by Hughes, Mary
“Yes,” Zajicek said. “Are you ladies music lovers?” His honeyed voice caressed the word “lover”.
“Oooh, yeah,” the blonde cooed back. She bent closer and closer to him. “I loo-ove music.” Her full lips pursed.
Just before she landed lips-first on his mouth, Zajicek swiveled to me and she nearly ate his hair. “Did you hear that, Raquel? A music lover.”
“Umm…” I’d been watching with a fascination akin to a car wreck—slightly appalled, slightly excited, and glad it wasn’t me. Now it was. No script covered this either so I blurted the first thing that popped into my mouth. “A music lover? What’s your favorite work?”
“Um, on my back?” She giggled. Her friends tittered.
“Music,” Zajicek said with a touch of asperity.
“Oh-hh. I like retro.” The cooing was back. “What’s your favorite?”
“I quite like Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.”
The server returned with our drinks, bending to set Zajicek’s before him with a flash of cleavage. The cognac was far over my usual six percent—its vapors danced straight up my nostrils and stomped the tiny remainders of my forebrain.
Then she set a small balloon glass in front of me. After getting nasally KOed by Zajicek’s drink I was expecting the worst. But a sniff delighted me with a pleasant orange smell. I took a sip—and promptly hacked up my lungs through my nose.
“Although I’m most at home with Dvorak’s work.” Zajicek patted my back gently with one hand while he sipped his expensive paint thinner with the other. “What about you, Raquel?”
Through my coughing I managed, “Susato. Danserye.”
Something changed in Zajicek’s black eyes. “Little Renaissance dances?” he asked softly.
I blushed. Zajicek conducted huge, lush symphonic pieces; he led famous orchestras in performing the world’s greatest music.
I’d just admitted I liked bubble-gum pop from the 1500s.
“That is adorable, Raquel.” He brushed his lips against my forehead.
Heat filled my cheeks, maybe embarrassment, maybe something else. I straightened away and gulped more of my drink. The burn hit my stomach and sent plumes of madness into my skull. Since it made the madness of Zajicek kissing me seem sane in comparison, I drank again. Life took on a pleasant glow.
“So since you’re famous, can I have your autograph?” The brunette grabbed a paper napkin off the table and offered it.
“Me too.” The redhead excavated a store receipt from her purse and slapped it over her friend’s napkin.
Zajicek extracted a slim gold pen from somewhere I wanted to be and signed the back of the redhead’s receipt with a flourish.
“You’re Dragan Zajicek?” the woman read. “The orchestra superstar?”
“Ooh, Maestro Zajicek. Sign mine.” The blonde reached into her purse, whipped out a tiger-striped thong and whapped aside her friends’ hands. “I’m your biggest fan.”
“No, I’m your biggest fan.” The brunette took her napkin and whapped the blonde.
“Me, me!” The server shoved all three aside and stuck her ordering pad under Zajicek’s nose. He bobbed back, the only thing that saved him from a cut lip.
“I’ve been a fan since I was ten.” The redhead grabbed the server’s arm and reeled her back.
“I’ve been a fan since I was a baby.” The blonde pushed the redhead.
“My mother played me Maestro Zajicek’s music in the womb!” The brunette shoved them both.
“My dad’s sperm listened to his music!” The server whapped everybody indiscriminately with her pad.
“We should go.” Zajicek nudged me toward the other end of the booth, then caught me neatly when I nearly fell off the end onto my butt. Whoa, Grand Marnier was potent stuff. Brushing a kiss on my cheek, he set me on my feet.
My hand drifted toward my face, where lip-shaped heat still throbbed. What was it with this man?
His gaze followed, and a twinkle entered his eye. I dropped my hand and spun toward the door, my face burning. At least he was good for my circulation.
Resolutely, I marched out.
Straight into my friends, Julian Emerson and Logan Steel, coming in.
They screeched to a halt, glaring—at Zajicek.
Black eyebrows rising, Zajicek stared back. The fight theme from Rocky punched into my head.
