Barbie & The Beast (25 page)

“Afraid so.”

Barbie swallowed. “Will he harm my friend?”

“Doesn’t appear to be the case, as I see it. Your friend seems quite capable of taking care of herself.”

“Oh, all right.” With a quick smile at Angie, Barbie leaned forward to grab a cloth napkin from the elaborately set table.
The napkin passed from her hand to Darin’s. Their fingers touched.

Clang!
It was an instant replay, for Barbie, of Darin’s innate ability to beat her gongs. She felt this one from her nose to her
knees and sighed heavily when it zigzagged through more sensitive parts of her anatomy. It felt
good
. In her Saturday-labeled undies and wispy lace bra, Barbie suddenly felt terribly overdressed.

“This is no more than a loincloth,” Darin complained, alluding to the napkin.

“Yeah.” Barbie smiled, thinking her reply sounded way too anticipatory. “On the way out,” she added, smiling so widely that
her face hurt, “you can pick up your wolf suit from wherever you stashed it.” Oddball foreplay seemed to be ruling the day.
Why the heck should she miss out?

Darin raised one of his eyebrows in that quizzical way he had. The strange interior breeze ruffled the napkin in his hand,
also moving the tapestries on the walls. The candles flapped and sputtered, barely rivaling the flap and sputter of Barbie’s
heart.

A whoosh of cold air circled in the cavernous room, sounding like ocean waves rolling and retreating. Above those sounds,
a high-pitched hum began. Barbie’s smile faded.

Darin, napkin now held over private parts that were about to be not so private, turned. “Come on,” he said to Barbie, making
for the door.

With a shake of her head over Angie’s acceptance of this kooky situation and a firm resolve not to mention some of the details
of her own mental lapses, Barbie followed close on Darin’s heels.

“Good night, Angie. Walter,” Darin called out, gaining momentum as the door that masqueraded as a tunnel rose up in front
of them.

“Good night,” a bass voice returned from someplace inside of the room—and the word was followed by a squeal of delight from
Angie. Either Walter actually was the man of Angie’s dreams, or his hand had again dipped inside that cookie jar. Maybe both.

Though plenty of curiosity remained about Walter, Barbie was too busy keeping her eyes on Darin’s backside to search for anything
else. She had been right all along. Darin had a very fine behind. Though a nice male rear end had never been high up on her
true list of priorities for desirable long-term potential, right now it struck her as a very nice perk.

But then. . .hey, wait just a darned a minute! Barbie backpedaled, latching onto a bit of recall. Walter’s voice had struck
a chord. His deep voice had resonated with a slight British accent. Where had she heard it before?

The answer came to her in her rush: the taxicab driver. On the way to the Gypsy restaurant for her first face-to-face meeting
with Darin. She’d heard that voice say,
The gentleman paid
. And hold the phone—there was more! Her synapses were virtually snapping. She had heard that voice somewhere else, besides
the taxi. Someplace recent.

She nearly turned back to the room, stunned by the answer coming to mind.

No. Couldn’t be. Could it?

Angie was inside that wacky crypt with. . .Bachelor Number Two?

Dragging Barbie along, Darin rushed out of the door and into the night. Once outside of the mausoleum, he threw himself immediately
back against the wall, beneath the corbeled overhang. Grabbing Barbie, he yanked her close to him with a ferocity that knocked
the breath right out of her.

“You know Walter,” she accused.

“Yes.”

“You knew Bachelor Number One.”

He gave a slightly less enthusiastic, “Yes.”

“You rigged the game!” Barbie charged. “Walter is Bachelor Number Two, right? From my Dating Game? You were Bachelor Number
Three. The sociopath was Bachelor One.”

“Yes.”

No guilt appeared on Darin’s face. Barbie tried her reasoning powers again. “Those guys were fillers? You assumed I’d choose
you?”

“I hoped you’d choose me.”

“You had your pals there, though, in case I didn’t?”

