It all felt strange to him, like he had just discovered a chapter in a book he had read several times. Or an exert that the author had left out. He felt like he had missed out on something until this morning, and the sensation of<i>new </i>rocked him to the core. For a man who had built his life, block by block, to be guarded, he felt oddly vulnerable now in Lane Barnes' apartment with her ancestor's grimoire sitting temptingly behind him.<br/><br/>His gaze was fastened to her face studiously, as if he were trying to memorize every detail. Up close, he could see the differences between Adella and her; this was not a case of a doppelganger. Genetics had simply done their job and passed through the canals of time to paint a similar picture. But it was not even a vague portrayal of a long gone woman that he saw, but the young woman herself. Oddly calm, James took in her wide eyes, flickering breaths and the fluttering pulse in her throat. She was both excited and fearful.<br/><br/>“We should…” he trailed off with a grin and a twitched up eyebrow before he dipped his head again to sear her mouth with another kiss. This one was longer, deeper. His mouth moved against hers in a way meant to tease her lips to part. His fingers continued to stroke the soft skin of her cheek with their rough pads, but trailed down to graze her throat before they crept back underneath the pale fall of her hair. His tempo changed at that point, his touch becoming a forceful thing as he tipped her head back. His teeth plucked at her lower lip before he drew back, his eyes bright as he met her own. “Maybe you should what, Ms. Barnes?” He teased her, his voice lower than it had been before, edged with the beginnings of desire.<br/><br/>“Anastasia was from a different time period than Adella, and I have not seen her for a very,<i>very</i>long time. I’m invisible to her.. and quite frankly, I highly doubt that I’m any kind of priority on her mind, or have been for quite some time. Demons like her are fickle; they obsess over something for a short while, play with it like a cat does a mouse, take a bite out of it because they can and not necessarily because they want to, then discard the remains in a few broken pieces for someone else to find to put back the pieces. If it’s anyone from my past that’s a jealous bitch, it’s<i>Aislinn.</i>” He liked women with the A letter in their name, apparently. But he mentioned nothing else about the new name he had dropped.<br/><br/>He still had a tight hold on the back of her head when his other arm slid around her waist as she placed her own on his hips. Where she pulled him in close, he merely pressed her flush against the length of his body. Underneath the slightly crumpled exterior, he was hard muscle and sinew. Not a bodybuilder by any stretch of the imagination, but fit enough that you could tell.<br/><br/>“I think I’m the one who needs to worry more about old boyfriends showing up in a jealous rage. Or, worse, what will<i>Steve</i>think about this?” His words were teasing, but his eyes were serious as he caught the shadow of the past reflected in her eyes. He wondered, briefly, if whoever had been in her life before had abused her. James might have had his hang ups; he might have even been the most frustrating presence in the lives of the women he had been with – but he had never raised a hand against a woman. There had been times he<i>wanted</i>to, especially when it came to a particular fae woman mentioned earlier came into play. That one had raised his ire to levels he had never experienced before.<br/><br/>It was her last plea that caught him off guard and had him loosening his hold on her. His hand slid from her hair to grasp her chin, holding her gaze steady with his. “If you want me to mean<i>this</i>, you are going to have to tell me what<i>this </i>is, Ms. Barnes. Help you figure out the mysteries of the past? I’m already intrigued for my own purposes to do that. Like any scientist, the unknown fascinates us; I want to discover everything there is about you, as a person and from a preternatural perspective. I mean<i>that.</i>If you mean my intention to allow you to<i>get me out of my pants</i>—“ He grinned cheekily as he repeated her own words back to her, his eyes dancing darkly. “Ms. Barnes, I look forward to it. And I don’t think you’re going to oppose my decision to back you into the wall behind us and kiss you properly. In fact, I don’t think you’re going to oppose if I decide to do more than just kiss you. You know why? Because I don’t think you’ve ever been with a<i>man</i>before, only petty man-children who don’t know how to react around a woman of your caliber.”<br/><br/>He stopped talking at that point. His eyes were brighter than they had been, the flecks of gold in their murky green interior standing out even as his pupils dilated with growing desire and the rumble in his voice became insistent. In one fluid motion, he turned them both and used his knees to nudge her thighs apart as he did just as he said he would – backed her up the pair of feet it took for her to hit a wall by powering them both forward. His hand swept away from her chin and snatched both her wrists and locked them together as he flung her arms up above her head, pinning her in place. His free arm curled around her waist until her hips were snug against own and she could feel just how much he<i>meant</i>it. If she wanted to say anything more at that point, he cut the words off with the drag of his mouth, firm against the softness of her own.