There was a new stiffness to his attitude and Sonia wanted it gone, wanted the easy conversation of only moments before. She wanted him to laugh again. Although she couldn’t know for sure, she sensed there had been far too little laughter in his life.
“So, tell me about your life when you were still human.” If anything, he stiffened even more, his muscles becoming like iron beneath her. “If you want to,” she added. Maybe they should forget talking. They did better when they concentrated solely on their physical attraction.
That depressed her. She’d had intellectual connection with her old boyfriends but never the fireworks in the bedroom. Now she had the fireworks with no connection. She wanted it all, and she wanted it with Damek.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Their time together was finite and she knew that. Better to take advantage of what was working between them. She’d be gone soon enough and she’d never have a man in her bed like Damek again, because he wasn’t a man. He was much more.
“I was born more than a thousand years ago in what is now the Middle East. It was a small town, not of much interest to anyone but those of us who lived there.”
Just the thought of the things he must have seen in his lifetime was enough to blow her mind. As an academic, it was like discovering a lost city or an unknown language. She could get information from the source. He was much older than even her grandfather, who was one of the oldest people she’d ever known. Roberto Agostino was a half-breed werewolf who’d lived for three and a half centuries, but Damek was truly ancient.
She rubbed her hand over his chest and the muscles beneath her palm jumped and flexed. “What was your daily life like?”
“I fished, did some farming.”
It was hard to imagine this man as a farmer or fisherman. He seemed to be right at home in the big city running a nightclub, not the outdoorsy type at all.
“Were you married?” She had to ask even though she knew she was better off not knowing. What if he still loved his wife? Not that it mattered. What they had was a modern relationship, purely physical. Yet her heart ached at the thought of Damek pining all those years for another woman.
“No, I wasn’t married.” He ran his fingers through her hair, comforting her without even knowing it. “I had three brothers who all had wives and children but, for some reason, I never found a woman I wanted to commit to.”
Seems even ancient men had commitment issues. Sonia was disappointed with Damek even though she was glad he hadn’t had to watch his wife and children die. Bad enough he had to watch his family age and pass away.
“What happened?” How had he become a vampire? The curiosity was eating at her.
“It is a long story,” he began, but a bell chimed from out in the apartment. “Ah, the delivery is here.” He eased out of bed, grabbed his pants and slid them on before padding out of the room.
Sonia blinked when she realized she was still staring at the space where his bare butt had been only moments ago. The man certainly looked spectacular naked. She wished he’d finished his story, but supposed it didn’t really matter. He was a vampire and nothing could change that fact.
She glanced away and her gaze landed on his cell phone where it sat on the bedside table. In his haste to get to the door, he’d forgotten it. She only hesitated a moment before she leaned over and grabbed it. He hadn’t exactly told her she couldn’t call anyone, and her family would worry.
It only took a few seconds to dial the number and she pushed aside her guilt. She wasn’t betraying him. She was simply putting her family’s mind at ease. “Come on,” she muttered as it rang for the second time. She wanted this call over with just in case Damek had some objections.
“Hello.” The gruff voice on the other end made her breathe a sigh of relief.
“Papa, where are you?”
“Where are you? It’s Sonia,” she heard him tell whoever was with him. “Are you all right?”
“Listen, there was an issue with a vampire hunter at my hotel room, but I’m fine,” she hurriedly reassured him. “Don’t go there.”
“Where are you?”
She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I’m somewhere safe.”
“Sonia Maria Agostino.” She winced when he said all three of her names. That was never a good sign.
Her mother’s voice echoed in the background. She wasn’t surprised that her mother had come to Chicago with her father and brothers. “Give me the phone, Vincenzo.” There were a few heated words in Greek and then her mother was on the line. Not that there’d been any doubt in Sonia’s mind as to who would win that particular battle of wills. “You are with him, the vampire.”
Sonia wasn’t surprised her mother knew. Her mother always seemed to know things she shouldn’t. Her grandmother was the same, and Sonia wished she had their well-developed sense of intuition. Hers was more vague, a sense of knowing, rather than anything specific.
“Where are you? Sonia, we need to come to you, to protect you. If there are vampire hunters then your vampire is in danger.”
Of course her family would help her protect Damek. Not that he really needed it. Not now. But the sun would come up and leave him vulnerable. No vampire was at his full strength in the light of day, and most slept from sunrise to sunset. That Damek could be up and around late in the day spoke of his strength, but no vampire was immune to the power of the sun. The rays drained their power, leaving them open to the hunters.
She gave her mother the name of the street she’d caught from the window of the limousine. “I don’t know exactly which number it is, but it’s an older warehouse that’s been converted to condos.”
“We will find you,” her mother assured her. “We’ll be there in a matter of hours.”
“I’ll try to call you later. Love you.” She ended the call before her mother could ask her more questions. Really, it was weird talking to her family while she was naked in her lover’s bed.
She sensed Damek’s presence and looked up to find him standing just inside the doorway with a glass of orange juice in his hand. His expression was deadly and the walls of the room seemed to expand and contract with each passing second. For the first time since she met him, she was truly afraid.
“Damek?”
“What have you done?”
Chapter Thirteen
Damek felt as though he’d been staked out in the midday sun with a wooden post driven through his heart. Betrayal ate at him and it took all his discipline not to destroy everything in the room. Hell, the way he was feeling, he could easily raze the entire building.
She put the phone on the nightstand and pulled the covers around her, her face pale and frightened. “I called my family. I told you they would be worrying about me.”
“You told them where I lived. How to find me.”
“They won’t hurt you. Really. They’re on our side and will help to protect you from the vampire hunters in the area.”
He laughed, but the sound wasn’t pleasant and Sonia flinched. “I don’t need your help, little girl. I could easily kill every vampire hunter who dared to enter my domain.”
She shook her head and climbed out of bed, pausing long enough to wrap the comforter around her. It infuriated him that she felt the need to cover herself from him after he’d kissed and touched every inch of her traitorous body. “If you want to convince me of your sincerity you’d be better off doing it naked.”
She scowled at him. “Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped.
He raised an eyebrow at her temerity. “I promise, I won’t be any longer. Obviously I was one to have trusted you.”
Hurt flashed across her face and she jerked as though he’d hit her. He immediately wanted to soothe her, which in his mind did indeed make him an idiot. When would he learn that people always had their own agenda?