Mating Fever (6 page)

He stood up and pulled a bill from his wallet to cover the wine. The waiter looked at him but said nothing. We walked back into the night. Keaton slipped his fingers through mine. I glanced down, and felt a coil of warmth unwind in my heart. I laid my head on his shoulder for a moment. Being with him knowing how much he was trying made my heart soften. He stopped when we got to the car and squeezed our combined hands before bringing them to his lips and kissing my knuckles. A small sigh escaped my lips.

I hadn’t had anyone try and romance me for a long time. My luck with relationships was horrible. I shuddered to think about all the bad luck I’d had. But that wasn’t something I wanted to dig up now. I only hoped my curse with men had been broken.

“Hey, you okay?”

I blinked and stared into his concerned eyes. I brushed a piece of hair from his face. I smiled. “Yeah. I’m okay. Just thinking about the past.”

“Well I hope it isn’t too bad. It took you away from me for a moment.”

“I don’t want to go away. I like what we have going here. Even if you are a bloodthirsty monster.”

“Only for your blood. Look, I’m sorry about that the restaurant. I should’ve asked you where you wanted to go.”

“It’s okay. I appreciate the thought. It’s been a long time since anyone has done anything so nice.”

“Well that’s a shame. I’ll have to remedy that. So where do you want to go?”

He ran his fingers along my cheek. For being a vampire, he was a good guy. I caught one of his fingers when it slid across my mouth and sucked it in between my lips. He tasted good. Thoughts of going back to his place ran through my mind. But a slight headache had formed behind my temples from not eating. He growled when I released his finger.

“I know a place in Jamaica Plain. This pub that serves some great goat cheese quesadillas. Do you eat?”

“I can in small quantities. I just haven’t in a long time. Food tastes like sand after several thousand years. But with you it might taste better.”

“H-how old are you?”

“I’ll tell you later. Right now, get in, and I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

We drove back to Jamaica Plain to the pub that my roommate had introduced me to. The restaurant was upstairs away from the main bar. We sat down, ordered, and when the food was delivered, I dove into it while Keaton watched. After a couple of bites, I noticed he wasn’t touching what he had ordered.

“Everything okay?”

He smiled. “Yeah. I was just enjoying watching you eat.”

I blushed and ran my napkin over my lips only to come away with a long string of cheese. Keaton chuckled. “Why didn’t you tell me there was cheese on my face?”

“I figured you wanted it there. It accentuated your cheekbone very well.”

I threw a red pepper at him. “You’re in for it.”

Keaton took the pepper from his shirt and popped it into his mouth. “I can only imagine what I’m in for.”

My body became flushed, thinking about what had been on my face. I gazed down at the rest of my food. I didn’t speak to him until I finished eating. My mind was straight. Parts of me kept oscillating back and forth about seeing him naked and tasting all of him or just saying screw it and run away from him. I still wanted to believe that monsters didn’t exist and nothing else lurked in the dark. I tried to push that out of my head, and think about the gooey cheese and the vegetables that were melting in my mouth.

Keaton paid the check. A band came onto the small stage and began to play. I leaned back in the chair and listened to the soothing music. The waiter came by with a piece of chocolate cake that I hadn’t ordered, and Keaton smiled, took a fork, and cut a chunk off and brought it to my lips. The intoxicating scent of the chocolate filled my nose. The dark tang of the cocoa made my mouth water.

“I can always eat it myself.” He began to guide the fork to his mouth.

I growled and grabbed his wrist. “I’ll eat it, but slowly.”

I took the fork between my lips and caught the crumbling bits of chocolate with my tongue. The cake was moist and the frosting was rich. It enflamed the need for more and it also stirred my passion for him. He carved into another piece and fed it to me.

Little creases formed around his eyes as he smiled. His eyes widened and lit up as I ate the cake. The music slowed even more, and I took another bite. Finally, I pushed the cake away and watched Keaton eat the last few crumbs. He wiped his finger in the last bit of frosting and held it out to me. I leaned over the table and swept the tip of my tongue over his finger to get the last bit of icing. Keaton broke out into rich laughter.

“You have no idea how you and I are alike.”

“How do you mean?”

“You have passion inside of you. Simmering underneath that controlled exterior of yours. I sampled some of that the other night when you were caught in the mating fever.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “You mean that doesn’t happen to everyone that experiences the fever?”

“No. It affects everyone differently. The pain is customary. It normally drives others to insanity if not acted upon. Some develop certain appetites for blood, food; some go on a killing spree. The mate connects on a subconscious level to the other and they channel the hunger into their own form of addiction, let’s say. For you it seems to be sex. Not that I mind. I’ve always found it fascinating to watch other mated pairs come together.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled. “I am not a sex addict. I enjoy it when I can, but I don’t sleep with every man I’ve gone out with. It’s...” The breath caught in my throat as I recalled the images of my past relationships. The pain of losing the ones I had cared for flashed through my mind. The horrible way they had died, getting hit by the bus, falling on the third rail in the subway station.

