A Taste Of A Vampire

He hesitated, looking down the hall and then back at her. His expression was unreadable. “Those are my own quarters.”

She bit at her lower lip subtly, but he saw it and looked away from her swiftly, pretending that he hadn’t seen it.

“Would it be all right to see that part of the house too?” she wondered audaciously.

She knew she probably shouldn’t, but her fascination with him and his home and the mysterious lifestyle surrounding him was growing stronger with each passing minute that she spent in his presence.

He didn’t say anything at first, he only looked away toward the hall of which she had spoken. He seemed to be in deep thought, considering her request. He hesitated long enough that she was almost sorry that she had asked and was about to rescind her request, when he looked back at her with a strange and smoldering gaze.

“You may see it with me if you like,” he replied in a low and even tone.

Her curiosity got the better of her and she moved to walk toward the hall. He was beside her before she knew it, looking straight ahead, his expression unreadable. Together they walked at a steady pace, and she glanced out of the wide windows to one side of them, and up at the wall on the other side of them, her eyes flickering from one framed painting to the next.

The pieces of artwork that she passed all varied in age and subject, though most of them seemed to deal with places and times, and hinted at religion or governing capitols.

At the far end of the hallway were two large double doors. He stopped before them and retrieved an ancient-looking key from a pocket in his black pants. He slid it into the keyhole and turned it slowly. The mechanisms in the lock clicked and clacked as they shifted, and he turned the handle finally and pushed the door open.

Claire thought it curious that he would keep his bedroom door locked, but then she wondered if he perhaps kept some valuables in it that he didn’t trust to the housekeeping staff. She followed him in and gasped at what she saw.

It was a spacious and open room, and she guessed that it took up a third of the end of the house where it was located. The view from the windows was so expansive that she could even see Grayson Manor from them, and much of the land surrounding both of their properties.

The room itself was designed with an older style. All old wooden furniture that was extremely well cared for: a wardrobe, dressers, tables, trunks, and a bed even bigger than hers, with four carved wooden pillars that reached up several feet and were hung with a thick, red, velvet canopy and curtains that were tied to the posts, but which could be pulled closed to block out all light.

There was a stone fireplace so big that she could almost have walked into it, if she bent her head down a bit. There were thick tree trunks reaching six feet long in it, set on big stones, waiting for a cold night before they would be set ablaze to heat the whole room.

Turning in a slow circle where she stood, she took it all in, bit by bit, piece by piece, studying all that she could about it. She paused when her gaze fell upon a closed door at one end of the room.

“What’s in there?” she asked, looking closely at it.

“That’s just a closet,” he replied, looking hard at her.

It was as if somewhere deep in him he was standing at the precipice of a cliff, teetering at the edge of it, uncertain how to hold on or whether he should let go and fall. He was unable to disguise his uncertainty, though she could not guess what it might be that he was uncertain about.

He took a step toward her, and she saw the sunlight through the window flash on an unusual looking silver ring he was wearing on his forefinger. With an interested frown, she reached for his hand and he let her lift it to look at the ring.

There was a deep red stone in it; like a garnet, though she was sure that it wasn’t a garnet. All around the ring was a strange design carved into the metal, almost twisting in and around itself.

“That’s beautiful…” she trailed off and then finally let go of his hand and looked up into his deep green eyes. “Where did you get it?”

Nicholas’ voice was quiet and steady. “I inherited it. This ring has been passed down throughout generations of men in my family over several centuries. I never take it off.”

Claire felt her breath catch as she gazed up at him standing just before her. He was so strong, so mysterious and seemingly dark in some ways. There was so much about him that seemed shadowed, so much of him that felt to her as if she would never be able to see or understand. That only drew her to him with even more gravitation.

“It’s a beautiful ring,” she said again, meaning it.

She looked back up into his eyes and saw a fire in them that seemed to reach out to her, closing itself around her. Her skin tingled all over from her head to her feet, and her heartbeat quickened.

His powerful gaze felt magnetized, as if it was drawing her to him inescapably, like a bee drawn to pollen. Everything about him appealed to her. He was mysterious, sexy, and had a dangerous air about him, and with all of that combined, he was irresistible to her.

Without a word, she stepped closer to him, narrowing the distance between them until she was barely more than a breath away from him. He held her gaze with his, and it seemed as though time and space paused all around them for the length of eternity.

Claire felt as if she was falling into him, and as if he was falling into her in some ethereal way. She reached her hand up tentatively and touched his cheek, sliding the tip of her fingernails over the chiseled lines of his cheekbone.

He didn’t move, he only watched her, both of them breathless. A burning heat that had ignited deep within her began to swell within her. She wanted to speak, she wanted to ask him a thousand questions, she wanted to turn and run from the icy shiver that made its way up her spine as he stared hard at her. More than all of that, she wanted to close the short distance between them and kiss him.