Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (56 page)

He had to finish chewing before he could reply. “More or less. Of course, this is a much better haircut.”

I couldn’t help it. The giggle bubbled its way up into my throat, and the next thing I knew I was laughing so hard I could feel the tears starting to leak out the corners of my eyes. I heard him begin to laugh as well, and it took me a minute before I recovered myself enough to say, “Well, that puts some perspective on the whole thing.”

“Most definitely.” He raised his wine glass and gave me a sort of salute. The smile never left his mouth.

Wine sounded like a good idea. I had some more of mine, and then Luke asked, “Finished?”

I nodded, and the detritus of our impromptu meal disappeared off the table. “Whew,” I said. “My mother sure could have used you around when I was a kid and she had to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, even back then we had to get the lectures about free-range turkeys, but — ”

“Christa.”

I paused, and glanced over at him. He still looked amused, but there was no mistaking the deadly serious way those deep blue eyes met mine.

Something inside me seemed to turn over. Mouth dry, I watched as he rose from his seat and came to stand next to me. He reached down with one hand, and I took it, standing so I faced him.

Before I could really register what was happening, he cupped my face in his hands and brought his mouth against mine.

Every nerve ending in my body seemed to explode. I couldn’t have stopped him even if I’d wanted to, and I didn’t. All I wanted was to feel his lips touching me, to taste wine as his tongue met mine. Suddenly I was pressing my body against his, my hands reaching up to tangle in the heavy, rich hair.

I don’t know how long the kiss lasted. Eventually we broke apart; he seemed calm enough, but I was gasping like someone who had just swum the English Channel. My knees were rubber. I barely retained enough hold of myself to keep from collapsing right then and there.

“Ah,” he said at last. At least his voice sounded rough and husky, not quite as controlled as he probably wanted me to believe. “You continue to surprise me, Christa Simms.”

Somehow I managed to recover the power of speech. “Well, I’d hate for you to get bored this early on.”

“Far from it,” he replied.

That was all the encouragement I needed. I pressed myself against him once more, and he gave me another of those depth-charge kisses — you know, the kind that make you feel as if you’ve been blown back into another dimension. Did I even want to know where he’d learned to kiss like that? You wouldn’t think the Devil would have much experience, but maybe he was just naturally good at that sort of thing. Exposure to all that sin over the years must have had some sort of effect.

It took a little longer for us to break apart this time. Or maybe it was just that the cumulative effect of his mouth on mine had begun to rob me of some much-needed oxygen. I didn’t know. All I did know was that I’d never had someone kiss me into something resembling semi-consciousness before.

“Okay, you have to stop,” I said at last, trying to draw some air back into my lungs. “Or I’m going to end up in the hospital.”

“I believe you initiated the last one,” he replied, but he did take a step back, giving me some much-needed breathing space.

“True,” I said.

Then he reached out to run a hand down my hair. He had a strange expression on his face, an odd mix of curiosity and tenderness. “Maybe we should leave it at that for now,” he said, after the slightest of pauses.

The urge to tear off his clothes was almost overwhelming, but from somewhere I dug up a measure of self-control. I took a deep breath, and then another. “That might be a good idea,” I replied. Otherwise, we were probably going to end up doing it on the living room floor, and I sort of wanted my first time with him to be a little less trashy than that.

“Until next time, then,” he said. Leaning down, he brushed his lips against my cheek, and even that feather-light touch was enough to get my blood racing.

“Until then,” I whispered, and then he slipped out, leaving me standing in the center of the room. For a long moment I stared at the door, as my heart finally managed to resume something resembling a normal rhythm.

Was I damned for wanting him?

Did I even care?

A
fter the events
of the night before, the prospect of meeting Danny for lunch seemed particularly anti-climactic. But I figured it would give me the chance to make a clean break; I knew after that kiss with Luke there wouldn’t be any more nonsense on my part about trying to see both men at the same time. People date multiple partners (and sleep with them, for all I know) every day. I just wasn’t that sort of person, though, and it would be cruel to give Danny any more false hope. If he even had any.

