The one thing she had heard and understood from Gavreel loud and clear was he had cautioned her not to tell anyone anything about where he had headed. She recalled thinking at the time that would be easy enough, as she had no idea where he was headed.

Apparently there was a vampiress he was wary of called Chandra. He had muttered to himself about how annoyed he had been when she had, a number of times, "stolen a march on him" for one paper or another. He had exclaimed how a dozen or so times over the last few centuries-Clare still shuddered at such casual references to such enormous periods of time-Chandra had beaten him at the last moment to making some important discoveries.

Gavreel had finally snapped out of his sullen mumblings and had made her promise not to reveal what he had spoken about with her to anyone for fear of this vampiress hearing about it. Gossip spreading fast she could well understand, particularly when everyone seemed to know everyone else.

Clare bit her lip and cast her mind about for something else to say to this unknown man.

"Uh, he's...umm...gone...out," she finished, realizing even to her ears how lame that sounded. "Sorry," she said as she looked back at the holo-screen and desperately hoped her inane babbling would be enough to make the man think she was absolutely nutty and have him run away and leave her alone.

She felt her skin flush with embarra.s.sment as she stared at the screen, unable to even continue the typing she had thought to do-because the d.a.m.ned screen was still frozen. She licked her lips nervously and, praying to all the G.o.ds, pressed the "exit" key again. The machine beeped at her. She could almost feel the d.a.m.n machine's indignation at her idiocy. She felt her slight flush turn into a full-blown blush, making her skin feel red-hot.

The man still stood there-she didn't even need to look as she could sense him watching her. She raised her eyes challengingly to his beautiful dark brown ones. For a moment she feared she might fall into some sort of spell, so hard was the pull in his gorgeous eyes.

Impatient with herself, she shook her head and tried to get a grip on herself. What the h.e.l.l was the matter with her? She hadn't been particularly attracted to any of the beautiful men she had met on this odd planet in the few months she had been there. She felt too dislocated, too utterly stupid in this confusing world to think about being s.e.xy, or having a mad, pa.s.sionate fling. Yet somehow this man made her feel all that and more. She felt feminine and desirable and not like a complete buffoon trying to sort out the complexities of this world.

Knowing she would never hold any respect for herself again if she didn't get a grip on her emotions and runaway thoughts, she decided if the s.e.xy man would have to stand there then he could b.l.o.o.d.y well be of some use. She opened her mouth, hoping she wouldn't insult him, or worse, stick her foot in it. She had been astonished at some of the differences between "her" world and this one. Culture shock was the understatement of the millennium.

"You wouldn't happen to know how to unfreeze a holo-screen, would you?" she said in her bright and chirpy manner. She plastered a big, wide smile on her face, hoping to appear merely slightly confused, instead of frazzled, annoyed and dumbfounded. Clare knew her competence at hiding her uncertainty had skyrocketed over the last few weeks, but she was still unsure how proficient she had become at hiding the huge, struggling argument going on inside her.

Clare didn't understand, but she somehow wanted simultaneously to scare the man into leaving the store, as no one this handsome had any right to intrude on her thoughts, scrambling her mind and making her appear like a stupid three-year-old. Yet she also couldn't deny the fierce desire she had raging inside her wanting this man to stay and get to know her, maybe spend some time with and get to know him and this odd world she seemed stuck in.

She had no idea what was going on inside her. It almost felt as if a part of her knew him, recognized him, which was utterly and completely ridiculous. There was no way she would forget him, and yet still the feeling persisted.

To really make her question her mental competency, she knew it wasn't as if she could have met him sometime back in her time and not remember him. She sincerely doubted he, too, had magically flown through time with no way back. She flat out refused to ask him, as she knew if she oh-so-casually asked him if he were from the far distant past he would then truly think her mad.

Besides, both Gavreel and Alderic had given her a ma.s.sive lecture on her first morning against telling anyone of her time travel. Apparently even in this day and age time travel was not common or even well known. They had cautioned her against talking about it to anyone.

Clare trusted both Gavreel and Alderic, knew they only wanted to help her and so she had taken their advice very seriously. Besides, she hadn't yet come across even an opportunity where she had struggled with her decision about whether to talk to someone about the truth of herself. She had been so busy trying to learn everything and settle herself she hadn't really begun to socialize much except for walking down the local streets and chatting idly with the other shopkeepers.

