"I apologize for causing you discomfort," she added, feeling a pang. "It wasn't my intention."
"Well, that's reassuring." He made his way gingerly toward the hallway. "I'd started thinking my decision to stay and make sure that fellow hadn't kidnapped you had ended up with me being the prisoner."
"Jacob thought I would want to speak to you. I must feel that way, otherwise the dogs wouldn't have kept you." When he turned, meeting her gaze with trepidation in his eyes, she said, "They tend to understand my needs before I do."
"Sounds like the boy's got some of that, too, if he asked me to wait."
When she didn't choose to respond to that, he nodded and disappeared around the corner. Lyssa turned to the bowl of fruit on the counter, picked up an orange and held it, enjoying the feel of the rind, the smell of the juice beneath as she brought it to her nose.
The. boy. As if the driver intuited there was a vast difference between their ages, despite the fact she appeared a handful of years younger than Jacob. How would he look when his hair got threads of gray in the reddish brown, turning it silver in certain lights? She imagined the deepening crow's feet enhancing his smiling eyes, the laugh lines around his mouth sculpting into the deeper character lines of a man in his fifties. Inscrutability was necessary for the politics in her life, and everything showed in Jacob's face. Anger, passion, tenderness, concern. All of it at intense and alive high volume. He was too impulsive, too uncensored.
These thoughts might not matter. He could even now be counting the minutes until she released him so he could turn his back on his offer of an oath to her, considering the never-sealed contract dissolved.
No. If Jacob had made an oath to Thomas, he would keep it unless she released him from it. She knew that as well as she knew the slices of orange would glisten like clusters of teardrops when the outer skin was gently removed, every one of them a burst of sensation capable of eliciting a response from her.
"Ma'am?"
She opened her eyes and found the driver in one doorway. Jacob leaned against the other.
She'd left the key on the bed. But the manacles had been drawn taut. Even if he'd managed to get his fingers on the key it would have been impossible for him to position it to open the cuffs. Yet there he stood.
He studied her for a moment, perhaps two. Whatever the driver had intended to say, he held it now, apparently picking up on the tension. Jacob had put his jeans back on, but not the shirt. She'd thought she could read his face, and she did read a variety of emotions there. Simmering anger, frustration, the bite of desire. But mixed together they made something she couldn't interpret, like a language she recognized but didn't understand.
Straightening, he moved toward her. One step. Two. There was a rolling grace to his gait, a trained power. Her gaze traveled over the smooth glide of muscle along his shoulders, his waist, the way his hips moved, drawing her eye to the curve of his groin area demarcated by the thighs she'd felt flex beneath her own not too long ago.
When he reached her, he dropped to one knee, surprising her no small amount.. Lifting his hand, he opened it to offer her the key.
"I may not understand the games you feel you must play, my lady. But this is no game to me. I've offered myself willingly to you and will continue to do so."
She didn't look at clocks, for she knew what time of day it was to every minute. The ebb and flow of her life force was dependent on the rising and setting of the sun. So it seemed to her time skipped a beat. She lost a moment or two, just studying the mystery of the man on his knees before her.
"I'll continue to consider it," she said at last. "But you need to think as well. The life you enter with me would be all about games, strategizing to a level of viciousness I suspect your soul is too pure to understand. If you stay with me, it's likely to be corrupted. At worst, mortally wounded. I will be no friend to you. I can be cruder than anything you've ever imagined."
"This makes you different from any other woman, how?" His blue eyes glinted, but he held his firm mouth in a resolute line. "A man who doesn't test the mettle of his soul isn't much of a man, my lady. My offer to serve you stands." His gaze held hers. "I promise I won't make it easy to refuse me."
* * *
Chapter Ten
"Hmmm." She turned dismissively to look toward the driver. "There's a phone here if there's someone you need to call."
She'd felt his attention shifting between her and Jacob during their exchange. Probably trying to determine which of them was more in need of a mental ward. She sensed a melting pot of reaction from Mr. Ingram, but it was as uncomplicated as a homemade soup. With Jacob, it was a potion of intricate response and intent affecting her with its provocative scent.
