“Do you?” he asked, amusement evident in his tone.
“Well, not all,” I amended, “but enough to know better than to look one in the eye.” Especially now, when we were parked on a dark, deserted road in the middle of nowhere. I could scream for help until the cows came home, but no one would hear me.
I felt the weight of his gaze on my bowed head, felt the heat of his desire brush my senses like a breath of summer air. It filled the car with an almost palpable energy. I didn't know if it was some kind of Vampire magic or not, but it was all I could do to keep from crawling into his lap and begging him to make love to me. If Vampires had pheromones, his were working overtime.
“I think you'd better take me home.”
I shivered as his fingertips slid, slow and sensuous, down my arm. “Is that what you want?”
I nodded. Being this close to him in a confined space was far too dangerous, and far too tempting. I mean, he was the most gorgeous creature, man or Vampire, that I had ever seen, and I'm only human, after all. Add to that the fact that I hadn't been in a man's arms or kissed by anyone other than my mother in a good long time, and well, you get the idea.
“Kathy.” He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced my head up. “Please don't be afraid of me. I won't hurt you. I won't hypnotize you. I swear I'll never do anything you don't want me to do.”
There was no safety in that, I thought wildly. I wanted him to sweep me into his arms and make mad, passionate love to me in every way humanly, or inhumanly, possible. I wanted to feel his hands on my body, wanted my hands on him.
I swallowed hard, glad that he couldn't read my mind. “Why me?”
He smiled faintly. “Why not you?”
“But, you've been a Vampire for years. You must have had dozens of women….” I stared at him. For all I knew, he had a wife waiting at home. “You're not married, are you?” I told myself it didn't matter. He was a Vampire, not a potential husband. But I still wanted to know.
He looked offended. “I wouldn't be with you if I was,” he said curtly. “I've never been married, although I came close once.”
“Really?” Curiosity drove everything else from my mind. “What happened?”
He snorted softly. “What do you think? When she found out what I was, she called me every dirty name in the book, and then she packed up and left town.”
“I'm sorry, that must have hurt.”
He shrugged, as if it was of no consequence. “It was a long time ago.”
But it still hurt. Though he tried to hide it, I could hear the pain in his voice. I resisted a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to comfort him, to stroke the black silk of his hair, to kiss his cheek and whisper that any woman who would walk away from him was a fool. Darn! What was I thinking? Alarmed by the turn of my thoughts, I folded my arms over my chest to keep from reaching for him.
Silence stretched between us, broken only by the chirping of crickets and Brooks & Dunn lamenting a good love gone bad. A capricious wind stirred the leaves on the trees. Clouds drifted over the moon, making the night darker still.
I wished Raphael would take me home. I wished he would take me in his arms and kiss me until I couldn't think straight. I wished I could make up my mind.
“Do you want me to take you back?”
I nodded, even though I didn't really want to go home. But staying here was a really bad idea. I refused to listen to the little voice in my head whispering that I was a coward. Maybe I was, but Raphael Cordova was far too tempting for my peace of mind. I had a feeling that kissing him and then stopping would be like trying to eat just one potato chip. It couldn't be done.
The drive back to the bookstore seemed endless. Raphael didn't seem inclined to talk, and try as I might, I couldn't think of a single thing to say to break the tense silence between us. I stared out the window. Why did I have to find him so darned attractive? Why did he have to be a Vampire?
A short time later, he pulled up in front of the shop. He handed me out of the car, walked me to mine, and waited while I unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel. Rolling down the window, I looked up at him. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Can I see you again?” he asked.
As I had on several other occasions, I started to say no, only to find myself saying, “Yes, I'd like that.”
I just hoped I wouldn't regret it.
Chapter Five
Raphael Cordova was much on my mind the next day. I thought about him while I fixed breakfast, thinking how sad it was that he couldn't enjoy a good meal anymore. How did Vampires exist without partaking of the finer things in life, like a ham-and-pineapple pizza, or a mug of hot chocolate on a cold rainy night, or chocolate chip cookies warm and fresh from the oven?
After breakfast, I took a shower, dressed in a loose knit gray sweater and a pair of comfy jeans, and left the house.
On the way to work, I made a quick stop at the jewelry store where I bought a pretty silver filigree cross on a sturdy silver chain, as well as a couple of thick silver bracelets for good measure.
