After the waiter left, they fell into an easy conversation about their completely different lives. Aiden regaled her with stories about how he and his siblings would all torture each other, the Stooges, and their parents. She told him about knocking out Ray Jessup and the couple of foster homes she’d actually liked, but she’d still acted horribly in them until they sent her back.

“Looking back, I think I was scared I’d become attached to the people and get hurt by them,” she said as she cut up her bloody steak. Aiden sliced the meat in front of him too, but whereas she dug eagerly in, he picked at his and spent more time pushing it around his plate. “Sure, I wanted to get back to A.J. too, but now I realize there was more to it. I never would have admitted it to anyone else or even myself then. It totally would have ruined my wicked badass reputation.”

“Totally,” Aiden agreed, and she laughed.

“What about you? What did you do after high school? Did you go to college?”

“I did, for a few semesters, but I left soon after.”

“How come?”

“It wasn’t for me.” He couldn’t tell her that even before he stopped aging, the urges he started having didn’t fit in well with the human world.

“Didn’t know what you wanted to be when you grew up?”

“I wanted to get into sports medicine or become a coach, something along those lines. I enjoyed sports, even if I had to keep myself in check around humans when I played and couldn’t go to a school where they did drug testing for athletes.”

“Take a lot of drugs, did you?” she asked, her hands freezing on her utensils.

“No drugs. Like alcohol, it would take a lot to affect me, and I don’t like being out of control.” For him, such a thing could prove lethal to anyone near him. “But my blood isn't exactly human DNA compatible, and trying to keep up a front and change memories all the time wasn’t worth it.”

“Oh, yeah.” Maggie wiped her mouth and placed the napkin on her plate. “They took a lot of my blood when I was a kid, and they never found anything unusual.”

“Your human side must be stronger in that aspect,” he replied.

“Interesting.”

The waiter returned to remove their plates. “Would you like dessert?”

“No, thank you,” Maggie replied, and Aiden shook his head. From somewhere out back, music started playing. “What’s that?”

“The hotel also has a club; the doors open at eight,” the waiter replied.

“Oh.”

“Would you like to check it out?” Aiden asked when the waiter left again.

“I’ve never been one for clubbing or that kind of music.”

“And what kind of music are you into, Maggie May?” Aiden asked.

“I’m a straight-up alternative, hard rock kind of girl,” she said with a smile. “I like my music angry.”

“I see.”

She wasn’t sure if it was the atmosphere, her increased energy from dinner, the whiskey, or Aiden, but she felt almost flirtatious as she leaned across the table toward him. “I’ll tell you a secret.”

His eyebrow lifted as he sat forward. This close, she could see the emerald and forest flecks of green in his amazing eyes. A five o’clock shadow lined his jaw, and the clove scent of him enveloped her.

“And I’ll keep it,” he replied.

“Sometimes, when no one else is around, I secretly listen to eighties music. And I don’t mean like Megadeath or Slayer; I mean Tiffany and The Bangles.”

“That’s not what I’d typically consider angry music.” Aiden held himself back from clasping her face and lifting her lips to his as her eyes twinkled with irresistible amusement.

“It’s not,” she agreed, her voice breathier as her eyes dipped to his mouth. “Especially not Cyndi Lauper.”

“That’s about as far from angry as you can get.”

“What can I say? Girls really do just want to have fun,” she told him with a wink and sat back when the waiter arrived with their check.

Maggie felt more alive than she had in years as she watched Aiden pull out his wallet and place some cash on the table. She’d never been a boy-crazy teen, but she suddenly felt young and carefree in a way she’d never experienced before.

When Aiden held his hand out to her, she knew she shouldn’t take it, but she did. He helped her out of the booth and drew her closer when she rose beside him. Her skin came alive until she felt their contact over all her nerve endings.

“Is there something you’d like to do now?” Aiden asked. He ran his hands over Maggie’s arm when she tilted her head to look up at him.

A smile played across her lips. “The beach.”

“The beach it is then.”

Maggie resisted laying her head on his chest as he walked with her across the restaurant. She glared at a couple of women eyeing Aiden with a look that made it clear they’d happily shove her out of the way to pounce on him. One of them smiled smugly back at her and fluffed her blonde hair. Aiden didn’t look at them as he pushed open one of the glass doors in the lobby of the hotel and held it open for her.

The March air caused goose bumps to break out on her arms, but the briny scent of the ocean drew her across the street and toward the beach. Aiden helped her over a guardrail and down a hill toward the ocean below. The wind whipped her hair away from her; she licked the salt from her lips as the air froze her cheeks and her breaths plumed before her.

The dim light from the hotel illuminated some of the shadows, but the beach was more in the dark than out of it. With the stars twinkling against the black night and the sliver of moon hanging low over the bare trees, she could almost pretend everything was normal and she was simply on a date with a man she liked. When they reached the shoreline, she closed her eyes as she listened to the ebb and flow of the waves rolling onto the shore.

