“I’ll stay in the city tonight,” he said. “Sleep as late as you like, Student, you’ve earned a day off.”
She waved at the others as they left, and as soon as they were outside, Evan took her hand again. Sebastian’s words played inside Lila’s head as she registered that she would be alone with Evan all night. Her heart rate rose, and when he grasped her hand, the tingles of her magic turned effervescent from her excitement. When they got to the car Evan turned to her smiling.
“What’s got your heart and your magic elevated, Angel?”
“Didn’t Bastian just say he was staying in the city tonight?”
“Aye, he did.” Evan looked down at her lips that were begging for his kisses.
“So we’ll be alone in the house.”
“We will,” he said, and he kissed her.
The kiss began softly, but grew in intensity as it went on. When their tongues met, Lila sighed and pulled the lapels of Evan’s coat closer. He leaned into her, pushing her against the side of the Mercedes and pressing his body to hers. His tongue invaded her mouth, promising her a sensual evening if that was what she wanted. Then he backed off slowly, giving her space if she wanted that instead. Evan ended the kiss and looked into her eyes.
“You are so beautiful, Angel. I would do anything to keep you forever.”
Lila blinked up at him. That had to be the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her. It rendered her speechless. Evan smiled and reached around her to open her door. Lila sat in the passenger seat and put her seatbelt on as Evan closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side. When he got in she was staring at him, still dumbfounded. He looked at her wondering if he’d said too much too soon.
“Do my words scare you?”
“No,” she whispered, “And that does scare me.”
He took her hand in his and felt her magic skitter up his arm.
“Me too,” he admitted.
Then Lila’s stomach growled.
“Where would you like to go for dinner, Angel?” he asked, a grin on his handsome face.
“Is this our first date?” she asked, only half teasing.
Evan looked at her, thinking about what she was really asking.
“Aye, Angel, it is.” He brushed his thumb across the back of her hand. He didn’t want to let go, especially after a pleased smile appeared on her face. Evan lifted her hand with his and put in down on the gear shift. Lila giggled as he used her hand to shift into reverse. He backed out of the parking space and shifted into first with Lila’s hand.
“What are you doing?” Lila laughed and tried to pull her hand out of his. Evan held tight.
“Don’t want you to let go of me,” he said casually, as if it was obvious.
“What do you feel when I touch you?”
Evan sighed happily.
“Everything.”
“What does that mean?” Lila chuckled.
“I feel your magic, your desire for me, arousal, love, acceptance---everything.”
Lila blushed.
“What do you feel?” He asked.
“Champagne bubbles, butterflies, desire,” she ended almost breathlessly.
Evan grinned, and without taking his eyes off the road, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. Lila shivered at the fresh burst of bubbles that shot up her arm. Would this feeling ever mellow?
“Pizza,” she blurted.
“Beg pardon?”
“I miss pizza. That’s what I want for dinner. And not at that fancy Italian restaurant, but the pizza parlor on fourth street.”
Lila had seen it in passing, but never eaten there. It was a tiny hole in the wall place with a window on the street that they sold slices through to walk up clients. If it had tables inside, they weren’t visible past the giant ovens and prep area up front.
Evan turned towards downtown at the next light, still holding Lila’s hand over the gear shift. Lila tried to take her hand back again without success.
“Evan, this feels dangerous. Shouldn’t you have both hands on the wheel?”
He looked over at her and lifted an eyebrow. Without a word, he lifted her hand and tucked it inside of his collar so that she was touching his neck. His top button was undone, and he unbuttoned another to give her hand more skin.
“Don’t remove your hand,” he said sternly, and then smiled when Lila chuckled. She couldn’t help stroking his neck with her thumb.
“Are you addicted to my touch, Mr.---Hey, what’s your last name?”
“O’Connell.”
“Evan O’Connell. Do you have a middle name?”
“No, there weren’t so many people on the earth when I was born, Commoners didn’t use middle names.”
“When were you born?”
“In 1420.”
Lila’s eyes widened.
“You were born in the middle ages?”
Evan just smiled.
“Immortals don’t really follow their chronological age.”
“But you have centuries of knowledge!”
“That’s a matter of opinion, and so do history experts.”
“You don’t think that 600 years of experience on this earth makes you...special?”
“No, I don’t. My knowledge is limited to fightin’, sex, and whatever random subjects caught my fancy enough to make me read about them.”
“Like what?”
“Did you know that honey bees have five eyes?”
“I did not.” Lila smiled at him. “Does this knowledge stem from an interest in entomology, or bees specifically?”
Evan marveled at Lila’s intelligent question. He’d never met a woman who cared to talk about the things that interested him. Then again, he’d never cared to talk too much about anything with women before now.
“I kept bees for a while as a hobby.”
“What made you stop?”
“I sold the property and moved away.”
Lila was silent for a minute, then she asked, ”Do immortals not celebrate birthdays?”
“Not as far as I know, why?”
