Fantasy Lover Read online

  And even though five years had passed, she still mourned them. Deeply. The old saying that it was better to have known love and lost it was a big fat crock. There was nothing worse than having someone to love and care for you, then losing them to a needless accident.

  Unable to face their deaths, she'd sealed this room off the day after their funeral, and left everything in it just as it was.

  Opening the drawer where her father had kept his pajamas, Grace swallowed. No one had touched these since the afternoon her mother had folded them, and they had brought the clothes up here and put them away. Even now, she could remember her mother's laughter. The way her mother joked about her father's conservative taste in flannel PJs.

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  Worse, she remembered their love for each other.

  What she wouldn't give to find a perfect partner like her parents had done. They'd been married twenty-five years before they died and they were every bit as in love then as they'd been the day they met.

  She couldn't remember a time in her life when her mother hadn't been smiling, her father gently teasing. Everywhere they went, they held hands like teenagers and stole quick kisses when they thought no one was looking.

  But she had seen. She remembered.

  She'd wanted that kind of love, too. But for some reason, she'd never found a man who made her breathless. One who made her heart pound and her senses reel.

  A man she couldn't live without.

  "Oh, Mama," she breathed, wishing her parents hadn't died that night. Wishing for She didn't know. She just wanted something in her life that made her look forward to the future. Something that made her happy the way her father had always made her mother so happy.

  Biting her lip, Grace balled her father's dark blue and white plaid pajama pants in her arms and ran from the room.

  "Here," she said, tossing them to Julian before she left him and ran to the bathroom in the middle of the hallway. She didn't want him to see her tears. She would never again show her vulnerability to a man.

  Julian exchanged the cloth around his hips for the pants, then followed after Grace.

  She'd rushed to the next door down the hall and slammed it shut.

  "Grace," he said, gently nudging the door open.

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  He froze as he saw her weeping. She stood in a lavatory of some sort with two built-in sinks, and a white counter in front of her while she held a cloth to her mouth in an effort to muffle her wracking sobs.

  In spite of his severe upbringing and eons of control, a wave of pity washed over him. She cried as if her heart had been broken. It made him uncomfortable.

  Uncertain.

  Clenching his teeth, Julian forced his strange feelings away. One thing he'd learned early in his childhood, it didn't do any good to learn about people. To care for them.

  Every time he had made that mistake, he'd paid dearly for it.

  Besides, his time here was short—way too short.

  The less he entangled himself with her emotions and life, the easier it would be to tolerate his next confinement. It was then that her earlier words hit him square in the chest. She'd pegged him perfectly. He was nothing more than a tomcat who took his pleasure and left.

  Julian clenched the cold doorknob at the thought. He wasn't an animal. He had feelings, too. At least he used to.

  Before he could reconsider his actions, he stepped into the room and drew her into a hug. Her arms encircled his waist and she held on to him like a lifeline as she buried her face into his bare chest and wept. Her entire body shook against his.

  Something strange inside him unfurled. A deep longing for something he couldn't name.

  Never in his life had he comforted a weeping woman. He'd had sex more times than he could count, but never once had he just held a woman like this. Not even after sex. Once he wore out his partner, he would get up and clean himself off, then go find something to occupy himself with until he was called again.

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  Even before the curse, he'd never shown anyone tenderness. Not even his wife.

  As a soldier, he'd been trained from his first memory to be fierce, cold. Harsh.

  "Return with your shield, or upon it." That was what his stepmother had told him as she grabbed him by his hair and slung him out of her home to begin training for war at the tender age of seven.

  His father had been even worse. A legendary Spartan commander, his father had tolerated no weakness. No emotion. The man had doled out Julian's childhood at the end of a braided leather whip, teaching him to hide his pain. To let no one see him suffer.

  To this day Julian could feel the bite of the whip against his bare back, hear the sound it made as it cut through the air toward his skin. See the mocking sneer of contempt on his father's face.

  "I'm sorry," Grace whispered against his shoulder, dragging his thoughts back to the present.

  She tilted her head to look up at him. Her gray eyes were bright and shiny, and they chipped at the edges of a heart frozen centuries before by necessity and by design.

  Uncomfortable, he moved away from her. "Feeling better?”

  Grace wiped her tears away and cleared her throat. She didn't know what had made Julian come after her, but it had been a long time since anyone had comforted her when she cried. "Yes," she whispered. "Thank you.”

  He said nothing. Instead of the tender man who had held her just an instant ago, he was back to being Mr. Statue, his entire body rigid and cold.

