He sounded…complex, but then he always sounded complex, the flavors and notes in his voice as layered as a fine, aged wine. He was a master of nuance and one of the sharpest legal minds in the world, and—and she admired him so damn much, it tied her up in knots.
And it didn’t help in the slightest that his voice, like actors Alan Rickman or Liam Neeson, was spellbindingly beautiful. According to Carling, Duncan rarely made court appearances any longer, but when he did, other lawyers, judges and legal professionals from different demesnes traveled from all over the world just to hear him speak.
Now he sounded divided between amusement and worry.
“Everything’s all right,” she called out as she patted the door. That was a stupid thing to say, especially in the face of her family emergency. If she could, she would climb in bed and pull the covers over her head. Over all their heads. “You just caught me by surprise. Hold on a moment.”
“Take your time,” he said.
His voice. Swear to gods, she was pretty sure he could bring her to orgasm just by talking.
That thought did nothing to help her present a cool, collected attitude of her own, nor did it help to calm down her excited little head freaks. She threw up her hands and dashed across the apartment, back to her bedroom where she grabbed a scarf and wound it around the snakes with quick expertise, starting at the back of her head.
The normal life span for medusae was around 450-500 years, and their snakes grew longer and more poisonous as they aged. Infants and small children had snakes as small as their fingers, the poison from their bites about as irritating as a mosquito bite, while elders had snakes that often trailed a foot or so along the ground. A single bite from the snake of an elder could make a grown human very sick, and multiple bites would cause almost certain death to several races.
Seremela was in late middle age, close to 380 years old, and her snakes reached past her hips. She had never felt threatened or afraid enough to cause her snakes to bite anyone. She pulled the mass over one shoulder and worked quickly down their length.
They did not want to be wrapped in the scarf—really, it was like putting children down for a nap—and their agitation increased until she had them all snugly under cover and eased them back over her shoulder again. Once they were tucked in a warm, dark place, they went quiet. Even as she stepped out of the bedroom, she could sense that they were asleep.
She took a deep breath and hurried back to open the door. Duncan, who stood looking down the hall as he waited, turned back quickly to face her. His dark, clever gaze regarded her for a moment. She felt her cheeks grow warm at the open concern in his expression.
She held the door open wider, more to give herself an excuse to back away from his penetrating, too observant attention than to be hospitable, although she did manage to say, “Please, do come in.”
“Thank you.” Hands still tucked in his pockets, Duncan strolled into her apartment.
Her mouth dried as she watched him. In some ways he looked so normal. At five foot ten or so, he stood just a few inches taller than she did. And he wasn’t oversized. He had a neat, compact build, and when he moved something unique and intangible became manifest, as his sharp, quiet intelligence flowed through his body.
All Vampyres had the same liquid, inhuman grace, but not all of them affected Seremela the same way that Duncan did. She ducked her head and shut the door. When she turned around to face him, she found him studying her again. She grew even more self-conscious, too aware of the amount of bare skin exposed by the skimpy, thin material of her red tank top and her shorts. Her toenails were painted a bright, saucy lime green. She glanced down at her bare legs then back up at him.
If only she had her work clothes on, and a dissected corpse on a table between them. Then she would know what to say and how to act.
Still, she had to start somewhere. She said, “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I stopped by unannounced,” he said.
His voice moved over her in an invisible caress. She shivered as her mind supplied her with images garnered from her earlier storm-washed fancy: Duncan, dressed in a Bogart suit, stroking long, clever fingers on piano keys, with his dark head bent and a melancholy gaze. Then she steps into the room and he turns to her with fierce joy—giving her a look that says they are the only two people in the world—
Heavy reality thudded into place around her. Gah. Where were they? Oh, he had said something. That meant it was her turn, right? Argh, where was a dead body when you needed one the most? She fumbled for an appropriate response. “No, of course not.”