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Not that his offer to come by her place tonight was anything close to a date, but she had been looking forward to seeing him again. She was interested to know more about him since he seemed so adept at deciphering her with a single glance. Aside from getting some more answers about what she had witnessed the night outside the club, Gabrielle had been hoping for a little conversation with Lucan, maybe some wine or dinner. The fact that she shaved her legs twice and wore some sexy black lingerie beneath her long-sleeved silk blouse and dark jeans was purely incidental.
Gabrielle had waited for him until well after nine, then finally gave up on the idea and called Jamie to see if he would have dinner with her downtown.
Seated across the table from her in a windowed alcove at Ciao Bella bistro, Jamie set down his glass of pinot noir and eyed her nearly untouched frutti de mare. "You've been pushing that same piece of scallop around your plate for ten minutes, sweetie. Don't you like it?"
"No, it's great. The food is always amazing here."
"So, it's just the company that sucks?"
She glanced up at him and shook her head. "Not at all. You're my best friend, you know that."
"Uh-huh," he said, smiling. "But I don't compare to your wet dream."
Gabrielle's face warmed as one of the patrons at a neighboring table looked their way. "You're a shit sometimes, you know that?" she whispered to Jamie. "I shouldn't have told you about it."
"Oh, honey. Don't be embarrassed. If I had a nickel for every time I woke up torqued and screaming some hot guy's name..."
"I wasn't screaming his name." No, she was gasping and moaning it, both in bed and in the shower a short while later, when she still couldn't get Lucan Thorne out of her system. "It was like he was there, Jamie. Right there, in my bed - so real I could touch him."
Jamie sighed. "Some girls have all the luck. Next time you see your dream lover, be a dear and send him my way when you're through."
Gabrielle smiled, knowing that her friend was hardly lacking in the romance department. For the past four years, he'd been happily monogamous with David, an antiques dealer, who was currently out of town on business. "You want to know the strangest thing about this, Jamie? When I got up this morning, my front door was unlocked."
"So?"
"So, you know me, I never leave it unlocked."
Jamie's tawny, manicured brows knit into a scowl. "What are you saying, you think this guy broke in while you were asleep?"
"Sounds crazy, I know. A police detective coming into my house in the middle of the night to seduce me. I must be losing my mind."
She said it casually, but this wasn't the first time she'd questioned the soundness of her own sanity. Not the first time by a long shot. She fidgeted absently with the sleeve of her blouse while Jamie observed her. He was quietly concerned now, which only increased her discomfort with the subject of her possible shaky mental stability.
"Look, hon. You've been under a lot of stress since the weekend. That can do strange things to your head. You were upset and confused. You must have forgotten to lock the door."
"And the dream?"
"Just that - a dream. Just your harried mind trying to tell you to chill out, to relax."
Gabrielle bobbed her head in an automatic nod of agreement. "Right. I'm sure that's all it is."
If only she could accept that the explanation was as reasonable as her friend made it sound. But something in the pit of her stomach rejected the idea that she might have carelessly left her door unlocked. It was something she simply would not do, no matter how stressed out or confused she was.
"Hey." Jamie reached across the table to clasp her hand. "You're going to be okay, Gab. And you know you can call me anytime, right? I'm here for you, always will be."
"Thanks."
He let her go and picked up his fork to gesture at her frutti de mare. "So, are you going to eat any more of that or can I scavenge it now?"
Gabrielle traded her half-eaten plate of food for his empty one. "It's all yours."
As Jamie went to work on her cold meal, Gabrielle leaned her chin on her hand and took a long sip of her wine. As she drank, her fingers moved idly over the faint marks she had found on her neck this morning after her shower. The unlocked front door wasn't exactly the strangest thing she had discovered, the twin welts below her ear took that prize, no contest.
The small nicks had not been deep enough to break her skin, but they were there. Two of them, evenly spaced, at the place where her pulse beat strongest against her fingertips. At first, she had wondered if she'd scratched herself in her sleep, maybe been swept up in the strange dream she'd had and raked her nails across her skin.
But the marks didn't look like scratches. They looked like something... else.
Like someone, or something, had nearly taken a bite out of her carotid.
