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Seth Gecko was used to female attention.
From the time he was old enough to realize that a little charm and a wicked grin could convince most girls to do just about anything he wanted, he’d had few qualms about using what he had to get what he wanted. Help with an assignment? Sure. A partner in crime to make out with behind the bleachers during math class? No problem. A signed hall pass to get out of trouble for skipping said class? Easy. A little harmless flirting with the school secretary made that happen in a jiffy.
It was every man for himself out there, after all.
So the fact that there were women staring at him was not such a big deal, but the way they were staring at him was a little unsettling, giving him an itch between the shoulder blades that generally he only felt when someone was out to get him or a plan was about to go sideways in a big way. As nearly every woman in the small cafe had their eyes on him, he was beginning to feel a little bit like a tiny, innocent bunny surrounded by a herd of large, sharp-toothed predators.
Not that he could ever be described as “tiny” or “innocent,” and not that he’d ever say something like that out loud.
Instead, he turned to Kate, the only female in the room who didn’t appear to be on the verge of pouncing on him. “Am I crazy, or is every woman in here about two seconds from jumping me?”
His partner looked up from where she’d been going over her Bible-slash-culebra-journal for the millionth time and frowned at him. “Yeah, that’s a real new development,” she said drily. “Must be a day ending in—“
She was forced into stunned silence — her jaw literally dropping open in shock — as Mariana, the no-nonsense 40-something waitress they’d known for a couple weeks, all but draped herself over Seth’s shoulder while refilling his coffee, her uniform unbuttoned so far that her breasts came perilously close to falling right out in his face.
“Anything else I can get for you, señor?” she asked huskily. “Some dessert, perhaps?”
“Uh, j-just the check, por favor,” he managed, making a valiant effort to avoid looking at her cleavage.
Instead of moving away, Mariana leaned even closer and spoke in a steady stream of Spanish.
Kate started making choking noises across the table from him.
Despite spending months in Mexico, Seth’s Spanish was limited to a few key phrases, like mas cerveza, por favor, and asking for directions to the bathroom.
He generally depended on Kate, who seemed to be picking up the language very well, for translation. Judging by her wide eyes and raging blush, he was guessing their waitress was elaborating on exactly what kind of dessert she was offering, and it wasn’t cake and ice cream.
Shoving his chair back, Seth dug in his pocket and tossed a few bills on the table. “Kate,” he said sharply, drawing her attention away from the waitress and nodding at the door. He gave her a moment to gather her things before tugging her toward the exit. Several of the women in the cafe stood, but none of them were making a move to follow. At least not yet. They were almost free and clear when Seth felt someone grab his ass and, yelping, he stumbled into Kate.
“What the f—“ He turned to see a girl who couldn’t have been more than 15 looking him up and down and actually leering at him. Frowning, he all but shoved Kate out the door ahead of him.
“Hey!” she griped, pulling her arm away. “Seth, what the hell?”
“That kid in there just groped me.”
Kate looked confused, peering around him at the door as he tried to urge her down the cramped street. Whatever she saw there made her giggle, and he was torn between annoyance that she wasn't taking this situation seriously and relief, because he’d missed hearing her laugh.
Since he’d nearly fucked everything up by leaving her on the side of the road a few months back, things had been different between them. They’d both spent weeks being uncharacteristically careful and polite all the damn time, like each was afraid the other would take off at the slightest offense. Only now were they starting to get back to normal — or whatever passed for normal in their messed up life.
He still couldn’t help but worry that she’d come to her senses at any moment and realize she should never have agreed to stay with him. He knew it was pure luck that he’d been around when she’d come back to the motel that day to get her things and, when he’d asked her to stay — okay maybe begged was more accurate, but he blamed that entirely on the drugs — she’d agreed.
She’d also agreed to help him when he’d decided to get clean. It was the single most tortuous experience of his life, and that was saying something, but no matter how horrible he had been when he was in the throes of withdrawal, she’d stayed. Kate had stayed, and she’d taken care of him.
Despite his doubts, once he was past the worst of it, he’d thrown himself into helping her on her quest to find some kind of cure for her brother. And his.
