by Anya Breton
After his second margarita and a half a plate of enchilada, Maximo began chair dancing. Had anyone else in the restaurant attempted it, they would have looked foolish. He managed to look sexy.
Maximo’s mood brightened yet further when the mariachi band played a song that involved singing. He mouthed the words along with them, failing to miss a single syllable. Clearly he knew his Mexican music.
In between songs, he leaned over the table and uttered quiet words while he still could. “How am I to get you drunk if you’re behind by an entire cocktail?” He gestured at his two empties and the nearly drained third glass in his other hand.
One margarita would be safe. Two would be bad. Two drinks and three dances had been the requirement to go home with a man I’d met at a bar since I was old enough to drink. If I never finished the second margarita, then I couldn’t go home with him. Then again, we weren’t dancing. I didn’t see space for us to do so. I’d be fine.
I lifted the second glass to my lips as the band started up a new song that had Maximo bouncing his sable head of hair back and forth. He was just a little adorable when he’d contort his face into humorous expressions that coincided with the different instruments entering and leaving performance. If he’d been a different person in a different circumstance, I probably would have dragged him out of the restaurant after the appetizer.
The band began playing the familiar refrain of “La Bamba”. The look of pure glee he adopted was almost frightening. But it wasn’t until he popped up out of his seat and took hold of the third margarita I’d lifted to my mouth that I began to worry. Maximo set the drink aside and then drew me around the corner by my fingers. He tugged us onto the stone floor between the band and the cantina.
And then he began to dance.
His hips shook to the rapid beat. He called out the lyrics right along with the mariachi band. Maximo twirled me nearly to his chest, our arms lifting above us before he pushed me out again.
The two margaritas made me a little woozy. I stumbled into him, far too close to his fragrant body with its notes of fresh lavender, warm sand, moss, and cedar.
His grin was unrepentant when he gazed down at me. He’d been planning this all along, hadn’t he? I quietly growled.
The band completed “La Bamba”. He called out, “syrup Tapatío”. The musicians cheered. I soon understood why when they began playing the Mexican hat dance.
Maximo set his hands behind his back and lifted his chin. His pose had the look of one of the pros on Dancing with the Stars. Hades knew he was hot enough to pull it off.
He proceeded to tap out a specific set of moves in a circle around me. I stood dumbly until the band began making motions for me to join him in the dance. I was inebriated enough to attempt it. For my effort I received encouraging cheers from all around. The sheer volume made me glance about the place. We’d drawn a small crowd at either cantina entrance. But no one was brave enough to join us.
Maximo drew in toward me with a rapid tapping of his leather boots. He darted away, repeating the movement in time with the music. All the while he grinned madly.
This had better earn me my ring back. If not, I just might set him on fire.
The music came to a stop. He exchanged a look with the band that wasn’t particularly promising. Nor was his pose. Those outstretched arms couldn’t be good. He didn’t want me closer, in front of all these people, did he?
I remained rooted where I was.
“We’ll start when you have your lady close,” the bandleader called out.
Maximo shot him a grin.
I pretended I hadn’t understood the Spanish. And to prove I was in the dark, I blinked blank eyes that were probably wide from the intake of alcohol.
Maximo translated the words. “He says they won’t play until we’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”
Maximo waved me toward him.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I said under my breath on my way forward.
He slipped an arm around my waist. The band began playing a slower song. Maximo stepped forward, sending me scrambling back. He didn’t glare, perhaps because he’d wanted me to move away. Again he stepped forward. And then he drew back twice, taking me with him.
The move seemed to be a double step backward and double step forward. I’d begun to get the hang of dancing without stumbling when the bandleader gestured at Maximo.
The vampire broke into resonate song while holding my gaze. Sensual intensity warmed his expression. “Kiss me, give me many kisses.”
One of the guitar players’ voices soon harmonized.
“As if tonight were the last time…”
The sultry sound was overwhelming. Goosebumps formed along my bare arms. I found myself shivering. I could hardly hold Maximo’s dark gaze as his melodious voice sang the sexy song. His cool hands pulled me closer against his firm body without breaking the dance’s movement.
This might have been the first time I’d ever wished my mother hadn’t gifted me with the knowledge of so many languages. I would have been much happier if I hadn’t understood the lyrical words coming out of his mouth.
He drew me against his chest. The music slowed to its finale. Maximo leaned me into a dip. His arm easily held my body aloft while he sang the last line with a dark vehemence that made me breathless. “Because I’m afraid of having you then losing you.”
Even though I’d known it was coming, I was still unprepared for his lips covering mine. Apart from the chilly temperature of them, they were soft and coaxing—a mere suggestion of what else could be if only I’d allow it. Warmth slipped over my arms from where they touched his body. A shiver of desire wiggled its way down my back.
Right then I wanted to know what else there could be. I wanted to allow a whole lot more than the teasing caress of his tongue at the seam of my mouth … until Ascencion’s name whispered out of the bar.
The locals. Of course they wondered where his lover was.
