Page 24 of Demon's Desire
“I’m Kyle.” He nodded. “I’m sure you get this all the time, but you are very beautiful.”
I blushed a bit and gave him a slight smile. “Thank you. I should probably get back to my friend now, though.”
“Do you mind if I walk with you?” he asked. “I’m sort of aimless right now. I forgot my list at home, so I’m just winging it.”
“Oh, well… sure.” I nodded. “Sorry, I wasn’t prepared to be very social at the grocery store.”
“That’s fine.” He chuckled. “You could just let me look at you, and it would be the best conversation I’d have all day.”
He winked at me, and I blushed a bit. “Well, you’re quite charming.”
“Not usually,” he assured me. “But you make it easy.”
I laughed a bit, more to myself than at him. “You know, I’ve gone twenty-two years, and I have never been hit on as much as I have in the last week. Chicago is a very flirty city.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s the city.” He laughed. “I think you just have that effect on people.”
“The guys I went to college with would disagree with you.” I rolled my eyes. “I think people here are just nice.”
“Oh, yeah?” He grinned. “How nice? How much competition do I have?”
I was going to say something along the lines of ‘how do you know you’re even part of the competition?’ when something stopped me. I blinked as a feeling of déjà vu hit me. Had we had this conversation before?
I looked up at him and blinked. “Am I forgetting… Have we met somewhere?”
“No, Mia.” He shook his head, but when he said my name, I got that feeling again, like we’d said these exact same things. “I’d remember someone as beautiful as you.”
“Oh, well… thank you, Kyle.” I blushed slightly and kept walking. “You, um, don’t have much competition. I’ve been hit on twice, and the first guy turned around and pretended he’d never met me.”
“What?” He tilted his head, and I got that familiar feeling again. “Why the hell would anyone ever do that?”
“Uh, your guess is as good as mine.” I shrugged. “It was not very good for my self-esteem.”
“Hm. And this other guy?”
“Oh, well, he was sweet.” I nodded. “He reminded me of the first guy before he pretended not to remember me. And…” I turned to him suddenly and stopped walking. That was where I was getting this feeling from. This guy, Kyle, he reminded me of Marcus, and Marcus reminded me of Elias.
“And?” He nodded, giving me a lazy, confident smile.
“And… He was nice.” I shrugged and kept going. “I just haven’t been able to get ahold of him since.”
“Interesting. Well, clearly these men don’t know a good thing when they see it,” he said. “Someone as beautiful as you? They’re missing out.”
“Mia?” Kelly called. I turned around and saw her pushing the cart behind me. She gave Kyle a suspicious look as she came up to my side. “Did you find everything?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “He helped me find the lemon juice.” I set everything in the cart before turning back to Kyle. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You as well, Mia.” He smirked. “I’ll see you around.”
He turned and left, disappearing down one of the other aisles. When he was gone, Kelly grabbed my shoulder. “Why are you—What is up with you and all these hot men?”
“I honestly don’t know.” I shook my head. “It’s like a curse. I keep seeing these hot guys who all hit on me, but none of them actually get my number.”
“Still, it’s got to be better than having a crush on the guy sleeping down the hall.” Kelly pouted. “Let’s go.”
I laughed and nodded as we headed for the check out. We turned a corner, and a man rushed past us. He was moving so fast, Kelly almost hit him with her cart. I turned my head to watch him, frowning. “What the hell was that?”
He paused where he was and started looking around. He seemed like he was searching for someone. He turned back in our direction, and I froze.