On the day he died, Eric Leaventhall had a datethat couldn't be broken, so he went. Dead and all.

Too bad I was his date.

Turned out dead dating was the only way he could get what he needed.

Sustenance.

Are you confused yet? I know I was.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. But I'm not quite sure when that was. Probably when I decided to become a client ofwww.truelove.com.

Pretentious? Maybe. But I'd hoped that any man who chose a service by that name might be a little more grown up than most - had at least moved beyond a desire to bang supermodels and begun to think about finding a life. Being a literary agent, I should have known that semantics were as dead as most people's belief in a soul mate.

The date itself started out well enough. We met at a martini bar near my office. A new place, kind ofSex and the City, which should have tipped me off right away. If not to the whole demon issue, then at least to his hopes for the evening. He wasn't after true love.

I hadn't been completely honest, either. In my bio I'd said I was "in publishing." I'd learned that the quickest way to a stack of manuscripts from the wannabe famous was to tell anyone but immediate family what I really did for a living.

Of course some people figured it out as soon as they heard my name. My mother had been one of the top agents in the business before she'd gone and died on me. Was I following in her footsteps trying to regain some of the happiness I'd enjoyed while she was alive?

You betcha.

However, that wasn't working out. I liked to read, but I didn't like to sell. Sadly, my degree in ancient civilizations made me fit to do little but teach, and I doubted I'd be very good at that, either. Kids kind of scared me.

At loose ends - in my job and my personal life - I'd decided to start searching for that soul mate I'd been dreaming of. Just my luck, the first candidate didn't even have a soul.

I should have caught a clue to Eric's intentions the instant I'd seen his photo on the web. He was drop-deadgorgeous - dead being the operative word, although in truth, he hadn't been dead at the time.

Still, what on earth would a man like him want with a woman like me?

One thing and one thing only. What's that horrible saying about all women being the same in the dark?

I'm not a hag, but I am short and just a little dumpy, with long, black hair that curls too much and the dark eyes and olive complexion of either my father's Sicilian ancestors or my mother's Hebrew ones.

Take your pick. With a name like Mara Naomi Elizabeth Morelli, I'd never be mistaken for a Nordic bimbo, even if I'd had a prayer of looking like one.

Anyway, call me Kit. Everyone does. I was never able to carry off the Mara Naomi Elizabeth thing.

Now back to the date - if not from hell, at least from a place very near by.

Manhattan.

Rich, blond, and handsome, Eric was every plain girl's dream. He wasnot very tall, which I liked, since big men always made me nervous; his teeth were white and straight; his eyes deep blue. He was also a surgeon. Of course he was too good to be true.

"I'm so glad you came," he said, and his smile warmed the chill of the early spring night.

Eric led me to a secluded table, held my chair, let his fingertips drift over my hair. Sure he got a little too close, rubbed his knee against mine a little too soon, laid on the interest in my job, my future, and me a little too thick. But I was lonely, confused, unhappy, and here was this great guy hanging all over me.

"What do you say we take this to your place?" Eric murmured, stroking the back of my hand.

I hesitated, uncertain how to say no. I'd never been one for sex on a first date; I wasn't one for sex at all. I might be smart-mouthed, just a little sarcastic - blame my mother - but I was also shy with men.

The thought of baring my body to a stranger - well, it wasn't a thought I entertained very often.

However, I was suddenly struck by the odd notion that tonight was the night I'd met the man I'd been waiting for all of my life.

"Okay," I said.

Had that word come out of my mouth?

I'd been raised on my mother's tales of love at first sight. She'd taken one glance at my Italian-Catholic, working-class father and defied her wealthy intellectual Jewish family to marry him.

They'd been happy until the day she died. I'd been in my last semester of college, uncertain of what I should do with my life.

Then - bam - my mother had died from a brain aneurysm. Life suddenly seemed so short. Her work wasn't done, and I had no pressing place to be. So I slid into her job, and two years later I was still doing it.

My father never recovered from her death. He'd passed away just this winter. I was so lost without him, I felt hollow inside. Which had no doubt precipitated my sudden search for true love.

Hand in hand Eric and I left the bar and strolled south toward Chelsea.

I had an apartment on West Twenty-fourth Street. My mother had been avery good agent. Throughout her married life, she'd made three times the money of my electrician father. They'd deposited the checks and never mentioned it. Sowhen Daddy died, I'd nearly choked at the size of his bank account, which was now mine.

I'd spent the money on a condo, not too far from my Fifth Avenue office. Trying to live up to my mother's reputation meant I had to work harder and longer than everyone else. Saving commute time had seemed like the best way to invest my inheritance.

Eric's arm slid around my waist. Sighing, I leaned my head on his shoulder.

"This is nice," I murmured.

"It'll get nicer, I promise."

His palm drifted lower, cupping my bountiful butt, squeezing a little. His thumb slid down the center, and I jumped.

"I can't wait to get inside you. You'll die of the pleasure, baby."

Baby?

Uck. I was going to have to put a stop to that. He sounded like a used car salesman, trying to sell me a vehicle I did not want.

His thumb teased me again, and I decided later would be time enough to discuss endearments. Who'd have thought a guy's thumb could be so arousing. Of course, I couldn't recall ever being this aroused.

Eric must have felt the same way because he yanked me in between two buildings and shoved me against the wall, slapping his lips against mine a little too hard. I tasted bloodwhen my teeth cut my lip, shuddered when he licked the blood away.

I should have been angry, disgusted, a little scared. Instead I felt...wanted. Something I'd never felt before. Sure, in a tiny sane portion of my mind I knew I'd lost it, but right now I couldn't summon the will to care.

Eric's body shielded mine from the night, his erection pressed against me too high to be of any help. I'd have to climb his body, wrap my legs around his waistif I wanted any relief. I was contemplating doing just that when the snick of a match made me still.

Someone else was in the alley.

I yanked my mouth from Eric's. His lips slid across my jaw, then latched onto my neck. My gaze went past his shoulder to the man hovering in the shadows. The glow of his cigarette did nothing to reveal his face. I got a sense of height, breadth, and darkness.

"Eric," I whispered.

He continued to rain kisses across my chest, then rooted at the neckline of my brand-new black dress like a nursing child. My nipples tightened in anticipation, even as the glitter of eyes from the shadows caused a tingle of unease to dance across my skin.

What in hell was wrong with me? I was definitely not an exhibitionist.

"There's someone here," I said more loudly.

"Doesn't matter," Eric muttered, fumbling with hispants. "Gotta do you now or I'll fade away."

Thatgot through to me. I might be attracted, aroused, insane, but I was definitely not so far gone that I'd let a virtual stranger screw me in an alley while another one watched.

"No," I said.

He ignored me, sliding my dress up my legs, yanking at my pantyhose. The nylon wentping as his thumb popped through. A run shot down my leg, even as his erection beat a pulse against my stomach.

I began to struggle, becoming just a little afraid, yet in the midst of all that, I wanted him. And that scared me more than anything else.

"You'll die happy, baby," he muttered. "They always do."

A hand slapped onto Eric's shoulder. "She said no,hibrido. "

Though the words were harsh, the tone was mellow, the accent south of the border. A voice that could haunt me for the rest of my life.

Eric shifted, his shoulders blotting out everything but him. Neither the hand on his shoulder nor the whispered warning even slowed him down.

The salt, however, did.

I wouldn't have known what had been thrown inEric's face, except some of it hit me. The grains burned my eyes like hellfire.

Eric made a sound that was half snarl, half shout, and shoved away from me so hard my shoulder blades scraped the brick wall.

He swung around and the other man shot him.

Right in the head.