by Terri Garey
Dumbfounded, I didn’t know what to say.
“She was still young, still beautiful. She took a huge chance, banking on the hope that she could seduce me again.” A short laugh. “She felt I owed her, because of her punishment,” he sneered. “As if it were my fault that she’d corrupted my innocence, flaunted her bare breasts and belly before my eyes, stroked the damp crease between her thighs…”
“Enough!” I said, loudly enough that the girl behind the counter looked up from her paperback.
“Forgive me,” Sammy said, not looking the least bit in need of forgiveness. A small smile lurked at the corner of his mouth. “Some of those memories will never leave me.”
“Lucky you,” I said sourly.
“I let myself be swayed by her tears, I suppose,” he said, picking up the story where he left off. His gaze slipped inward again as he took a sip of coffee. “I agreed to a division of power.”
Confused, I just looked at him. “A division of power?”
“Don’t frown so, Nicki,” he said, “It’s not that hard to understand.”
“Explain it to me then.”
“Even though Lilith—Selene, as she’s calling herself now—deserved every earthly punishment she got, I took pity on her. I was immune to earthly punishment; my punishment was eternal. Selene felt I’d gotten the better of the deal. She wanted to share my fate.” His lips compressed just the tiniest fraction. “She professed to love me, begging me not to leave her in the pit. Such pretty tears,” he mused, “such a wanton waste of tears.”
I was holding my breath at this point, hoping I wouldn’t get lightheaded and pass out before he finished.
The shadows behind Sammy’s eyes seemed to darken. “I hated her,” he said starkly. “And so I granted her wish.”
“You mean…you mean she’s like you?” I still wasn’t grasping what that meant.
“In a way. She’s immortal, like me.”
She’s physically perfect, like you.
“I gave her what was given to me—an eternity to repeat the same mistakes over and over,” he said. “And she uses it to corrupt and beguile the minds of men as she once corrupted mine. Endless sex, endless pleasure, but never, ever”—he shook his head ruefully—“any real satisfaction.”
“Endless sex?” I repeated faintly.
“Have you never heard the term ‘succubus,’ Nicki?” He leaned back, looking at me curiously. “Between you and your sister, I would’ve thought one of you might.” He smiled a wicked little smile, changing the subject abruptly. “How is Kelly these days? Still back at the family homestead, kneeling at the feet of your dear grandmama?”
“Leave my family out of this,” I said coldly. My brain seemed to have frozen the moment he’d said “succubus,” so it was easy to inject that ice into my voice.
I knew what a succubus was; the female equivalent of a psychic vampire, who came to men in their sleep and stole their essence.
Emphasis on the term “essence.”
Sammy raised his hands in a defensive motion. “Just making conversation,” he said, obviously amusing himself at my expense.
“I—” Gathering my stunned wits, I had to stop and think. “Who are the other two? The old woman, Mary, and the little girl? We—Kelly and I—thought they were the Moirae.”
“They are,” he answered calmly. “She is. They are the three faces of Selene, and they are the three who have learned to weave evil into the webs of fate. Mara is the old woman Selene never lived to be, and Hecate, the girl, is the child she never was. Each of them reflects a different aspect of her personality, and together, all three of them make the whole.”
Mara. Mary. Hecate. Kate.
My head was spinning again, but this time it was from the unreality of what I was hearing. What I was doing. I was sitting in a coffee shop with Satan himself, listening to an entirely new version of creation stories mixed with myth and legend, just as if we were talking about nothing.
“I told you she was mad,” he said simply. “Her madness became manifest. She wreaks havoc in all three of her guises, confusing humans throughout the centuries, enticing them to follow her web of lies unto their doom. It’s a game to her.” His lip quirked as he added, mostly to himself, “Proving once and for all that the true root of all evil usually lies with women.”
I wasn’t going to argue. “What does she want with me?” My throat had gone dry. “Or Joe?”
“Ah.” Sammy smiled, cocking his head. “Now it gets complicated.”
“Now it gets complicated?” My voice rose, and the waitress looked our way again, letting her eyes linger on Sammy before going back to her book.
“She’s a clever creature.” Sammy drummed his fingers on the table. Nicely manicured, silver thumb ring on one hand. “Learned a few tricks over the years, developed some of her own skills. I’ve avoided her for eons, so I can’t claim to know her mind, but I imagine you’ve ticked her off somehow, my darling.”
“Don’t call me darling,” I snapped.
He threw back his head and laughed. “I’ve missed you, Nicki,” he said, as if he meant it.
“Liar,” I muttered, into my cup.
“Come,” he said, pushing himself away from the table. “Let me take you home.”
“You’re not taking me home.” Goose bumps rose on my arms at the very thought.
“Oh yes, I am,” he said, buttoning up his peacoat. “Or you won’t hear the rest of the story.”
I gaped at him. “That’s not fair!”
He smiled down at me, offering a hand to help me stand. “Whoever said life was fair?”
He was driving a small Mercedes coupe now, all black, inside and out. The leather seats were soft as butter, and heated. As we drove down Moreland I stared out the window at my store, Handbags and Gladrags, and saw it as others might see it: a funky little store with a color-changing Christmas tree in the window, looking cheerful but lonely on a chilly December night.