My body went stiff in Maximo’s arms. He lifted us both to our upright positions, holding me to his chest for several moments too long before he released me. I stumbled around the corner away from the hungry look that had come over his face. It should have sent me running because I knew what he fed on and it wasn’t enchiladas, but I only got as far as my seat.
Maximo dropped down into the wooden chair across from me, staring with the same intensity he’d had on the dance floor. Several seconds passed before he softened the expression into an amiable smile.
“You could use a few more dance lessons.” He lifted a tortilla chip from the basket between us, negligently setting it to his lips for a bite.
The complaint went a long way toward easing my thundering pulse.
“It isn’t going to help me sell merchandise at the shop therefore there’s no point in wasting the time,” I said now that we could hear each other. My tone was sober because I was close to being sober thanks to that kiss. The guilt that I’d let a murderer kiss me days after he’d killed his last lover had been like a bucket of ice water over the head.
Maximo adopted his indulgent smile. “We all need a little exhilaration in our life to feel alive. And you were exhilarated back there.” He nodded his head toward the cantina. “Dancing more often would be good for you, Miss Walsh.”
I could argue he was wrong, but he was a vampire. Exhilaration was a physiological state he’d be able to mark by the lifting of my pulse and temperature. And it would be lying if I’d said I hadn’t felt just a little more alive with him.
“I don’t need you to feel exhilaration,” I said in a stiff but quiet voice.
“Of course you don’t.” The tightening of the skin around his eyes didn’t bode well. “But no one else can offer you dancing with a side of danger quite like I can. I think you crave a little danger.”
I swear I saw the flash of fang as he spoke the words. My heart skipped two beats. Perhaps he’d heard my unvoiced reaction because he gave me a closemouthed smile that looked positively ev
il. And Hera help me, thanks to his twinkling eyes, that smile was quite possibly the sexiest I’d ever seen.
Self-preservation had me giving a reminder. “I want my ring. It’s the only reason I’m here.”
His lips drew just a little finer—a tacit warning I ignored.
“What do I have to do to get it back?”
Maximo’s eyelids drew shut in a slow, irritated motion. He let out a long breath, and then reopened them, fixing two narrowed eyes on me. “You need to learn the fine art of negotiation, Miss Walsh.”
I bit back a response about not wanting to negotiate with murderers. Instead, I remained silent while he worked through his irritation. Soon his amiable smile was back. He waved for our waiter’s attention.
My heartbeat quickened. I didn’t want to leave. Well, I did want to leave so I could go home, but I doubted he’d let me off the hook quite so easily. And remaining at the restaurant was preferable to being alone with him elsewhere.
I pulled out my wallet. Maximo shot me a dismayed look. He dropped several bills on the table, took my hand—wallet still palmed within—and tugged me up to his chest. My heart skipped a beat. The corners of his lips curved. He released my arm in time for me to stumble toward the front door. I managed to recover myself before we reached the steps outside.
He said nothing during the short drive to the shop. I tossed him surreptitious glances in an effort to gauge what his plan would be now that dinner was over. He’d gotten his dancing just as he’d wanted. But I hadn’t gotten what I’d wanted.
Maximo maneuvered his Escalade into the parking lot on the Sedona side of my shop. He didn’t get out of the car to open my door, but he did turn off the engine. Sliding into the corner of his seat, he faced me.
“I would like you to spend Independence Day with me,” he said.
How did that work? He was a vampire and thus wouldn’t be awake during the day portion of the holiday.
“I hold an annual barbecue in Wipuk,” he said. “There will be food, dancing, and fireworks. It’s a holiday not to be missed.”
I pushed my hand through the door handle, pausing long enough to answer. “I’ll go to your barbecue but not as your date.”
“I’ll send a car for you at nine on Sunday,” he called after me.
I waved dismissively on my way to the shop’s door. He stayed in the car with the engine off for several seconds after I’d slipped inside. I didn’t allow myself to exhale until I stood on the second floor.
Maximo had let me leave without insisting upon a goodnight kiss. I might have considered that meant we hadn’t been on a date, but he had kissed me in the cantina.
My fingers grazed along my lips. A flush filled my cheeks upon remembering the way he’d felt.
It hadn’t been nearly as disgusting as I’d imagined kissing a corpse would be. Did that make me sick?
“Fuck me!”
I hadn’t asked him about Dea Woods. Kore’s seeds! Desmond was going to be miffed.
But wasn’t Desmond always miffed?
Chapter Five
Nell slapped the Sunday paper down on the glass display case. A color photograph dominated the front page. Someone had snapped a shot of Maximo kissing me in the cantina last night. The blood drained from my face.
“Slow news day?” I said in a squeaking voice.
“No. He’s big business in Sedona. Any time he’s spotted out and about, his picture ends up in the paper.” She jabbed her finger at the photograph. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a date with him?”
The blood returned to my cheeks in a rapid flush. “It wasn’t a date. He has something of mine, and dinner was the price he asked for it back … to start.”
“Yeah.” She drew the word out across three seconds in a tone filled with disgust. “The guy has a stranglehold on Wipuk’s resources, but you think it’s okay to date him.”
