She wasn’t at her desk. Her computer was off, her paperwork cleared. The door to room A stood wide open and empty.
Apparently, she and Earl had bailed while I’d been with Carmen.
The smell, unfortunately, hadn’t.
Thankfully Evie bought bulk for the small votive holders we had situated around the office. I unearthed a box of candles and spread them throughout the room. I’d just finished lighting number twenty when the bell on the door trembled and my next appointment walked in.
She had long, jet black hair, pitch-black eye shadow and bright red lips. She wore a black leather tank top, ripped jeans, and black biker boots. The sharp smell of rubbing alcohol and ink clung to her. Understandable. With the exception of her face, there wasn’t a visible area of her body that wasn’t tattooed.
She had a purple snake that started just under her jawline and curled down around her neck. A bright pink flamingo wrapped around her right bicep. A black and white shaded portrait of Janis Joplin hugged the other. A leopard print dotted her right arm from elbow to wrist, while Betty Boop perched on the left. Hearts dotted the tops of her knuckles. Tweety Bird peeked up over the neckline of her tank and the tail of a dragon curled from under her shirt and encircled her belly button.
She eyed the candles and arched one black brow. “Human sacrifice?”
“That was last night.”
“Bummer.” She glanced around and held out her arms. “So where are the dudes? Your assistant said you had over one hundred eligible guys for me to pick from.”
“In our database. We don’t actually keep them here on display.”
“Oh.” She shifted from one foot to the other and I could tell she felt way out of her element. She was obviously used to being the one in control rather than the one asking for help.
One glance into her heavily rimmed eyes and I could see why. Mia van Horowitz had been on her own since sixteen, when she’d snuck away to Atlantic City to get her first tattoo.
It had been right before her younger brother’s bar mitzvah, and her parents had been so outraged (by the tattoo and the fact that she’d dyed her strawberry blond hair a bright, vivid blue) they’d kicked her out of the house. A Jewish princess didn’t have blue hair and a purple snake wrapped around her neck. She had a tasteful bob and a four-carat diamond wedding band wrapped around her finger. Her parents had disowned her and she hadn’t been welcome at family functions since.
I quickly envisioned myself showing up at the next hunt with blue hair and a snake winding around my neck.
Nah. My cousin Jeanine had blue hair and a real live snake (a pet named Buddha) that she wore to the annual Marchette family reunion, and no one batted an eye.
“So how do we do this?” Mia asked me.
“Well, first you fill out a profile. Then we’ll talk a little bit about what you’re looking for and your preferred dating package. The super-deluxe is my personal favorite.” And the most expensive—which, of course, was why it rated numero uno with yours truly. “You get six months in our database and ten guaranteed prospects. Plus we pay for your first date.” I motioned Mia into my office and settled behind my desk. I pulled up her appointment information on the computer. “It says here you’re a tattoo artist?” As if I didn’t already know.
“I own my own shop down in the Village. I started small about ten years ago as a one-woman show. Now I’ve got eight other artists working for me. I recently bought the storefront next door and doubled my space to accommodate more clients. Scribble—that’s my place—does everybody who’s anybody in New York. I’ve worked on the lead singer of Nickelback, the fashion editor from Vogue, even Mr. Weather.”
Mr. Weather was the local celebrity bachelor who had been featured on MMW last season. He was also the one I’d scared the shit out of during a wild carriage ride through Central Park.
“You’re kidding, right?” The only thing I’d seen painted on Mr. Weather had been an overdone tan. He was vain and self-centered and overly obsessed with his hair, and I just couldn’t picture him doing anything to alter what he considered a perfect body. “Are you sure it was him?” I added. “The meteorologist from Channel 5?”
She nodded. “Did a self-portrait on his left pec. I wanted to do the shoulder blade, but he wanted to be able to see himself without looking in a mirror.”
That was Mr. Weather, all right.
“I work at least fourteen hours a day and do anywhere from two to ten tattoos during that time.” She pulled a knife out of her pocket, slid the blade free, and started to clean under her thumbnail.
