But before I made progress on anything, I needed the magical elixir known as coffee.
It would clear away the lingering gloom that clung to me like spider webs and warm my body from the bone-chilling cold that had descended upon Massachusetts.
I threw open the door to the coffeehouse and entered the warm interior. The eye-opening aroma of coffee immediately filled my nasal passages. I already felt better by the time I placed my order and moved to the side, where the barista would hand me the one supernatural creation humans had managed to conjure.
“Long time, no see, handsome.”
Hannah Bishop was standing behind me, and I internally cringed. Hannah and I had dated briefly last year, and though she was a beautiful woman, she wanted more than I was willing or able to give.
When I didn’t immediately greet her in return, she regarded me with light green eyes—which I’d always been a sucker for on a woman or a man—and hands placed on her slender hips.
“Sorry,” I managed in my usual flat tone. I wasn’t one for expressing emotions. “Just surprised to see you. It’s been a few months.”
“Well, if you hung out in places other than the library or your dorm room, you might actually run into people.” She held her chin high as she always did when she was angry, but when it trembled, I realized she was merely masking her hurt. Despite my best intentions, she’d fallen in love with me, and love was something I did not do.
Love, like most emotions, was a useless distraction. They kept us from our true goals and from being our true selves. How could we be who we really were if we constantly had to kowtow to someone else?
When I told Hannah I didn’t return her feelings, she’d walked out of my dorm room. That had been the last time I’d seen her.
“Almost done with your dissertation?”
I nodded. “Just a couple more chapters.”
“Good for you,” she said with a forced smile. Hannah was also getting a doctorate, except her field was American literature. “I defend mine in a few weeks.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said, offering her a smile I hoped came off as genuine.
I failed. She twisted her lips and sighed. “I guess these decorations upset you, huh?” she asked, glancing over my shoulder. She was clearly looking to explore all avenues of conversation.
“Decorations?” I asked, turning around, and that was when I noticed them. Halloween decorations were everywhere. Ghosts had been drawn on the chalkboard menu, and some narrow-minded employee had painted a witch on the glass wall to my right. She had green skin, a large hooked nose, and a huge hairy mole on her chin.
None of the witches I knew looked like that. No wonder their portrayal in modern popular culture always ticked them off, and it wasn’t like warlocks were immune. Most everyone believed we were evil or demonic. While my species was definitely more selfish, we were most certainly
not
evil.
We were just a different race among my species. That was all.
“No need to answer,” she said. “I can still read your expressions. Well, the few you have.”
“You were always pretty good at that,” I said.
“Considering the last time we talked about Halloween, you went into this long lecture on how the day wasn’t about wearing a costume, getting drunk, or waking up next to some loser you didn’t even know. It’s one of your High Sabbats, right?”
“Good memory,” I said. Although Hannah didn’t know I was a warlock, she knew I was Wiccan. I didn’t hide that from anyone. “Samhain to be exact.” It was the end of our year, when the veil between the worlds thinned, and it was a time for honoring our dead. It was a sacred event, not this bastardized orgy of gluttony humans had turned it into.
“I guess I can’t talk you into going to a Halloween party, then?”
“You would be correct,” I replied. “I’m heading home.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Sadness hooded her eyes. “I forgot about your mom. This is obviously going to be tough for you.”
I swallowed hard. My mother was the one chink in my armor, and memories of her shattered the casual aloofness with which I greeted the world. The armor plating I kept over my heart slipped. I had to set it right before it fell off and left me completely vulnerable. “I don’t wish to discuss that,” I said with a break in my voice.
When Hannah heard the faintest sign of emotion, she pounced. She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a big hug. Although the gesture was sweet, I tensed. Expressing emotions around others made me uncomfortable. Being on the receiving end was even worse.
I patted her back. It was the universal sign that I would be fine, and she responded by letting me go. If I didn’t change the course of this conversation, Hannah would find some way to steer us right back. “I take it you’ll be attending this blasphemous Halloween party?”