Anyway, this man certainly had the looks to be a top-cla.s.s model. She certainly didn't recall seeing him on the covers of any book or holo-zine. She knew she would have recalled seeing him on a cover, as she would have bought the merchandise, and more than likely a spare copy for when she had read it so many times the covers were creased beyond repair. Besides, there was no way she would have forgotten his face and eyes, let alone his body.

Clare sat up straight with a start. She must have been staring at the poor man for almost a full minute, lost in her own musings. He had a small, understanding smile on his face, likely seeing her worry and frustrations.

He smiled down at her as he crossed the room to where she was. She felt grateful he seemed so friendly, approaching her carefully as if she were a scared little girl. Clare wrinkled her nose at the weak connotation, but didn't say anything. Back home she would deeply resent the implication, no matter how carefully put, that she couldn't take care of herself.

Out here, however, she literally felt as if she were stuck in a whole new world. One where under her covers, late at night, she sometimes did feel like nothing more than a scared little girl.

Realizing the man was about to lean over her to work on her PCC, she quickly moved her chair to the side as the man came right around to her side of the desk. He smiled again and paused where he stood right up close to the console, where he could look at the holo-screen.

"You can't freeze a holo-screen," he said patiently, gently. He seemed undisturbed by her ravings, not even slightly put off by her previous incoherent speech. "See how you've pressed the double zektla key?"

Clare frowned and reluctantly leaned in to where he pointed. Her curiosity and desire to find out what she had done overrode her uneasiness about getting too close to this man. Clare had never thrown herself at a man, but she might reconsider the embarra.s.sing behavior for this delicious specimen.

She bent right in, so she was only a hairsbreadth away from his arm. She angled her head so she could see which key he pointed to. Clare had no clue what a double zektla key was, and she mentally filed the question away for later to ask Alderic. She realized she had not needed this key yet, but it was right next to one she used frequently when programming orders.

Clare nodded, hoping she looked as if she knew what the man had just pointed out. She did, however, memorize the key for future reference.

"That has indicated to the PCC to pause." Clare wrinkled her nose as the man pressed a different key. Clare also took note of the key he pressed to unlock the console. "That will let you continue."

Warily, Clare looked up into his face and smiled.

"Thanks," she said, taking yet another good look at the man. She had a feeling he would head right out their door and she would never see him again. She wanted an in-depth mental vision of him, to while away the long, cold evening hours.

His rich, dark brown hair drew her eye. It shone, the silky strands looking incredibly soft and sensual to the touch. His eyes were such a dark brown, they looked black, and just as she looked at him, and he seemed to be looking her over as well.

Clare frowned. Seeing his face in profile like this, he faintly resembled her fantasy man from back home, his eyes were so dark, but she could see a light sparkle in them, his hair was as dark and thick and straight as her fantasy man's had been.

Shaking her head Clare berated herself. She had never really caught a decent glimpse of her fantasy man. It would be the height of stupidity to try and foist her dreams and fantasies onto this one poor man, whom she likely would never see again.

Clare let her eyes wander down the man's neck, determined to not stare at his face anymore. He wore a dark green shirt, which looked amazing with his hair and eyes, and also highlighted the fact his skin seemed faintly tanned, as opposed to the super-pale complexion everyone seemed to consider beautiful. The flex of muscles Clare could see moving beneath the shirt was enough to have her mouth watering.

"Not a problem. I'm Simeon Montague, Gavreel's son. Don't you think you can tell me where he's gone, Clare? I'm just worried about him as he hasn't contacted me for over two months."

Clare frowned, digesting this information, but if she were honest with herself, she was repeating the name Simeon over to herself, realizing the strong, old-fashioned name suited him really well.

She blinked when the rest of his statement filtered through her head. Simeon was one of Gavreel's sons. Gavreel had mentioned his three sons a few times before he had left.

Gavreel always had love and pride in his voice when he mentioned them. Usually, Clare recalled, he had also had a huge grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye as if Gav knew exactly the kinds of antics his boys got up to.

Once again, Clare felt completely torn within herself.

She didn't think Gavreel had meant for her to not tell his sons where he had gone, yet he had been adamant she not tell anyone about his plans. Clare wrinkled her nose. She felt pulled in two directions-her loyalty to Gavreel, but also she felt the need to help Simeon. She compromised with herself.