“Whoever you chose was to deliver you directly to me.”

“Like. . .
mail
?”

“Special delivery.” Darin grinned. “It was the only way I could think of to see you, to get the chance to give you
those answers you’re so dearly in need of. It was worth every penny for the chance.”

“Are you saying that you paid their way onto the show? All thirty thousand dollars?”

“Worth every penny,” Darin repeated.

It now occurred to Barbie that the sociopath, Darin, and Walter were perhaps all baked in the same oven from the same recipe.
The sociopath liked to dominate, Walter had his opulent, if questionable, mausoleum, and Darin had his Rottweiler, his costumes,
and a bottomless bank account. That Dating Game should have taken place at a sci-fi convention.

Yet, scrambled in with all those warped eccentricities, the word
love
lingered. Angie’s chirps of delight lingered. The feel of soft fur on her skin lingered. Reasoning this out would require
advanced problem-solving skills that Barbie’s nearly naked body, pressed as it was against Darin’s nearly naked body, didn’t
possess.

“Love?” she said, with only her flimsy Saturday undies and Walter’s confiscated table napkin to separate them. “You did say
that word, right?”

“I might have mentioned it, yes,” Darin confessed, feeling himself tremble, unsure whether the cause was the mostly blocked
moonlight or his closeness to Barbie. Probably both. Either way, he was fairly certain he didn’t have enough time or breath
left to tell Barbie everything she wanted to know.

She felt so good to him, so right, that some part of himself was urging him to run. Away from her. To protect her. Because
if he continued to hold her this closely, with most of their body parts touching, he wouldn’t be good for anything in another
ten seconds. Yet if he gave in to those feelings of escape, if he ran from her, he’d never really know if Barbie was the one.
The
one.

His secret was one to beat all secrets. He had never told anyone but his family about himself, and now he had to break that
rule. He’d have to let go, become what he often became, and let her see. He had to make Barbie understand everything, know
everything, so they needn’t slip back to square one every time the damned moon appeared, and so she’d realize he hadn’t donned
any damned wolf suit.

There could be no secrets between them. Nothing withheld. No lies. He was afraid. Afraid he’d lose her. He didn’t want to
lose her.

“It wasn’t a suit,” he said, swallowing the fear that beat at him with a terrible force. “Not a wolf suit.”

Barbie eyed him suspiciously, exploring that comment of his and coming up blank. To her credit and his immense relief, however,
she remained close against him.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Wolf
costume
, then. Semantics aside, where did you chuck it?”

“I didn’t put it, stash it, or chuck it anywhere. It wasn’t a costume. It wasn’t a suit. This isn’t a joke. It’s why I had
to leave you when I did on that first date. It’s why I had to leave your apartment when I didn’t want to after I took you
home, and why I left you in the cemetery when you came after Angie. It’s why I had to rely on one of the other guys to bring
you to me to night if you wouldn’t listen to me at the country club.”

Her lips pursed skeptically. He hurried on.

“Although I usually have fairly good control, I was losing it. You and the moon are a wicked combination for a guy like me.”

Now Barbie wore a frown on her cute little face. Her hair, tousled and curling from the night’s humidity, shone with drops
of moonlight. Darin pulled her closer.

“Bachelor One wanted to take me to his apartment,” she said. “Not here.”

“I’m truly sorry about that, but I took care of it.” He paused to glance up, past the overhang. When Barbie’s hips slid against
his again, he cussed an inward stream. Barbie’s movement had allowed the faintest bit of moonlight to touch his hand. His
knuckles were starting to burn.

“Please listen to what I’m saying about the wolf suit not being a suit. There’s so little time to get this all in.”

Barbie tilted her head adorably. Chewing on her lower lip, she said, “You’re trying to tell me you are addicted to playing
at being an animal? So addicted that you had to leave me on that date, on my bed, panting over
taste
and
feel
, to get back to it?”

“You’re thinking I’m a mental patient?” he asked.