He picked me up in his little white Nissan truck. Shockingly, he was only about five minutes late, and I knew he must really be making an effort.

Too little, too late
, I thought, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him.

We didn’t talk much on the way over to the Beverly Center. I had no idea what to say, and he seemed tense and nervous. Maybe he’d already picked up on the “you’re about to get dumped” vibe. Even though I knew it would be better for both of us in the long run, it still didn’t make the short term any easier to face.

Luckily, though, we didn’t have to wait long for a table, and after about five minutes we were seated at a booth next to the window. Not that there was much to see today; another storm had come in, and the day outside was gray and gloomy.

Remembering the delicious but oh-so-caloric cheeseburger of the night before, I ordered a grilled chicken salad with dressing on the side. Also, I was feeling sort of bloated, since my period had started just that morning. I would have worried about it ruining my weekend, except that my doctor had put me on some great new pills about six months earlier, and now I only had to deal with the inconvenience for three days instead of six. You just gotta love modern science.

Still, I still knew I was a little off, and I made a mental note to think twice before I said anything so I wouldn’t let my hormones do the talking. I waited until after Danny had placed his own order for a barbecue chicken pizza (his favorite) before asking, “So how was your weekend?”

“Great,” he said, although his tone indicated that it had been anything but. “Victor and Zach and I had a LAN party Saturday night, and then on Sunday I upgraded my video card.”

I wanted to say, “Whoo-hoo! Party!” but that would have been downright rude. Victor and Zach and Danny shared a little one-story house on the edge of Culver City and generally indulged one another’s geekdom to almost pathological levels. Privately I referred to them as the “Lone Gunmen,” from the similar trio of crazies on
The X-Files
, which I binge-watched the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in high school, mainly because I had a serious crush on ’90s-vintage David Duchovny. Maybe Danny would have been a little easier to deal with if I’d been able to pry him away from his partners in crime, but I knew that was never going to happen.

At any rate, LAN parties and upgraded computer hardware were pretty much par for the course. I tried to look impressed and said, “I’ll bet Warcraft runs a lot better now.”

“Oh, yeah!” he said enthusiastically. “I kept having problems with jumpy movement, but now it’s so smooth you’d swear you were watching a DVD. I just wish I’d done it months ago.”

I assumed what I hoped was an expression of polite interest. Well, if nothing else, Danny was definitely reinforcing my resolve to call it quits. Right then I couldn’t believe that I’d put up with more than six months of this stuff.

“Anyway,” he said, his face sobering quickly, “how was your weekend? Big date, right?” Those last three words were uttered in a tone of snottiness so extreme it sounded as if he were channeling some backstabbing teen at cheer camp.

“Just on Friday,” I replied.
Cool, keep it cool
, I told myself. “Saturday I went to Orange County to see my parents, and Sunday night the girls took me out for drinks.”

“Oh.” For a second he looked a little surprised, as if he’d thought for sure I would have spent all weekend in some wild sex-fest with his unknown rival.

I wish
, I thought, and despite everything, a little chill ran down my spine. If just kissing Luke was that spectacular, what would it be like for him to make love to me? Any rational arguments I might have made against taking such a step seemed completely feeble at that point. If I weren’t going to follow this thing to its logical conclusion, then I should never have let him kiss me in the first place. And keeping him from kissing me seemed on a par with stopping the Earth in its orbit — not only was it physically impossible, but it would have had catastrophic consequences to boot. At least, that was what I told myself. I didn’t want to think what would have happened if I’d turned into the ice queen again and sent him packing.

The waitress came back with some water and disappeared immediately afterward. Danny took a sip and then said, “Look, Christa, I just want — I want to apologize.”

I felt as if he’d taken that glass of water and splashed it in my face. “Uh — what?”

