This, Jenna thought as she swallowed, is an orgasm for the tongue.
It cost more than four hundred dollars a bottle.
It was a gift from her thrice-divorced neighbor, Mrs. Colfax. They were more than acquaintances but not exactly friends, since neither ever divulged anything resembling personal information to each other—which was precisely how they both preferred it. Jenna guessed Mrs. Colfax had her own closet full of rattling skeletons with which to contend.
She watched the lustrous, pale gold liquid effervesce within the elegant confines of the etched Waterford flute—another gift from Mrs. Colfax—and heaved a sigh of frustration.
What happened today was ominously disturbing, though she’d nearly convinced herself she’d imagined the entire episode. The bubble bath was helping, if only to relax the taut muscles in her back. It did nothing to ease the tension in her mind, however, or the lingering static on her skin.
A static that increased every time she let herself think about him.
Yet she couldn’t get him out of her mind. The stranger with the glossy fringe of ebony hair, the face of a Botticelli angel, the eyes of a hungry wolf.
Something about him seemed so familiar. Though it had been but a glance before she’d passed out, she felt something leap against her skin under the weight of his stare, as if an unknown beast strained sinew and muscle, hungry to surface.
In that moment their eyes met, she suddenly felt like...an animal, awakening.
Jenna stretched her legs out and curled her toes over the edge of the tub, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, shutting out the candlelit bathroom with its mirrored vanity, marbled counter, and enclosed glass shower. She shook her head to dispel the memory of his face, burning bright as a new penny under her closed lids.
He was just another stranger on the street. The strange electric charge couldn’t possibly have come from him. Could she have suffered heat stroke? She chewed on her lower lip and considered it. The symptoms were the same: dizziness, pounding heart, clammy skin, fainting.
But she was never affected by the heat. She never got sick or fainted or felt dizzy. She’d never even had a cavity, for God’s sake!
So she did what she always did when confronted with something she couldn’t figure out: she put it out of her mind. She sank down farther into the warm, perfumed water and thought about where she was going to do her grocery shopping from now on.
The bathroom was the one place she’d invested money to upgrade her tiny one-bedroom apartment, and it had been money well spent. The plumbing, though, she thought as a trickle of water from the faucet ran in a chilly sluice over her left big toe. She was going to have to talk to Saul about the plumbing.
The building was over fifty years old, done in a poorly executed art deco style, and had what her landlord Saul referred to as “character.” The faucets dripped, the toilet ran, the kitchen cabinets stuck, the walls were thin as paper. She had become overly familiar with her next-door neighbors’ personal problems.
Still, she loved it. It was home, and a home was what she most desperately needed after her mother died.
It wasn’t a shock, her mother’s early death. No one survived long drinking as much alcohol as she did. But her death had left Jenna, at eighteen years old, with no one, not a single soul in the world to call family. Once her father vanished when she was ten, her mother had adamantly refused to even speak his name.
Jenna had only the most fleeting memories of him. Tall and dark, handsome, somber, mysterious. And the memory of his smell was burned into her mind. He carried the cool scent of night on his skin no matter the time of day.
Her mother had no siblings, her grandparents were long dead...there was simply no one.
College was out of the question. Her mother left her with no money, nothing other than an upside-down mortgage on a small bungalow in the Valley, a few pieces of jewelry, and furniture bought from a secondhand store. Jenna sold it all and used what little money she had left as a down payment on her first month’s rent on this apartment.
She’d made her way. And knowing she could survive alone, after the chaos of her childhood, after all the unanswered questions about why she was so different from everyone else, there was nothing she would allow herself to be afraid of.
Except, maybe, what happened today. Which she wasn’t thinking about.
“Yoo-hoo, Jeennnaaaaa! It’s your fairy godmother!”
Jenna smiled and opened her eyes to the singsong warbling of her neighbor, Mrs. Colfax, calling through the open patio door.