Aiden stopped at the edge of the water with Maggie’s arm locked securely in his. The awe on her face captivated him. Then she tugged her arm free of his, bent, pulled off her sneakers, and set them down. She removed her socks next and stuffed them into her shoes before digging her toes in the sand.

The wet sand froze her feet, but she burrowed her toes in deeper as the icy water swirled around her ankles and between her toes. Removing her arm from his, she picked up a pink shell, twisted it in her fingers, then slipped it into her pocket and bent to pick up a rock. Pulling her arm back, she skipped the rock across the surface of the sea.

Aiden couldn’t recall the last time he’d found joy in anything, but his heart swelled as he absorbed her delight. He was tempted to draw her close, to kiss her again, but he couldn’t interrupt this for her. She walked closer to the ocean then laughed and danced back when the cresting waves chased after her.

“It’s cold,” she said when he approached. She bent to roll the bottom of her jeans up and snugged them into place above her knees.

“So that means you’re going further in?” he asked.

“Of course, Nosferatu. Don’t go getting all broody on me tonight. Relax and have some fun. Tomorrow we can go back to worrying about being jumped by a bunch of Savages, my mother’s insanity, and world peace, but tonight….” She sighed and gazed at the crescent moon reflected on the surface of the vast sea.

“We think we’re so big, so important, but we’re this infinitesimal speck in the grand scheme of things,” she said as she glanced at him. “Tonight, I want to be that speck.”

Maggie didn’t look back at Aiden as she walked into the water. Icy waves crept up her legs, but she continued until she stood midway up her calves in the ocean. When the waves rolled in, they brushed against her knees, dampened the bottoms of her jeans, and occasionally grazed her fingers. The flow of her blood seemed to match the rhythm of the waves.

She didn’t hear Aiden approaching, but his arm warmed hers when he stopped beside her. She looked up at him, and her breath caught at the expression on his face. She’d never seen such raw hunger from another before, and it was focused on her.

Is it my blood he hungers?

A strand of her auburn hair blew forward, and Aiden clasped it in his hand. The moonlight brought out the deeper shades of red in it as he slid his fingers over the silken lock. Her mouth parted while she watched him.

Ignoring the chill of the waves, he stepped closer until they stood chest to chest. She nibbled her bottom lip as he wrapped her hair around his wrist and cinched it in his fist. Gently tugging her head further back, he bent until her breath whispered over his mouth.

For years, he’d craved pain, blood, sex, and death; now all he craved was her. Keeping her hair in his grasp, he slid his hand up until he cradled the back of her head. Her hands fell on his chest; he waited for her to push him away. When she didn’t, he stopped denying himself and claimed her mouth.

Maggie’s knees almost gave out when his tongue caressed her lips before she parted them and he entered her mouth. She felt drugged by the heady sensation as he kissed her like he was making love to her. Her fingers curled into his shirt; the muscle of his chest felt carved from stone as she pulled him closer.

Everything about him was hard, yet when he tugged her hair further back to deepen his kiss, his touch was tender. Maggie gasped when he slipped his other arm around her waist and, lifting her onto her toes, drew her hips flush against his. When the evidence of his arousal pressed against her, she flattened her hands on his chest to push him away.

This was all going far faster than what she was used to, but when his hand stroked her side, her hips thrust forward and she ground against his erection. All thoughts of shoving him away vanished. She melted against him as his tongue and hands wove a spell around her that had everything in her begging for more of him.

Then, something slimy brushed against her calf before wrapping around it like an octopus embracing its prey. With a squeak, Maggie jerked back and his arm slid away from her waist. Her eyes flew to the sea, she half expected to see a tentacle clinging to her as whatever it was tickled her leg again. Then, she started to laugh.

“Seaweed,” she said between chuckles.

Aiden’s hand remained enclosed on her hair; his eyes burned in the night. A flash of trepidation shot through her when red shimmered through his gaze. He’d never touched her in anger, but she’d seen what he could do to others, and there was something wild about him right now.

When she took a step back, his grip on her hair eased. “Aiden?”

Aiden fought to keep himself from pulling her against him once more. He needed to run his hands over her bare flesh and taste her again, but he’d seen the apprehension in her eyes before she stepped further away from him, and he’d heard the tremor in her voice. His hand tightened on her hair before he released her.

Maggie backed away from him before turning and making her way to the shore. Eager to get away, she was heedless of the water splashing around her legs. “I’m cold,” she tossed over her shoulder as an excuse to put some distance between them.

When she glanced back, Aiden remained in the water with his head turned toward her. The ravenous gleam in his eyes sent her primitive instincts into flight mode. She’d never seen a look like that on anyone before. Then, his expression cleared, and he smiled at her.

“It is cold,” he said as he walked from the sea to join her.