Chapter One Hunt #4
“Well, ask me things. What do you want to know?” Stray followed her, eyes fixed momentarily on her swaying backside, clad in skintight denim leggings.
“Have you ever been married?”
“No.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t say ‘ah’ like that,” Stray snapped peevishly. “I hadn’t met the right woman.”
“Hadn’t. As in the past?” Cara’s eyes widened, and a whirlwind of flavors hit him, all of them covered in notes of raspberry.
She’s so surprised by that.
Or by what I said. What it could mean.
“Hadn’t. In the past,” he confirmed, and took her hand. He kept hold of it all the way through the market.
“A-ask me something now?” Cara asked, voice breathless.
“All right. Do you like raspberries?”
“I do. Raspberry sherbet was my favorite dessert growing up. I’d have it at every birthday party. Why?”
“Because raspberry ice was my favorite thing. I only had them once or twice—as a child,” he amended quickly, “but they’re my favorite.”
“You’re just saying that,” Cara elbowed him.
He slid his arm around her waist and felt that deeper, richer hint of something sweep through his lungs as she settled into his embrace, walking in step with him while pushing the cart.
That scent, deep and rich, and almost cloying?
Stray began to think it was trust.
“Your turn,” he nudged.
“Favorite book? Favorite band? Favorite food?”
“Oh, Lord. I have to think. No one’s asked me in so long,” he realized.
“I mainly just work. No time for fun.” And when he thought about it...
Sex was delicious, but necessary for someone like him.
Survival. Pleasurable survival, usually, and so yes, he supposed it was “fun.” But if that was all?
Sleeping, eating, hunting, starving, don’t get caught, don’t kill too many in one spot, don’t kill at all, now that there are things like bars and sex clubs, and he didn’t have to contort himself into an astral form and invade dreams, enter an ethereal realm to siphon souls in dreamland sex.
He could enter Cara’s dreams. It was so much more work, but he still knew how.
“Is this fun?” she asked, voice slightly uneven, as if she was already tensing for a verbal blow. “I mean, no. I know this isn’t a guy’s idea of fun. Markets, walks in the fall, talking about pies and stupid exes.”
“Cara, the only fun I’ve had in years has been in the last week since I met you.
And I’ve never made a pie. I haven’t shared a bottle of wine with a woman, a woman I like in the way I like you, in years.
” Centuries. “You doubt yourself too much, and you shouldn’t.
You’re so beautiful, but you’re so much more beautiful when you smile, when you show off how damned brilliant and lovely you are. ”
“You... you realize you’re like the hot ‘daddy’ every woman would want, right? The gorgeous hair, the perfect scruff, the muscles. Oh, shit, sorry. I don’t mean... I’m not into you for your looks.”
“Well. That’s sad.” He’d done so much work over the decades to perfect the right blend of masculinity and mysteriousness in this human-like shell that hid a much more spectral form.
“No! No, I like them,” Cara protested. “Your looks are amazing. But we’re not an even match, and so... I guess... I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with this, because I know I’m just ordinary, and the guys that were ‘in my league’ or even ‘below my league’ all ended things.”
“You know why?” I know why, and it hits me with a flash just how absolutely outclassed I am.
“You’ve been in the wrong league the whole damn time.
You are not measured in looks and notches on your bedpost, or how well you fill out a Bavarian barmaid costume.
You’re measured in soul and spirit. You’ve got the finest soul there is. ”
“How do you—”
“Trust me. I know things. I know that. It’s like... A banquet of energy,” Stray moved close to her, nostrils working, mouth watering. So close to giving the game away. “There’s a sweet inner light that shines straight out of you, beautiful. Stop doubting.”
“But—”
“You said I’m the ‘daddy’?” Stray knew all the sexual slang there was, and now he saw a blush creeping into her cheeks.
He wrapped his hands tightly around her wrists and steered her to the checkout, his body close behind hers, almost dying again when the curve of her lean but shapely ass brushed his crotch.
“Be a good girl and listen to me. You are beautiful and brilliant. Say it.”
“I’m beautiful. Brilliant,” she whispered, cheeks as dark as the wine Stray wanted to slather across her breasts and lick dry.
Her scent was making him dizzy with hunger, but also with want.
I want to be near her. Be closer to her. To make her happy. “Say, ‘I deserve to be happy with a man who will cherish me and want the best things for me.’
“Stray, I—”
“Say it, please, and then let’s go home and learn how to make pumpkin pie, and drink wine, and find out what music we both like.”
“I deserve to be happy with a man who cherishes me and wants the best things for me. I deserve someone like you.”
Stray stopped moving, and the cart jerked to a halt into her belly. Cara gasped, and he wrapped his arms around her tight, unwilling to let go.
This one is mine.