Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (59 page)

Once again he smiled. “God gave men souls, and free will. But a soul is not a commodity — it is a part of you, like the color of your eyes or the sound of your voice. It can’t be separated from you, any more than you can bottle your eye color and sell that.”

“So why all these stories about people selling their souls to the Devil?”

The smiled faded. “If a person comes to the psychological point where he feels his soul is of no worth to him, that it can be traded for wealth or power or any of the other temporal things he might crave, then he has lost touch with the bit of grace God has granted him by giving him a soul in the first place. Once a person is in such a state of mind, he allows himself to commit whatever acts he feels are necessary, because he has ‘lost his soul,’ so to speak. It’s a way of giving up responsibility for one’s actions. You know — ‘the Devil made me do it,’” Luke added, with the familiar glint in his eye.

Well, that actually made some sense, although I had to sit and think about it for a minute. After sipping at my wine as a cover for some serious cogitation, I finally asked, “I’m not — I’m not imperiling my immortal soul by having dinner with you, am I?” Even though I tried to keep my tone light, I had the feeling my inner anxiety seeped through a bit.

At that he laughed outright. “Hardly. I asked, and you accepted. You haven’t made any bargains with me, or with yourself — except possibly to have a good time.”

“Some people might say that ‘having a good time’ is the quickest route to Hell,” I remarked. “But they’re never any fun at cocktail parties.”

“Exactly. Besides, why would God have given humans a capacity for enjoyment and the ability to experience pleasure if he didn’t actually want them to do so? This is what I find difficult to understand about so many of the tenets of people’s faith — that self-denial and self-abnegation somehow leads to enlightenment.”

“And it doesn’t?” If that were really the truth, then I guessed all those monks I’d read about in my history books, the ones who wore hair shirts and fasted and scourged themselves, must have felt pretty stupid after they died and realized it had all been for nothing, that God actually would have preferred for them to go out and eat meat and drink wine and get laid.

“Sometimes. But only because the person in question has cleared his or her mind of enough extraneous things to do so. It’s certainly not guaranteed.” His gaze moved past me, and I turned slightly to see the waiter arriving with our appetizer.

He laid down the plate between the Luke and me, and then set smaller plates in front of each of us. I didn’t know what it was, but it smelled delicious.

“And for the entrée?” the waiter asked, and I cast a guilty glance at my menu. I’d been so busy talking to Luke I hadn’t even thought about what I wanted to eat.

Seeming to notice my discomfort, Luke asked, “If you’ll allow me?” and gathered up both our menus.

Normally I would have gotten on my feminist high horse about a man presuming to place an order in a restaurant for me, but somehow I knew I could trust him to get me something I liked. I nodded.

“For the lady, the
filetto alla rossini
, and for me the
entrecote di manzo peppe rosa
. And a bottle of the ’99 Ornellaia.”

“Excellent, sir.” The waiter took our menus, smiling. I could only imagine that whatever Luke had ordered, it was very expensive.

“So what am I eating?” I asked, turning to my neglected appetizer.

“Bacon-wrapped scallops. They go beautifully with this wine, I think.”

Scallops had never been on my top ten list of favorite foods, but I did love bacon, so I figured I’d give it a try. The blend of flavors turned out to be amazing, though, subtle and smoky, and the clean, light taste of the wine seemed to both cut through it and harmonize with the dish.

The Devil was apparently both an epicure and a hedonist. However, since at the moment I was reaping the benefits of his predilections, I wasn’t about to argue. No wonder the stories painted him as the one who led people into temptation — it was hard not to be tempted by the sorts of pleasures he’d given me so far.

I could only imagine what others might soon follow.

D
inner was a decadent dream
, and the opera sublime. The experience of actually sitting there, watching the entire spectacle and hearing those perfectly trained voices bring the tragedy to life, was so different from just listening to a CD that it hardly seemed to be the same art form.
Faust
is sung in French, and I’d worried that I wouldn’t be able to understand anything that was going on, but those nifty supertitles they projected above the stage took care of that problem. By the end I was so caught up in the story and the haunting beauty of the music that I had to breathe deeply and concentrate on not crying. Maybe Luke would have understood, but I’ve never found it a good idea to dissolve into a weepy mess while on a date, especially when your eye makeup has been meticulously applied by some Southern European eyebrow expert and probably wouldn’t survive the ordeal.