I know.
“That doesn’t leave much time to date,” I told Mia.
“My social life doesn’t suck because of lack of time. Time I can make. It’s lack of patience.” She waved the knife. “I hate playing games. I have certain things I want from a guy and I’m not shy about telling them. Most men are intimidated by that, which is why I don’t get asked out much.”
That, and the fact that she looked freakin’ scary.
“So what is it you actually want? Compassion? Understanding? Someone to unclog the toilet?”
“Sex.” She folded the gonzo knife and stuffed it back into her pocket (thankyouthankyouthankyou). “I need it all the time. At least three, four times a day. I should have the guys lining up, right?” She shook her head. “While I like sex, I’m not into meaningless affairs. I’ve had enough of that. I want one guy—with a clean bill of health—that I can share myself with again and again.”
“And again.”
“Exactly. Most of the guys who like to do it a lot are players. I thought Buck, my last boyfriend, was the exception. No VD or HIV. The guy was as clean as a whistle. He lasted for about eight months, but then he had to bail. Left me a note saying he just couldn’t keep up and that he was checking himself into Hoboken Rest and Rehabilitation because he had a strained penis. He said I was a freak and I needed Sexaholics Anonymous.” A glimmer of sadness lit her eyes and my chest hitched. “The thing is, I’ve tried SA three times and it just doesn’t work for me on account of I really like doing the nasty.”
Amen.
“Maybe I am a freak,” she went on, “but what’s the harm? It’s not like I’m lazing around all day just getting after it. I’m a productive citizen. I pay taxes. I have a job. Sure, I take a few more breaks than most people, but it’s not like I’m puffing away in the alley and killing my lungs, or gulping down a bottle of whiskey and pickling my liver. I’m working my muscles and building stamina. Sex is healthy.”
“Extremely.” I nodded.
“So instead of trying to get rid of a healthy lifestyle, I’m thinking I just need to find a decent guy who can give it to me as often as I need it. If that means paying for ten prospects, or even twenty, I’m there.”
I multiplied the super-deluxe package by two and smiled. “You’ve definitely come to the right place.”
Once Mia had filled out her profile and written me a sizable check, she left to make a late-night appointment with some high-society Park Avenue princess who wanted the latest cover of GQ (featuring Russell Crowe) immortalized on her lower back.
I spent the next thirty minutes running searches for possible matches. I came up with a whopping one when it came to common interests—Mia liked sharp objects, New Age Goth music, and deadly reptiles. Unfortunately, the one possibility turned out to be Evie’s cousin, Word.
Word Dalton was a twenty-something horndog who loved heavy metal Goth bands and had a sexual fetish for small, furry creatures. I knew this because he’d installed a speaker system at DED a few months back and I’d actually set him up on a few dates in lieu of payment for services rendered. Word was human, but that hadn’t stopped me from fixing him up with a were squirrel. A match made in heaven, right? Wrong. It turned out that the were wasn’t full-blooded (do NOT ask), and so Word had quickly lost interest. He was back to being a head-banging, animal-lusting loser.
While he gave new meaning to the word horny, he hadn’t had eno
ugh actual experience to fill a plastic Coke cap. No way could he satisfy a woman like Mia.
I was definitely going to have to go outside the DED family for this one. I started brainstorming, jotting down any and all possible hot spots to find Mia’s type. I’d managed to come up with three when the phone rang.
My heart started to pound as my gaze shifted to the caller ID.
UNAVAILABLE stared back and relief rushed through me. Like all born vamps, my mother kept up with the times, changing and blending. At least when it came to clothes and shoes and kick-ass hairstyles. What she hadn’t kept up with were the advances in technology. Namely, she still didn’t know how to work her answering machine and she’d yet to figure out how to set up voice mail on her cell. Punching in a code to hide her phone number was completely out of the question.
I picked up the phone. “Thank you for calling Dead End Dating, where love is always in the air.” Along with a few other things, courtesy of Earl Hubert Stanley. “This is Lil. What can I do for you?”
