Burnt Offerings - Laurell K. Hamilton [22]
Jean-Claude watched me struggle into my chair, smiling, but he didn’t offer to help. I’d finally broken him of that at least. He sat down in his own chair with a graceful fall. It was an almost foppish movement, but he was like a cat. Even at rest there was the potential of muscle under skin, a physical presence that was utterly masculine. I used to think it was vampire trickery. But it was him, just him.
I shook my head.
“What’s wrong, ma petite?”
“I felt pretty spiffy until I saw you. Now I feel like one of the ugly stepsisters.”
He tut-tutted at me. “You know you are lovely, ma petite. Shall I feed your vanity by telling you how much?”
“I wasn’t fishing for compliments.” I gestured at him and shook my head again. “You look amazing tonight.”
He smiled, dipping his head to one side so his hair swept forward. “Merci, ma petite.”
“Is the hair permed straight?” I asked. “It looks great,” I added hastily, and it did, but I hoped it wasn’t as permanent as a perm. I loved his curls.
“If it was, what would you say?”
“If it was, you’d have just said so. Now you’re teasing me.”
“Would you mourn the loss of my curls?” he asked.
“I could return the favor,” I said.
He widened his eyes in mock horror. “Not your crowning glory, ma petite, mon Dieu.” He was laughing at me, but I was used to it.
“I didn’t know you could get linen that tight,” I said.
His smile widened. “And I did not know you could hide a gun under such a…slender dress.”
“As long as I don’t hug anybody, they’ll never know.”
“Very true.”
A waiter came and asked if we wanted drinks. I ordered water and Coke. Jean-Claude declined. If he could have ordered anything, it would have been wine.
Jean-Claude brought his chair over to sit almost beside me. When dinner came, he’d move back to his place setting, but picking out the meal was part of the night’s entertainment. It had taken me several dinner dates to realize what Jean-Claude wanted—no, almost needed. I was Jean-Claude’s human servant. I bore three of his marks. One of the side effects of the second mark was that he could take sustenance through me. So if we’d been on a long sea voyage, he wouldn’t have had to feed off of any humans on the boat. He could live through me for a time. He could also taste food through me.
For the first time in nearly four hundred years he could taste food. I had to eat it for him, but he could enjoy a meal. It was trivial compared to some of the other things he’d gained through the bonding, but it was the thing that seemed to please him most. He ordered food with a childlike glee and watched me eat, tasting it as I did. In private he’d roll on his back like a cat, hands pressed to his mouth as if trying to drain every taste. It was the only thing he did that was cute. He was gorgeous, sensual, but rarely cute. I’d gained four pounds in six weeks eating with him.
He slid his arm over the back of my chair, and we read the menu together. He leaned close enough for his hair to brush my cheek. The smell of his perfume, oh, sorry, cologne, caressed my skin. Though if what Jean-Claude wore was cologne, then Brut was bug spray.
I moved my head away from the caress of his hair, mainly because the feel of him this close was all I could think about. Maybe if I’d taken him up on his invitation to live with him at the Circus of the Damned, some of this heat would have dissipated. But I’d rented a house in record time in the middle of nowhere so my neighbors wouldn’t get shot up, which is why I moved out of my last apartment. I hated the house. I wasn’t a house kinda gal. I was a condo kind of gal. But condos had neighbors, too.
The lace overlay on his jacket was scratchy against my nearly bare shoulders. He put his hand on my shoulder, smoothing his fingertips across my skin. His leg brushed my thigh, and I realized I hadn’t heard a damn thing he’d said.