Abra Cadaver by Christine DePetrillo

admit that kiss didn’t feel as if you were involved with someone.” He brushed his hand down her arm. “It felt as if you were—”
    “Starving.” Holly sighed. She was starving for some attention, some action, some hot, steamy sex.
    “I think we could have some fun together, but I’m okay with drinking coffee and eating cookies with you, too, despite Mona’s hopes that I’d carry you off into the sunset or something.”
    She mentally reviewed why she had stopped making out with him. Because she was stupid, that’s why. “Jeez, you’re like, perfect, Luke.”
    “Remember you said that.” He leaned over and dropped a light kiss on her cheek before taking the tray back into the kitchen.
    He offered to walk her back to her parents’ house, but she declined. She needed a couple moments to be alone. To knock some sense into herself. She’d refused what promised to be a night of amazing sex with a genuinely nice guy, because she was pining for…for what? For Keane? How totally impractical.
    And yet, totally what she wanted.

Chapter Seven
    People crowded around the pool tables in Raven’s Pub, and the sounds of laughter mixed with the smell of beer and peanuts. At least, that’s what Keane imagined the bar to smell like. In every corner, patrons enjoyed themselves. A group cheered one of their members on as he sank ball after ball into the pockets of a pool table and blew on the tip of his cue stick as if it were a pistol. A man and a woman slow danced near the old-fashioned jukebox, completely oblivious that the song was fast and upbeat. A gang of older gentlemen clad in leather jackets roared over the dirty jokes they swapped.
    Everywhere people were living life.
    Keane swiveled back to the beer he’d ordered and clamped a hand around the dewy, glass bottle. A vision of holding a goblet of mead back in the days when he was a normal human popped into his head. Back when he and Eliah would celebrate victory with their men. Nowadays, he had nothing to celebrate, no ability to relish the flavor of alcohol, and no one to share his Saturday night.
    Drumming his fingers on the beer bottle, he wondered what Holly was doing right now. Was she enjoying the company of her parents? Had she sunned herself on the sandy shore all day? Had the ocean caressed that stunning body he imagined she kept hidden under her clothes?
    Did she wear a bikini?
    Keane grumbled and wiggled the bottle on the bar. He should have gone to work tonight at the post office. He’d asked for the weekend off thinking with the house—Holly’s house—to himself, he could relax a bit after demon hunting, but the quiet had chased him out. Would he ever enjoy a moment of peace in the eternity he faced?
    Turning back to the crowd again, he caught sight of a woman in a tight red dress walking his way. Her chin-length, blond curls captured the dim light in the pub making her hair look like ringlets of gold. Brown eyes heavily shadowed and rimmed with black eyeliner targeted him. She blinked slowly as she neared him. Her walk was feline, all sex and confidence. She reminded Keane of the exotic dancers he’d seen when he’d worked as a bouncer at a nightclub three saves ago. The hours were great with that job, but those dancers sure asked a lot of questions.
    “Hiya.” The woman leaned her elbows back on the bar next to him.
    He nodded, but remained focused on his beer.
    “You going to study that beer all night, love?” Her voice had a faint southern twang to it.
    Keane shrugged.
    “Oh, the silent type.” She leaned closer to his ear and whispered, “I love the silent type.” She motioned to the bartender who brought her a glass of red wine. She took the first sip, and Keane had to admit her lips looked dangerous. Running her tongue along her bottom lip, she angled her head toward a corner booth. “Wanna join me, Mr. Silent Type?”
    What else are you doing? “Okay.” He picked up his beer more to have something to do with his hands than