by Jill Myles
“That day can’t get here soon enough,” I murmured. Just the thought of not having sex for another two days made me crave it, and I crossed my legs.
Noah looked over at me, a hint of a frown marring the line of his eyebrows.
The scent of sulfur grew strong in the small tent. “Don’t worry about the candles,” I said. “They’re giving me a headache.”
His jaw was set in a stubborn line that I recognized about once a month. “Fine.” He put down the matches and placed the candles back in an orderly row along the table. “What were you saying about Fred?”
I glanced at the covered tray, my mouth watering as I wondered what was underneath. Was it someone’s birthday? My taste buds gave a little thrill at the thought of birthday cake. Maybe chocolate, to take the edge off my desire. Noah knew that I loved to eat. “Fred confessed undying love for me,” I said, distracted by the tray and my rumbling stomach. It had been a few hours since breakfast, and lunch sounded rather tasty at the moment. “Though I promised him that I wouldn’t say anything to Mr. Gideon.” I gave Noah a pointed look. “Consider yourself out of the know, Mr. Gideon. And don’t worry. I used my Suck powers to draw him off and convinced him to visit town.”
Noah gave a little shake of his head. “Jackie, we’ve had this conversation before. You need to be careful around the men at camp.”
My jaw dropped.
Careful?
Steamed, I grabbed my steak knife off the table. With my other hand, I took off my dirty baseball cap and shook down one of my long, bright red braids. I held the braid out from my head at a straight angle and in fast, jerky motions, I hacked the entire thing off, tossing it down on the table.
Noah rolled his eyes at my dramatic show.
Still furious, I shoved a finger in my mouth and bit down on the nail, sawing it down to the quick with my teeth. I spit the brittle crescent out on the table.
He gave me a faintly exasperated look. “Jackie—”
“Watch,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
Sure enough, less then a minute later, I felt the hair follicles on my scalp slither, and the familiar tingling that told me my hair was growing back. I grabbed a handful of the sheared ends and watched in disgust as they grew, my hair pouring down my shoulder and over my shirt, becoming long, flame-red curls. I extended my hand to him—my fingernail had already grown back to the long, unpractical length.
“Do you see this?” I jerked at my T-shirt. “I’m wearing a Led Zeppelin tee and cargo shorts and a baseball cap. Not exactly seductress material.”
“Zane’s shirt, I noticed.”
Grr. He was missing the point entirely. “What I’m trying to tell you,” I said, “is that no matter what I do, I can’t disguise how I look. I’ve shaved my head. I’ve worn thick glasses. I’ve done everything short of a ski mask, and it’s no use. I could go out in a trash-bag and someone would still hit on me.”
“Jackie—”
“You know,” I carried on, angrily re-braiding my “new” hair. He was going to sit and listen to my complaints, darn it. “I thought going on this dig would be good for my career. I could finally set myself up as a serious archaeologist. But it’s like I’m the Hooters girl at the church social! The men leer at me constantly. Someone tries to cop a feel if I bend over. All the women on the team hate me because they think I’m blowing you just to get you to sponsor the dig.”
“You are blowing me,” he interrupted, a hint of a smile playing on his face.
“Not to further my career,” I bellowed. “Remember that whole have to have sex every two days thing? Hello? Succubus?”
He gave me a patient look. “I wouldn’t be out in the jungles of Yucatan spending a small fortune on radar equipment if it weren’t for you. So they do have a point.”
My eyes narrowed. “You are so not helping your case right now, buddy.”
Noah chuckled, showing me a glimpse of the good-natured, strong protector that I normally adored. He moved to my end of the table and pulled me up into his arms. “Poor Jackie. I’m sorry this isn’t turning out like you want.” His warm hand stroked down my back.
My bad mood was rapidly dwindling, now that I was pressed against his hard, sweaty body, and I slid my hands up and down his bare, damp skin. He felt good against me. Really good. It reminded me that I was due for the Itch in a short time, so I reluctantly pulled away. “Unless you want to make out on the floor, maybe we shouldn’t touch.”