To say I’d never experienced anything like the opera would be an understatement — my parents had taken the family to a few musicals when I was younger, but that’s not the same thing. For one thing, this crowd was better dressed and better behaved. In fact, the audience was so somber and respectful that the standing ovation at the end actually caught me by surprise. I laid aside the opera glasses Luke had given me and stood, clapping until my palms tingled.

After that we had to deal with all the confusion of navigating the crowded halls of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion amid the mass exodus to the parking structure. Luke took my hand and steered me through the throngs without incident. It wasn’t until we were in the warm, leather-scented confines of the Bentley that he spoke.

“So you enjoyed it.”

“Very much.” I leaned back against the headrest, not caring what I might be doing to my hairstyle. It had served its purpose. “I didn’t know it could be so — so — ”

“So what?”

I turned a few words over in my head, then answered, “Thrilling. Exhausting. Uplifting.”

“I’m glad.” The car moved forward in little fits and starts; it was probably going to take awhile for us to climb our way out of the garage. “I’ve followed opera for quite some time now.”

Of course you have
, I thought.
You’ve been there since the beginning, haven’t you?

That made me think of all the different voices he must have heard over the years, all the different venues where he’d seen these works performed. The Pavilion was lovely, elegant and spare in a late-’60s sort of way, with its blond wood and modern chandeliers, but I wondered what it would be like to see an opera performed in an old theater in Paris, or Milan, or even New York.

Finally we inched our way out of the parking structure. To my surprise, though, Luke didn’t turn the car south back toward Wilshire. Instead, he headed north on the Hollywood Freeway.

I turned in my seat to look at him. “Is there some after-party going on that you forgot to mention?”

He kept his gaze straight ahead. “I thought we could go back to my place for a drink.”

Normally that comment would have sent up all sorts of warning flags. You know, the “he’s going to take you back to his house and have his wicked way with you” warning flags. But I thought about it for a minute and realized I didn’t care. At this point I had the thought that it might be a race to see which one of us could rip the other person’s clothing off more quickly. He’d probably win — I was wearing a lot less than he was.

“That sounds good,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear the edge of nervous anticipation in my voice.

Without comment, he got off the freeway at Vermont, then headed south to Beverly Boulevard. Fairly soon we were back in the high-rent district near the country club where his home was located. He turned down a side street, then another. Within another minute or so, the wrought-iron gates that shielded his driveway swung inward, and we came to a stop under the porte-cochere.

I waited while Luke came around to open the door for me and tried to ignore the butterflies in my stomach. Just because he had invited me back here didn’t necessarily mean he intended for the two of us to go to bed together.

Yeah, right
, I thought.
And the NSA isn’t reading all my emails.

However, I thought I maintained my cool pretty well, except for the part where the stiletto heel of my sandal caught in the mat at the side door. I would have pitched over on my face if Luke hadn’t caught me by the elbow.

“Maybe a drink isn’t such a good idea,” he said with a laugh.

“Very funny,” I retorted. “You try walking in three-inch spikes and see how well you do.”

“I think I’ll pass on that one,” he replied, relinquishing my elbow and pushing the door inward.

The side entrance opened into a short hallway that branched out to the kitchen on one side and then continued into the main part of the house directly in front of us.

“Go ahead to the living room,” Luke said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

I nodded and kept moving forward, hoping that I was recalling the layout of the place correctly. Soft light from a series of wall sconces illuminated my way, and without too much trouble I found the center hall and the living room beyond it. A low fire burned in the enormous hearth. The real thing, too, not one of those bogus contraptions of ceramic-composite logs and gas flames. No doubt he’d willed the fire into existence as we entered the house, along with the series of pillar candles that flickered from both the mantel and the low, heavy table that fronted the sofa. The air was warm and smelled faintly of sandalwood and spice.