No, wait, that wasn’t Logan. Though movie-star gorgeous, this man’s blond hair tumbled past his shoulders to his butt. And his expression was not Logan Steel’s happily married smirk but the thin, twisted lips of someone in pain. This was Logan’s identical twin, Luke.
The other man was Julian but it wasn’t only Julian. Standing in his six-foot-plus shadow was his five-foot-even wife, my friend, Nixie. The black-haired, self-confident lawyer and the blonde, in-your-face punk rock musician were proof opposites attract.
But the guys’ blue and gold glares lasered Zajicek above my head, the low thrum of their growls alerting me that the situation was about to combust. I said the only thing I could. “Hey, Nixie. How’s Jaxxie?”
Nixie and Julian had had their first baby a few months ago, Jessie Emerson, aka Jaxxie. She’s the cutest button of a girl, with Julian’s stunning blue eyes and Nixie’s stunning lungs (that kid can holler).
As a soothing tactic it backfired big time. Nixie switched her glare to me and snarled. Startled, I looked closer at her. Tonight, the normally energetic punk rocker could’ve been a Grumpy Cat trainee, with baggy blood-shot eyes and a stuck-her-finger-in-the-light-socket frazzle.
I raised a questioning eyebrow at her.
“Colic,” she said shortly.
“What are you doing here, Zajicek?” Julian drawled the words in a liquid-smooth baritone that dripped equal parts old Boston money and deadly poison. Luke Steel’s gaze was narrow like a sharp knife.
“Visiting.” Zajicek sketched an easy bow. “Ms. Emerson, a delight.” Despite being figuratively disemboweled by three sets of eyes, he was cool and urbane. “Steel. How is your esteemed brother?”
“Married,” Luke said shortly. “Expecting. But you knew that. You know everything.”
“Yes. Congratulations,” Zajicek said pleasantly. “I heard gossip, but that’s not the same thing, is it? Twins?”
“Yes.”
“They must run in the family.” A smile ghosted across Zajicek’s lips. “You’re a few months early if you’re here for the christening.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed further. “This is your business how?”
“It isn’t.” Zajicek shrugged. “But I am interested nonetheless.”
“Be interested somewhere else.”
“Of course.” Zajicek bowed gracefully, mockingly, and put a hand on my elbow to steer me out the door.
“Wait.” Nixie moved to intercept. To my surprise, she grabbed me and hissed, “What are you doing? You don’t want to leave with him.”
“But…he drove me here. He has my flute.”
Nixie briefly closed her eyes then glared at Zajicek. “You hurt her, you die.”
“Of course, little one.” Zajicek bowed to her, just as gracefully but without the derision.
“Don’t you ‘little one’ me. I’ll kick your balls through the roof of your mouth.”
“If you could kick that high.” A smile played at the corner of his lips. When she started sputtering he patted the air soothingly. “I’m joking. Please don’t agitate yourself, Ms. Emerson. You don’t want to sour your milk.”
“That’s fucking personal.” Julian pushed between Zajicek and Nixie with a shoulder butt to Zajicek. He clamped one square, competent hand—around Zajicek’s throat. “Leave my wife alone.”
“He’s baiting you, Julian,” Nixie said. “That’s an old wives’ tale.”
“Listen to your wife, Emerson.” Voice tight, Zajicek nonetheless was unhurried as he calmly grasped Julian’s wrist with one hand and caught his pinky with the other. An impossibly fast tug-and-flip pried Julian’s hand off his t
hroat. “She’s the more reasonable of you two.” He casually dusted his immaculate shirt front.
“You sell one iota of information about our personal life and you’ll see exactly how unreasonable I am.” Julian encircled Nixie’s shoulders with a protective arm.
“The same covers our friends, Zajicek,” Nixie said. “Rocky’s a real innocent. You hurt her—”
“I have no wish to hurt anyone,” Zajicek said. “And you underestimate your friend. She is an adult.”
“She’s an innocent,” Nixie repeated. Her head swiveled to me. “Rocky—be careful. You don’t know what you’re getting into with this male. You may be in over your head.”
All the blood drained from me.
She’d said “male” instead of “man.”
My friends have a bunch of code words—male not man, household not apartment building, lieutenant not employee. It’s because of the v-secret.