"I called my boss on my cell while I was waiting on you. Told him I'd be late, didn't know how long. Gave him the address in case he needed to come reassemble my body from a basement freezer."
He said it matter-of-factly, amusing her again. He was an anachronism—competent, discreet, diplomatic but not insincere. The room was full of anachronisms, and three very disparate ages at that. Fate was an interesting creature.
"I'd like to offer you a job as my full-time driver," she decided. "It would involve a great deal of travel. I move around the southern states quite a bit. The living area and bedrooms down that hallway, where the bathroom is, are quarters for my staff. There are similar accommodations in my other homes.
"I know you don't have family, except a grown son who doesn't deserve to carry your name." He started, but she pressed on. "I'll pay you what you're worth, which is about four times more than your current annual income, and I'll cover whatever expenses you need. Food, gas, et cetera. Your salary will be entirely unencumbered by daily living expenses."
"Sounds like a much better deal than she's offering me," Jacob commented, moving to the center island to take a seat on a stool.
"Him I have a use for." She gave Jacob a deprecating look. "You I intend to chain in the yard and give the scraps the dogs don't want."
"I don't get to sleep at the foot of the bed?"
"The floor, if you're good."
Her words brought that half smile out to play on his lips. When he sat down, he crossed his arms over his bare chest. His knees were splayed, one foot braced on the floor and the other hooked in the rung of the stool. He looked as enticing as first blood from a wound. She wanted to pour herself a glass of her favorite wine and chase her first swallow down with a bite of him.
When she swayed at the power of the feeling, it reminded her that feeding was a decision she needed to make soon. Steadying herself, she didn't think she'd displayed any weakness, but a quick glance showed Jacob's eyes had narrowed. He obviously had an exceptional attention to details. Usually a blessing in a servant, but a curse at the moment.
"What do you think, Mr. Ingram?" she said.
The driver came a step closer at her gesture, but kept the island between them. "I'm not sure if my soul is as strong as the boy's," he said carefully. "You want more than a driver, that's the way it seems to me. It wouldn't be fair to commit to a job and then back out, so I need to know what it is I'm really dealing with."
She understood clearly the "what" was referring to her.
"I'm a vampire," she said simply. "You may not believe that. You may decide I'm a mentally unstable person and make your polite though hasty farewells. But you asked for honesty." She inclined her head. "I have enemies. Many. Which is why I take so many precautions on my property and when I go beyond its boundaries. As long as I appear ready for them, it's unlikely they'll ever attack. They wait for the moment of weakness only. It is the way of our world. My enemies also rarely target staff unless staff members get between them and me. I'll never ask you to do that."
"That's gracious, ma'am. But I'm not a coward. I'm also not so easy to kill." His dark eyes glittered.
"I don't doubt your courage, but they'd kill you with as much effort as swatting a fly and it wouldn't even slow them down on their way to me," she said bluntly. "Good staff is hard for a vampire to find, so we don't sacrifice them frivolously. It's not unheard of for a vampire to slay another and then promptly turn around and offer the dead vampire's staff positions in his own household. After all, you've already worked for one, what's the difference in working for another?" She lifted her shoulder in a casual shrug. "Though I admit, some of them wouldn't give you a choice. There is some danger involved."
The black man removed his cap, scratched his head. There was gray in the close-cropped cotton of his hair. "I suspect a person in your circumstances has to break a few laws to live under the radar. So what I need to know, ma'am, is if you dishonor what I consider one of the more important Commandments. Do you kill?"
At her ironic look, he set his jaw. "I've broken it myself, when I served. Even had to do it once or twice in this job. I know it's not something a person should break lightly, which is why I'm asking."
Lyssa pursed her lips. "An extraordinarily honest question. Are you asking to give yourself time to think your way out of a crazy woman's house? Because if that's the case, the door is there. Neither I nor my dogs will keep you from leaving, and I'll wish you no ill will."