Blood and Fire

by McKenna, Shannon

  Not that she’d notice, of course. She probably wouldn’t even look up. Her powers of concentration were world-class.

  He kept trying to pin down what it was about her that got to him. It was a thorny problem, requiring detailed, up-close research and analysis, he decided, preferably conducted in bed. Maybe the sharp, up-tilted angles of cheekbone and eyebrows, maybe the big, mysterious green-gold eyes, set at an exotic slant, accentuated with bold eyeliner, heavy with mascara. She wore cat-eye glasses with fake gems in the corners that should’ve made her look grotesque, but they didn’t. They looked quirky, sassy, playful. They threw her beauty into sharp relief. She could wear anything and look great. Anything or nothing. Mmm.

  And that mouth. She’d painted it a bright scarlet that was supposed to make her look super tough, but it didn’t work. The fullness of the upper lip made her look vulnerable, almost childlike. And the severe jet black hair, all wrong for her luminous skin.

  The look was Salvation Army sexpot. Shabby black stretch lace shirt, showcasing an enticing nipple hard-on. Frayed denim miniskirt, a little too tight for a luscious ass. Tiny bulge of snowy pale muffin top coming out the low-slung waistband where her shirt rode up that made him want to grab and squeeze. Scuffed red fuck-me peep toes with outrageous heels. Shapely legs in black stockings with so many rips and runs it had to be on purpose. He was usually good at decoding what girls said with their clothes, but he couldn’t read this chick. She dressed like she wanted attention, and yet she stared into that netbook like her life depended on it, black-tipped fingers tapping in a ceaseless buzz. Eyes frozen wide. Glasses reflecting the screen’s blue glow.

  Denying Bruno’s very existence upon this earth by the massive force of her indifference, even while ordering food from him. Bad tipper, too. But the nipple hard-on made up for that sin, abundantly.

  There was that other quality, too, that he barely knew how to articulate. An intangible glow you could only see if you weren’t looking at it. He’d grown sensitive to it hanging out with Kev. Who, mellow as he was, always carried a disquieting aura of danger about him. A sense of things about to happen. Good things, bad things. Big things.

  But whatever big things were about to happen to the brunette, a romantic encounter with Bruno Ranieri was unlikely to be one of them. She’d been there every night for three nights, and she’d ignored him completely. Maybe he was an arrogant putz, but he was accustomed to getting attention from women. This girl could give a flying fuck.

  Amazing that his glands were stirring at all, after covering the night shift for a month. Zia Rosa was AWOL, supervising the new McCloud kid’s first month of life. Bruno couldn’t remember which brother’s kid it was. He couldn’t keep any of Kev’s long lost McCloud brothers or their spawn straight, not for the life of him. Dirty blond hair, bright green eyes everywhere you looked. And they bred like rats, so the problem was just going to get worse with time.

  He’d tried to hire more staff, but one guy that he’d hired a couple weeks ago just got a call from an ex-girlfriend in Costa Rica and off he went to follow his heart. Then Elsa ripped a tendon in her knee skateboarding. So here he was, swathed in an apron, eyes burning from lack of sleep. Flipping burgers, dipping fries, bussing tables, and baking pies. Just like old times. His current schedule involved a full day running his own outfit downtown, then an uneasy catnap, and working graveyard at the diner until dawn.

  But hey, presto. Tonight’s outfit zinged him into perfect wakefulness. Those holes in her tights just made his palms sweat.

  Maybe she played for the other team. He didn’t think so, though. He had lesbian friends, he knew the vibe. She didn’t have it.

  One thing she did have was a sweet tooth. She’d been working steadily through the dessert menu, limited though it was with Zia gone. Bruno was a fine short-order cook, and a good pastry chef when he put his mind to it, but Zia was the true pastry goddess, and she was off in Seattle, making beef broth for whichever McCloud wife had just reproduced. To promote lactation, like Nonna in Brancaleone used to do.

  Sure enough, the thought of lactation made his eyes fall to the pert, here-I-am! jut of the brunette’s nipples at the exact, fateful moment that her gaze darted up without warning. Yikes. Busted.

  Oh, man. Eye contact. It was too much. Her gaze cut straight into his brain, like a hot knife through butter. He practically yelped.

