Kim Harrison - Dates From Hell

“The immunity is breaking down,” he murmured. “But still has a ways to go.” He leaned toward me again. “I’d ask if I should stay for a while, but I suspect the answer would be no. A reluctant no, maybe, but a no nonetheless. So instead I’ll ask whether I can come back.”

I smiled. “Yes, you can come back.”

“Good. Better, actually.”

“Better?”

“Much.”

I laughed and shook my head.

Marsten stepped back. “I should go. I have a doctor to visit and goods to dispose of…not necessarily in that order. And I will make those calls for you—ensure the termination from your old job and the start of your new one go smoothly.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” I caught his hand and met his gaze. “I really do, Karl.”

He leaned over for a kiss, little more than a brushing of the lips, but very…nice. When he pulled away, he backed up to the door, started to turn, then stopped.

“I’m too old for you.”

“Too old for what? To come back for a visit?”

A dramatic sigh. He shook his head, and walked out of the bathroom. From the hall I heard a murmured “I’m going to make a fool of myself.”

“It’ll look good on you,” I called after him.

His chuckle returned. I smiled and listened to his footsteps recede down the stairs, across the floor, and finally disappear out the back door. Then I took a deep breath. One life gone. Another on the way. Was I up for it?

God, I hoped so.

KELLEY ARMSTRONGis the author of the popular Women of the Otherworld series. The newest book, Broken, will be out in summer 2006. She lives in rural Ontario with her husband and three children.

Want more info? Go to www.kelleyarmstrong.com .

On the day he died, Eric Leaventhall had a datethat couldn’t be broken, so he went. Dead and all.

Too bad I was his date.

Turned out dead dating was the only way he could get what he needed.

Sustenance.

Are you confused yet? I know I was.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. But I’m not quite sure when that was. Probably when I decided to become a client of www.truelove.com .

Pretentious? Maybe. But I’d hoped that any man who chose a service by that name might be a little more grown up than most—had at least moved beyond a desire to bang supermodels and begun to think about finding a life. Being a literary agent, I should have known that semantics were as dead as most people’s belief in a soul mate.

The date itself started out well enough. We met at a martini bar near my office. A new place, kind of Sex and the City, which should have tipped me off right away. If not to the whole demon issue, then at least to his hopes for the evening. He wasn’t after true love.

I hadn’t been completely honest, either. In my bio I’d said I was “in publishing.” I’d learned that the quickest way to a stack of manuscripts from the wannabe famous was to tell anyone but immediate family what I really did for a living.

Of course some people figured it out as soon as they heard my name. My mother had been one of the top agents in the business before she’d gone and died on me. Was I following in her footsteps trying to regain some of the happiness I’d enjoyed while she was alive?

You betcha.

However, that wasn’t working out. I liked to read, but I didn’t like to sell. Sadly, my degree in ancient civilizations made me fit to do little but teach, and I doubted I’d be very good at that, either. Kids kind of scared me.

At loose ends—in my job and my personal life—I’d decided to start searching for that soul mate I’d been dreaming of. Just my luck, the first candidate didn’t even have a soul.

I should have caught a clue to Eric’s intentions the instant I’d seen his photo on the web. He was drop-dead gorgeous—dead being the operative word, although in truth, he hadn’t been dead at the time. Still, what on earth would a man like him want with a woman like me?

One thing and one thing only. What’s that horrible saying about all women being the same in the dark?

I’m not a hag, but I am short and just a little dumpy, with long, black hair that curls too much and the dark eyes and olive complexion of either my father’s Sicilian ancestors or my mother’s Hebrew ones. Take your pick. With a name like Mara Naomi Elizabeth Morelli, I’d never be mistaken for a Nordic bimbo, even if I’d had a prayer of looking like one.

Anyway, call me Kit. Everyone does. I was never able to carry off the Mara Naomi Elizabeth thing.

Now back to the date—if not from hell, at least from a place very near by.

Manhattan.

Rich, blond, and handsome, Eric was every plain girl’s dream. He was not very tall, which I liked, since big men always made me nervous; his teeth were white and straight; his eyes deep blue. He was also a surgeon. Of course he was too good to be true.

“I’m so glad you came,” he said, and his smile warmed the chill of the early spring night.

Eric led me to a secluded table, held my chair, let his fingertips drift over my hair. Sure he got a little too close, rubbed his knee against mine a little too soon, laid on the interest in my job, my future, and me a little too thick. But I was lonely, confused, unhappy, and here was this great guy hanging all over me.

“What do you say we take this to your place?” Eric murmured, stroking the back of my hand.

I hesitated, uncertain how to say no. I’d never been one for sex on a first date; I wasn’t one for sex at all. I might be smart-mouthed, just a little sarcastic—blame my mother—but I was also shy with men. The thought of baring my body to a stranger—well, it wasn’t a thought I entertained very often.

However, I was suddenly struck by the odd notion that tonight was the night I’d met the man I’d been waiting for all of my life.

“Okay,” I said.

Had that word come out of my mouth?

I’d been raised on my mother’s tales of love at first sight. She’d taken one glance at my Italian-Catholic, working-class father and defied her wealthy intellectual Jewish family to marry him.

They’d been happy until the day she died. I’d been in my last semester of college, uncertain of what I should do with my life.

Then—bam—my mother had died from a brain aneurysm. Life suddenly seemed so short. Her work wasn’t done, and I had no pressing place to be. So I slid into her job, and two years later I was still doing it.

My father never recovered from her death. He’d passed away just this winter. I was so lost without him, I felt hollow inside. Which had no doubt precipitated my sudden search for true love.

Hand in hand Eric and I left the bar and strolled south toward Chelsea.

I had an apartment on West Twenty-fourth Street. My mother had been a very good agent. Throughout her married life, she’d made three times the money of my electrician father. They’d deposited the checks and never mentioned it. So when Daddy died, I’d nearly choked at the size of his bank account, which was now mine.

I’d spent the money on a condo, not too far from my Fifth Avenue office. Trying to live up to my mother’s reputation meant I had to work harder and longer than everyone else. Saving commute time had seemed like the best way to invest my inheritance.

Eric’s arm slid around my waist. Sighing, I leaned my head on his shoulder.

“This is nice,” I murmured.

“It’ll get nicer, I promise.”

His palm drifted lower, cupping my bountiful butt, squeezing a little. His thumb slid down the center, and I jumped.