Vampires.
Nixie had called Zajicek a male, not a man. The unearthly beauty and grace. The sheer charisma. The fact that he looked exactly the same as he had when I’d first crushed on him decades ago.
I reeled. The deedle-dee of an operatic Phantom playing “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” spun through my head. It all made so much sense now.
Zajicek was a vampire.
“My dear Raquel, you must not let your friends upset you.”
Cool air hit me in the face. I was outside with Zajicek’s arm around me, guiding me to his car. I must have stumbled again but after that face punch, who could blame me?
If I’d had any sense of self-preservation, I’d run the other way pronto and hide behind Nixie. Julian’s a vampire too, but at least he’s one of Our Vampires.
There’s some sort of Us versus Them going on, with the good-guy vampires mostly living in Meiers Corners and the bad-guy vampires centered around Mr. Nosferatu, head of CIC Mutual Insurance, one of the places I work. I don’t know the full details, and I haven’t asked because it’s obvious from how my friends stutter around that it’s some sort of secret. I respect that and don’t talk about it.
But I’ve seen enough to know that they’re afraid of Mr. Nosferatu and frankly, he’s done some nasty things, like jacking up all Meiers Corners insurance premiums into the unpayable stratosphere.
So I keep my ears open at CIC, a sort of unofficial spy. I’m there anyway and it’s the least I can do for my friends.
Although, if Zajicek was a potential bad-guy vamp, maybe it was my duty to keep track of him too? Accept, even encourage, his attentions? A delicious shiver rolled through me at the thought.
“Are you cold?” Zajicek stopped and pulled me close. My breasts flattened against the hardest, hottest torso in the world. My nipples poked up to rub their little selves against every nook and cranny.
“Not cold. Fine!” I sprang back, tripping over my own ankles.
Before I could land on my butt—with my legs in the V of a Zajicek landing position, no doubt—he caught me.
With a brief, hard, torso-imprinting hug, he released me. “I’m glad you’re ‘fine’.” Delight sparkled in his tone. Delighted with me? The man was dangerous with a capital yikes.
“Please. Just take me to my car?” If I kept track of him it’d have to be from a safe distance, like behind a camera with a 100x zoom.
“Of course.” He cupped my elbow and steered me to his car.
The fierce heat of his fingers goosed my tongue loose. “Hey, how do you know Nixie and Julian? I thought this was your first time in Meiers Corners. For that matter, how did you know about Liese and Logan’s twins?”
“I’m a bit of an information broker.” Zajicek unlocked the door and scissored it open, then poured me into his low-slung car.
“What, like a spy?”
Zajicek grimaced as he slid in on the other side. “Please, Raquel. Spy is so…outdated.” He started the engine and drove onto the street. “And in this case, inaccurate. I simply spoke with Ms. Barton.”
“Oh.” That explained it. The Dolly Barton gossip network made CNN look twenty years out of date. Some say Walter Cronkite reported to Dolly from heaven.
It wasn’t until we passed a four-story cream-brick apartment building with beveled glass, gleaming yellow metal and beautifully varnished wood that I realized we were heading the wrong way. “Wait. That was Bo and Elena Strongwell’s building. Where are we going?”
“Where I am staying.” Zajicek’s long fingers were relaxed and competent on the wheel. “Otto’s B&B.”
“BS.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Otto runs a Bed and Breakfast Smorgasbord. B and BS.”
He looked vaguely offended. “How can I invite a beautiful woman to my room if it’s at a B&BS?”
“Um, because you’re gorgeous and magnetic and they’ll follow you anywhere?”
His lips quirked. “You do not hold your liquor very well, do you?”
“I hold my beer just fine. It’s that fancy stuff that gets me yapping. But I thought we were going to pick up my car. I need it to get to work tomorrow.”
“Where do you work? Perhaps I can drive you there…after.” He raised his eyebrows.
Implying…something. If we were playing ping pong, he’d just lobbed the ball over my head. Floundering, I served back straight. “Where depends on when. Weekdays, I rate insurance policies in Chicago. One night a week and Saturday morning I teach flute. Two more nights are CSUCS and one is the Meiers Corners Symphony, though only CSUCS pays. In between I work at the homeless shelter.”