  Drawing a ragged breath, she moved past him. "I wouldn't have done that if I weren’t so tired and still a little tipsy. I really do need to go to sleep.”

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  She knew he would follow, so she dutifully headed back to her room and climbed aboard her tall pineapple plantation bed where she snuggled beneath her thick comforter.

  Sure enough, she felt the mattress dip under his weight an instant later.

  Her heart quickened at the sudden warmth of his body next to hers. Worse, he instantly curled himself against her back, and draped one long, muscular arm over her waist.

  "Julian!" she said with a warning note in her voice as she felt his erection against her hip. "I think it might be best if you stay on your side of the bed, and I stay on mine.”

  He didn't listen as he leaned his head down to hers and nibbled a small path along her hairline. "I thought you wanted me to come ease your aching loins," he whispered in her ear.

  Her body on fire from his nearness and the scent of sandalwood that filled her head, Grace blushed as she remembered her words to Selena. "My loins are just fine, and are quite happy as they are.”

  "I promise you, I could make them much, much happier.” Ooo, she didn't doubt it in the least. "If you don't behave, I'm going to make you leave the room." She looked up at him and caught the disbelief in his eyes.

  "I don't understand why you would send me away," he said.

  "Because I'm not going to use you like some nameless boy-toy who has no purpose except to serve me. Okay? I don't want to be intimate with a man I don't know.”

  His blue eyes troubled, he finally withdrew from her and settled down beside her.

  Grace took a deep breath as she tried to calm her racing heart and tame the fire in her blood. Goodness, he was a hard man to say no to.

  Do you really think you're going to be able to sleep with this guy lying next to you?

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  What, do you have rocks for brains?

  Closing her eyes, she recited her boring litany. She had to go to sleep. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Or even gorgeous Julians.

  Julian propped the pillows up behind his back and looked over at Grace. This would be the
first time in his exceptionally long life that he spent a night with a woman without making love to her.

  It was inconceivable. No woman had ever pushed him away before. She rolled over with another handset like the one she'd shown him downstairs. She pressed a button and turned on the TV, then lowered the sound of people talking.

  "This is for the lights," she said, pressing another button. Immediately, the lights turned off, leaving the TV to cast shadows on the wall behind him. "I'm a pretty sound sleeper, so I don't think you'll wake me.”

  She handed him the handset. "Good night, Julian of Macedon.”

  "Good night, Grace," he whispered, watching the way her soft hair fanned out over the pillow as she snuggled down to sleep. He put the handset aside and watched her for a long while as the light from the TV flickered across the relaxed planes of her face.

  He could tell when she finally fell asleep by the evenness of her breathing. It was only then that he finally dared to touch her. Dared to trace the gentle outline of her soft cheek with the pad of his forefinger.

  His body reacted with such violence that he bit his lip to keep from cursing. Fire streamed through his blood.

  He'd known stabbing desires all his life—first a hunger in his belly for food, then a burning thirst for love and respect, and finally the demanding one in his loins for the wet sleekness of a woman's body. But never, never, had he experienced anything Dark Hunter Series (1) – Fantasy Lover – Sherrilyn Kenyon Page 59 of 340

  like this. It was a hunger so strong, so raw, that it threatened his very sanity.

  And all he could think of was spreading her creamy, silken thighs and planting himself deep inside her. Of sliding in and out of her body over and over until they both screamed out their release in unison.

  Only that would never happen.

  Julian moved farther away from her. To a safe distance in the bed where he could no longer smell her sweet feminine scent, feel the heat of her body beneath the covers.

  He could give her pleasure for days on end without stopping, but for him there would never be peace.

  "Damn you, Priapus," he snarled, speaking the name of the god who had cursed him to this fate. "I hope Hades is giving you your full due.”

  His anger dulling, he sighed and realized that the Fates and Furies were certainly giving him his.

  Grace came awake with a strange sense of warmth and security. It was a feeling she hadn't experienced in years. Suddenly, she felt a tender kiss against her eyelids as if someone were brushing lips against her lashes. Warm, strong hands stroked her hair.

  Julian!

  She bolted up so quickly that she bumped heads with him. She heard his hiss of pain. Rubbing her forehead, she opened her eyes and saw him giving her a ferocious frown.

  "Sorry," she apologized, sitting up. "You startled me.”

  He opened his mouth and placed the pad of his thumb against his front teeth to Dark Hunter Series (1) – Fantasy Lover – Sherrilyn Kenyon Page 60 of 340

  check if she'd knocked them loose.

