Chapter Twenty-Seven

Marissa's cook station was behinda tall counter situated a few yards inside the front door of her restaurant, Marissa's. Not a very inventive name, and not her first choice, but any time she'd tried to call her place anything else, people just said, "Let's go to Marissa's," anyway, so, she'd given up and gone with it.

At first it'd been weird for her to cook out in the open like this, where all and sundry could watch her work. But her architect, Luken, had strongly suggested that she stick with the design. He'd said that the people of the community would want to chat with her when they came to dine, and better that they just lean an elbow causally on the tall counter rather than consistently overrun a kitchen in the back. He'd been right, and now she loved the arrangement.

She was doing some prep work for tonight's dinner menu, chopping green peppers and parsley. It was usually a time she loved in her workday, when things were quiet, the main dining room lights dimmed, and a CD of her own choice—right now, Daughtry—spinning out on the sound system to keep her chopping away. But these days, quiet time just led her to crawl around inside her own head too much, thinking about how lonely she was. None of her friends had abandoned her when she decided to finish out her year in ??ran?—the community was honoring their half-million-dollar offer—but Dev most certainly had. In the week since the Big Reveal, she hadn't seen him once. After they'd ended it, she didn't know what she'd expected, but…she supposed she hadn't thought he'd remove himself so completely from her life. Maybe that made her na?ve, but what did she know? She'd never had a breakup like this before, so damned painful.

She grabbed another green pepper and—

The door to her restaurant crashed open, hinges rattling and glass quivering as Dev loomed inside, his smoldering eyes locking on her like some great beast of prey.

Marissa froze for one shuddering beat of her heart, then drew a breath that expanded her chest.

The men and women living in this community are vampires.

Oh, ya think? Every day that made more and more sense.

Letting the door smack shut behind him, Dev started toward her, his face chiseled with dark emotions.

She stole a glance at the well-oiled movement of his hips, and her mind headed straight into the gutter. She'd almost forgotten what a hot son of a bitch he was.

He drew up to her tall counter and laid a forearm on it.

She fluttered her eyelashes at her ex-boyfriend, giving him a determinedly false smile. "Sorry, sir, we're closed."

One side of his lip edged upward. Not into a full sneer, but almost. "You have some of my wine."

"No, I don't." She neatly sliced through the center of the green pepper. "Not unless you want that bottle of C?tes de France Bordeaux back that you gave me the night of our last dinner together. Which would be the height of tacky, by the way."

A tightness passed through Dev's hand, as if he was trying oh-so-very hard not to make a fist. "You ordered wine for your restaurant, and I ordered wine for my collection, but the Travelers accidentally delivered everything here." He gestured curtly at the two crates stacked against her wall.

"Oh. Well, okay. Go ahead and take a look."

Rolling his eyes, he crossed to the crates, muttering, "pain in the trash," although it might not have been exactly that. He crouched down, and she stared at his broad back, watching his muscles flex beneath his shirt in a dance of perfect symmetry as he opened the first box and began to search it. She traveled lower, to his hard, powerful buttocks visible against the tight stretch of his jeans. A tremor of longing coursed up her spine. God, how she'd missed him, missed holding his hand and kissing him, longed for the time they used to spend together, laughing and sharing. In a couple of years, they probably would've been able to finish each other's sentences.

She set down her knife and held up a basket of steaming bread. "Hey, do you want a roll?" Maybe he'd take it as a peace offering.

He cranked his head slightly sideways, his eyes seaming tight.

Or maybe not. "It's one of my specialties."

Nothing.

She set down the basket. "I just thought…maybe we could talk, Dev."

"About what?" He rotated toward her, setting a palm on top of his corded thigh. "Since you're obviously a chicken shit about bonding with me, there's nothing—"

"Oh, that's real nice," she cut in hotly, her breath coming fast. "Thank you very much for giving my position no respect or understanding whatsoever."

"'Cause you've done so well respecting my side," he snarked back.

The CD of Daughtry ended. A pot on the stove came to a boil and hissed into the silence.

"Just because I'm not running off to bond with you, doesn't mean I'm disrespecting you." She shook her head at him, her chin tight. "You've lived with the concept of mating forever for your entire life. It's no big deal to you, but for me…" She picked up her knife and stabbed it into one half of the green pepper, letting it stick there. "I can't even sleep with you first," she said through stiff lips. "A couple should at least be able to test the waters for compatibility before committing to drink from the same well for all-fricking-eternity, shouldn't they? That's how humans do it."

"Yeah, I get it." He reached inside a crate, eased up a bottle, and glanced at the label. "You're worried we'll suck in bed together."

She flushed. "No. I'm sure we'd be fine with…I didn't mean—" Water boiled over the lip of the pot, shish-shish'ing onto the burner. "Dammit!" She cranked the knob down.

He dropped the bottle back into its slot. "Or maybe it's just me you're worried about. Gotta test drive ol' Dev before you decide if he's worthy of your love, right? Heaven-fucking-forbid that you should be patient and understanding with a guy who might know jack shit about what he's doing in the sack."