“In here!” Jenna shouted, then hauled herself out of the bath. Bubbles slid in languorous sheets down her naked body. She set her glass of champagne down on the counter and wrapped herself in the lush white embrace of a Turkish cotton towel.
Two short raps on the thin bathroom door, then the elegantly coiffed blonde head of Mrs. Colfax popped through.
“You’re taking a bath? In this heat? My dear, are you mad?” Mrs. Colfax asked, one perfectly arched eyebrow raised.
She’d been an actress in her youth, beautiful though not particularly talented, and retained both the elocution and melodrama of the theater in her speech.
“That is debatable,” Jenna said. She gestured toward the fizzing champagne. “But I have a headache, so I thought a bath and a little bubbly would help.”
“Ah, yes,” Mrs. Colfax agreed and swung the door open to invade the bathroom with her larger-than-life persona.
She wore one of her signature Chanel suits—this one a powder blue—Valentino patent d’Orsay pumps, a double strand of pearls, and three-hundred-dollar French perfume that smelled of rare orchids and sex. She had seduced, wed, and divorced a succession of wealthy men and made efficient use of them—and of their money. She lived in a sprawling, modern mansion next door that towered over Jenna’s tiny apartment complex like a glass Goliath.
“Cristal will do wonders for one’s level of happiness and good health,” Mrs. Colfax added. “I’m glad to see you developing a taste for something more refined than that hideous whole milk you drink.”
Jenna reached for another towel to wrap around her head. “You realize there’s a reason they say milk does a body good, right? Besides, it’s more affordable than champagne. Especially the ones you drink.”
“Having money for French champagne is far more important than having money for the rent, my dear, never forget that,” Mrs. Colfax shot back. “By the way, I ordered the filet from Boa for dinner, darling, I hope you don’t mind. I’ll be in New York for your birthday next week and thought we could celebrate tonight, since you don’t have to work?”
Filet mignon, Jenna thought. Heaven on a plate.
She remembered with real regret the thick rib eye she’d left at the checkout this afternoon. The only thing better was a T-bone. Or a New York strip. Or a nice grilled tri-tip. Her mouth began to water. How anyone could be a vegetarian she couldn’t fathom.
“You know I can’t resist filet mignon.” She flipped over at the waist to bundle her long hair into a towel, which she twisted around and flipped back up, leaving her hair wrapped in a towering cotton beehive above her head. “What’s in New York?”
Mrs. Colfax twisted her mouth into a roguish smile and gave Jenna a dismissive little wink. “Just a certain gentleman. Nothing for you to worry about, my dear.”
Jenna smiled back, satisfied. At least some things would remain reliably the same, even if everything else seemed so confusing.
The doorbell rang. Mrs. Colfax turned to look out the bathroom door, toward the patio, a mere twenty feet away. “Ah! The steaks!” She clicked out of the room in her designer pumps and Jenna shut the door behind her so she could finish drying off and shrug into her clothes. It wasn’t two minutes before she heard her name called.
“Come along, princess. Don’t let it get cold!”
Jenna made her way to the table and watched Mrs. Colfax plate the filet mignon, along with perfectly steamed asparagus spears and a lavish mound of
garlic mashed potatoes. She tossed the empty containers onto the granite bar counter behind the dining table, then sat down. She poured two glasses of champagne and raised her own in a toast.
“To my dear friend Jenna, who is tragically alone, hideously overworked, and grossly underpaid. She truly deserves more from life than what she got.” She tipped her head back and drank her champagne in one long draught, then set the glass back down on the table with an elegant flourish of her slender, fine-boned hand.
Jenna just stared at her.
Mrs. Colfax raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “What is it, my dear?”
“That’s my birthday toast? Seriously?”
“Oh, my. That was rather lacking, wasn’t it?” she replied, completely unchastened. “Shall I try again?” She cut into her filet mignon, took a dainty bite, and chewed, all the while looking at Jenna as if waiting to be amused.
