senses and the speed and the freedom?
Allie laughed. That sort of project seemed far too much work for anyone but the most devoted martyr. And anyway, why should she care? She’d tried to get rid of Durant at their first meeting by warning him that his attraction to her wasn’t real. That should have been that.
But it wasn’t. The joke was on her. She’d thought she would be able to forget about him. She hadn’t been, although it seemed he’d taken her advice very much to heart. He certainly hadn’t done much to encourage their further acquaintance. He was able to resist her, and that was a new and not entirely pleasant experience.
So, Allie Chase. What are you going to do about it? It’s been a long time since you’ve had a real challenge.
They began to walk again. The smells of morning crept into the city air: baking bread; stale seawater from the docks; exhaust from milk and produce trucks making their first deliveries of the day. Men and women staggered, laughing, from hidden doorways as they ended their night’s revels and prepared to retire to their comfortable beds on the Gold Coast. Longshoremen yawned as they left their tenements for a day’s work at the docks. Ragged boys lingered on street corners hoping to gain employment, legal or otherwise, for a few hours or a day. Gunsels on mysterious errands patrolled the sidewalk, their coat collars turned up about their ears, and bootleggers’ vehicles idled in alleyways.
This was Allie’s world—more than the cold, beautiful mansions owned by Raoul and his most favored vassals, far more than the gilded, exclusive milieu of the Hamptons. It was, as Mal had said, miles away from anything Griffin Durant judged desirable for himself or his sister.
“Here we are,” Griffin said, interrupting Allie’s reflections. He indicated a handsome limousine, whose uniformed driver stood beside the passenger door awaiting his employer’s instructions.
“Ladies,” Griffin said, gesturing Gemma and Allie into the backseat.Gemmaclimbed in first.Allie slid onto the seat beside her, not bothering to adjust the hem of her dress when it inched well above her knee. She knew Griffin noticed; he stared for a dozen heartbeats, then hastily looked away. Mal joined her and Gemma in the rear, while Griffin took a seat beside his driver in the front.
Whatever Griffin might think of certain parts of Manhattan, he employed a driver with an obvious talent for finding the most direct routes through the city. They stopped first at a street off Washington Square, where Mal took his leave and promised to attend Gemma’s party. In a remarkably short time—just as the first streaks of sunlight were beginning to sift among the buildings—the limousine pulled up in front of Allie’s apartment.
Griffin jumped out and asked Gemma for the return of his overcoat. He removed his hat and offered it and the coat to Allie as he helped her from the car.
“The fit is hardly ideal,” he said, “but they should provide adequate protection for a few moments.”
She placed the overlarge hat on her head and wrapped the coat around herself, enveloped in Griffin’s masculine, earthy scent.
“Can she come to my party?” Gemma said, leaning out of the car. “Please, Grif. I promise I’ll behave.”
Griffin looked as if he’d been cold-cocked by an invisible fist. He stared past Allie’s shoulder, muscles flexing under the skin of his jaw.
“Doubtless a woman of experience like Miss Chase would find a Long Island party extremely uninteresting,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Allie said. “After all, you’d be there. What more fascinating entertainment could a girl ask for?”
He cast her a dark glance. “In that case,” he said flatly, “we would be pleased if you would join us.”
Allie performed a mocking curtsy. “I would be delighted to accept your generous invitation, kind sir.”
Griffin bowed like a heel-clicking aristocrat out of a moving picture. “May I escort you to your door, Miss Chase?” He offered his arm, and Allie accepted it. The night doorman, about ready to surrender his duties to his daytime counterpart, hardly blinked at her masculine attire.
Griffin accompanied her into the lobby and stopped beside the elevator. “I…hope the night’s events have not proven too troubling for you, Miss Chase,” he said.
“Troubling? Because of Ivar? Or because I saw you turn into a wolf?”
“I regret that you were compelled to witness such unpleasantness.”
“I’ve seen plenty of that on the vampire side of things.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“You are, aren’t you?” She removed the hat and twirled it around on the tip of her finger. “Do you really think I’ll go wild and attack all your boring human friends?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“At the party. Is it because of Gemma that you don’t want me there, or because I’m a leech?”
If he was taken aback by her bluntness, he managed to hide it. “You obviously have excellent control over your…needs, Miss Chase.”
“At least you must admire that quality in me.” She chuckled at his expression. “We don’t exactly go around assaulting humans in public places. If we were that indiscreet, we’d hardly survive in a human world…any more than your kind would if you changed shape in the middle of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.”
He flushed and glanced at his shoes. “I apologize. My personal experience of vampire behavior is somewhat limited.”
“And what knowledge you do have is tainted by prejudice.”
“You’ve expressed some pride in being unlike other vampires, Miss Chase.”
“You just said you didn’t know much about vampires. Anyway, I didn’t say I approve of everything my fellow strigoi do. I don’t take responsibility for them, only myself.”
A glimmer of some emotion she couldn’t identify flickered in Griffin’s eyes. “In that case, perhaps we should call a truce.”
“I’m all for that, bub.”
His shoulders relaxed as if he’d just released an intolerable burden. “The party will be held out of doors, in the afternoon…but you may certainly remain inside the house without attracting undo attention. If you dress for travel in daylight, I’ll send Fitzsimmons to collect you on Saturday at 1:00 p.m.”
“That’s most convenient, thank you.” She touched her finger to his chin. “Very gallant of you to worry so much about my safety.”
“You didn’t seem to welcome it before.”
“Maybe I changed my mind.”
“Why do I find it difficult to believe you?”
“You mean, you still don’t trust me, after all we’ve been through together?”
He looked away. “Miss Chase—”
“Don’t you think we should be on a first-name