  Eye contact revealed fresh, fabulous details. Her eyes were hazel green, a hodgepodge of yellow and brown and green. She smiled, a hard, knock-you-back-on-your-ass smile. Not a comeon. A back-off smile.

  She whipped the glasses off, laid them on the table. “Yes?”

  He wanted to glance around himself for the man trap with the spikes. “Um, ah . . . what can I get for you?” What, was he stammering?

  Her chin rose. “What have you got?”

  Highly inappropriate answers whirled through his mind, like a swarm of crazed bees. He bit down hard, forced himself to act professional. “The menu’s reduced right now, since Zia Rosa’s gone. Tonight, we’re down to rice pudding, banana cream pie, coconut cream pie, cheesecake, and brownie sundaes. But all of them are great.”

  Her stare was unblinking. A gunslinger in a high-noon duel. “And this Zia Rosa has been gone for how long now?”

  The question taxed his brain severely, since all his blood had pooled elsewhere. “Ah. Um, I don’t know. Five wee”

  “That’s how old the desserts are? Or did she fill the freezer?”

  He recoiled in outrage. “Hell, no! The desserts are made fresh, all the time!”

  Those big eyes got even bigger. “Ooh, cut you to the quick, did I?” she murmured. “Made fresh by who?”

  His chest puffed out. “By me.”

  Her eyes narrowed to glittering slits. “No way.”

  He bristled. “Way! Why would I lie?”

  She propped her chin on her hand and gazed up. “To impress me?” she suggested. “To distinguish yourself from the anonymous, sweating, teeming masses?”

  Bruno considered that. “I didn’t know I was competing with any anonymous teeming masses, sweaty or otherwise,” he said. “And I’ve never had to work that hard to impress girls.”

  “Hmm.” The eyelashes swept down as she pondered her next jab. “So you prefer to hang out with girls who are easy to please?”

  Her attitude was starting to piss him off. “And why would it be a bad thing to be easily pleased?”

  The eyes opened, wide and innocent. “Did I say it was bad?”

  He closed his mouth. “Never mind,” he said. “I’m lost in the maze of this conversation, and I can’t find my way out, so I’m bailing. But if I actually were going to try to impress a girl, the first clever ploy that would come to my mind would not be lies about pastry making.”

  “I see,” she said. “Well, that really begs the question. What clever ploy would be the first one to come to your mind? I’d love to hear it.”

  He thought about it, shook his head. “I don’t step into holes in the ground that big,” he said. “Certainly not at four in the morning after a long shift. I’ll pass.”

  “Suit yourself.” Her X-ray gaze bored into his head so intently he practically started to blush. “I just can’t see a guy like you making grandma food like rice pudding or banana cream pie. Brownie sundaes, maybe, but . . . no. Not unless you’re gay, of course. Are you gay?”

  He let out a slow breath, biting the insides of his cheeks to keep from smiling. “I’m an excellent pastry chef. My pie crust is better than my Zia Rosa’s. Come on back to the kitchen. I’ll make a chocolate cream pie before your very eyes. I’ll feed a piece of it to you by hand. And by the time I’m done, you’re not going to be asking me if I’m gay anymore.”

  She cleared her throat, gaze darting down. “Is that so.”

  “It is,” he said. “On your feet. Come on back to the kitchen. I mean it. I’m dead serious. It’s pie time. And I am so ready for you.”

  She chewed on one side of her soft red l
ower lip, peeking up at him. Her fabulous if somewhat gummy black eyelashes were at mysterious half-mast. “Um, no thanks. I’m sure you’re very good at it.”

  Her provocative tone was gone. Her voice was quiet.

  Bruno folded his arms over his chest, flipping the order pad nervously against his arm. She backed down, but too soon. He hadn’t worked his mad out yet. “What the hell did you mean by that, anyway?”

  She blinked, innocently. “Mean by what?”

  “A guy like me,” he repeated. “What kind of guy is that? What do you think you know about me? You have no clue who I am.”

  It was like she’d taken off a mask. She looked completeldifferent. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right. I made assumptions based on your looks, which is really shallow, and I hate it when guys do that to me. I don’t know anything about you. Except for what you tell me.”