Great setting for a seduction
, I thought, and kicked off my uncomfortable shoes. Again I felt that uneasy thrill in the pit of my stomach. Even putting aside the fact that he was the Devil, Luke and I had known each other for less than two weeks. All right, if we were counting time elapsed in actual evenings together rather than calendar days, then I’d probably spent more time with him than I had with some of my previous lovers before I ended up in bed with them. But still....

I shook my head at myself. “Previous lovers,” my ass. There was Alex Akullian, whom I’d lost my virginity to during the summer between high school and college, mostly because I refused to start college still a virgin. A big gap between Alex and Brad, the love of my sophomore year. Another exciting dry spell that lasted until well after I had graduated and which was finally broken by a five-month relationship with Scott Tanaka. That one had actually been going fairly well — until his company transferred him to London. End of story. Then finally the wonderful Danny, although I wasn’t sure I could really count him since we’d never actually made love.

All in all, it was a pretty pathetic roster for a single girl living in a city as supposedly happening as Los Angeles, but unlike Nina, I couldn’t jump into bed with someone just because I thought he had a nice ass. With the others, I’d truly believed I loved them…with the possible exception of Alex Akullian. No excuses for that one — you do some stupid stuff when you’re just eighteen.

So did this mean I loved Luke? Oh, I was completely infatuated by him, and pretty seriously in lust if my physical reactions to his mere presence were any indication, but it’s still a big leap from that to love. Especially when I had to consider that he wasn’t even truly a man. I’d always needed to believe there was some sort of future in every relationship I pursued, but what possible future could I have with someone like Luke?

At that inopportune moment he returned, carrying a bottle in one hand and a pair of small crystal cordial glasses in the other. My face must have given something away, since he gave me a piercing look before setting the bottle and glasses down on the cocktail table.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said automatically. Although I found him very easy to talk to most of the time, the subject of where we were headed seemed fraught with problems. I just didn’t want to go there yet.

One eyebrow lifted as he gave me the lie, but he remained silent as he pulled the cork from the squat bottle and poured some dark garnet-colored liquid into each of the glasses. “Here,” he said.

I took the fragile little glass from him and asked, “What is it?”

“Port. I think you’ll like it.”

Up until that point, I’d only come across references to port in the historical romances I indulged in every once in a while when I wanted to entertain myself without fully engaging my brain. Port had always sounded like a fussy Victorian drink to me, out of place in a world of martinis and mojitos. But what the hell.

Lifting the glass to my lips, I took a very small sip. The liquor was sweet and rich, tasting of deep, dark grapes with a raisin-y undertone. I could feel the warmth pulse its way down my throat, gentler than the kick you got from brandy or cognac. Damn — if only I’d known what I’d been missing all these years.

Ignoring the knowing smile on Luke’s mouth, I drank again. “You
are
the corrupter of the innocent, aren’t you?” I asked at length.

“I prefer to think of it as ‘broadening horizons,’” he answered.

“Rationalization,” I shot back, but I had to admit that he had a point. At any rate, just looking at the curve of his mouth and the strength of those shoulders under the proper evening jacket made me hope that my horizons were going to get broadened very soon.

Almost as if my thoughts were a trigger, Luke drained the rest of the port in his glass and then set it down on the table. I did the same, recklessly tossing back the contents of the little glass even though I knew the stuff had to be much higher-octane than regular wine.

He pulled me into his arms then, his mouth finding mine. I tasted port, smelled again the faint spicy scent that seemed to permeate his hair and skin. His hands moved over my bare shoulders, and the flare of desire I felt as his skin touched mine exploded through me like a match setting off gasoline.

We kissed until I was gasping for air, and even then his lips moved against my throat, finding just the right sensitive spot behind my ear. My fingers reached up, fumbling with the unfamiliar knots of the bow tie at his neck. Then it was loose, and I flung it down on the couch, shakily moving on to pull at the studs down the front of his shirt. A series of metallic little pings sounded as they hit the wooden floor.