Eliza blinked in the harsh sunlight, wishing she had her sunglasses. Of course, they had been in her Jetta and were probably smashed beyond recognition just like the rest of her poor little car. She found a radio station she liked—going for Blues this time, and turned it up loud. Thank Me Someday by Buddy Guy, just what she was in the mood for. She cracked open the window so she could smell the fresh, non-hospital air. Of course, she lived in Baton Rouge, so the air smelled like refineries and sulfur, but that was the smell of home. And she could smell more than the sulfur--she could smell the fryer from the hole-in-the-wall restaurant she loved. She also thought she could smell a blooming butterfly ginger flower and some Mexican bush sage. How had she never noticed all of these amazing fragrances?
She pulled onto the highway on her familiar route back to her apartment and noticed that some new buildings had cropped up while she was in the hospital. But that didn’t make sense…she had only been there for a week. Besides, these buildings didn’t look like new developments. She passed by a massive plantation style home that she would have sworn wasn’t there before, even though it looked like it had stood since the 1800s. The way home was full of undeveloped land and empty fields. Had she taken a wrong turn?
Just to be sure, she checked the exit signs. Nope, she was on I-10, just passing exit 151 toward Lobdell Highway. That was right. But the next exit sign confused her. There shouldn’t be an exit 152—at least she could have sworn it wasn’t there before. Curious, Eliza took the exit.
She quickly found herself in an unfamiliar neighborhood without any clue how to get back on the highway. Eliza cursed herself. She couldn’t wait to hear the lecture she would get from her father when he found out that she tried to drive home from the hospital by herself, when she was clearly still whacked out on drugs. That had to be the only explanation. Sober, sane people didn’t get lost in imaginary neighborhoods in the town they’ve lived in all their life.
Eventually, she’d probably have to call her father or—cringe—her sister and tell them that she needed rescuing, but she wasn’t ready to admit defeat. Besides, her curiosity pushed her forward. This neighborhood was breathtaking. How could she have never noticed it before? The residents appeared wealthy, in fact, a little too wealthy for Baton Rogue. They drove luxury cars—nothing less fashionable than a Mercedes--and had them sitting boldly in their driveways with no concern for crime. She even saw some breathtaking classic cars, an old Rolls Royce and 1950s Bentley. She almost wanted to call her dad now, he would absolutely freak at seeing that 1950s Bentley.
Chapter Three
Eliza slowed the car and pulled up to the curb in front of an eclectic, Gothic style home that could have been a movie set. She felt a little dizzy and thought she might be sick. Yep. She should not have driven home from the hospital alone. Something was definitely wrong with her. She should have guessed as much when she started hallucinating the sound of a heart beat two rooms over and believed that her skin had magically gotten lighter. How had a smart person missed something so obvious? She was not okay.
She opened her car door and stepped out, feeling like she needed some fresh air. Once again, she was accosted by thousands of different smells, each more pungent than the last. As fascinating as it had been earlier, now it was overwhelming. She just needed some oxygen. She didn’t need to smell the chili cooking down the street or the leaves decomposing in the gutters.
Something grabbed her arm and she gasped. She thought “something” not someone because his hand felt more like metal prong than human flesh. He was just far too cold and hard for a normal human. Probably just more hallucinations.
“Let go of me,” she said weakly.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said back in a voice as cold and hard as his hand.
“I know…I took a wrong turn.”
“Get back on the highway. Now.”
Even in her confused state, Eliza didn’t appreciate being bossed around. Okay, so she didn’t belong here, but since when was it acceptable to demand that people leave a neighborhood? There wasn’t even a security gate. Was this some kind of secret remaining whites-only neighborhood? Or maybe she actually had wandered into 1950s Baton Rouge. That didn’t seem that much stranger than a phantom neighborhood appearing out of nowhere.