“Sure am!” she said with far too much enthusiasm. She was clearly hoping I might take her up on her previous offer. “I’m going as a slutty vampire.”
Why did humans insist on taking one of the most powerful creatures in existence and hyper-sexualizing it? Real vampyren weren’t the hot-to-trot, misunderstood anti-heroes portrayed in popular culture. They were vicious monsters with chalk-white skin, long talons, and rows of razor-sharp teeth. If one did happen to show up at the party, it would tear through them all before the DJ could play the next song.
“You know,” said a man to our left. “Vampires aren’t really how popular culture makes them out to be.”
The intrusion surprised us.
When I turned to glare at the eavesdropper, the choice words I had prepared died in my throat. An attractive man sat on a stool, sipping from a cup of coffee. His jet-black hair was perfectly coiffed, and a crooked smile languished on his lips. He wore a purple button-down shirt underneath his black peacoat, and both had been tailored to perfection for his broad shoulders. He held a Starbucks cup in his hand and gazed at us with his piercing, chocolate-brown eyes. He wiggled his eyebrows at me before taking another drink.
His demeanor and appearance marked him as someone who clearly knew he was attractive. And while he might in fact be a hotter version of Zachary Quinto, neither his looks nor his attitude were what had given me pause.
This guy was a warlock too.
“AND HOW
do you know so much about vampires?” Hannah asked. Whenever she felt challenged, she stood with both hands on her hips and cocked her head to one side.
“I read,” he said with a gesture that meant the answer should be obvious.
She snuffed like a bull ready to charge. “And are you implying that I don’t?”
“Not at all,” he answered with a wave of a well-manicured hand. “I was merely answering your question.” There was obvious condescension in his tone, and Hannah picked up on it right away. She pursed her lips.
As for the warlock, he sat there with an amused smile. He evidently enjoyed riling her up. That told me he had an aversion to humans, like many of our kind.
“I’m Ben,” he said to me with an outstretched hand. His gaze traveled up and down my body enough times, he most likely had every inch of me already memorized.
What was he studying for, an oral exam?
“This is where you tell me your name, Red,” he said after a few seconds of silence.
Why did people assume redheads enjoyed that little epithet?
“It’s
not
Red, that’s for sure,” I replied, shaking his hand. For someone who’d been holding a cup of hot coffee, his skin was chilled. He must have just come in from outside. “I’m Thad, and this is Hannah.” Just because I didn’t express emotion didn’t mean I allowed rudeness. He was deliberately ignoring Hannah, and that was uncalled for.
“Nice to meet you,” he said to only me. I didn’t often get angry, but Ben was pushing his luck. “Can I buy you a coffee?”
The barista called out my order. I took it from the shelf and presented it to him.
“Or reimburse you for that one.” His crooked smile seemed permanently etched on his lips.
“Well, I’m out of here,” Hannah said. She stepped between Ben and me. Her previously angry glare had softened. She evidently still hoped for a future for us. “I hope to see you around.”
“That would be nice,” I said, putting as much sentiment into the words as I could muster. I even gave her a hug.
“Call me,” she said before tossing a sneer over her shoulder at Ben.
After I nodded, she walked away.
“Someone has a crush on you,” Ben stated.
I stared after her and nodded. “We dated briefly.” Now why did I just tell him that?
“What happened?” He leaned against the counter, grinning at me.
“Are you normally this rude?” I asked. “Strangers don’t typically ask such personal questions.”
“Not a stranger,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m Ben. We’ve been introduced.” He scooted around in his chair to gently rub his knee against my thigh.
Ben was evidently looking to score. Too bad I wasn’t going to take the field. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Hoping you’ll invite me back to your place.”
He had a big brass pair, I had to give him that. Not only was he blatantly coming on to me in public, he evidently had no reservation against casual sex with strangers. Unlike my older brother Pierce, I didn’t jump into bed with someone I didn’t know.
“Thanks, but I’m headed home for Samhain in a few hours.”
He stood up and closed the distance between us. He was at least an inch taller than me, and I was just over six feet. For some reason though, that one inch difference in height seemed more like six.
