Horrified, Grace watched as Julian slammed into the hood of an old Chevy. He slid up it, into the windshield, and was then flung forward onto the street where he rolled for several yards before finally coming to a stop.
He lay on his side, unmoving.
Total chaos broke out everywhere as people screamed and shouted, and crowded around the accident.
Terrified, Grace trembled all over as she pushed her way through the crowd, trying to reach Julian. "Please be okay, please be okay," she whispered, over and over, praying both of them had survived being hit.
As she finally broke through the people around him, she realized he hadn't let go of the child. The boy was still carefully cradled in his arms.
Unable to believe the sight, Grace paused, her heart hammering.
Were they alive?
"Never saw nothing like that in my life," a man said beside her.
His sentiment was echoed everywhere.
Slowly, fearfully, Grace approached Julian as he started to move.
"Are you all right?" she heard him ask the child.
The small toddler answered with a screaming wail.
Oblivious to the piercing sound, Julian rose carefully with the boy in his arms.
Relieved they were alive, Grace couldn't believe her eyes. How in the world could he move?
How had he managed to keep his hold on the boy through all that?
He staggered back a step, then quickly caught his balance, all the while maintaining his grip on the child.
Grace steadied him with a hand against his spine. "You shouldn't stand," she told Julian as she saw the blood that coated his left arm.
Julian didn't seem to hear her.
His eyes were dark and strange looking. "Sh, little one," he said, holding the boy with one arm while he cupped the child's face with the other.
Moving only his upper body, he gently rocked the boy in the soothing, confident pattern only a parent would use. His gaze haunted, Julian laid his cheek against the top of the boy's head. "Sh, I've got you," he murmured. "You're safe now."
His actions startled her. It was apparent this was a man who had soothed children before.
But when would a Greek soldier have been around children... ?
Unless he'd been a father.
Grace's mind whirled at the possibility as Julian carefully handed the sobbing boy to his hysterical mother who wailed even louder than the toddler.
Dear Lord, was it possible that Julian could be a father? If so, where were his children?
What had happened to them?
"Steven," his mother wept as she held the boy against her chest. "How many times have I told you to stay by my side?"
"Are you okay?" the father and the driver asked Julian.
Grimacing, Julian ran his hand over his left bicep as if testing the arm. "I'm fine," he said, but Grace noted the way he still favored his right leg where the car had hit him.
"You need a doctor," she said as Selena joined them.
"I'm fine. Really." Julian gave her a halfhearted smile, then lowered his voice so that only she could hear it. "But I have to say, chariots hurt a lot less than cars when they slam into you."
Grace was aghast at his misplaced humor. "How can you make a joke? I thought you were dead."
He shrugged.
As the man continued to thank him profusely for saving his son, Grace glanced at the blood on Julian's arm just above his elbow. Blood that evaporated from his skin like some weird science fiction movie effect.
Suddenly, Julian put his full weight back on his injured leg, and the pain crimping his brow vanished.
She exchanged a wide-eyed stare with Selena, who had also seen it. What the hell was that!
Was Julian human or not?
"I can't thank you enough," the father said again. "I thought he was dead."
"I'm just glad I saw him," Julian whispered. He reached a hand out toward the boy's head.
His fingers were about to brush the light brown curls when he paused. Grace watched emotions war on Julian's face before he recovered his stoicism and dropped his hand back to his side.
Without a word, he headed to the curb.
"Julian?" she asked, rushing to catch up to him. "Are you really okay?"
"Don't worry about me, Grace. I don't break and I seldom bleed." This time, there was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice. "It's a gift of the curse. The Fates forbid I should actually die and escape my punishment."
She flinched at the anguish she saw in his eyes.
But his survival wasn't the only question she had. She wanted to ask him about the child, about the way he had looked at the boy as if reliving some horrible nightmare. But the words lodged themselves in her throat.
"Man, he deserves a hero cookie," Selena said as she joined them. "Upstairs to the Praline Factory!"
