Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (55 page)

It could have been made for me. The shirring on the bodice molded to my curves and made my waist look incredibly small, and I loved the little godets around the hem. I looked at the tag. The label said “Vera Wang,” and it had originally retailed for almost eight hundred bucks. Now it was marked down to $199. I thanked my father mentally for the wad of birthday cash, since it would more than cover the dress and any shoes, etc. I needed to go along with it.

I looked at myself in the mirror and gathered up my hair at the back of my head, testing how the gown would look with an up-do. The red seemed to bring a glow to my cheeks and made my eyes look velvety and dark. I couldn’t wait to see how the whole thing worked once I had a real hairstyle and a little more makeup than my customary mascara, blush, and lip gloss.

Red’s my favorite color
, Luke had told me that first evening. He’d probably believe I chose this gown specifically because of that. Well, let him. I knew it looked great, and that was why it was going home with me. Still, I couldn’t help thinking it would also work really well with the red satin underwear I’d bought at Victoria’s Secret...and I wondered whether Luke would get a chance to see that as well.

While I was in the dressing room, Nina located a pair of strappy silver sandals for me, as well as a gorgeous pair of chandelier earrings.

“No necklace?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. Too much, with a pair of earrings like that. If you look at actresses on the red carpet, it’s either a great necklace and little studs, or big earrings and no necklace. Maybe a bracelet, too, but I didn’t see anything I liked. It’s all right. Just let the dress speak for itself.”

Since Nina could probably teach Learning Annex courses on style, I decided to take her word for it. We tried to find a wrap that would work with the dress, but nothing seemed right.

“I’ll just have to freeze to death, I guess,” I said after we gave up and I had gotten in line for the cash register.

“Nobody freezes to death in L.A.,” Nina replied sensibly. “Besides, you won’t have to be outside all that much. Better to be cold than to wear a wrap that doesn’t work with the dress.”

Of course, the standard mantra: style over comfort. But that was all right. I couldn’t help feeling a little spasm of excitement as I handed over the dress, shoes, and earrings to the cashier.

By that point I was already running late, so there was no time to eat. Nina dropped me off back at work, and I went to my car first so I could hang the gown from the hook in the back seat. Then I scrounged my emergency container of yogurt from the refrigerator in the break room and went back to my office, tingling with anticipation and wondering if there were any way to speed up the week so Saturday would get here more quickly. Probably not — even for Luke — so instead I sent an email to the Gmail address he’d used before.

Thank you for the book
, I wrote.
I’m really looking forward to the opera
. I paused, thinking that sounded awfully formal and stilted. On the other hand, writing
I’m dying to see you again
wasn’t exactly a good idea if I were going to keep with the whole “playing it cool” strategy. Instead, I just wrote,
I hope to hear from you soon
, and sent the email before I could obsess over it anymore. After that, I picked up the layout that had come in while I was out with Nina and forced myself to concentrate on work, and not immediately pounce on my computer every time a new email message popped up. None of them were from Luke, however, and after a while I’d gotten myself back into a state almost resembling sanity.

Almost.

I
went
home in a mood dangerously close to a funk. It was wonderful to have received the book and the opera ticket, of course, but I would have liked a little more personal contact. Probably I was just being selfish — who knew what claims the Devil had on his time? — but I’d found myself craving even an email or a phone call the way a junkie craves his next fix. Not good, not good at all. I’d thought I was maintaining some sort of equilibrium — barely — but that seemed to have changed suddenly. Why?

Because you let him hold you, you idiot
, I told myself.
Before that it was safely casual, despite his claims of wanting to kiss you, but after you realized what it felt like to have his arms around you, it wasn’t so easy to push him away, was it?

So had I irrevocably screwed up? Had I passed the point of no return? And did I even care?

I turned left onto my street and saw the red Jag sitting there…and Luke himself, lounging on the bottom step, holding a book and looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world. My heart jumped straight up and seemed to lodge in my throat.

