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“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, her head thudding against his chest. “I like bats.”
Jude placed her on the bed while I pulled off her boots and tucked her under the covers.
“Night, Gen,” she murmured, rolling over. “Night, Batman.”
I clicked the door shut behind us and walked back into the living room. When I turned around, he stood right behind me, gazing with those fathomless eyes.
“I’ve never seen your Bat Cave,” I teased.
He eased forward, sliding large hands along my waist. “I’ll be more than happy to show you,” he whispered, leaning closer.
“Aren’t you afraid it will be too cold and dark for me?”
“Genevieve.” His face lost all trace of humor, suddenly bracketed with harder lines. He pulled me into a tight embrace flush against him.
I’d expected something teasing and sexy, not what he said with such seriousness.
“I will keep you close and warm, and you will be my light.”
I gulped at the formal and tender vow. How do you respond to something like that? Simple. You don’t.
I laid my head against the hollow of his neck, wrapping my arms around his waist, pressing myself closer. His arms were bands of steel, molding my body to his.
We stood there in silence, feeling the warmth of each other, languishing in a new, fragile intimacy. My mind closed off the world as my senses reached out to record everything—the expanse of his large hand against the small of my back; the heady, masculine smell of him; the steady beat of his heart. Unbidden, my mind opened a vision in the space of a heartbeat.
A line of torches flickered gold light on the faces of warriors smeared with blue woad at the verge of a wood. Among them, Jude peered from the shadows, the fire dancing over his still features.
Hatred lined the planes of his face. Menace sparked in the bright amber-gold of his eyes. This was no demon hunter, but a man—one filled with such focused loathing that it etched every hard angle of cheek, jaw, nose, and brow. Face fixed on something in the distance, he waited like a statue. Long black hair with war braids at the temples framed the hardened face of a warrior with murder on his mind.
A fierce-looking man to his left bearing a scar across nose and cheek muttered deep and low, “Tá anseo cinniúint, mo dheartháir.” Something lurked in the shadows behind them, swathed in night, wrapping them in cold wind. Jude’s stony expression remained fixed, then he gave an almost imperceptible nod, his eyes aflame with torchlight. His voice so deep and low, I almost didn’t hear his terse response. “Aye.”
I jumped, reeling back to the present. My pulse pounded wildly in my head. I had no idea what the man had said, but the words must have been some form of Gaelic. I had taken a Celtic mythology class last year with a professor obsessed with linguistics. We’d read stories not only in partially translated Gaelic but also listened to them in the original tongue. The vivid vision struck cold against my heart.
Jude pulled me back, fixing a searching gaze on me. No amber, no light—only the darkness of night. His brows bunched together, though he hadn’t seemed to sense me having the vision as he did the time before.
“Are you all right? You’re shaking.”
I glanced down, my voice proving him right. “Just a little tired.” I pulled farther away.
He frowned. But I forced a smile.
“I suppose I should tuck you into bed now.” His voice dropped to the tone that made my pulse race like wildfire.
“Um, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
My hands had moved to his chest of their own volition, fixed firmly on the strength of him. Even with the thread of desire stretching taut and threatening to snap, I was afraid of what I saw tonight—both the evil entity hovering around Jude’s body on the street and the murderous man I saw in the vision.
“Perhaps you’re right.”
Without warning, a rough hand cupped my face, tilting it upward. He melted his lips over mine, licking in with gentle strokes, moving with such intense purpose my knees threatened to buckle.
Jude encircled an arm around my waist, holding me up and pressing me close to feel every hard muscle straining against my soft curves. When I realized I’d changed my mind and was about to ask him to jump into bed with me, he drew back, letting my lower lip slide gently from between his teeth.
A slow, slow smile touched the darkness of veiled eyes, reminding me with a shiver how many years this man had had to perfect the art of seduction.
“You’re very bad,” I breathed.
The corner of his mouth quirked up for a fleeting second. “I think you’ll find,” he whispered, nipping at my lower lip with gentle teeth, “that I’m very,” warm tongue tracing his bite, “very good.”
