“I don’t need anything,” he tells me, still feeling tense. I suppose he doesn’t like needles.
I forget normal people don’t stitch themselves together so often without any deadening agents. Then again, he doesn’t fit the criteria for normal either, given the obvious.
Giving him a small warning, I make the first pass with the stitches, and feel better when he doesn’t even blink. I guess he’s been desensitized to pain as well.
“Is this something you usually do from someone’s lap?” he asks me flatly as I lean forward, concentrating solely on what I’m doing.
“Not usually,” I state, realizing now why he’s so tense. “I’ve never done this on someone else before, aside from my mother on occasion.”
He remains a block of stone under me, and now I see it’s because I’m in his lap and making him really uncomfortable.
“Are you really gay or was that a lie like everything else? That’s the important question she can’t remember to ask, apparently,” Anna states, causing his brow to furrow and makes the stitching process harder.
“Anna,” I groan, hurrying the stitches along so I can get up and help him be comfortable again.
Why does she think he’s gay? Is that why he’s so uncomfortable with me in his lap? It’s not a sexual thing; I’m stitching him up.
Vance’s lips twitch, even as he scrubs a hand over his mouth to make them stop. “I’ve given men a whirl to try and appreciate sex again with something new. Not my cuppa,” he answers.
“Okay, now that I have a mental image of him in my head with another man, I’m extremely turned on. Ask him for the favor,” Anna states dreamily.
I don’t. I’ll have to find someone else.
“What favor?” Vance asks, sounding genuinely curious.
Absently, I answer, “If you’re this uncomfortable with me just sitting in your lap, I doubt you want me asking you for this favor.”
I finish the stiches and tie them off before cutting away the needle. When I start to stand, he grabs my hips and drags me against him, forcing my legs to spread wider. I end up abruptly straddling him more thoroughly.
Swallowing a little thickly, I try to ignore the fact he’s certainly into women. Now that I’m pressed right against him, I can feel how hard he’s grown under me, and my breaths come out a little shaky.
Straddling him in this way leaves my eyes lower than his, so he has to look down at me. I’ve never seen a more cunning look so close, and it’s…intense.
“What’s the favor?” he asks again, his grip still firmly holding me in place.
I look away, unable hold his gaze while I answer. Which I don’t get to do, because Anna is blurting shit out before I can use my very well-rehearsed, carefully worded speech.
“We want you to fuck me while I’m borrowing her body,” she says with all the ineloquence I made her promise not to use. “Because you’re pretty, gentlemanly, and have this alpha vibe I really like. Since you’re not gay, why not?”
He finally glances at her, a blank expression on his face, and…then back at me. His grip grows a little tighter as he closes his eyes and seems to be searching for patience.
I snap a glare at Anna, who simply grins at me.
“You jest,” he finally says. I notice his eyes fluttering open from my peripheral.
Toughing out the awkwardness, I meet his eyes at last and hold his gaze. “Anna, give us a second,” I tell her without looking at her.
She fortunately vanishes without argument for once, and Vance tilts his head like he’s studying me.
“Gypsies don’t allow ghosts to possess them,” he says the second she’s gone. “It’s a very dangerous road to give any ghost a powerful gypsy—”
“Since my mother died and her spirit went into hiding, I’ve done a fantastic job of consistently screwing things up,” I say quietly in interruption, swallowing thickly.
His expression grows more serious as his lips thin.
“I know it’s weird to ask something like this—”
“You have no idea just how unusual of a request this is from a Portocale gypsy. Weird is quite the understatement,” he volleys in a dry tone, even as his gaze dips briefly and his grip tightens more, pulling me even closer. “So you’re doing this because you enjoy screwing things up?” he asks, that regular condescension back in his tone.
“No,” I tell him impatiently. “I’m an idiot for thinking I’ll find my mother’s killer when I can’t even find her death spot—”
“The cult killed her,” he states flatly. “Like they do all the Portocale gypsies. And because they know too much about us, they also know how to hide from us. They know too many of our secrets, because they remain hidden too easily. It’s a byproduct of placing our trust in the wrong person once upon a lifetime ago.”
Swallowing thickly and looking down, I shake my head. “Mom said they had some old-blood gypsies, but that would explain why her spirit is in hiding,” I add, relaxing in his lap.
“I have no idea why your mother’s spirit is in hiding from you,” he answers, even though it sounds like he’s just rushing us away from this topic.
“I keep trying to make educated guesses,” I say as I clear my throat, nodding slowly as I stare down at my hands between us.
After releasing a shaky breath and getting my emotions under control, I meet his eyes again.
“No one will tell me what’s going on. My mother sent me here without telling me why. I have no idea who I can or can’t trust. I failed to save Anna. I’ve done something else terribly wrong, but I can’t remember what—I just feel the pressing weight of it on my chest—”
The pitying look in his eyes has me clearing my throat of emotion again as the tears waver, threatening to fall.
“But I can give Anna her last day as a person. I can do something as simple as this without fucking it up. So yes, I realize weird is an understatement, but I’d consider us even if you helped me not fuck something up.”
He brushes the hair out of my face as his lips thin like he’s thinking it over.
“When would this take place?” he asks, letting the tip of his finger brush my jaw, before lowering his hand.
“Tomorrow,” Anna chimes in as she pops in at my side.
He sighs harshly and drops his head back to stare up at the ceiling for a few seconds. After a beat, he looks at me again and gives a sharp nod.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says before standing and lowering me to the ground. “Do you want to stay for a drink? I could sure use one,” he adds.
I glance around at the wreckage and back up to his face. “I’ll have that drink with you another time. I have to go home and wax myself in a lot of inconvenient places because Anna doesn’t want to spend any of her time in me tweezing, plucking, or primping,” I tell him as I turn and walk toward the door.
He just makes some sort of sound of amusement behind me as I go. I’m feeling a little lighter for at least doing this right.
Chapter 3
VIOLET
Tears cloud my eyes, and I curse as I dab the running mascara off my face, when one tear finally slips and rolls down my cheek. My eye is burning too much, the makeup is kicking my ass, and the mascara brush is an evil super villain in training.
Why can’t I be good at being a girl?
“Can we just skip the other eye?” I ask her on a huff. “I keep having to redo to the makeup because the brush keeps stabbing me in the damn eye.”
“The brush is an inanimate object. You’re stabbing yourself in the eye,” she states dryly. “If I can’t have all this razzle dazzle in corporeal form,” she says, twirling as she gestures to herself, “you’re going to look as good as possible. I need jaws to drop on my last day on earth.”
Refusing to focus on that right now, I go back to trying to apply the mascara.
It’s a screwed up situation when you can’t spend your best friend’s possible last day with her because she needs to borrow your body.
“I’ve never spent so many hours doing so much painful primping so that another woman can enjoy the use of my body—”