Purgatory (A Place Down Under Book 1) Read online

  My head is spinning with boisterous chatter and clatter. To my right, a massive woman dressed in a muumuu of riotous flora is shouting for immediate service and, with an annoyingly loud voice, croaking to no one and everyone about perishing before the waiter gets food to her. Which I seriously doubt, given her girth; her body should be able to feed on itself for a considerable time before those brightly colored flowers wither and die.

  I look around—no waitress or waiter—but a deep masculine voice fights for top billing over the crowd. "Sorry folks, I'm on my own today. Help yourself to coffee, it's on me. Orders will be up shortly."

  Prickling curiosity and a heady feeling of hopeful possibilities push me to walk across the room, lean over the counter, and take a look. The guy with the voice causing such an unusual reaction in me is hidden by a stainless steel cook-grill, hanging pots and pans, and a cloud of steam coming off the grill.

  Strong arms and thick fingers pull clothes-pinned tickets across a line of monofilament attached to the bottom of a head-high shelf over the grill. The movement thrusts a rush through my being—not CeCe's—and an unfamiliar flush of warmth, both of which my doppelganger has never experienced. Heat radiates to my temples. I feel my life force push and swell under CeCe's skin.

  When the man leans out and we make eye contact, the room fades around us. I freeze, mouth open. Intense gray-green eyes sparkle like the light captured on the surface of the stainless steel grill.

  For the first time in my life, I wish I didn't always have to be someone I'm not. CeCe? What a stupid name! I guess I can call myself Echo—not like doppelgangers have names—because, after all, I am only a reflection of a real human. The weight of sadness taints my throbbing bulk sheathed in a Florida tan, brown hair, and big almond eyes. Will I ever find a body I can share for a human lifetime? Or at least the portion of a human lifetime I would care to take part in.

  Roiling under CeCe's façade, I swell and shrink rapidly like a fast beating heart. CeCe's voice sounds breathless as she asks, "Need some help?"

  "And you are?" he asks with a voice so rich it encourages gooseflesh.

  Absorbed in his killer eyes and auburn hair, I hear my carbon-copy's voice squeak, "CeCe?"

  GAIRE

  The desire I have for the woman in front of me is shocking. Blinking away the uninvited feelings, I flip a spatula laden with bacon and pick up an aluminum steak-weight to press them to the grill.

  "Are you asking me, or telling me . . . CeCe?" I say, and can't hold back a throaty chuckle.

  The cute little brunette—all bare tummy and energetic tits—curls the corner of her lip in a half smile that makes my stomach clench.

  My nostrils flare with a strange scent underlying coconut oil on her skin—damp, dark, musky, and cold—one I am not familiar with. Red flags may be waving all over the place, but my body sure as hell isn't acknowledging them.

  "I guess I'm telling you," she says, and then adds, "I didn't pick the name, or the parents."

  This time I can't temper my amusement. It burbles from deep inside my stomach and comes out in a loud boisterous laugh. The sound of my own laughter brings back memories of high school, a bell like giggle, and a wisp of a relationship filled with curiosity and adolescent desire. It also brings back the smell of death, savage and cruel.

  CeCe plants her fists on her curvy hips under a waist I could easily circle with my hands, and before she can cut loose with the temper I see lighting her eyes and rising on her cheeks, I say, "Yeah, well, I won't be giving you my full name either. It sounds like a hair rejuvenating product off an infomercial. You can call me Gaire."

  My full name is Rogaire. It sounds like my parents expected big things from me.

  The pucker on her full lips blossoms into a Colgate grin and my knees almost buckle, past mistakes conveniently forgotten. Nothing else exists around me. My eyes focus on hers. She moves her mouth to form words, and...

  "Gaire! Man! You're killin' me! I got a clock to punch in thirty-seven minutes!" One of my regular's huffs and puffs and blows down the four walls we've put up around us.

  "Just slapped 'em on a plate, buddy!" I yell, all of my senses fighting to stay focused on the girl in front of me, and slide four slices of bacon next to a stack of pancakes on a plate in the window.

  "Well, how about you trot 'em on out here?" Gary's demand ratchets up the rest of the patrons.

