passed. ForNavarre , they were the longest seven days of his entire life.
Why, he raged as he paced restlessly from one end of the house to the other, why was he so intrigued by Miss Adrianna Grant? In his time, he had known women who were smarter, women who were more beautiful, more voluptuous, more everything. But he had never known one who had eyes quite that shade of blue, hair quite that shade of blond, a smile that made him believe anything was possible. She filled his thoughts by night and his dreams by day.
Like a schoolboy in the throes of his first crush, he made excuses to pass by her house, her shop. Sometimes, feeling like an adolescent fool, he followed her, always keeping out of sight, always careful to screen his presence from her mind.
He followed her home from work in the evening; he followed her when she went out to dinner with a girlfriend; he followed her into the movie theater one night.
Sitting in the back and off to the side, he had spent two hours watching her face, watching her reactions to the bittersweet love story unfolding on the screen. Her laughter filled him with sunshine; her tears made him long to comfort her.
Trailing after her as she walked home from the theater, he had cursed himself for being a fool. But he couldn't stop thinking of her, couldn't stop remembering the sweet womanly scent of her skin and hair, the way she had fit into his embrace, the intoxicating taste of her kisses.
He couldn't stop thinking of her; could not stop wanting her.
Prowling through the quiet rooms of his house, he told himself to take her and be done with it. She wanted him, whether she knew it or not. He could make her his at any time. With the power of his mind, he could call her to him. He could mesmerize her with the power of his gaze, bend her will to his, take what he wanted and send her away, the knowledge of what transpired between them erased from her mind with a word...
He swore a vile oath as he brought his fist down on a heavy oak table. He didn't want her like that - no better than a puppet while he pulled the strings. He wanted her warm and willing, fully aware of what was happening between them. He wanted to hear the sound of his name on her lips; he wanted to gaze deep into her eyes and see love reflected there...
Love! He cursed under his breath. Where hadthat come from? Love, indeed. What woman would love a creature like him, a man who was not a man at all, a man who lived by night and existed on the blood of others?
He thought of Katlaina, and pain ripped through him. She had promised to love him forever, and he had believed her. Even now, almost two thousand years later, he could remember the look in her eyes when he appeared to her after he'd been changed. She had stared at him in revulsion, sickened by the look of death in his eyes. She had recognized him for what he was - an inhuman monster. Even the recollection of her acceptance of him years later, when she was dying, could not banish the agony of that moment when she had backed away from him, her face as pale as death, her eyes wide with fear and loathing.
He cursed bitterly. He had lived almost two thousand years, and in all that time, he had never loved another woman. He had lived alone, though he could have taken any woman he desired, taken her and used her and tossed her away.
But now he was wanting a woman, one particular woman, very badly. Adrianna... Surely he deserved to have this one woman. He had lived alone for almost two thousand years, taking only the blood he needed to survive, leaving those he drank from alive when he could so easily have killed them. He had spared countless lives. Surely he deserved this one woman...
With a strangled cry, he stalked out of the house. He wanted her, and he would have her before the night was out, and heaven help anyone who got in his way!
With preternatural speed, he made it to her house in a matter of minutes. The drapes in the living room were open, and he could see her sitting on the sofa, her face bathed in lamplight, an