Page 32 of Where the Snakes Sleep

I pick up my fork and spear a piece of the thinly sliced fish. The cool slide of the first bite is startling—zesty from the citrus, plush and delicate.

“That’s actually… incredible,” I manage, swallowing a moan of pleasure.

Camille’s head tilts a fraction, eyes catching mine in the candlelight. “You have a remarkable palate.”

“Is that a normal thing to say on a first dinner, or are you flirting?” I ask, averting my gaze from the heat of his.

His tongue presses between his teeth. The effect is annoyingly magnetic; my own teeth dig into my lower lip, and I realize too late that he’s caught me watching his mouth again.

“I do not recall inviting you here for normal things,” he says.

Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me—

He continues, “You wished to know more about your grandfather, did you not?”

The abrupt shift nearly gives me whiplash.

One second, I’m picturing what his tongue would feel like against my throat, and the next he’s bringing up my dead relative. Which, to be fair, is supposed to be the reason I’m here.

I lower my fork. “Yeah.”

Camille takes a sip of wine, studying me over the rim of the glass. He looks entirely too comfortable, considering he’s the one who keeps dangling information in front of me like a treat he’ll only hand over if I perform correctly.

“So…?” I prompt.

“Alberte did not originally come from here.”

“Okay?”

Camille sighs as if I have missed something. “From what I know, he came from Strasbourg, a city to the north. It’s east of Paris, very close to the German border.”

“That’s pretty far, isn’t it?” Camille gives me a nod. “What was he doing down here then? Did he come here for work?”

“Not at first,” he answers, setting his glass down. “He was a student at Université de Montpellier. He was just 21 when our story begins.”

I blink at him, the soft candlelight dancing on his angular features. “Our story?”

Camille’s expression shutters for a millisecond before returning to normal. Orange reflections from the flames flicker across the table’s polished wood.

“A figure of speech,” he says softly.

“It just sounded very dramatic,” I reply.

“Perhaps the history warrants some drama.”

My brow raises, and I laugh. “That’s exactly the kind of ominous shit you say that makes me think I should’ve stayed in America.” I lean back in my chair, the plush velvet cushion whispering beneath me.

“And yet you did not.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve always had poor judgment.”

Camille lets his gaze linger on me for a beat too long, drifting downward toward my mouth before returning to my eyes. The air between us seems to thicken.

“Perhaps.”

I shove another bite of fish into my mouth to keep from turning that single word into something filthy.

After I swallow, I steady my voice. “So, he was a student. What was he studying?”