“I’m not dating him!”
Nell gestured toward herself, and then toward no direction in particular. “I thought it was us versus them, the outcasts versus the established Wipukans. But you’re off dating the head vampire and getting visits and calls from the dictator himself!”
She meant Desmond. There was little I could say to defend myself. If I told her Desmond claimed he cared about Wipuk, she’d accuse me of being manipulated by him. If I said he had harmful information about me, she’d be twice as suspicious.
“I’m using them as much as they’re using me.” My pitch crept higher than I meant. “Desmond wants to know if de Sole had anything to do with Dea Woods’s enthrallment. He thinks I can find out, and he’s offered to help change the city’s opinion of the shop if I do.” He hadn’t specifically said he’d do that, but it had been implied through the course of our conversations. I probably just needed to remind him. “And like I said, Maximo has something of mine. He’s blackmailing me into these stupid Mexican food dinners to get it back.”
Nell’s chin rose, and she smacked the newspaper photo. “This doesn’t look like blackmail.”
My skin flushed darker. “I’d had two margaritas!”
She rolled forward onto the balls of her feet. “Don’t drink then if you can’t keep a vampire from kissing you!”
“He insisted it was part of the deal.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Come on, Nell. I’m not going legit.” Yet. “I’m still doing my thing just like before. But sometimes to take down the big dogs you gotta act like a big dog until they trust you.”
“And sometimes acting like a big dog too long makes you forget that you’re really a little dog!”
She stomped up the stairs before I could respond, calling back that she was going to take her break early. I slumped against the wall behind the display case. I’d let her down. And she didn’t even know about the barbecue.
****
I groaned aloud at the name on my phone’s screen. I really didn’t want to talk to Desmond right now.
“Good afternoon, Marino,” I said sourly.
“Was he involved with her being enthralled?”
My teeth set in irritation. It wasn’t uncharacteristic of Desmond to jump right to the heart of the matter. No, it was uncharacteristic of him to do anything else. But I really wasn’t in the mood for him.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask,” I said.
There was an uncomfortable silence in which I heard only his slow exhales. Then there was a clicking noise that sounded a lot like a lock catching. Had he shut his office door? Several moments of continued silence followed it.
Desmond’s voice was frosty when he spoke again. “So in between your dancing and kissing you couldn’t find a single moment to ask if he’d paid someone to enthrall the Earth witch ambassador?”
His disgust had lifted with each new word he’d spoken until he’d been snarling. My back stiffened even though he wouldn’t see it. After Nell’s disappointment I couldn’t handle his as well.
“We never discussed Wipuk.” Was that my high-pitched voice? I winced, quickly trying to soften it. “It would have been suspicious if I’d asked out of the blue.”
“You could have brought the subject up instead of…” Desmond’s voice trailed off with a soft curse.
“Instead of what?” I asked. His continued silence seemed like an accusation. “The band was so loud that we barely said ten things to each other. What was I supposed to do? Shout the question where the vanilla humans could hear me? And then he dropped me off here right after we left the restaurant. The only way I could have brought the subject up would have been to go home with him. I’m sorry, Marino, but I’m not willing to whore myself out for information.”
Another lengthy silence met my tirade. I took a deep breath. It did little for my rapid heartbeat. I hadn’t realized quite how worked up I’d been until then. He always knew just what button to push to incense me.
His next question was spoken in his professional tone. “Are you going to try again?”
He’d regained control quickly for a Water witch. Hades, that was
good for anyone. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but sigh. “He still has something of mine. This time he’s making me go to his Independence Day barbecue. I’ll try then.”
“He isn’t going to admit he did it with the entirety of Wipuk gathered around his lawn, Ms. Walsh.”
The event was that large? If it really were that big, then Desmond was probably correct. Did that mean Maximo wouldn’t give me back my ring either? Clearly the vampire was screwing with me.
“Then what do you suggest, Marino?”
“You visited my office to learn my secrets through my furniture.” His bitterness was barely checked as he reminded me of how I’d used psychometry to read his office chair’s history. “Perhaps de Sole’s secrets are as easy to find.”
Hmm. The idea had merit. But there was at least one problem with the suggestion. “Does he have a business?”
“No.”
Yeah, that would be the problem.
My eyes narrowed at nothing in particular beyond the shop’s bank of windows. “So I’m supposed to show up at his house unannounced and miraculously find the item of furniture he used when he allegedly set up this plan to enthrall Dea? Do you have any idea how impossible that is?”
“No. I’m a Water witch. I don’t know how psychometry works.”
I couldn’t be irritated because he was correct. “I have to sift through the memories of each item backwards. I was lucky to pick the seat Eamonn Cary used in your office and equally fortunate you let me sit there debating with you long enough to traverse the memories to the previous day. I’d have to hang out in de Sole’s place for a half hour to go through a week’s worth of history for one object. I don’t know what furniture he uses on a daily basis to do his work. And even if I found out, he’d assume I wanted more than conversation.”
“This photograph in my hands implies that you do.”