by Devon, Cat
This time his answer was much more blunt. “Sex. It was about sex.”
“I do not have sex while I’m baking cupcakes,” she informed him. “It would be sacrilegious or something.”
“It was definitely something.” His voice went all hungry husky.
“If you think you can control me with sex, you are sadly mistaken.”
“Some things are very hard to control.”
She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes slid down to the zipper of his black jeans. The blatant bulge there attested to his arousal.
“Do you like what you see?” he murmured.
The confidence in his voice made her want to smack him while simultaneously making her want to kiss that slight grin off his lips. Talk about a conflict.
Which was weird because normally Daniella wasn’t about conflict. She was all about comfort.
Yes, she could be tough. But not where sex and men were concerned. In those areas, she tended to be more cream puff than hot peppers.
Wait, maybe cream puff was the wrong analogy. That made her sound totally wimpy. Maybe she was more chocolate chip cookie than hot peppers.
“Hello?” Nick waved his hand in front of her face.
“Sorry. I was just thinking about cream puffs and hot peppers.”
“How did we go from talking about sex to talking about food?” he demanded.
“Both are meant to satisfy a physical hunger,” she said.
She took a few steps away from him before she was tempted to do something foolish, like kiss him again. He had kissed her in her apartment and then walked out only to mysteriously appear in her work area while she was baking and kiss her again.
Yes, sex was definitely in the mix here. But so was stupidity on her part. What was she thinking? That he was an awesome kisser?
Okay, while that was true, she couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d been ignoring her for several days. Not that she craved his attention or his kisses or his body or anything.
Right. Who was she kidding? She craved all that from him and more.
“I don’t have time for this,” she told him and reminded herself. “Not when my grand opening is only three days away.”
“I just want you to be vigilant.”
“For what? You coming to kiss me?”
“I didn’t come to kiss you,” he said. “I came to tell you that I had the egging incident under control.”
She eyed him suspiciously.
“Why the look?” he demanded.
“I can’t help thinking that there is a possibility that you are behind these incidents that keep happening. First those guys in the alley and then the egging last night.”
“Stupid pranks are not in my DNA.”
“What about making out with me to distract me? Is that in your DNA?” she demanded. “You say you’re happy about me opening my shop here, but is that the truth? Or is this all some devious way of intimidating me?”
“If I wanted to intimidate you, you’d know it.” His voice was harsh.
She wanted to believe him. She really did. Well, she actually did believe that he could be a powerful intimidator. What she wanted to believe was that he supported her move into the business community. She also wanted to believe that when he kissed her, he did so because he wanted to without having any ulterior motives.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to get her thoughts together. When she opened them, Nick was gone.
Chapter Eight
“I called this meeting of the Vamptown business community for several reasons,” Nick said as he addressed the group gathered in the Vamp Cave’s conference room.
“I still want to know why you changed your mind about the wisdom of having a human open a cupcake business here,” Tanya said. “Her grand opening is only two days away. The Chicago Trib ran a feature about her shop today, and you know what that means. A crowd of humans flooding into our neighborhood. It’s only a matter of time before some vamp looks at one of them and thinks, Lunch.”
“You all have human clients who come into your businesses, and you don’t feel the need to feed on them,” Nick said.
“Who says we don’t feel the need?” Tanya said. “We just don’t act on it.”
“Need I remind you all that we have a great thing going here with our arrangement with the funeral home? A lot of vamps aren’t as lucky,” Nick reminded them.
“You’re into her. That’s why you abruptly changed your mind about her shop,” Tanya said.
“We already had this discussion,” Nick said. “Daniella is the daughter of the funeral home owner, so we owe her some level of appreciation.”
“She was the funeral home owner’s daughter two weeks ago when you were throwing a hissy fit about her opening her business,” Tanya pointed out. “And it’s not as if the funeral home owner or his son has any idea that the drained blood of their deceased is being recycled and rejuvenated to feed vampires. We’ve used mind compulsion on them without any problems. Yet it doesn’t work on her. Something is very wrong with that.”
“We’re looking into it. In the meantime, I don’t want to see any repeats of that juvenile egging incident. We’re not in high school anymore.”
“You never went to high school,” Tanya retorted. “I’m no history buff seeing as how I was turned in 1954, but I don’t believe they had high schools in England in 1812. So you have no idea what American high school is really like.”
“But I do,” Neville inserted. “You’ve been a vamp decades longer than I have, Tanya. As a member of the graduating class of 1972, I confirm Nick’s observation.”
“You’re just a geek,” Tanya retorted. “What do you know?”
“A lot, actually,” Neville said. “Mega gigabytes more than you do.”
“We all need to get along in times like these,” Bruce, ever the pacifist, said.
“If we could get back to the reason I called this meeting,” Nick said. “As you know, we’ve had several incidents involving outside vamps. I want you all to be on heightened alert for a possible repeat. Just because things have been quiet for the past thirty-six hours doesn’t mean we’re safe. This could just be the calm before the storm.”
