A waiter came to their table to pour champagne in their glasses and recite the menu.
“Sebastian, what nationality are you?” asked Lila.
“My parents came from Spain, and I was born there, but I was raised in Brazil.”
“So you speak Portuguese?”
“And Spanish, Italian, Greek, French, English, and Japanese.”
“Japanese?”
“I lived there for a time.”
Dinner was delicious. They started with small spicy peppers stuffed with melted cheese. Then came lamb shanks marinated in a chili sauce, poblano, potato, and corn gratin, and a black bean and tomato salad. Dessert was dulce de leche. When they finished, Sebastian pulled a pair of gray cotton gloves out of his pocket and put them on. Lila stared with wide eyes as he stood and held a hand out to her.
“Lila, my dear, it is time for your dance lesson.”
She laughed and took his hand.
“You just pulled these out of your glove drawer, didn’t you, Teacher?”
“Actually, my butler, ‘Jeeves’ pulled them out for me.”
“Jeeves, Sebastian?” Lila snickered at his attempted joke. “How very British of you”
He led her to the now crowded dance floor and took Lila in his arms.
“All right, now pay attention. This is a Cha Cha, not too difficult to follow, just remember the 5-count and let me move you.”
After an awkward start and a little more coaching from Sebastian, Lila got the hang of it and they began to flow like the other couples on the dance floor. Lila loved it. The Cuban music was like nothing Lila had ever danced to before, but so compelling. She wanted to dance all night long, but Sebastian made her take a break after 3 dances. They went back to their table for some water and more champagne.
“What was your favorite time to live in?” Lila asked out of the blue.
Sebastian looked at Lila’s earnest expression and considered her question seriously before answering.
“Every time had its problems as well as pleasures, but the years I really enjoyed were just before the turn of the 19th century. Classicism was starting to crumble, but etiquette was still practiced by all people. Social occasions were easier to navigate as men and women both followed the same rules.”
Lila laughed at Sebastian.
“Have you ever broken a rule in your life?”
Before he could answer, a man walked up to the table. Lila looked up to see Evan smiling at her. He was dressed in dark gray slacks and a black vest buttoned up, white shirt and a plain dark necktie. His chin was clean shaven and his curly auburn locks had been slicked back.
“May I have the next dance, miss?” he asked, holding out a hand to her.
Lila looked at Sebastian to see what he thought, but Sebastian just sat back in his chair eyeing Evan. He had taken off his gloves when they’d returned to the table. Now he purposely picked them up and, looking at Lila, put them in his pocket. Lila saw the gesture for what it was, Sebastian was waiting to see Evan get shocked.
Lila smiled and reached for Evan’s hand. Instead of the shock that she expected, she felt a tingling. It started in her fingertips where their hands met and as he clasped her hand, the tingles traveled up her arm and all through her body. It was an electric energy, and she was starting to get turned on by it. Lila felt like there were champagne bubbles circulating in her blood. Then the feeling settled into her core “This is my first time Salsa dancing,” Lila blurted.
Evan’s arm tightened slightly at her waist, pulling her an inch closer. He looked at her through his long lashes as if he would rather kiss her in a dark corner of the room.
“This one is 3 counts forward, and 3 counts back. Follow my lead.” He began to move Lila backward along with the music. Evan’s hips moved like a Brazilian dance instructor, and he led with a precision that made following him easy. By the end of the dance, Lila could not say who was the better dancer, Sebastian or Evan. She was still out of sorts by her physical response to Evan’s touch, and she was happy for the excuse to stop touching him as he led her back to her seat and Sebastian.
“Thank you,” he said with a slight bow, and giving Sebastian only a fleeting look, he turned and left.
“What was that?” she asked Sebastian.
“You tell me,” he responded.
“Hell if I know.”
“You did not shock him.”
“No. It was more of a—“ Lila stopped herself before she could embarrass herself. ‘—I don’t even know what it was,” she finished.
Sebastian searched her face for something that Lila was not willing to divulge.
“Should we go?” he inquired.
“No. Give me a minute, and then I’d love to dance with you again.”
Lila reached for her glass of champagne, which had been refilled, and drank it down in one gulp. That Irishman just might kill me, she thought, and damn if I don’t love every minute.
Lila danced with Sebastian for the rest of the evening. She loved learning all the Latin dances, and Sebastian was a wonderful dance partner and date. She received admiring looks from all the men, but they did not try and cut in or ask her to dance. She enjoyed the rest of her evening and tried not to think too often about the sexy Irishman.
Evan had arrived at the dance club intending to find a nice single Latina to flirt and dance with before taking her out to the parking lot and slaking his thirst both literally and figuratively. Since meeting Lila the other night, he could not get her off his mind. She looked and smelled exquisite, and this worried him. Then just as he thought he’d found a substitute for the evening, he’d caught sight of Sebastian on the dance floor, dancing with the angel, looking even more beautiful in a dress. He’d felt like a moth being lured by a flame, all instinct, as he crossed the room to ask her to dance.