“I like birthdays. Setting aside one day for a person just to make them feel special. Mom and I always did that for each other, the birthday girl got to choose what we did for the whole day. When I got old enough, I made Mom tell me ahead of time what she wanted to do, and I started giving her a gift to go with the theme for the day. It was fun.”
“When is your birthday?” Evan asked, liking the idea.
“October 6th. When is your’s?”
“May.”
“May what?”
“I don’t know, we didn’t keep track.”
“Maybe we should just give you the whole month to celebrate.”
“30 days of you doing everything I say? I like that idea.”
Lila laughed.
They had reached the pizza parlor, and Evan was forced to let Lila have her hand back as he looked over his shoulder to parallel park on the street in front. He turned the engine off and Lila unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Don’t move,” Evan said, getting out of the car.
Lila sat dutifully and watched Evan walk around the front of the car. He opened her door and held his hand out for her. Lila smiled and put her hand in his, sending a thrill up his arm. He helped her out and tucked her arm under his as he turned to walk the fifteen paces to the open door of Tony’s pizza parlor.
Inside two men in aprons were behind the counter. One was making the pies, and the other was minding the ovens and serving slices to a couple of customers on the sidewalk outside. The two men working gave her a friendly smile as their eyes wandered down her form. Even though her coat was unbuttoned, there wasn’t much to see, but Lila was reminded of her magic attraction and she cringed a little. Evan put his arm around her shoulder, claiming possession, and their eyes fell away. Humans.
Lila ordered two slices of pepperoni and mushroom, and a coke, and the man smiled at her before calling out the order to his partner. The other man put her sl
ices on paper plates and Evan paid. Lila picked up her soda, and Evan her food.
“Beautiful women always eat here for free when they are alone.” The server said with a wink.
“This one is never alone,” Evan said amiably as he turned for the back.
Evan chose one of three tiny tables in the back. He held Lila’s chair for her as she sat, and Lila couldn’t help noticing that he sat facing the front. Lila poked her finger into the middle of a slice and quickly snapped it back, and took a sip of her soda through the straw instead.
“Too hot,” she said unnecessarily.
“You’re much smarter than the average pizza eater.” Evan observed.
“I’ve just burned the roof of my mouth so many times, I learned to check it first.”
“As I said.”
Lila smiled at him.
“So...there are merely weeks until your birthday, Angel. What shall we do to celebrate?”
“Do you think I can convince Sebastian to skip training?”
“I’ll persuade him to give us the day.”
“Okay, then depending on the weather, I’d love to be outside. Maybe just go for a walk in the woods and admire the changing leaves.”
Evan’s attention was diverted to the front of the restaurant as a noisy group of shifters walked in. They were three men, all big and muscular, and their boisterous behavior suggested that they’d been drinking. They ordered a large meat pie and drinks and then sauntered towards the back.
“Trouble’s here,” he murmured to Lila in warning.
Lila had just taken the first bite of her pizza, and her eyes widened in alarm. She turned her head to look over her shoulder.
“Don’t,” Evan hissed, but it was too late. Lila’s magic had already attracted the shifters’ attention. Lila showed her profile to them, but did not turn her eyes their way. In her periphery, she could see three large men strolling towards their table.
“Evening, folks,” a man said, walking right up to the table. His two friends flanked him, pinning Evan and Lila between them and the wall.
Lila put her slice down and glanced up at the speaker. He had hair to his shoulders, a heavy brow, and a thin wide mouth. His nostrils flared as he took in a couple of deep breaths. He was scenting them. Evan was right, these were shifters looking for trouble.
“Hey,” Lila said in an uninterested voice as she forced her heart rate to stay steady.
“What’s a beauty like you doing with a vampire?”
“Trying to eat her supper in peace,” Evan said as he slowly stood. His chair made a long screech as his knees pushed it back. The noise caught the attention of the server up front.
“Hey! You make trouble here, you don’t get your pizza!” he warned.
“There won’t be any trouble,” the lead shifter said, “We’re just here to pick up our date and a pizza.”
The shifters words both terrified and incensed Lila, and she went from zero to livid in one second. Evan saw it on her face and hoped she wouldn’t start blasting the place apart.
“I didn’t know I was your type,” Evan said mildly to the shifter.
The shifters looked confused by the comment.
“Not you, bloodsucker, her.”
This guy was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
“Oh no, lad, she’s not your type either.”
“Like hell she isn’t. She’s all our types.” The three of them laughed together.
Lila tried to keep the horror from her face as she looked at the three shifters. They looked like they were brothers. They were fair looking on the outside, but their ugly intentions made them monsters in her eyes. She clenched her hands into fists, knowing that it would be bad to make the first move, especially with the proprietor watching. She was fairly certain that her magical shock would protect her from being molested, but they could do some damage if they had a high tolerance for being tased. These were the type of guys who probably got tased a lot.
“I’ll thank you to back away from us,” Evan threatened. “And if you touch the lady, I’ll take your arm off.”