"Gav took a large bag with him," she recalled softly, hoping Gavreel wouldn't be upset with her telling this to Simeon. "Rather like what I would call a duffel bag, if you know what that is. About this big," she indicated its rough dimensions with her hands. She smiled as Simeon nodded. "I'm sure he had whatever he needed in there to contact you-it was packed pretty full. He said it was likely he would be pretty busy for a while and he mentioned something about closing his mind to the normal way..."

Clare let her words trail off and grimaced to herself as she ran out of what she felt "safe" to tell the s.e.xy man standing near her. Besides, it still felt more than a little weird to be accepting mental telepathy as a "normal" method of communication.

She really didn't want to keep secrets, but neither did she want to break her promise to Gavreel, and with all the information she had given Simeon, she felt she was cutting her promise pretty thinly.

She decided it was well past time to call out to Alderic, interrupt whatever he was doing. Before she had the chance, however, Simeon had smiled at her, and then threw his head back and laughed loudly. She watched, utterly entranced, as his face split into a grin, flashing perfect white teeth, and a tiny dimple appeared in one cheek. His hair moved softly, begging for her touch.

She didn't think a man had ever enchanted her. Certainly not within ten minutes of meeting him. But ever since she had looked up to see Simeon standing there watching her with that slight grin to his face she had been nothing but enchanted and almost under a spell cast by him.

She felt herself drawn closer and closer to Simeon, almost as if they were two oppositely charged magnets. It seemed inevitable, almost beyond her control. Every different thing she noticed about him seemed to wind its way around her heart and pulled her closer to him, made her more curious about him and want to ask him a zillion questions.

Clare knew she was practically clueless about much of the world here. Although she had studied and learned an awful lot over the last three months or so, she still had little idea about much of what went on in this enormous galaxy. She had begun to dream of traveling her way through this new universe, discovering everything she could about it all, yet for now, this man fascinated her far more than the numerous new planets and colonies she had discovered existed.

On top of her new thirst for this particular man, she found herself feeling an almost unbearable craving to run her hands through his hair, to trace the outline of his chest and indulge in some of her wilder fantasies. She smiled to herself as she discovered she also wanted to see his dimple peek into his cheek again, to make him laugh once more and hear that deep, l.u.s.ty sound.

Clare shook her head when she realized he had actually stopped laughing and had been looking her over as well. She smiled, but returned his questioning glance. He chuckled again and then seemed to pull himself under control.

"I am sorry, but the thought of Gav not being able to contact me tickled my funny bone. The old man can touch his mind to mine anytime he wishes to. You do realize we are vampires, right?"

Clare felt her world lurch slightly to one side, but quickly regained her self-control. She refused to blush, although she worried her cheeks might have flushed slightly. Simeon just kept watching her though, with those hot, hungry-looking dark brown eyes. He thankfully didn't seem to notice her momentary shock at realizing this s.e.xy man was a vampire.

It was a logical thought, but not one she had managed to connect on her own, which made her feel faintly embarra.s.sed.

Simeon seemed to be not only incredibly perceptive of her mood and swings of thought, but also exceedingly patient and tolerant. Clare worried at how easily she could fall in love with such a person, vampire or not.

"I did know that Gavreel and Alderic are both vampires," she explained honestly. "Being his son I know it's a rather logical conclusion, but...uh...my mind hadn't quite leapt that far just yet," she admitted wryly.

Nothing in the world, however, could have convinced her to admit she had been too busy eyeing his good looks and his luscious hair instead of making logical leaps at his parentage. It seemed to be a full-time job just trying not to think about kissing those lips or feeling his body rub erotically against her own naked skin.

Thinking about it now, however, Clare remembered what she had read in the tome about vampiric reproduction. Gavreel must have found a compatible woman during one of his phases in heat. Yet why hadn't he made a commitment to the woman? Surely if she had borne his son, three of them if she recalled correctly, then Gavreel must have had a great and deep affection for the woman?

Before Clare could think further along that train of thought Simeon spoke again.

"Well, if Gav told you not to tell anyone where he was going, I could always look in your mind, with your permission, of course. Then you could keep your promise to Gavreel and not be telling anyone, but I can still find out what his plans were and where he was heading."

