“I’ll do that,” Pet muttered with embarrassment, bending forward to try to take the paper towel from him.
“It is done,” he said, and was upright and heading back to the chair before she could even get close to touching the paper towels or his hand.
Pet glanced at the carpet then, surprised to see that he was right and it was done. The carpet was Scotchgarded to protect it from staining. It now looked good as new.
Sighing, Pet started to reach for her coffee, then decided to leave it where it was and sat back in her seat to stare at Santo. After a moment, she arched one eyebrow and asked, “Did you say you were born in 965?”
Santo nodded warily and then added, “b.c.”
“b.c.,” Pet echoed, and closed her eyes as she tried to absorb that. He was born in the tenth century b.c. Before Christ. Dear Lord, he was older than Christ would be today, she thought with dismay, and then forced herself to stop thinking and breathe for a minute.
“Are you okay?” Santo asked suddenly.
“I’m fine,” Pet said quickly, but even she could hear how high and strained her voice was. Clearing her throat, she said in a more normal voice, “Just give me a minute.”
Santo grunted.
Pet ignored him and tried to think. She was a history professor. Even so, her training didn’t generally stretch back that far. All she knew about that period was that it followed the collapse of the late Bronze Age in what they now referred to as the Near East, and that he was born in the century when the Early Iron Age started there, or at least really took hold.
Which didn’t really matter, Pet supposed, because he wasn’t from western Asia but Italy. Except that there had been no Italy then. Well, the land had been there, of course, but the country Italy hadn’t existed. Dear God, he was older than Italy too. The man was just—
“Pet?”
Opening her eyes, she peered at him solemnly and said, “You’re really old.”
“Sì,” Santo agreed solemnly.
“I mean, I was thinking you were old like fourteenth or fifteenth century old. But you’re really, really old.”
Santo merely grunted this time.
“It’s no wonder you have a tendency to grunt all the time. You’re like caveman old.” His eyes were widening at that when Pet frowned and said, “Okay, not caveman old, they died out something like forty thousand years ago and you’re a decade or two short of three thousand years old, but—oh, my God, you’re a decade or two short of three thousand years old,” she gasped with horror.
“Perhaps I should not have started with my age,” Santo said dryly.
Pet blinked and asked, “Started what?”
“Talking,” he said in a rumble, and then added, “Telling you about myself so that you can get to know me better.”
“Oh,” she breathed weakly, thinking, wasn’t that just her luck? All she wanted from him was sex, and he wanted them to get to know each other better. Which was the last thing she wanted. Right now she liked him. But talking might bring about more liking, and possibly love, which was the last thing Pet wanted to feel for an immortal who was going to walk out of her life soon. She’d really been kind of counting on the hot monkey sex, though.
“Pet?”
Pushing her thoughts aside, she peered at him in question, but when Santo opened his mouth to speak, she stood abruptly and muttered, “I need wine.”
Twelve
Pet strode into the kitchen with purpose. The apartment had come with a little wine fridge in the island. She went there now and opened it to consider her options. She wasn’t much of a drinker unless with her sister. Then the two of them tended to get into the booze. Other than that, though, she really didn’t drink the stuff. Which was a shame since wine was the go-to gift her coworkers and friends usually bought for any celebration. Birthday? Wine. Christmas Secret Santa? Wine. Get tenure? Lots of wine. Her wine fridge was stuffed with bottles that she’d received and never drank. Pet considered them now, wondering which, if any, would be good, and then simply grabbed the middle one on the top row.
It wasn’t until she set it on the counter that she noticed that it was a rosé and had a screw top rather than a cork. She almost put it back then, sure that was probably a bad sign, but then thought what the hell, she wasn’t drinking it for flavor anyway and the label was pretty. Pet fetched a wineglass out of the cupboard, then grabbed a second one in case Santo wanted to join her.
Pet opened the cap and started to pour, her eyes widening appreciatively when she saw that it was a sparkling wine. Santo joined her at the counter as she finished filling the first glass and started on the second. Pet glanced at him and then back to what she was doing, filling the second glass until it too was full.
“No. Grazie,” Santo murmured when she picked up both glasses and offered him one.
Shrugging, Pet set one back on the counter and lifted the other to her mouth. The wine was actually quite nice. It was light and fruity but not overly sweet. Refreshing. It made her think of picnics and pool parties.
