I gulp, my heart bouncing against my ribs.
Mine for the ages.
He smiles. “Now, tell me about the Ouroboros, because when I was around, it was known as a symbol for alchemy.”
I clear my throat, feeling a little giddy at the idea of teaching him something he doesn’t know much about, and grateful that he took the “dating” thing in stride.
“Well, one of the first known representations of the Ouroboros was discovered on one of the shrines enclosing the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun,” I tell him. “That’s way before your time, the eighteenth Dynasty. You know, Before Christ. Some say it represents the cyclical nature of the year. Others say it represents Ra-Osiris, Osiris born again as Ra.”
“Reminds me of vampires a little,” he comments.
“Yeah. The ones like you. Re-born.”
“But I assume with a better outcome,” he says, taking a sip of his drink. He shudders a little.
“Not the right vodka?” I ask.
“I’ll get it down,” he says with a grimace. “I’m getting the drinks next, though. And then we’re leaving after that.”
“What? Two drinks and we’re gone?”
He gives me a steady look. “Do you really want to be here all night? Besides, when’s the last time you fed yourself? It was a week ago. You’re pushing your luck a little being around these people.” He looks around the room, his lip curled. “Although none of them look particularly appetizing.”
I smack his chest. “You are such a predator.”
“So are you now, my dear. Better respect it.” He gives me a quick smile. “So, Lenore Warwick. This was your usual hang-out. What other bars did you go to? Who did you see and what did you do? What was college like for you?”
I give him a funny look. “Why the third degree? You were there, weren’t you? Watching me?”
“Just because I was watching you doesn’t mean I experienced anything. I want to hear about it from you.”
He looks serious, watching me expectantly.
I shrug. “Okay.”
So I tell him about some of the other bars in the Bay Area. Parties in Berkeley. School events. Then I start going backward into high school, prompted by his constant questions, covering everything from prom to what I normally did on a Saturday night, to horseback riding lessons when I was younger in Livermore, to road trips my parents and I would take to Tahoe to our cabin, every winter and summer.
By the time I’m done talking, both our drinks are gone and he’s staring at me with a faraway dreamy look in his eyes, elbow on the table, the side of his face in his hand.
“What? Did you drift off?” I ask him, struck dumb once again by how gorgeous he is. There’s deadly Solon, and then there’s this soft version of him that’s just as mesmerising.
“I did drift off,” he says slowly. “It’s just that I saw it all.”
“Because you were watching me?”
He shakes his head, awe in his voice. “Because I saw it through your eyes. Felt it, smelled it. I experienced your memories, what it was like to be you.”
I gulp, a fluttery feeling in my stomach. I know he’s had my blood, but I didn’t think that would happen. The last thing I want is for him to feel as I do.
“You were so much like me,” he goes on quietly, reaching for my hand. “You were surrounded by people, but everyone was at a distance because they didn’t understand you. Because they knew, deep down, you were different, not like them. It scared them. And you felt…so alone. A loneliness I know too well.”
He squeezes my hand then brings it to his lips, kissing my palm in a soft, gentle manner, eyes never leaving mine.
Good lord, what is he doing to me? I am tumbling down, down, down, further into my feelings for him, growing too intense to bear.
“I’m going to get us the drinks,” he says. “You stay here.”
I nod, still a bit dazed by my emotions, the ever-expanding heart in my chest. I watch as he walks off to the bar, his ass looking incredible in those jeans, the rest of him a perfect V of broad strong shoulders, tapering to trim hips. To think he’s mine…well, at least to know that I’m his.