Evie Burne - Bound by Blood

“I mean, my clothes are wet and cold. I want to change.”

He wanted to strip her down to her skin and find out what she really looked like. He could feel her lush curves under his hands, her round ass, and the very feminine contour of her thigh.

“You wanna call a friend or something to help you out with that?” With luck she wouldn’t notice the squeak in his voice.

“Yes, I will.” She spoke clearly and slowly, as if trying to gain control of the situation herself. “All I need is for you to help me with my coat, and then get me to the sofa. After that, I’m good.”

Done and done. Underneath the beach ball coat she wore an equally awful cardigan sweater. The kind grandfathers wore. The smell of damp, musty wool put him off more effectively than a string of garlic.

Common sense restored, he settled her onto the sofa in a few efficient moves, propping up her leg and covering her with an itchy throw knit in all the colors of the 70s. Escape was on the horizon. Just a few formalities and he’d be free.

“You know, if you can’t afford to go to the doctor, I’ll pay for it.”

She shook her head. The snake hair bounced. “I’m insured.”

He took a deep breath. This was the dangerous question. “Do you need help cleaning up your leg?”

“Nope. I’ll call my sister.”

Thank God . Still, this was fucked up—hitting her and then just dumping her off. He took a couple of turns around the room, thinking. “What about work? Will you lose work on account of this?”

She sank into the cushions with a sigh, a damp, damaged bundle in an ugly cardigan, covered by an even worse throw. “Don’t worry. I’ve got sick days.”

Now he was getting annoyed. She had to let him help somehow. If she didn’t, the guilt would drive him crazy. “Well, what about your coat? It’s ruined.”

“I hate that coat.” She said this with surprising vehemence, like it had done her injury.

Gregor laughed. “Good, so do I.”

For the first time, Maddy smiled at him, revealing a dimple in each round cheek. She had great lips.

Don’t even look. Just leave. He moved a little away from her, so her scent did not go straight up his nose.

“You’ve really got the guilts, don’t you?” she said.

“I ran you down, Maddy. You should sue my ass.” He gave her his card. “This is how to find me if you change your mind. Call me if you need anything at all.” Did that sound like a come on? “Doctor bills, lawyers, whatever.”

She straightened her glasses with one hand and studied the card. “Tangiers? You work there?”

“I own it. You know it?”

Again she smiled, and peeked up at him over the heavy rims of her glasses. For the first time he got a look at her eyes. They were black, and they twinkled a little. “Everyone knows about Tangiers—even reclusive librarians.”

Gregor shivered with a cold premonition.

No. There were lots of librarians in New York. Millions of them. He took a long breath through his nose and fought back his paranoia.

“You’re a librarian, huh? You work in the city?”

She nodded, and he chickened out on asking more. Instead he flailed around for something else to do. Something which would get him out of there. “Let me get the phone for you, so you can call your sister.”

He went to the kitchen for the phone, steadfastly ignoring the fascinating scent of her that permeated every inch of the air in her apartment. An army of plastic toys seemed to have invaded her kitchen counter. Magnets crusted her fridge. A life-sized cardboard cutout of a virile-looking bald guy in a cheesy uniform leaned in one corner. How could she get anything done with all this junk everywhere? He finally found the phone hunkering among the plastic figurines in deep camouflage. It had stickers all over it. Sparkly stickers. Cute space aliens and valentine hearts. He wanted to pick it up with tongs.

When Gregor returned from his kitchen odyssey, he found her probing her temple with her fingertips, frowning. Seeing him, she lifted a heavy shock of hair up and out of the way. Underneath, her skin was scraped up, scabbing, yes, but still glistening with tiny, ruby beads of blood. “Is this bad?”

The wound called him. He dropped to his knees by her side. He could not stop what happened next, no more than he could hold back the ocean. Moving slowly, aware that as much as he fought it, every gesture he made in that moment was inevitable and pre-ordained, he kissed her temple. His lips lingered on the roughened skin, his nostrils flaring to take in every nuance of her scent. Lapping her skin, he captured those ruby beads. What they told him made him fall backward.

“It’s not bad at all,” he gasped as he struggled to his feet and reeled toward the door, clutching his chest like a movie villain who’d just been shot and intended to drag out his death scene.

No one— no one —tasted like that. He could eat her down to the bone. He could roll in her scent like a dog. Like a sophisticated drug, those few blood cells on the tip of his tongue were rushing through his bloodstream and altering his chemistry.

Maddy gaped at him, open mouthed.

The cool doorknob was his lifeline to reality. To sanity. It would lead him out of this place. “So—you’re good now?”

It amazed him that he could still talk, but his voice was not his own.

She nodded, mouth still open.

“Okay, then. Uh, goodbye.”

Gregor did not walk down the stairs, he leapt them, one flight at a time. At the entry he paused at the line of mailboxes and forced himself to look at the names. And there it was, the cold proof that you could not escape fate: “Apt. F: M. López de Victoria”.

He’d always suspected his mother was a witch.

“What the…?”

Maddy stared at the closed door for a while, trying to figure out what had just happened, then gave up.

Why had he kissed her? His hands had cradled her head, and he held her head to his mouth for a moment that seemed to stretch on and on. It felt like a blessing. And then, as abruptly as it had started, it ended, and Faustin was running for the door. She’d never seen a man look more horrified.

It wasn’t as if she had kissed him. She hadn’t done anything at all.

What a wacko. He’d been twitchy ever since they got out of the car.

What a night.

Maddy realized she was still clutching the phone. She’d lied to Faustin; she wouldn’t call her sister. Lena would want her to go to the hospital, and if the doctors heard her heart they’d have kittens.

It was not so easy getting off the sofa, but once up, she clawed and hopped her way to the coat rack by the door. Her big umbrella made a fine walking stick. With its help she headed to the bathroom, cursing all the way. Once there she took two Tylenol and a long, hot shower. Only afterward did she sit down on the closed toilet and investigate the damage.

Because she did not like doctors, Maddy was pretty well versed in first aid, and not at all squeamish. The blood on her left leg came from a long cut, no doubt from dragging across broken glass. The shower had made it bleed again, but she didn’t think it needed stitches. Well, maybe a couple. She’d wait and see. Worse in its way was the road burn along her calf. With a washcloth and tweezers she removed all the imbedded gravel, and then doused it all with hydrogen peroxide, which fizzled and foamed. Die, germs, die.

Her upper arm and shoulder were sore and bruised, but not cut up—her coat had protected her upper body. Her injuries told the story of how she had fallen and skidded along on her left side. The scrape on her left temple was part of that same skid. She dabbed it with hydrogen peroxide too. It would probably bruise under the scrape, but it didn’t hurt at all. It hadn’t since he kissed it.