It was a little scary.
She was the woman he wanted to be his everything, his forever, and he wasn’t sure that she felt the same about him. Cautious, reserved, and hiding dark secrets, she wasn’t ready to open up to him. And even if he managed to seduce her today, the road ahead was still full of uncertainty.
Taking a deep breath, he put one of the bags down and was about to knock when Stella opened the door. “Good morning.” Her gaze flicked to the flowers. “Let me take these.” She carefully pulled the bouquet from under his arm. “Thank you. They are lovely.”
He hefted the bags off the doorstep. “Not as lovely as you are.”
As always, Stella looked beautiful. Her wild hair was partially gathered in a loose braid and tied off with a long string. The rest of it fell in long messy waves down her back. Most of it was dark brown, almost black, but she colored the bottom part blonde. It was odd, and yet it matched her bohemian style.
She wore a white blouse that accentuated her tanned skin and a long multi-layered skirt. Richard usually didn’t notice such details, but it was hard to miss that each layer was made from a different fabric. Somehow, though, the different patterns and colors worked perfectly together.
Like the woman herself.
Stella had many layers, and he couldn’t wait to discover them all. Provided that she let him.
She smiled. “You are such a charmer, Richard.” Kicking the door wide open, she motioned for him to come in. “Those bags look heavy.”
“They are.”
“Did you invite Vlad and Wendy to join us for lunch? Because that looks like way too much food for just the two of us.”
She couldn’t be that naive. This wasn’t about entertaining family, it was about moving their relationship to the next step.
“It’s only me and you, babe. You’ll have plenty of leftovers.” He followed her to the kitchen.
Usually, immortals moved with an almost unnatural fluidity, but Stella was tense, and her gait was stiff. What was she so nervous about?
She’d told him that she hadn’t been with anyone in a long time, so maybe anticipating the sex was making her nervous. Then again, as an immortal who had lived for as long as she had, Stella had had a lot of practice. Several weeks or even months of abstinence shouldn’t be a big deal for her.
Nevertheless, he was going to be patient and take his cues from her. After all, this wasn’t about scoring a hookup. This was about a life-long partnership.
“Can I help with something?” She leaned against the counter and watched him pull the supplies out of the bags.
“You can sit over there.” He pointed to a barstool. “And keep me company while I work.”
“I can do that.” She walked over to the stool, sat down, and rearranged her skirt.
“Did you design the outfit you’re wearing?” Richard opened up with a topic that he knew would put her at ease.
Stella loved talking about her designs. Come to think of it, she got the most animated when the subject of conversation was her work, but she clammed up when he tried to get her to talk about her personal life.
“Of course.” She smiled and lifted her leg, flipping the skirt up. “No one makes this kind of layered skirts anymore. They used to be popular in the eighties.”
“I like it.” He rinsed the lettuce and put it on the cutting board. “It makes you look like a gypsy.”
Recalling that he needed to put the chicken in the oven before starting on the salad, Richard pulled out the covered dish with the sliced breasts that had been marinating for the past hour. According to the internet recipe, an hour, no less, no more, was needed to make the chicken ready for baking.
Stella leaned her elbows on the counter. “That’s the idea. I always thought of myself as an honorary gypsy. I don’t like to stay in one place for too long.”
“Do you like to travel?” He started chopping the lettuce into thin strips the way Wendy had shown him.
“I do, but I haven’t done it in a long while.”
“Why not?” He emptied the shredded lettuce into a salad bowl.
“When Vlad was born, I had to stay put. We didn’t always have this communal living arrangement. Before the village was built, we had the keep, but at first only Kian, the council members, and the Guardians lived there. The rest of us were scattered throughout the city, and some even lived in the Bay Area. I had a small house, and I dedicated my time to raising my son. I was friends with two other clan females who had boys Vlad’s age, and we helped each other out. We were fortunate to have conceived at around the same time. It’s rare for us. There was even a fourth boy, but I wasn’t friends with his mother, and later, they moved back to Scotland.”
That was more than Stella had ever told him about herself.
Perhaps the sound of him chopping vegetables was having a hypnotic effect on her?
He pulled two tomatoes out of the bag and put them on the chopping board. “Are Vlad and the other boys good friends?”
“The best. You’ve met Jackson, right?”
Richard nodded. “He and Tessa came over to the cabin when we were staying there. His mother is the clan’s therapist.”
Stella grimaced. “I hope she wasn’t one of the auction winners.”
“No, she wasn’t.”
“That’s a relief.” Stella let out a breath.
She’d never asked him about the clan females he’d had sex with, and naturally, he hadn’t volunteered the information. In fact, Stella hadn’t asked him much about his life in the human world either.
They’d talked about his time in the government paranormal program, and he’d told her about his relationship with Jin, so she wouldn’t worry about him having any lingering feelings for his ex-girlfriend. He and Jin had dated only because they’d been compelled by Eleanor to do so, and not because they’d been in love. He liked Jin, and hopefully she felt the same about him, but once the compulsion had been removed, they remained just friends.
He’d also told Stella about the kinds of jobs he’d had before the program so she wouldn’t think that he was a slacker, but she hadn’t asked about his family or his childhood.
It hadn’t been the best time of his life, and he didn’t like to talk about it, but maybe if he did, she would open up to him and share some of her life experiences, even those that she wasn’t proud of.
14
Stella
When Richard had asked Stella about her travels, she had gotten carried away and dangerously close to telling him too much about herself. Fortunately, he hadn’t continued that line of questioning and had chosen to ask about Vlad and his friends instead.
If he went back to that, she would just switch things around and ask him to tell her more about himself. Most men were usually more than happy to do that. If they asked a woman to tell them about herself, it wasn’t because they were really interested in getting to know her better but because they wanted to seduce her.
Except, that wasn’t the case with Richard. He wanted much more than that from her.
Heck, she wanted more from him too, and she was curious about his past. But if he shared his life experiences with her, he would expect her to do the same, and that was dangerous.