“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Well, this was going to be a fun drive.
CHAPTER TWO
Lucian
It figured Emma Maron would be more beautiful in person, more potent. Though her hair was now a honey gold instead of white and blue, I’d recognized her immediately and felt a tug of hot attraction. A year ago, I’d have been laying on the charm from word one, already plotting to woo her into my bed. I would have been pleased as punch that Mamie put her in my path. Well, I would have done all that if I hadn’t been engaged back then. The fact that I’d plain forgotten I had been engaged at all was unsettling.
This woman was a walking distraction. I didn’t do well with distractions lately. Especially ones with smiles of spun sugar and the confidence of a first-class sniper—God knew her verbal hits had perfect aim. That combination shouldn’t have been sexy. But it was.
I felt a twitch along my whole body as I opened the passenger door of my pickup truck and waited for her to get in. For a brief second, she’d paused and glanced at me with those wide indigo-blue eyes, as if she was waiting for me to take her hand and physically help her up into the truck. And the twinges within me became a full-fledged body clench.
I didn’t want to touch her. It felt dangerous. Like some awkward boy, I feared physical contact with this woman, as though it might mess with me so badly that I’d spew even more dumbass replies in the face of her bubbly effusiveness.
But then she merely flashed me a quick breathtaking smile and hopped in with surprising ease. I shut the door with a sigh of relief. But it was short lived. The drive was over an hour. An hour stuck in close quarters with the world’s favorite barbarian princess.
Not that she looked like she had the strength to hurt a ladybug. Of course, on Dark Castle she possessed magic and could melt the faces off poor unfortunate souls. Fiction or not, it made a man tread lightly.
Rolling a crick out of my neck, I got into the truck. And was hit by her scent. Five seconds in the damn vehicle, and the entire thing was imbued with the fragrance of her, rich and sweet, poached pears in crème anglaise. No, do not think of pastry cream. Or licking it.
My response to her was unnerving as hell. For a year I hadn’t felt a glimmer of sexual need or attraction. Hadn’t even missed it—which was cause for concern as well. But I’d been resigned to my apathetic state. As effectively as sticking a plug into a socket, Emma Maron had shocked my system into wakefulness. And I didn’t like it.
“So how far is it to the house?” she asked as I started the truck.
Too long. Forever.
“About an hour.”
I didn’t miss the little wrinkle of alarm that knitted her brow. But she quickly smoothed it out and sat back. We made it all the way outside of the airport before she broke the silence. “This will be fun.”
The dry sarcasm had an unfamiliar urge to smile rising up within. I swallowed it down. “Oh, definitely.”
“What word did you use before?” Her plush mouth curved on a sly smile. “A hoot, was it?”
“A hoot and a holler,” I deadpanned, making her laugh. Jesus, her laugh. Husky and easy. A bedroom laugh. I shifted in my seat and concentrated on the road.
But I couldn’t stop myself from glancing her way. Mistake.
God, she was gorgeous. Pure and cleanly beautiful. From the rounded crests of her cheeks to the delicate sweep of her jaw, she had the kind of face sculptors memorialized in marble and the rest of us gazed upon for centuries to come.
Of course she was beautiful. She was an actress. Meant to be idolized on the screen. Emma Maron, a.k.a. Princess Anya, future queen and conqueror on Dark Castle. The guys and I used to watch the show while traveling between games. Anya was a favorite. Particularly since . . .
I’d seen her breasts. It hit me like a puck to the helmet, and my ears began to ring. I’d seen those perfect creamy handfuls with sweet pink tips that pointed upward, defying gravity and begging to be sucked. I had watched her on her hands and knees, perky tits bouncing as Arasmus slammed into her from behind.
I actually blushed. Me. The guy who’d had dozens of women throw themselves at him every night since high school. I’d had sex so many times and in so many ways it had become a blur. Nothing shamed me or made me uncomfortable. Yet I started to get hot under the collar, my cheeks burning. After nearly a year of being disinterested in all things sexual, my dick decided to make its presence known and start rising. Now, of all times. Now, when I was stuck in a damn truck less than three feet from a woman, I finally got a hard-on. Lovely.
I felt like a damn lecher.
“At least it’s a beautiful drive,” she said, breaking through heated thoughts of creamy breasts with cotton candy nipples.
“Hmm” was all I was capable of saying.
But she was right. We’d be hugging the coast for a while, and although some people here stopped paying attention to the Pacific, I doubted Emma Maron would. Which was good. She’d concentrate on the scenery, and I’d concentrate on driving. Instead of her. Not that she made it easy. She didn’t take my silence as a hint.
“No offense—”
“Which means you’re about to offend me,” I cut in dryly.
“But you don’t seem like the chauffeur type,” she finished in an amused tone.
“I thought I was the sullen ex-jock who liked to drink away his pain.” Though I was only throwing her earlier observation back at her, something low and uncomfortable twisted in my gut; she’d hit far too close to the bone with that one. I didn’t drink. But the rest?
Her gentle huff distracted me. “Well, I hardly imagine good ol’ Brick offering to pick anyone up at the airport. Especially if it’s an hour away.”
She had me there. My hands fisted the wheel a bit tighter. “Amalie is my grandmother.”
“Ah.” There was a world of understanding in that one syllable. She glanced out the window before speaking. “I’ve never met her.”
“And yet you’re here to visit?”
Her smile tipped wryly. “Weird, right?”
“I’m not going to judge.”
She snorted at that, but it was without rancor. I flicked a glance her way, and our gazes snagged. We shared a small smile, as if to say we were both full of shit. But then she shrugged.
“I was . . . going through a rough time and called my own grandmother. She told me of this wonderful estate called Rosemont and the utterly charming friend of hers who owned it.” Emma sent me a shy look before forging on. “She said it was the perfect place to hide away and come back to myself.”
At that, she hunched her shoulders, as if bracing for my scorn. She wouldn’t get that from me. The fact that she’d made herself vulnerable to possible ridicule from a perfect stranger sent a surge of unexpected protectiveness through me, and I gave her something of myself in return.
“My parents were killed in a car accident when I was fourteen.” I waved off her immediate words of sympathy. “Amalie became both grandmother and mother to me. Her second husband, Frank, had just bought Rosemont. So that is where we lived during the school year. It’s a nice place to . . .”
Heal. Mourn.
I gripped the wheel and took a moment to push away memories of being that lost, angry kid. But it was no use. They came anyway. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s some sort of magical place . . .” Sure, that’s why you ran to it as soon as you could. “But it’s beautiful and private. And Amalie will most definitely take care of you.”