“Once,” she quickly admitted. “Only once, and that was a mistake.”
“But he didn’t think it was, and that is what worries me. I don’t want you to be put in a situation where you feel you must do anything to keep Kyle happy, including sleep with him.”
“Jesus, Julian. Do you think I would do that? I don’t screw around.”
He placed his hands behind his back. “I never said you did. Kyle, on the other hand, would do whatever he could to drive a wedge between us.”
“Kyle’s not the one driving the wedge between us right now, you are,” she griped.
The blackness flared in his eyes and then quickly subsided. He smiled at her and his surly countenance lifted. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just being overprotective.”
“You’re being an ass,” she mumbled.
He nodded. “That, too.” He put his thick arm about her shoulders. “I won’t bring it up again. Let’s go back to your place and have a peaceful evening. I don’t want us fighting before the ceremony tomorrow night.”
“Oh, I almost forgot about that.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “I’ve just had so much stuff running through my head today.”
He came around behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders, and began to slowly massage the kinks out of her neck.
“You’re very tense.”
“God, that feels wonderful,” she told him as she closed her eyes and relaxed her shoulders.
His powerful fingers kneaded into her muscles. “I know the perfect remedy for all of your tension.”
Jazzmyn snickered. “I’ll bet.”
He kissed the back of her neck. “A good game of chess will do you wonders.”
“You’re joking. Chess?”
“Absolutely,” Julian answered. “Best stress reliever there is.”
***
“You should have moved your rook to the bishop three position,” Julian suggested as they sat across from each other at her father’s red and gold chess table in the third floor studio of her home.
He had removed his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his light yellow shirt. His glass of red wine sat at the edge of the square table that had heavy white marble chess pieces positioned on top of it.
“Yes, but if I had done that I couldn’t do this.” She took his knight with her rook.
Julian’s dark eyes glared at her from across the chessboard. “That’s not a legal move.”
“No, it’s legal. You’re just hoping that I don’t know if you’re lying or not about it being legal.”
He sulked and fidgeted in his dark green wing back chair. “Now you’re reading my mind.”
She sat back in her matching dark green chair, grinning happily. “No, that’s just a tactic my father tried to pull on me all the time until I got a book on chess and started learning the rules.”
He reached for a rook on the chessboard. “How come your father never wanted to play chess with me when I was here? I remember I asked him several times, but he refused.” He moved his rook closer to her bishop.
She shrugged, looking over the board. “It was our game, and we only played each other. I sometimes think the only reason he taught me chess was so he would have an opponent he could trust.” She watched Julian slouching over the board and surveying his men. “Who was the old friend who taught you how to play?”
“Paul Morphy.” He glanced up at her. “We grew up together.”
Jazzmyn’s dark green eyes grew in size. “The Paul Morphy?”
Julian nodded. “When we were boys, a love of chess was one of the things we had in common. He taught me a great deal about the game.”
She shook her head and leaned toward the square table. “The people you must have known during your life. If you could write a book about your adventures….”
Julian reclined in his chair. “People would never believe it, and no one would want to read about me. They would rather get lost in the fantasy of mythic creatures such as vampires and werewolves. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it’s the fiction people want to read.”
“Do you think you will miss it? When you go back to being just like other men, you might find that being special wasn’t such a curse after all. Many would give everything they have to live forever.”
Julian stood from his chair. “I have tasted eternity, Jazzmyn, and found it not to my liking. I started out in this life as a man, and I would like to end it the same way.” He reached for her hand. “Time for bed.”
Jazzmyn stood from her chair and Julian enveloped her in his arms. His mouth came down hungrily on hers. She wanted to pull away, but could not. Her body refused to obey her commands, and despite her internal struggles, she felt herself surrendering to his hands as they began to avidly explore her round curves.
“You’re anxious about being with me again. Why?” he asked as he kissed her neck.