  Wow. He ran a flash analysis to decide what conversational road to travel next. Time to shift gears. A peace offering, maybe. “What do you want to know?” he asked, rashly. “I’ll tell you anything.”

  Something flickered in her eyes. Her chin went back up. Her gaze raked over his body, assessing him. “For starters, tell me how you can make banana cream pie and chocolate brownies in industrial quantities and still look like that. And don’t tell me about the thirty hours a week in the gym, because I don’t want to hear it.”

  So it was back to brittle flirting. Whatever. “OK, I won’t tell you that,” he said easily. “I’ve just got one of those metabolisms. I can eat anything, anytime, as much as I want, with extra whipped cream on it. I know girls hate that, but we all have our gifts.”

  He headed for the dessert counter, where he proceeded to dish up a big bowl of rice pudding, dusting it with cinnamon. Then a huge, quivering slice of banana cream pie. He poured them both some coffee, buzzed and jittery though he already was. He needed something to do with his hands, if she was actually ready to acknowledge his existence.

  Or he’d find himself panting. Wagging. Or worse, babbling.

  He laid the desserts on the table. Her crooked smile faltered a little when he boldly slid into the seat facing her, the better to hide his hard-on. None of the other customers needed attention. Just as well. He would have ignored them if they had.

  The silence stretched out taut as she sipped her coffee. Strong, fresh French roast, with a shot of real cream, no sugar. She liked it just the way he liked it.

  Strange, to be sitting here quietly with a woman who turned him on so much and not be trying to show her how interesting or fascinating or unique or solvent he was. That’s what he would’ve done in the old days. He’d cooled down on that, after his recent notoriety following his adopted brother Kev’s mortal duel with the evil zombie masters, the gun battles, the bombs. Tony’s death. All that shit.

  That whole crazy goatfuck had culminated in Bruno doing a perp walk along with Kev and Kev’s newly discovered biological brothers, in handcuffs in front of local news crews. They were found to be innocent of wrongdoing, but they’d had an uncomfortable time of it for a while.

  That had put a big crimp in his social schedule. No more of that “Portland’s Most Eligible Bachelor” hoo-hah. Just as well. That shit got old. He’d tried to convince Zia Rosa to take down that cover of the Portland Monthly she’d put up in the diner after the mag had done that “most eligible” article about him. It embarrassed him now. But Zia Rosa liked his dimples in that picture, and Zia Rosa could not be reasoned with.

  Something about the zombie duels, Tony’s death, had changed him. He wasn’t sure what, but he’d started to shut up occasionally. Not all the time, and not for too long, but he was now capable of keeping his yap trap shut for a few minutes at a time.

  So if this woman wanted to know something about him, she could ask. He wasn’t going to run the Bruno Ranieri promo spiel anymore.

  He gestured toward the rice pudding. “I put cinnamon on it. Cancels out the cholesterol. Read about it on the Men’s Health Web site.”

  Her lips twitched. “That’s buhit.” She eyed the banana cream pie. “What cheap pop-science justification have you got for that one?”

  He contemplated the pie. “Well, bananas are good for you. Lots of potassium, which helps you shed water weight, right? And there’s no trans fats in the crust. I can promise you that.”

  “Yeah?” Her lips pursed, suppressing a smile. “So what is in it?”

  He grinned wickedly. “Lard,” he announced. “Artery clogging, cholesterol-laden pig fat. Hope you’re not a vegetarian.”

  Her smile broke free, and it was fucking blow-your-mind dazzling gorgeous. “At least you’re honest,” she commented.

  “Always,” he said.

  “I hate liars,” she told him.

  “I don’t blame you,” he replied. “I don’t like them, either.”

  More sipping, more silence, considering each other. He felt like he was under a blazing light, being silently interrogated. Except that instead of being a bad, scary feeling, it was . . . well, exciting. Like he was laid out naked. On the altar. Before the goddess.

  Rigid and ready to serve. Yeah.

  She picked up a spoon, let it dangle from her fingertips like a pendulum. The bowl of the spoon swung toward him, a blurred gleam in the foreground. He stared at the triangular arrangement of freckles on the bulge of her tit behind it. Where his gaze was helplessly focused.