“Aw, come on,” he whispered. The scent of mint, aftershave, and something that reminded me of copper wafted in the air between us. My head spun as if I’d had one too many cocktails. “What better way to kick off the Sabbat?”
My thoughts suddenly filled with images of Ben naked in my bed. I shook them off, but my eyes developed a mind of their own. They scanned his broad shoulders and chest before settling on the bulge in his trousers. He brandished a pretty amazing staff.
How would it feel to have his cock press against me, to enter me while his lips and tongue drank in my flesh? What would it be like to abandon the control I normally sought and turn my body over to Ben to use as he saw fit? From the crooked smile and devilish glint in his eyes, he was evidently a warlock with some experience in the art of seduction.
He could no doubt make my toes curl in mind-blowing orgasm.
What? No. That wasn’t going to happen.
I shook my head to clear the fog of lust that had briefly clouded my goal of getting back to Havenbridge. “I can’t.” My words came out low and throaty. Great. Now I was coming down with a cold. “I have to get home. I promised my father I’d be there in enough time to help him get everything ready.” While that was true, it was a lie of omission. I was due back in Havenbridge tomorrow. It was my dream that made me want to arrive one day early.
“Samhain doesn’t officially start till tomorrow,” he said. “You’d have plenty of time.”
I was beyond annoyed. Ben was obviously used to getting his way, just like my brothers. Pierce used his charm and looks to get people to do what he wanted while Mason relied on his youthful irresponsibility to get out of doing what had to be done.
“I said I can’t.” An irritated tone replaced my previous throatiness. Ben clearly clued in he was going nowhere fast. “I have things to accomplish.”
He took a step back, but that wicked smile of his refused to be wiped away. “Are you always so responsible?”
As a matter of fact, I was. Someone in my family had to be. I grew up with a bunch of hotheads, who flew off the handle and rarely thought things through. It was usually up to me to either clean up the mess or be the voice of reason. Hell, if it weren’t for me, we might not have survived the vampyre that almost killed us. “Yes, I am,” I responded. I squared my shoulders and puffed out my chest.
“Come on,” he prodded with a raffish glint in his eye. My stomach knotted under the full weight of his stare. He playfully flicked the tip of my nose with his index finger. “Live a little.”
If I had found my voice, I’d have told him he didn’t know me from Adam. That I resented his presumptuousness. Just because people like Ben and my entire family chose to live beyond the secure boundaries of logic and responsibility didn’t make me some boring old nag.
I could let my hair down if I wanted to, but the simple truth was that I rarely wanted to.
Those were all the things I would have said had I been able to speak.
But Ben’s piercing stare stripped me of speech. When he looked at me with those hard-candy chocolate eyes, he peeled back every single layer of my usual defenses. The aloof persona I’d cultivated for so many years had been chopped down with one cut of his gaze.
“I promise to show you a good time,” he whispered in my ear. His warm breath swept across my neck, setting off a scorching fire that burned across my flesh and down into my groin. My cock hardened in tight black denim.
Ben glanced at the pronounced bulge in my jeans and grinned. He placed his hands on my waist and pulled me against his hardness.
Even though we were in the middle of Starbucks, he pounced on my lips. He groaned into the kiss and grabbed both sides of my head with his strong, smooth hands. As his fingers wound through my strawberry blond hair, his tongue came alive inside me. The bitterness of the coffee he’d consumed added a strange acidity to his taste.
I pulled out of Ben’s embrace and kiss. “I said no,” I repeated.
“Always the responsible one, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Well, okay. I’ll let you go home.”
Nobody “lets” me do anything.
Before I could tell him that, he said, “But I’ll definitely see you later.”
I arched one eyebrow. If I saw him again, I wouldn’t guarantee he’d remain breathing. “Will you now?”
He gave me a slow nod.
“There’s a fine line between confidence and cockiness. I suggest you read up on that.”
Ben leaned in close before muttering, “We’re warlocks. We step over
every
line we come across.”
The air between us sizzled, and I slowly backed away.