“I…I’m afraid, Julian.” She quickly searched for an excuse. “Afraid of it hurting again.”
He placed his hands about her face. “I have no wish to hurt you.” He sighed as he leaned his forehead against hers. “But I want you.”
“Perhaps we could wait one more night. Tomorrow night you will be human again, and I think I would like to wait until you make an honest woman out of me before we make love again.”
He pressed his hands against her temples. “What if you don’t like me as a man? Perhaps you would prefer me as I am.”
Jazzmyn’s heart flew to her throat as his palms squeezed into her skull. Her mind struggled to find placating words to soothe him.
“I want who you are on the inside, Julian. That is the man I love,” she finally said.
Julian’s hands relaxed against her. His arms reached around her body and pulled her close. “I’m glad you feel that way, and perhaps you are right. Tomorrow night I will be as I was, and then I can take you as my wife.”
Jazzmyn sighed and rested her head against his chest. “Thank you.”
He took her hand and started for the studio door. “Then let’s hurry to bed so I can put my last night as this creature behind me. Tomorrow is going to be a brand new day for both of us, Jazzmyn.”
As his strong hand curled around hers, Jazzmyn’s anxiety began to mount. The idea of another sleepless night in her king-sized bed with Julian almost made her groan out loud. She did not know what was worse, the monster asleep beside her, or the one chasing her in her dreams. If she could not find any respite from her nerve-wracking days with Julian, Jazzmyn knew it was only a matter of time before her fraying sanity would be pushed over the edge. Sooner than later she had to end this, otherwise Jazzmyn feared she would spend the rest of her life trapped inside a never-ending hell.
Chapter 19
The next morning Julian pulled his dark blue Maserati around to the back door of The Sweet Note Bistro. After he put the car into park, he looked over at Jazzmyn in the passenger seat next to him.
“I’ll be by at ten to pick you up, so make plans to sneak out early.”
She placed the strap of her brown leather purse around her shoulder. “Scott usually closes for me on Sundays, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“The ceremony is to take place at midnight in Lafayette Cemetery Number One, where Odette is buried. We are to meet Lucinda there at eleven thirty to go over the details.”
“Is there anything special I need to do for tonight?” she asked as she reached for the door handle.
Julian patted her thigh, reassuringly. “I’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry about tonight. It will all be fine,” he added, looking confident.
“Will it, Julian? What you are dealing with is pretty powerful stuff. Who knows what can happen, or what price you may be asked to pay to rid yourself of this curse?”
“I’ve already paid my price, Jazzmyn.” He leaned across the car and opened her door. “Now go to work and forget about tonight.”
As Julian’s sleek sports car pulled away from the curb, Ms. Helen’s words kept
repeating in Jazzmyn’s head. What sacrifice was Julian going to have to make to end this? Either he had no idea there was going to be a sacrifice, or he was lying to her about what was really going to happen tonight. Jazzmyn had a sneaking suspicion that he was lying to her. He made everything sound too easy, and she knew removing whatever was in him was not going to happen with just a few magic words. Making amends with anyone you have slighted usually took more than a simple apology. To be truly forgiven, your actions had to speak louder than your words. In Julian, she wasn’t seeing the conduct of a remorseful man; she was witnessing the horrific deeds of an angry one.
When Jazzmyn walked in the back door of her restaurant, she felt comforted by the familiar sights and smells of her home away from home. The world outside and all its problems were hushed when she walked down that hallway toward the kitchen. For a few brief moments Julian, curses, and voodoo rituals did not matter anymore.
Wanting to check on the morning prep before heading to her office, Jazzmyn turned into the kitchen. She immediately spotted Carl standing by the main prep table and covered from head to toe with a red, oily substance. She took a breath and walked over to Ms. Helen, who was chopping up vegetables at the salad prep area.
“What is on Carl?”
Ms. Helen looked up from the eggplant she was slicing into strips. “Stronger juju,” she declared.
“Which is what exactly?”
