Scented Lust

by Jacqueline Turner Banks

  “Okay, I get it,” Leeana said, as soon as Jordan left the room. “You’re interested in Jordan, no problem. But I warn you, you’d better be good to her. She’s been out of circulation for a long time, and it wasn’t easy finally getting her to come out tonight.”

  He took a moment to explain to her that he wasn’t looking for anything permanent, but that he was always a gentleman with any woman in his company.

  “I’ll hunt you down and hurt you if you hurt her,” she said just as he saw Jordan reenter.

  It amused him that such a little thing would make such a threat, but when he laughed, she gave him a look that could have cut steel.

  Guys finally started coming to the table to ask both of them to dance, but each time Leeana would tell him, “she’s talking; will you settle for me?”

  He thought that was a class move. Only a real idiot would’ve refused her.

  Jordan started talking about growing up in foster homes, and Artest began to see why she was so guarded. He told her the abbreviated version of his life. It was actually bits and pieces from several human lifetimes that he put together for just such occasions. In an odd way they had a lot in common. He didn’t grow up in foster homes—in fact, the only time he’d had people around to love him and for him to love them back was when he was a child—but he had lived many lifetimes without them.

  There had been five children in his family, and one other, his sister, was chosen for The Service. His other sister and two brothers had been dead for a very long time. It pained him to think about his remaining sister—they no longer communicated.

  In the beginning, he’d tried to keep up with his nieces and nephews and then great-nieces and nephews, but it became too difficult to return and find yet another relative dead. He went nearly fifty years without visiting the area in an attempt to avoid that pain. But even now he could go to Mali and meet a stranger who had the face of one of his siblings. Each time it was like a dagger in his heart.

  Of course he couldn’t tell her all of that, but he did tell her that he no longer went home because all of his relatives had died off. The look she gave him could have only come from another person without family.

  She briefly touched his shoulder and said, “you don’t have to tell me what that feels like.”

  That empathic part of Artest felt her pain, and he knew that she did indeed know and he wouldn’t have to tell her, but he also felt she was the first person in over a hundred years that he wanted to tell.

  Chapter Four

  He didn’t act like he was in a hurry to leave her apartment after the knife and Buddha banishment. Jordan figured he was too embarrassed to get another beer, but he made himself a glass of ice water that was mostly ice.

  “You really are a hot box, aren’t you?” she asked him.

  He paused mid-drink and seemed to think before saying, “I beg your pardon?”

  She repeated what she’d said to him again in her mind and realized that it was another one of those old expressions she’d learned from Mama May, and it probably meant something different nowadays. In fact, she was sure it meant something she hadn’t intended.

  “It’s nothing,” Jordan said. “Just an expression the woman I call my mother used to say.” She still felt conflicted when she referred to Mama May that way, but she couldn’t make her mouth just say, “my mother.” She figured she went too many years being unable to say it.

  “What does it mean? I was led to believe that as a man, I don’t have a box.” He smiled and added, “But if I did, I’m sure it would be hot sitting next to you.”

  She was thankful that the blood she felt rushing to her face wasn’t visible. She instinctively pulled her hair over her ears so he couldn’t see the rims, the one place likely to give her away.

  “I’m sorry, did I embarrass you?”

  “No, I’m not embarrassed. I just never would have taken you for the vulgar type.” Ha-ha, two of us can play this game, Mr. I’m-too-sexy-for-one-lifetime!

  He started laughing, caught himself and then looked at her and laughed harder in trying to hold it back.

  She got the feeling again that he could hear her thoughts. Can you hear me, Artest? If you can and you don’t admit it now, you’d better not ever let me find out! But what could I do to him? Wait a minute—if he can hear my thoughts, he can hear me trying to figure out how to hurt him. Stop thinking. How can anybody stop thinking? Okay, think about something else. She tried to picture the zits on the face of a young man in her History 201 class.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, why do you ask?”

  “You’re bobbing your head and looking at me in a really scary way.”

  “I was thinking.”

  “Did it strain you?”

  “I would say don’t quit your day job, but as I recall, you never told me what you do.”

  She saw that her words lost a little of their impact because he was busy looking in his glass. She wondered if he’d seen an ant—they’d been a problem, but they didn’t usually show up until summer. Then she saw him pick up the smallest ice cube and pop it in his mouth.

  Again Mama May entered her thoughts. Her surrogate mother would cook liver for her whenever she caught Jordan eating ice. She said craving ice was a sure sign of low blood iron. God, I hated liver, but I would do anything to smell her cooking again.

  “I’m a hunter, Jordan. Hunting Bloodsuckers is my only job.”

  “It must pay well.”

