“Jacks, stop it,” she demanded. He didn’t really want to kiss her. He was just teasing her to deflect the pain. “I know what you’re doing.”
“I doubt it.” He smiled, flashing his dimples as he ran his tongue over the tip of a very sharp and long incisor, looking suddenly thoughtful. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay like this. I rather like these.”
“You also like daylight,” Evangeline reminded him.
“I could probably live without the sun if I could trade it for other things.” He cocked his head. “I wonder … if I were to become a true vampire, perhaps my kiss wouldn’t be fatal anymore.” His fangs lengthened. “You could let me bite you and we could try it out.”
Another piercing lick of heat, this time right beneath her jaw, then her wrist, and a few other intimate places she’d have never thought anyone would bite.
Evangeline blushed from her neck down to her collarbone. “We’re not talking about biting,” she said hotly.
“Then what should we talk about?” Jacks’s eyes returned to her lips, and more heat slipped between them as they parted.
Evangeline sucked in a sharp breath. Maybe she’d been wrong earlier. Maybe he did want to kiss her. But it didn’t mean anything. He was clearly still fixated on Princess Donatella. And LaLa had said that Jacks’s curse was his kiss—if there was even a sliver of attraction, he’d be tempted to kiss. But it didn’t mean he possessed any real feelings for the person.
“I’m curious,” she asked. “If you have the ability to control people, why didn’t you just use it to make the princess love you?”
Jacks’s taunting smile vanished. “I did.”
“What happened?”
“I think my turn is over,” he said sharply. “Your turn now. And I want you to tell me about Luc.”
Evangeline winced. She really didn’t want to discuss Luc now, not after what had just happened, and not with Jacks, who had teased her about him since the moment she’d met him. “I’d like another question, please.”
“No. I answered your questions. You’re answering mine.”
“Why do you want to know about Luc? You just saw how the story ends.”
“Tell me how it started.” Jacks gave her one corner of a falsely cheerful smile. “Your tale clearly began on better footing than mine. What made you fall so madly in love with him that you were willing to pray to me?”
Evangeline took a deep breath.
“Stop stalling, Little Fox, or I might remember how much pain I’m in because all I can think about is tasting your blood.” Jacks’s eyes lowered.
The wave of heat attacked her chest, directly over her heart, and this time it felt like a bite, not a kiss.
“Fine—Luc was there for me when my father died.”
“This was why you fell in love with him?”
“No … I think I loved him before that.” She was tempted to say that she loved him the first time she saw him, but Jacks would definitely mock her for that. “At first, I thought he was handsome. I still remember, the bell outside the shop door rang a full two seconds before the first time he walked inside, as if it, too, thought he was special.”
“Or it was trying to warn you away from him,” Jacks groaned.
“Do you want me to keep going or not?”
Jacks mimed sealing his lips shut.
Evangeline doubted it would last. But he surprised her by making a genuine effort to listen politely.
She noticed that Jacks’s knuckles were white from clenching his fists, and his jaw appeared uncomfortably tight—he was struggling more now that he wasn’t talking—but he hopped atop one of the stone coffins and sat cross-legged like a child being told a story.
Evangeline wondered if she should stay standing in case she needed to run. But maybe it would put him at more ease if she mirrored his lead. Carefully, she sat down on the cold damp ground, giving her tired legs a rest.
“I grew up working in my father’s curiosity shop. I loved it—it felt more like my home than any other place in the world. But I spent so much time there that I didn’t really have close friends outside of it until I met Luc. At first I thought he just liked oddities. Then one day, he came in and he didn’t buy anything. He said he just wanted to see me and he wasn’t too proud or afraid to admit it.”
“And…，” Jacks prompted.
“That was when I knew I loved him.”