Читать книгу I Want You To Want Me - Kathy Love - Страница 8

He strolled closer, giving her a better glimpse of his lean frame, languid movements, and the sheen of golden hair.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice a deep rumble, answering her question.

Not that there had really been any question there. She’d have recognized Ren’s younger brother anywhere. She’d thought of this man innumerable times over the past several months. Yet now she could think of nothing comprehensible to say to him. Not even, hello. Not even, you scared the crap out of me.

“I’m sorry to startle you,” he was saying, his words almost unintelligible through the still-thundering beat of her heart echoing in her ears. Although that wasn’t just fear now.

She could only gape at him. What was he doing here?

“Do you have a towel?” he asked.

Erika frowned, not following that line of questioning at all. Then she realized his hand was pressed to his brow.

“Are you okay?” she managed, still feeling like she’d just stepped off the world’s most frightening roller coaster only to discover her heart’s desire at the bottom of the exit ramp.

Her heart’s desire? She was more shaken than she realized.

“Aside from the blow to the head?” he asked, dryly. “Sure, I’m good.”

She squinted at him. “Blow to the head?”

He held up an object. Erika blinked.

“That’s my cell,” she murmured, staring at the scratched black phone with its dead battery. Then she realized that was what she’d flung in her utter terror.

“Yes, I gathered that it was yours when you threw it at me.”

Erika cringed. “You scared me. I didn’t expect anyone to be in the upstairs apartment.”

“I didn’t expect anyone to be in the downstairs apartment.”

“I’ve been renting it for about two months now,” she said automatically, then she realized that she sounded apologetic. Which she had no reason to be.

“So a towel? Do you have one?”

Erika immediately started. “Oh. Yes, of course.”

She stepped down from the carriage-house steps and headed back toward her place, making sure not to get too close to Vittorio. Something about him still made her feel wary—even as her body reacted to him. How was that even possible?

She was aware of him right behind her. She could feel him there, as if he were pressed against her, rather than a couple of feet away. The sensation surprised and unnerved her, although she wasn’t sure why.

Vittorio had made the same impression when they’d met nearly eight months ago. Her body had never reacted to a man like it had when he’d touched her. A mere shake of hands when Ren had introduced them. But the electricity from the brief contact had been knee-weakening and more intense than anything she’d ever experienced. Well, at least for her. She had no idea if Vittorio had felt the same axis-tipping chemistry.

She pushed open her door and entered her apartment, letting him follow. She didn’t look back as she headed to the small kitchen and grabbed a roll of paper towels.

“Here you go,” she said, managing a small smile, despite her body’s current reaction to him. Her heart still pounded. She felt breathless.

He snatched the paper towels from her grasp, before she could even hold them out to him. He removed his hand from his forehead to pull one of the paper squares off the roll.

Erika gasped as she saw the gash on his temple, and realized he was bleeding, a lot, just above his left brow—the blood a deep red, vivid and horrible looking.

“My God, that looks terrible.” She moved closer to inspect the wound. She gently pressed her fingers to his cheek, rising up on her tiptoes to see the cut better. “You should go to the doctor. I’ll take you.”

“It’s fine,” he muttered, jerking back from her and pressing the wadded-up towel to the cut.

“It doesn’t look fine,” she told him, sinking back on her heels and dropping the hand that she’d pressed to his cool cheek. A wave of rejection filled her. Ridiculous given that he was hurt. And by her, no less. He certainly had every right to be distrustful of her, and irritated too. “That looks like it needs stitches.”

“It’s fine. A bandage will take care of it.”

“I have a Band-Aid in the bathroom. I think. And maybe some hydrogen peroxide.” She turned to go search, but his deep voice stopped her.

“I’m fine.” He sounded almost irritated now.

She ignored it. “It’s no bother.” She headed down a hallway which led to her bedroom and the bath.

Vittorio watched Erika disappear down the hallway. He gritted his teeth at the fact that even for just the briefest moment, his eyes had dropped down to look at the fit of the pastel plaid pajama bottoms she wore against her rounded derriere.

He wasn’t here to be checking out Maggie’s friend’s rear end. He’d do well to remember that.

Lifting the paper towel from his wound, he inspected it to see if the bleeding had lessened. Damn, head wounds bled a lot—even for vampires. But the bleeding was already stopping. And he certainly didn’t need a Band-Aid. The cut would be healed by tomorrow night. Something vampires didn’t share with humans.

He jammed the towel back to the wound, irritated with himself. Of course, being a vampire, he shouldn’t have even been hit. His reflexes were usually impeccable. Hell, he could literally dodge a bullet. Yet he’d gotten beamed in the head with a frantically flung cell phone.

But the truth was he’d been stunned to see Erika dashing through the darkness. Stunned and unreasonably thrilled.

He’d not allowed himself to think about Maggie’s friend since meeting her at the small jazz bar and restaurant where Ren had introduced them months earlier.