  "Not like I'm not wasting away here, either!" Henrietta's excitement distracts me with a mix of days-old-sweat and stale perfume on the muumuu she's worn the last three mornings in a row.

  I wipe my hands, rip off my apron, reach for the plate, and freeze.

  CeCe saunters over, unburdened breasts bouncing and beckoning, and snags a dishtowel off the counter. I watch her tuck it into her low-riding, Levi cutoffs under a navel ring I would kill to run my tongue over.

  What the hell? I don't do this kind of shit. I try to shake away the fog between my ears.

  You can't do this kind of shit; my brain tries to argue with my fast beating heart and the tightness forming under the belt of my jeans.

  "So," CeCe says, and rich brown eyes twinkle with naughty. I swallow hard. She circles hair into a knot at the back of her neck and cinches it with a red pencil she plucks off the counter. "You wanna point me in the direction of the man at the other end of that very loud and very obnoxious voice." She grabs the plate of pancakes in one hand, a pot of coffee with the other, cocks out her hip, and waits.

  I must have stood there too long—have no idea what I was thinking—because her shoulders bounce, and she struts around the counter into the dining room all long tanned legs, and strappy sandals clicking. I'm dying here.

  "Sorry, I'm late," I hear her purr, and just about burn the heel of my hand as I lean over the grill to catch sight of her. "I passed the place two times—damned road construction."

  The whole dining room grumbles a shared mawkishness.

  "So, who ordered the pancakes?" CeCe asks.

  Nostrils flaring, I take in the remnants of her scent and lean around the order tickets to find the dining area dead quiet, all eyes directed on the chick with the coffee pot.

  Mesmerized, my regular, Gary, has his hand raised shoulder level, fingers wiggling. A shy smile spreads under his pink cheeks.

  CeCe places the plate in front of him, turns his coffee cup over, and pours. I watch in awe as Gary empties a creamer into the cup.

  CeCe shouts, "Who needs coffee?"

  Hands shoot up, and she uses every inch of her five-feet-six-inch body to get everyone's attention as she bends and pours her way around the room.

  As she comes full circle, Gary, mouth full of pancake, gulps his coffee, gives her a nod, and holds out the cup. Gary doesn't drink coffee.

  For the umpteenth time in the last hour and twenty minutes, I ladle out a measuring cup full of scrambled egg mixture from a metal container sitting by the grill, listen to the sizzle, and slide six slices of bread into the toaster. I study the woman working the breakfast crowd with more experience than she should have, if I'm correct about her age. Her looks tell me late teens, no older than twenty-one. Her demeanor, conversations with my customers, and the skill with which she uses her body to incite the reactions she needs from both the men and women, tell me to add another five years. That may be because I would like to drag her all the way out of puberty and a hell of a lot closer to my age, thirty-one.

  One minute she smells sweet, ripe, all coconut oil and youth, and then I catch that special scent, the one that's deep, dark, and cold. I've been rolling it around on my tongue all day, but can't place it.

  I can smell it now as she packages a slice of apple pie for a customer standing in front of the register to pay. It reminds me of a smell from my childhood; the basement of one of my high school neighbors. His father owned a crematory furnace. That one second when the body is quickly inserted into the retort and the heat ripens it before the door closes and takes the scent to the bitterness of ashes.

  When s
he's not close, I wonder why she's still here. Why I allowed her to be here. Why I don't want her to leave. When she's close, all I can think about is devouring her.

  * * *

  Two hours later, I'm once again contemplating the young woman filling salt shakers and chatting with the two remaining customers and realize it's been several hours since CeCe walked into my establishment and stirred the beast in me. I can't shake the feeling this is going to be a day I will live to relish—and regret. Something is not right with this chick. But then, something is not right with me, either.

  THREE

  CeCe

  "Who are you?" Gaire asks me as he flips the open sign on the door to closed. "And how old are you?"

  "Aren't your customers going to wonder what happened to you?" I flash him a smile. "It's not even noon."

  Gaire raises a brow. "I'm only open for breakfast. Don't avoid my question. Who are you?"

  "It's such an open ended question. Obviously I'm a woman, and someone's daughter, sister—I have a few friends—but I'm definitely not someone's wife, significant other, or parolee."

