Tan skin, dark hair, dark beard, his hair in a very well-executed knot at the top of his head. His eyes were green, his lashes as thick and dark as his beard, his mouth a long line that turned up at one corner. He wore jeans, boots, and nothing else. The terrain of his body was all smooth skin and hard, curving muscle, his left arm marked by a complicated monochrome tattoo.
The room went absolutely silent.
“Well,” Margot said quietly. “He is . . . rather attractive.”
“Attractive,” Lindsey said, tilting her head as she stared at his biceps. “And well-defined.”
“A dictionary couldn’t do it better,” Mallory said, eyes glassy as she stared at the man.
I glanced at Lindsey. “I can’t believe you hired a dancer. Ethan is going to kill you. Or me. Or both of us.”
“Oh, honey,” Lindsey said. “He isn’t here to dance.”
Regardless, with the grace of a dancer, the man spun the chair around backward, took a seat, and pulled a thin, worn paperback from his back pocket. He looked up at me, smiled. “Your party?”
I nodded, suddenly nervous.
“Cool. Lord Byron work for you?”
I actually felt my face warm. “Sure?”
Beside me, Lindsey snickered, the sound full of satisfaction.
He nodded, thumbed through some pages. “Ladies,” he said, meeting our gazes. And then, looking down at the page, he began to recite.
“She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”
Every single woman in the room sighed.
• • •
I wasn’t sure whether he was a grad student, poet, actor, stripper, or brilliant combination of all those things. But the man knew Lord Byron, and he knew words. He knew the rise and fall of sentences, the way to pause, the moment to look up, catch our gazes, smile. He knew emphasis and speed, pacing and clarity. He was a prince of poetry, and he had us mesmerized.
Champagne was uncorked and dunked into gleaming silver chalices of ice, then poured into tall, thin glasses while we listened, legs crossed and perched forward in our chairs.
“Is it better if we’re objectifying his body and his brain?” Margot asked, lifting the thin straw in her gin and tonic for a sip.
“I don’t much care,” Mallory said. “He gives good word.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
CHAPTER THREE
FIVE SECONDS OF (SUPERNATURAL) SUMMER
We left Temple Bar about two hours before dawn, dropped Mallory off in Wicker Park, then headed back to the House.
We separated on the first floor. The foyer was quiet and empty, the desk closed down for the evening, the supplicants home again, their issues addressed, or to be back in line to see Ethan another night. There was only so much one vampire could do.