Free BlindHeat by Nara Malone

here at the diner when I first moved
to town, and now at the paper taking ads. A lot of people know me.”
    Curious that she’d put it that way—not that she’d gotten to
know a lot of people, but that they knew her. Maybe he was splitting hairs.
Still, her description didn’t sound like a relationship that might have
resulted in her turning Hella over to the researchers. At least he hoped she
hadn’t. The possibility kept him focused on why he was there. Unfortunately,
his concern about the researchers and their proximity ruined his plan to say
he’d lost his cat in the park. What now? He decided to pick up the thread of
conversation and see where it went.
    “A lot of people know your schedule. Do they all set their
watches by you?”
    Her smile, like sun breaking through clouds, caught him off
balance.
    “What?”
    “Watches? Look around. Who is wearing a watch?”
    On the wrists he could see, not one watch was evident. He
didn’t wear one himself because his energies messed with the mechanisms and it
was just one more thing to lose if you forgot to take it off before shifting.
But humans lived by the clock. And the white-collar crowd who took over the
diner at lunchtime planned every minute of their days out months and even years
in advance. Working people without watches?
    “What happened to watches?”
    “They went out of fashion while you were incarcerated,” she
said, tearing the wrapper off the straw and stabbing at an ice cube.
“Apparently I’m being stalked by an ex-con and everyone else in town can tell
him where I should be just by looking at their cell. Do you even have a cell
phone?”
    He didn’t need one. He didn’t think it would be wise to
admit he didn’t. Instead he gave her his best wise-counselor look. “I’m not a
criminal. Trust your instincts. You wouldn’t be here now if you felt I was a
threat.”
    “So, you’re just a stalker who hasn’t been locked up…yet?
You normally keep to your cave?”
    “You are so married to your routines that it turns anyone
who lives along the path between your office and home into a stalker. Didn’t
anyone teach you that a woman living alone should vary her routes and
schedules?”
    Now they were hissing and scratching at each other, trying
to get below the surface to something authentic. But there were better ways to
learn about each other. Scratching and hissing were best saved for when they
were naked and ready for play.
    He wanted her to look at him, meet his eyes, but she stared
past him, gazing at a point over his left shoulder. Avoiding eye contact was
another mysterious habit of hers, a feline habit. He recalled his first visit
to the paper. She had never looked up into his face during their entire
conversation.
    She sipped tea. He leaned down, tipping his head sideways,
forcing her to notice him, and was rewarded by her finally meeting his eyes.
She held his gaze for a few seconds before she asked, “How do you know I live
alone?”
    He blinked. The conversation refused to head anywhere he
wanted to take it. Reason wasn’t getting him anywhere. He’d have to go back to
seduction. Seduction was good. He could use his eyes and hands rather than his
mouth. If he employed the first two well, he might get to use his tongue for
something other than words later.
    “I have ESP,” he said.
    “Of course.”
    To reach her he needed to touch, connect. His hand covered
hers on the glass, fingers tightening as he moved the glass back and forth. He
kept his gaze on the table and her gaze followed his. He watched a comet trail
of liquid form an arc across the Formica top.
    “Let me show you. I’ll pull a picture from your mind. Give
me your other hand, and hold your fingers like you are pointing at something,”
Marcus said in the same tone he might use to request a pencil. Allie did as he
asked. Her hand trembled under his. She let him use her finger as a pencil,
watching as together they drew a cartoonlike image in the moisture—a