by MK Mancos
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
ParaMatch.com
Copyright © 2009 by MK Mancos
ISBN: 978-1-60504-384-5
Edited by Laurie Rauch
Cover by Natalie Winters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: February 2009
www.samhainpublishing.com
ParaMatch.com
MK Mancos
Dedication
To all those who believe love is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Chapter One
“I have needs, you know?” Cornelius Thornton sat in the client’s chair across the wide expanse of Lucilla Wainwright’s massive desk. Even in a casual suit he looked like a predator.
He shifted his hunter’s sharp gaze to look out the balcony doors. “It’s difficult to maintain a relationship when every full moon I turn into a hairy beast who wants nothing more than to run into the woods and howl.”
Lucilla planted a compassionate expression on her face and indicated the plasma screen television behind her. “After going over your questionnaire, I have compiled a short list of women I think you’ll be pleased with.”
He put his finger between his neck and collar. “I’m kind of nervous. This seems like a last-ditch effort for me.”
“Nonsense. You’re an attractive man. You hold down a good job. There’s no reason for you to believe we won’t find you a successful match.”
He let out a long breath and nodded. “I’m just so damn lonely.”
“I know, Mr. Thornton.” She hit the play button on the DVD remote and the screen filled with the image of a woman who could stop rush-hour traffic. She wasn’t just gorgeous, she was almost unreal in her beauty.
A low, seductive voice came from the speaker. “It’s difficult for a man to commit to a relationship with me when he learns of my past.” She tossed her long raven hair over her shoulder and looked directly into the camera as if making love to it. “They don’t seem to understand that, for the right man, I’ll be unbreakably faithful.”
Lucilla glanced at Mr. Thornton and nearly laughed. If he thought howling at the full moon was bad, he looked ready to shift species in the middle of the afternoon.
“You approve?”
The poor man was beyond words. His mouth hung open as if he’d been rendered deaf and dumb.
“Would you like to meet her, Mr. Thornton?”
His lips flapped a few times before a low, growling “yes” came out.
“Excellent. Here is her contact information.” She slid a postcard-sized printout to him. “I’ll tell her to expect your call.”
He stood and held out his hand. “Thank you, Ms. Wainwright.”
“Save the thanks for after your date.”
He gave her a most spectacular and devastating smile. When he was almost to the door, he stopped. “Um, what exactly is her paranormalady?”
“She’s a succubus.”
Mr. Thornton left the office with the air of a man who’d just won the sexual lottery. Oh, yeah, if he worried about having his needs fulfilled, he needn’t worry any longer.
As her insides did a happy dance, Lucilla turned to her computer and consulted her schedule for the afternoon. She had some free time in which to review new client profiles and select possible matches.
Lucilla didn’t believe in letting the computer perform that part of the service. Finding a true match for a client deserved the personal touch. When dealing with the precarious love lives of the city’s paranormal element, one needed to have that special one-on-one connection. Many of the beings Lucilla dealt with on a daily basis were private in their interactions with the outside world. Having a committed relationship with someone who knew how it was to live with a paranormalady sometimes made all the difference in the world.
The intercom sounded.
“Yes?”
“There is a Mr. Cronus here to see you.”
What is he doing here? “Tell him to come in.”
Jeez. She really didn’t want to have to deal with him today. Things were going so well. She’d made follow-up calls on three successful matches. The possibility for a fourth still hung sweet in the air. Now, Mr. Impossible-To-Match decided to come by and complain about the lack of compatible dates he’d been on.
Truthfully, Lucilla had doubts there was anything wrong with the women she’d matched with Mr. Cronus. The fault lay entirely with him. However, in the matchmaker business, it was impolitic to point that out to a client. Especially one who paid in cash. And Lucilla didn’t come cheap.
She pulled up his file on the computer. There were several women he had yet to date. There was always hope that one of those would be his perfect match.
Jager Cronus ducked his head as he entered the office. He was the biggest man she’d ever met. As the deposed leader of the Titans, he claimed the mythologies maligned him. After the trouble she’d had matching him, Lucilla was almost positive the exaggerations were few.
“Lucilla.” He crossed the room in a few long-legged strides.
He looked down at her from his great height of six-and-a-half feet. Granted, when one thought of Titans, one thought of giants, but in all honesty, their height had also been greatly exaggerated in the mythos. They were no taller than professional basketball players. But his height wasn’t the thing Lucilla found so intimidating about him—it was his looks.
Drop-dead gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe him. Tightness centered in her chest whenever she saw him. Though the fact he was so hard to please took points off.
Lucilla forced a pleasant smile and indicated for him to take a seat. “Can I get you anything?”
“Yes, you can get me an appropriate date.”
The smile slipped slightly, but she ground her back teeth together and pushed on. “If you don’t mind me asking, what was your objection to Ms. Hyde?”
