But those passed. Everyone knew something had changed with her. There was no question in their minds about that. They just didn’t know what it was. There were so many questions, but none of them swirled over to him, and somehow that just made the hunger stronger.
He didn’t know if it was because he was going undetected and could continue his easy walk through his day-to-day life, or if it was because he was enjoying watching the reaction and wondering if it would change if he did it again.
Would another dip down that well alter what people were thinking? Will it build up on him until it became so obvious no one would look past him anymore?
It was only weeks later he found himself moving down that spiral again.
As it had before, it started with a look.
This time, it wasn’t in sunlight.
A chill wind whipped up, sending red and gold leaves across the dark expanse of the sky. The air carried the smell of a distant bonfire. He breathed in the particles of ash and firelight, imagining them settling into an ember in the base of his belly.
Then she turned the corner in front of him. Just like that, the ember glowed.
Hers was a new face. He couldn’t remember ever having seen it. The cold bite of the wind brought a tinge of red to her cheeks. A scarf around her neck, caught up in the whip of the air. She reached for it, but the fabric slipped from her fingers and she rushed after it.
He stepped from the sidewalk into the road to catch the scarf. Just touching it made his skin tingle. He could feel her in it. Her warmth and its promise. She smiled at him as she jogged to where he stood and stopped just steps away. Her eyelashes fluttered as she accepted the scarf from him and looped it around her graceful neck.
Maybe his thoughts should have been somewhere else. Maybe another face should have come into his mind. But it didn’t. It was only her.
Later when he wrapped the scarf around her neck again, letting his fingertips trace down the soft skin on either side and along the slope of her collar bones, that face flickered across his thoughts. But only for a moment. He didn’t want to waste any of what he had right in front of him.
The fringe at the ends of her scarf lay against the bare skin of her chest, pooling between her breasts and drizzling down her belly like rain. The chill of the night was in her skin. It had little chance to warm. Not with the night raging on.
She wasn’t going back out into the wind that night. He left her with a touch of his fingertips to her lips and a blanket tucked close over her. He walked out into the starlight and lifted his collar, covering the scarf knotted tight to shield his skin.
Thirteen years ago …
“Thank you for joining us, Miss Meyer.”
She sighed as she moved toward her seat at the back of the room. She thought she could sneak in without being noticed. It was why she chose that seat at the beginning of the semester. Perched at the towering top of the lecture hall, it was like a nose-bleed seat in a sports stadium. Far from the action on the floor below.
Only, the people sitting on those seats usually wanted to be closer to the game. They wanted to see the players better than as the multi-colored flecks vaguely visible from the distance. She didn’t want to be any closer to her professor. She wanted to be close to the door at the very back of the classroom.
If she stayed close to the door, that meant she could slip out more easily if she needed to. She hoped it would let her ease into the room after class already started without being noticed. There were three hundred other students in the class. Some sitting within just a couple of feet of the professor.
And yet, she noticed her.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” she said.
“For being late, or for disrupting my class?” Professor Murillo asked.
The prickling heat of embarrassment flooded Julia’s cheeks and crept up her neck. She was thankful for the low lights that made it easier to see the projection screen. At least they kept the six hundred eyes staring at her from witnessing the flush and seeing the discomfort.
There was no way to answer the professor’s searing question. At least she could have had the decency to sound angry. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there was the same acidity or judgment in her voice that was in the expression in her eyes every time Julia saw her outside the lecture hall.
Instead, she maintained a steady, almost unaffected tone. It was as if she couldn’t even be bothered to be angry. As if Julia should just be ashamed. It took every bit of the negativity or blame from the confrontation away from Professor Murillo and kept it lodged firmly in Julia’s throat.
She didn’t bother to try to come up with anything to say. Walking to her seat, she took off her coat and draped it over the back of the seat, sat down, and took out her notebook. Everybody was still staring at her. She could feel it all around her, but she fought looking at anybody. The tension built up more and more the longer she sat there, her eyes fixed defiantly on the front of the classroom, refusing to acknowledge anyone else in the room.
She pretended she was alone. There wasn’t anyone else in the room with her, and she didn’t have to think about what anyone else was thinking.
It wasn’t so unusual for her. There were plenty of moments in her daily life when she tried to melt away everything around her and pretend it didn’t exist. It was