“I can scent that she doesn’t belong to you, bloodsucker. That means she’s free for the taking. Besides, there’s three of us, and only one of you.”
The shifter tried to shove Evan backward but he didn’t move, so he reached for Lila. She put her hands up defensively.
“Don’t!” Evan warned.
Lila thought he was talking to her and she looked at Evan in confusion. The shifter grabbed her arm and jerked her forward. She stumbled into his brother who wrapped his gigantic arms around her, trapping her hands between them. Lila squeaked in dismay.
Evan punched the lead shifter in the head hard enough that he flew backward into the table and chairs on the opposite wall. The table broke under him, the chairs were knocked over, and the shakers of cheese and pepper flakes shattered when they hit the floor. Before he could get up, his other brother lunged for Evan, pinning him to the wall. The shifter who had Lila began to back towards the front door, and Lila started kicking and screaming.
As Lila was slowly dragged to the front, she heard the owner yelling into his phone.
“---Pizza at 4th. Three shifters are attacking a couple! They’re trying to kidnap the girl!”
When Lila heard the word “kidnap”, she doubled her efforts. She smashed her heel onto the man’s foot repeatedly until he moved his foot away and her heel hit the floor hard. It sounded as if Evan was using the other two shifters to break every piece of furniture in the back. Lila’s shifter took another step toward the open front door, and Lila found his other shin with the sharp side of her shoe. She scraped it down his shin as hard as she could. She felt him wince, but it only made him loosen his grip. She managed to get one hand free as he yanked her left and then right, and finally picked her up so that her feet no longer touched the floor. Lila felt like she was riding a bull, her body getting flung in different directions. Her free arm was batting at him looking for skin. When she grabbed him around the neck, his body shook from the electric shock, and his grip became impossibly tight. Lila held onto him as he fell to the floor on his back, still gripping Lila to his front. Her head slammed into the concrete floor next to his and she saw stars. Her hand lost contact with his skin and his arms slackened.
“Are you all right, Miss?”
Lila dizzily looked up at the man who’d been making the pizzas. He took hold of her arm to help her sit in a chair that he righted. There was no more noise from the back of the restaurant. There were flashing red and blue lights out front, and two police officers stepped through the door, their hands on their guns at their sides.
“Are you all right, Angel?” Evan was suddenly kneeling at Lila’s side. He had a split lip that was already healing, and his clothes were torn up and disheveled. Lila had never seen a more perfect man. She lifted her arms around his neck and hugged him to her as she started to cry.
“It’s all right, Angel, I’ve got you.” Evan put his arms around her and pulled her into his lap.
The restaurant owner stepped around them to greet the policemen. He laid a bloody baseball bat on the floor and explained what happened, blaming the shifters for instigating the whole thing.
The second policeman stepped around Evan and Lila to see the damage in the back, while the first one bent a knee to check the pulse of the shifter who had grabbed Lila.
“This one is dead,” he remarked out loud.
“These two are breathing,” his partner called from the back.
The officer on his knee looked up at Lila and then the pizza maker who shrugged at him.
“Heart attack?” he suggested. “None of us touched him. One minute he was wrestling the girl, and the next he collapsed to the floor.”
Evan looked at Lila, and she could see the shock on his face. New tears welled in her eyes, this time from shame. Evan brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, silently forgiving her. He kissed her temple and turned his head away from the officer.
“Don’t say anything,” he whispered into her ear.
Lila closed her eyes. Evan held her head in his hands and kissed her temple. The energy from his touch calmed her racing heart.
“Officer, can I leave our names and numbers and take her home?” Evan asked the policeman, full of contrition. “This experience has been overwhelming for my girl.”
“Yes, we have enough for now,” the officer said, pulling out his notebook. “Just write down your names, address, and phone numbers, and you may go.”
“Thank you,” Evan said and he took the notebook and pencil to write the information down. Lila observed that he didn’t need to ask her what her phone number was, but wrote it down from memory. When he was done, Evan stood and took her hand. They said goodnight to the policemen, and Evan turned to the pizza guys and pointedly said thank you before leading Lila outside and to the Mercedes. Luckily, the car was parked one spot in front of the police car and ambulance, so Evan was able to get out of the spot without asking anyone to move their car.
As he pulled away from the curb, he asked,”Are you okay, Angel?”
“Yes.” She blew out a breath. “Did those guys lie for us or did they really not see anything unusual?”
“I don’t know. They were human, but they know about Magiques. The real question is, do we call Sebastian now, or wait until morning?”
Lila groaned.
“I have to tell him now Evan, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Angel, I’ve no intention of giving up on you.”
“I didn’t even get to eat my pizza,” Lila lamented with a whimper.
Three blocks later, Evan pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store and handed Lila his phone.
“I’ll be right back, Angel. Call Sebastian and tell him everything, and we’ll meet him at home.”
“What are you getting?” Lila asked.
Magic's Love Page 13
