His mouth thinned with annoyance. "You've heard my heartbeat. I'm as alive as any mortal right now. And, in case you've forgotten, I'm fully functional."
She looked away to keep from glancing at his jeans. She'd felt an erection there several times. Time to change the subject. "So… are you really the son of Casanova?"
His frown deepened. "Yes."
She'd fallen for a real Casanova. "Why don't you use the Casanova name?"
He shifted in his chair. "Are you feeling any better now?"
"Not really." She wondered why he'd changed the subject. "You didn't answer—" She stopped when he suddenly removed one of her athletic shoes. "What are you doing?"
He pulled off the other shoe, then removed her socks. "You're in pain. I want to help you relax." He scooted the chair forward so he could rest her feet in his lap.
She stifled a moan when his thumbs pressed into the soles of her feet. It felt so good. Her feet had been sore from wandering all over campus to check the residence halls for Apollo's flyer. "Have you ever had trouble before? I mean, invading someone's mind?"
"No. You're the only one." He tugged gently on her toes. "I think it has something to do with the car accident you were in."
She winced. "You know about that?"
He nodded and turned his attention to her other foot. "I read a newspaper article about it online. I'm very sorry for the suffering you endured."
"Thanks." Her current suffering was actually declining. Jack's foot massage was doing wonders. He could
do more than your feet. She chased that errant thought away. Thank God he wasn't reading her mind right now. "I was in a coma for a week. They didn't think I'd make it."
Jack continued the massage. "You're a fighter. I admire that about you."
He admired her? That felt even better than the foot massage. And the massage was damned good. "The accident changed my life. It nearly killed me, but in a weird way, it was the best thing that could have happened to me."
His hands stilled. "How can that be?"
She gave him a wry smile. "It ruined my mother's plans for world domination. She wanted me to be Miss Louisiana, then Miss USA, and then of course, Miss Universe."
He resumed the massage. "That's not what you wanted?"
"I didn't know any better. As soon as I could walk, my mother was entering me in pageants. At the age of four, I won the prestigious title of Little Miss Mudbug."
He grimaced. "Mudbug?"
"It's a crawdad." When Jack still looked confused, she waved a hand in dismissal. "It doesn't matter. Suffice it to say, my mom is crazy. She's fifty-two years old and still entering pageants. If she can't find one to enter, she invents one, like Miss NOLA Plus Size. She'll actually wear a sash and tiara to go shopping."
"How… odd." Jack slipped a hand into her loose cargo pants and massaged her calf.
Lara sighed with pleasure. Her legs had been sore ever since the FBI had tried to kill her with marathon exercise sessions. She wondered why she was telling Jack her life story, but he was such a good listener, not to mention massage therapist, that she didn't want to stop.
"Mom was so excited when I won Miss Teen Louisiana. But after fourteen years of entering pageants, I wanted to quit. Mom would go ballistic every time I even mentioned quitting. So I made sure my pageant career was ruined."
Jack switched to her other calf. "What did you do?"
"When I was nineteen, I was a finalist in the Miss Louisiana competition. They did the part where they ask you a question onstage. It's usually something like, What change would you like to see in the world? and the usual answer is, 'World peace.»
Jack smiled. "What did you say?"
"That I wanted to increase the use of capital punishment. I thought it would be great fun to bring the whole community together for a nice, old-fashioned hanging."
Jack chuckled. "Naughty girl."
Lara grinned. "You should have seen the judges' faces. My mother actually screamed. Obviously, I placed fifth out of the five finalists. My mother was hysterical. She insisted it was too embarrassing to be seen at the hotel. So we drove home that night."
Jack's hands grew still. "Is that when it happened?"
Lara nodded. "It was dark. And we were so busy arguing, we didn't see the truck." She closed her eyes, thankful she couldn't remember the actual accident.
The bed jiggled, and she opened her eyes.
Jack was settling on the bed beside her. "It must have been terrifying."
She nodded. "Mom had multiple fractures. I broke an arm. And I took a bad blow to the head."
"I'm so sorry." Jack stroked her hair that now covered the scars.
Lara's eyes misted with tears. "The first thing I heard when I came out of the coma was my mother talking to my dad. She said thank God it was my head that was damaged and not my face."
Jack sucked in a sharp breath. "Cara mia, that is terrible."
"I knew right then that I could never enter another pageant. I wanted to use my head and not my face." Lara blinked back the tears. "Unfortunately, my head wasn't working too well. I couldn't remember how to read and write."
Jack leaned closer. "You had to learn all over again?"
She nodded. "LaToya was sharing the hospital room with me. That's how we met. She'd been working at a convenience store when an armed robber came in. She took a bullet to the shoulder. We were already in physical therapy together, so we decided to exercise our minds together, too. Her reading skills weren't so hot, but they were a lot better than mine, and it made her feel good to help me. And she said if I could work my ass off, then so could she."
Jack smiled. "That's how you became best friends."
"Yes. We worked together every day, and after a few months, we were reading Nancy Drew books to each other and solving the mysteries. Then we progressed to harder and harder books, till finally, we decided we wanted to be detectives and catch the bad guys. Make the world a better place. So here we are today."
"You're amazing," Jack whispered. "I've never met a woman as amazing as you." He took her hand and kissed it.
Her skin tingled where his lips had touched. He turned her hand over and kissed her palm. The tingles spread from her hand up her arm to her breasts.
When he lifted his gaze and met hers, his eyes were brown and warm with love. No gleaming gold flecks, she realized. No vampire power being used to lure her in. Only love.
And she wanted it so badly.
His gaze lowered to her mouth. If she didn't stop him now, she'd never be able to resist.
She pulled her hand from his grasp and scooted to the edge of the bed. "Well, I think we did enough for the night. My head's too sore to do any more."
"I understand." Jack stood and slowly put his jacket back on. "I'm honored that you would share your story with me, but I have to wonder why. Maybe you didn't realize it, but it makes me want to be with you more than ever. Did you mean to encourage me?"
She gulped. "I–I think we could be friends. Maybe."
"You could be friends with a vampire?"
She looked down and plucked at the chenille bedspread. "I don't want to be… judgmental. You don't seem like a very bad vampire."
"Gee, thanks."
Her cheeks grew warm. "It occurred to me that you might have been attacked and changed against your will." She glanced at him with a hopeful look. "Is that what happened?" Please tell me you didn't want to be a monster.
He dragged a hand through his hair. "I'd rather not talk about it, but yes. I was attacked." He shifted his weight. "Shall we continue tomorrow night?"
He'd changed the subject. Maybe he was trying to spare her some gruesome details. After all, she assumed he must have been murdered. Sorta. She wasn't quite sure how vampires were made. But she was fairly certain it had not been at all pleasant for him. Poor Jack. "Yes. Let's meet tomorrow night. I think we made some progress."