The rude man certainly was white…really white. She might have even guessed he was albino except for his thick, dark lashes and his warm hazel eyes. And his hair was such a light color blond, it almost looked silver. He was far too young to have gray hair, as he couldn’t be any older than thirty. He looked strange, but the effect was hypnotic. She didn’t want to look away. Despite his rudeness, he also looked at her in a surprisingly attentive way, as if he found her fascinating. He took a deep breath and almost seemed to be breathing her in.
Eliza reached into her purse and fumbled for her keys. How did she manage to lose her keys in the thirty seconds since she got out of the car?
“It’s too late,” the man said, and a chill went up Eliza’s spine. Too late for what?
Eliza felt something hit her from behind, something hard and solid like a metal beam. She fell to the ground, scraping her palms and her knees. Her previously miraculously healed ribs seemed to crack again, sending splitting pains through her body. She looked up to see that it wasn’t a metal beam, but a human who had knocked her down. A woman at that. She was as pale as the man and could have been his sister. Eliza guessed that she had at least twenty pounds on the pale woman. How had she knocked her over like a Saints lineman?
Eliza tried to prepare herself to fight back, but the man was faster. He grabbed her under her arms and pulled her to her feet. He seemed to hiss at the woman…yeah, she had to be hallucinating…and he dragged Eliza across his lawn at unusual speed. She lost a flip-flop, but he didn’t stop. Before she could even react, she was inside his house and he had bolted the door behind him. Her heart rate spiked to what was probably a dangerous level for someone recovering from serious injuries. How did she let his happen? Eliza had always been the cautious one, never getting in cars with men she didn’t know well and guarding her drink like it was Fort Knox. All of that, and now a strange man had pulled her into his house and she hadn’t even fought back. She hadn’t even had the chance.
He stood at his door, so Eliza scanned the room for other escape routes. She found herself briefly distracted by the odd décor. This wasn’t the home of a young man. Maybe he lived with his grandfather? The home wasn’t stuck in one time period--it was stuck in several. He had a mustard yellow couch from the 1970s, a record player and a phonograph machine, a 1980s Nintendo, and a brand new plasma television set. There was no consistency with the time period and it might make an interior designer’s head explode. However, she liked it. The home was unusual but authentic. He wasn’t trying to be strange for the effect like a New Orleans hipster.
She darted toward the kitchen, assuming she’d find a backdoor, but he blocked her path with surprising speed. She thought she should scream but she couldn’t quite find her voice.
“Don’t panic,” he said. He held his hand out to her like he was trying to feed a frightened squirrel. “But you can’t go outside.”
“Why not? What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m old enough to resist temptation. You’re safe with me. But you’re not safe out on those streets.”
What the hell was he talking about?
“My father is a policeman,” she lied. “You’re making a big mistake.”
She had to admit, it did seem like the woman was attacking her, not the man. But she didn’t trust any man who dragged her into his home and locked the door.
“They can smell you,” he said. “More will come.”
Okay. That’s just creepy.
“They respect territory,” he continued. “They won’t come inside my home. But out on the street, you’re fair game.”
“You’re really freaking me out, you know.”
“Just look.” He pointed his long, pale finger t
oward the window.
Eliza went to window to look as instructed. Sure enough, a crowd had begun to form outside the house. It was the strangest group of people she’d ever seen. They were all pale, but it varied. Some of them looked like darker skinned people who had been bleached slightly…kind of like she had. And even stranger, they were as oddly dressed as this man’s home was decorated. One woman wore a long dress that looked like it belonged in Downton Abbey…but with a baseball cap. Another man wore jeans and looked normal from the waist down, but looked more like a pirate from the waist up with a ruffled shirt and long, unruly hair.
“What do they want from me?” She looked back at the man, whose gaze already appeared comforting in contrast to the creepy stares from outside.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
He nodded sadly as if he was a doctor about to give a bad diagnosis. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked. “I have a very nice pinot noir if you’re interested.”
“Aren’t you going to answer my question? Why are those weirdoes staring at me?”