Curious, she turned the bottle so she could read the label as she took another drink. LOLA was in big letters with Pelee Island in smaller type beneath it and she now recalled where she’d got it. Jill Brandon was a professor in the social welfare department and a good friend. She and her husband had a cottage up in Ontario somewhere that they spent their summers and Jill had brought this back for her last fall, claiming she loved it and Pet had to try it. It had sat in her wine fridge ever since. But Jill was right, she liked it.
“Good?” Santo asked as she took another drink.
“Very nice,” Pet murmured. “Sure you wouldn’t like some?”
When he shook his head, she took her glass and headed back to the living room. She returned to her seat on the end of the couch, but when Santo headed for the chair again, she frowned and asked, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit on the couch with me?”
“It is probably better if I sit here in the chair,” he said in that sexy rumble of his.
Pet took another drink, eyeing him over the top of it as she tried to think of a way to get him to her bedroom. Claim she needed a light bulb changed that she couldn’t reach, lead him in there and “trip” into him, accidentally tumbling them both to the bed? No, she was too small and he was too big. Even if she tackled him like a linebacker, she probably couldn’t knock him onto the bed.
“My mother is Calandra Notte,” Santo said solemnly.
“That’s a pretty name,” Pet murmured. Perhaps she could claim she had to go check on Parker, then grab Mrs. Wiggles and put her in her room and say the cat ran in there and she needed help cornering the feline and—and what? If the cat was on the bed, he’d just grab her and put her back in Parker’s room, and if Pet put her under the bed, he’d do the same. Neither would actually get him on the bed where she could strategically trip onto him and hopefully end up in a nice passionate—
“My father was Gasparo Carbones Notte,” Santo continued. “My mother was two hundred and thirty years old when she met my father. He was fifty-one.”
Maybe she could—Pet’s thoughts died abruptly and she gaped at Santo. “Hold on, your mother was almost one hundred and eighty years older than your father?”
“Sì.” He nodded. “Why are you so surprised by this?”
“Well, you know, I mean, older guys get with younger women all the time. And some women are getting together with younger guys now, but it’s still not that common, and I mean, come on, she was almost a hundred and eighty years older than him. That’s a super gap.”
“But she looked about twenty-five,” he pointed out gently. “And still does.”
“Oh. Right,” Pet muttered. “Just like you look like you’re somewhere between twenty-five or thirty, but are really almost three millennia.”
“Exactly,” he said easily.
“Yeah.” Pet nodded and then shook her head. Good God, the diseases he must have encountered over those millennia. The plague, smallpox, leprosy, tuberculosis, syphilis . . . Could immortals get herpes? Maybe she should rethink this. She had condoms still in her bedside drawer, leftover from her last boyfriend, but she wasn’t sure they would fit Santo. If he was as big down there as he was everywhere else . . . Well, that could be a problem. She didn’t know if they made Super XXX-sized condoms. Maybe they did come that big but were special order. This could be a serious problem and one she needed to sort out right away.
“I was born four years after they met and became life—”
“Do you have condoms?” Pet interrupted.
Santo blinked several times and then asked weakly, “What?”
“Condoms,” she said clearly. “To prevent pregnancy and the spread of disease.”
“I . . .” He looked at a loss for a minute. She suspected that was a bad sign. And then he cleared his throat, rubbed one hand over his skull, and said, “I have no need of condoms.”
Pet narrowed her eyes. “So you’ve just gone bareback all these millennia?”
“What?” he asked with bewilderment.
“Bareback,” she repeated, getting a little agitated at the thought that she had been messing about with him and he might be riddled with disease. “It means sans condom. Have you gone the last nearly three thousand years screwing women without protect—dear God!” she interrupted herself with horror as another thought struck. “How many women have you had sex with?”
“What?” Santo asked with disbelief.
“I mean, you’re nearly three thousand years old, Santo,” she pointed out as if he didn’t know that. “Even if you only had sex with one woman a year, that’s nearly three thousand women. If it’s been two a year, that’s nearly six thousand. I don’t even want to think what the numbers are if it was one a month. That would be more people than live in all of the city of Long Beach, and almost a third of the population of Albany. And all bareback. Dear God! You could be a walking herpes simplex, riddled with syphilis, and—and gonorrhea. And I kissed you! I can’t believe this!” she muttered, and then snatching her still nearly full wineglass, she stood up and downed it on the way to the kitchen.