“You can overnight me an extra-large bottle of valium. I can’t get any here, at least not legally, and I haven’t worked up my nerve to try the street version. A few more days in paradise, however, and I just might change my mind.”
“Who is this?”
“Mrs. Jack Bertrand Pierre Phillipe du Marchette.” Translation, Dr. Mandy Dupree, the human forensic pathologist who’d married my brother Jack in a beautiful moonlit ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria.
I’d been the maid of honor, much to my mother’s horror, and my brother Max had been best man. My mother had written Max’s decision off as the usual boys-will-be-boys, while mine had rated my-traitorous-daughter-is-driving-a-stake-through-my-heart. (Have I mentioned that in addition to being the CEO of Guilt, Inc., my mother was president of Double Standards?)
“Boy,” Mandy went on, “I never realized that would be such a mouthful. It’s a good thing I didn’t hyphenate. Then again, that’s the least of my problems right now.”
If my brother had boffed one of the cabana girls or nailed the night maid, I was so going to fly down to Rio and kick his ass myself. “What did Jack do?”
“Nothing. He’s wonderful. The perfect man, er, I mean vampire.” Her voice trembled. “It’s Mother Marchette.”
“Mother who?”
“Marchette. She told me to call her Jacqueline, but that seems so disrespectful. My mother likes Mother Dupree, so I figured if it worked for mine, it would work for yours.”
“Uh, yeah.” Not. “What did she do?”
“She won’t stop calling. The first time, we figured she just wanted to see if we’d made the flight okay. That was two and a half weeks ago. She’s called every day since.”
“But she said she hadn’t talked to Jack.”
“She hasn’t. We’ve been taking the phone off the hook, so she’s been calling the front desk. She’s talked to everyone in the hotel. She’s also bribed them, so we aren’t getting a moment’s peace. Concierge is constantly checking on us. Maid service shows up unannounced. Room service is forever bringing wine or champagne or something. Even the hotel manager pays us a nightly visit. We’ve complained and threatened to switch hotels, but it’s the busy season here and there isn’t another decent suite available at any of the other resorts. Besides, your mother would just do the same thing if we switched hotels. You know, Lil”—worry crept into her voice—“I’m starting to think that she’s not all that thrilled with the marriage.”
Ya think?
“Nonsense,” I heard myself say. “You’re a wonderful woman. Any born vampire would be lucky to have you for a daughter-in-law.”
“That’s what you think. But what about your mother?”
“Does it really matter what some pompous, closed-minded, irrational third party with decent taste in shoes thinks or does? You’re happy and Jack’s happy. That’s what’s important. The two of you are happy, right?”
“Extremely.”
“Then forget about my mother.”
“That’s a little hard to do when you have the policia walking in on you while you’re buck naked and bent over a hibiscus plant.”
I was not going to ask.
“Apparently, your mother knows every vampire in the free world over the age of five hundred,” Mandy went on. “General Guerrero, the chief here, used to be General Genoise about eight hundred years ago. He and your mother are old, old friends and he was more than happy to check up on us for her. He even brought a fruit basket.”
“That’s sweet.”
“The fruit basket was for me. He brought two hookers for Jack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You and me both. The fruit we could toss, the hookers wanted to hang around and watch cable on account of they’d never actually seen a real television because they were from a really poor area of the city. Jack and I felt so bad for them that we even let them order pay-per-view.” A pleading note crept into her voice. “We only have three days left and we haven’t had so much as two solid hours without some sort of interruption. You have to help us.”
“What can I do?”
“Talk to Mother Marchette.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of another fruit basket. Maybe a nice bottle of wine.” Because talking to Jacqueline was useless. I’d found that out firsthand at the age of five, when I’d threatened to hold my breath until she agreed to let me go to Mass with Sister Wilhemina, my au pair at the time.
In other words…get the fuck out.
“Jack would talk to her, but he feels bad enough avoiding her. He’s afraid he’ll buckle if he hears her voice and feels the guilt firsthand.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’m begging you,” Mandy added. “You’re our last hope.”