Somehow I managed to pull my car into the garage without smacking it into the side of the building. I debated as to whether I should leave the gown hanging in the back seat or not, but it was safely swathed in opaque plastic, so he wouldn’t really be able to see what it was. Hands shaking, I gathered it up, along with my purse and book bag, and went out front to meet him.

He stood as I approached and greeted me with a smile. “Miss me?” he asked, and although his voice was teasing, his eyes were not.

All sorts of flip answers popped into my head, but for some reason I didn’t feel like using any of them. Instead I met his gaze squarely and said, “Yes.”

Someone else might have looked smug. Luke just smiled and said, “Then I’m glad I followed a hunch and stopped by.” His gaze traveled to the gown I carried, safe in its covering of plastic. “Been shopping?”

“I was fresh out of opera wear,” I responded. Since it was cold out, and I didn’t want to keep standing in the dubious light provided by the fixture at the bottom of the stairwell, I started scrabbling in my purse for my keys. The bulky gown wasn’t helping much.

“Ah. May I?” He reached out and plucked the dress and its hanger from my arms.

“Thanks,” I said, then added, “Just don’t peek.”

The laugh lines around his eyes deepened a bit. “Of course not.”

Finally I grabbed hold of the lanyard keychain I’d been using since high school and pulled the damn thing up out of the recesses of my bag. Maybe it was time to switch to a smaller purse.

Luke followed me up the stairs and into my apartment. I set down my purse and book bag, then reclaimed the gown from him so I could go hang it in my closet. He waited in the living room, book tucked under one arm.

“What are you reading?” I asked, after I’d come back out and given the place a quick look around to make sure there weren’t any embarrassing dirty dishes or other clutter anywhere. Usually I tried to tidy up the place either right before I went to bed or before I left in the morning so I wouldn’t come home to a mess, but I’d been a little distracted the past few days and honestly couldn’t remember if I’d followed my usual routine. Luckily, though, the place seemed mostly in order.

“This?” He pulled the hardback out from underneath his arm. “Just amusing myself.”

I shot a quick glance at the cover. “
The DaVinci Code
? You’re kidding, right?”

“I told you I was amusing myself.”

Since I hadn’t been expecting company, I didn’t have a lot to offer by way of beverages. However, I did have a few bottles of wine stashed away in the countertop rack in the kitchen. “Glass of wine?” I asked.

“Absolutely.” After setting his book down on the coffee table, he followed me into the kitchen and inspected my meager wine collection with some interest. “Let’s have the pinot, shall we?”

It figured he would choose the best one out of the bunch. I hadn’t even bought it myself; Nina had brought it over when we were having a “girls’ night in” a while back, but we’d never gotten around to opening it.

My bottle-opening skills were shaky at best, so I handed the corkscrew to Luke and let him have at it. Of course he pulled the cork out so smoothly he might have been using one of those fancy gas-powered openers instead of the simple waiter-style corkscrew I owned.

“Glasses?” he inquired.

I fetched a pair from the cupboard and set them down on the counter. He poured an equal amount of wine into each, and then handed one to me.

“To unexpected meetings,” he said.

Taking the glass, I replied, “I’ll drink to that,” and sipped at the wine. A dark rush went over my palate, tasting of warm fruit ripened on sandy hillsides. Damn, that was good.

He drank as well, and got an approving look on his face. I made a mental note to have Nina choose my wines whenever possible.

“So,” I said, after we’d wandered back into the living room, “
The DaVinci Code
, huh?”

“Are you mocking my choice in reading material?”

“Um…yes.”

“I suppose it does seem a bit odd.” He lifted the glass to his lips and took another swallow of wine. “But the inaccuracies amuse me.”

My stomach decided that particular moment was a great time to growl. Loudly. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, and hoped he hadn’t heard.

But of course he had. “Hungry?” Luke asked.

“Well, yes,” I said. “I spent my lunch hour shopping, so all I had was some yogurt, and — ”

“I suppose I should have offered to take you to dinner,” he mused.

“Oh, that’s all right,” I said hastily. “I’ve been out so much lately anyway.”

“Then I’ll have it come here. What would you like?”