Clare frowned, unsure what to say. The thought of anyone, even Simeon, looking into her mind didn't sit well with her, but it appeared obvious to her that the man was worried about his father. She made a spur-of-the-moment decision, based mostly on her snap judgment that Simeon was a good man, or vampire, or whatever, and she could trust him not to either betray her trust, or abuse what she offered him.

She pressed her lips together tightly and nodded, wanting whatever he was about to do, over and done with. She had no real idea of what he was about to do, whether it would hurt or not, and so she kept her mind focused on hoping Gavreel would understand.

She knew in her heart that she was breaking the spirit of Gavreel's request, but she had faith this man before her was not out to steal Gavreel's findings or knowledge, or write a new paper out from under him. This was Gavreel's son and he was merely worried about his father.

Clare closed her eyes, tried not to focus and worry about how she had no knowledge of what was about to happen, merely praying desperately to the G.o.ddess of All that it wouldn't be painful. Clare grimaced at what she perceived to be her own cowardice. She was an utter baby when it came to pain.

She kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, expecting a pain in her head, or some sort of pressure indicating Simeon's mind, or soul, or something entering inside her. A million scenarios flashed through her mind, only heightened by her imagination. Each scenario that she thought of was more painful and worrying than the next. The seconds seemed to pa.s.s incredibly slowly, each one beating inside her head as a minute or maybe more pa.s.sed by.

She gasped in shock as she felt a heavy, warm hand press down gently on her shoulder. She jerked back, her eyes flying wide open. For a split second she felt dizzy, disorientated as if she had stood up really quickly, or had leapt from a tall building.

She felt her heart pump fast and hard against her chest. She realized she was feeling a moment of sheer terror that maybe she was about to wake up somewhere different yet again. She writhed in the chair, her hands were sweating and a thin trail of sweat also ran down her back. She stood up abruptly, needing to feel the ground solid beneath her feet.

Instead of the bizarre alien scene she had been petrified of finding, she could see herself standing in the small front room of Gavreel and Alderic's shop, exactly where she had been a moment before. Simeon stood in front of her, worry and something darker, more erotically hungry lurking in his eyes.

"Maybe we had better interrupt Alderic," he said slowly, carefully. "I know he's a bit of a grouch when he is taken from his precious books, but this is getting more and more strange by the moment."

"Strange?" she echoed. As Simeon headed out the back into the hallway, she followed him, wanting to understand something of what was occurring. "What on earth do you mean by strange? I really don't know where Gavreel headed, I only know it's somewhere off-planet...I mean..." Clare trailed off again, wondering if Simeon had been bulls.h.i.tting her about being able to read her mind.

She shook her head. He was a vampire, so of course he could read her mind. Both Gavreel and Alderic could read her mind with barely any effort at all. The fact she was pretty much emotionally honest and an open book to them certainly helped them, but both men had taken great pains to try and teach her to erect mental barriers.

She still, even after three months of practicing, had trouble with even a flimsy barrier. It had been a major arguing point for Alderic, and Gavreel before he had left, in convincing her to stay with them where she was safe and wouldn't be taken advantage of. So Simeon should have been able to read her mind with ease.

"I couldn't penetrate your mind," Simeon said over his shoulder as he led the way to Alderic's study. Clare frowned and hastened her steps to catch right up to him. "I should have been able to penetrate your mind easily," he continued. "I couldn't feel but the most simple of mind blocks up. Yet I couldn't read or see anything at all."

Clare made a rude face at his back and then grinned at her childish behavior. The manner in which he had said "the most simple of mind blocks" had irked her, his lordly you-should-have-been-practicing-more tone of voice exceedingly reminiscent of Gavreel.

Instead of dwelling on his arrogance, Clare merely shrugged her annoyance away.

"So what?" she replied, frustrated to hear her voice sound a bit like a defiant child. She cleared her throat and controlled her tone. She had to remember that "most simple of mind blocks" had managed to keep the oh-so-wonderful Simeon Montague out of her head.

"Obviously you're simply not destined to read my mind," Clare replied, her happy manner restored with the thought. "Maybe Gavreel did something so you couldn't see what he told me."

In such a crazy world, where the most simple and basic of things needed to be explained to her, Clare had found all her usual skepticism and adult cynicism had been completely erased. In this world, she believed pretty much anything was possible. She didn't consider anything beyond fantastic, and she no longer brushed aside any thought or concept as ridiculous.

