From her vantage point, he was super charged once he swung the door open to face her. That haggard look he had sported earlier that day washed away to be replaced by an almost youthful glow. He still looked just around thirty, but the drawn lines and crinkles that had been present after their night were gone, smoothed over like an eraser had been taken to his features. Or magical Botox. His eyes were like lightning, electrifying and lit up as they walked across her features with a brilliant grin stretching across his face. If she had been a normal girl, this kind of energy might have been a welcome presence. But Lane Barnes was an empath and sensitive to what roiled underneath the surface that he presented to her. There was a numbed buzz underneath the energy. Then there was the spiked adrenaline and racing heart, like someone having taken a hit of cocaine or taken Speed without the euphoric effects. The morphine took care of that part for him.<br/><br/>He snagged her almost as soon as she walked through the door and presented him with her gifts. His arm looped around her waist while his other dipped down low to scoop underneath her knees. It seemed an effortless show that he lifted her, wine and cookies and all, only to swing her around and deposit her on the kitchenette’s countertop a few feet behind them before the apartment opened up into his bare bachelor’s nest. Slipping up between her thighs, he released his hold and grabbed her offerings instead, setting them aside for the time being before he reached up and cupped her cheeks to pull her – now down to him – for a sweet kiss. The brush of his lips on her own lingered, but he didn’t make a move to deepen it, and instead stroked his mouth along her cheek and jaw until his breath whispered against the shell of her ear.<br/><br/>“Relax, Lane,” he teased her gently. “You look like a startled lamb entered the lion’s den.” A grin, then he pulled back to search her face. “Boyfriend, huh?”<br/><br/>He didn't provide any further comment there. He would let the mischief play in his eyes that lingered on her face when he moved away from where he had perched her. The wine and cookies were moved to the table and the man himself moved to stir their soon to be meal in the kitchen. Without looking up, he spoke again.<br/><br/>“I'll be drawing blood,” he affirmed, as if it were the most casual thing in the world. “But I'll go ahead and knock that part out for the next part of our evening. Supernatural abilities aren't always like finding a genetic disability with blood work – like the kind of tests a doctor might run in order to find out if a mother's baby has down syndrome. In some cases, like with lycanthropy, it's detected in the blood. In some cases, your DNA just comes back looking weird and who<i>actually </i>knows what the fuck it means. So I'm going to draw it out of you instead, sweetheart. Then we can anthropology the shit out of whatever is in your blood stream from one descendant or another that makes you a lesser demon zapper. Most likely among other things you're capable of.”<br/><br/>He hesitated here, pausing in his stirring to glance over at her to see if she was still where she was where he had left her. “If you can watch this to make sure my culinary skills don't go awry, I can get what I need to do this.”<br/><br/>He stopped, leaving the wooden spoon lodged in the thick paste littered with herbs and took a glance around the apartment as if to assess if anything needed to be moved in case of collateral damage. There was the corn out couch set up against the wall that was there more for comfort than it was for style. The TV was essential, a Black Friday forty incher against the opposing wall. A table. A couple of lamps. The coffee table. There were no pictures hanging on the wall, and most of his clutter belonged in the office. Despite his years, James Sinclair did not live a very decadent lifestyle. Not like in the movies, where you meet the<i>immortals </i>(usually vampires) that lived in enchanted, Gothic estates. Not him. He lived like a bachelor on a professor's pension – and it seemed to suit him just fine.<br/><br/>Motioning again to the cooking pasta and sauce on the burner, he moved out of the kitchen, leaned over to land his mouth against hers again in passing, then disappeared briefly into that office of his for a handful of minutes to rummage. He emerged soon enough with what looked like a needle seen at any standard doctor's office, alcohol to sterilize it, and an unknown bag of<i>goodies </i>that he dumped on his small kitchen table.<br/><br/>“It's not too late to back out of this particular date.” Don't say he didn't warn her this time.