by Sharon Green
The last thing the crew did was brush my skin gently at neck and wrists with perfume. I recognized the scent as Shalimar, but it had been applied so lightly that even my senses barely picked it up. Which was a good thing. I happen to be fond of Shalimar, but I'd once been trapped in an elevator for about ten floors with a woman who'd apparently bathed in the stuff. Happily I'd still been human back then, otherwise I might have passed out from sensory overload. If you don't use a lot of restraint with Shalimar, those around you end up regretting it.
When we walked out of my bedroom, Freemont, George, Eric, and Allison all turned toward us. I'd started out being a little taller than the women who had helped me, but in three inch heels I was close to six feet and felt like a giant. I noticed immediately how good Eric looked in his tux with his blond hair styled to emphasize its length, and then I stopped looking at him. The expression in his gray eyes matched his grin in a … hot sort of way, and I really didn't need to see that.
"Taz, you look incredible!" Freemont exclaimed while George looked more surprised than anything else. "I knew you were pretty, but now you're downright beautiful. If you'd done this before now, we might have had it easier hunting rogues. After one look they would have dropped at your feet, and then we could have - "
By that time everyone's laughter cut off Freemont's nonsense, and even I was forced to produce a crooked, hating-I-was-being-teased-but-still-amused smile.
"You really do look lovely, Ms. Bell, but it's time you and Mr. Wellman were on your way," Allison said with her own smile. "Dr. Boughton is staying at the Marriott, where the conference is being held, and we have a limo to take you there. There's just one favor I'd like to ask before you go."
By now she'd lost the smile, and I couldn't help noticing that she'd waited to ask her favor until the four women who'd helped me had left the suite.
"Dr. Boughton is unpleasant in the extreme, but we would consider it really good of you if you didn't get angry at what he said. Are you able to withstand things like that without taking them personally?"
I had the impression she would have been happier looking away during that short speech, but she'd forced herself to look directly at me. Someone else would have pointed out that I was being paid well enough to grit my teeth and swallow whatever garbage was thrown at me, but she'd chosen to put the matter as asking for a favor. These really were very decent people, giving me no choice but to do as they did.
"Don't worry, Ms. French, I won't send your problem child into a screaming tantrum," I said with what I hoped was a reassuring smile. "I'll treat him as if he were breakable, and do nothing to cause that breakage. And by the way, please call me Taz."
"Thank you, Taz," she said with a smile to match mine. "And please do call me Allison. I'll walk you and Mr. Wellman - Eric - to the limo."
She turned toward the door out of the suite, and I glanced at George to see his nod before following her with Eric following me. George's nod had meant he'd be around even if I couldn't see him, and that was just the way I wanted it. I didn't like the idea of doing a job without George there, and hoped I'd never have to.
Allison led the way to the elevators, and once she'd touched the down button I got something in the way of a shock. The walls all around the elevator were mirrored, and suddenly I had a full-length view of myself. For an instant I thought I was looking at a stranger, and then the surprised shock came when I understood it was me being reflected.
But the me in the mirror wasn't the one I usually looked at. My makeup was done better than I'd ever managed to do it myself, making me look like a sleek and expensive doll who wasn't really made up at all. Instead of just hanging straight my hair had a hint of curl, along with the kind of body that unstyled hair rarely had. The gown added in made me look very upper class, a cool and distant lady of wealth and position. In other words, totally unlike my usual self.
But the really disturbing part was that I'd seen myself look like this once before. The time that Grail had used his power on me, and I'd had a waking dream sitting at a table in the Jordan Suites restaurant. In the dream I'd seemed a lot more … sensuous, I guess you could say, but maybe that was because I'd been looking at myself from a male point of view. And until now I hadn't realized it might have been the male point of view I'd been seeing…
"If that expression on your face means you don't like the changes, you're the only one," Eric murmured from behind me. When he stepped a little closer I could see as well as hear him, not to mention feel a distant stirring in a body that wasn't my own. Eric seemed to be having trouble controlling himself, and wasn't that exactly what we needed.
"If you're this easily distracted, I don't think we'll need three months to make a decision about keeping you on the team," I murmured back, flatly refusing to feel the tingle that was trying to start in my body now. "Tell me now if you can't handle it, and I'll break the news to Allison."
"Pulling myself together will be hard, but I think I can manage it," he answered, amusement rather than anger behind the comment as that tingle faded and disappeared. "I just had to remind myself that you aren't all dressed up for a date with me, at least not this time."
I was about to say that I wasn't likely to ever dress up for a date with him, but the elevator doors opened to save me from making a fool of myself. Telling people who can hear your increased pulse that you have no interest in them is stupid, and there was still too much of the day left for me to use up my quota of stupidity.
The elevator took us down to the ground floor, and just outside the front entrance was an ordinary limousine, not a stretch limo. The car was black with a uniformed driver standing by the back door, and Allison led us up to him.
"Williams, these are the people you'll take to the reception tonight," Allison said to the uniformed man, then turned to Eric and me. "Williams will get you where you have to go, and then he'll make sure you don't get lost on the way back. Good luck, people, and I'll see you either later tonight or tomorrow."