  He laughed. “You’re wonderful. I’ve only told maybe ten people that in all my years, and that’s the first time anybody has said that.” He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the lips. It was more intimate than what they’d done the night before. It made something catch in her throat.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.

  She didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t even sure he wasn’t making fun of her. “Can I ask you about something?”

  “Sure.”

  “You keep giving me the impression that this whole thing is a big secret, but you seem to be very forthcoming about it.” He looked confused, and she added, “About the job and the Bloodsuckers, I mean.”

  He turned in toward her and took her hands. Jordan wanted to snatch them away because he’d been holding that glass of ice water and they were cold.

  “I’m sorry, are my hands cold?”

  She did snatch them away and stood. “Why did you say that?” She didn’t mean for it to come out so loud.

  “Because you grimaced, and you didn’t react that way last night when I touched you, so I had to assume my hands were cold. Was I wrong?”

  “Oh, okay.” She sat back down. “They were a little cold, but that’s okay. Now, as I was asking, is it acceptable for you to tell people what you do?”

  “No, almost nobody outside The Service and the Sangsue have any idea about it. There are humans in every country who work for us—the assistant jobs tends to pass down through families—but they don’t know everything about our work. Just enough information to do their jobs.”

  “Then why are you telling me?” Her glance fell on the pants he was wearing. They looked different from the ones she thought she’d noticed when he was in the kitchen. Either way, she realized, they probably cost more than she earned each month.

  “Jordan, I really enjoyed being with you. . .”

  “So you said. Why am I getting the feeling that I’m about to get the big brush off?”

  “No, I want to see you again. I really do, but I’ll need to start over with you!”

  “No you don’t. I like you too.”

  “Yes, I do. When I leave you today, you won’t remember anything about this.”

  She laughed. “Yes I will. I’m not likely to ever forget you!”

  He started to say something and stopped himself. He took her hand that he was still holding, balled it in his fist and kissed her knuckles.

  It was the oddest and sweetest thing. She couldn’t say
why it scared her so much. “You’re scaring me,” she admitted.

  “I don’t want to, but it will be over soon. I have to do something to make you forget this. But I promise you. I’ll see you again. I really want to. Will you allow me back into your life?”

  “I don’t know. Last night was unique—I don’t usually go out at all. What do you mean make me forget?”

  “It’s nothing, no pain, no feeling at all.”

  All kinds of thoughts were going through her head. She couldn’t get Mr. Spock’s Vulcan mind-meld out of her mind. “I don’t want to forget,” she told him, afraid she might have sounded a little whiny.

  “It’s for your own good. The Sangsue would kill you if they thought you would remember them coming here. They have survived in this world all this time because my group are their only natural enemies.”

  “How would they know?”

  “I don’t know how they know, but they always do, and when we leave people with memories they always come up dead.” He shuddered like he’d heard his words from somebody else’s mouth.

  “You promise me you’ll find me again?”

  “I don’t have to find you—I know where you live.”

  “What about my car?”

  “Tell me what you want me to do. I can take your keys and make sure it’s back in your parking space within an hour of leaving, or we can go back to my place and drive to a neutral place before I take the memories.”

  “Won’t it scare me to just end up somewhere with a stranger in my car or in my apartment?”

  “It might a little, but I have a lot of experiences talking my way out of it.” His eyes crinkled in a smile that brought a grin to her lips too.

  “One more favor first?”

  “Anything.”

  “Will you make love to me again before you erase me?”

  Chapter Five

  The night before, Artest had known before they left the bar together that she was special. He was ecstatic because he didn’t think he could have “fun” anymore. It wasn’t just the sex, it was Jordan; her company, her essence. She reminded him of a combination of two special women from his past. Her playful sass reminded him of his sister, Adama. His sister was one person in his mind before The Service and another one later. Artest still loved that first person with all his heart.

  He thought it was probably her playful boldness that made the elders notice Adama in the first place. It was considered an honor to be chosen for The Service, but nobody looked forward to learning one of their children, certainly not two, had made the cut. It could be compared in today’s world to learning an only child wanted to become a nun or a priest. Of course it’s an honor to have one in the family, but goodbye grandchildren and a normal family life.

  Jordan’s natural sexiness reminded him of Halla, and that memory was bittersweet. He’d met Halla in England in the early 1800s. She was a servant to a nobleman’s family. When he first laid eyes on her, he knew she was no man’s servant. Her presence in that household suited her purposes. When he got closer to her and experienced her scent, he knew she had bloodlines from his country. He learned that she was a Hunter. They would have married, and it would have been permitted and altogether wonderful, had she survived her last hunt. He hadn’t said her name aloud since the day he lost her.

  Jordan was the first woman he’d ever compared to Halla.

  Among Hunters, it’s frowned upon to pursue a relationship with humans, but he’d meant it when he’d told her he would find her again.

