Passions Read online

  Gavin lifted one foot as if he would step closer but then pivoted and swerved around the computer chair to walk towards the kitchen. “Then I’ll leave you to write your novels.”

  Chloe was torn. The idea that he wouldn’t disturb her again was tempting. But if he left, she knew the loneliness could return and she couldn’t stand being alone again, not in that way.

  She took a few bounding, sock-footed steps forward to catch up, though making sure that she stayed a little farther than arm’s length away from him. “No, don’t leave.”

  Gavin stopped, and his hands slipped into his coat pocket before he turned around to face her once more. She’d seen that move before with Brent. But Gavin didn’t turn around with a proud and haughty look on his face as if he’d won some game they were playing. Instead, he still looked wounded and defenseless.

  They stood a little closer this time, and Chloe was once more trapped in his gaze. She lifted her hand, enticed once more to extend her fingers and let them touch the skin that looked so soft.

  She saw his eyes dart to her hand and there was a subtle twitch in his posture as if he’d shy away from her touch. After noticing the change, she withdrew her hand before she could make contact and gripped her arm once more.

  “You’re not going to hurt me?” she asked, sounding like a frightened mouse now, as opposed to the feisty minx she had been a moment before.

  Gavin shook his head but held her gaze. “I would never do such a thing…to anyone.”

  Chloe felt his statement to be true, and she could feel her shoulder muscles release with relief. “Then how do you live?”

  His mouth, which had been drawn into a thin line before, looked to be struggling to smile. “How do you think I live?” Perhaps he was enjoying this bantering.

  She felt the answer might have been a stab at sarcasm, but his tone was all wrong, so filled with regret. “You don’t drink blood?”

  Chloe watched the slight tremor that flashed across his body, making the hem of his coat quiver. “I do, but not the blood of humans.”

  It was odd how they talked so casually of blood and humans as if there were other races besides them. Keeping her eyes fixed on him, she moved around to sit down on the sofa, angling herself towards the kitchen. “How do you get in here?” she asked.

  The tension eased between them as she took a more relaxed position on the couch, ready for deep conversation. Gavin even appeared to soften with another dazzling, yet faint, smile. “If I tell you that, how can I be sure you won’t try to kill me while I sleep?”

  Chloe saw his point. “But how can you be killed?”

  His smile deepened. “Again, why should I reveal so much to you?”

  It was disheartening to think that Gavin didn’t trust her. Yet, she found it perfectly logical seeing as they knew practically nothing about each other except for the obvious.

  She nodded slowly and turned her face away to look at the fireplace. “I understand.”

  Immediately, she spotted her foolishness and snapped her head back to look at him. Sure enough, he’d vanished without a trace, except for the slight sway of the backdoor window blinds.

  Chloe’s mouth remained open, ready to speak again before she realized he was gone. Without a second thought, she bolted up and ran out onto the deck.

  The night was colder than the previous evening, and tiny mist-like droplets of rainwater splattered on her cheeks.

  She called out his name into the darkness. Not even the moon above, so blotted out by storm clouds, could give her enough light to search for him.

  Totally mystified by his sudden departure, she turned back inside and locked the door behind her, more out of habit than in an effort to keep him at bay. If he wanted to get in, he could, and there was no stopping him.

  Chloe rubbed the soft sleeve of her pajama shirt on her face to wipe away the moisture before returning to the living room.

  Her nerves still rattled by all the excitement, Chloe took her place back on the sofa as if he were going to return in a few moments to continue their talk. She wondered what he could possibly be doing out there in the dark.

  He said that he didn’t drink the blood of humans. And, from what her aunt told her mother, he was seen eating a squirrel. So, he must feed only on animals to survive. Was that an adequate substitute? He didn’t seem ill or fraught with malnutrition, apart from his pale skin. But neither did she know anything about vampire illness or what their bodies needed to survive.

  Chloe unconsciously rubbed her hand over the side of her neck, glad that she was able to survive her first real confrontation with a vampire without losing her life or a single drop of blood. The night before didn’t count because she was unaware that he was a vampire at all.

  Gavin said he would never hurt her. Even when she was injured the night before, she would have been a prime target for feeding if he chose. But he didn’t, and she was still alive. Her trembling hands were a fine testament to that.

  After taking a few moments to compose herself, listening to the drizzling rain patter against the porch’s tin roof, Chloe knew he wasn’t coming back anytime soon. She stood, finding her legs a little stronger now than they had been before, and climbed the stairs once more to her bedroom.

  She left the light on just in case Gavin wanted to come back inside. Although, he probably didn’t need a light in order to see his way around.

  Slipping underneath the cool sheets, she now realized how feverish she had become. Not only was officially meeting Gavin for the first time terrifying, it was thrilling. Those eyes, that hair, the outfit—everything about him was dashing, dangerous, and utterly attractive. She wondered if it was just the nature of being a vampire that made him so, or if he’d always been that way.

  As she tried to sleep, Chloe struggled to keep a level head about Gavin. Each time she remembered how it felt to be held in his arms, she tried to picture him tearing apart an innocent deer with his bare hands.