“I meant it when I said I missed you, you know.” Sammy was watching the road, having made no threatening moves. He’d held the door open for me as I’d gotten in, but seemed careful not to touch me, which I appreciated. I felt trapped, manipulated, and extremely nervous—we were enclosed in a cocoon of silence and privacy, when I knew better than to be alone with him.
“I’m sure you’ve had plenty of other souls to torment,” I said lightly, hoping bravado would get me through the few blocks to my house. He hadn’t asked for directions, I’d noticed, making a right turn without my prompting.
“Torment.” He laughed. “What do you know of torment, Nicki?”
I didn’t answer.
“Torment is wanting something very badly, yet knowing you can’t have it,” he said. “Torment is loving someone, knowing you can never be together.”
“Love,” I countered. “What do you know of love, Sammy?”
He shot me a sideways grin. “Your tongue gets no less sharp when you’re tipsy and overwhelmed. What does it take to be licked with it instead of flayed with it?”
His attempt to shock me failed, except for a tiny little tingle in my nether regions that no one needed to know about. “Don’t start with me,” I said, reaching for my purse. “I’ve still got my pepper spray.”
Even in the dark I could see him smiling. “Why on earth do you keep threatening me with pepper spray? We both know you’re not going to use it, and even if you did, it wouldn’t hurt me. I come from a very hot climate, remember?”
A weak joke, but one that made me smile a little in the dark.
“I love peppers, in fact. The hotter the better. I know a great Mexican place in midtown. May I take you there sometime?”
Stunned, I just looked at him. “Did you…did you just ask me on a date?”
I couldn’t read his expression—he was concentrating on the road—but his shrug spoke volumes. “What if I did?” he asked.
“I can’t go out with you!” To my relief, he’d just turned onto my street. I could see th
e streetlight in front of my house, and there was my house itself, front porch light gleaming. Dad set it up on a timer years ago, just for nights like these.
As if there ever were any nights like these.
“Why not?” He’d reached the driveway and pulled in, putting the car in park. Shifting so he faced me in the seat, he asked me directly, “Is it because you want me as much as I want you? Because you burn for me like I burn for you?”
Shocked, I had a hard time formulating an answer beyond an automatic “No!”
“Who’s the liar now,” he whispered. He reached a hand toward my face, slowly, while I sat frozen, a mouse hypnotized by a cobra. “You’re afraid that if I touched you, just once, the way I want to touch you, you’d burst into flame.” His fingers came close, so close to my cheek, but he held back.
“Don’t,” I whispered, completely unnecessarily. His scent was familiar to me now: pomegranates, chocolate, rumpled sheets made of silk.
“Admit it,” he murmured, holding my eye. The porch light gleamed in his short blond curls. “Just admit it. That’s all I ask.”
“Yes,” I whispered, shakily. Admitting it was not the same as acting on it. “But you’d burn me to a cinder, and laugh while you did it.”
His face drew nearer, while my heart beat a crazy tattoo. “You know all my secrets,” he murmured, “all my limitations. You know I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
His breath smelled of cloves, and I couldn’t help but remember that kiss…that one kiss he’d claimed as a forfeit when last I saw him. I’d tried for months not to think of it, but the moment came rushing back—the breathless, expectant swoop of a roller coaster, the faintest brush of his tongue against mine.
“You want me,” he said, low in his throat. His blue eyes gleamed in the darkness, and his presence filled the car: potently male, simmering with juices and brimming with heat. “I know you do.” A sexy curl of a lip as he drew closer. “I can smell it. You smell so sweet, little Nicki…so very, very sweet…”
A sharp rapping on the window behind me made me jerk as if stung. Sammy pulled back as we both heard an angry male voice say, “Open the door, Nicki. What the hell is going on?”
It was Joe, who’d evidently been waiting at my house for God knows how long.
It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that I was in deep shit.
CHAPTER 15
“You were supposed to be asleep,” I said stupidly as I got out of the car.
“Nice to know,” Joe said tersely, hand on the car door. “Felt safe to party, did you?”
I’d never seen him so angry. He grabbed the sleeve of my coat and dragged me away from the Mercedes, slamming the door, hard.
“It’s not what you think—”
“What is it, then?” He released my arm as if he couldn’t bear to touch it any longer, and took a step back. “I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour, and you pull up with him.” He gestured toward Sammy, who was just getting out of the car. “Sorry to interrupt your little make-out session.”
“We weren’t making out,” I protested, but I didn’t get very far.
“I’m not blind!” he spat. “I was sitting right there on the front porch! If you hadn’t been so wrapped up in him, you would’ve seen me, and if I hadn’t tapped on your window, you’d be all over him by now!”
Stung, as much by the accusation as by the truth that was in it, I took refuge in my own anger. This was all his fault, after all. “At least he knows my name!”
I knew as soon as I said it that it was the wrong thing to say—his eyes narrowed at my spiteful reminder of what had happened between us earlier in the evening.
“Oh, he knows your name,” he said grimly. “He knows your name, your number, and your every weakness, one of which is him.” He glared at me, absolutely furious. “And I know it, too.”
