Chapter 7

She walked out to the front porch with him, allowing the front door to swing closed behind them, and thus giving them the illusion of privacy, since they were outside and so not really in a private place at all.

James stood with his back to her for a moment, and she suddenly had a terrifying thought.

"You're going to sack me; aren't you?"

He swung around to look down at her in shock. "What? No ... No of course not!"

Her shoulders sagged with relief as the sickly feeling in her gut, slowly dispersed.

He stepped closer to her. "You are far too good at your job to fire you over something so..."

"Trivial?"

He smiled suddenly and his eyes crinkled at the corners as they locked on to hers once more.

"I don't think that I would ever class anything about you as trivial."

He hadn't moved. She was so fixed on him that she would have seen him move, but suddenly he was so close that he crowded her, he was so close that he blocked out everything else. And all she could see was his warm brown eyes, flecked with gold, and green, and yellow, all swirling and blending together to make, such a colour!

"They aren't brown at all," she whispered softly.

"What?" he asked lazily as he moved closer still.

"Your eyes, I thought that they were brown but they aren't, they are..."

She cut off as his lips found hers in a soft warm kiss.

"I knew that there was something about you, the moment you walked into my offices," he murmured huskily. "I kept trying to tell myself that it was just the phase of the moon; that I was more ... charged than normal, but I just knew that you were different."

The colours in his eyes seemed to swirl around once more making them seem yellow one moment and black the next.

His lips found hers again but this time they were hard and demanding, and Iris responded in kind as her arms wrapped themselves around his neck.

His arms were like steel bands around her waist as he pulled her against him, moulding her body into his.

She was losing herself to this man, losing all will to resist him, wanting him on such a basic level, that it would have terrified her, had she been more aware.

"Iris!" her father's call from somewhere inside the house, caused her to pull away from the man.

"I have to go," she gasped.

He loosed his hold on her a little but not entirely as his lips left hers and he looked down into her flushed face, and half closed, smouldering eyes.

She thought that he would release her, but he continued to hold her against him though, as he looked into her eyes searchingly.

"Yes, you should go now, but this is not over between the two of us, we fit together too well, you and I. We have to look into this more deeply; this has to be explored between the two of us."

"But not now, not while the moon is so potent to us, we cannot be sure of what is real, and what is just its influence on us."

He rubbed against her suddenly, letting her know what her body was doing to him. "I know what is real; I know that what I am feeling is real."

It seemed that by doing that he was working himself up again as his brown eyes speckled with yellow and gold, he pulled her closer, and would have kissed her again, and Iris could feel herself sinking, her will to resist, evaporating.

"We can't take this with us tonight," she said urgently, as she felt the emotions flooding through her. "We would not be able to control what would happen. You must not come here tonight!"

He smiled suddenly. "I would never insult your father by rejecting his hospitality." He sounded positively horrified at the idea, although his eyes sparkled with mischief, his brown eyes, she thought hazily.

He let her go suddenly and she realised that the man was back in control, that maybe the panic in her voice had brought him back.

She had to wonder then who had been in control when he had kissed her like that.

He turned away, but then turned back.

"I shall change form on my host's lands tonight, and I shall find you and your pack once the moon is at its height. Tell your father would you please, Iris; that I shall be a little later tonight, than I originally thought."

He turned and walked away without saying anything else, and it seemed to her, in her rather fragile state, it seemed like he could not even look at her anymore.

Iris stood watching as he walked to end of the driveway, and then out through the gates and out of sight.

But even though he was out of sight now, Iris continued to stand there, as though she was waiting for him to return.

"Iris!"

She gave a little sigh as she wrapped her arms around herself, and imagined for a moment that it was his arms again.

"IRIS!"

She turned and walked slowly back into the house to find her father standing just inside the hallway.