Eyes of Ice (Eyes of Ice Erotica Series) (14 page)

“Wow.” Mags said.
Her features shifted into an accusatory expression. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this!”

“I’m sorry,” Cecelia apologized. “I was just so caught up in it, and I didn’t want to tell anyone until it sounded okay, you know? Mags!” she exclaimed. “You can’t tell anybody! You have to promise not to tell anybody!”

“Ceecee, I promised, I’m not an idiot,” Mags looked genuinely hurt that Cecelia would doubt her loyalty. “Anyway, it’s time something turned out for you. I know it’s been difficult with you parents, and stuff. I mean … this is big news. You think maybe … maybe you could call them and just say you’re working on a big story?”

“No,” Cecelia replied dully. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.
I don’t want to talk about them right now. I need to… I need to focus everything on this thing.”

Mags was motionless on her bed, blinking down at her sheets. “Okay. I understand. Hey, you would tell me if Andrew wasn’t treating you well, right? I mean, it’s so early in your relationship and you seem to really like him….”

“I do like him,” Cecelia said. Last night was sore on her skin and bright in her mind.

“But… um … you’re writing about something secret that involves him and … um … planning to publish it?” Mags stuttered.

“I know. I know,” Cecelia said, staring at herself in the mirror. She looked pale and tired, even to her optimistic eyes. She fixed her gaze on Mags in the background, trying not to let her anxiety show. If she was going to keep Mags from worrying about her and trying to stop her, she couldn’t let her anxiousness about this be apparent. She had to pretend like she had a plan. “It’s under control.”

“Okay.” Mags said, and settled back into bed.

The hours passed with agonizing slowness as Cecelia got ready for lunch. She glumly finished her homework in a matter of minutes, but her thoughts distracted her frequently. At last, when her thoughts mimicked the snow flurries outside her windowpane, she could resist no longer. She opened her computer and added another two paragraphs to her story, elaborating with what she had learned the night before: the minimized trust, the loss of love and life involved with infection, and – she was just guessing now, but supposed her lunch would confirm – the advanced brain function of vampires. After all, Devon was pursuing his PhD in physics at one of the better schools in the nation, and Andrew spoke about a “spectrum of experience” like a learned philosopher, never mind his superior debating skills and dizzyingly extensive vocabulary.

If Alexandra’s also high-IQ, then I’ve got my answer
, Cecelia decided, predicting already that Alexandra would be nothing less than perfect in that regard as well;
Devon may be a jerk, but not so much of a jerk to want to date someone more stupid than he is just for fun. In fact, that would probably add more to his anger issues.

Cecelia also reasoned that now that she had worked through it, she knew what she needed to pick up from this lunch: she needed to watch Devon and Alexandra, to observe how a relationship between vampires worked (o
r doesn’t work,
she thought, remembering Andrew’s “on again, off again” comment and Devon’s night of indiscretion with Mags). Furthermore, she decided, she had to learn more about the relationship between Devon and Andrew; why and how their ties were so close, and whether these close friendships were commonplace, a strategic alliance, between male vampires. Given Andrew’s previous comments about vampires being loners, she guessed that Andrew and Devon’s friendship and brotherly behavior was the height of irregularity.

And,
she concluded in a moment of helplessness,
I just need to know
more
. I know nothing about their history, the process of infection, the politics of the entire situation … and more about their biology, physiology …. I mean, because I was scared out of my wits at the clan meeting, I have no specifics, all I really have is what I’ve observed with Andrew, and …. And I’ve let myself get distracted and derailed by all the … all the sex.

She smiled, drifti
ng into thoughts of last night. Absentmindedly, she rubbed at her neck, the place where Andrew’s hand had pinned her in place. Angrily, she pulled herself back into the present. No time to think about that, or let it impair her judgment, now.
Not when it obviously has done nothing but that since it started
.

She closed her laptop and waited until 11:59, and then, full of trepidation, made her way to the street. Andrew was standing outside,
as she knew he would be, leaning casually against a lamppost, his hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks and a smile curling his lips. She realized, startled, that she had never seen him in truly light clothing before; he’d always work dark suits and dark shirts, but now he wore brown loafers and a sky blue shirt that complemented his eyes, underneath a navy blue pea coat. He looked calmer somehow, too – there was an ease to his smile that seemed new. And it wasn’t an entirely unattractive characteristic, either.

“Hi,” she said
, hearing herself almost stutter on the single word.

“You look lovely,” he told her, touching her waist gently and pulling her towards him for a slow kiss. When she stepped back,
it wasn’t that she wanted the kiss to stop – it was that she wanted to keep herself from making a complete display while everyone was watching. Andrew let her go, and tugged her braid lightly.

“I like your hair like this.”
She brushed snowflakes from his shoulders. Now she was smiling, too, and he laced his fingers through hers. “Let’s walk,” he suggested. “They’re expecting us.”

“No car today?” she asked, craning her neck to scan the recently plowed street. The familiar towncar was nowhere in sight.

“Do you miss it? No, Alexandra’s is very close. That’s how she and Devon met, after all. We share a division of this district.”

“Oh,” Cecelia said, making a mental note. “No, I like walking.”

She remembered the first time she walked with Andrew and blushed. Her first real kiss. His hand on her thigh.

“I had a good time last night,” he said, and she wondered if he had also been thinking of their last walk. “Did you?”

“Um,” she said, glancing at passersby in worry. “Should we really be talking about this … here?”

“Well, for all they know, we’re talking about an ordinary night. Maybe we went to the movies, or out for dinner. Whatever it is that normal couples do,” Andrew asserted.
He kept a studiously straight face, but his tones were mischievous.

Well,
I can’t get out of it now.
“It was nice,” she said lamely.