“I could answer your question, but I find these things are more easily digested over a few glasses of wine.”
Eliza noticed the stack of records by his record player and thumbed through. He had some amazing albums, most of which were classic jazz and blues. All of her favorites. She held up the album, Miles and Monk at Newport.
“You like Thelonius Monk?” she asked.
“Very much,” he said, pouring her the wine she hadn’t accepted. “In fact, I was there for that show. It was an amazing experience.”
Eliza squinted at him and puckered her lips to show her disapproval. She had been wrong to say he wasn’t a hipster. He owned this stuff but was absolutely clueless. Miles and Monk at Newport was a live album recorded in 1963. Not only was this man too young to have been there, he looked too young to have even been born before Monk died in 1983. What a phony.
“Right,” she said, chuckling to herself. “I’m sure it was an amazing experience.”
She shook her head at the glass of wine that he handed her. She liked wine, but had never been a connoisseur, so how come she could smell all the detail in this wine like a true sommelier? It was an amazing aroma filled with sweet black cherries and oak. Despite her instinct against accepting a glass from a strange man, she really wanted a taste.
“What kind is it?” she asked.
He glanced at the bottle. “A 1947 Faiveley Musingny.”
“1947? I’m not wine expert, but doesn’t that bottle cost like $1000?”
“Does it?” he asked curiously. He looked at the label again and raised his eyebrows.
“Instead of the glass of wine, you could just give me $250,” she joked.
“Do you need $250?” he asked curiously.
“No,” she said, her face reddening. Okay, so he has no sense of humor. “Listen. Thanks for the overpriced wine and all, but I need to leave.”
“The herd will dissipate if you wait. They have all the time in the world, but have no motivation to stay for longer than a few hours.”
“Nothing you say makes any sense. Is this some kind of drug-induced dream? Maybe I’m still lying in the hospital.” She pinched her arm in the hopes of waking herself.
“You were in the hospital?” he asked. He had a way of looking at her that made her heart race. Despite how threatening the situation, he had such kind eyes. And she couldn’t remember any man—aside from her father—looking at her with that much attention and interest. The men she had dated seemed to be constantly plotting ways to get her clothes off. The nice ones did listen to her, but their hearts didn’t seem to be in it. They just knew that they had to take her out and listen to her talk so they could have sex with her later. Those were the rules, so they tolerated it. But this man’s questions were so sincere.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Levi. What’s yours?”
“Eliza.” She briefly wondered if she should have lied. She at least wouldn’t share the last name. Almost out of habit, she picked up the wine and took a sip. It tasted like she had travelled back in time and was walking through a vineyard in France. Which was ridiculous because wine can’t taste like time travel. In any case, it was the most amazing thing she had ever drank. It tasted like time in a bottle. She couldn’t imagine any man tainting something so precious with rohypnol.
She took a tiny sip and then sucked the wine off her own tongue, desperate to experience every drop.
“You like it?” he asked.
“I do,” she said. The understatement of the decade. Eliza sat in one of the large armchairs. “Well?” she asked.
“Well, what?”
“You said that you would explain things over a glass of wine. Go ahead.”
He sighed heavily and sat on the 1970s couch across from her. “Well, where do you think you are?” he asked.
“Baton Rouge…phantom exit 152.”
He chuckled and smiled. He had a mischievous smile that seemed to hold secrets, or at least knowledge. If she had never dated a man that paid this close of attention to her, she definitely had never dated a man who was smarter than her. But how could he be smart? He proved he was full of it when he made the Miles and Monk comment.
“You’re exactly right,” he said.
“There is no exit 152,” she said.
“Why were you in the hospital? Were you attacked?”
“Attacked? No. It was a car accident.”
“Are you sure?” He leaned toward her, again as if he found her health status fascinating.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He took a sip of his own wine and Eliza idly wondered what the wine would taste like if she sucked it off his tongue, or maybe even licked it off his abdomen. She shook her head at herself. She was clearly not herself.