Was he serious? I shot a glance at him from beneath my lashes and decided he must be. Probably conjuring up a meal was no big deal for someone who possessed his powers.

“Don’t laugh,” I said.

The blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “I promise I won’t.”

“I really just want a cheeseburger.”

“A cheeseburger?”

“You asked.”

To his credit, he didn’t laugh, but I could tell he was amused by my request. “Thy will be done,” he said. “Cheeseburgers and pinot noir, God help me.”

And with that the coffee table suddenly covered itself in a white cloth, and in front of me was a plate with a huge cheeseburger, exactly the way I liked it, with lettuce and tomato and Thousand Island dressing. A similar plate appeared in front of Luke, although his burger looked as if it had bacon on it as well. Both plates were well-garnished with seasoned fries.

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” I remarked. “That smells heavenly.”

At the word “heavenly” I thought I saw him start a bit, but then he shrugged and leaned forward to pick up his burger. I did the same, and took a huge bite. It tasted as good as it smelled. Who cared if the meal was going to earn me an extra half-hour on the treadmill tomorrow? That burger was definitely worth the sacrifice.

After a few more bites, my stomach felt sufficiently sated that I could slow down a little and actually engage in conversation once more. “So what inaccuracies were you talking about?” I asked. “Let me guess — Jesus and Mary Magdalene were just really good friends.”

“No,” he replied, setting down his burger and picking up his wine glass. With a shake of his head, he drank, then added, “Jesus might have been the Son of God, but that didn’t mean he was dead below the waist.”

I choked.

“Are you all right?” Luke inquired, sounding oh-so solicitous. But the glint was back in his eyes — the devilish glint, if I could be allowed to call it that.

“Fine,” I said, after retrieving my own wine and gulping enough down that it dislodged the troublesome piece of ground beef in my throat. “So you’re saying that, well — ”

“Of course. But there were no offspring from that union, so there goes the central conceit of Mr. Brown’s book. Really, I have no idea why anyone would ever think such a thing.”

“I don’t see what’s so strange about it,” I argued, “if you’re willing to accept the idea that Jesus was enough of a mortal man to have a physical relationship with a woman.”

“Because that would have negated his entire reason for being here,” Luke replied calmly. “Jesus, being the spirit of God made manifest on this earth, and coming here to die for men’s sins and grant them redemption, would certainly not leave any children behind. Otherwise, his eventual resurrection would have no point. So what if he died on the cross? His heirs would still live on, carrying the divine seed within them. No, he lived and died, and did the work God intended for him. End of story.”

I sat there silently for a moment, trying to digest what he had just said. My coping mechanism for dealing with Luke’s presence seemed to have been to shove the truth of his identity far back in my mind, and to concentrate on only the surface things — the sound of his voice, the way he looked at me, all the little things that made him seem just like a mortal man. But when he made statements like that, when he spoke as someone who knew these things as irrefutable truth — well, that brought the reality of the situation crashing down on me.

“You were there,” I said at last.

“Of course. I had my role, just as He had His.”

My world’s foundation begin to feel shakier and shakier. I’d been raised to respect other people’s beliefs, but my parents hadn’t practiced Christianity, and they’d never taught my siblings and me that Jesus was truly the son of God. Of course they’d said he was an enlightened man, a prophet and seer, but so were Buddha and Krishna and Mohammed. Luke, though, seemed to be telling me Jesus really had been divine, and I didn’t know what to make of that.

Unsure as to how I should respond, I retreated to the safety of sarcasm. “Oh, that’s right,” I remarked. “They showed you in
The Passion of the Christ
, wandering through the crowd. You were pretty freaky-looking, though.”

“Filmmakers,” Luke said, “rarely get the details correct. Are you going to eat those fries?”

With a start, I realized that I’d been neglecting my meal. As usual, I’d eaten the important part first — the burger — and left the fries as filler. I silently pushed the plate toward him and watched as he added some ketchup to the fries before plowing into them. I didn’t recall seeing the bottle of Heinz before that, but with Luke around that didn’t mean much.

“So you’ve always looked like this?” I asked.