  “I can’t eat all of this,” she informed him.

  “Try,” he urged. “I think your metabolism’s just fine.”

  She held out the spoon. “You help.”

  His cock jumped at the implied intimacy of the invitation. “No,” he said. “It’s for you.”

  “It’s too much,” she said. “And I hate waste.”

  He took the spoon, reluctantly, and waited. “You first.”

  She went for the rice pudding first. Her soft, crimson lips parted slowly to accept the creamy mouthful, then contracted in eager surprise around the spoon. Her body went rigid with pleasure, her eyes softened in momentary bliss. Oh, man. He shifted on his seat to get some relief.

  “Wow,” she whispered. “You made that?”

  No need to repeat himself. He just waited for her to try the pie.

  She forked up the tip of the triangle and stared at it, while the waiting silence took on an electrical charge that was almost unbearable.

  She put it in her mouth, closed her eyes, savored it. Her eyelids twitched as she inhaled, sharply. “Oh, my God. That is delicious.”

  Bruno sipped his coffee, trying not to look smug. “Told you.”

  “A guy could rack up big points for desserts like this.”

  He dipped his spoon into the rice pudding. It was damn good, if he did say so himself. Zia Rosa was a good teacher. “That’s good news,” he said. “What else racks up points with you? Give me a list.” He whipped out his order pad and pen. “I’ll take notes.”

  She looked down into her coffee. “Honesty,” she said.

  He’d been hoping for more sexy repartee, but if she wanted to take this to the next level, that was fine. “No worries. I do honesty.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No worries, my ass.”

  “What, have you picked out some liars recently?”

  She scooped up another bite, her gaze evading his. “Either that, or it’s all men who are lying rat bastards.”

  “I don’t lie,” he assured her. “Ask me anything. I’ll tell you the uncensored, uncut truth. I swear.”

  “Yeah? So tell me what you’re thinking right now.”

  He was taken aback by the challenge. “Ah . . .”

  “Don’t lie.” Her voice snapped like a whip. “Or I’ll know.”

  She would. He could tell. She was smart, she had the eye, the ear. And he was a piss-poor liar in the best of circumstances.

  He let out a sigh. “Thinking isn’t really the word for it.”

  “Use whatever words work for you.”

  He braced himself. �
�I was imagining having sex with you,” he confessed. “I have been since I first saw you three nights ago.”

  Her gaze was unflinching. “Oh. Really.”

  “Yeah. I would never have told you that if you hadn’t compelled me by brute force. Certainly not before introducing ourselves.”

  “I already knew,” she said, matter-of-factly. “And like I said, I do appreciate honesty.” She stuck out her hand. “Lily Torrance.”

  He took her hand. It was cool, smooth, and something electric zinged through him at the contact. “Bruno Ranieri,” he said.

  Lily. She had a name, finally. It suited her. Flowers were beautiful, feminine, tender. But a lily was no humble flower. Lilies had attitude. They were regal, queenlike. They took no shit off anybody. They demanded respect, worship. Tall, sensual, starkly elegant, even haughty. Flowers for church altars. Flowers for a goddess.

  But something was off with her. She was too good to be true. Something was wrong with this picture. He studied her luminous skin, wondering if she was jailbait, maybe. A runaway. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine,” she said.

  That was total crap. She looked fully ten years younger. He looked her over, frowning. “You fucking with me?”

  “Right after we’ve been introduced?” She handed him the spoon. “For the love of God, stop me before I hurt myself. Eat some of this.”

  “I value honesty, too,” he told her, scooping up banana custard.

  She stopped in the act of licking whipped cream off her thumb, chin going up in frosty hauteur. “I’m not a liar.”

  “Then answer one for me,” he said. “And don’t lie.”

  “I won’t lie, but I don’t promise to answer.”

  “Whatever.” He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “Just tell me. What’s wrong with this picture?”

  She jerked, like she’d gotten a shock, and tried to yank her hand back. Bruno hung on, grimly. Her fingers squirmed in his.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “You tell me. It’s just that something’s off with you. You’re hot, you’re sexy, you’re smart, you’re fascinating, yeah. But something’s wrong. So what’s the problem?”