A Hidden Fire

“Watching,” he said.  “Someone is still watching.”

Giovanni held her small body under his for as long as he could, feeling the fleeting comfort of the contact he knew would soon be denied.  He opened the car door slowly, finally releasing her as she got in.  He walked to the driver’s side, anticipating her sharp rebuke as soon as they were alone, but she was silent as they pulled onto the main road.  After a few moments, her silence bothered him more than her anger.

“We’re not far from my grandmother’s house.  Could you just drop me off there?” she asked with careful nonchalance.  “I’ll drop by the house tomorrow and get my things.”

“Beatrice—”

“I’m sure my grandmother’s wondering where I am.  I’m usually not out this late, even on nights I work.”

His mind raced, trying to find something to say that would break through the coldness in the air, but he couldn’t.  Taking their kiss too far had been his mistake.

“Of course,” he said quietly.  “I’ll let Caspar know to expect you sometime tomorrow.”

She was silent again when he glanced at her profile.  Her face was impassive, and her eyes were shadowed as she stared into the night.

“The notes about the Lincoln documents are on the desk.  Since I found them, I’m going to take some time off.  I need to help my grandmother with some things.”

He pushed back the protest that sprang to his lips and gritted his teeth.  “Of course.  How many days do you need?”

She shrugged.  “I’ll let Caspar know.”

As they pulled up to her grandmother’s house, he saw her gather her purse and release her seatbelt.  She opened the car door and exited the Mustang as soon as it had stopped.  He looked over at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Beatrice…” he began, trying to forget the feel of her lips against his.

She paused, bending down to meet his eyes, as if daring him to protest.

He opened his mouth, but words escaped him when he met her dark stare.

“Good night, Dr. Vecchio.”

She shut the door firmly.  He watched her walk to the small house and go inside then glanced down the street, looking for the surveillance vehicle that was supposed to be watching.  Noting the license plate of the unobtrusive minivan parked down the block, he leaned his head back and sighed.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of her lips against his and her sweet taste.  Her body fit against his perfectly; he indulged himself in the memory of her small breasts pressed against his chest and the feel of her hands stroking his jaw.  While he enjoyed sex with the women he usually fed from, he never pursued any sort of personal connection with them farther than a shared, fleeting pleasure.

With Beatrice, he realized the lines were beginning to blur.  Reminding himself of his purpose in pursuing the girl, he shoved down the more tender feelings that threatened to surface.

Giving one last glance to the light that filled the room on the second floor, he revved the engine to a low growl and pulled away.

Chapter Twelve

Houston, Texas

February 2003

“You’re sulking.”

“Am not.”

“Yes, you are.”

Her grandmother eyed her from across the kitchen table.  Isadora set down her book and looked at her granddaughter with a raised eyebrow.

Beatrice looked down at her toast.  “How was your date with Caspar?”

Isadora smiled.  “It was wonderful.  It would have been much more pleasant if we hadn’t spent half the night talking about you and Giovanni sulking in your respective corners.”

“Hmm,” she hummed.  She couldn’t suppress the satisfaction she felt hearing that Caspar said Giovanni was sulking, too.

She hadn’t seen him for two weeks.  Not since the night she was forced to face the hard truth that Giovanni, polite and cultured as he seemed, sucked on strange women’s necks for sustenance and probably did a lot of other things she didn’t want to think about.  The night she had been informed that she was viewed as a kind of property or pet in his world, no matter how he tried to sugarcoat that fact.

The night he’d kissed her.  And she’d kissed him back.

And what a kiss it was, she thought with a sigh.

Remembering it was enough to raise her temperature.  The way his lips had moved against hers, and the barely perceptible shiver she’d felt from him when her tongue touched his fangs.  His arms.  The heat.  His hands on her back ...she shook her head and tried to push back the memory, but she could feel herself blushing as she sat at the table with her grandmother.

She cleared her throat.  “I doubt Giovanni is sulking.  Caspar just likes to pester him.”

“How long as he worked for Gio?  Caspar talks about him like he’s known him his whole life.”

She didn’t know the whole of Caspar’s story, but she knew Giovanni said they’d been together since Caspar was a boy.

“You’d have to ask him.  I think he may have worked for Gio’s family.”  There, that was vague enough.  She’d let Caspar fill in whatever details he wanted.

While her initial promise to set Caspar and her grandmother up on a blind date had been in jest, the more Beatrice had thought about it, the more it made sense.  When she’d asked Caspar about it, he’d been enthusiastic at her attempt at matchmaking.  They’d gone out the night before and Isadora was glowing.