Beautiful Creature

I’d been waiting for an hour, nursing a cognac. The dim bar had no patrons – only the bartender and I just as he'd requested. The man known only as Luca, claiming to be a vampire, was late. It was my big chance in an otherwise lame career to interview a so-called creature of darkness, but right now, I was irritated. Weren’t vampires punctual?

Suddenly, the hairs on the nape of my neck rose. I turned and watched a tall, lean, and darkly suited man enter the bar, his swagger (the only word that came to mind) reminiscent of a Hollywood actor from the Golden Age.

He didn’t look at me until after he’d settled on the barstool beside mine, but at that point, I became the focus of his penetrating and hypnotic gaze. An onslaught of emotions filled me. His ice, blue eyes pulled at something in the very pit of my stomach. He didn’t blink, didn’t move, and I knew he could see straight to my soul. I felt naked and exposed, every secret divulged. I had to remember to breathe. Seated so close to me, I could see the delicacy of his skin, white as milk, yet richly opaque – his dark lashes and the blue of his eyes in stark contrast to it. His lips were full, strong, and wore no trace of a smile. The man exuded a wealth of confidence and was strangely, uniquely beautiful.

Mesmerized, I heard the loud crescendo of my own heartbeat. As if he heard it, too, his gaze dropped, focusng on my neck. At least I’d worn a turtleneck that afforded some small measure of…. protection? I desperately hoped so.

With purpose, he leaned so close I could feel his breath. “Lavender,” his voice broke the silence, reverberating and hanging in the air.

Shaken from my momentary trance, I managed, “Excuse me?”

A faint smile crossed his lips. “Your skin. It smells of lavender.”

Confusion surfaced. A multitude of questions swept through my mind like particles of sand in a windstorm. Did he just say my skin smelled like lavender? How could he know? I had bathed the previous evening in lavender bathwater, but tonight I wore no such scented oil or perfume. My thoughts drifted to the rosemary and mint shampoo I’d also used……

Before I could complete the thought, and as if he’d read my mind, he reached out his hand to touch a wisp of a curl against my neck. I shivered. Was it fear or excitement coursing through my body at his touch?

He continued, his words deliberate. “But here, right here, there is the slightest hint of rosemary and mint.” I could tell he knew the effect the timbre of his voice and the words he spoke had. I was unable to form a coherent thought beyond wondering if this man was truly a creature of the night. Had I entered a world of no return? Intrigued, I wanted to know more. Much more.