Kissing Corpses Read Online Free

want you to think I was going to... blow you off.” The last phrase sounded foreign coming from his lips. I could tell that he didn't like how it sounded.
    “I am totally available,” I said, “Right now. Completely. Nothing at all on my calendar for the evening.” I had work in the morning, but who cares? He was cute and he had brought flowers. “What's the plan? Do you want something to eat? We have leftover egg rolls.”
    “I just ate, but thank you.” He held the flowers out and I took them. I turned toward the kitchen to find a vase and he stayed planted on the doorstep. I didn't notice that he wasn't behind me.
    Geneva wandered out into the living-room to be nosy and I heard her say, “Well, are you going to come in?”
    “May I?” he asked.
    “Yes. Come in. Shut the door. It's freezing out there.”
    When I came back, Rawdon was looking around the living-room with interest. I set the vase of flowers on the coffee table. “So, what's the plan?” I repeated.
    “Uh, there's a gallery opening a few blocks over. I thought we might go, if you like art.”
    “I like art,” I said, “but I'll warn you, most of the art here features cowboys.”
    “Cowboys,” he repeated, amused. “Sounds... kitschy.”
    “Some of it's quite nice. Some of it is pretty cheesy.”
    “Sounds like fun,” he said.
    “How long have you been here?” Geneva asked, butting in.
    “In Cheyenne?” he asked. “Three months.”
    She crossed the room to stand directly between Rawdon and I. “Thanks for picking me up last night, but if you hurt Kendall, I can be a crazy bitch. Got it?”
    He looked seriously back at her. “Message received.”
    “Good. Have fun!” She spun on her heel and bounced from the room.

    We walked silently to his car. Like the night before, he opened the door for me and waited until I was settled in to close it. When he started the car, opera played on the radio. He quickly pressed the dial with a gloved finger and turned it off. “We don't need music,” he said. “We can talk.”
    “Okay, so you listen to opera, you wear three-piece suits, and you drive a Bentley. What do you do for a living?”
    He stopped with his hand on the shifter and left the car in park. “Well,” he said. “That's actually a rather loaded question. I was born into money, which helps,” he added, “But most of my money now comes from a series of safe investments.”
    “That's working out in this economy?”
    “Well, antiques keep their value,” he said.
    “So you trade antiques?”
    “I suppose. I do quite well with bank interest, too, despite the economy. My accounts at the credit union were grandfathered. I get the old rates. You know, pre-housing market collapse.” He started the car. “What do you do for a living?”
    “Well, I majored in anthropology. Right now I'm working as a receptionist for a local law practice.”
    “But you'd like to do what? Become an archeologist?”
    “Oh. No. I don't have that kind of Anthropology degree. That takes a lot of science. I'd like to be a legal advocate,” I said.
    “Champion of the weak?”
    “Yeah. Something like that.”
    “Interesting.”
    “So you sell antiques for money. What do you do for fun?”
    “I like driving. Reading. I box.”
    “You box?”
    “Yes. I box. I started when I was about fifteen and it's been something I keep coming back to.”
    “And how old are you?”
    “How old am I?”
    “Yes. That's a pretty normal thing to know on a first date.”
    “Is this a first date or a second?”
    “Don't dodge the question,” I said with a smile, “How old are you?”
    “How old do you think I am?”
    “It's hard to tell. You look twenty, but you act forty-five.”
    Rawdon laughed. “I've been alive for twenty years,” he said.
    “Oh Jesus, I'm a cradle robber.”
    “How old are you, or is that not polite to ask a woman?”
    “Twenty three,” I answered.
    He stepped out of the car. I had gotten used to his chivalry and waited until he