"Really?" I repositioned slightly so that we were touching again, the soft flannel of his shirt brushing my bare skin. "Because I could have sworn a moment ago you were pretty caught up in outside appearance."
His eyes shifted down again, but I could see a smile curving his lips. "Well. Some things are so striking, they can't help but draw attention to themselves."
"And doesn't that make you curious about what's inside?"
"Mostly it makes me want to get you some advanced copies."
Advanced copies? What did he—?
"Seth? Seth, where—ah, there you are."
Paige turned down our aisle, Doug following behind. She brightened when she saw me, and I felt my stomach sink out of me and hit the floor with a thud as I put two and two together. No. No. It couldn't be—
"Ah, Georgina. I see you've already met Seth Mortensen."
CHAPTER 4
"Kill me, Doug. Just kill me now. Put me out of my misery."
My immortality notwithstanding, the sentiment was sincere.
"Christ, Kincaid, what did you say to him?" murmured Doug.
We stood off to the side of Seth Mortensen's audience, along with many others. All the seats had filled up, putting space and visibility at a premium. I was lucky to be with the staff in our reserved section, giving us a perfect view of Seth as he read from The Glasgow Pact. Not that I wanted to be in his line of sight. In fact, I really would have preferred that I never come face to face with him again.
"Well," I told Doug, keeping an eye on Paige so as not to draw attention to our whispering, "I ripped on his fans and on how long it takes for his books to come out."
Doug stared at me, his expectations exceeded.
"Then I said—not knowing who he was—that I'd be Seth Mortensen's love slave in exchange for advanced copies of his books."
I didn't elaborate on my impromptu flirting. To think, I'd imagined I was boosting a shy guy's ego! Good Lord. Seth Mortensen could probably bed a different groupie every night if he wanted.
Not that he seemed like the type. He'd demonstrated much of the same initial nervousness in front of the crowd as he had with me. He grew more comfortable once he started reading, however, warming to the material and letting his voice rise and fall with intensity and wry humor.
"What kind of a fan are you?" Doug asked. "Didn't you know what he looked like?"
"There are never pictures of him in his books! Besides, I thought he'd be older." I guessed now that Seth was in his mid-thirties, a bit older than I looked in this body, but younger than the forty-something writer I'd always imagined.
"Well, look on the bright side, Kincaid. You succeeded in your goaclass="underline" you got him to notice you."
I stifled a groan, letting my head flop pathetically onto Doug's shoulder.
Paige turned her head and gave us a withering glance. As usual, our manager looked stunning, wearing a red suit that set off her chocolate brown skin. The faintest swellings of pregnancy showed under the jacket, and I couldn't help but feel a tug of jealous longing.
When she had first announced her unplanned pregnancy, she had laughed it off, saying: "Well, you know how these things can just happen."
But I had never known how it could "just happen." I'd tried desperately to get pregnant as a mortal, to no avail, instead becoming an object of pity and carefully hidden—albeit not well enough—jokes. Becoming a succubus had killed whatever lingering chance I might have had at motherhood, though I hadn't realized that at the time. I had sacrificed my body's ability to create in exchange for eternal youth and beauty. One type of immortality traded for another. Long centuries give you a lot of time to accept what you can and can't have, but being reminded of it stings nonetheless.
Giving Paige a smile that promised good behavior, I turned my attention back to Seth. He was just finishing up the reading and moving on to questions. As expected, the first ones asked were, "Where do you get your ideas from?" and "Are Cady and O'Neill ever going to get together?"
He glanced briefly in my direction before answering, and I cringed, recalling my remarks about him impaling himself when those questions were asked. Turning back to his fans, he addressed the first question seriously and dodged the second one.
Everything else he answered succinctly, often in a dry and subtly humorous way. He never spoke any more than he had to, always providing just enough to fulfill the questioner's requirements. The crowd clearly unnerved him, which I found a bit disappointing.
Considering how punchy and clever his books were, I guess I'd expected him to speak in the same way he wrote. I wanted a confident outpouring of words and wit, a charisma to rival my own. He'd had a few good lines earlier while we spoke, I supposed, but he'd taken time to warm up to them and to me.
Of course, it was unfair to make comparisons between us. He had no uncanny knack for dazzling others, nor centuries of practice behind him. Still. I had never imagined a slightly scattered introvert capable of creating my favorite books. Unjust of me, but there it was.
"Everything going okay?" a voice behind us asked.
I looked over and saw Warren, the store's owner and my occasional fuck-buddy.
"Perfectly," Paige told him in her crisp, efficient way. "We'll start the signing in another fifteen minutes or so."
"Good."
His eyes flicked casually over the rest of us staff and then shot back to me. He said nothing, but as he scoured me with that gaze, I could almost feel his hands undressing me. He'd come to expect sex on a regular basis, and usually I didn't fight it since he provided a quick and reliable—albeit small—
fix of energy and life. His low moral character erased any guilt I might have for doing so.
After the questions ended, we faced crowd control issues as everyone queued up to get their books signed. I offered to help, but Doug told me they had things under control. So, instead, I stayed out of the way, trying to avoid eye contact with Seth.
"Meet me in my office when this is all over," Warren murmured, coming up to stand close beside me.
He wore a tailored, charcoal gray suit tonight, looking every inch the sophisticated literary tycoon. In spite of my distasteful opinion of a man who cheated on his wife of thirty years with a much younger employee, I still had to acknowledge a certain amount of physical charm and allure to him. After everything that had happened today, though, I was not in the mood to be sprawled across his desk when the store closed.
"I can't," I answered back softly, still watching the signing. "I'm busy afterwards."
"No you aren't. It's not a dancing night."
"No," I agreed. "But I'm doing something else."
"Like what?"
"I have a date." The lie came easily to my lips.
"You do not."
"I do."
"You never date, so don't try that line now. The only appointment you have is with me, back in my office, preferably on your knees." He took a step closer, speaking into my ear so that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my skin. "Jesus, Georgina. You're so fucking hot tonight, I could take you right now. Do you have any idea what you're doing to me in that outfit?"
"'Doing to you?' I'm not 'doing' anything. It's attitudes like that that result in women being veiled around the world, you know. It's blaming the victim."
He chuckled. "You crack me up, you know that? Do you have any panties on under that?"
"Kincaid? Can you come help us over here?"
I turned and saw Doug frowning at us. It would figure. He wanted my help, now that he saw Warren hitting on me. Who said there was no chivalry left in this world? Doug was one of the few who knew what passed between Warren and me, and he didn't approve. Yet, I wanted the escape, belated or no, and thus temporarily evaded Warren's lust as I walked over to assist with the book sale.