A teaser from my WIP

“Prophecy smophecy, Pandora’s jar my arse.” Shaun muttered to herself as she yanked on the old, pitted, sadly-lacking-in-chrome door handle on her car. “I know some Greek mythology and I saw Tomb Raider, Pandora had a box, not a jar, and Pandora let all the evil out into the world. I’m so not all about the evil.” Although, there was a certain sort of piquancy to the Pandora myth and how she was the first woman -- a beautiful evil -- sent down by the gods to punish men.

She had to use her whole hand to press down the button on the handle, and then when it unlatched use both arms to pull the door open. No swift getaways in this baby; the damn door weighs a tonne, let alone the whole car. The car was new -- well, it was a ’58 Edsel Bermuda, so it was new to her -- and since it was definitely a work in progress, she had a lot of kinks to work out, or at least learn to work around.

“Not evil. The jar wasn’t anyway, whether Pandora was evil is still open for debate.”

Having opened with a groaning, metallic creak the car door reached the point in it’s arc where is moved freely. Taken off guard by the words coming from over her right shoulder Shaun wasn’t paying all the attention she should to the heavy door and as she twisted to face the speaker she was jerked around and into the door with an “oof” of stolen breath. Pain shot up her arm from where she’d twisted then fallen on her wrist, and she cried out, pulling her wrist up to her chest to cradle it.

“Hey, are you okay?”

When she looked up, it was into Jak’s concerned face. “Yeah, just sort of landed funny.” Shaun shook her hand out, trying to relieve the sting in her wrist, “Like when you land on your funny bone -- stings a bit like that.”

Fingers, smooth and slightly cook to the touch, wrapped around her wrist and stilled her movement. “Let me feel.”

Jak’s fingers ran over her skin, pressing firmly, yet gently, easing the taut tendons when he came to them. He concentrated on her wrist with intensity, and his touch was oddly the most intimate, sensual single thing she’d experienced in her life. “Nothing broken I don’t think, just a light sprain.”

Caught up in the sparks flooding her system from the vampire’s touch, Shaun was embarrassed to realize she was staring up at him, mouth no doubt wide open, while he patiently waited for a reply. His lips flirted around a smile as Jak watched her back.

“I--It’s--that is, I’m sure you’re right.” She jerked her hand out of his and absently rubbed her fingers over the skin he’d touched, not sure if she was trying to rub the tingles in, or rub them off. Like little butterfly wings they danced along in her blood stream fluttering in her belly… and lower. She tingled in places even she’d not been able to make herself tingle before, let alone one of her loser boyfriends.

“It’s late, I better go.”

Shaun turned, and moved to slide onto the big bench seat only to freeze in place when a growly, rough voice yelled out, “What the hell is that heap of junk?”

She straightened, the fluttering butterfly wings in her belly stuttering to a halt as plain old annoyance took a hold. Trust Rob to ruin a perfectly good moment.

“It’s not a heap of junk, it’s a classic.”

“No it’s not, it’s a rusted out clap trap--”

“No, it’s not. It’s an Edsel.” Shaun moved down the side of the car and ran her hand tenderly along one of the fins that stretched down to the rear. Then turned back to Rob with her hands on her hips. “Clarabell’s in the middle of a bad hair decade, but I plan on fixing that.”