“With a name like that, do you really have to ask?”
The word jerk did a serpentine inside her brain.
“My understanding is that she isn’t in that particular form for long.”
“No, but then I don’t expect my dates to morph during the soup course.” He raised a brow as if he were lecturing an errant child.
“I can see where that would be disconcerting for you.” She clicked a few buttons on the keyboard and hit print. Two profiles sure to be doomed spit out of the printer.
“I haven’t given up and I don’t want you to either.” She rose to collect the printouts. His gaze followed her across the room.
Mr. Cronus possessed the kind of stare that made a woman feel hot and naked. Even standing in the middle of a blizzard probably wouldn’t cool the heat of his appraisal.
She looked at him over her shoulder. A connection too powerful to name passed between them. He started to rise, but Lucilla was quick to motion for him to sit.
“There are two new women who applied in the past few days. Maribon is a selkie with an impressive pedigree. Esmeralda is a djinn who has just
fulfilled her contractual obligation with her master.”
The look he sent her was skeptical. “I’ll try them, but first I want you to do something for me.”
If it moved things along, she’d agree to take up clogging. “What is that, Mr. Cronus?”
“Two things, then. First, call me Jager. Second, fill out a profile on yourself.”
If she had taken a drink, it would have landed in his face. Luckily, her coffee cup was empty. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“Oh, I think it is.”
“Why do you want me to take the time to fill out a profile when I could be combing the database for more possible matches for you?” She already knew the answer to that question, but needed to hear him say it.
He leaned his big, sexy body over the desk. “I think you’re the best match for me, and I think you know it, too.”
There was no doubt in her mind their profiles would have a very high probability for a long-term match. She’d secretly crunched the numbers when he first applied as a client. The memory of which caused heat to creep up her neck and ignite the tops of her ears.
“Is something the matter, Lucilla?”
“No. No.” She smoothed her hair, pulling it forward to cover the vestiges of her acute embarrassment.
“You look like you’ve done something wrong.”
Lucilla cleared her throat. “Back when I first started the agency, I wanted to test the questionnaire software, so I took the profile quiz.”
Jager grinned at her as if he’d caught her in the middle of doing a striptease. “Do whatever it is you do to compare it to mine.”
Lucilla raised a brow at him. “I do all my comparisons by hand. It takes time and consideration. You just can’t slap people together in a haphazard fashion. Computers can’t give that personal touch my clients pay for.”
“The personal touch is exactly what I’m asking for.” The twinkle came back into his eyes. “But since you’re the professional here, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll go out with the selkie and the other, but you have to agree to go to the Legion Halloween Dance with me.”
Even though she knew she looked as attractive as a freshly caught carp, Lucilla couldn’t help but flap her mouth open and closed. The Legion Halloween Dance was the biggest event in Sleepy Hollow Woods. It was the one night of the year those with any form of paranormalady could go out and be themselves without fear of persecution from the Norms. The catch being that most people who were true Paras attended the dance only if accompanied by another from their community. The fear of going stag and meeting a Norm, falling for them, then having to own up to their affliction was too much of a risk.
However, there was always the chance he’d hit it off with either Maribon or Esmeralda and he’d back out of going to the dance with her. As a matter of fact, it was a pretty good bet he would.
Lucilla leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and then folded her hands in her lap. “Very well, Jager. If you agree to go on a date with my other two clients, I’ll accompany you to the Legion Halloween Dance.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” He stood, leaning over the expanse of her desk. Sexual power radiated from him.
If he held her to it, she’d go up in flames along with the holiday bonfire. Or melt into a puddle before he ever picked her up at her door. The man was too much.
No matter how much experience she had with men, it was all on the outside looking in. She understood the male species only insofar as to match them and collect her fee.
But Jager wasn’t finished. He lifted one of those big, beautifully masculine hands and ran his knuckles over her cheek.
“What are you doing?”
“I wanted to see if you are as soft as you look.”
“Yes, well.” Lucilla ran a nervous hand down the pearl buttons of her silk blouse. “Do you want me to email the contact information to you?”
“If you wish.”
Oh, she wished. Anything to get him out of her office and on his way.
Jager straightened then headed for the door. “You are, you know.”
Lucilla’s heart thumped against her breastbone. Oh yeah, she better pray he hit it off with one of the other women.
Lucilla’s receptionist, Janet, came in holding a bundle of the day’s mail.
“Is that all?” Lucilla watched her place it on the desk. If she wasn’t getting junk mail in the post office box, she got spammed in her email. She shook her head and started sorting through the contents. Half of them went directly into the circular file, the others were too bizarre not to open. Like the advertisement guaranteed to rejuvenate hair growth on bald werewolves. What kind of a scam were they running? Most of the werewolves she knew would give their first litter of cubs to lose some fur.
