Her chopping slowed, paused. “Well …” she said, “you didn’t say why exactly.”

“I wouldna have would I?” he said with amusement. “But there’s little left to hide so … The touch of the sun turns me tae stone involuntarily.”

Her mouth dropped open in a silent O of surprise.

“In fact,” he went on, “there’s no’ a Nightwalker in the bunch who can stand the touch of the sun wi’out it affecting them negatively. So in a way, that makes you an honorary Nightwalker, now doesn’t it?”

She would have never in her life imagined that there could be an entire species of people in the world who were just like her! “Like what?” she wanted to know, unable to hide her eagerness. “What happens to them?”

“The Djynn turn tae smoke. The Bodywalkers are paralyzed. Wraiths, I’m told, are turned solid and vulnerable. Easier tae kill them. And trust me, you want tae be able tae kill a Wraith. Night Angels are rendered powerless and turn from having a beautiful skin of black to the palest ghostliest white you’ve ever seen on a living being. Leaches the color straight out of them, making them look like albinos.”

“Oh. Wow.” She smiled as he picked up his third tangerine. “That’s … I just never thought I’d be hearing about so many people who are like me.”

“So, Kat lass, no’ feeling so weird anymore now are you?” he said a bit smugly. She had to laugh and her smile grew.

“I admit it. I’m not.” Just then she elbowed the tomato on the counter beside her accidentally, sending it rolling toward the edge. He shot forward and grabbed it to keep it from falling, grunting softly in pain from the swift movement. He set the tomato back down beside her and gingerly reseated himself.

“You shouldn’t be up. You ought to be in bed.”

“Men like me doona do well wi’ staying in bed.” Then he sent her a roguish grin and slid rapacious eyes over her. “Actually, that’s no’ exactly true.”

There was no mistaking his meaning, nor was there any mistaking his thoughts. He looked as though he were contemplating undressing her. Very slowly. His hands slowed in their peeling of the tangerine, gentling and turning the lush fruit between his fingers, cradling it in his hand as he might cradle the weight of her breast.

It was hard to imagine that a hand so large and so rough would be capable of such grace and sensuous gentility. Kat felt herself go instantly and thoroughly wet, the moisture rushing from her body feeling so abrupt that she forgot how to breathe, never mind wielding a knife with any dexterity. And then, as if he could tell, his head lifted abruptly and his eyes zeroed in on her in a searingly fierce gaze. He took in a slow breath through his nose, and then on his exhale he released a low, rumbling cross between a growl and a purr.

“Ah, Kat lass,” he said, swallowing audibly as his hand began to squeeze the fragile fruit he held. “ ’Tis no’ fair for you tae no’ let me look at you as a sexual being when you are clearly verra much one. You canna deny tae me you are thinking of what it would be like tae bed me.”

“I—”

“And before you lie tae me, Kat lass, remember I’ve the senses of a beast, a bear tae be exacting, and I can smell you.” The way he said smell with that kind of intensity made her heartbeat jump frantically ahead of itself. Her mouth went dry and she tried to swallow, tried to get any part of herself to function properly. Because she was thinking about going to bed with him. If she were going to be honest, she had been thinking about it ever since he’d made his first rough pass at her. Even while in a feverish and brutish state there had been, and still was, something viscerally arousing about the man. He just oozed male sexuality. From the rough shadow of his whiskers to the bulging curve of his biceps to the heavy prominence of his cock, whether in clothing or not, he was as virile as they came. And that was if he had just stood there and done nothing. But he never did nothing. Not with those laughing eyes and those cocksure grins of his. Any normal red-blooded woman would have noticed.

For the first time she had to be abnormal. There were so many oddball things about her, why couldn’t it be that he didn’t excite her? Didn’t make her chest go so tight that she could barely breathe, her whole body suddenly feeling light enough to fly and hot enough to burst into flame. All with a look and a smile.

And why wasn’t she immune to him anyway? She’d been largely immune to all other males in the world. Not that she’d never taken lovers, because she had. And she’d even enjoyed herself once or twice. Maybe. But there was a difference between the enjoyment she had felt and … and this. This feeling, this awareness … this response that at times rivaled what she had felt when in full orgasm at the hands of other men. Had she ever truly known the proper point of pleasure? If so, she ought not feel like she’d somehow been missing out all this time.

“S-so what?” she answered shakily. “Just because … I mean, I can’t always help … I already told you you’re not exactly hard to look at, you know! And you’re always talking about it as if you live, eat, and breathe sex or something.”

“Aye.” Again, that unrepentant grin. “And I think about it more and more the longer I’m in your company.” There was a drop in his tone. Not just to make him sound more lusty, although that was there, but to make him sound more sober. As though he found the games he played with her to be very serious.

She shook that thought off. He was clearly the sort of man who knew his way around women. He probably knew how to make each one think she meant something, that she was somehow special in some way.

She glanced back at his hand, realizing that juice from the tangerine was wending down his fingers and along the back of his hand. He had unthinkingly squeezed the fragile fruit just a little too hard. For some reason the knowledge made her swallow a little bit harder.

For a brief, searing moment she wondered what it would be like if she could sip the sweet nectar straight off his fingers.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said in a rasp between a too-tight pair of vocal cords.

Ahnvil’s eyes narrowed on her and she could see him thinking. God only knew what he was thinking. She never knew what she was going to get next with him. His golden eyes shifted from her to the fruit and back again. Then, abruptly, he put it to his mouth and took a huge, rending bite of it. Juice exploded everywhere, more of it rushing down his long fingers, runnels of it washing down from the corners of his mouth, droplets waiting to drip quivering at the end of his chin.