended to be a strange combination of Cary Grant and that guy from the Verizon commercials.

But men like this one, those were the kind in her daydreams. Except this one possibly was better.

And she’d . . . splattered him.

“You’re all right, yeah?” he asked, wiping his face. “I didn’t mean to shove you quite so hard.”

“You . . . Well, you saved me from being hit by a cab.” She shrugged as a heated blush spread over her cheeks. “I’m fine. You’re . . .”

“A bit of a wreck at the moment, I know.” He grinned at her then, a sudden flash of mischief and sunshine. Licking his upper lip, he added with a wink, “Brilliant latte.”

Completely cool. Completely confident.

Completely unlike any man she had ever met.

In her head, there was no problem. She would say something witty, or smart, or maybe even flirty. He would lean in and flirt back, invite her to dinner. She would give him a mysterious little wave when she left, maybe flip her hair a bit. In her imagination, hair-flipping got them every time.

But this wasn’t her imagination. This was real, right here, right now. This was overwhelming.

Especially when he pulled up the hems of his T-shirts and wiped off his face, revealing a lean, muscled abdomen.

So much for offering him a towel from the hotel. So much for any hope of getting her racing pulse under control.

And he wasn’t even going to give her a chance to try. “Bit of trick, walking backward, yeah?” he said, letting his shirts fall and wiping his hands on the back of his jeans.

“Oh. Right.” Her cheeks were on fire. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see an actual flame lick the tip of her nose. “That was . . . dumb.”

“Not in an empty meadow, maybe.” His grin was as lopsided as the hotel’s nameplate, and a lot more appealing. “On a Manhattan street now . . .”

“I know. I am sorry.” She gestured helplessly at his ruined shirts, at the empty cup on the pavement.

“No worries, love. Pleasure to meet you . . .”

“Olivia.” She put her hand in his when he offered it, and an actual thrill of excitement raced through her. Which was silly, because he was simply being nice. It was probably a British thing. Nothing to do with her at all.

“Rhys,” he said, and she realized he was still holding her hand. His was nice, firm and warm and stronger than she would have imagined for a man with such long, lean fingers.

But she couldn’t stand here all day holding hands, pining after him like some teenager, even if she wanted to. It was time to step away. Get back to work. Take her tattered dignity back to her office and mend it with a big fat muffin.

Right. She was stepping away now. Yes,
now
.

Except for the fact that it wouldn’t be polite to leave him to the scattered contents of his suitcase all by himself, would it?

She untangled her fingers from his and knelt down to pick up a pair of jeans—and found a jumbled pile of boxer briefs beneath them. She dropped the jeans with a little gasp of embarrassment, and looked up to see Rhys grinning at her.

“I’ll take the unmentionables, love.”

And now Kathy Love’s newest,
MY SISTER IS A WEREWOLF,
coming next month from Brava!

R
eaching for her beer, Elizabeth took a sip, and for the first time that night felt a little normal. The atmosphere of the bar seemed to envelope her, like she was meant to be there. A much needed sense of contentment filled her. The talking, the laughter, the smell of drinks and salty roasted peanuts. It made her feel oddly better. This was a good idea—a good distraction. Tomorrow she’d return to her research in a more relaxed and focused state.

Elizabeth smiled as Jill Lewis finally took the stage. The reluctant woman shook her head, glaring good-naturedly at her friends.

“All right!” Jolee cheered from over her microphone, and much of the bar exploded into applause. Elizabeth clapped along with them.

Jolee started the music and the woman’s voice filled the room almost from the first note, asking the listeners to go on and leave her breathless. Elizabeth recognized the tune as a song from the radio with a happy, contagious beat. And the woman sang it well—better than well. It was little wonder that her pals had been urging her to get up there. She was great.

Elizabeth looked back to the woman’s table of friends to see their reaction to the woman’s fantastic singing. Two of them, a man and a woman, beamed and clapped. While the other at the table, a male, just watched, somehow distant from the other two. The clapping male leaned over to say something to him; and the one who only watched turned toward his friend, giving Elizabeth her first full view of his face.

Elizabeth’s smile disappeared. Desire, so strong that it almost made her cry out, ripped through her, shredding any impression of calm she’d found. Every muscle in her body tensed, every sense sharpening until her whole being was centered on the man before her.

Without saying a word to Christian, she rose. Carefully, purposefully, she zigzagged through the tables, her eyes never leaving the man. Just tables away, she stopped herself, fragments of her reasonable mind taking control. She glanced back at the bar. Christian watched her, but when he saw her looking, he busied himself by taking an order from one of the patrons.

Her brother could sense her desire now. Of course he could. Vampires could sense emotions—and she knew hers ran very strong. Shame filled her, but still her gaze returned to the male at the table.

The man was beautiful: dark hair, sculpted features, perfectly shaped lips that any woman would have killed for—yet on him they were sinfully masculine. He was beyond handsome.

But while Elizabeth had seen many handsome men in her life, never had her body reacted like this.

She swallowed.
Control yourself! What was she doing?

But instead of walking back to her barstool as her brain ordered her to, she took another step toward the table of friends. Then another. She sauntered slowly past the man’s chair, not getting too close, not drawing attention to herself—not just yet. She had to assess, she had to watch. Stalk her prey.

She lifted her head to breathe in his scent. The hint of woodsy cologne, the freshness of soap and shampoo, the minty traces of toothpaste. And a warm, rich aroma—a scent that made her want to tip back her head and howl.

She continued around the table until he was directly in her line of sight, and she sat down at an empty table. Eyes trained on him, she studied. Oh yeah, she wanted him.

For just a moment, she closed her eyes as her rational mind took tenuous control. Why was this happening? It was as if the wolf was in control. But that didn’t happen. She didn’t stay in human form and think like a wolf. She didn’t allow that. Some werewolves did. Brody did. He was more wolf than man at all times. She didn’t allow that. She didn’t.

Her eyes snapped open. The man was looking at her. She’d felt his gaze before she’d actually seen it. Their gazes met; but even in the dim light, she could see his eyes were a mixture of brown and green.

Again her body told her this was what she needed. This was what she’d been wanting.
He
was what she wanted. She continued to stare, meeting his gaze, until he looked away. Still she watched him. Unable to do otherwise. The need was in control now.

She was acting like a bitch in heat. And she didn’t care.