"That's wonderful, Ray." I leaned my head on his shoulder. "I was so worried about you."
"Good to know." He pulled me close and looked into my eyes. "I'm not going to tell you your business, Glory, but here's my take on your situation."
"Oh, great. Here it comes." I frowned. "Go ahead."
"Blade. He's a stick. Old-fashioned and not the best guy for a woman like you." Ray rubbed his thumb along my jaw to my chin. "You've moved along with the times, just like you told Ian. I don't see that happening with Blade. I'm just sayin'." He leaned forward and kissed me with a soft rub of his lips against mine, then trailed a path down my neck.
"Ray, you can't begin to understand how hard it is to have lived so long, to have seen as much of life as we have." I didn't move away, which is what I should have done as Ray nuzzled my neck, then kissed a sweet path along my cheek to my ear and down my throat to the pulse beating there.
"No, I don't understand. Don't need to. I just see the woman here in front of me. I see the woman who really gets me, who cares about me like no other woman has in a hell of a long time. Damn it, I don't have a lot of real friends. I'm closer to you and Nate than anyone else. And Nate doesn't really understand what I've been going through since I was turned. You know?" Ray was back at my mouth again and lingering a little longer, going a little deeper this time. Then he pulled back, his hand on my neck now, massaging, coaxing, while his lips danced along the other side of my face.
"Yes, I know. Of course I care. I care about my friends. It's, it's what I do." Oh, God, but he was sliding his fangs along that sensitive vein in my neck. And his other hand was easing along the silk of my blouse, almost touching but not quite the center of my breast. I couldn't breathe. Didn't need to. But if I did, would that push my nipple into his palm? I gasped.
"I'll always be your . . . friend, Glory. You need me? I'm there. Remember that."
"Ray, we can be friends without the sexual thing, you know." I kept my eyes on his, knowing it was important that I say this.
"With a woman?" He smiled. "Can't imagine it, babe. You're too soft, too delicious for me to just ignore what's right . . . here." He pressed his hand against my breast for only a moment, then let it trail away, down to my waist. "You didn't wear a bra tonight. Was that for me?"
He didn't give me time to answer, his mouth back on mine, gently insistent as he deepened the kiss. He pulled me into his mind, reminding me of how we could laugh together, play together. Sober, he was as dangerous a man as I'd ever met. He had too many moves, too many ways he could entangle my senses until I couldn't imagine why I was still leaning against a stone ledge and not lying on the silk sheets in his bed upstairs.
"Glory?"
I opened my eyes and staggered in an effort to end this without damaging either my feelings or Ray's or the stone ledge I'd been about to fall back on.
"Penny." I eased away from Ray and focused on her. "What?" Okay that didn't sound happy, but she had eyes. She had to know she'd interrupted something interesting.
"Ian's invited me to work with him, maybe come see his lab in California eventually. Isn't that great?" Penny and Ian stood in the doorway. Ian had a smirk that meant if he'd had Blade's phone number, he would have taken a picture of that clench he'd just witnessed and sent it straight to his ancient enemy.
I cleared my throat, which seemed to have closed. "Sounds like you two hit it off."
"We did, actually." Ian glanced down at Penny. "Your fledgling has a fine mind and some excellent ideas that may be an asset in my research. She could very well be the assistant I need if I set up a facility here. And her research at the university is obviously at an end."
"Good. The setting up the facility here part." Ray frowned when I put some space between us. "So you're staying for a while to scout locations?"