When their hands had touched, he’d felt a pulsing electrical charge. It circulated his veins with his blood, going all the way to the end of each capillary before returning to his heart to begin the circuit again. He felt instantly addicted to the feeling, and he got hard. This could not happen to him. Evan had spent more than 500 years controlling every part of his body and it’s reaction to outside stimuli. His cock did nothing without his brain telling it to. By the time the dance had finished he was tense from the effort of not showing how much she affected him. He handed her back to Sebastian and fled.
Chapter 6
September
Five days later, Sebastian informed Lila that he had to go into the office after their workout. She would be expected to do her reading on her own, and Sebastian would be home for dinner. Lila was happy to hear she would have time to herself, even if she would be locked inside the house.
Since the night at the club, Lila had been thinking about Evan. She knew very little about vampires, and Sebastian had nothing in his library about them. From the lunch conversation she’d had with him and James and Adam, Lila had surmised that she would not get information from any of them. Sebastian had made it sound as if Evan was part of “her team,” so maybe she would see Evan again and have the opportunity to ask questions of him directly. In the meantime, she dreamed of him.
Lila put extra effort into her workout with Sebastian, anticipating an afternoon of slacking off. When they were finished, Sebastian headed for the shower. Lila chose to eat something in the kitchen first, and saw Sebastian leave before heading to the shower herself. Every time she was alone in the house, it felt strangely decadent. She supposed it was because she’d spent so little time in a place of her own. Growing up she’d lived with her mom in a trailer. At college and for half a dozen years after, she’d always had roommates. Being in the large house alone was unexpectedly freeing.
She double checked that the security system was on before she headed upstairs to her bathroom. She’d planned on having a nice long shower, maybe even thinking about Evan when she was in there, but when she entered her bathroom her eyes fell on the large old fashioned bath tub that she had yet to try. She t
urned on the taps to fill it, almost shivering with anticipation as she went to the cabinet to find the bubbles she’d seen there when putting towels away. Squirting some bubbles in the tub she wondered if she should bother with candles or not. She decided that candles midday was too much, but she found some great mood music on her phone and let the sound fill the bathroom as she undressed to get in the tub.
Lila caressed her bare breasts, imaging it was Evan touching her. She pictured his handsome face, eyelids half closed over those fathomless dark eyes. She imagined his lips closing on her nipple and sucking it into a hard peak while pinching the other between his elegantly long fingers. She imagined his other hand slowly sliding down her torso as she slid her own hand down, grazing her bellybutton, traveling lower through her pubic curls to her clit that was already swollen from arousal. She dipped two fingers lower and found she was soaked with desire. Damn! But she hoped that if she ever got this far with Evan it would be at least this good. A few strokes of her fingers around her clit was all it took, Lila came, and the release felt good.
Lila turned off the taps and sank slowly into the hot bubbles, her muscles relaxing the lower she sank. She closed her eyes listening to the music and feeling the warm water surrounding her, she let go. It was a true meditation: her body almost floated in the deep tub and her mind was a complete blank. With her ears below the water line, the music was far away, and Lila closed her eyes and focused on her breathing and heartbeat. She opened herself to her magic, just as she’d been practicing for weeks. She felt it flow through her, into her on an inhale, out of her on an exhale. She felt one with her magic and surroundings for the very first time. She could feel the water soaking into the pores of her skin. It was, well, magical. Lila had no idea how long she stayed like that, reveling in her magical ability. Eventually she began to sense more light coming into the room, which made no sense, as there was just one tiny window. She opened her eyes slowly and saw a glow emanating from the water, as if there were lights inside the tube. In confusion, Lila sat up, and lifting her arms out of the water she saw that the glow was coming from her. Now it was fading, but there was no doubt that she was the one emitting the light. Hunh, Sebastian never said anything about being able to glow. She’d have to ask him later. Could this be another advanced skill that she had stumbled upon?
The water began to cool, so she washed quickly and got out before a chill set in. It was not until she was dressed comfortably in sweats and a t-shirt and curled up on the couch in the library reading that she realized; she had just embraced her magic, and by doing so, she had finally accepted her new life as a Mage.
Sebastian returned home at 6:00 and they ate a pasta dinner together, making small talk about their afternoon activities. Afterwards, when they were preparing to do some magic practice, Lila remembered the glowing.
“Sebastian, do Mages sometimes glow when they use their magic?”
“Glow?”
“Yes, like a light bulb.”
Sebastian stared at Lila as if she were trying to make some kind of joke. “No.”
“Oh,” she said and nervously began to fidget.
“Lila, what are you trying to tell me?”
“Um, I’m not really sure, well I’m pretty sure, that I glowed. Today. After you left for the office.”
“Why would you be practicing your magic alone?” This was something Sebastian had strictly forbidden.
“I wasn’t practicing. I was in the tub meditating, and it just happened.”
“What exactly ‘just happened’?”
“I…glowed,” she shrugged, not having any other word for it.
Sebastian let out a loud breath, as if he’d been holding it. “Explain.”