  But it was hard to put Gavin in such a light. That wounded look, the pained expression in his eyes when she called him out for being dishonest. There was no way that he could be such a vicious monster.

  Chapter 9

  Energized by a long nap in the afternoon and three cups of coffee, Chloe waited anxiously in the living room. She paced back and forth from the front window to the edge of the kitchen, slowly shuffling her socked feet along the wood grain. She tried to focus on how the ridges of the planks felt beneath her toes as they skimmed across the floor, but nothing could keep her mind off of what she had planned for that night.

  Driven by a determination to learn all she could about Gavin and his vampire nature, she constructed an orderly list of questions. And she would not go to sleep until she had the answers.

  The night before proved to Chloe that she needed to take the reins of them getting to know each other. Judging by the way Gavin ran off when she wasn’t looking, he must have been skittish around her. Or, at the very least, hesitant to form that connection that he had been so eager to make when they first started communicating through notes. He didn’t even mention a word about her novels or the idea of helping her. Granted, there were far more pressing matters in front of them that needed addressing.

  She regretted the things that she had said initially. Perhaps that was why he was so reluctant to stick around. Chloe would do anything to make amends, even put on her big girl panties and stand up to a blood-sucking creature of the night.

  Glancing out the window for the thousandth time, she sighed. Her hand pushed back the curtains so she could get a better look at the sky. The final moments of sunset had come, and the cabin was becoming increasingly dark.

  She hardly even noticed the difference before flipping on the lights. Gavin didn’t need them, but she did.

  Minutes ticked by, feeling like hours as Chloe waited. She could hear crickets outside begin their nightly calls, and she could have sworn an owl was not far off in the woods around the cabin. Still, he hadn’t shown up.


  He may have been avoiding the cabin for her sake. Or perhaps he decided to go search for a meal before coming. Chloe ran her fingers through her hair and tried to calm her nerves with pleasant thoughts. But every thought led back to Gavin in some way or another, and she was worse off than when she started.

  Afraid that she would wear down the wood flooring or the bottoms of her socks, Chloe decided to busy her mind with something else. She climbed up the stairs a bit until she had a good view of the living room.

  The furniture was arranged tastefully, but Chloe wondered if the sofa might look better facing the kitchen rather than the fireplace. Would it open up the room a bit? She never had an eye for interior design, but reorganizing the furniture was a better option than tiring her legs out by walking around the cabin.

  Chloe moved the boxes full of books first; the ones that still had no place in the cabin. She pushed them off to the side towards the writing desk.

  She pulled out the armchair next, freeing up the space in front of the window where the sofa would go. Being a girl of little strength, she couldn’t lift the heavy wooden armchair by herself. Instead, she dragged it across the floor.

  The most obnoxious groaning sound filled the cabin when the blunt legs of the chair skidded against the wooden floorboards. Even Chloe winced at the noise, but there was little she could do to remedy it. The store in town might have had furniture pads—small felt circles to tape under the legs—but it was far too late in the evening for a trip to town, and she might miss Gavin in the process.

  Sliding the chair to the foot of the stairs and well out of the way, she positioned herself against the far arm of the sofa and pushed her shoulder against the polished wood.

  The sofa made the same racket as the chair had, only an octave deeper since it was heavier. The process was slow, and Chloe’s feet slipped several times, causing her to fall and bang her knee on the floor. She knew bruises would form by the end of the night, especially after falling repeatedly on the same point on her knee.

  Chloe managed to move the sofa about half way to where she had originally planned before she paused to catch her breath. In that same moment, she heard a soft creaking sound come from somewhere behind her in the kitchen.

  She turned and was suddenly face to face with Gavin. He was closer than she might have liked; close enough to touch and breathe in his masculine scent that seemed to pour from every part of him. A gasp of surprise slipped out as she met those green eyes that had haunted her dreams the night before.

  But the look on his face was anything but the caring, sensitive expression she’d fantasized about all day. He seemed annoyed, his brows drawn low over his eyes and nostrils flared. If looks could kill, she would have been struck down in an instant.

  Chloe was momentarily stunned by his appearance before glancing behind him to the back door. It remained locked tight, chains and bars all in place. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she remarked, her hands gripping the arm of the sofa and leaning against it for support. “How are you getting in every night?”

  Gavin’s face softened a bit. Evidently, whatever he was angry about couldn’t keep his attention for long. Either that or he realized whatever intimidation tactic he had tried to use had failed. “That’s something I’d rather you not know yet.”

  She couldn’t help but give him a faint smile, loving his British accent more and more with every word he said. It was lyrical compared to the normal southern drawl she was used to.

  “Do you materialize or something?”

  She saw his eyes skate over her briefly before peering at the furniture behind her. “What are you doing?” he asked, a thread of curiosity in his tone.

  Chloe glanced over her shoulder to the chair in the far front corner of the room and was thankful that when she looked back, Gavin was still standing there, looming over her. “I was waiting up for you and got bored. So I started rearranging the furniture.”

  “Waiting for me?” Gavin asked, his chin lowering a bit with an expression that was too guarded for Chloe to read. Was it surprise? Appreciation?