  "You want to expand on that a bit? Maybe your full name, address, what the hell you're doing here?" He flips off two switches on the wall by the door, and walks across the room toward me.

  "I believe I was giving a very attractive man a hand, and I realize we haven't had time to do the I-ask-you-ask, stuff people do when they're interested in each other. I mean, clearly there's chemistry going down. But jeeze, you just flipped the door sign. I'd like to take a breath, have a cup of coffee, and, oh, I don't know, talk?"

  Gaire puffs out his cheeks and blows air.

  Did he just puff frustration at me? And his damn eyebrows are all bunched up over his nose. And why the hell does that make me upset? Catch and release, remember?

  "Look, I'm over nineteen, legal, and where's your sense of adventure?" CeCe's eyelashes fan her tan cheeks.

  "Are you telling me you want a date before you explain your behavior today?"

  "Well, no, of course I'm not." Yeah, right? I'm jaking for a date, one that leads to us both getting naked. Why am I having such a hard time using this body to get that point across? This is definitely going to turn out badly, but . . . cold rotted flesh be damned, his smile stirs something deliciously dark in me, the doppelganger under human flesh. "I simply walked in your diner to feed my starving body—"

  Don't want CeCe carbon-copy to start looking Night of the Living Dead-ish.

  "—and found you in a bad situation. Being the girl my daddy loves, I stepped up to the plate. Pardon the pun."

  For the first time ever, I wonder if I'm going to really feel something for this guy when we touch. Crap! I didn't sign up for emotions. In the human world, emotions always end up misplaced, trashed, or trampled on.

  He opens his mouth to speak.

  I toss up a hand, snort indignantly, and snap, "What's up with the lack of help, Gaire? Did your wife get sick or a girlfriend not show up?" Did his name just dribble off my lips like slow moving honey? Why am I using his name? And was that a question about relationship commitments? Who the hell cares what they do beyond my reach? This is absolutely not me, Miss-No-Name, Miss-Who-Gives-A-crap. "Oh, and how old are you?" I add before I analyze myself right out the front door—so not going to happen.

  I'm not acting like the body I've doubled up on, either. The snotty little rich bitch probably wouldn't give this guy a second glance. Oh, cold, cruel, and blessed darkness, look at him. My heartless body melts when his smile shows me an amazing set of straight white teeth.

  When have I ever cared about teeth?

  "Thirty-two, never been married. I don't stay in one place long enough to establish a relationship." His brow furrowed an abrupt, but quickly retrieved, tell—a slight regret. "And my waitress quit, doesn't plan on coming back."

  "Why is that? Do you kill things? Would I find you on America's Most Wanted?"

  Now that's a hoot. My whole family kills things—human things.

  Gaire laughs out loud. "Other than hunting season," he says, waggling his brows, "I take no trophies. I move because I have a . . . family that, let's just say, a family that believes I should be living with them for the rest of my life. I don't do family well. And you still haven't answered my main question, but you have managed to get three answers out of me. Quid-pro-quo, girl. You're wrapped in a pretty package, CeCe, but there's something hiding inside. Who are you?"

  Under CeCe's skin, my body-mass trembles. I want this guy, but not like the others. I really want this guy—long term. That is not a possibility, merely a desire I frequently dream about.

  "Careful, Gaire. Digging too deep on a first . . . whatever this is, is a dating faux pas."

  "But we're not dating. In fact, we have no physical tie what-so-ever. I'd need to see a driver's license before that happens. I'd just like to know who the girl that worked hard for me all day really is. I at least owe you a pay check."

  Every section of my dark, smoky body crackles with electricity. He's treating me like an employee! "No, you don't owe me anything . . . um, anything monetary, anyway. But we can change that physical thing in a heartbeat. One of your heartbeats," I say, head spinning as I move closer. The body I'm wearing is temporarily forgotten—I'm all doppelganger at the moment. "The closed sign is up. My car is the only one in the parking lot, so how about we—"

  When I place my hand against his chest and touch him for the first time, it's like being hit with a lightning bolt. We both jump back.

  "Holy shit, are you plugged in?" I squeak, but underneath I'm so freaked out I can hardly speak.

