Читать книгу Kissed by a Vampire - Caridad Pineiro - Страница 11

The shop—an eclectic hole-in-the-wall offering tapas, wine, coffee and pastries—was a short walk away from Lincoln Drive on the fringe of Española Way.

They had been silent as they strolled toward the historic district. His hand rode at the small of her back. The pressure of it was light, although she felt it as strongly as if she were chained to him.

At the shop he held the door for her and she entered. With a quick greeting to the waiter, Alex ushered her toward a table for two at the back, close to a brick wall and beside the plate-glass windows that made up the exterior wall of the establishment. He offered her the seat where her back would be exposed, not that it mattered to her. With her powers she could sense danger coming.

It clearly made a difference to him, she thought, watching as he eased into the chair opposite her with the wall at his back.

“You come here often?” Before he could answer, a waiter approached and offered them menus, then left.

“I meet my clients here on occasion,” he said, and was about to pick up the menu but paused and narrowed his gaze. “If I’m willing to accept that you’re a vam—”

“I am even though I sense you still do not truly believe,” Stacia replied, able to read the doubts swirling in his mind. Although she didn’t know why, she wanted to shock him. Shake away the seeming calm he was exhibiting outwardly. “I eat food on occasion. People a lot more frequently.”

His color paled a bit beneath the olive tones of his skin, but other than that, there was nothing to give away his reaction. “Do you mind if I choose, then? The food, that is.”

Stacia chuckled, admiring his bravado. In other circumstances, she would understand that real bravery didn’t rest beneath the surface, but in his case she knew differently. He was a man who didn’t run from danger, which could explain his reaction to her.

“Please do while I scope out a possible dessert,” she said, coquettishly glancing around the room, wishing to provoke his calm about her vampire state.

Alex had no doubt she was seriously trying to discomfit him, but he refused to buy into her game. He had already had a taste of the unusual and inexplicable power of which she seemed capable, so her actions now were more like those of a cat toying with a mouse.

He didn’t much care for her games.

Still, he remained captivated while recognizing that such attraction might not necessarily be good for him. Even if he refused to believe that she was a vampire, he couldn’t deny that she seemed to possess powers he could not immediately explain.

After the waiter returned to the table, Alex placed an order for some cheeses, an assortment of tapas and a bottle of red wine. The wine arrived well before the food, and after the waiter poured it, Stacia picked up her glass and offered a toast.

“To friends in common,” she said, before taking a sip.

Alex swigged down a healthy amount and nodded. “I’m assuming you mean Diana and Ryder.”

“I do, but Diana was more than a friend to you, wasn’t she?”

Alex met her gaze full-on and answered truthfully because he sensed that she would be able discern a lie. “We were lovers back in college. And you?”

“Not lovers yet, but I keep trying,” she said with a wicked grin that created havoc with his innards and had him chuckling at her cojones. He’d always had a thing for women with brass.

“So why are you here in Miami, then? Manhattan seems like a better location to accomplish that objective.”

She made a moue with her mouth, swirled the wine around and averted her gaze by developing an intense interest in the fingers of ruby-red wine along the edges of the glass. “Diana and Ryder aren’t the kind for threesomes. Besides, things got … tedious in New York.”

Tedious? he wondered. The last word he would use to describe anything involving Diana Reyes, his FBI agent ex-lover, was tedious. It made him wonder what had really driven Stacia from Manhattan. Something radical, if he accepted that she was a vampire of intense power. Not that he did.

He was about to press her on the comment, but the waiter returned with their order and placed the various tapas in the center of the table. Alex invited Stacia to sample the dishes, but she demurred.

“You first, please. It’s really not what satisfies an elder like me,” she admitted, even while taking another sip of the wine, which had him wondering if vampires could get drunk. Of course, that had him wondering why he was even considering such a thing as the existence of vampires.

“Was it you that night? In New York?” he asked, deciding to press for anything more concrete to substantiate her claims and satisfy his own desire to find out what had really happened that night.

His hand was resting on the tabletop, and she covered it with hers and softly said, “What do you think?”

Before he could answer, another rush of unnatural power swept over him, filling his body with need and his brain with images—vivid, almost-real memories of that night.

Her memories.

He sucked in a breath, battling the visions. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck from the effort until she whispered softly and her words echoed in his head.

Let me in, Alex. Don’t fight it. Let me in.

He relented. The rush of her thoughts pummeled his mind, invading it, but her emotions rushed in, as well.

Her rage as she entered the room and viewed the carnage. The two dead CDA members on the ground. He and Diana both near death from their wounds.

She was angry because, as an immortal, she understood the value of life, maybe more so than those with a finite existence.

As she knelt before him, his tears yanked pity from her. Pity at his pain as he contemplated that his ex-lover might be dying, coupled with his own regret at what might have been. At the life he would not have.

But then another sentiment overwhelmed those human emotions—the hunger to feed as she leaned close and tasted him.

Suddenly, that emotion evaporated, chased away by unexpected reactions: sorrow and need.

He sensed her despair mingled with a long-denied desire for love.

Her sharp gasp at his discovery broke the mental connection she had established.

