he can’t vouch for you as a good worker. You’re always late and hung over.”
“Nobody at the bar cares if I’m hung over,” Tommy said. “It’s a good job for me.”
“It’s too dangerous. And it doesn’t pay enough...” Esmeralda bit her lip.
“You want more money, is that it?” Tommy snarled, leaning towards her. His breath was full of smoke and bad whiskey. “I can get more money. Anyone out there on the street, I can walk right up, grab them—” Tommy seized her arm, and shivers of fear shot through her body, terrifying and deliciously exciting at the same time. “They’ll give me anything I want. That’s how I always made my living before. Now I have to stick with your stupid rules.”
“They’re not stupid,” Esmeralda said, her voice shivering with the intense feelings he stirred up inside her. “I just don’t want to see you burn in Hell.”
“Come on, you don’t believe in that.” His face loomed closer through the shadowy smoke.
“I believe we can burn in Hell while we are still alive. We build the fire around ourselves, and we damn ourselves. If we are not careful.”
“You won’t see me in Hell unless you’re there with me.” He seized her other arm and pulled her closer. Esmeralda trembled. His paranormal touch filled her with conflicting desires to run away screaming and to wrap her legs around him and fuck him until dawn. He drove her crazy, and she hated him for it. Deep down, she knew her mother was right about this boy.
“I’m already there with you,” Esmeralda whispered, and he kissed her. It felt like an electrical jolt, filling her body with dark energy. Her fingers clawed into his back, nails digging into his muscles through his stained, flimsy t-shirt.
Tommy reached for his bottle again, but she caught his hand and stopped him. He snarled again, threw her back on the bed and climbed on top of her.
Esmeralda couldn’t get her blouse off fast enough. Tommy ripped open her bra and sank his teeth into her left breast, and she cried out in pain and pleasure. She couldn’t get enough of him, and he couldn’t move fast enough to satisfy her. She shoved down her slacks and her panties together.
When he was inside her, the fear and the pleasure swept her away on the most powerful wave of feelings she’d ever known. His long, unwashed hair hung in her face, and she couldn’t get enough of his foul reek. Nothing else in the world mattered, just the glorious sweaty, heat igniting her body.
Later, he slept beside her, and she watched the smog-tinted orange sunlight burn away out the window. The boy was pure poison, she knew. Addictive poison.
She entertained her daily urge to leave the apartment and never look back, never tell Tommy where to come and find her, but that was a useless fantasy.
She closed her eyes.
Chapter Two
Jenny and Seth drank coffee in a small indoor garden on the Rue de l'Hôtel de ville, on the Right Bank of the Seine. It was a short walk from Notre Dame cathedral, but hidden enough that tourists were rare. Currently, the only other customers were a few elderly pensioners. The place had gourmet fair-trade coffee from all over Africa, and the price of one cup would have given Jenny’s father sticker shock. Even after a year of living in Paris, with a plentiful stash of money from Seth’s family, Jenny hadn’t fully adjusted to her new life. Happily, the city was so full of eccentrics and artists that the sight of Jenny wearing gloves and scarves in the summertime attracted no particular attention.
Now it was fall, and she had plenty of coats and hats. The colder the weather, the more fully she could wrap herself against the constant danger of touching others.
“What are we in for today?” Seth asked. “Another art gallery? Another play? Touring another old palace?”
“You sound burned out, Seth.” Jenny sipped her organic coffee from Sierra Leone. It was so delicious she couldn’t help sighing.
“Maybe if I had a better idea of what was happening at those things.” Seth said. His French was still shaky...and that was a generous description. Jenny was fluent, owing more to her past lives than her high school French lessons, though sometimes people would give her an odd look if she used an archaic word or expression.
“You should listen harder when I try to teach you,” she told him.
“I do try. But you’re so sexy when you speak French, how