Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) (3 page)

            
So what was it about this one that had her turning beat red and dreading the idea of having to
move in his presence because suddenly she was afraid she was going to fall on her face for no reason at
all. She was not a clumsy person, her profession required precision and lightening reflexes, it was part
of what would keep a person alive when they were fighting something that was potentially faster than a
speeding bullet. So the fact that she was suddenly terrified of taking one step and face planting made
absolutely no sense. And even if she did manage to get herself hopelessly tangled in her shoe laces and
fall over what should she care if he saw? Jennifer was getting ready to answer this question to herself
when she realized once again she was wasting time thinking on something that made no difference one
way or another. Her life as it was had to be closed off to the public, she’d dated Malcolm because he
was in on the secret and so there hadn’t been anything to hide. So she could contemplate this ones
looks all she liked , on her way out the door because that was where she aught to be headed. She had
work to do and no time to entertain even the idea of anything further. Resolved to forget about him she
pressed the lids down more solidly on the drinks she had come in here for in the first place and turned
to leave.

            
The odds of him being right behind her should have been in the zero range but she turned and
there he was not a foot away, so she couldn’t have been expected to react the way that she should
have. To her own horror she actually gave a terrified little squeak and lost her grip on at least one of
the beverages she’d wasted her time making. She just managed to keep hold of the other drink,
flinching as she waited for the other to explode on the floor, which of course didn’t happen because
mister perfect had somehow managed to catch it. She was happy at least for the distraction of being
irritated, with him first for being so damn close to begin with and at herself for acting like such a girl.
She was proficient in three kinds of hand to hand combat and happened to be an extremely accurate
marksmen when she had a gun in her hand but put one excessively pretty face a few inches from her
and she turned into a ridiculous female who dropped beverages. She was now sure if she managed to
actually take a step to move she would probably fall on her face. She was still trying to formulate
words, something her brain usually managed to do just fine, when he spared her from having to stumble
over what to say and spoke first. "You dropped this," he was smiling again and Jennifer thanked her
lucky stars she was still too stunned by his proximity to smile back. She purposefully ignored the
cadence of his voice, trying hard not to focus on how well whatever accent he was sporting suited his
perfect face.

            
Swallowing Jennifer nodded like an idiot, "yea," she managed to agree verbally and hated
herself for not being able to say more. She had no real idea what was wrong with her when it came to
this guy but she simply couldn’t seem to get mad enough to work past her lack of articulation.

            
"I didn’t mean to frighten you," he offered her the coffee and she tried to do the smart thing,
which was take the drink and run away.

            
"It’s fine," taking the cup from his hand was an effort because she in no way wanted to
accidentally touch him. It was bad enough that just looking at him seemed to have turned her into an
idiot, she had no interest in seeing what contact with him might cause. The only good thing she could
see coming out of her inability to form sentences was that it could be seen as a general lack of interest.
"Thanks," she mumbled as soon as she had the cup in her hand without a single brushing of fingers.
She quickly edged her way around him and made her way to the counter praying she would manage to
get there without falling and getting burned by not one but two cups of the scalding hot tar they tried to
pass off as a beverage.

            
She wasn’t entirely sure what it was she was expecting but his following her was not at all what
she had in mind. "So this seems like as good an opportunity as any to exchange numbers," the words
sent shivers of excitement up and down her spine and she suspected it wasn’t just because he’d said
them in a very attractive accent she couldn’t identify.

            
"I don’t think so," she managed to refuse by keeping her head down and trying to pretend she
was talking to Malcolm. Mostly because even before she was monstrously estranged and pissed at him
for being a jerk she had never had a single problem saying no to him. She got the sense that looking
right at this particular man would not lead to that same result.

            
"It seems like a perfectly reasonable out come to me, two strangers randomly meet from across
the room, attraction happens, phone numbers are exchanged. That’s normal now-a-days isn’t it?" He
seemed to be genuinely asking like he didn’t know, ‘yea right.’ She was aware that everyone had their
own preferences on what was attractive but she was pretty certain that he was one of those generally
universal handsome people that probably had women writing their numbers on napkins and otherwise
throwing themselves in his path. The thought had her looking up at him even though she was fully aware
that she was probably just another one of those women, he probably got any number of women’s
phone numbers in a day. But she blinked up at him briefly anyway, dark hair neatly cut short, though it
did look like he’d rolled out of bed, the style now she was pretty certain.

            
 She knew that she shouldn’t have looked up to meet his eyes because all of his nicely
contoured aristocratic features only seemed to be magnified when she really looked at his eyes, a
beautiful if not completely odd shade of brown. She could not explain what it was about his eyes that
caught and held her, but the color was strangely magnetic in its oddity and the longer she stared the
stranger they seemed. They were brown to be sure but in the few seconds she was trapped in his stare
she would have sworn that they seemed to swirl from a light to darker shade as if they couldn’t decide
what color they wanted to be. She watched as his eyes slid from a brown that was nearly black to a
color closer to topaz before he looked away from her. For a moment she was sure again she was
dealing with something a little more than a man. But when he looked away and she was looking at his
profile, her brain went on complete autopilot trying to figure out what it was that made him so attractive.

