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Chapter 5
Luna
He is standing by the fireplace. Shadows dance on his face, heightening his features; the strong line of his jaw, the thick dark eyebrows, the stubbled chin. His hair is jet-black with a slight curl in it. Longer than most men wear their hair, but not long enough that he’d be able to tie it back.
Shrugging off his suit jacket, Lucien tosses it onto the chair he was sitting in a moment ago. His shoulders ripple beneath his shirt, and I can’t help wanting to run my thumbs under his black braces then press my palms to his broad chest.
“You are not going to answer me?” I ask, trying to sound more confident than I feel.
Thornfield tilts his head. He picks up his glass from the mantlepiece and strides back to his chair.
As he moves, my gaze flicks to his waist, then his crotch. I bite my lower lip and internally chastise myself; why the hell am I checking him out when I should be running for my life?
Why did I follow him in here?
Why am I sitting in his armchair drinking whiskey instead of screaming and fighting my way out?
I could lie to myself; claim it’s because I’m afraid of him and that I know I wouldn’t outrun him. But that’s not true.
I am sitting here staring at him because he intrigues me.
From the second he came into the shop all that time ago, I couldn’t get him out of my thoughts. I tried to. But every now and then I’d find myself daydreaming about his face. The way he looked at me. The way he said my name.
“No, Luna,” he says slowly. “I am not going to answer you. But I do have something to show you if you’d like to see it.”
I frown at him. Once again, my eyes dart to his crotch. This time, he notices and lets out a deep dark chuckle that trickles over my skin like warm honey.
“Not that,” he says, meeting my eyes as I start to blush furiously. “Unless you’d like to see it?”
I suck in a deep breath, my cheeks pinching inwards.
Several men have hit on me since Steven disappeared. A guy I went to college with. A customer. The barista in Starbucks.
Each time, I felt a sense of panic bloom in my chest. The thought of being intimate with a man, any man, terrified me. Because how could I ever trust anyone again after Steven so skillfully tricked me into believing he loved me?
Yet, here, with this big muscly vampire – I wait for the panic to arrive and it doesn’t.
“Maybe another time,” Lucien mutters, still smirking. Then he walks to a large oak desk and pulls open a drawer. He pulls out a large black tablet then crosses the room and hands it to me, taking my whiskey glass and setting it down on the coffee table.
“Press play when you’re ready.” He sits down opposite me again, and leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, steepling his fingers.
He licks his fangs.
I glance down at the screen, then tap to bring it to life.
I can feel Thornfield watching me, but I cannot take my gaze from the image on the screen; a blurry still of a dark room. A man sitting in a chair.
Steven.
“What is this?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper, my heart hammering in my chest.
With fear or anticipation? I cannot tell the difference anymore.
“It is a gift,” Thornfield replies.
I inhale sharply, gripping the sides of the screen so tightly my knuckles whiten and my fingers ache with the pressure.
With a shaking hand, I press play.