“You’re hopeless,” Jenna answered with a laugh. She refilled Mrs. Colfax’s glass and picked up her own.
With a twinge of sadness, she thought of her mother and the toast she used to make on Jenna’s every birthday. She raised her glass and swallowed around the lump in her throat. This one’s for you, Mom.
“Life is pain and everyone dies, but true love lives forever.”
Mrs. Colfax pursed her lips. “Tch. How uplifting. And please don’t tell me you believe that hornswoggle, my dear. The myth of true love is one of the greatest self-deceptions ever embraced by the female sex. It’s right up there with the ridiculous notion that money can’t buy happiness and size doesn’t matter. Now eat your steak—and don’t tell me it’s overcooked; I made sure they prepared it just as you like. Bloody rare.”
Hours later—dinner finished, dishes cleared, Mrs. Colfax off to the glass Goliath—Jenna lay in bed, staring up at the shadows crawling over the ceiling, thinking about love and death and self-deception, about a pair of fine green eyes burning bright.
She fell asleep with the image of those eyes still glowing behind her lids.
4
Jenna had been having the same dream since childhood, and though the details varied, the sense of happiness she awoke with never did. She was running through an ancient forest with total abandon, leaping over fallen logs and moss-covered boulders, flying through air swirling so thick with morning mists it seemed to brush against her bare skin like silken tresses of hair. Moist beds of moss and green leaves were crushed into perfume underfoot as she ran, only somehow she felt the loamy forest floor through the soles of four feet instead of two.
But this dream was different. And profoundly disturbing.
It began with the whisper of her name in her ear.
The voice was both familiar and alien, and strangely comforting. She turned toward it, reaching out with a sigh. Her fingertips met soft skin over a strong jaw, traced the outline of full lips, but her lids were so heavy she was unable to open her eyes to see the face under her hand. The lips moved to her face, brushed her forehead, temple, cheek, then pressed softly against the corner of her mouth. She shivered with pleasure. The barest musk of spice and smoke and summer heat teased her nose.
“Yes,” Jenna murmured into the darkness. Then she felt the hands.
A hand with strong, cool fingers curled around the back of her neck, cradling her head. Another softly stroked the slope of her cheek, then moved down the line of her throat to where her pulse beat hot and strong beneath the skin. She felt the lips touch her there, heard her name whispered again.
She arched her back, made a small sound deep in her throat, and whispered, “Yes, please.”
The fingers tightened in her hair, pulled her head gently back, exposing her bare throat. A feather-light kiss on her neck turned to a deeper, insistent suck as a warm mouth opened over the column of her throat. Jenna moaned, a sharp ache of longing between her legs.
“Tell me you want me,” the voice murmured, husky-sweet, teasing, lips moving over her skin.
“Yes, yes,” she said, heartbeat accelerating, breath coming shorter.
“Say it,” the voice softly commanded, and she trembled under the current of desire that scorched through her. Goosebumps formed over every inch of her skin, hardening her nipples into raw nerves that longed for the lap of his tongue, the gentle tug of his teeth.
“I want you, I want you, I want—”
But her whispered chant was cut off by the lips crushing down on hers. The fingers dug into the flesh at her hips. Her hands reached out, pulled the face down harder. She twined her fingers into locks of thick, silken hair.
She pressed her body up against a hard chest, wanting more, so much more, but suddenly the kiss was over, the hands were gone, and nothing more remained but a low, throaty laugh that drifted into silence as she jerked upward out of bed, waking, and sat trembling and gasping in the dark room.
It was hours before she fell back to sleep.
When she opened her eyes in the morning, she was lying on her side, knees drawn up, hands folded beneath her cheek, the bed sheets in disarray around her waist. Sunlight slanted through the slit in the heavy blackout shades and fell into a pool of gold on the beige carpet.
A lone seagull cried out somewhere in the distance and the sharp tang of hot espresso reached her nose from the neighbor’s kitchen. The alarm clock swam into view, the small bedside table with its reading lamp, framed photo of her mother in a rare smile, her desk with computer and telephone beyond.