That brochure went into the trash. She started to pick up the latest issue of ParaWorld Weekly when an ivory envelope with a metallic wax seal fell from the pages.
Her heart sank as the envelope dropped to the desk, breaking the seal into a thousand glittery shards. There was only one envelope that ever came to her in such a formal manner. She turned it over to look at the address written in ancient calligraphy.
Great. Just bloody brilliant. This was definitely the last thing she needed in her life—the annual summons for her attendance at the Witches Council’s Open Forum. It was an embarrassment for both her and her family to sit there pretending she hadn’t made a mockery of the craft.
Her failures were legendary.
She’d even heard that mothers, when confronted with a particularly hard-to-train daughter, had begun to say, “Don’t be a Lucilla.”
It was a nightmare to be considered the worst possible case scenario.
Well, this year she just wouldn’t go. That’s all there was to it.
Now, how to tell her family not only was she going to skip the forum, but that her prospective date for the Halloween dance was one of their species’ greatest enemies.
Chapter Two
Jager hadn’t felt so good in years. It was only a matter of time before the exquisite Lucilla became his. He’d never wanted a woman with such a hunger before. It consumed him from the first time he’d spoken to her on the phone to set up an appointment to review his profile. Her voice had that sensual quality that made a man break out into a sweat.
He shrugged out of his jacket then hung it in the closet. After the long day in the uncomfortable human confines of his business suit, he’d be glad to don the loose toga preferred by his people. He really didn’t understand how the Norms wore the things they did. A man needed freedom to move as the ancient gods intended, not hamper his motion with stitched seams and noose-like neckwear.
The cotton fabric draped loosely around his waist then over his shoulder. A brief image flashed in his mind of how Lucilla would look dressed as a Greek goddess. Heat pooled low in his groin. His hands closed involuntarily.
Her skin had been so soft. A smile spread across his face as he remembered the look in her eyes when he’d touched her. The bright green had gone all hot like the flame from a chemical reaction. It had taken all his power not to pull her from her chair and ravage her perfect Cupid’s bow mouth.
Oh, she’d be sweet as the richest nectar.
Comfortable in his native clothing, Jager moved to his home office to catch up on work. He’d spent so much time lately daydreaming over his dilemma with Lucilla, he hadn’t been paying much attention to his business. Fortunately, he had an excellent staff to take up the slack, but as a deposed god, he was used to a certain amount of hands-on in regards to his ventures. As a broker in his own ParaTrader firm, Jager called all the shots, but his problems of the past had taught him one very important lesson—micromanagement.
He sat down to his computer, listening to the pleasant sound of the electronics whirling to life. A lot could be said for the Technology Age. The plethora of microprocessor-driven gizmos on the market made every man or woman as efficient as any of godkind, which was a good thing, considering mo
st of his powers were tempered after his downfall.
His computer chimed, indicating he had mail. Heat speared him. Not because of a few hundred emails he received everyday, but because Lucilla promised to send him one. He clicked the envelope icon. Would the message have a personal note? No, probably not. Even though Lucilla was the most quietly sensuous woman he’d ever met, she was also the most professional. Any letter she sent would contain directions as to how to contact the women she’d matched him with.
By the fires of Hades, how was he ever going to get through two more dates he had no want to be on when the woman he wanted might be on a date of her own?
Jager scanned the contents of his inbox. Lucilla’s email was sandwiched between a budgetary analysis by his CFO and the airline ticket confirmation for his trip to Japan.
His heart gave a disappointed drop as he read the greeting. The email was addressed to Mr. Cronus not Jager. Hope for a personal message dimmed.
He scanned the note. It mentioned only the contact information for both women being contained in the attached files. How unromantic.
He needed to find some way to capture her attention. So what if she melted when he touched her? That might mean she hadn’t been with a man in a while and longed for any male to caress her lovely skin.
The thought alone had Jager shifting in his seat. If she gave him a chance, he’d touch her all over, wherever she wanted and needed it the most.
He downloaded the files, promising himself he’d open them later and read them. Before he clicked on the next message, he hit reply and sent her off a quick note.
That’s Jager to you.
He was one of the few gods who didn’t mind being called by his name. It was, after all, a name he’d selected after he was overthrown by his ungrateful son, Zeus. The need to put all the unpleasantness behind him seemed easier accomplished with a name change. Yet, he insisted on keeping the name Cronus as a reminder of all he’d lost.
The phone rang, bringing him out of the swirling mass of memories from eons of a godly existence. A brief glance at the caller ID had him wincing—Rhea, his ex-wife and the mother of his egocentric son. What in all the heavens did she want? Probably half his thriving business. She was always looking for a damned handout.