Not meeting my eyes, he continued, “I guess I — well, maybe I sort of took you for granted. And I shouldn’t have. You’re great — you’re really, well...um...great.”

It might not have been the sort of eloquence that could turn a girl’s heart, but I felt awful all the same. Why did he have to be nice now, when all I wanted to do was end things so I could run off into the sunset with the Devil?

Swallowing hard, I said, “Look, Danny, I — ”

“No, really,” he interrupted. “I guess I didn’t even realize how I felt about you until you told me that you wanted to go out with somebody else, too. It just — well, it freaked me out. I don’t want to share you.”

Three weeks ago those words would have been music to my ears. At this point, though, I was angry more than anything else. Boy, that was typical, wasn’t it? I’d just been a superfluous adjunct all those months, and then the second Danny realized someone else might be interested in me, suddenly I was the love of his life.

I almost snapped,
Hey, it’s your lucky day — you don’t have to share me, because I’m dumping you!
But I managed to hold my tongue long enough to allow the impulse to pass. Hormones were so much fun.

Instead, I helped myself to some water, then said, “I wish you could have told me that a while ago.”

“I know,” he said. “I guess I just didn’t think about it until now. I always thought you’d, you know, be there.”

Of course, right at that moment the waitress showed up with our food. I busied myself with pouring out the precise amount of dressing required to give my salad some taste without totally upping the fat and calorie quotient. If nothing else, the activity gave me some time to think.

This wasn’t going to be easy. Then again, whatever was?

Even though eating was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment, I lifted some grilled chicken to my mouth and forced myself to chew. Danny had already dug into his barbecue chicken pizza.

“Well,” I said, “I’m glad that this has made you stop and think about things.”

He glanced up from his food, his gray-blue eyes hopeful.

I suddenly felt as if I were about to kick a puppy, but I had to go on before I completely lost my nerve. “But I just don’t think it’s going to work out for us.”

The blood seemed to rush from his cheeks. He put down his half-eaten slice of pizza and said, “What?”

Keep going
, I told myself.
You can’t back out now.
“I’ve been thinking, too, Danny, and although I really like you as a person, I just don’t see us having much of a future together.”

In stunned tones he asked, “I don’t — why not?”

“Besides having nothing in common?” I retorted.

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “We both like the same music, we — we — ” The words trailed off as apparently he stopped to think about what precisely we
did
have in common.

As for the claim about liking the same music, well, that wasn’t too difficult, considering I’d listen to just about anything. Danny tended to favor esoteric heavy metal bands from Europe whose names I couldn’t even pronounce; generally, I thought they were all right, but I felt the same way about pretty much everyone from Glenn Miller to Adele. Other than that, he and I really had no common interests. I was Mac; he was PC. I liked indie films and a good romantic comedy; he liked action movies or gore-fests. I liked Thai; he liked Chinese. And so forth. That didn’t even take into account the enormous chasm separating our religious backgrounds.

As a wise man once said, “You say potato, I say po-tah-to.” A rational person probably would have called it off months ago.

“You see?” I asked, in gentler tones than I thought I’d be able to summon. “People need more than that to build a relationship on. It just wasn’t working, and I think deep down we both knew it.”

Danny’s mouth grew tight. “Funny how you didn’t figure any of this out until
he
came along.”

“‘He’ who?”

“This guy you met. Whoever he is. He must really be something to make you want to throw away someone you’ve been with for six months.”

You have no idea
, I thought, but I knew better than to say anything that would reinforce Danny’s feelings of inadequacy. “I think we’re better suited,” I said carefully. “But that has just as much to do with me as it does him. This isn’t about him, anyway. It’s about you and me. And I’m telling you that I would have felt the same even if I hadn’t met someone else.”

“You really expect me to believe that?”

Suddenly tired, I replied, “Hey, you’re going to believe what you’re going to believe. I’m just telling you my side of things.”

