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I smack his chest. “You are such a predator.”
“So are you now, my dear. Better respect it.” He gives me a quick smile. “So, Lenore Warwick. This was your usual hang-out. What other bars did you go to? Who did you see and what did you do? What was college like for you?”
I give him a funny look. “Why the third degree? You were there, weren’t you? Watching me?”
“Just because I was watching you doesn’t mean I experienced anything. I want to hear about it from you.”
He looks serious, watching me expectantly.
I shrug. “Okay.”
So I tell him about some of the other bars in the Bay Area. Parties in Berkeley. School events. Then I start going backward into high school, prompted by his constant questions, covering everything from prom to what I normally did on a Saturday night, to horseback riding lessons when I was younger in Livermore, to road trips my parents and I would take to Tahoe to our cabin, every winter and summer.
By the time I’m done talking, both our drinks are gone and he’s staring at me with a faraway dreamy look in his eyes, elbow on the table, the side of his face in his hand.
“What? Did you drift off?” I ask him, struck dumb once again by how gorgeous he is. There’s deadly Solon, and then there’s this soft version of him that’s just as mesmerising.
“I did drift off,” he says slowly. “It’s just that I saw it all.”
“Because you were watching me?”
He shakes his head, awe in his voice. “Because I saw it through your eyes. Felt it, smelled it. I experienced your memories, what it was like to be you.”
I gulp, a fluttery feeling in my stomach. I know he’s had my blood, but I didn’t think that would happen. The last thing I want is for him to feel as I do.
“You were so much like me,” he goes on quietly, reaching for my hand. “You were surrounded by people, but everyone was at a distance because they didn’t understand you. Because they knew, deep down, you were different, not like them. It scared them. And you felt…so alone. A loneliness I know too well.”
He squeezes my hand then brings it to his lips, kissing my palm in a soft, gentle manner, eyes never leaving mine.
Good lord, what is he doing to me? I am tumbling down, down, down, further into my feelings for him, growing too intense to bear.
“I’m going to get us the drinks,” he says. “You stay here.”
I nod, still a bit dazed by my emotions, the ever-expanding heart in my chest. I watch as he walks off to the bar, his ass looking incredible in those jeans, the rest of him a perfect V of broad strong shoulders, tapering to trim hips. To think he’s mine…well, at least to know that I’m his.
He gets in line and glances at me over his shoulder and I give him a shy smile, feeling like I really am on my first date and a little over my head.
Then I get this strange smell of cologne and beer in my nose, something really familiar but I can’t quite place it because it smells like so many people in here.
I turn my head and see Matt standing just a few feet away, staring at me in concern.
I stare back him, the sight of him doing something to my brain, like two worlds colliding that I never thought would collide.
I don’t know if I should say something to him or not, but he just frowns at me, looking mildly horrified and confused, and I can’t tell if it’s the way I look now or maybe him not seeing me since Elle went missing or…
I glance down at my arms. At all my missing tattoos.
Oh, fuck. I totally fucking forgot.
He gives me another odd, harried look, and then leaves.
I get up and go after him, going to Solon first at the bar.
“I see an old friend,” I tell Solon, my voice low. “I’ll be right back, don’t come after me, it will only make things worse.”
“Lenore,” he growls, but it’s too late and I’m already leaving, heading out the door just in time to see Matt at the top of the stairs.
“Matt!” I call out to him and he keeps going.
In a flash I’m by his side, grabbing his arm, pulling him off into the darkened garden at the back of the church.
“What the fuck Lenore?” Matt cries out, and I realize I’m too strong for my own good. “What is wrong with you?”
Though we’re in the far corner of the garden, I feel a presence at my back, smell Solon’s scent. He’s keeping his distance, disappearing into the shadows I’m sure, but he’s here and he’s watching me.
“You didn’t say hello,” I say to him, trying to sound breezy and not desperately trying to prove that I’m normal. “I saw you in the bar.”