She stared at him, her lips trembling. "Why are you doing this?" she rasped out.

"Hell, it's probably a good thing you threw me over." A cold laugh jerked out of him. "I wouldn't have wanted to put my dick under that degree of stress."

"I didn't want to throw you over." A feeling of cold desolation washed through her. "I thought we could…why can't we stay friends?"

"Fuck friends!" He surged to his feet in a fluid explosion of energy. "I love you, Marissa. Do you hear me? Love. In the Varcolac world that means I'm already tied to you. Your scent is planted so deeply inside my head, it's like you're a part of me. I need you to get that. When I'm near you, I can smell everything about you; if you're fighting a head cold, or you're nervous, when you're on your damned period, when you're"—his voice lowered to a resonant growl—"aroused." He reached down and slammed the lid of the crate shut. "Being around you, smelling you, causes me actual physical pain because I'm not with you and I need to be. I was barely able to endure it back when I thought we'd be together some day. But now that you've rammed your stiletto heel right through the center of my heart—"

"D-don't." Her chest cramped, like a steely fist clenched around her heart: Dev's fist. "You don't think this is painful for me, as well? I-I…" I love you, too.

"You know one of the worst fucking parts about this?" He stalked right up to her, stopping only inches away. "On the day of the rock wall climb, you said you were the type of woman who wouldn't run away from me. And I believed you."

Her throat spasmed a couple of times with the threat of tears. "I'm not stepping back from us because you're a v-v-v…"

His face hardened. "Right."

She pressed a hand over her eyes. Crap. She just wasn't used to saying that word, yet.

"Thank you for turning me into a circus act, Marissa. I love being a monster."

She dropped her hand and glowered at him. "Would you stop it? This has nothing to do with you. I'm stepping back because I have important plans for my life, Dev. I've always wanted my own restaurant. I promised myself that—"

"Gee, and here I thought you had one."

"It's not the same here in ??ran?," she flared. "This is a hidden community, for God's sake. If I'm successful, I'll never feel that to any depth; no restaurant critic will write me up, no Michelin stars will ever be awarded to me, no—"

"You're willing to give up a life of happiness for that?"

Hot rage speared up the back of her neck. "I can't believe how cavalierly you're brushing this aside. You know the life I've had." She felt her hands curling in on themselves. "I'm twenty-five and haven't done anything. I spent the first fourteen years of my life at a fricking standstill, and then after that it was one responsibility after the next; I'm the one who had to drop out of college when my mom got sick; I'm the one who couldn't go to a prestigious culinary school because of family obligations; I'm the one who had to help take care of my younger sister when my dad died. Oh, and that was a favor she repaid, by the way, by one-upping me in everything I've ever tried to do my adult life: stealing jobs out from under me and sleeping with my boyfriends, at least three that I know of, maybe more. But with half a million dollars, I'd be able to buy my own restaurant, free and clear, and that's something Natalie could never take from me. Don't you see? This is my chance, finally, to make something of myself, Dev, to prove that I'm not still that girl in the back brace. I have to take it. If I don't, I'll always regret it, and probably end up resenting you for it. Is that really what you want?"

He turned his face away from her, staring through the glass door outside to the street paved in cave rock. "You're twenty-five?" He looked at her again, his eyes dispassionate. "Well, I'm fifty-three."

She jerked back a step. How old?

"In the Varcolac lifecycle, men and women come of age at twenty-one, at which time we sprout a set of fangs, develop our blood-need, and acquire a deep visceral urge to bond with a mate to fulfill that need. But Mother Nature, as you know, handed our species a shit sandwich in that regard and deprived us of anybody to bond with. So for thirty-seven years, I've been surviving off putrid-tasting donor blood. For thirty-seven long years, I've had all the sex drive of any young man, but haven't been able to do anything about it because I'm stuck with a nonfunctioning slab between my legs. That's right, I can't even whack off to get some relief. For thirty-seven fucking years. So you'll excuse the hell out of me if I can't be your understanding pal about this, Marissa. I've got my own resentments I'm dealing with here."

She swallowed hard, moisture building in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said hoarsely. "If I could work topside and live here with you, too, I'd do that. But the Council won't allow that."

"Yeah, no need for further explanations. We're back where we started, aren't we? You're enough for me, but I'm not enough for you. End of story." He turned and headed for the door.

Angry tears rolled down her face. Running out from behind her tall counter, she met Dev at the door and grabbed his wrist, jerking his hand off the knob. "You know what, screw you and your guilt trips, Devid! Every day I look around me and see people getting a turn in life. But not me. Now you want your turn, and I'm just supposed to do what I always do and sacrifice my own dreams for someone else's. It's not fair, dammit! When is it my turn?" She pounded a fist against the center of her sternum. "Mine?!"

He breathed heavily through his nostrils for a couple of seconds. "So take your fucking turn, Marissa. Show the world how great you are, if that's the only way you can prove to yourself that you really are great. Just don't expect me to blow sunshine up your ass about it." He hauled open the door and stalked out.