            
  He was too perfect, she hated that he was that sickening combination of so attractive he could
easily be described as beautiful without sacrificing any masculinity in the process. In most cases men
were one or the other, Malcolm for instance was more of a pretty boy, he didn’t quite reach beautiful
but his facial features were more rounded with fewer hard angles. This man was all hard angles, his
cheek bones, jaw, and brow ridge were all chiseled seemingly from stone and he was all the sexier for
the features. Jennifer could have smacked herself in the head for even thinking the word sexy in context
with the man next to her.

            
The walk to the counter felt longer in her efforts to avoid a further confrontation. She was
clearly off her game in every aspect of her life these last few days, first she did poorly enough in her
work to cost people not just their health but their lives and now she was gawking over some handsome
stranger flirting with her when usually she couldn’t be bothered to notice much outside of the condition
and cleanliness of her arsenal, or the next job to care much for the rest. Trying to figure out what it was
that had him distracting her so completely she gave his profile another quick once over. Clearly his face
was perfect so that was no mystery and a glance down revealed that he was clearly all lean muscle and
height. He probably measured in at six feet if not a little over to her average five-five stature. Of
course he would have a lithe physique and predatory gate to perfectly fit his perfect face, so it took her
a moment to take in the very regular cloths he wore. A quick glance down revealed a pair of worn in
converse, jeans and to finish the ensemble a black shirt sporting a rock band logo she had seen a
thousand times over. The outfit was so completely ordinary that for a moment she found herself
wondering how for a moment she’d managed to convince herself that he might be a monster. Shaking
her head and looking away after what had felt like an eternal trek to the counter Jennifer simply stated
the facts. "I have to go," straight forward words, she did not add that she would not be giving him her
number because he was a distraction she could not afford right now. If he’d popped into her life a few
days earlier giving him her number might not have seemed wrong, but he was here now when she could
least afford to be distracted.

            
"Technically," she was doing her best to try and ignore him while the poor clerk at the register
rang up the drinks but he somehow managed to insert himself, admittedly at an angle, between the
counter and herself. "The exchanging of a number would allow for a later date and time to meet up,
possibly when it was more convenient." He gave another one of those crooked smiles that she was
sure got most women to strip their cloths off for him, a thought which only helped her further in her goal
to keep her own mouth from mirroring his.

            
"Trust me, I’m not your type," she was so proud of herself for sounding so sure of that while
also managing to sound so blasé about the whole thing.

            
"I think you are," she wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get so close to him but she regretted it
because he was far too close for comfort, or at least so close that she should have been uncomfortable
given he was a complete stranger. Problem was she was in fact not uncomfortable at all, he reached
over to tuck a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail behind her ear and she didn’t care,
she liked it, she should or would have been disturbed by that kind of proximity usually.

            
"I have a boyfriend," she blurted out fully aware that she was doing it as a last ditch attempt to
save herself from giving her number to someone that she could tell already if he called she would
answer, which was odd because unless it was a work related call that was not within her usual habits
either.

            
He quirked a brow at her not at all convinced, "really," was all he said with that look as well as
a small smile. She wasn’t sure at all if she should be insulted by that response, apparently to him she
looked un-couple-able. She supposed that she shouldn’t be surprised that he would think that, she had
just thought moments before that he was too attractive to be bothering glancing in her direction, so of
course he would think that someone like her was a secluded shrew. Although outside of Malcolm,
which had been her only serious relationship in a long time, she had focused her attention on work.
And the only other male she did have outside of work in her life, but she hardly thought most people
would consider in the same category as a male suitor, was a canine. In general her dog, named Khan
by her cousin, was more of a boyfriend deterrent in keeping a boyfriend than not. Her dog didn’t much
appreciate the male sex for some reason or other, as a matter of fact the only male she hadn’t seen him
try to chase off was her cousin, those facts were making the shrew category seem like a good fit.

            
"Sorry to disappoint," she finally did smile because she found she liked being able to tell him off.
She was just beginning to think that she was going to win this round and he would have to give up on
her, the thought made her smile but when she did he smiled back, that couldn’t have been right. "So I
can’t, you know," she paused awkwardly but he didn’t seem to understand what she meant. "I can’t
give you my number," she finally finished when he didn’t immediately remove himself from her
proximity.

            
"Just a boyfriend," he asked with what she was beginning to suspect was a mischievous smile.

            
"Huh," she was confused, she didn’t think that anyone had ever put this much effort into trying
to get anything out of her before, well, she could certainly think of a couple of people who had been this
persistent in trying to kill her but that was all. She was getting ready to say something intelligible, or at
least she was sure that she was when the bell rang at the door that she’d entered and suddenly Marcia
was behind her.

            
"Jennifer the boys are...." her sentenced died off the minute she saw the distraction that had
kept Jennifer planted in the building despite her promise that she’d only be five minutes.

            
"Jennifer," the stranger smiled again apparently fine to completely ignore the mention of boys.

            
"That’s me," Jennifer managed to say without sounding too sour or turning to offer some
rebuttal or other to her co-worker.

            
"And this is," this time he aimed his smile at Marcia and Jennifer hated that she felt something in
her twist that his attention had shifted away from her, that should be exactly what she wanted.

            
"Marcia Cruz," her co-worker introduced herself, offering her hand to him, which he did not
hesitate to take. Although instead of shaking like a normal person he brought her hand to his lips and
placed a kiss on the knuckles. Jennifer felt her ire rising and knew without a doubt this was the moment
with which she needed to excuse herself.