“You could be a soloist or principal of a major symphony. Yet you rate insurance?” He spiked the conversational ping pong ball back. “Why so many jobs? And why so many non-musical revenue streams?”
“Pays the bills? Don’t put everything in one basket? Point is, I need my car.”
“Should you really drive in your condition?”
“Well…” If we were playing ping pong, he was trouncing me. “Okay, then take me home.”
“Mmm. I shall be pleased to do so.”
His purr was so hot my eyes jerked to him. The flames in his gaze lit my seat on fire. This wasn’t a ping pong match, this was Mr. Moose dropping a boxcar of balls on Captain Kangaroo.
I squirmed, caught his eyes going nova, froze and cleared my throat. “East,” I squeaked. Managed, “Across the river. North on Eighth to Eisenhower.”
He opened the throttle. For a few moments everything disappeared but the wind in my face and the searing joy of riding in a sexy car with a sexier guy. The Allman Brothers’ “Jessica” a la Top Gear sang in my head. This would fuel my fantasies for many moons to come.
Unfortunately, Meiers Corners is small enough to drive across in a quarter hour. A few bars later the dream ended when he came to a stop in front of my flat.
He stared in dismay. “This is where you live?”
I looked at my home as he must see it, lawn rioting with garden gnomes, plywood silhouettes and concrete animals, including a life-size moose lipping the leaves of the curbside sugar maple. “Um…yes?”
“All those things are yours?”
“My mother’s. She’s an artist. Normally she doesn’t live here but a kiln fire in her trailer sort of got out of control. The gnomes and flamingos came with. I know it’s a lot—”
“A bit exuberant.”
“—but art makes her happy. She hasn’t had much happy in her life so those ugly gnomes are beautiful to me.”
He considered me. “Why, Raquel, you’ve a poetic soul.”
“No, please. I’m just a working musician.” I tried to find the handle as I spoke. “Thanks for the ride, Maestro.”
“Dragan.” He reached across to seize my questing hand and brought it back to kiss it. His dark head moved over my hand, his lips lingering warm on my skin. “Is your mother home now? Or may I—come in?”
Again, the ping pong ball parted my hair. I was beginning to agree with Nixie—I was far too innocent for the likes of him, although I
would have said “obtuse”. “My mom’s always home, but you can come in if you want.”
He smiled at me, a sort of half-puzzled, half-disbelieving expression. “Do you truly not understand your own attractiveness?”
I opened my mouth, shut it. Opened it again. “Well…I’m female, so I have the usual parts guys like. But I’m not anything special.”
“You truly do not know.” He gave a single abrupt nod. “I will be pleased to rectify that.”
He said it like he’d taken up a challenge.
Yikes. This was one male I did not want to challenge. I groped with my free hand, finally managed the door and jumped out of the car, but as fast as I was, Zajicek was faster. By the time I took my first step he’d leaped out his own door, gotten my flute from the front trunk, zipped around and placed a hand on my elbow.
With it, he guided me solicitously to my front stoop.
As I dug in my purse for my keys to unlock the door, he stood over me, his heat beating against me in increasing waves until I couldn’t ignore that he was still there. I looked up.
He leaned over me, his eyes dark with intent, right on top of me, looming so close I gasped. His gaze zoomed to my parted lips. He bent…
Chapter Four
A movement from the flat caught my eye. I glanced up. The drapes twitched, as if a lifted corner had been dropped.
Zajicek straightened. “It appears we have an audience—besides the gnomes and bunnies, that is. Ah well. Goodnight, Raquel.” He bent, brushed lips on lips, sliding my keys from my nerveless hand while he did, opened my front door, handed me my keys and my flute bag and shooed me in.
My small living room was dark. I dropped my flute bag onto the rocking chair and pressed fingers to my buzzing lips.
To my right, beady eyes gleamed.
I jerked around to look. A garden gnome stared at me from the top of my music filing cabinet.
I relaxed. Mom’s creations were creepy but not violent, mostly. Although in a pinch her concrete bunnies swung from the ears like a baseball bat.
