Darkness Rises(54)

Chapter 9
Though he needed a good healing sleep, Étienne found rest elusive.
Chris hadn’t skimped on the security detail. A dozen men stood sentry along the house’s exterior. Three dozen more patrolled the grounds and manned the perimeter.
Étienne had made sure his home rested on enough private land that he wouldn’t be able to hear his neighbors’ thoughts and they wouldn’t be able to see him return home covered with bloodstains, so it was a rather large perimeter.
All the guards were very focused and spoke little, but Étienne’s sharp ears still picked up their movements, murmured comments, and periodic radio checks.
And then there was Krysta.
He hadn’t lied when he had told her no one had ever tempted him more.
He had once told Sarah that he loved strong women.
Krysta was very strong.
Krysta was amazing. Krysta hunted vampires and had killed two men to protect him.
Krysta set his body on fire.
It had been hard as hell to back away from her and leave her to seek sleep in Lisette’s room. But she didn’t trust him fully. Asking him if he had brainwashed her had been ample proof of that. And she had been through hell during the past twenty-four hours.
Étienne regretted that the mercenaries, whoever the hell they were, had destroyed her home, and fully intended to make them pay. But he was very happy to have her here in his home and to have this chance to win her trust.
Was this how Richart had felt about Jenna? Why he had pursued her even when he thought a happy ending impossible for the two of them?
The door across the hallway opened.
Étienne’s heart ceased beating for several long moments, then began to slam against his ribs.
Was Krysta coming to him?
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t hoped she would.
Alas, no. Nearly silent footsteps took her down the hallway and up the stairs.
Tossing back the covers, he rose and donned the sweatpants he’d laid out in case Krysta needed him for anything. (Somehow he didn’t think creeping up behind her naked would send the right message.) Then he opened his door and went in search of her.
He found her in the living room.
Why was it, he wondered as he paused in the doorway to admire her, that pajamas made men look geeky, yet made women look incredibly alluring?
The pajamas Krysta wore were made of some silky burgundy material. Having been raised in far different times, Lisette sometimes complained about constantly having to dress like a man. To compensate, she wore feminine things like this when she wasn’t hunting.
Her back to him, Krysta leaned forward over a chair to peer through the window, out into bright sunlight.
Étienne, too, had been born in a different time. He wasn’t like men today. He didn’t need to see a woman’s breasts shoved up to her neck in a push-up bra and spilling out of her blouse to take notice. He didn’t need skirts so short the women who wore them couldn’t bend over without showing their underwear or exposing their vaginas. He didn’t need pants cut so low that thongs and butt cracks peeked out at him.
If it was out there, it was out there. No surprises. No anticipation. No fun.
Étienne was more titillated by what he couldn’t see. He liked being kept guessing. He liked imagining what that silky material might conceal, how it would feel to peel each layer back and reveal what no one else could see. What no one else had even glimpsed.
The pajama pants covered Krysta from hips to ankles. Her feet, smaller than he had imagined, were bare. The long sleeves of the top had been rolled back almost to her elbows. Her hair was loose and rumpled.
Utterly delicious.
“What are you looking at?” he asked softly.
Gasping, she spun around. “You startled me.”
“Forgive me. I didn’t intend to.”
“I was just looking at the guards. They seem very formidable.”
“They take their job very seriously and will give their lives to protect us, should such become necessary.”
“They’re that devoted to you?”
He strolled into the room, uncomfortable with the question. It made the guards seem subservient. “I wouldn’t put it that way. It’s more that we’re brothers in arms. Soldiers all fighting a common enemy. It bonds us, even if we don’t know each other.”
She glanced back at the window. “You don’t know those guys?”
He stopped beside her and, avoiding the golden rays of sunshine that poured through the filmy curtains, peered outside.
“Careful,” she said, touching his arm and nudging him farther away from the light.
He smiled, warmed by her concern. “It’s all right. I won’t burst into flames. I’ll just sunburn in record time.”
“Will sunlight kill vampires?”