Cassie shook her head, tearing her gaze away from the man. The odd sense of loss encompassed her once more, but it was not as suffocating this time. She chanced a quick glance back at him, not surprised to find that he had turned to watch them leave. There was a hungry gleam in his emerald eyes that sent a shiver of fear and desire down her spine. He looked like he wanted to devour her, and she found that she didn’t mind that thought at all. In fact, she thought she might like being devoured by him.
That fact just confused and flustered her even more. She shouldn’t want this, but she did.
***
Cassie slid the window open and leaned on the sill as she met Chris’s twinkling gaze. “Why don’t you just use the door?”
He shrugged as he heaved himself through the window. As big and muscular as he was, he was surprisingly agile and graceful. It was why he was the star of the football team. Well that, and his enhanced speed and strength gave him an advantage. “The window’s more fun.”
Cassie shook her head as she closed the window again, leaving it slightly cracked to allow the cool September air to flow through. Chris moved swiftly around the room, he plopped down on her bed and crossed his long legs before him. Resting his elbow on his knee, he snatched the remote up and turned on the TV. Though he flipped idly through the channels, his easy demeanor was belied by the fierce tension she sensed running through him.
Sighing softly, she walked over to sit beside him. She didn’t have to ask what was wrong she knew it was his mother again. If he wished to talk about it, he would. If not, they would sit silently until he was ready to go to sleep on the air mattress tucked under the bed for him.
“Is your grandma home?” he inquired softly.
His gaze was focused on the TV, but most of his attention was on her. “No, she went to the church social tonight. There’s left over lasagna in the fridge for you if you want some.”
He shrugged, setting the remote down as he found the Red Sox game. “Someone did take my fries,” he muttered.
Cassie couldn’t help but grin as she shoved lightly on his arm. “There were only a few left.”
“The last ones are always the best.”
Laughing softly, she pushed him again. “Do you want me to heat some for you?” she inquired though she knew that was exactly what he was trying to guilt her into doing.
He turned to her, smiling softly as he nodded. “Think you owe me.”
Cassie climbed to her feet, shaking her head at him. “You’re lucky I love you.”
He flashed his bright grin with the easy charm that most girls couldn’t resist. “You’d better!”
Cassie was still shaking her head as she made her way downstairs. She may have been born an only child, but she still had an annoying, two week older brother. Finding her way easily through the darkened halls she entered the kitchen. She didn’t bother with the lights, she could see almost as well with the lights off as she could with them on. She pulled the door of the fridge open and removed the hefty piece of lasagna her grandmother had set aside for Chris. Un-wrapping it, she tossed it into the microwave and hit the buttons.
Leaning against the sink, she stared out at the dark night, her mind not on the street before her, but on the strange man from earlier. She had done nothing but think about him since arriving home. He preoccupied her every thought, her every moment. She could not get him out of her head, could not rid her skin of the strange electricity he had created in her.
Her body hummed with a fierce need to see him again, to touch him, and to finally ease the tension knotted through her. Instinctively she knew that if she could just see him again, just touch him, than things would be better. She could not shake the feeling of rightness that had filled her from the moment she laid eyes upon him. It was as if she knew him, as if her very soul knew his.
The thought filled her with excitement, but also with a level of fear that she couldn’t shake. She shouldn’t feel this way about someone she didn’t know. It made no sense to feel this intense of a connection with a complete stranger. Though she tried to remain logical, she could not shake the certainty that what she felt was right and good.
She hated it when Chris came to her house lost and angry, however she was grateful for the distraction he now offered from her strange thoughts and emotions. But now that she was alone again, the stranger was back on her mind, back in her system. She was truly afraid that she would never feel normal again until she touched him, and knew exactly how he felt. Though she already knew he would feel exquisite.
If she saw him again. The thought of never seeing him again sent her heart racing in fear.
Cassie shook her head fiercely, desperately trying to rid herself of her strange, irrational thoughts. She was acting crazy, she was feeling crazy. Maybe everything that had happened to her over the past four years had finally caused her to lose her mind. ‘How many people could actually know of the existence of vampire’s, and fight them, and not go a little crazy?’ she wondered absently.
Not many.
Something moved amongst the shadows, drawing her gaze sharply back to the street. The shadows shifted again, moving slightly before settling down once more. Cassie focused intently upon them, but they didn’t move again, and nothing emerged from the copse of trees at the edge of the yard.
The sudden beep of the microwave caused her to jump in surprise, spinning her toward the machine. She shook her head, aggravated with herself for allowing someone to affect her this much. And a stranger no less. She didn’t know him, what she felt for him could not be real, and he should not be affecting her this way. Hell, she didn’t even know his name.
Grabbing the lasagna from the microwave, she cast another glance out the window. Nothing moved amongst the shadows, but Chris’s mom had come onto her porch. She held a beer bottle in one hand, a cigarette in the other, as she stared into space. A man emerged behind her; he wrapped his arm tightly around her waist. Cassie had never seen him before, but then, she rarely saw any of Mary’s men twice in a row.
The man explained why Chris was here tonight.
Shaking her head, she hurried back upstairs, eager to get the food to Chris. She was also eager to help ease some of the hurt that clung to him, eager to try and bury some of her own swirling emotions. She swung into her room, not at all surprised to find the air mattress already set up. “Thanks,” he muttered as he took the plate from her.
Cassie nodded and plopped herself onto the bed beside him. This was going to be one of the nights that Chris didn’t want to speak; one of the nights when he had no words to convey his unhappiness. That was just fine by her, she wasn’t much in the mood for talking either, but there was one thing that she had to know.