As their gazes met, he realized that she had allowed him to see more than she had wanted to reveal. That she had exposed a piece of herself she had probably kept sheltered from others for quite a long time. Maybe she had even kept those emotions buried deep within herself because to acknowledge them was dangerous.

In her gaze he saw what she expected him to do with that revelation—that he use that vulnerability against her. Maybe even abuse that unintended admission, it occurred to him, sensing that beneath her bluster she had suffered in her life. That she wasn’t as all-powerful as she wished for him to believe.

But he also sensed that, despite the hardship, she had somehow survived and possessed great mental fortitude.

Her strength proved even more enticing to him than her attractive physical shell. Because of that, he would not abuse the weakness she had exposed to him. Gently he took her hand into his and softly said, “Thank you.”

“Thank you?” she repeated, clearly shocked by his actions.

“Yes, thank you. Since that night I’ve doubted my sanity at times. I’ve relived every minute through nightmares. More often than was good. And I’ve suffered as I wondered if I was losing my mind,” he confessed, offering her his own weaknesses.

Would she abuse that disclosure or provide him yet another reason to be interested in her? he wondered.

“There are scarier things than dreams that can come to you at night,” she said, with-drawing her hand from his, clearly unused to such gentleness or gratitude.

“Like you?” he challenged, arching one brow as he took another sip of his wine.

His comment dragged a devilish smile to her full lips.

“You should be afraid of me,” she said, but it was almost as if she was trying to remind herself of what she was since whatever connection had occurred between them had somehow lessened her scariness factor.

“I’ll try to remember that,” he joked, earning a broadening of her smile.

She had a beautiful one, but he somehow knew it didn’t come easily. It didn’t fit the persona she preferred to show to the world. A persona she had likely adopted to protect herself from the earlier hurt she had inadvertently revealed to him.

But the smile fit this human persona she was showing him quite nicely.

Picking up a piece of cheese and topping it with a paper-thin slice of serrano ham, he brought it to her lips. Seemingly understanding that he wasn’t going to press further about the fateful night of their first meeting, she opened her mouth and accepted his offering, but as she did so, she playfully bit his thumb and said, “Tasty.”

He grinned, and when she mimicked his actions, presenting him with a bite of cheese and ham, he grasped her hand and accepted the food. Licked the tip of her index finger before sucking it into his mouth.

“Tastier,” he said, playing her game.

Stacia barely controlled the shiver that worked through her body and the painful need his actions roused.

“Why are you doing this?” She was confused by what he thought he would accomplish, as well as sensing this was one human who was going to be quite difficult to control.

“Because I don’t believe in monsters or things that go bump in the night.”

He was testing her, not that she would be stupid enough to morph into her demon in so public a place.

“Maybe when we finish, we should go somewhere private so I can eliminate any doubts you might have.”

“Maybe” was all he said as he picked up an olive and popped it into his mouth. Followed that up with a piece of bread and cheese before he said, “What were you doing tonight at the Widget?”

“Seasoning a prospective meal,” she answered honestly, needing to create distance between them because she was feeling too exposed. “What were you doing there?”

Alex sipped his wine. “Looking for a man.”

“You didn’t strike me as a switch-hitter.” Stacia chuckled and then took an olive from the assorted tapas on the table and popped it into her mouth.

After a hearty laugh, Alex leaned closer and said, “The man might have a connection to a friend’s missing daughter.”

So he had been on the job, she thought, wondering what he did here in Miami. Whether it was the same kind of work that had nearly gotten him killed in New York. Realizing that discretion was necessary as long as they were in public, she also shifted closer and asked as softly as she could, “Is it part of your assignment here?”

“It’s part of what I do.” The silence that followed those few words confirmed to her that there was little else he could say without compromising his position. Because she didn’t want the night to end since she was enjoying his presence, she asked, “Did you grow up in Miami?”

“Born and raised, although my parents came here from Cuba.”

“Ah, Cuba. It was a beautiful place the last time I visited.” She didn’t add that her visit had been in the 1600s, but somehow he understood not to ask.

“And you? Where were you—”

“Lived and died in Rome,” she immediately answered, hardening his earlier smile into a tight, thin line.

“If I believe what all logic says, I shouldn’t—”

“Believe,” she urged, understanding his conflict and the angst it brought him in his nightmares. Believing was a first step to dealing with all that upset and accepting the truth about what she was.

About what had really happened that night. Maybe then he could drive those bad dreams from his mind.

“If I believe what you say as true, then I guess it would seem right to ask how old you were when … you know, when it happened?”

“It” being her turning, she assumed. Her death as a human and resurrection as a vampire. But it had been quite a long time since she had told that tale and she wasn’t quite ready to repeat it tonight. Especially not to him. He had already touched parts of her psyche that had been closely guarded for centuries.

“That’s a long story that I think would be better told at some other time.”

Alex appeared to accept her reluctance and backed away. “Some other time, then,” he said and motioned to the tapas remaining on the table. “Would you like a bit more? If not, I’ll walk you home.”

She shook her head. “That gallant gesture is wasted on me. I’m more than capable—”

“Of protecting yourself. I’m sure you are, but a gentleman always walks a lady home.”

Since it seemed clear she wanted no further sustenance from the goodies he had ordered, he tossed some bills on the table and rose, offering her his arm.

To his surprise—and hers—she accepted it.