I wanted him to protest, to kiss me senseless and prove me wrong, but he said, “You’re right,” and released me. Spoil-sport.
I sighed. I hated the days up to the full moon.
“I brought you a few presents from town,” he said, moving back to the other end of the table.
Sitting back down, I clapped my hands in delight. “Edible things?” In this part of Mexico you could get a lot of standard stuff from the big Wal-Mart in Mérida or the local tedejon, but I missed the small luxuries like Pringles and my Aveda shampoo. Noah was constantly bringing me boxes of treats as a result. Last week it was foil-wrapped Ding Dongs, which I tore through in about five minutes.
Succubi weren’t known for their self-control when it came to food.
Noah smiled at my delighted expression. “Part of your present is edible, yes.” He disappeared under the paper tablecloth and reappeared a moment later with a large cardboard box. The word “Pop Tarts” was printed across the side of the box.
I squealed. “Oh my God! Pop Tarts! A whole case!”
“I had them special ordered for you in Mérida. They’re chocolate.” At my second squeal of delight, he chuckled. “Try not to eat them all in one day.”
I eyed the box with hungry, avid eyes. “They might last two days.” Maybe three, if I paced myself.
A radar discovery and Pop Tarts. This day just got better and better.
Noah seemed pleased by my reaction, his eyes so blue they glowed in his tanned face. “I never thought I’d see a woman get so turned on over a package.” His voice had dropped to a huskier octave, showing that he wasn’t quite immune to my charms just yet.
Encouraged, I leaned over the table, my voice turning into a purr. “Show me your package, and I’ll show you an even more turned-on woman.”
His eyes flashed and I recognized the interest there, fighting the lethargy that always set over him before the full moon. “Your other present first,” he murmured.
“Whatever floats your boat,” I breathed, clamping my thighs together so they’d stop quivering with excitement.
Hot diggity, I was going to get laid today, after all.
He leaned over the table, placing his hand on the dome of the silver platter. I was a little excited to see what was under the mysterious covering. This was why he’d sent everyone away from camp to be alone with me, the reason behind the big table and production. “If that’s a milkshake under there, they’re going to have to pry me off of you with a crowbar,” I said, my eyes glued to the tray.
He lifted the lid.
No mountains of cheeseburgers. No milkshakes. No decadent cascades of chocolate, french fries, or a fat, fluffy cheesecake.
A tiny box with a bow lay in the center of the plate. It looked like . . . a ring box.
“Shit,” I blurted.
“That’s not exactly the reaction I wanted to hear,” he teased, but there was an uncomfortable tone to his voice that spoke volumes.
I stared at the small box, unable to move my hand toward it. I knew—I just knew—what it contained. And the dreadful knot forming in the pit of my stomach told me that I didn’t want it.
“Jackie?”
Steeling my nerves, I forced myself to reach for the box. I owed Noah that much, right? My fingers were trembling (not in a good way) as I flicked the box open. And stared at the ring inside.
A simple band of platinum clung to the biggest damn diamond I had ever laid eyes on. The size of it blew me away. I pulled it out of the box to make sure that I wasn’t seeing things.
It was the size of a large button and stood up from the setting like one of those candy lollipop rings. The inside of the band read “Tiffany & Co.” It even felt heavy. “Jeezus, Noah.”
“It’s four carats. I figured if everyone was going to stare at you all the time, they might as well have something else to fixate on.”
He wasn’t kidding. “It’s . . . enormous.”
Noah chuckled. “A guy loves to hear his woman say that.”
His woman? Oh God. Anxiety and stress came crashing down around me, and I carefully put the ring back in the box. I loved Noah. Had great affection for him. Loved spending time with him. We got along very well, and he was pleasant to live with.
So why did the thought of marrying him scare the holy heck out of me? Was it because eternity was such a very, very long time to be married to someone?
Especially when you still missed your ex-boyfriend?
“Well?” he said as I held the box in my hands.
I hesitated. There was no good way to put this, really. “Noah, I don’t know. It’s just such a big step.”
