vagabonddaniel-recordedarchives:

Cool fingers brush my hand as he gives me the book. The touch is feather light and possibly unintentional but it sends a current through me. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I swallow and look away from the vampire, glancing down at the ratty paperback.

It’s Catch-22. He picked it up from a park bench and read it in minutes. Now he wants me to read it so we can discuss the cynicism of modern man and modern warfare, and how it compares to the wars he’s witnessed, as if Armand has ever really seen war. Neither of us has ever stood on a battlefield, at least not according to what he’s told me. It’s strange how the longer I run from
him, the closer we seem to get. He’s on the bar stool next to me but his leg
keeps touching mine. I keep pretending not to notice. 

His amber eyes watch me, waiting. He wants me to read it
now, as if I too could simply flip through it and absorb its contents. But I’m
only a mortal man. As it happens, I have read it, but it was years ago, when I
was thirteen, and I don’t remember it all that well.  

His collar is crooked so I set the book on the bar, take a
swig of my whiskey to steady my nerves, and then… I reach over. I adjust his
collar, but my fingers linger on his ivory skin, brush his collarbone. It’s an
intimate gesture. And the exact second we both realize how close our bodies are, it’s
like we become magnetized and break apart. He gets up. “I have things to attend
to,” he says, throwing cash on the bar. It’s a hundred dollar bill. I’ve had
two drinks. Money is nothing to him. I don’t argue. He leans over my shoulder,
his rich voice in my ear. “You should try harder to escape me, Daniel. I’m
getting bored.”

My heart hammers. I should be terrified.
But all I feel is another current of electricity racing through me at the way
my name sounded on his lips.