The book she was reading before bed lay open upon the nightstand, though she remembered distinctly closing it before setting it down and turning off the light.
She frowned and stared at it for a moment before pushing herself up from the pillow to a sitting position. She had closed it, she knew—she remembered thinking at the time that she shouldn’t be dog-earing a library book. She picked the book up and looked at it, then decided she’d probably been too tired to remember anything clearly. With a shrug, she set it back down on the nightstand, yawned, and stretched.
She stumbled out of bed, feeling soft carpet then cool tile beneath her feet as she entered the bathroom. Her reflection in the mirror showed evidence of the night: hair knotted and wild from tossing, red, bleary eyes with puffy lids, deep shadows beneath.
She made a face in the mirror, turned on the shower, then bent down under the sink to get her brush, thinking she would try to get some of the knots out of her hair while she waited for the water to get hot.
When she opened the cabinet under the sink, she saw her makeup bag had been moved from its spot in the wire pull-out basket. The lotions and perfumes stored next to it were in slight disarray.
She stood so quickly she almost banged her head against the countertop.
She was fastidiously neat. She had to be, the miniscule size of her apartment dictated it. Everything had its place, every space was utilized and arranged for maximum efficiency. Her cosmetics were always in perfect order.
And now they were not.
She tried not to panic. This was, after all, practically nothing. She must have forgotten to tidy this area yesterday, she’d been too tired, had felt unwell. Yes, that was it. She’d felt unwell and was mixing things up in her mind. She let the cabinet door swing shut and stepped into the shower.
After she dressed, Jenna went to make herself a cup of coffee. As she stood in the kitchen spooning coffee grounds into the filter, she noticed that one of her leather-bound photo albums, kept in a bookshelf in the living room, stood a few inches out from the others, as if it had been returned hurriedly to its place but had not been fully pushed back in.
A serpentine flash of premonition crawled up her spine.
She went to the front door and checked the lock, but it was latched securely, as were all the windows and the patio door.
Jenna stood silent in the living room for a long time, staring out toward the navy strip of ocean shimmering beyond the sand, lost in thought as the mug of coffee in her hand grew cold.
Getting into her locked apartment had been the
easy part.
Leander had merely pushed himself through the hairline crack in the upper corner of her bathroom window, the one she would finally notice when it widened enough to be seen by the naked eye.
It was watching her sleep that proved difficult.
She slept with the innocent abandon of a child. Breathing deeply, body slanted across the middle of the queen-sized bed, arms flung wide, hair spilling silken, honeyed gold over the pillows. Moonlight burned white fire over the slope of her throat and bare shoulders.
He watched from the corner of the dark bedroom as her chest slowly rose and fell, her nude body outlined beneath the sheets.
He’d been through her apartment, trying to find clues. Trying to find anything that would lead him to believe she possessed any of the powers of their kind.
So far, he’d found nothing.
She loved art and music, loved to read, this was plain from the things she kept. Her books, her eclectic CD collection, the ticket stubs to the Molière exhibition at the Getty Museum. Paystubs from a French restaurant, unopened mail stacked neatly in a wicker basket by the kitchen phone, takeout menus in a drawer.
There was no sign of a lover, no photos of friends, no indication she was close to anyone at all. Her photo album contained only old pictures of her mother, of herself as a child, mementos of places she’d visited, postcards.
Her orderly and sterile apartment illustrated the life of someone utterly alone.
He’d had no thought of coming here when he Shifted, had no destination in mind as he allowed himself to be caught in the updraft of heated night air that lifted him from his veranda at the Four Seasons. The lights and noise of the city grew distant as he melded into the atmosphere, rolling and spinning through thin sapphire clouds, free upon the wind.
He knew her name, he knew her address. He had a picture, though it was a few years outdated and slightly blurry.
Shadow’s Edge np-1 Page 3