Page 20 of Iris
“This is the best place to get breadsticks. The owner is a longtime friend of mine, but he’s off tonight, if I remember correctly.” He pulls a hair tie from his briefcase he’s brought in and pulls his hair back. Damn. He looks good.
“Hi! Welcome to Rosati’s! I’m Mary, I’ll be your server!” A young girl, probably still in high school, hands us menus. “Can I start you with an appetizer? Drinks?”
Dorian offers her a polite smile. “Water for me. A basket of breadsticks with the garlic sauce.” He looks at me.
“Breadsticks sound amazing. I’d like to try the hot tea, please?”
“Sure thing!” Mary smiles. “I’ll be back soon!”
I watch her go before shaking my head. “She sure has a lot of energy. If only we could all be young like that again.” I notice Dorian has placed his right hand on the table. Feeling brave, I place my left hand over his. His smile grows as he turns his hand so he can hold my wrist, making me do the same thing with his.
“So,” I suddenly feel very glad it's darker in here, “business first.”
Dorian chuckles so softly that it dances down my back. “Yes. Business.” His thumb, even though he has gloves on, is cool as he traces a circle on my inner wrist.
“If you can get the mayor to sign off on the red banana tree, I’ll get started right away.” I push the notebook toward him where it's open on some of the basic sketches. “I wanted to use a combination of honeysuckles and sky flowers for the vines that cover the walls and up to the ceiling. The sky flowers are light purple colored with a yellow stem. Honeysuckle can come in a variety of colors, including coral. So we’ll get the color pop you want with the help of them. Both can be grown for a tropical climate.”
Mary stops by with our drinks. She places a large basket of fresh smelling breadsticks with a small bowl of dipping sauce. My mouth waters instantly.
Dorian, keeping our hands linked, grabs a breadstick, dipping it in the garlic sauce and takes a bite. He sighs happily before dipping it again and holding it up for me. His eyes are wicked, daring me to comment.
So that’s how it's going to be. Two can play at this game. I let him feed me the bite, slowly licking my lips, exaggerating it. I offer a tiny moan, not that it takes much. “This is so good.”
Dorian’s fingers tighten on my wrist momentarily. “Damn, Iris. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to wait until tomorrow night.”
I lick my thumb after I’ve used it to get the stray sauce on the corner of my mouth. “Okay, I’m sorry.” Not really. He can tell since I'm laughing. Before I can say something else, Mary comes back asking if we are ready to order. I haven’t even looked at the menu.
Dorian doesn’t bat an eyelash. “Can we have two of the lunch specials with the sauce on the side?”
“You got it!” Mary takes our menus like she is a little puppy with her tail going at full speed. She practically runs back to the kitchen.
“She’s adorable.” I shake my head. “What did you order us?”
Dorian grins and shrugs. “I have no idea. I was a little too distracted to even look.”
We stare at each other for several moments before laughing together. It takes a few minutes to stop before I can speak.
“Okay,” taking a sip of my tea, “as long as you approve the vines for the walls and ceiling, I’ll get started tonight on growing the flowers.”
“The sketches are fine. I’ll leave the artistic side to you.” Dorian pulls out his tablet, typing something in quickly, and places it back into his case. “You’re officially hired.” He holds up his glass of water in salute. “Now, why don’t we talk about pleasure?”
“Oh no.” I point my finger at him. “I want to talk about you; get to know you and vice versa.”
His lips twitches in mirth. “Alright, what do you want to know?” His thumb continues to draw circles on my inner wrist.
“Why don’t you have fangs? How do you take blood when touching someone?”
Dorian shakes his head. “Damn, you go right to the sensitive questions.” His fingers squeeze my wrist gently. “It’s not that great of a story. I wasn’t created in the normal sense or birthed as a vampire.” He looks away into the restaurant. “My sire turned me with a bite, but instead of teaching me like any normal sire would, he locked me up in a basement for years. Tore out my fangs, and ran tests and experiments on me.”
His hand has stopped moving under mine. I squeeze him tightly. Not having a filter has backfired tremendously.
Seriously? I really need to learn to think before asking such personal questions. I’m not Igor. Dorian continues talking, bringing my attention back to him.
“He finally achieved his goal when I reached my sixth vampire year. He injected me with something that changed my basic biology. Instead of needing my fangs, I could just touch someone and blood would drain from them unseen while I fed. The side effect was that I couldn’t touch someone without drawing blood and giving an orgasm to them. My sire deemed me a failure since he couldn’t replicate what he’d done with me in himself.”
Dorian looks back at me. His eyes are haunted. “I ran the first chance I got. As far as I could and ended up here. I learned that as long as I’m covered, I can’t unintentionally feed from someone unaware.” He pulls his hand away from mine, my heart skipping, but he reaches out to cup my cheek in his palm. His eyes have cleared as we gaze at each other. “That’s why I don’t have fangs.”
My mouth has dried. It feels like I have cotton balls stuffed all the way down my throat. Talk about a rough start to the vampire life.
