Succubus Blues (4 page)

“I'm going to help her,” Doug told me, kindly chivalrous. Paige was three months pregnant. “I'd advise you do something that doesn't involve leaning more than twenty degrees in any one direction. Oh, and if somebody tries to get you to touch your elbows together behind your back, don't fall for it.”

I gave him a sharp jab in the ribs, nearly making him lose the books again.

Bruce, still manning the espresso counter, made me my fourth white chocolate mocha of the day, and I wandered over to the geography books to drink it while I waited for things to pick up. Glancing beside me, I recognized the guy I'd discussed Seth Mortensen with earlier. He still held his copy of
The Glasgow Pact.

“Hey,” I said.

He jumped at the sound of my voice, having been absorbed in a travel book about Texas.

“Sorry,” I told him. “Didn't mean to scare you.”

“I—no, you d-didn't,” he stammered. His eyes assessed me from head to toe in one quick glance, lingering ever so briefly on my hips and breasts but longest on my face. “You changed clothes.” Apparently realizing the myriad implications behind such an admission, he added hastily, “Not that that's bad. I mean that's good. Er, well, that is—”

His embarrassment growing, he turned from me and tried to awkwardly replace the Texas book back on the shelf, upside down. I hid my smile. This guy was too adorable. I didn't run into many shy guys anymore. Modern-day dating seemed to demand men make as great a spectacle of themselves as possible, and unfortunately, women seemed to really go for it. Okay, even I went for it sometimes. But shy guys deserved a break too, and I decided a little harmless flirting with him would be good for his ego while I waited for the signing to start. He probably had terrible luck with women.

“Let me do that,” I offered, leaning across him. My hands touched his as I took the book from him, replacing it carefully on the shelf, front cover out. “There.”

I stepped back as though to admire my handiwork, making sure I stood very close to him, our shoulders nearly touching. “It's important to keep up appearances with books,” I explained. “Image goes a long way in this business.”

He dared a look over at me, still nervous but steadily recovering his composure. “I go more for content.”

“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.”

“K
ill 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 goal: 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.

It took almost two hours to shuffle customers through the signing line, and by then, the store was fifteen minutes from closing. Seth Mortensen looked a little tired but seemed to be in good spirits. My stomach flip-flopped inside me when Paige beckoned those of us not involved with closing to come over and talk to him.

She introduced us matter-of-factly. “Warren Lloyd, store owner. Doug Sato, assistant manager. Bruce Newton, café manager. Andy Kraus, sales. And you already know Georgina Kincaid, our other assistant manager.”

Seth nodded politely, shaking everyone's hand. When he reached me, I averted my eyes, waiting for him to just move on. When he did not, I mentally cringed, bracing myself for some comment about our previous encounters. Instead, all he said was, “G.K.”

I blinked. “Huh?”

“G.K.,” he repeated, as though those letters made perfect sense. When my idiotic expression persisted, he gave a swift head jerk toward one of the promotional flyers for tonight's event. It read:

“You're G.K. You wrote the bio.”

He looked to me for confirmation, but I couldn't speak, wouldn't utter the clever acknowledgment about to spring from my lips. I was too afraid. After my earlier mishaps, I feared saying the wrong thing.

Finally, confused by my silence, he asked haltingly, “Are you a writer? It's really good.”

“No.”

“Ah.” A few moments passed in cool silence. “Well. I guess some people write the stories, and others live them.”

That sounded like a dig of sorts, but I bit my lip on any response, still playing my new ice-bitch role, wanting to defuse the earlier flirtation.

Paige, not understanding the tension between Seth and me, still felt it and tried to allay it. “Georgina's one of your biggest fans. She was absolutely ecstatic when she found out you were coming here.”

“Yeah,” added Doug wickedly. “She's practically a
slave
to your books. Ask her how many times she's read
The Glasgow Pact.
”

I shot him a murderous look, but Seth's attention focused back on me, genuinely curious.
He's trying to bring back our earlier rapport,
I realized sadly. I couldn't let that happen now.

“How many?”

I swallowed, not wanting to answer, but the weight of all those eyes grew too heavy. “None. I haven't finished it yet.” Practiced poise allowed me to utter those words calmly and confidently, hiding my discomfort.

Seth looked puzzled. So did everyone else; they all stared at me, rightfully perplexed. Only Doug knew the joke.

“None?” asked Warren with a frown. “Hasn't it been out for over a month now?”

Doug, the bastard, grinned. “Tell them the rest. Tell them how much you read a day.”

I wished then that the floor would open up and swallow me whole, so I could escape this nightmare. As if coming off as an arrogant strumpet in front of Seth Mortensen wasn't bad enough, Doug was now shaming me into confessing my ridiculous habit.

“Five,” I finally said. “I only read five pages a day.”

“Why?” asked Paige. She had apparently never heard this story.

I could feel my cheeks turning red. Paige and Warren stared at me like I was from another planet while Seth simply continued to remain silent and look thoughtfully distracted. I took a deep breath and spoke in a rush: “Because…because it's so good, and because there's only one chance to read a book for the first time, and I want it to last. That experience. I'd finish it in a day otherwise, and that'd be like…like eating a carton of ice cream in one sitting. Too much richness over too quickly. This way, I can draw it out. Make the book last longer. Savor it. I have to since they don't come out that often.”

I promptly shut up, realizing I had just insulted Seth's writing prowess…again. He made no response to my comment, and I couldn't decipher the expression on his face. Considering, maybe. Once again, I silently begged the floor to consume me and save me from this humiliation. It obstinately refused.

Doug smiled reassuringly at me. He found my habit cute. Paige, who apparently did not, looked as though she shared my wish that I be somewhere else. She cleared her throat politely and started a completely new line of conversation. After that, I scarcely paid attention to what anybody said. All I knew was that Seth Mortensen probably thought I was an erratic nutcase, and I couldn't wait for this night to end.

“…Kincaid would do it.”

The sound of my name brought me back around several minutes later.

“What?” I turned to Doug, the speaker.

“Wouldn't you?” he repeated.

“Wouldn't I what?”

“Show Seth around the city tomorrow.” Doug spoke patiently, as if to a child. “Get him acquainted with the area.”

“My brother's too busy,” explained Seth.

What did his brother have to do with anything? And why did he need to get acquainted with the area?

I faltered, unwilling to admit I'd spaced out just now while wallowing in self-pity.

“I…”

“If you don't want to…” began Seth hesitantly.

“Of course she does.” Doug nudged me. “Come on. Climb out of your hole.”

We exchanged smartass looks, worthy of Jerome and Carter. “Yeah, fine. Whatever.”

We arranged the logistics of me meeting Seth, and I wondered what I'd gotten myself into. I no longer wanted to stand out. In fact, I would have preferred if he could have just blotted me from his mind forever. Hanging out as we toured Seattle tomorrow didn't seem like the best way to make that happen. If anything, it would probably only result in more foolish behavior on my part.

Conversation finally faded. As we were about to disperse, I suddenly realized something. “Oh. Hey. Mr. Mortensen. Seth.”

He turned toward me. “Yeah?”

I frantically tried to say something that would undo the tangled mess of mixed signals and embarrassment he and I had stumbled into. Unfortunately, the only things that came to mind were:
Where do you get your ideas from?
and
Are Cady and O'Neill ever going to get together?
Dismissing such idiocy, I simply shoved my book over to him.