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“I can’t remember what food tastes like, you know,” he said with no preamble. His silver hair hung into his face, his eyes somehow even darker than they’d been earlier. “It’s been so long since I’ve had anything but blood, my memory of food has upped and gone.”
I swallowed and smiled awkwardly, trying not to show how nervous I was to be alone with such an old vampire.
But Claude was here to court me, and part of that meant time alone together.
“What was your favourite? Before you became a vampire? Do you remember?”
He tapped a long finger on his bottom lip as he considered the question, so fast it blurred. “My father used to make a stew with oxtail and mutton. I think that was my favourite.” He smiled suddenly, his lips stretched wide across his face, and I caught my breath, uneasy at the abrupt change. “You asked something about me. That’s very sweet of you, my Roxie.”
And now I felt like shit for being unsettled by him.
“Tell me something else, then,” I encouraged, eating more pasta and ignoring the way he watched, like the process was fascinating. The temperature in the kitchen had dropped with his presence, but I was used to that with my family.
“A cheetah can run as fast as a hundred and thirty miles per hour,” he said excitedly, and it took me a moment to realise he was fulfilling my request.
“Something else aboutyou,” I clarified with a smile, my nerves starting to settle. He wasn’t exactly harmless, but he wasn’t threatening and I’d take what I could get.
Claude’s head jerked towards the window when the branches of a tree outside clattered the glass, a hiss in his throat, but when he saw it wasn’t a threat, he turned back to me with a blinding smile. He was stunningly attractive, even with the danger he presented, even with how unpredictable he was.
“I’m very fond of velvet,” he said after a moment, thinking his response through. He brushed a hand down the jacket he wore, a deep burgundy velvet, and his shoulders relaxed just slightly. Something about the feeling of the fabric settled him?
“Now, if I understand this game correctly,” he went on, his face bright with affection and—and something like hope that made my heart break. How many women had he courted over the years, hoping to make his family proud the way I did? How many had turned him down for his oddities? “It is nowyourturn to answer one ofmyquestions,” he finished.
“Alright,” I agreed, buying myself time to think as I finished my meal.
“Why were you so nervous to meet your suitors?”
I frowned, thinking I’d calmed quite admirably by the time Claude arrived, but he said, “I saw you pacing, and adjusting the furnishings in the sitting room. I didn’t mean to watch,” he added quickly,” but I glimpsed you as I neared the house and I—I was struck by you. Your beauty and grace and panic.”
I laughed softly, both embarrassed and touched. “I’ve never heard that kind of compliment before.”
“It’s merely the truth,” he said seriously, his gaze open and beseeching. He gave me his full attention and my stomach fluttered in response. “I meant to introduce myself, to knock on the door as River did, but I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Your hands … they didn’t stop moving, didn’t stop fixing the cushions or your dress or your hair or the curtains or—” He cut himself off abruptly, and smiled, the gentlest one he’d given me yet. He tapped on the counter as he leant closer, a rapid rhythm that blurred his pale fingers. “I thought you might be full of madness like me.”
I winced, edging back. “Um. We call it mental illness now, and … yeah, kinda. I’m prone to anxiety and panic attacks so…” I shrugged, not wanting to get into it right now, especially with a man I’d met this afternoon. But if he’d been struck by watching me panic earlier, I was struck now by the beaming smile he gave me, so full of affection and adoration.
“I, too, am prone to attacks,” he said, and propped his chin on his hand, gazing at me. That was the only word for it— gazing. My cheeks turned hot, self consciousness making me fidget. I spun my fork around my empty bowl and seized onto the distraction of putting both in the sink.
When I turned back, a gasp tore up my throat and my skin prickled with awareness. Claude was immediately in front of me, that same awed expression on his face and his hands curling and uncurling at his sides, less a show of anger than … perpetual motion. Like he couldn’t stop, or didn’t know how to.
Or maybe … maybe after being starved, the little movements reassured him that he stillcouldmove, that he wasn’t desiccated and weak.
“Space,” I gasped out, the word sudden and without explanation. “Please.”
Claude read my face and took three steps back, not stopping until he bumped into the marble island. The expression on his beautiful face was measuring, understanding.
I wrapped my arms around my middle, swallowing hard, my heart still hammering my ribs.
I took a raspy breath and explained, “I know I’m a vampire, but I’m basically human. I don’t move as fast, I don’t hear as well as you, and I don’t have the same senses. I don’t know when you’re close behind me. So … space. Or give me some warning that you’re coming near.”
I chewed my bottom lip, not sure why I bothered to explain, toask, but I hoped he’d listen. And I supposed this was the first test of our courtship. If Claude failed this, if he ignored my wishes, there was no future for him and I.
“Space,” he agreed, with a tentative smile mostly eclipsed by the acute worry creasing his eyes. “I can do that. But…” He blew out a sudden breath. “My Roxie, I would like to be close to you.”
I watched him, watched the expressions flitting across his face, ephemeral and intense. “How close?”
Claude took a step, measured my expression, and then took another. “This, I can live with.” He took another step, hope and awe returning to his face. “This is better. But I’d like to be closer.”
I watched him, gripping the counter at my back, my heart beating fast but no longer out of fear. There was something about Claude that drew me in, called me toward him. “Why?”