  She nodded. “Yeah. I…What are you doing?”

  “Where did you want the sofa?” he asked as he moved around her while she was still in mid-sentence. Chloe caught a whiff of him as he passed by, then deeply inhaled his masculine scent.

  It took her a moment to come down from the high his scent had given her. “Below the window,” she replied.

  With a slackened jaw, Chloe watched Gavin take the sofa in his arms—one gripping the top of the back and the other anchored beneath the seat—and hoisted it up into the air as if it were a giant feather pillow. He let it down just where she said without as much as a grunt or drop of sweat.

  Gavin straightened up and turned to her as if he were awaiting instructions. Chloe had to snap herself out of the daze. Part of her was in disbelief that this was truly happening. A vampire was helping her move furniture.

  Pressing her palm to her forehead, she assessed the room again.

  The sofa now blocked the front door by at least six inches. She hadn’t accounted for that.

  “I’m sorry, but can you move it over here instead?” she asked, motioning towards the space between the kitchen and living room. She had turned the sofa ninety degrees one way, and now she’d try the other.

  Gavin didn’t complain at all as he lifted the sofa up again and toted it across the living room, being mindful not to hit the fireplace mantel or stair railing in the process.

  Chloe could immediately tell that she’d be in the way and scurried towards the writing desk over on the opposite wall. Leaning against the cool wood paneling, she watched him start to angle the couch into position.

  But it soon became clear that the sofa would not fit there either.

  “The sofa will be blocking the way to the kitchen,” Gavin simply commented.

  “You’re completely right,” Chloe acknowledged with a slight blush to her cheeks. She’d been silly to think that there was any other way to arrange the furniture at all. Even her aunt had placed the sofa the exact same way years, ago and it had worked fine then.

  “Should I put it back where it was before?” he asked, looking at her from the corner of his eye.

  Chloe gave him another weak, but approving smile and nodded.

  He obeyed and set down the sofa exactly where it had been before. Without being asked, he put the armchair back as well.

  “Thank you,” Chloe said, folding her arms over her chest. The notebook filled with questions was sitting on the coffee table and far out of reach. If Gavin looked down, he would see it for sure.

  Once more, she found herself lost in his presence, unsure of herself and what to do. What could one say to start such a conversation with a vampire? Now she wished she had bought the eBook version of Interview with a Vampire. Perhaps the key was somewhere in there.

  When she saw Gavin begin to look over his shoulder to the coffee table, Chloe went rigid.

  “While you’re up here,” she said, hoping to get his attention, “do you want to join me for dinner?”

  Gavin turned to her, ignoring the notebook. His face wrinkled with confusion before he replied, “I suppose. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll watch you eat instead.”

  Chloe’s face turned ghost-white, and a cold flush surged down the skin of her back. She hadn’t meant the invitation in that way, but she was thankful that he took it the way it was intended.

  In all reality, she never intended to invite Gavin to share a meal with her. It was a spur of the moment question to get him to stay; nothing more. But her mind went to work to figure out what exactly to prepare.

  She’d already eaten dinner, but a snack wouldn’t hurt. Gavin hadn’t moved or taken his eyes off her for a second while she stood by her writing desk, looking like a silly girl who didn’t know what she was doing. It was the truth, but Chloe didn’t want him to know that.

  Awkwardly, she let out a tight breath and headed to the kitchen. She turned her back to him
and rummaged through the fridge for the ingredients she needed for the thing she didn’t know she was cooking yet.

  Her eyes fell on a head of lettuce, a ripe tomato, and a bag of sharp cheddar cheese. She grabbed them all, along with a mostly-full bottle of ranch dressing and moved towards the counter, dumping it all out a little too loudly.

  Chloe glanced towards the living room, and Gavin was still there, wandering around aimlessly, his eyes calmly roaming on everything but her. She pulled down a cutting board, knife, and bowl, wondering if he had any idea of the effect he had on her.

  Her fingers were trembling violently as she began to tear up bits of the lettuce to make her salad. His voice caught her completely off guard.

  “Did you write anything today?” he asked. She half expected him to be right behind her, considering how silently he moved. But upon searching, Chloe found him standing beside the desk, staring down at the sleeping computer.

  “No,” she answered. “I slept for most of the day.”

  “Are you ill?” he asked.

  She could sense the sliver of concern in his voice, and it made her want to smile. With her eyes still focused on the lettuce, she couldn’t tell if his brows were furrowed with worry, but she fantasized that they were. It would fit with how he had cared for her so far. This proved that nothing had changed. Revealing that he was a vampire did not change that.

  “No, I’m fine. I was just making sure I could stay awake all night for this.”

  Chloe bemoaned her candidness. Now she sounded more like a silly fangirl than someone who might have been casually curious. Upon thinking, she probably fit the profile of a vampire fangirl perfectly with how obsessed she had become over this man, so shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

  She pushed aside the head of lettuce and brought the tomato to the cutting board. She sawed at the plump flesh of the tomato, a bit of pinkish liquid seeping out as she sliced.