“And I want to remind you all that revealing our agreement with the funeral home to any vamp outside our clan is cause for permanent banishment,” Pat said. “Ditto for sharing any information about our tats.”
“We don’t have much information about our tats or how they work,” Tanya pointed out.
“And I plan on keeping it that way,” Pat said.
“I’m not going to betray any of you,” Tanya said. “You’re family but not in a yucky way. In a loyalty kind of way. I mean, it’s not like I think of Nick as a brother or relative or anything. And he certainly doesn’t think of me like a sister, right?”
“I don’t think of you as a sister,” Neville piped up to say.
“If you’re such a genius, why haven’t you figured out what Daniella’s secret is?” Tanya’s narrow-eyed look was meant to squash him, but Neville was tougher than that.
“Don’t mock me. I know how to hack into your Facebook page, and you have no idea the havoc I could create there,” Neville warned.
“Enough!” Pat shouted. “You’re acting like a bunch of brainless zombies.”
“He is.” Tanya pointed to Neville. “I’m not.” She fluffed her hair. “Vampires rule. Zombies and humans drool.”
“You’re not in high school anymore.” Nick’s voice was taut with pent-up anger and aggravation. “This behavior stops now.”
Tanya’s eyes widened as she realized he meant business. “Okay, okay.”
“Just so we all understand. Vamptown is on Code Orange alert from now until the cupcake shop’s grand opening,” Nick said.
“I do love that little angel on the Heavenly Cupcake sign,” Bruce said. “It’s so adorable. Reminds me of Raphael’s work.”
“Was he someone you knew in the circus?” Tanya asked.
Bruce had been
a clown in his other life. His pre-dead life.
“I was referring to the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael,” Bruce said. “He was known for his paintings of angels.”
“Was he a vampire?” Tanya asked.
Bruce frowned. “I don’t believe so.”
“I’m sure he’s not as good a painter as Pat.” Tanya sent Pat a brilliant smile.
Lois, who’d been silent all this time, raised her hand. “Now that we have that out of the way, I just wanted to say that Doc Boomer is sorry he couldn’t attend today’s meeting but he had an emergency vamp dental procedure he had to perform. I said I’d give him the highlights. And lowlights. Anyway, a reminder that I’m actually going to be working at Heavenly Cupcake’s grand opening this Saturday. I’ll keep you posted regarding any unusual activities.”
“I don’t know how you can stand working there,” Tanya said.
“Believe me, after hearing the constant sound of a dental drill, this is a piece of cake. Or a piece of cupcake,” Lois said.
“How do you deal with all those smells? Those baking smells?” Tanya shuddered.
“It is pretty intense from a vamp’s point of view,” Lois admitted. “Or maybe I should say point of scent. But you get used to it. Nick has adapted and so have I. Not that I’ve started working there yet, but I’ve stopped by the shop a few times since I was hired. Thanks again for creating a résumé for me,” Lois told Neville.
“No problem,” he said.
“Great. We’re done here then,” Nick said impatiently. “Meeting adjourned.”
Nick was fed up with all this talking. He was not a chatty kind of guy under the best of circumstances. It didn’t matter whether they were vamps or humans.
He was more into action than Italian Renaissance angel painters or American high school antics. As for baking smells … when he was around Daniella, he was consumed by her unique scent.
He felt a connection with her that went beyond the physical and that made him uneasy. The physical chemistry was powerful enough. He didn’t need to admire her toughness or the way nothing got her down. Or the way she laughed at him. No one did that. Ever. But she did. And the crazy thing was that he kind of liked it.
Shit. That couldn’t be a good sign. Instead of admiring her toughness, he needed to focus on his own.
* * *
“Let the countdown begin,” Suz said. “Less than twenty-four hours to go until your grand opening.”
Daniella nervously nibbled on her bottom lip before nibbling on a chocolate cupcake. She and Suz were perched on stools around the worktable in the back work area of Heavenly Cupcakes. “Maybe I should have gone with a soft opening instead of making a big deal out of things.”
“This is a big deal. Your to-die-for cupcakes are a big deal.” Suz waved a delightfully decorated spice cupcake in the air. “I’m sure the food blogger coming to the opening will think so, too.”
“What food blogger?”
“The Cupcake Q-tea. I contacted her,”
“Oh, no.” Daniella felt the blood drain from her face.
“Why oh, no?”
“Because she’s mean.”
“How mean?”
“Very mean. She described one cupcake as ‘a gross mushy mess.’ Another one was listed as being ‘a greasy and tasteless waste of time with a bitter aftertaste.’”
“Uh, I guess I should have checked with you first, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry about that,” Suz said.
“What if she writes a terrible review? What if I have a grand opening and no one comes? What if the egg throwers come back and ruin the opening?”
Suz addressed her hysterical laments one at a time. “If she writes a terrible review she would be lying. And if she lies about your cupcakes, she probably lies about her taxes so I’ll anonymously report her to the IRS. A number of my clients promised they’d be coming to your opening, so you will have customers. As for the egg throwers … you told me Nick had set up a neighborhood watch at night.”