  Artest had allowed women in his life for longer than a single night before, but never one he’d told so much. Halla was the last one who’d learned early on what he was. If he found one particularly pleasing woman, they’d have what appeared to be a relationship until it was time for him to go out again. When that happened, he’d have to take her memories. It was never easy.

  In the last thirty or so years, he’d been able to tell women that he had a very classified job that they couldn’t discuss with their friends and relatives. That made it easier to leave when he had to go, without involving too many people. He found the women hurt less too when it wasn’t out in the open for their friends and family to judge.

  Artest knew the Sangsue wouldn’t be gone for long. One good thing about them was that they were predictable. They always traveled in pairs, they attempted two attacks before they retreated, and they didn’t leave witnesses. He didn’t tell Jordan, but he knew that the two that came for him at his house and at Jordan’s would continue to pursue him until he killed them or them him, even if it took months to do so.

  Why now was the puzzle. Things had been quiet for months. The last two he was successful in “dispatching” had been at the first of the year. Usually their replacements revealed themselves in two months, give or take a day or two. Young people would start turning up dead, and he’d know they were back. But nothing like that had happened until now.

  Things had been quiet for almost five months. The last time so much time went by, the city where he lived was hosting a rock concert that was predicting an especially large turnout. Wherever young people were in abundance was where the Bloodsuckers went. Since it was their pledge to protect humankind, that was where the Hunters went too. There were always two or three Hunters in a college town.

  Artest wasn’t looking forward to taking Jordan’s memories. He had every reason to believe she wouldn’t be an easy woman to approach later as a stranger, but what he’d told her about the Sangsue was absolutely true. If she dies because to me, he thought, but he stopped himself. He just couldn’t think about it.

  When she’d announced her desire to ask a favor, he really hadn’t known what to expect. She’d been so concerned about her car, he was half expecting it to be related to it. He’d learned soon after meeting her that it was her first brand new car and she was especially proud of it. He wasn’t often surprised by anything, but her request nearly floored him. He’d sensed earlier that she was embarrassed by her previous night.

  When she asked him to make love to her, he didn’t answer right away. Artest couldn’t answer because he didn’t trust his ears. He had an active and vivid imagination, and he thought he’d produced the request. It wasn’t until she sighed and he sensed that she was silently admonishing herself that he realized the words were hers.

  “It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she said.

  “I can’t believe that. . .”

  “That I would ask? It’s no big deal,” she interrupted.

  “No, Jordan, that you would think you’d have to convince me of it. Of course I’ll make love to you. I would enjoy nothing more.”

  Chapter Six

  She couldn’t believe she’d asked him to have sex with her.

  Before coming to Sacramento, she’d been engaged to her college sweetheart, they’d lived together for almost two years, and she’d never once initiated sex. Now, she asked herself, what was it about this man? He wasn’t the first drop-dead gorgeous man she’d ever dated. On second thought, actually, he was. But I had a date with a very attractive guy once.

  Jordan went to the senior prom with a guy cute enough to be a girl, and all he ever got was a goodnight kiss. Of course he might not have wanted much more—he came out of the closet after high school.

  Len, her ex-fiancé, was handsome enough—certainly she found him appealing. It wasn’t the way Artest looked, but in all honesty, she had to admit, that was what first got her attention.

  “It’s no big deal,” she told him, since he looked at her like her indecent proposal had sent him into shock.

  As he finally answered her, he took her hand. She was beginning to see that, apparently, he was a serious hand play person. Had someone asked what he’d said while holding her hand, she couldn’t have answered. She was so embarrassed all she could hear was her inner voice screaming admonishments at her. Her own voice and the blood-rushing sound of raw shame were drowning him out. When he started leading her by the hand, her inner voice was stunned to sile
nce.

  “Yes, it is a big deal,” he said as he placed her hand on his growing manhood. He looked her in the eye and smiled.

  She felt as if she would melt if she didn’t hurry and look away. Her face moved slightly to the left, but her eyes were locked on his.

  There was so much he wanted to say and do with this woman, but he knew it wouldn’t be easy for her to let him into her heart. For now, he was willing to take what he could get. “Stand up, Jordan—let me show you how happy that request makes me.”

  She stood, not knowing what to expect, but willing to take this new bold Jordan as far as she was willing to go.

  He pulled her to him. Her willing body tingled as it meshed into his, that before-mentioned swollen part creating its own heat source as he seemed to fuse into her—as if their clothes didn’t exist. His lips on hers started off with a feather-light touch and became more and more urgent as his tongue parted her lips. Jordan had seen him drink the beer, yet it tasted like sweet wine on his lips. That, with the smell of lavender, was so intoxicating the thought crossed her mind that she might be dreaming.