I toss up a hand, snort indignantly, and snap, “What’s up with the lack of help, Gaire? Did your wife get sick or a girlfriend not show up?” Did his name just dribble off my lips like slow moving honey? Why am I using his name? And was that a question about relationship commitments? Who the hell cares what they do beyond my reach? This is absolutely not me, Miss-No-Name, Miss-Who-Gives-A-crap. “Oh, and how old are you?” I add before I analyze myself right out the front door—so not going to happen.
I’m not acting like the body I’ve doubled up on, either. The snotty little rich bitch probably wouldn’t give this guy a second glance. Oh, cold, cruel, and blessed darkness, look at him. My heartless body melts when his smile shows me an amazing set of straight white teeth.
When have I ever cared about teeth?
“Thirty-two, never been married. I don’t stay in one place long enough to establish a relationship.” His brow furrowed an abrupt, but quickly retrieved, tell—a slight regret. “And my waitress quit, doesn’t plan on coming back.”
“Why is that? Do you kill things? Would I find you on America’s Most Wanted?”
Now that’s a hoot. My whole family kills things—human things.
Gaire laughs out loud. “Other than hunting season,” he says, waggling his brows, “I take no trophies. I move because I have a … family that, let’s just say, a family that believes I should be living with them for the rest of my life. I don’t do family well. And you still haven’t answered my main question, but you have managed to get three answers out of me. Quid-pro-quo, girl. You’re wrapped in a pretty package, CeCe, but there’s something hiding inside. Who are you?”
Under CeCe’s skin, my body-mass trembles. I want this guy, but not like the others. I really want this guy—long term. That is not a possibility, merely a desire I frequently dream about.
“Careful, Gaire. Digging too deep on a first … whatever this is, is a dating faux pas.”
“But we’re not dating. In fact, we have no physical tie what-so-ever. I’d need to see a driver’s license before that happens. I’d just like to know who the girl that worked hard for me all day really is. I at least owe you a pay check.”
Every section of my dark, smoky body crackles with electricity. He’s treating me like an employee! “No, you don’t owe me anything … um, anything monetary, anyway. But we can change that physical thing in a heartbeat. One of your heartbeats,” I say, head spinning as I move closer. The body I’m wearing is temporarily forgotten—I’m all doppelganger at the moment. “The closed sign is up. My car is the only one in the parking lot, so how about we—”
When I place my hand against his chest and touch him for the first time, it’s like being hit with a lightning bolt. We both jump back.
“Holy shit, are you plugged in?” I squeak, but underneath I’m so freaked out I can hardly speak.
Gaire recovers quicker than I do, although he says nothing. His fingers rub the spot on his chest where I’d touched him, and he immediately brings them to his nose.
His thick brows reaching for each other, eyes hooded, he drops his hand and says, “How about, for now, I cook you the breakfast you came in for?”
I watch a perfect ass tucked into tight jeans move toward the kitchen. Arms and shoulders strain his damp tee shirt, and I can’t find my voice, or CeCe’s. But inside my cold dead body, a fire ignites, and I know he’s the only one who can put it out.
Gaire
Son-of-a-bitch, I can’t breathe. Who is she? Better yet, what is she? Something I have never come in contact with before, that’s for sure. I feel spelled, weak. Could it just be that indefinable, and often talked about, fatal attraction to a human? Impossible. Stuff like that doesn’t happen to my kind. Mates are selected for us, not chosen by us.
“You like pancakes?”
She walks up to the window on the other side of the grill, stares at me through eyes that clearly hold secrets, and licks her pink and puffy lips.
“Sounds yummy,” she says, while my damn eyes take it upon themselves to search the front of her tee for hardened nipples.
“Eggs?” The word catches in my throat.
“Sure.”
“What about meat? Do you like bacon?”
Her face goes all seductive, with sleepy eyes. Her teeth hold her bottom lip, and a slight intake of breath flares her nostrils. She holds me with that look for a few seconds. The pheromones she’s giving off make me inhale deeply, savor the scent, and try to examine it. My heartbeat accelerates as rapidly as during a hunt. What she’s giving off is nothing I’ve ever scented before. It’s intoxicating.
“You might say I’m more carnivore than omnivore.” Her smile is devilish.
I feel heat in my cheeks—wonder if she knows what I am—and pour out batter for six pancakes.
Tossing a dozen strips of bacon on the grill, I make myself busy cracking a shitload of eggs, and then I’m finally capable of saying, “Ah, a girl after my own heart.”
I certainly hope not.
Her soft, breathy chuckle sucks the air out of my lungs and holds it. I’m either going to sate my appetite with breakfast, or I’m going to sate it with the biggest mistake of my life, because I want this woman.
CeCe