Arriving at the bookstore, I read my snail mail, booted up my computer and checked my e-mail, and then spent an hour online reading through various book catalogs and filling out order forms for upcoming releases. The excitement over e-books had faded in the last few years. These days, it was rare for anything other than college and medical texts to be available in electronic format. Print-on-demand books, once hailed as the future golden goose for publishers, had quickly gained prominence, and just as quickly plummeted to obscurity. As more and more people spent more and more time in front of computers, reading electronic media lost its appeal once the novelty wore off. Readers went back to gathering in bookstores, browsing through the shelves, or relaxing in a comfortable chair with a good book and a cup of coffee. Plus, there was nothing quite as satisfying as the smell or the feel of a new book. Of course, books themselves had changed over the years. New, synthetic paper kept the pages from turning yellow with age, spines were more durable, and the new ink didn't fade. Cover art had become an increasingly sought after art form. There was a big market for original cover art, with some canvases selling for thousands of dollars.
With time on my hands, my thoughts again turned toward Raphael. What was it like to be a Vampire, to sleep all day, to hunt for prey at night? I remembered the hurt in his voice when he talked about the woman he had loved and lost. It was hard to imagine a Vampire having a love life, getting married, sitting around the house watching satellite movies. Or reading Jordan Montgomery murder mysteries, I thought with a grin. I had always thought of Vampires and Werewolves as monsters so consumed with the lust for blood that they had little time for anything else.
Thinking I had a lot to learn, I turned back to my computer and checked the store inventory, looking for anything I could find on Vampires. Nothing came up on the screen, but I knew I had at least one book on the Supernatural. Before moving to Oak Hollow, I had bought up all the stock from a used bookstore that was going out of business. If I remembered correctly, there had been a book on Vampires in one of the boxes.
I finally found what I was looking for. It was at the bottom of a box in the back room, mixed in with a bunch of books I had decided were too outdated or too beat up to put out front.
Book in hand, I poured myself a cup of coffee and settled down in one of the chairs to learn what I could about the care and feeding of the Undead.
In ancient times, Vampires had been blamed for anything and everything that went wrong or couldn't be explained, whether it was a mysterious illness, a loaf of bread that failed to rise, cows that didn't give milk, or chickens that didn't lay eggs.
Fascinating, I thought, and before I knew it, I was caught up in the life and lore of Vampires. The author, Carl Overstreet, had done more than just list the ways to detect and destroy Vampires, he named names. Mara was listed as the oldest living Vampire. It was said that no one living knew how old she was, when she had been made, or who had made her. It was believed that she had been turned in the valley of the Nile during the reign of Cleopatra. It was rumored that she was truly immortal, that she was impervious to blade or stake, and that the sun's light no longer had any power over her.
I read the name again. Mara. Wasn't that the name of Raphael's godmother? Could it be the same woman? I'd have to ask Raphael the next time I saw him.
The book reinforced what I already knew: Vampires needed blood to survive and couldn't abide the sun's light. As Raphael had mentioned, the touch of silver burned their skin and weakened their Supernatural powers.
Reading on, I learned that unless they were very old, like Mara, or very powerful, they were rendered unconscious during the day.
Vampires possessed a number of preternatural abilities. They could change shape, influence the weather, dissolve into mist, move faster than the human eye could follow, scurry up the side of a building like a spider, and compel others to do their bidding. It was this last ability that bothered me the most. It was disconcerting, knowing that Raphael could mesmerize me with those beautiful, dark eyes. I had been told that when under hypnosis, you couldn't be forced to do anything against your will, but we weren't talking about ordinary hypnosis here, we were talking about preternatural power wielded by Supernatural creatures.
Detecting the Undead was not so easy, which gave me pause to wonder how I had known Raphael was a Vampire when I first met him, or how I had recognized the Vampires he had sent to my shop. Obviously, I had some kind of Vampire radar that had been dormant until recently. Either that, or I'd never come across a Vampire before I met Raphael.
Business picked up a little late in the afternoon. I have to admit, every time the door opened, I felt a flutter in my stomach, even though I knew that, at this time of day, it couldn't be Raphael.
Just before dusk, Susie McGee and her brood trooped in. The boys headed for the children's section, punching each other along the way.
“I promised to buy the boys new books if they behaved at the doctor's office,” she said, leaning against the counter.