“Well,” he said, putting down his glass of precious nectar. “Memories often get hazy. If you’ve been living in the human world all your life, your brain simply can’t absorb the truth. Sometimes the mind fabricates other explanations.”
“Human world?”
“You’d think it would be easy to explain the Gate World to someone who is sitting in the middle of it. But in my three hundred years of life, I’m still amazed at how hard new entrants find it to believe something that’s plain in front of their face.”
“Is this some kind of cult?” she asked. “Maybe you’ve all been brainwashed and you live in this secret colony.”
“It is a secret colony, but we haven’t been brainwashed. Although, it’s much larger than just one colony. The Gate World lies on top of the entire planet. We share the world with the humans. We can enter the human world, but they can’t enter the Gate World, not unless they’ve tasted vampire blood.” He raised an eyebrow at her as if he was accusing her of something. “Have you…tasted it?”
She had to admit that the way he said, “tasted” generated warmth between her legs. She again had the overwhelming urge to taste him. She thought she could lick the pheromones off his neck like sucking syrup from a tree. Of course she was a grown woman and had had urges before, but nothing like this. She wanted to bury her face in his chest and breathe him in, experiencing every cell of his body. Oh God…maybe something was in that wine.
Since he was talking about vampire blood, she clearly did have to be dreaming. So that meant she could do whatever she wanted right? There was nothing stopping her from walking over to him, wrapping her legs around his waist, and gently lowering herself down onto him. She could even suck the wine off his tongue like she had wanted. In a dream, she didn’t have to worry about what he would think of her. She didn’t have to worry about her jiggly hips or whether or not sleeping with a man she just met made her a slut. None of that mattered. She could just focus on the pleasure.
Levi cocked his head and smiled at her. “Are you all right? You didn’t answer my question. I suppose you could be in shock. Are you in shock?”
“You asked me a quest
ion?”
“I asked you if you had tasted vampire blood?”
“Um…I don’t think so,” she said airily. Weird things happened in dreams, if she wanted to get to the sexy part, perhaps she would have to handle some off-the-wall random firing of her synapses. Apparently some vampire book or movie had seeped into her subconscious.
She stood up and walked over to him, or floated over to him. Her legs felt like they might fly up to the ceiling. She sat down next to him and put her hand on his leg. She leaned in and breathed deeply. Yes, she could taste his pheromones, like some kind of beautiful drug. She could smell his blood, and it smelled like honey.
Her mouth floated toward his neck as if it had a mind of its own. She licked her teeth and wanted nothing more than to feel his skin on her lips. Maybe even…taste his blood.
Levi pushed her away gently. “You’re not ready for that,” he said, but his voice was breathy and uncertain. She thought she saw him licking his own teeth.
He gently took her hand and bought her wrist to his mouth, lightly brushing her skin with his lips. She never thought such a gentle touch could feel so amazing. The lightest brush of her wrist felt more intense than even having her past boyfriends inside her. She felt her nipples harden against the inside of her bra.
Levi closed his eyes and inhaled. It was almost as if she smelled as good to him as he smelled to her. And he smelled like skinny-dipping on a hot summer night.
He dropped her hand and let out a shaky breath. “You’re a half-dead,” he said. “Which means you’re vulnerable. You can enter the Gate World, but you’re also good for feeding. Most half-deads don’t last long. You’ll need to learn to recognize the difference between the Gate World and the human world, and stay in the human world.” He spoke his bewildering words in an airy tone, as if he was also stuck in a dream-like state.
Chapter Four
Eliza shifted her weight, aware of the wetness between her legs. The ringing of her phone shook her back to reality. Stupid phone—bothering her even in sexy dreams.
BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: The Unforgettable Southern Billionaires: The Complete Collection Boxed Set (Young Adult Rich Alpha Male Billionaire Romance) Page 85