Williams opened the back door of the limo while Eric and I smiled at Allison and nodded, and then he and I got into the car. I was ushered in first, of course, and even managed to walk bent over to the far side of the seat. That put me on the right side of the car, and once Eric was seated beside me the door was closed. A moment later Williams had gotten into the driver's seat behind the glass window that separated the front of the car from the back, and in a couple of heartbeats we were on our way.
"I could get used to being pampered, but I don't think getting used to it would be smart," Eric said after the silence had stretched out for a short while. "I've never been given this kind of treatment either before the task force or while I was with them."
"More often than not we're treated like the hired help," I agreed, still looking out the window on my side of the car. "Most especially once we've taken down whatever rogue we were called in to take care of. It's as if once our usefulness is over the people who called us in don't want to know us anymore. Only in Chattanooga were we invited to stay."
"Just once I had someone try to hire me away from the task force," Eric said, his words not the happiest I'd ever heard. "We took down a group of rogue shapeshifters, and I ended up going one on one with the leader of the gang. It was kind of a spectacular fight with both of us throwing people and things all over the place. The man was a really strong wolf, but when he got desperate enough to try using his power on me he found out the hard way that I was stronger. When the fight was over, one of the people who had called in the task force came over to me."
"But not just to offer congratulations," I guessed out loud. "What kind of job did he want you for?"
"She," Eric corrected, and I could hear the unvoiced sigh. "She said she wanted me as her bodyguard, and offered to pay me double what I got from the task force. The only trouble was, the scent I got from her said she wasn't interested in having me guard her body, just service it. I thanked her for the offer then turned and walked away, pretending I didn't hear her trying to call m
e back. She was a very rich woman, someone who wasn't used to having her offers turned down."
"I'll bet she would have pampered you," I said, finally turning to look at him in the dimness of the car. "Since you like being pampered, maybe you should have taken her up on the offer."
"I thought you understood that I like being pampered as a professional, not as a stud," he countered dryly without the least trace of amusement in either his voice or his eyes. "If someone saw you fight and then offered to make you his bed bunny, how fast would you accept the offer?"
"Oh, I don't know," I drawled, for some reason enjoying the fact that he was getting annoyed. "If the offer included enough extras and goodies…"
He made a sound in his throat that was very much like a growl, then he turned away to stare out his window. He must have known I was yanking his chain, but the subject bothered him enough that he dropped the conversation. It would have been nice to know if he'd decided to avoid the topic of being a stud because it really bothered him - or because it was one of the supposed reasons he'd left the task force. If he said the wrong thing and I got suspicious, he could well have blown his mission…
We didn't find another topic of conversation because there wasn't time for it. The limo pulled up in front of a really large hotel that stood in what looked like the middle of town instead of off by itself on its own piece of ground. Eric got out of the car first on my side, then turned to offer me a hand. I took the hand because I don't enjoy falling on my face, something that might have happened because of the high heels. There's a reason I don't miss having to dress up, and laziness is only a part of it.
"Here you are, sir," Williams said as he came up to us, handing a card to Eric. "When you're ready to return to your own hotel, just call me and I'll come and pick you up. I won't be parked far away, so there won't be much of a wait."
"Thank you," Eric said, taking the card and glancing at it before putting it in the pocket of his tux jacket. "We have no idea how long we'll be, so if you haven't eaten you might want to spend part of the waiting time taking care of the matter."
"I'll do that, sir," Williams answered, and his smile had warmed quite a lot. "I hope you and the lady enjoy yourselves tonight."
And then he was hurrying back to his driver's seat to get the limo out of the way. Eric took my left elbow to "guide" me into the hotel, and I didn't pull away from his hand because I was too relieved about not feeling anything from his touch to make a fuss. I was more aware of him walking beside me than I would have been with someone else, but the awareness was distant enough that I could ignore it.
Once inside the hotel we walked over to the registration counter. We had to wait a couple of minutes while other people's business was being attended to, but finally one of the clerks turned his attention to us.
"We're here to see Dr. Zachary Boughton, who should be expecting us," Eric said. "Can you call his room to tell him we've arrived?"
I was about to mention that Eric hadn't given the man our names, but the clerk smiled and answered before I got the words out.
"Oh, yes, sir, Dr. Boughton is expecting you," the clerk assured Eric. "He left word that the lady is to take a chair near the elevators and wait, and you are to go up to his room. That's room 3710."
"Thank you," Eric said, then put his hand on my elbow again to urge me away from the counter. I was getting very tired of being pushed all over the lobby, and Eric must have picked up on my annoyance.
"Allison told me earlier about this arrangement," Eric said softly as we walked through the fairly crowded lobby. "Boughton agreed to wait in his room until his 'bodyguard' arrived, but he didn't want the woman he was going to escort to come up too. It seems he's very old-fashioned, and believes that a man's hotel room is no place for a woman who isn't his wife."
