Maybe this human thing wasn’t such a cockamamie idea at all.
Before I knew it, our drinks were finished, and the band went from a rousing rendition of “Sing, Sing, Sing”into a much slower tune I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t lazy, but it was a slow, honeyed drawl full of syrup and longing. The kind that stuck to your soul and made you look out the window while examining the world in a different way.
Suddenly, Naomi was standing, and she offered me her hand again. “Down for round two?”
I thought she meant for drinks, so I nodded and let her pull me to my feet. She really was strong, and I felt that same rush of adrenaline in the back of my head. Sure, the beast of vampirism within me was intrigued at the idea of such a challenge, but it wasn’t alone. I liked that Naomi was strong, that she wouldn’t just crumble if I used a modicum of my own power. Even though we weren’t close to the stage where something like that would even be important, I was attracted to what I was attracted to.
But instead of heading back to what I suspected was a bit of a tourist trap of a bar, she led me right back to where we’d danced. There were fewer couples there now, but I recognized one elderly pair who were draped across each other, a testamentto the enduring nature of love and companionship. The way their backs stooped and their skin wrinkled stood in sharp relief to the timeless adoration radiating off them. Although their physical forms were not long from dust, all I saw was how their connection would live forever.
God, I wanted that.
More than anything else.
The mood was different, and I didn’t fail to notice how our bodies pressed together in an entirely new context. This was no lively Charleston. No sock hop or jitterbug.
This was romantic. Unabashedly so. And I hadn’t realized how much I had been craving something so simple, so universal.
I only wished I didn’t have to lie to get it.
Maybe it was my own main character syndrome, but I could have sworn the air itself changed. The wind shifted around us as we slowly maneuvered across the cobblestones, sidestepping and swaying back and forth.
“I think this might be the best date I’ve ever been on,” I murmured when the song broke down into a low and intense interlude with only the piano and clarinet.
Thankfully, Naomi once again seemed to be in accordance with my opinion. “Me too. I don’t think it could get any more perfect.”
It would have been nice if I could tell her everything, but there were limits to our situation, so I held my tongue as the wind continued to whip around us, dropping the temperature of the air. But I didn’t mind, because the sheer amount of heat that Naomi’s body was radiating toward me was more than enough to keep me warm.
“Thank you,” I said simply, and Naomi nodded.
We moved together, and the rest of the world fell away into nothingness, leaving just the journey we were on. I’d never...
My inner monologue cut off as I realized that Naomi was pushing herself up onto her toes. Although I wasn’t exactly fully literate in modern romantic movies, I didn’t need to be to recognize that she was going in for a kiss.
Oh.
When was the last time I’d been kissed? It had been so long. And even longer since I had done eitherromantically.
Yet despite the worries that I might be out of practice, I didn’t hesitate. I began to lower my head, but before we could make any sort of contact, there was a truly earth-shattering crack of thunder above our heads, enough to shake the ground beneath our feet.
“Holy shit!” Naomi cried, and I didn’t blame her for jerking back. The wind whipping around and the sparking energy that had made the hair on my arms stand on end hadn’t been my imagination. Amazing the things I did and didn’t notice when caught up in someone truly unexpected. “I?—”
She never quite got the sentence out, because it was like the sky broke in two and a torrential downpour slammed down so hard I physically felt its force against my body.
Holy shit, indeed!
It was chaos for a moment, and understandably so. The band was breaking for cover—the bass player with his amp in his arms and his guitar strapped to his back while the piccolo was helping the bass clarinetist haul her instrument to cover. I was tempted to go help, but Naomi’s grip on me tightened, centering me in the moment.
God, she looked so fuckingbeautiful.
I had no words for it. No verbal words, at least. My mind filled with dozens and dozens of different adjectives all piling on top of each other in a worshipful cacophony. The way the water poured down over her thick hair, soaking it through and traveling in hurried, crystalline paths down her slightly tannedskin. Her green eyes were nearly as stormy as the sky above us, charged with enough emotions to take my breath away if I had to breathe. The full swell of her chest wasn’t quite heaving, but its movement was an alluring rise and fall, and I wanted to reach out and caress her. Tofeelher. To treasure her.
I wanted nothing more than to cup her face and pull her to me, so I could ravish those red lips of hers for all I was worth. To let the parts of me I kept locked away come to the surface.
But as I lifted my hand, forceful drops of rain splattering against me, I realized the cuff of my sleeve was beginning to stain.
Specifically, beginning to stain withmakeup.
Shit!
