Free A Vampire's Promise by Carla Susan Smith

up for it, but even so, I was surprised that he’d actually articulated it. Was I looking at him like that? Actually, no, I wasn’t. The inferno he’d ignited in my pelvis made it hard to think about anything beyond getting naked with him, but a relationship that was exclusively physical wasn’t a good blueprint for a boyfriend.
    â€œYour coffee’s getting cold,” Gabriel said, settling back against the booth and giving me a smile that told me he really hadn’t been expecting me to answer. The look in his eye, however, confirmed my suspicion that he knew my interest in Aleksei wasn’t sexual, and my interest in him was.
    Raising my cup, I decided it would be a good idea to keep my mouth shut before I really did put my foot in it. I could feel his eyes roaming over me. Not staring exactly, more like he was examining me. Mentally checking me out. I wondered if I’d be found wanting, and an image of the bartender from Rosie’s flashed into my head. For some reason I felt incredibly sorry for her.
    Wanting or not, I didn’t much care for Gabriel’s scrutiny. By now he probably knew the exact number of freckles scattered across my nose, the length of the scar above my right eye, and the distance between each piercing in my left earlobe.
    My gut said he was waiting for me to bring up the incident with Katja, but I felt horribly self-conscious even thinking about it. It must have looked as if I was about to kiss her. God knows, I’d leaned in close enough to do just that. Did Gabriel think I swung both ways? I could still feel her hand as she stroked my cheek, her fingers wonderfully smooth and cool. It felt very bizarre in a strange, surreal way, and I could feel the heat rising to stain my cheeks. I cleared my throat and, for the first time this evening, wished I had my own way to get home.
    I was grateful when Gabriel suggested we talk about something else, and for the next hour he charmed me and made me laugh, and I relaxed as the earlier tension washed away. We covered a number of inconsequential topics that, by themselves, were mundane and harmless but, strung together, revealed an awful lot about a person.
    I confessed that, as a child, I’d had a goldfish who I thought lived for a really long time until I found out my dad had been secretly replacing each one as it died. In a three-year time span I cared for five fish named Brian.
    â€œDon’t ask,” I muttered in response to Gabriel’s raised eyebrow over the un-aquatic-sounding name.
    I had also been the proud owner, for a very short time, of a terrapin (named not Brian, but Lancelot) who managed to escape captivity. To this day, I like to think that he enjoyed a good life somewhere in our backyard before going to reptile heaven, although I suspect he didn’t get farther than the linen closet. I vaguely recollect smelling an odd, unaccountable odor not too long after his disappearance. We touched briefly on sports; Gabriel was a hockey fan, but he shook his head in mock despair at my ongoing love affair with professional football.
    â€œI’d better make sure you don’t ever meet Sebastian,” he said with a wicked grin.
    â€œWhy? Does he hate football too?”
    â€œNo, just the opposite. Put you two together and you’ll forget I’m even in the same room.”
    I didn’t know who Sebastian was, but I doubted very much Gabriel would allow himself to be forgotten. Sensing potential friction, I steered the conversation back to shared interests such as movies and books; we agreed that we didn’t know each other well enough to discuss politics or religion.
    â€œAt least not yet,” Gabriel responded with an odd look.
    I suppose it was a typical first date. Although, not having had many of them in recent memory, I was a little rusty. Still, I like to think we were behaving the way people do who are trying to get to know one another, to see if they make enough of a