  Worse, she couldn't miss the flick of his tongue as he tested his teeth with it. The sight of his incredibly white straight teeth that she would love to have nip her

  "What do you want for breakfast?" she asked, distracting herself from her thoughts.

  His gaze shifted to the deep V of her dorm shirt. Following the line of his gaze, she realized that from the way she sat he could see all the way down to her embarrassingly pink Mickey Mouse underwear. Before she could move, he pulled her across his body and claimed her lips.

  Grace moaned her pleasure into his mouth as his tongue did the most wicked things to hers. Her head spun at the intense kiss, of his warm breath mingling with hers.

  And to think, she'd never liked kissing.

  She must have been crazy!

  His arms tightened around her. A thousand flames fanned out over her body, burning her, inciting her, as they pooled into the molten zone between her thighs where she ached for him.

  His lips left hers, and he trailed his tongue over her skin, searing a path to her throat where he made circles over her collarbone, her earlobe, her neck. The man seemed to know every erogenous zone on a woman's body!

  And better still, he knew how to use his tongue and hands to massage them all for maximum pleasure. He breathed gently into her ear, sending waves of chills throughout her body, and when he stroked her inner ear with his tongue, she shook all over.

  Her breasts tingled and swelled and tightened into hard nubs that begged for his kiss.

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  "Julian," she moaned, unable to recognize her voice. Her mind wanted her to tell him to stop, but the words lodged themselves in her throat.

  There was so much power in his touch. Such magic. It left her aching for more.

  He rolled her over, pressing her back against the mattress. Even through his pajamas, she could feel his erection, hard and hot, against her hip as his hands cupped her buttocks and he breathed raggedly in her ear.

  "You must stop," she told him at last, her voice sounding weak.

  "Stop what?" he asked. "This?" His tongue swirled around and around her ear.

  Grace hissed in pleasure. Chills shot all over her body like red embers, burning every inch of her. Her breasts swelled even tighter against his chest.

  "Or this."He moved one hand under the waistband of her panties to cup her where she craved him most.

  Her toes actually curled in response to his hand between her legs as she arched her back against him. Oh, he was incredible! He encircled the tender, throbbing flesh with one finger, making her burn from the inside out before he finally plunged two fingers deep inside her.

  While his fingers circled and teased and stroked, he gently massaged her nub with his thumb. "Ooo

  " Grace moaned, throwing her head back at the intensity of the pleasure.

  She clung to him as his fingers and tongue continued their relentless assault of pleasure. Her control gone, she rubbed herself shamelessly against him, seeking even more of his heat, his touch.

  Julian closed his eyes, savoring the scent of her body beneath his, the feel of her arms wrapped around him.

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  She was his. He could feel her quivering and pulsing around his hand as her body writhed to his caresses. At any moment, she would climax.

  With that thought foremost in his mind, he shoved her shirt up and dropped his head down to one taut peak where he gently suckled her areola, delighting in the feel of her puckered flesh teasing his tongue.

  He couldn't remember a woman ever tasting this good. It was a taste that branded itself in his mind, one he knew he would never forget. And she was ready for him.

  She was hot, wet, and tight—just the way he liked a woman's body.

  He tore the thin piece of material away from her hips that impeded his access to the part of her he was dying to explore more fully. And at much greater length.

  Grace heard the rending of fabric, but she couldn't stop him. Her will was no longer her own. It had been swallowed up by sensations so intense that all she wanted was relief. She had to have relief!

  Reaching up, she buried her hands in his hair, not wanting him to leave her for even a second. Julian kicked his pants off and spread her thighs wide. Her body bursting into pure fire, Grace held her breath as he settled his long, hard body between her legs.

  The tip of his manhood pressed against her core. She arched her hips toward him and clung to his broad shoulders, wanting him inside her with a desperation that defied belief.

  Suddenly, the phone rang.

  Grace jumped at the sound, her mind instantly slamming back into control. "What is that noise?" he growled.

  Grateful for the interruption, Grace struggled out from under him, her limbs trembling, her entire body burning. "It's a phone," she said, before leaning over to the night-Dark Hunter S
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  stand and grabbing it. Her hand actually shook as she brought the phone to her ear.

  Cursing, Julian rolled to his side.

  "Selena, thank goodness it's you," Grace said as soon as she heard her voice.

  Oh, how she was grateful for Selena's ability to know the precise moment to call!

  "What is it?" Selena asked.

  "Stop that," Grace snapped at Julian as he licked his way down her bare buttocks.

  She pushed him back and put a little more distance between them.

  "I'm not doing anything," Selena said. "Not you, Lanie.”