“Now, now,” Sammy said mildly, from the other side of the car. “Nothing happened. No need for all this drama, surely?”
Joe lunged, and so did I, grabbing his arm with both hands and holding on despite his attempt to wrench himself free.
“Don’t,” I yelled, petrified at the thought of what Sammy might do to him—I’d seen a bare fraction of what he was capable of, and knew he could be merciless. “Joe, stop!”
He dragged me around the front of the car before I got him slowed. “Please,” I said, in what I tried to make a normal tone. “There’s no need for this. Please.”
Sammy didn’t retreat, resting an arm on the top of his open car door, one foot propped on the car frame.
I shot him a furious look, wishing I had a free hand to slap the smirk right off his face.
“Let’s go inside,” I murmured urgently to Joe. “Let’s talk this out inside.”
His arm felt like stone beneath my hands. He shook me off with a sharp, sudden wrench that left me feeling completely alone. “No need,” he said harshly, not taking his eyes off Sammy. “I can see you’re busy.”
“I merely brought the girl home,” Sammy said. “She’d had one too many.” He ignored my glare. Waving a red flag before the bull, he added, “Poor thing needed a shoulder to cry on because you’ve evidently become interested in someone else.”
“Get out of here,” I spat, before Joe could respond. Taking a step forward, I said it again. “Get out of here and don’t come back.”
Sammy shrugged, preparing to get in the car. “I was leaving anyway,” he said with a grin.
The slam of his car door was one of the best things I’d heard in a long time. I backed away, toward the house, not taking my eyes off him until he’d backed out onto the road and put the Mercedes in drive. His taillights were still in view when Joe turned and started walking toward his own car.
“Joe.”
He ignored me.
“Joe!” I went after him. He was parked on the street, which is why I hadn’t noticed his car earlier. At least that’s what I told myself. “Where are you going?”
He turned on me, and unleashed a torrent of words I’d never heard him say before, shocking me to silence. When he was finished, he went straight into “I can’t believe you’ve been hard-timing me all week about another woman, and yet I find you with him!” The sentence ended in a shout, and set the neighbor’s dog barking.
“It wasn’t like that,” I protested. “We just had coffee—”
“You had coffee? Then what’s with him driving you home because you’d had too much to drink?” He clearly thought I was lying about the coffee.
“That was before—”
“Great,” he shouted. “Just great! You got drunk, you had coffee, he brought you home. Sounds like a lovely evening.” His sarcasm, combined with the noise volume, made me lose my temper.
“I didn’t go on a date with him,” I shouted back, rousing another dog, down the block. “You’re being a jerk.”
“I’m being—” He shook his head, disbelieving. Then he stared at the ground for a minute, while neither of us said a word, the sound of barking filling the night. “You claim to be terrified of him, but you’re not afraid to get in his car. Looked pretty damn cozy in there together, in fact. You told him about our argument earlier, didn’t you?”
“No,” I said sharply, but he cut me off, pouncing as if he’d caught me in yet another lie.
“Then how did he know about Selene?”
I stared at him, trying desperately to get my temper under control and not helped by the mention of her name. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said huskily, knowing it was true. Right now, Joe wouldn’t believe anything I said.
Biblical stories brought to life, blended with myth and legend to explain a creature like Selene the succubus were better left until everyone’s head was clear.
“Tonight was not what you think,” I stammered, trying to find the words to explain. “It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t a date. He showed up out of nowhere—I was just trying to get information from him, that’s all.”
&
nbsp; He gave a short laugh. “Yeah. Sure you were.”
Stung by the sarcasm, I glared at him. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this one, Joe.”
“Like you trust me?” His voice was hard. “You’ve been in a jealous snit all week about another woman, and yet the second my back is turned I find you with another man. A man—or whatever the hell he is—who’s already tried to come between us on more than one occasion.” He paused for a second. “Have you been seeing him behind my back?”
I was shocked he’d even ask. “You know it’s not like that,” I said, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.
“How is it, then?”
I was afraid to answer, afraid I’d say the wrong thing and mess things up even more than they already were.
“I’ve tried very hard to be with you, Nicki,” he finally said, in a low voice. “I’ve tried to accept who you are and what happens in your life.”
My heart stuttered as though it had just been kicked down a set of stairs, tumbling and falling, leaving smears of red to mark its passing as it fell to the ground. Tried?
“I don’t think this is working anymore.”
The world went red as my heart splattered and burst like a water balloon in the dirt beneath my feet.
“How can you say that?” I barely managed to whisper, tears choking my throat.
He tucked both hands into his jacket pockets in a self-contained gesture. Only two feet away, yet it might as well have been two miles.
“Things feel different between us these days.” His eyes looked black in the moonlight. “Too much tension, too much anger. Now this.” He looked away, toward the empty street, dotted by streetlights and porch lights. “To see you drive up with him…I feel like I don’t know who you are anymore.”
The dogs were quiet now. I could see my breath steaming in the night air as my lungs went on pumping, my blood kept on flowing, and I wondered how it was possible. “Joe,” I said, hearing my voice tremble, “we can work this out. It’s not that bad—”