Losing my fiancé had been the worst.
Mark and his crazy gifts.
How he presented me with my engagement ring ran through my mind. The loving times we’d spent together in bed. I shook my head and tried to wrench my thoughts away before they pulled me under. The dose of the reality dampened my spirits. Suddenly, the world was a darker place, and I was thrust back into it again.

“Madi, what did I say?” He took my hands and leaned across the table.

The darkness of the world crept in around me.
How could I tell him what had happened? I couldn’t.
I was cursed. The hunger that had awakened inside of me was the darkness that hung over my life. Maybe it was because there was already a monster inside of me, and now it was loose.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” I got up abruptly from the chair. “Can we go, please?”

His brow furrowed and his lips pursed. “Of course. Do you want to go home or back to my place?”

Desire burned in his eyes, but I heard the concern in his voice. I shook my head. “Home. I just need to be alone for now. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

We left the restaurant. I climbed back into his Mercedes trying not to let my mind drift backward. I thought I had walled up those memories so tight they would never escape. Here they were popping up when I least expected them. My date laid his hand on my knee and squeezed. It drew me back to the present. We were outside of my house. I tried to smile, but even that simple gesture was beyond me at the moment.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t —”

He placed a finger on my lips. “Don’t worry about it. We can always have another night. Right?”

I didn’t want to tell him yes. But I did want to see him again. He was kind to me. My heart was turning from thinking he was a crazy stalker who bought me flowers and a cell phone to a man who truly wanted to get to know me. Being so I couldn’t endanger him the way I had Mark, Keaton had to stay out of my grasp. How could I do that if we were meant for one another? I brushed my lips over his cheek.

“Right.”

Chapter Five

I looked at the clock and knew I had to go into work, but I just wasn’t feeling up to it. I had spent the night twisting and turning, trying not to think about my past. Trying not to think about Keaton or what he meant to me.

The passion I felt for him and the darkness was consuming me. My body was enflamed each time I thought about Keaton. It was hard to breathe. When my mind wandered over our night together, wherever he had touched me came to life. The phantom caresses pressed upon my flesh. The ache to see him again grew worse. But then the images of my past boyfriends and how they died would flash through my mind. The thought of Keaton falling prey to my curse twisted my stomach in knots.

I called in sick claiming I had the flu. While I dressed, I realized I needed someone to talk to. The one person I could think of who might understand what I was going through was Stephania because she had helped the last time. When I looked through my purse, I found her card she had had slipped into my jacket pocket.

I worked my way through the tunnels from the T to her house. Standing outside her door, I wondered if she was even home.
Will she talk to me?
Maybe she could tell me if I was cursed. I raised my hand to knock when the door opened and Stephania was on the other side.

“I had a feeling that you were coming. Come on in.”

I smiled and went into the house. “Thanks.”

She closed the door. The house was the same as it was the other night. She motioned me through the beads. I rubbed my arms and bit my lip thinking about what I would say.
She’ll probably think I’m nuts if I tell her this.
We went into her kitchen. The kettle was steaming on the stove. She poured the water into two mugs with teabags hanging off the side of them. The mint from the leaves perfumed the air once the water hit the teabags. Stephania handed me the mug and sat at the kitchen table. I rested my head in my hands and then combed my fingers through my hair.

“So what was it you wanted to talk about?”

I laughed. “How did you know I wanted to talk? Maybe I’m just here to see what other spells you could cook up for me.”

She slapped her hand on the wooden table. “You are too much. I see that Keaton and you are getting along well now. Have you had a chance to crawl between the sheets yet? He really is a great lover.”

“From the other night it seems you had a harsh reaction to him bringing me here. What’s up with that?”

Stephania took a sip of her tea and grimaced. “Yeah. We’ve had our differences in the past. The last time we were together, he got a little bit too physical with me. We said some things to one another. He touched a few nerves. But we were over long ago. I told him never to darken my doorstep again. And then he appeared with you. So what’s bothering you?”

I blew the steam away from the cup and looked at the wilted leaves in the teabag. The scent helped clear my senses. “Both of you said that we were mates, Keaton and me. I appreciate your help with that. But I can’t have a relationship with him. Any relationship I’ve had has always turned to shit. The last one, things…Mark was great. I loved him very much. He proposed to me.”

“And you want to know if your relationships are cursed? Why some dark cloud hangs over you? Maybe why you’ve gotten pulled into this world of monsters and beings that you don’t understand.”

I nodded. “Yeah. How come you know what I was going to say?”

She shrugged. “I had a dream about this last night. I’ve been keeping an eye on you just to make sure you’re adjusting to the spell.” She reached out her hand. “Let me see your hand.”

I held it out. She traced her finger over the lines of my palm. Her eyebrows scrunched together. Then her eyes widened, but the look didn’t give me much encouragement. I sipped my tea. She took my other hand after a moment and peered at it, too.