"Selena, I don't think-"
"What's a praline?" Julian asked.
"It's Cajun ambrosia," Selena explained, "something that should be right up your alley."
Against Grace's best arguments, Selena led them inside, to the escalator.
Selena took the first stair, then turned back to look at Julian, who stood between them. "How did you do that thing where you flipped over the car? It was awesome!"
Julian shrugged.
"Oh, man, don't be modest. You looked like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. Gracie, did you see that move he did?"
"I saw it," she said softly, noting just how uncomfortable Selena's praise was making Julian.
She also noted the way the women around them gawked.
Julian was right. It wasn't normal. But then, how often did a man like him appear in the flesh? A man who oozed such raw sexual attraction?
The man was a walking pheromone.
And now a hero.
But most of all, he was a great mystery to her. There was a lot about him she was dying to know. And one way or another over the next month, she was going to learn it.
When they reached the Praline Factory on the top floor, Grace bought two fudge-pecan pralines and a Coke.
Without thinking twice, she held a praline up for Julian.
Instead of taking it from her hand, he leaned forward and took a bite while she held it.
He savored the sugary confection in a way that drove heat through her body, while those searing blue eyes stared at her as if he were wishing she were what he feasted on.
"You were right," he said in that low tone that sent shivers over her. "It is delicious."
"Wow," the female clerk said from across the counter. "That's some accent you got there. You must not be from around these parts."
"No," Julian said. "I'm not."
"So where you from?"
"Macedonia."
"Is that out in California?" the girl asked. "You look like one of those surfer types who hang out on the beach."
He frowned. "California?"
"He's from Greece," Selena supplied for the girl.
"Ah!" the girl said.
Julian arched a censoring brow at her. "Macedonia isn't-"
"Buddy," Selena said around her mouthful of praline, "around here you'd be lucky to find anyone who would know the difference."
Before Grace could respond to Selena's harsh words, Julian placed his hands on her waist and brought her right up against his steely chest.
He leaned down and caught her bottom lip between his teeth, then gently stroked her lip with his tongue.
Her head swam from the tender embrace.
He deepened his kiss an instant before releasing her and stepping back.
"You had sugar on your bottom lip," he explained with a devilish smile that displayed his dimples to perfection.
Grace blinked, amazed at how hot and cold his touch made her. "You could have just said something."
"True, but my way was far more enjoyable."
She couldn't argue that.
Quickly, she stepped away from him and tried to ignore Selena's knowing smile.
"Why are you so afraid of me?" Julian asked unexpectedly as he fell in by her side.
"I'm not afraid of you."
"No? Then what scares you so? Every time I come near you, you cringe."
"I'm not cringing," Grace insisted. Damn, was there an echo?
He reached out to put his arm around her. Grace quickly sidestepped him.
"You're cringing," he said pointedly as they got back on the escalator.
Even though she was on the step below, he braced his arms on each side of her, then leaned his head close to her own. His presence surrounded her, enveloped her, and made her strangely giddy and warm.
She stared at the strength of his tense, tanned hands on the belt behind hers. The way the veins stood out to emphasize the power and beauty of them. Like the rest of him, his hands and arms were gorgeous.
"You've never had an orgasm, have you?" he whispered in her ear.
Grace choked on her praline. "This is not the place to talk about it."
"That's it, isn't it?" he asked. "That's why-"
"That's not it," she interrupted him. "As a matter of fact, I have."
Okay, it was a lie, but he didn't have to know that.
"With a man?"
"Julian!" she snapped. "What is it with you and Selena that you think you can discuss my personal life out in public?"
He dipped his head lower, down to her neck so close that she could feel his breath falling against her skin, smell the warm, clean scent of him. "You know, Grace. I can give you pleasure the likes of which you can't imagine."
A shiver went over her. She could easily believe that.
It would be so easy to let him prove those words.
But she couldn't. It would be wrong, and no matter what he said, it would bother her. And deep down, she suspected it bothered him, as well.