Lila took her own long breath and started explaining how she felt relaxed floating in the water, and how she could feel the water and her magic flowing through her, and finally how she had opened her eyes to see herself glowing with a blue light of magical energy.
“Impossible,” said Sebastian more to himself. “Are you sure you saw this with your eyes? It was a physical light?”
“I think so, I mean, it looked like light. What else could it be?”
“I don’t know, but Mages don’t manifest energy inside themselves. We pull from an outside source. And it’s not typically something one can see, unless you are creating a light. We can sense magic, but not actually see it.” He thought for a minute, tapping a fingertip on the table.
“Do you think you could do it again?”
“Now? I don’t know, not right now.”
“Why not?”
“I was alone. It was relaxing. You staring at me is not relaxing.”
“Hmm, what if we meditated together?”
She looked at him doubtfully, ”Maybe.”
“All right, let’s move to a comfortable spot and try.”
They ended up on the couch in the library where Lila had been reading earlier because she was comfortable there. She sat with her legs crossed on one end of the couch, and Sebastian sat on the other end.
“Try thinking about how it felt when you did it earlier today,” instructed Sebastian.” Don’t worry about me or anything else. Just meditate.”
“Okay.”
Lila closed her eyes and focused her attention on her breathing. With every exhale she concentrated on relaxing her body. Within a couple of minutes she had forgotten about Sebastian, and started noticing her other senses. The only sound she heard was her own breathing. Her hands, resting on her knees, felt the cotton of her sweatpants. The library smelled like paper and leather. She allowed her mind to drift and she envisioned herself floating over to a shelf and running her fingers along the spines of books there. She allowed herself to become two-dimensional and slip into a book where words floated around her and the light of knowledge became brighter.
Lila heard a gasp and opened her eyes in time to see her inner light fade to nothing as her concentration broke. The gasp had come from Sebastian and he continued to stare at her without speaking. She waited for him to say something. A long minute passed before he spoke.
“Impossible.”
“What? Why?”
“I have never seen this, and as far as I know, this sort of thing has only been written about in religious texts…” he trailed off.
“So what do you think this means?” Lila studied Sebastian as he tried to verbalize what was going through his head. A couple of long minutes passed before he spoke.
“Lila. Your magic, your ability, is like nothing I’ve ever seen. You are…unusual, and powerful. It might be time for you to work with James.”
“Why?”
“He has a wider range of abilities and experience with unusual talents.”
“Okay, but will you be around when I work with him?” Lila looked nervous.
Sebastian smiled. “What happened to the girl who could ‘handle a bunch of horny guys’?” he teased.
“Well, I just would rather not be alone with James for an extended period of time, that’s all.”
“Student, your instincts make your teacher proud,” crowed Sebastian. “In fact, Alexander has assigned you a guard. So you need not worry about being alone with any undesirable characters.”
“Guard? As in bodyguard?” Lila could not believe she was hearing correctly. She could not envision a scenario where she would need a bodyguard. Except, of course, any time she would have to spend alone with James, the male whore.
“Yes, and I am sorry, he’s not my choice, but he is the best guard we could ever ask for.”
“Who?’
“Evan.”
Lila sat stunned, staring back at Sebastian. The name set the butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
“What do you hold against him, Sebastian?”
Her teacher struggled with how to explain his prejudice.
“Evan sees everything in black and white. There is no gray with him. I fear that the two of you will be like vinegar and water.”
“And you can’t be
my bodyguard?”
“No. I am already too close to you. Alexander thinks that I might be hampering your progress as it is.”
“Oh?” laughed Lila, “You mean that Alexander thinks that you should be teaching me how to fight, not just defend myself?”
“Lila, I am sorry if you feel that I am not teaching you enough. I truly believe that when it comes to your safety, the best thing you can do is get far away as fast as possible.”
“All right Teacher, I get that you can’t see me as a warrior.”
“No, I can’t, you are too... precious.” Sebastian used the word a father might when speaking of a daughter, and Lila smiled at him from across the couch.
The following day started like every other day. Lila rose at dawn, ate breakfast, and worked out with Sebastian until noon. She showered, and was eating a sandwich when Evan walked into the kitchen and sat across the table from her. He was wearing all black. Black jeans, black button down shirt, black boots, even black sunglasses. He said nothing to her, but casually watched her eat.
“Hi,” she said to break the silence.
Evan nodded at her.
“I will see you tonight,” called Sebastian from the hallway.
Lila jumped up in alarm, her mouth full of sandwich and ran to the front hall. She caught Sebastian’s arm as he was walking out the front door. She offhandedly heard Evan’s footsteps behind her.
“What is it?” he asked, turning to look at her.
Lila choked down the bite of sandwich. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes. Did you not see Evan enter?”
“I did, but,” Lila searched Sebastian’s eyes. Finding no duplicity, she said, ”Don’t come home without the largest desk calendar you can find.”
When he looked at her questioningly she added, ”I am tired of surprises.”
“What surprises?”
Without breaking eye contact with Sebastian, she flung her arm and pointed behind her.
“I told you last night,” explained Sebastian, a little exasperated.
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