Hotter Than Hell(161)

Simon looked at her face, he held her eyes with his as he rocked above and inside her, pushing deeper and deeper with each thrust. The way he looked at her…he saw her, in a way no one else ever had. He knew her. He wanted her.



He held himself deep, and for a half second it seemed that his dark eyes were touched with streaks of red. Flashes of fire lit the depths. Claire came again, and with Simon inside her it was more powerful than before, more important. Her body convulsed around his, and he came, too. They were so incredibly connected, so very much together, that she wondered why she’d ever been satisfied with anything less.



And to top it all off, like the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae, he drifted down and kissed her neck.





Claire’s job was undeniably tedious, and on Wednesday her mind was elsewhere as she mindlessly entered data into her computer. She yawned a time or two, and fielded the questions from her coworkers who were sequestered in nearby cubicles. Do you feel OK? Are you coming down with something? You look like you didn’t get enough sleep last night, what happened? You’re a little pale, someone said.



She finally decided to tell them that a noisy neighbor had kept her up half the night. That was close enough, though in truth she was much noisier than Simon.



Maybe if she’d felt closer to any one of them she might’ve said more, but while they were friendly coworkers they weren’t exactly friends. Most of her good friends were now married and had kids, so she didn’t see any of them on a regular basis, not like in the old days. Oh, they got together and had lunch now and then, but the talk always turned to potty training and which kid had learned the alphabet at the earliest age and which schools in the area were the most acceptable. There were occasional weekend barbecues or infrequent and horrific blind dates that made conversations about three-year-olds seem scintillating. No, her friends had changed, and so had she. Claire didn’t feel like she could call even them to share what had happened.



Besides, what had happened with Simon last night had felt so very, very personal. More intimate than sex, more important than the laughing and the touching and the orgasms.



This morning was still a blur. Simon had given her a fabulous kiss that had led to more, and then he’d gone home—a conveniently short trip. Claire had been left with no time to get ready for work. She’d showered quickly and grabbed clothes from her closet. The long blue skirt and blouse were comfortable. If the blues didn’t exactly match and she’d forgotten to put in earrings, well, if anyone noticed the lack was excused since she hadn’t gotten much sleep.



She never had gotten around to putting on those sexy shoes that made her legs look good. Maybe tonight—if there was a tonight.



More than once during the day she’d remembered that moment when it had seemed she saw fire in Simon’s eyes. She hadn’t been herself at the time, and there was a red neon light across the street. Maybe his head had been in just the right position at that moment to catch a glare. That had to be it.



There were logical explanations for all the clues that had led her to believe he was a vampire. The dirt might’ve come from a potted plant, even though he didn’t have any living plants—or fake ones, for that matter—in his apartment. The howl might’ve been an overly excited Fluffy or—considering some of the sounds she’d made last night—a very happy woman somewhere on the third floor. The hypnotizing eyes…Simon just had great eyes, and that was enough of an explanation to suit her.



So she didn’t tell anyone that she’d suspected her neighbor of being a vampire, or that she’d decided she was wrong and last night they’d eaten spaghetti in her kitchen—both of them starving from marvelously vigorous and unrestrained sex—she wearing nothing but her bathrobe, he in nothing but those incredibly sexy black jeans. She didn’t tell them that for the first time in a very long time, she was happy. Tired, but happy.



Happy as she was, she tried not to get her hopes too high. She’d been burned before, after all. A man who wanted a woman in bed might say or do anything to get her there, and then…then there were phone calls that never came, an old girlfriend who just happened to make an appearance, or that horrible “It’s not you, it’s me.” For all she knew she’d get home and find out that her neighbor had moved during the day just to get away from her, or else he had a wife who’d show up out of nowhere, or else—worst of all—he’d ignore her and pretend that nothing had happened.



Claire was thinking about Simon so intently her fingers quit moving across the keyboard. She simply stared at the screen, imagining the worst. The worst, at this moment, had nothing to do with vampires.