The longer they searched, the more certain Seth became that there wasn’t a cure at all. And, if he was honest, he wasn’t even sure that Richie would want a cure if they found it. He couldn’t say with certainty that his brother would choose him or his humanity over the snake bitch, and that rankled. He wondered if Kate had similar fears about Scott, but that was a subject they both still avoided.
The fruitless search, along with all the strain on their relationship, had taken its toll on both of them.
“It’s not funny,” he said, feeling more paranoid with every step. Almost every woman on the damn street was staring at him, and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling at all. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”
As he spoke, a woman old enough to be his grandma reached out and stroked his arm, sending him stumbling into Kate again.
Kate huffed and pushed him away, then edged closer, almost —
“Are you sniffing me?” he asked incredulously. He had to be honest, he wouldn’t really know how to handle it if Kate started throwing herself at him. Not that he hadn’t occasionally considered the idea — truthfully it was more than occasionally lately — but he sure as hell didn’t want it to be part of some mass hormonal insanity, or whatever weird shit was going on at the moment.
She blushed, punching him in the arm, a little harder than he thought was necessary. “I was just wondering if you had some new cologne or something. Some kind of weird pheromone thing, making all these women …” she trailed off at the sound of a wolf whistle, looking over his shoulder and then pushing him ahead of her. “And men, I guess, come after you?”
They stopped speaking then, moving faster as a crowd started to gather, trailing after them, muttering things he (thankfully) couldn’t understand. They were both running as they neared the motel, racing around the far side ahead of the crowd, ducking into their room, locking the door and hiding like the cops were after them.
Just like old times.
Breathing hard, they leaned against the door side-by-side and waited until the sounds of the crowd yelling and pounding on doors passed them by. Whatever was going on, he hoped like hell it was some kind of out-of-sight, out-of-mind situation.
A lot of weird shit had happened to him since Richie broke him out of prison, but this was definitely a contender for the strangest. And he had no idea what provoked it.
Kate, however, had a suspicion.
“You fucked the witch,” she said flatly.
“What?” Seth pushed away from the door, heading to the dresser where he’d assembled a makeshift bar and snagging a bottle at random. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I mean, that was obviously some kind of weird love spell or something,” she said. “You fucked her, right?”
They’d originally come to this tiny shithole of a town in the first place to see a woman rumored to be a witch who was offering protection against culebras — for a price, naturally. Kate had wanted to pick her brain, see if there was a way, if not to cure culebras, to at least help them control their bloodlust.
Her name was Carla, and she was about Seth’s age, very attractive, and very uninterested in helping with Kate’s pet project. She was, however, quite interested in getting to know Seth — in the biblical sense — and she made no secret of that fact.
Seth downed his drink. “First of all, stop saying ‘fuck,’ it’s not you. Second, I didn’t fuck anybody. She might’ve expressed an interest, but I turned her down. Politely, before you ask. Third, I don’t know what the hell’s going on around here, but there’s no such thing as witches and spells, so that ain’t it.”
“Oh.” Kate was still leaning against the door, and she bit her lower lip in thought. Seth dragged his eyes away from her mouth, looking down at his glass, which was much, much safer. “So maybe she cursed you because you flirted with her but wouldn’t fu— oh, sorry, make sweet love to her. Also, I’ll say fuck as much as I fucking want to, thank you very much. Also, we live in a world with culebras — where our brothers are culebras — but you think magic is too out there to be real?“
“I wasn’t flirting with her,” he argued, ignoring the rest. “I just … you needed her help, so I was trying to get her to cooperate.”
“So this is my fault?” Kate started pacing the room. God help him, he found it incredibly attractive when she got pissed off. Of course, these days there was very little Kate did that he didn’t find attractive. It was becoming kind of a problem. “I fail to see how it’s my fault you can’t keep it in your pants.”
Setting his drink on the dresser, he grabbed her arm, turning her toward him. “I told you, I didn’t touch her,” he said quietly, looking her right in the eyes. It was strangely important to him that she believed that. Not that they were … together, or anything like that, but he just wanted her to know.
Shaking his hand off her arm, she shrugged. “I’m going to go talk to Carla,” she said. “Get this sorted out.”