His face twisted. Again I experienced a rush of guilt; this couldn’t be easy for him. Here he thought he’d had something good going, a girlfriend who was leagues beyond anyone else he’d dated (and I wasn’t just saying that to puff myself up; I’d seen a couple of photos of his previous girlfriends), and now she was pulling the plug. That just had to suck, no matter what he might have done to deserve it.

Maybe I was fooling myself. Maybe I wouldn’t have had the guts to break up with Danny if I didn’t have somebody else already waiting in the wings. I didn’t know for sure, and second-guessing myself wasn’t going to help the situation anyway. All I knew was that right here, right now, I had to make an end to it.

“I’m really sorry, Danny,” I said at last. “But we’re done.” I fumbled for my purse and pulled out my wallet. “I don’t expect you to pay for my lunch, so — ” And I dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table.

“You don’t have to do that,” he replied mechanically. Then, as he seemed to grasp the fact that I was leaving, a spasm of panic crossed his features. “No, really. You don’t have to leave. You
can’t
leave.”

God, he was making this awkward. “I think it’s better if I go. I can just catch a cab or something back to work — ”

“No!” he burst out, so loudly that a few heads at neighboring tables swiveled in our direction. “I mean, that’s silly. We’re civilized people — we can at least finish our lunch, right?”

His urgency seemed really out of line with my actions, but whatever. I settled back in my seat, wondering how on earth I was going to get through the next half-hour or so.

Calmly I said, “All right, Danny. If you feel so strongly about it.”

A look of relief passed over his face. “Great, um — thanks, Christa. I’m sorry — I just — well, you know, this is tough.”

You’ve got that right
, I thought, then sighed and picked up my fork. This was definitely going to be one of the longest meals of my life.

S
everal centuries
— all right, approximately half an hour — later, Danny dropped me back off at work. He cast a nervous glance around, and said, “Uh — good-bye, I guess.”

“Good-bye,” I said, then added, so the farewell wouldn’t sound so harsh, “Take care of yourself, okay?”

He managed a smile. “You, too.”

I shut the door to his truck, then turned and walked back into the building. It had to be done, but I still felt like crap.

My feelings of guilt evaporated, however, when I entered my office and saw Victor Nguyen, one of Danny’s roommates, hastily backing away from the keyboard to my Mac.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” I demanded.

He blinked. “Upgrading your Norton Antivirus. Didn’t you get the email?”

“No,” I said, shooting him a wary look.

Victor also worked for IT Solutions — in fact, I was pretty sure Victor had gotten Danny his job in the first place — but I hadn’t received any emails about an upgrade. Besides, Danny usually got the assignments at my magazine. Since we’d had lunch plans anyway, why hadn’t he just asked to perform the upgrades?

“I’ll have to check on what happened to your notification email,” Victor said, dark eyes expressionless behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Anyway, you’re good to go. Just let us know if it stalls or causes any problems.”

“Oh, I’ll definitely let you know if there are any…problems.” I didn’t bother to keep the suspicion out of my voice. How convenient that Victor should be snooping around my computer while I was out to lunch with Danny. No wonder he’d panicked at the thought of me leaving early — he’d probably known I’d walk in and catch Victor in the middle of…what?

I couldn’t tell for sure, and Victor had the poker face I so woefully lacked, so there was no point in questioning him further. Instead, I just crossed my arms and waited as he gathered up his briefcase and brushed past me.

I caught the faintest gleam of triumph in his eyes. Or maybe it was just a reflection off his glasses.

At any rate, I waited until he was safely gone and then plunked myself down at the keyboard. Heart racing, I went through my emails to see if I could find anything incriminating there, but the only contact with Luke on this computer was that one innocuous email in my “Sent Items” folder. There wasn’t much they could glean from that — except of course Luke’s email address. And what could they do with his email account, really? Bombard him with pleas for financial help from nonexistent Nigerian bankers and send him penis-enlargement advertising?