“Red food colorin’ and olive oil,” Ms. Helen replied with a slight smile.
“How long does he have to have it on?” Jazzmyn pulled at the purse strap around her shoulder. “I’ve got lunch service in two hours.”
Ms. Helen shrugged. “Until then should do it.” She began slicing her eggplant again.
“I don’t think it’s going to help him,” she whispered to Ms. Helen.
Ms. Helen nodded in agreement. “Then you best be gettin’ over to Kyle’s place before we have to put out Carl’s dishes for lunch.”
A look of disbelief crossed Jazzmyn’s features. “How did you know I was planning on going there this morning?”
“Same way I know that demon isn’t the one for you. I see it.” The sound of a loud car horn came from Magazine Street in front of the restaurant. “You best be goin’,” Ms. Helen advised as she motioned to the dining room door.
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s the cab I called to take you to Kyle’s.” Ms. Helen winked at Jazzmyn. “Go on, girl.”
***
Kyle lived in a quiet neighborhood made up of shotgun houses not far from Audubon Park, near the bend in the Mississippi River. When the cab stopped in front of Kyle’s narrow, rectangular one-story home, Jazzmyn got out and looked up at the structure. It had been painted bright green with a front porch supported by columns and brackets that were decorated in white, lacey Victorian motifs. There was a short, black iron fence around the front yard and one small magnolia tree planted in a garden bed by the front gate.
Jazzmyn was entranced by the exquisite detail of the building. Every time she visited his home, she pictured herself entering a child’s dollhouse. A shimmer of white light bouncing around on the cypress front door distracted her. She lowered her eyes to the source of the phenomenon…the diamond ring on her left hand.
Jazzmyn cursed as she quickly removed the ring from her finger and placed it in the front pocket of her black slacks.
Standing on the porch, she rapped on the frosted pane of glass that filled a decorative archway in the center of the front door. Jazzmyn waited and when no one appeared at the door, she knocked again, louder than before.
A few seconds later, a soft rustling came from the other side of the door. Feet could be heard bounding across the floorboards, and then there was the sound of someone fiddling with the lock and security chain. When the old cypress door finally flew open, Kyle was standing before her, wearing only a beige terry cloth robe and appearing as if he had just stepped out of the shower.
He ran his hand over his wet hair. “What are you doing here, Jazz?”
“I came to see you, Kyle.”
He looked past her to the street. “How did you get here?”
She took in his clean-shaven, chiseled features. “I took a cab from the restaurant.”
He stood back from the door and waved her inside. “I was just in the shower.”
“I gathered that,” she told him, smirking as she walked in the door.
“Is that funny or something?” he asked, noting her grin.
“No, it’s not funny.” She started giggling.
Kyle placed his hands on his hips and focused his bitter blue eyes on her. “Then why are you laughing?”
She waved her hand up and down his robe. “Oh, come on, Kyle.” She chuckled once more and then placed her hand over her mouth.
He never cracked a smile. “Why are you here, Jazz?”
Jazzmyn’s face sobered. She took in a deep breath and then threw her purse on a floral print sofa by the door. “All right. I’m here because I want you back.”
It was Kyle’s turn to smirk. “Yeah, I heard Carl’s food sucks.” He slammed the front door closed.
“Not quite, but close to it,” she agreed.
Kyle folded his arms obstinately over his chest. “Why should I come back?”
The gut-twisting apprehension that had been plaguing Jazzmyn for the past few days ebbed away, and a gentle wave of contentment settled over her. She didn’t have to carefully analyze what she said to him to avoid getting him angry, or struggle to find soothing words to calm his temper. No longer feeling as if she had to walk on eggshells, Jazzmyn could finally be herself, and that was something she had missed, almost as much as she had missed being near the man frowning before her.
“Nothing has been right without you, Kyle. The restaurant and my life are a complete mess without you there to yell at, talk to, lean on, and to be my friend.” She motioned to him. “I miss you. I miss my best friend.”