  Gaire recovers quicker than I do, although he says nothing. His fingers rub the spot on his chest where I'd touched him, and he immediately brings them to his nose.

  His thick brows reaching for each other, eyes hooded, he drops his hand and says, "How about, for now, I cook you the breakfast you came in for?"

  I watch a perfect ass tucked into tight jeans move toward the kitchen. Arms and shoulders strain his damp tee shirt, and I can't find my voice, or CeCe's. But inside my cold dead body, a fire ignites, and I know he's the only one who can put it out.

  Gaire

  Son-of-a-bitch, I can't breathe. Who is she? Better yet, what is she? Something I have never come in contact with before, that's for sure. I feel spelled, weak. Could it just be that indefinable, and often talked about, fatal attraction to a human? Impossible. Stuff like that doesn't happen to my kind. Mates are selected for us, not chosen by us.

  "You like pancakes?"

  She walks up to the window on the other side of the grill, stares at me through eyes that clearly hold secrets, and licks her pink and puffy lips.

  "Sounds yummy," she says, while my damn eyes take it upon themselves to search the front of her tee for hardened nipples.

  "Eggs?" The word catches in my throat.

  "Sure."

  "What about meat? Do you like bacon?"

  Her face goes all seductive, with sleepy eyes. Her teeth hold her bottom lip, and a slight intake of breath flares her nostrils. She holds me with that look for a few seconds. The pheromones she's giving off make me inhale deeply, savor the scent, and try to examine it. My heartbeat accelerates as rapidly as during a hunt. What she's giving off is nothing I've ever scented before. It's intoxicating.

  "You might say I'm more carnivore than omnivore." Her smile is devilish.

  I feel heat in my cheeks—wonder if she knows what I am—and pour out batter for six pancakes.

  Tossing a dozen strips of bacon on the grill, I make myself busy cracking a shitload of eggs, and then I'm finally capable of saying, "Ah, a girl after my own heart."

  I certainly hope not.

  Her soft, breathy chuckle sucks the air out of my lungs and holds it. I'm either going to sate my appetite with breakfast, or I'm going to sate it with the biggest mistake of my life, because I want this woman.

  CeCe

  Outside, Gaire appears to be calm, unaffected, but like
an animal around others, I sense a battle within. It seeps from his pores, a vibrating lust. He's panting with fear contradicted by an uncomfortable hunger. And none of this gives me the rush, the cocky, heady high it usually does when a human veers out of control with desire and need. This is different. This time I know what he's feeling. I'm right there with him. I'm on the edge of devouring him—screw the food—I need his skin against mine. Right now.

  While one part of me wants to run away, shed this silly body, and never look back, the distraction and physical reaction I'm having coaxes me to hurry into whatever it is that's happening here, head first, full throttle. His short glances, the way he sniffs the air when I move, and the way the beat of his heart resonates with each note it strikes is such a rush. I'm losing control, not thinking clearly. Judging by my host's moist undies, I'm sure as hell not standing outside of the lust looking in.

  He pulls plates onto the shelf of the grill with a clatter that shocks me out of myself and into CeCe. "Smells good," I say, eyes locked on his.

  "Yes, it does," he answers, almost growling the words.

  Actually, the smell of human food is always nauseating. The sweet scent of butter, dead chicken fetus frying in a mixture of triglyceride extracted plant matter, smoked meat, and the acidic aroma of coffee coat CeCe's nostrils.

  "Are we eating in the dining area?" I ask, while telling myself, food does keep the body looking healthy, and quench an uncomfortable urge.

  "I thought maybe upstairs," he says, his eyes intense, "in my apartment."

  And suddenly I have a freaking heartbeat hammering in my chest.

  "Okay." I cannot believe I actually squeaked that word. Well, I did use CeCe's voice, but still.

  He chuckles. "You want to grab us the last two cups of coffee in the pot and follow me up?"

  Oh, hell no!

  "Sure."

  "I take mine black," he says. "The cream is in the fridge if you need some."

  I so want to come back with something all nasty-bad-girl, but inside, the doppelganger is quivering. I pour black acrid stuff into two cups that will never feel the touch of CeCe's lips. I pick them up, my thoughts mindlessly churning, and slosh coffee over CeCe's shaking hands.