“Nice?” his walk slowed slightly.
“Cecelia, ice cream is ‘nice.’ Summertime by the beach is ‘nice.’ Stargazing is ‘nice.’ Our nights should be … spectacular.”

“No, I – when I say nice, I mean, really nice. I mean,” she stopped, trying to collect herself. “I have never been so satisfied. I have never felt so good, or so happy, and, you’re right, there are parts that are difficult and uncomfortable, but…” she trailed off.

“But?” He prompted.

“But that’s part of your spectrum of experience, right?” she concluded.

“Yes. And … would I be wrong in guessing that you want to learn more?” he said, his walk slowing again. The devilish note was gone from his tone.

Cecelia bit her lip. Another night like last night ….

“You don’t have to answer, now, of course,” he said, his face flatly expressionless. “Or ever. I understand if I still frighten you. That would be natural. I think anyone would be frightened –”

“Andrew,” she said,
and tugged on his hand. He turned to look at her. “Is there more to know?”

He smiled
, eyes twinkling as he looked down upon her. “You have no idea, yet. You have satisfied me so much already, but,” his voice dropped to a low undertone, “This is only the beginning for us.”

There was nothing more Cecelia could say to that.
They began walking again, and he asked her questions about her time in the city and her studies at Chicago University, thoughtfully steering clear of any queries that might be traced back to her family troubles. He also never spoke of himself, that subject that Cecelia yearned to know much more about. So instead of prodding directly at that which most intrigued her, she resorted to asking him minor questions that helped her to know him superficially. Did he know many people in the area? Did
he
enjoy the city? Had he ever thought about going to school there?

The first few questions he answered shortly, but the last in detail. “I don’t have that ability that Devon has, of suffering fools well,” he said. “I know that perhaps it does not seem so from your brief encounters with him, but he identifies with people much more easily than I do, is much more generous about their flaws and foibles. Much of his time in his program he spends … tolerating others. I couldn’t do that. It would anger me. I feel as if there’s not much that the university could offer that would challenge me, though perhaps some of it would entertain me.”

That’s another check in the increased brain function column,
Cecelia thought.
I was right.

“So what do you do that does challenge you?” she asked.

“Currently? You, Cecelia,” he grinned, and she had to smile at that as well. “But in truth, I … write, and read, and I bartend some evenings at a few places around town, and when some restaurants need it, I work as a chef. I paint, and sculpt, and invest in the stock market. In case you were wondering where my wealth comes from, it’s not from cooking, painting or sculpting.”

Of all the things Cecelia was expecting, Andrew
as a renaissance man must have been the last of them. “You paint and sculpt?” she reiterated, incredulous.

“Poorly,” he clarified. “Mental clarity comes easily to us; the sophistication of the artistic eye – that ability to represent something not as it actually is, but improved in some way, altered, abstract
, embellished – that is challenging to us. I could paint the night sky in perfect and accurate detail – better even than it appears to your eyes – but I could not paint Starry Night.”

“Y
ou think linearly,” Cecelia said, fascinated and wondering if she could reproduce his words verbatim.

“Very much.” He stopped. “We’re here.”

They entered a stone apartment building covered with ivy, and took an elevator to the top floor penthouse.

“Relax,” he murmured, as the elevator
crept higher and higher. He squeezed her hand to comfort her. “Alexandra likes you. And Devon is trying very hard to like us all.”

The doors slid open, and they stepped into a minimally decorated apartment the color of butter. White furniture and honey-colored floor added to the lightness of the living room they now stood in, and white lanterns dangled from the ceiling.
It was beautiful, warm, and welcoming – just like Alexandra.

“Cecelia! Andrew!” Alexandra beamed at them and crossed the room, setting a bouquet of pink peonies on a side table. She wore a white, spaghetti-strap dress that clung sensually to her curves, and her
startlingly high heels further emphasized her lithe figure. Cecelia felt the familiar pang of envy and ugliness, and hoped that the apartment was devoid of mirrors. A side-by-side comparison might ruin whatever self esteem remained to her. “You two are gorgeous, did you know that?” she winked, and embraced a sheepish Cecelia.

“Devon’s been sulking,” she said, in a stage-whisper to Andrew. “But I think it’s really only because he feels obligated to. He’ll be happy to see you. Devon! Andrew and Cecelia are here!” she called, and Devon emerged from what must have been the kitchen, bearing a large crystal bowl filled with salad.

“Cecelia, Andrew,” he acknowledged, and Cecelia watched as he tried to smile. Like Andrew, he had dressed more casually and lightly, and wore grey slacks and a white shirt, perhaps coordinated to Alexandra. Cecelia thought that she should say something polite to Devon, but realized she had nothing to say that would sound offhand and pertinent, so instead she complimented Alexandra.

“Your apartment is beautiful,” Cecelia told her. Alexandra beamed, clearly determined to turn the tide of Devon’s bitterness.

“Thank you. Come, sit, I’ll get lunch.”

She left the room, leaving Cecelia and Andrew to sit at the
carefully set table. It was slightly larger than average, the center obscured by another high bouquet of peonies, but Cecelia found herself in the uncomfortable position of sitting directly across from Devon. She silently willed Andrew to say something, and perhaps it worked, for Andrew began:

“Alexandra seems to be very happy,”

“She is,” Devon answered. “We’ve been talking about moving in together. Which would leave you all alone in our apartment. Mostly.” His eyes flicked to Cecelia, allowing her to confirm that they were the whitest of blues.

“And her restaurant?” Andrew asked, either not noticing or ignoring Devon’s implication.

“Three Michelin stars, the review came out yesterday,” Alexandra answered, returning to the room with a tray of sandwiches. “Which means a full house tonight. Will you be coming by, Andrew? We can always use a helping hand – at the bar or in the back.”