Kyle’s wintry blue eyes warmed. He nervously placed his hands in the front pockets of his beige robe. “I’ve missed you too, Jazz. I, ah, wanted to call and apologize for going after Julian like that. I was wrong. I know that.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter anymore. Just come back and we—”
“I can’t come back, Jazz. I can’t watch you with him anymore. Seeing you with another man was harder on me than leaving The Sweet Note.”
Jazzmyn’s heart sank to the worn, hardwood floor beneath her. She could not imagine her life without Kyle. Despite what her reasons may have been for firing him, she had known somewhere in the back of her mind she would take him back. She always did; no matter how heated the arguments between them, they always found a way to forgive each other.
“Julian is…Julian and I are….” Jazzmyn tried to find the words.
“Are what?” Kyle took a step closer to her.
Jazzmyn’s lower lip began to tremble and tears quickly blurred her vision as all the stress she had been carrying around for the past few days poured out of her.
Before the first teardrop had reached her cheek, Kyle enveloped her in his arms.
She clung to his strong body, weeping into the lapel of his fuzzy robe.
“Jazzmyn, what is it?” Kyle asked with more concern in his voice than she had ever heard.
“I don’t know what to do!” Her voice sounded frail and childlike. “I’m afraid to even talk to him. He scares me, Kyle. I’m terrified he’s going to kill me, just like those women they found around the city. I think sometimes he’s going to rip me apart like—”
“Jazz!” Kyle grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly. “What are you talking about? Who wants to kill you?”
Jazzmyn sniffled as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Julian. He’s a monster, Kyle. He’s an absolute monster.”
***
An hour later, Jazzmyn was sitting on Kyle’s floral print sofa holding a white mug of mocha blend coffee in her hands. Kyle was sitting next
to her, still dressed in his robe and looking as if the world had just ended.
“A curse made him this way?” He sat back on the sofa and whistled. “Damn, Jazzmyn. And I thought I had problems.” He put his white mug down on the square-shaped coffee table in front of him. “You believe this? You really believe this guy is a hundred and fifty years old?”
“A hundred and eighty years old. He was cursed a hundred and fifty-seven years ago,” Jazzmyn clarified, and put her coffee mug down next to his.
“Oh, well, yeah, let’s make sure we get our centuries straight here.” He shook his head. “You know how crazy this sounds? The guy is bullshitting you, Jazz. Can’t you see that? No one lives that long, and there are no such thing as curses. People cannot turn into mythological creatures, even with plastic surgery. The guys a drunk and a hustler; he’s simply working an angle on you to get something.”
Jazzmyn stood from the sofa. “Fine, don’t believe me. I dumped all this on you because I thought you were my friend.”
“A friend is someone who drives you to the psychiatrist, not the one who takes you to the petting zoo to feed the unicorns,” he insisted, jumping to his feet.
“This is not some fantasy or a bad drug reaction, Kyle. I remember Julian from when I was a little girl. His portrait is hanging in my house. I named my cat after him for Christ’s sake, and he…has certain proportions that are humanly impossible.”
“Proportions?”
“Never mind,” Jazzmyn remarked.
Kyle stared at her for a moment and then he frowned. “You mean he has a big cock.”
Jazzmyn rolled her dark green eyes. “Crudely put, but yes. And not big, huge.”
Kyle grinned. “Are you sure that is a curse or a miracle?”
She reached for her purse. “I should have known you wouldn’t help me.”
“I guess you’ve slept with him then.”
“I only slept with him because I thought I had lost you,” Jazzmyn blurted out. She quickly placed her hand over her mouth and turned away from him.
Kyle came up behind her. “Is that the truth? Or was it his really big cock?”
She dropped her purse and spun around to face him. “You son of a bitch! I come here and—”
The Satyr's Curse (The Satyr's Curse Series Book 1) Page 21