“Jackie, we’ve been living together for six months, most of that in this jungle. We work very well together. I love you and you love me. Despite the fact that we’re both compelled to have sex on a regular basis, we’ve both been monogamous for the past six months. I’ve been monogamous since I met you.” His head tilted slightly and he continued to study me with those intense blue eyes. “Why not take this a step further and commit to each other? Show our commitment to everyone? If we’re married, I can protect you.”
“From what?” I had to ask.
“Everything.”
Even that blanket statement didn’t make me leap to put the gigantic rock on my finger. I flipped the small box back and forth in my hands.
“Noah,” I started. I needed to express myself to him . . . but how to do so without hurting his feelings? I wasn’t much for articulating these sorts of things. “You’re four thousand years old. I’m barely pushing twenty-seven.”
“I’m prepared to spend the next four thousand with you.” He made it sound like a challenge.
“What if circumstances forced me to cheat on you?” I still recalled with vivid discomfort my trip to New Orleans, and my run-in with an incubus named Luc. Cursed to want sex within hours, stranded from my two guys, I’d had no choice but to fuck around with Luc, and our brief rendezvous had had dire consequences.
His jaw flexed. “We’d work through that. I wouldn’t hold it against you.”
“I know you won’t,” I agreed. “It’s just that . . . I’d hold it against me.” I placed the ring box on the table and nudged it away. “Maybe I’m still thinking too traditionally, despite being a succubus, but . . . to me, marriage means commitment. Forever commitment.” The kind that I’d always wanted when I was human, but scared the hell out of me now. “Commitment to me means that I’d never desire another. And I don’t think I could make that commitment in good faith.”
I expected him to make an excuse for my nature, to assure me that it would be all right. Noah was always so supportive.
But his jaw clenched. He stood up, glared down at me for a moment, and then turned away, moving to the back of the tent. There he began to dress, pulling a white shirt over his head.
I frowned at his back. “What are you doing?”
He glanced over his and gave a small, hard laugh. “You know, Jackie, with everything that we’ve gone through over the past six months, I thought we could at least be honest with each other.”
“I am being honest with you,” I said, bewildered.
Noah shoved his shirt into his pants, then crammed his wallet into his pocket. “No, you’re not. You tell me that it’s about cheating with Luc, when we both know it’s about Zane.”
My mouth went dry. “No, it’s not.”
“Oh, come on.” His voice took on a cold, hard edge that I’d never heard before. “You can stand there in his shirt and tell me that with a straight face? You even smell like him.”
I flushed in embarrassment. Like any other lonely ex-girlfriend, I occasionally sprayed my boyfriend’s shirt with his cologne—Lagerfeld. I hadn’t realized that my current boyfriend was quite that observant and had noticed.
Guess that made me a bit of a jackass.
“Just tell me, Jackie,” Noah said, approaching me. He took my hand in his and clasped it against his chest. “Tell me honestly that the reason you’re saying ‘no’ isn’t because of Zane, and I’ll let the whole thing drop.”
My throat closed, and I stared up into his beautiful, hurt blue eyes. I wanted to reassure him, to go back to the easy companionship we had before. But that was gone. He wanted more, and I wasn’t sure I could give him more. Even though Zane had been gone six months now, I still thought of him every time the sun went down and I was left alone.
I missed him dreadfully.
“I can’t tell you that.” I pulled my hand out of his. “I’m sorry, Noah. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
He leaned in and kissed my mouth softly, his eyes sad. “I know.” He released me, lifted the tent flap and walked away.
I followed after him. “Where are you going?”
“To town. I need to clear my head.” He didn’t look back at me.
I glanced up at the sky. “It’ll be dark in a few hours.” Every twelve hours, the Serim were cursed to pass out into a deep hibernation, from which they couldn’t be wakened. Serim took the daytime hours, and vampires ruled the night, with a little bit of overlap between worlds. “Don’t stay out too late.”
Noah glanced back at me, a wealth of pain in his eyes. “Don’t expect me back tonight.”
He’d rather spend his vulnerable nighttime hours alone or with strangers than with me. That stung more than anything else as I watched him go.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Dedication
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
The Succubus Diaries series
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