"So I get to sit in a chair and wait until he comes to me," I said, only half a step short of shaking my head. "And if you two get attacked on the way down, all the clever arrangements with my clothes will have been a complete waste of time."
"What clever arrangements with your clothes?" Eric asked, pausing to look at me a bit more closely before he shook his head. "No, never mind, we don't have time for you to tell me now. This seems to be the closest chair to the elevators, so just relax and I'll be down with Boughton as quickly as possible."
Eric turned then and strode away, leaving it to me to go along with his suggestion/order or ignore it. It took only a minute to decide that waiting standing up in three inch heels would be stupid, so I sat in the chair and then looked around.
The center of the lobby was an atrium that went all the way up, and the elevators were glass-sided and looked out on that atrium. Eric disappeared for a moment before he reappeared inside one of the elevators, and after pressing a button he turned around to stare at me while the elevator car started to move upward. The car moved fast enough that it was out of sight in less than a minute, and then I had nothing to do but wait.
Not five minutes later a different car came down, and Eric was one of the people in it. There were half a dozen people, all dressed for a formal affair, but when the elevator doors opened only one of them stayed close to Eric. That one was just as tall as Eric and almost as broad-shouldered, but he had dark hair around his fairly handsome face. He seemed to be a young fifty, which could be why he moved with such assured arrogance. There was also heavy arrogance in his expression, and it didn't take more than another moment to figure out why.
As soon as he got close enough for me to smell the makeup, I immediately realized that Dr. Zachary Boughton was a vampire.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Yes, as soon as Boughton got close enough I could smell the makeup vampires use. He was definitely a vamp, which made this bodyguarding job almost a joke. After my time in Chattanooga with that female vamp Eileena, my attitude toward vampires had definitely gone … south.
But Allison French had asked me a favor and I'd agreed to do that favor, not to mention having taken her money in the first place. Boughton's expression said he wasn't going to make the job easy, so I'd have to look for a way to do it for him. As he and a blank-faced Eric approached I stood up, and that didn't seem to meet with Dr. Boughton's approval either.
"Here are your orders," Boughton said to me without preamble, the smallest trickle of power adding itself to the stare of his very blue eyes. "You will simply accompany me tonight without boring me with all kinds of conversation attempts. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly," I answered, drawing myself up in distant, frosty insult. "I'll spend the time making certain I never agree to do Allison another favor ever again. Do you mind if we start getting this over with right now?"
Boughton frowned at me for an instant, then he offered me his right arm. I took the arm as if I actually considered him a gentleman, then let him lead me back to the elevators. Eric trailed along behind us, a silent but three dimensional shadow. When we got into the elevator Eric was the one who chose a floor while Boughton and I looked out at the atrium we'd just left.
"I don't understand," Boughton said suddenly, and I could feel him looking at me rather than at the view. "I was under the impression that you were hired for the night, but you spoke of a favor. Where does a favor enter into this matter?"
"I'm here visiting Atlanta with some friends," I answered after a moment's hesitation, making sure I sounded reluctant as I continued to stare outside. "Allison said she couldn't find anyone who was appropriate for being escorted by you, and then asked if I would do her a favor. Foolishly, I agreed."
"Appropriate," Boughton echoed, disturbance now in his deep voice. "I hadn't expected her to see me as a scientist rather than as a - Allow me to offer my apologies, madam. I was under a mistaken impression and treated you shabbily."
I turned my head to look at him with my own frown, but the elevator doors opened and Eric held them so Boughton and I would be able to leave the car. We did that fairly quickly, but once Eric was also out Boughton stopped walking.
"I beli
eve it would be best if we began again," I was told with the faintest smile I've ever seen. "Good evening, madam. I am your escort, Zachary Boughton. May I ask the honor of knowing your own name?"
"I'm … Jane Bell," I answered, deciding at the last instant that the nickname Taz would not go over very well right now. "Good evening, Dr. Boughton."
"Please call me Zachary," Boughton responded with a very small bow. "And if I may be allowed the use of your given name…?"
When I inclined my head to show agreement, Boughton bowed again then led the way toward one of the doors on the floor we'd come to. Two men in tuxedos stood outside the double doors, and as soon as Boughton showed them something he took out of his inner jacket pocket, the righthand door was opened for us. I had the impression that Eric also produced what must have been identification, so all three of us were able to enter the room.
Enter the suite, that is. The reception room was very large, with lots of couches and chairs and tables against the walls. Some of the chairs had been stood grouped in circles, but so far no one was making use of them. The twenty or so people in the room were standing, most of them holding glasses filled with different-colored liquid.
"Zachary, how good to see you again," a voice called, and then a hefty man shorter than Boughton came over to offer his hand. The newcomer seemed to be a badly preserved forty or so, his brown hair longish in that it looked like he'd forgotten to get a haircut. His matching brown eyes were on the mild side, and when Boughton accepted his hand and they shook, those mild brown eyes began to twinkle.
"I really don't mean to pry, old fellow, but how is it that you always have the loveliest ladies on your arm?" the man asked, the gleam in his eyes very noticeable. "If you've earned such company with your work, I should be entitled to almost as much."