Nuh, uh. Not happenin’ sistah.
“Please.”
“Okay,” I blurted. Come on, she said please.
“Really?”
“Stop worrying and have fun. Drink a few margaritas for me and tell Jack he owes me big time.”
“You’re the best sister-in-law in the entire universe.”
I smiled as I slid the phone into place.
Then the expression faded as I realized what I was going to have to do next.
“I’ve thought about it,” I heard myself say after I dialed my mom’s number and she picked up. “I’ll do it. I’ll go out with Remy. An official date.”
“You will?” She sounded surprised for about an eighth of a second. “But of course you will. How could you not? He’s absolutely perfect. Handsome. Wealthy. Well-endowed, at least according to his mother, who told me that his—”
“One date,” I cut in. “That’s all I’m agreeing to.”
“Right now. But once you see his—”
“One,” I cut in, despite the sudden curiosity that bubbled through me. I couldn’t surrender completely to the dark side, otherwise she wouldn’t have to go to any trouble—time-consuming trouble—to convince me that Remy was the One. “We’ll talk, have a few drinks and see what happens.”
“Sex,” she concluded. Before I could protest, she rushed on. “I have to call Estelle. She’ll be so happy you’ve finally come to your senses. She’ll need to let her mother know, of course. And her grandmother. And her great, great grandmother. And her great, great, great grandmother. They’re all still in France and it’ll take a few weeks for them to make arrangements to fly over for the commitment ceremony, which we can easily do at the club in the next few weeks—”
“It’s just one date, Ma.” I slid the receiver into place, ignored the tiny tremor of panic in my gut (commitment ceremony, two weeks, tons of relatives), and focused on a surge of victory. “Am I a total genius or what?”
“I’m voting for number two.” The deep, familiar voice echoed in my ears.
I glanced up to find Ash Prince standing in my office doorway. He looked as hot and yummy as ever and my legs trembled.
But then I took one look at his face, serious and s
lightly homicidal, and my excitement drained into full-blown irritation.
Ten
“I’ve already been through this with Ty,” I told Ash as he walked into my office, his two hunkalicious brothers right behind him. “I AM NOT possessed by a demon.”
I’d barely gotten the last words out when I found myself snatched out of my chair and shoved up against the nearest wall, my arms behind me.
A hard male body pressed up against my back. Mo or Zee, I wasn’t sure. I only knew Ash stood just to my right, his dark gaze drilling into me.
“Pat her down,” he told the man holding me.
A strong male hand plunged under my hair and felt its way down my neck, over my shoulders, down the length of each arm.
“I’m not,” I insisted. “Now let me go.” Hands slid around my rib cage and my heart started to pound. I became increasingly aware that I’d worn a silver lamé halter minus a bra or even pasties. My nipples pebbled. The air grew hot and thick and my throat went dry. I summoned my most threatening voice. “Don’t make me get all vampy on your ass.” Meanwhile my hormones chanted lower, lower, lo-wer!
The hands quickly obliged. Fingers spanned my waist, played over my hips, my buttocks, my thighs…
Wait! my hormones screamed as the strong, purposeful touching moved down toward my knees. Come back!
“I mean it,” I warned again. “I’m getting pissed.”
“You’re lying.” Ash’s warm breath ruffled the hair near my right ear. “You were the last person to make contact with him. It has to be you.”
“Says you.” The hands reached my feet, which were clad in a pair of leather Casadei animal print peep-toe stilettos. Fingertips circled my ankles and grazed my arches, and I fought down the laughter that bubbled in my throat. “Stop.” A smile tugged at my lips. “Please.”
So I’m a vampire and I’m ticklish? Get over it.
“She’s clean,” a deep voice announced, the search-and-destroy over as quickly as it had started. “You want to go ahead and chop off her head now?”
What?
I barely heard Ash’s voice through the sudden thunder of my own heart. “Let her go.”
Just One Bite Page 7