“Alone? I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
Kate laughed, and again, he couldn’t help but smile in response to the sound. She unzipped her bag. “I’m bringing a friend,” she said, briefly showing him her gun before stowing it away. “Besides, if you go out there, they’ll tear you apart. Sucks to be Nowheresville, Mexico’s Sexiest Man Alive, I guess.”
“Funny,” he said flatly, waiting until she was gone before pouring another drink. He wasn’t sure there was enough alcohol in Mexico to get him through this shit.
Kate was gone for two hours and ten minutes, and Seth was about to go stir crazy by the time she got back, weighing the wisdom of going out to look for her in spite of his crowd of admirers.
She ushered an older man into the room in front of her and shut the door. Tossing her bag into a chair, she waved a hand at Seth.
“Seth, this is Benjamin, Carla’s father. I spent a while looking for her, but she’s nowhere to be found. When I ran into Benjamin, he asked to see you, to explain.”
“Hey.” Seth awkwardly offered his hand, and the other man shook it, looking him over.
Clearing his throat, Benjamin began to speak in Spanish. Kate translated, only occasionally stumbling over a word or two. The man apologized for his daughter, said that she had set her sights on Seth for some reason — at this, Kate rolled her eyes, emphasizing the “some” so that he knew she was blaming him for it — and had attempted a spell to win his affection. Such spells are tricky, the man said, and clearly it hadn’t gone as planned.
Fortunately, Benjamin explained, the human heart is impossible to control, and spells of this nature never last long. The longer the day wore on, the weaker it would become. By midnight, the effect would wear off entirely. If Seth just stayed out of sight for the rest of the day, all would return to normal tomorrow. Benjamin admitted he’d sent his daughter away when he’d learned what she’d done, and he promised she would leave Seth alone in the future. He did suggest that it might be best if the two of them moved on to another town, just in case.
“That’s great news,” Kate said, turning and thanking Benjamin in Spanish.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s a relief,” Seth said. Believing in magic spells was still kind of a stretch, but it wasn’t like he had a better explanation. Kate had a point, that if bloodsucking snakes were a thing, a lot of other crazy shit was probably possible. It did leave him wondering, though. “But I’ve got a question. Ask him, why not you?”
“Why not me?” Kate asked. “Well, obviously, she wasn’t into me. I guess I’m not her type.”
“No, I mean why aren’t you throwing yourself at me right now?” Seth gestured at the man, who was looking back and forth between them. Seth suspected he understood at least some of what they were saying, though he didn’t try to answer.
“I think we can both be glad that’s not happening,” she said.
“Agreed, but I want to know why. It’s weird, right?” he said. “Ask him.”
Kate bit her lip and looked at Benjamin, who began speaking to her in Spanish. Seth couldn’t hope to follow what they were saying, but watching the blush rise on Kate’s cheeks, he really couldn’t wait to hear the translation.
Kate thanked the man again, and then hustled him out of the room before Seth could argue. Following her closely, he shut the door behind Benjamin but left his hand flat against it, leaning into Kate, almost touching her back. “So?” he asked, in her ear. “What’d he say?”
“He said,” Kate said, voice faltering a little as she turned to face him. With a grin, he let her push him out of the way and stalk past him into the room. “He said I must be immune to your charm.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I call bullshit,” he said, invading her space a little bit, poking gently at her cheek. He knew he was being an asshole, but he couldn’t help himself. “Immunity to my charm wouldn’t make you blush like that, princess. What’d gramps say?”
Kate sighed, tilting her head and looking him dead in the eyes. “You really wanna know?” she asked.
Seth felt his heart beat faster, sensing they were on the cusp of … something. And he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to continue this or not. Sometimes it felt like their entire relationship was so fragile, and the least little change could bring it crashing down on his head. She’d leave, for good this time, and then he’d be alone.
But he’d never been one to back down from a challenge.
“I do.”
Kate licked her lips, and he couldn’t help but follow the movement with his eyes. “Well then,” she said quietly, once he’d returned his eyes to hers. “Guess you better brush up on your Spanish.”
With that, she was across the room, scooping up her bag and opening the door. “I’ll bring back supper later. Don’t go anywhere, unless you want to start a riot.”
Seth blew out a breath as the door slammed, wandering over to the table and picking up Kate’s English-Spanish dictionary. Shaking his head, he laughed, tossing it back on the table.
What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.