“Now that you mention it, is there a possibility?”

He sighed. “I wish it could be that simple. I honestly do. Would you mind if I had a screw loose?”

“No picket fences near asylums,” Barbie told him. “Inmates aren’t allowed power tools.”

Power tools? Picket fences? Darin tried to make sense of that. Did Barbie want him to build something? Maybe he was going
about this all wrong, and she was the one with a loose screw.

His burning hand stung like a son of a gun, yet if he moved it, Barbie might get the wrong idea. He ignored his rapidly rising
temperature and what it meant. He had seconds only to get things in the open before the transition overtook him and he might
have to run from her again. Leaving her behind, possibly for good.

“The wolf is part of me,” he said clearly, hurriedly, anxiously, aware of how badly his hands shook when he placed them on
Barbie’s shoulders.

He watched her pouty lips part, wanting desperately to kiss them. He absorbed her shudder, wanting to get closer to her still.
That just wasn’t possible.

“You can’t really think you’re a wolf,” she said eventually. “As in
werewolf
? Come on, Darin. Though I do admit it’s a unique excuse for two-timing, probably the best I’ve ever heard as a matter of
fact, I’m not that gullible.”

Darin could feel his body beginning to stiffen in other places less acceptable than his private parts. He was using up his
time allotment. He was struggling for one last chance to make Barbie understand.

“See that moon?” He pointed upward. “It’s full to night. When it’s full, I have to hide myself away from people. That’s why
I come out here, and why I took this job.”

Damn. Now Barbie was looking at him as if he really might be a mental patient. Take the plunge, he told himself. You’re already
wet.

“It’s not like the old horror movies, but nonetheless a fact. I change when the moon is full. I morph from man to were-wolf.
A man-wolf. I don’t have to walk on all fours or anything. I can even postpone the transition at times, when I’m not directly
in the moonlight. Clouds and roofs help with that. Nevertheless, for three days, when that thing up there in the sky is completely
round, when the tides pull at the shores and the blood in our bodies moves with greater velocity, I’m susceptible to the lure.
No, not even that. I am
overcome
by the lure.”

“The lure of what?” Barbie’s reply had a cynical quality to it, though she hadn’t separated herself from him.

“The wolf,” he said. “I have wolf particles in my blood. They coagulate somehow. They mingle with my more human side. I’m
not sure what it is they do, really, but I’m the recipient of the magic.”

Barbie leaned back. Light dripped off of her forehead and onto her nose. Darin held on to her, willing her to hear him, thinking
her so damned pretty and so very unique that he didn’t ever want to let her go. Nor could he force her to
stay. Barbie Bradley would either grasp this or not. She would believe or not. She would accept or not.

“Tell me,” she whispered, “if this is an excuse to get rid of me. An excuse to meet blondes under trees. If it is, I can handle
it. I’ll go, leaving you to what ever it is you’re doing out here.”

“It’s
you
I want,” Darin almost shouted. “No one but you. I want to make a life with you. I’ve believed since the first time I heard
your voice that you were the one for me, and that fate had brought you to me. However, if you take me, you take it all, Barbie.
The good and the not so good. One package.”

When Barbie shook her head, the moonlight scattered, drenching his left forearm. His skin crawled. He felt a snap and had
a sickening hint that he wouldn’t get to finish this after all.

“There’s this teensy problem,” Barbie said. “There are no such things as werewolves. Probably nobody other than you believes
there are. If you do actually believe it.”

“I was bitten while on a hiking trip through Montana,” Darin told her. “I didn’t find the wolf, nor did I see much of its
hide. I didn’t know exactly what happened to me after the bite, other than getting very sick for a while. After regaining
my health, I forgot about it until the first full moon of the next year.”

He grabbed at a breath, feeling rushed. The fur that covered him on nights like this was tickling the skin along his arm,
ready to sprout. Jesus! Did it hide there beneath his skin somehow the rest of the time? Could an X-ray detect it down there,
dormant for the other twenty-seven days each month?