In a sense, she had found it incredibly enlightening. She now let her imagination totally run away with possibilities of what could or might happen. Clare grinned as Simeon raised a hand to knock at the door to Alderic's office, and the elder vampire's voice came through the closed door before Simeon could rap his knuckles on the paneling.

"Come on in, boy. I take it Clare is refusing to tell you about your father, huh?"

Clare's grin widened as Simeon turned to her, a wry grin on his own face. She mouthed "I told you so", to Simeon, who merely smiled.

"I guess we're expected then," he said aloud as he opened the door and led them both into Alderic's office. Clare inhaled the much-loved scent of old books, papers and general mustiness that was the small room. The room was packed with tomes, notes and what appeared to be decades' worth of collections.

Smiling to herself, Clare entered the office behind Simeon.

Chapter Seven.

Simeon wondered if he was losing his mind.

Inside his head, he could hear exactly what Rylan would say. "All that worrying has just made you stupid, bro," he would say in that snarky, almost preaching tone of voice that never failed to drive Simeon nuts. Rylan would say he was overreacting, creating a huge fuss over nothing.

Yeah, sure.

Very easy for Rylan to say when he seemingly never had any doubts about himself or even what to do in any given situation. Simeon shook his head and tried to get a grip on himself.

Why the five h.e.l.ls did he feel an almost unbearable urge to lay the woman behind him down, strip those odd-looking garments from her body to reveal the satin-smooth skin he felt certain resided underneath, and explore her body. Slowly. Thoroughly. With his fingers and his tongue and any other parts of his body which felt like getting in on the action.

He had felt his temperature rise the instant he had walked through the door to the Book Nook. Simeon had easily brushed off the fairly unique sensation of his body not sticking to its regulated temperature.

He had reminded himself he'd just walked a fair distance, and the resultant rise in his temperature had been related only to that. The first indication he was fooling himself should have been the fact he felt it necessary to a.s.sure his own mind.

Yet the walk didn't explain the even higher spike in his temperature which he had felt sear through him when he had first caught sight of Clare. He could have sworn he broke out in almost unheard-of pinp.r.i.c.ks of sweat covering the surface along his back. An instant later he couldn't be sure he hadn't simply felt just an itch.

His eyes had remained on Clare, the beautiful, exotic woman he'd had no idea worked for his father and Alderic. He could not tear his gaze from her, even throughout his body's crazy antics. He itched to feel the almost waist-length ma.s.s of dark brown curls pour like silk between his fingers, and he wanted to feel her light brown eyes run over him.

Those curls were scarily reminiscent of his fantasy woman, the dream figure whom he had itched for months now to f.u.c.k, but who always seemed to be just a step or two ahead of him in any given scenario. Simeon refused to entertain the thought Clare and this woman might be one and the same, as he seriously doubted she would appreciate him pouncing on her and stripping her naked, then devouring her in the middle of the shop floor.

It would smack of desperation, as Rylan would point out with a jeer.

Instead, Simeon had spent a good moment or two watching the gorgeous woman and envisioning the clear mental picture of himself standing naked before her, fully aroused. Her eyes would light up with an inner fire as she hungrily sucked his thick c.o.c.k into her mouth. She would eat up his body with those fire-whiskey-colored eyes as she sucked him to a roaring climax.

Simeon knew he was in big, deep trouble as a practically unknown woman utterly stole his breath away, not while doing a teasing escort striptease, not while undulating semi-naked in front of him, but instead by cursing, frowning menacingly and pressing b.u.t.tons in a very unladylike, irritated manner on her PCC.

What the h.e.l.l had got into him?

Another thing that completely baffled him, absolutely beyond his comprehension and personal explanations, was why he hadn't simply interrupted her odd growling and fighting with her PCC, asked his questions about Gavreel and then left straight away.

He had to admit to some curiosity as to why she couldn't understand even the most basic of explanations about her machine. Children not even entered into the schooling system could use their units better than she. Yet other than that and his unusually strong physical reaction to her he was dumbfounded as to what his mind and body were doing.

This woman, Clare, confounded him on so many levels he felt himself sinking deeper and deeper into his odd infatuation with her with every second that pa.s.sed.