She leaned back ever so slightly and met his gaze. "Has it ever occurred to you that I don't want it?"
He looked shocked by her words. "How can that be?"
"I told you. The next time I get intimate with a man, I want more than just his necessary parts involved. I want his heart."
Julian stared hungrily at her lips. "I can assure you, you wouldn't miss it."
"Yes I would."
Flinching from her as if she'd slapped him, he straightened.
Grace knew she'd struck another nerve. Wanting to discover more about him, she turned to look up at him. "Why is it so important to you that I give in? Does something happen to you if I don't comply?"
He laughed bitterly. "As if anything could be worse."
"Then why can't you just enjoy your time here with me without any..."-she lowered her voice-"sex?"
His eyes flared. "Enjoy what? Enjoy getting to know people whose faces will haunt me for eternity? Do you think I enjoy looking around here knowing that in a few days I'll be pulled back into a blank, empty hole where I can hear, but I can't see, can't taste, feel, or smell, where my stomach churns constantly from hunger and my throat burns with an unquenchable thirst? You are the only thing I'm permitted to enjoy. And you would deny me that."
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes at his words. She didn't want to hurt him. Truly, she didn't.
But it had been a very similar ploy for sympathy that Paul had used to get her into bed, and that event had torn her heart out.
After the death of her parents, Paul had claimed to care about her. He had been there to comfort her and hold her. And then when she had finally trusted him with her body, he had hurt her so badly, so cruelly, that even now it cut her all the way to her soul.
"I am so sorry, Julian. Really, I am. But I can't do this." She left the escalator and headed back through the mall.
"Why?" Julian asked as he and Selena caught up to her.
How could she explain it to him? Paul had hurt her so badly that night. He had had no regard for her feelings. She had begged him to stop but he had persisted.
"Look, it's supposed to hurt the first time." Paul had said. "Jeez, just stop crying. I'll be finished in a minute and then you can leave."
By the time he was finished, she was so humiliated and hurt that she had cried for days.
"Grace?" Julian's voice broke through her whirling thoughts. "What is it?"
It took all her strength to hold her tears back. But she wouldn't cry. Not out in public. Not like this. She would not be pitied.
"It's nothing," she said.
Needing a breath of fresh air, even if it was hotter and thicker than steam, she headed out the side door of the Brewery toward the Moonwalk.
Julian and Selena followed.
"Grace, what made you cry?" Julian asked.
"It's Paul," she heard Selena whisper to Julian.
Grace glared at Selena as she forced herself to calm down. Drawing a ragged breath, she turned back to Julian. "I wish I could just fling myself into bed with you, but I can't. I don't want to be used that way, and I don't want to use you! Can't you understand that?"
His jaw tense, he looked away.
Grace followed his gaze and saw a group of six rough-looking bikers headed in their direction. Their leather outfits had to be stifling in the heat, but they didn't seem to notice as they ribbed each other and laughed.
It was then Grace saw the woman with them. A woman whose slow, seductive walk was the female equivalent to Julian's graceful, loose-limbed saunter. The woman also possessed the kind of rare beauty that would best any actress or model.
Tall and blond, the woman wore a skimpy leather halter and tight short-shorts that hugged a figure Grace would kill to possess.
And the woman was slowing down, falling behind the men as she slid her black sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to stare straight at Julian.
Inwardly, Grace cringed.
Oh, good Lord, this could get ugly fast. None of the scruffy, tough-as-nails bikers looked like the type who would tolerate their girlfriend looking at another guy. And the last thing she wanted was a fight on the Moonwalk.
Grace grabbed Julian's hand to pull him in the other direction.
He refused to move.
"C'mon, Julian," she said urgently. "We need to get back inside."
Still, he didn't budge.
He glared at the bikers as if he wanted to kill them. Then, before she could blink, he shrugged off her hold, and rushed forward. He grabbed one of the men by his shirt.
Dumbfounded, Grace watched as Julian punched the man in the jaw.