A tingling sensation twitched his shoulder blades. His cheeks felt gummy.

“It’s not like the movies,” he said, desperately stumbling over his rehearsed dialogue, sensing now a familiar rolling in
his stomach. “Some people call it a curse. Some say it’s impossible. It’s not impossible. It’s happening to me. What ever
this is, what ever happened out there in the forest, it’s who I am now three days out of every single month.”

The internal roil spread to his upper back. His fingers locked to Barbie’s shoulders, claws extending.

“Boy, can I understand the beastly monthly thing,” Barbie confessed. “For me, it’s five days at a time. However, I know the
difference between acting like an animal and thinking I’ve become one. You’re telling me you become a wolf when the moon is
full, and after I’ve offered you a perfectly good out, you’re sticking to that story?”

“Honest to God,” Darin whispered, prying his teeth apart, working to keep the claws away from Barbie’s uncovered skin. The
fact that his legs were on fire was the final straw. Could he hang on longer? Could he postpone the inevitable if he tried
his hardest? Because taking his leave of Barbie now might mean the end of any future they might possibly ever have. That was
not acceptable.

“An elaborate scheme is unnecessary,” Barbie repeated. “You liked it,” Darin said in reply, breath raspy, throat seizing.

“What?”

“You liked it. All of it. The dark, the moon, running through the trees. Admit it, Barbie. You liked it.”

“I—”

“Liked it. What’s more, you talked to me, understood me after I changed. The fact that wolves can’t speak was no problem for
you. You talked back. You didn’t run away. You let me nuzzle you.”

“The wolf costume was very realistic, Darin, but I knew you were in there.”

“Yes, it is me, Barbie. If the moonlight touches me, if you touch me again in that sexy way you do, I’ll change.”

“Like this?” She ran the back of her hand along his cheek, softly, gently.

“Yes, and—”
Damn.

It was too late. He was morphing from the inside out, right then and there. He could only hope for the slow version of the
ten-second ordeal.

“Why me?” Barbie asked him, her fingers tracing the tight line of his jaw.

Concentrate, Darin told himself. Think of anything else, other than the light, other than the very obvious fact that Barbie
has a cute little rounded belly, firm hips, and very nice breasts, at the moment still covered with the barest hint of lace.

“Darin?”

He choked, shook his head, held on for dear life. “Because I want you so. . .badly.”

The wolf’s sensitivities were sparking. Darin knew in that moment how much Barbie wanted to believe him. He could feel her
vacillation. But she couldn’t quite get her hands around the reality of such a ludicrous story. Hell, who could?

“It’s only three nights,” he said, his voice lowering dramatically. “This is a good place to hide.”

“Sure is,” Barbie agreed, wrinkling her nose.

“Admit it,” Darin urged, claws now too wieldy to hold her, but hidden by the darkness.

“Admit what?”

“That you liked it all.”

“I most certainly will not admit it.”

Darin leaned in, face close to hers. “Admit it.”

“Oh, all right,” Barbie reluctantly confessed. “Maybe I did like it. A little.”

“Not a little. Each bit of it,” Darin pressed, feet drifting forward, body sure to follow.

“Well, not so much the scary parts,” Barbie said.

“Which scary parts? The wolf? The crypts?”

With a head shake to all of those things he proposed, Barbie said, “You leaving me without a good-bye or good night. Me thinking
I’d never see you again because of all those silly rules. Seeing you here with another woman.”

“Jess.” Darin closed his eyes, desperately wanting to kiss Barbie, the possibility of a soon-to-be-burgeoning snout notwithstanding.

“She kissed you,” Barbie charged, her tone now holding a ring of possibility in it, the possibility she might heed him against
all odds.

“She always kisses me,” he told her. “She brings things to me. She keeps me company when I’m out here. You’ll meet her. You’ll
like her.”