Oh, she’d popped into his mind at random and inappropriate times, but he’d shoved all images of her aside. He had no room in his life for her.

He’d returned to New Orleans with only one task in mind, and Erika with her pretty smile and intelligent blue eyes and totally perfect rear end….

He groaned. Do not let your thoughts head in that direction. Don’t. He’d be a fool to go there—even in fantasy.

“I have one Band-Aid,” Erika said, materializing out of the dark hallway. “And I couldn’t find any hydrogen peroxide. But I do have antibiotic ointment.”

Vittorio, despite his little mental pep talk, drank in the sight of her. Her dark, almost black hair was piled onto her head in an untidy knot, escaped tendrils looking like swirls of ink against the pale skin of her long neck.

She walked straight up to him, her fingers capturing his, easing the paper towel away from the cut. Again she rose up on her tiptoes, and as before the position brought her close to him, her breasts almost brushing his chest.

He fought back a groan.

Her heat and her energy did touch him, spreading over his body as if her long limbs were curled around him. For the briefest moment, he absorbed it, letting himself take that energy into himself.

Her fingers stilled against his, and she made a small noise in the back of her throat. Not a noise of distress, but one of pleasure.

Abruptly he stepped back, jerking his hand from her.

What was he doing? He didn’t take a person’s energy. Not like that. Not just a single person’s. Damn, he had to create some space between them. Real space, not just the fluctuating expanse of physical distance.

“Erika,” he said, then added, “It is Erika, right?”

Erika’s face changed, a small show of disappointment, the slight pulling down of her beautifully shaped lips.

“Yes,” she murmured, glancing down at the towel that had slipped from his hands to hers when he’d pulled away.

“I appreciate your offer to help,” he said, keeping his voice cool. Pretending he wasn’t aware of everything about her.

“It’s the least I could do. I did hit you.”

“True,” he said, amazed at how condescending he could make the one word sound. But he did come from royalty—even if that was long, long ago and even if his father was only the fifth son of an earl. “Which is why I think you have done more than enough for me tonight.”

Instead of looking cowed, which was what he’d expected from her, she frowned at his dismissive tone.

“Did Ren know you were coming?”

Vittorio raised an eyebrow. He didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused by her coolly asked question. “No, but I am his brother. I hardly think I need a formal invitation.”

“True,” Erika nodded. “But if you had told him, he probably would have told me. And thus, I wouldn’t have been scared out of my wits, and I wouldn’t have pitched my cell phone at your head.”

“You could have asked before you pitched.”

Erika laughed at that, the sound derisive, but it still managed to stroke over his skin. A shiver steeped with longing threatened him, but he suppressed it.

Do not react. He’d spent years practicing his lack of reaction. But despite his warning, his muscles tightened as he struggled with his body’s response to her laugh, her voice, her lovely eyes. Her lips.

“Spoken like a true man.”

Until she continued, he was at a loss as to what she was referring to. Although she was right, other parts, aside from his mouth apparently, were indeed acting like a true man.

“If I had taken the time to inquire who you were, lurking in the shadows, and you had intended me harm, you would have had the time to do so. The cell phone reaction still seems far more sensible to me—despite your injury. Of which I am sorry.” She no longer sounded sorry, however. She sounded annoyed.

Good, Vittorio told himself. The sooner she realized how unlikeable he was, the sooner she would leave him alone to do what he needed to do here in New Orleans.

Then he realized she was staring at him as if she expected a response.

“Well, most people would have stayed inside their house and used the cell to call for help—rather than using it as a projectile.”

Her soft pink lips firmed into a straight line. “Right.” She shoved the Band-Aid and the tube of ointment at him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m sure you’d like to be going. The company of a woman who is so stupid that she’s unclear as to the proper usage of a cell phone must be intolerable to you.”

He didn’t move for a moment, even though he’d achieved the effect he wanted from her, as well as the out he needed. He certainly wouldn’t be getting any friendly visits from his downstairs neighbor.

Yet he was oddly tempted to take her offering of first aid supplies, both of which she still held out to him. He wanted to soothe that injured look in her blue-gray, stormy eyes. Accepting her offering seemed like an appeasement.

Instead, he just muttered, “I’ll be fine.”

In fact, by tomorrow night the gash would be gone. Good thing she wouldn’t be around to ask him about that.

He studied her for a moment longer. She stared at a point over his left shoulder, her lips and jaw still firmly set.

Still suppressing the need to mollify her, he turned on his heels and headed to the door. As he closed it behind him, reentering the darkness he both needed and despised, he briefly allowed himself to wish for a different scenario for the night. One where he could stay there in Erika’s eclectically, colorfully decorated world—that suited her to a tee. Where he could touch her smooth, pale skin and lose himself in her warmth, in the color she would add to his gray, nighttime world.

But he couldn’t. And if he was right about the reason why he was back here, he had to stay away from her. If there was any merit to his suspicions, no one was safe in his presence.