“Right. That doesn’t help me if no one shows up,” Daniella said. “Your clients may just have been polite in telling you they’d show up.”
“You’re offering BOGO.”
“Buy one get one half off for the first twenty-five customers. Yes, that might help.”
“What happened to thinking positively?” Suz asked.
“Panic got the best of me.”
“Never.” Suz squeezed Daniella’s shoulders. “I refuse to let that happen. Remember, you won’t be alone. Xandra is coming to help bake the cupcakes at five tomorrow morning. And I’ll be here, too. At six or so. You open at eight.”
Daniella resumed her nervous lip nibbling. “Maybe I should have opened on a Monday instead of a Saturday. At least then we’d have the commuter foot traffic heading for the CTA bus stop on the corner. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there isn’t a lot of foot traffic otherwise, and the parking around here isn’t great.”
“We discussed both of those issues when you first came up with the idea of opening your shop,” Suz said. “Besides, Monday is the one day you are closed. And the location is what it is.”
“It’s not like I had a lot of choice. I couldn’t afford the rent anywhere else. Not and get the equipment I needed.”
“Bake it and they will come,” Suz said.
“The floor is uneven.”
“You told me that was charming.”
“I lied,” Daniella said.
“Well, the place was built almost a hundred years ago. What do you expect?”
Daniella took a deep breath. “I expect a great grand opening. I have to believe that. I have to visualize that.” Instead she visualized Nick lifting her onto the stainless-steel worktable and sliding his hands under her T-shirt.
She hadn’t seen much of him since that eventful night. She wondered if he was avoiding her. The possibility stung. Which was ridiculous. She had enough to worry about as it was. She certainly didn’t need to add a brooding sexy man to the mix.
“Why do I not believe you’re thinking about cupcakes?” Suz said.
“I was wondering why I couldn’t get the dark chocolate and orange frosting combo to work out right,” Daniella lied.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. You have enough varieties as it is. Three standards.”
Daniella nodded. “Vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, and red velvet. Of course for this week I’m calling them Blood Red Velvet.”
“And then you’ve got the specials that change each day. Like the spice cupcake with the cinnamon frosting and the little fondant leaves.”
“I wasn’t sure about the leaves at first, but I think they add a nice touch.”
“You already know I love the s’mores cupcakes. That combo of a chocolate cupcake, chocolate frosting, marshmallow cream piped in the center, and then crumbled graham crackers on top.” Suz made a smacking noise with her lips. “Yumm.”
“We can even torch the marshmallow if the customer wants.”
“As long as you don’t torch the shop. I’m kidding,” Suz quickly added.
“The fire department already checked us out.” Daniella pointed to the fire extinguisher on the wall near the oven. “We passed their inspection and the health department’s.”
“So there’s nothing to worry about. You’re going to do great.”
Daniella kept telling herself that even as she kept doing stuff in the kitchen. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. Baking was therapeutic for her. But she knew she was risking burning out if she didn’t get some sleep. She’d considered sleeping on a fold-up cot down here but decided that would be silly since her bed upstairs was so nearby.
She was bone-weary by the time she slid between her sheets. She wore her cupcake cotton pajamas for good luck. Suz had given them to her last Christmas.
The next five hours involved lots of tossing and turning but little sleep. Daniella was simply too excited. She leapt out of bed before the alarm
went off.
A quick shower was followed by multiple gulps of coffee. She got dressed in her jeans and Heavenly Cupcakes T-shirt in record time. Ditto for brushing her hair into a ponytail and firmly clipping it in place.
She was downstairs unlocking the door to her shop at four fifty AM. A hand on her arm made her shriek like a girl before turning à la tough chic Nikita with pepper spray in hand. No one was messing with her grand opening.
“Whoa, it’s me,” Nick said.
“Way to scare a person,” she said. “What are you doing out here?”
“I told you we planned a neighborhood watch.”
“You were out here all night?”
“Part of it,” he said.
She didn’t know what to say to that. “Uh, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He reached out to gently smooth a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
She reached up to secure her wayward hair. Some rebellious strands were too short to stay in her ponytail. Her fingers awkwardly bumped into his. “This can’t continue,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t have people standing guard all night to protect my business. This is just for the grand opening, right?”
He shrugged.
It was still dark outside and the corner streetlight highlighted his chiseled cheekbones, casting his face in sharp angles and shadows.
As soon as she unlocked the shop door, Nick reached around her to hold it open for her. This wasn’t the first time he’d done something … well, almost chivalrous. Not that she wanted to fall into a simpering-miss mode where she needed someone to protect her. She didn’t. She’d been looking after herself just fine, thank you very much.
Okay, it was true that her dad had helped her out big-time by letting her use this building rent-free. But she planned on paying him back when her business took off. Not if her business took off, but when. Of course, that could take a while …
She raced to the back to disarm the security system before its alarm went off, then raced back to the front to relock the front door. “I guess I should use the back door,” she said.
“This way is safer,” he said.
