Sucker for Love (9 page)

“If you want.”

He snatched up the bath sheet, wrapped it around his toned middle and knotted it at his hip. “All eez ready.”

Five seconds later, I sank facedown into a mound of pillows. He hit the lights, plunging us into the candlelit darkness. He hummed as he reached for a bottle of scented oil.

The warm liquid trickled between my shoulder blades and for the first time I started to think that maybe, just maybe, Fate wasn’t taking a big giant crap right on top of me. Sure, one of my good friends and clients was missing and my mom was an anti-human nut and my best friend in the whole world was about to make the biggest mistake of her afterlife,
and
my happily-ever-after with Ty wasn’t exactly the picture-perfect one I’d always dreamt of (he was still made and I was still born and we still had to break the news to my family), but things could be worse.

That’s what I told myself as the oil trickled over my skin and Hans rubbed his hands together.

My life wasn’t bad. Not even close. I had my friends. I had my family. I had my health. I had a one-of-a-kind pair of Miu Miu silk slippers—

Rrrringggggg!

The phone echoed and the world cut me off mid-positive reinforcement. I closed my eyes as a wave of
Oh, no
rolled through me.

Would I ever get a friggin’ break?

R
rrringggg!

I knew deep in my gut it wasn’t Ash calling to tell me that Esther was fine. Or Ty proclaiming his undying love. Or Nina One telling me that she loved Rob and couldn’t imagine eternity without him. It was bad news. Fate straining for that final
plopppp.

I buried my head under a pillow and tried to tune out everything except the feel of the oil pooling on my skin. Ignorance is bliss, right? I would slink away emotionally and hide out for a little while. Maybe indulge in a few fantasies while Hans worked his magic.

I was just about to settle down on a white sand beach and sip a few margaritas when the ringing stopped and the answering machine kicked in.

My mother’s stern voice lifted the edge of the
pillow, crawled beneath and smacked me on the side of the head.

“I know Hans is there.”

“You do not know that,” I murmured into the soft down.

“I do,” she said. My head snapped up and the pillow went bye-bye.

I glanced around, but didn’t see any surveillance equipment. I eyed Hans, who was busy cracking his knuckles to warm up. Had she bugged him?

“Your brother told me that Mandy sent him over,” my mom added as if she could hear the thoughts echoing in my head. “And if he’s there, it means he isn’t here for my nightly bedtime massage. I haven’t missed my nightly in five years, three months and four days, and I don’t intend to start now.” A hard note crept into her voice. “You have exactly forty-five minutes to get him home or I’m going to call Jonelle Dubois at the club and have her cancel her profile.”

Jonelle Dubois was a high-profile born vampire who’d recently lost her significant other to a freak accident involving a Harley, a motorcycle ramp and a misplaced flagpole. Needless to say, she was lonely and in desperate need of a BV father-figure for her thirteen children. Thanks to my mother, I’d landed her profile (and a nice, big fat check, which had paid my Visa for this month and funded the refreshments for last night’s soiree).

I gathered the robe to me, slid out from under Hans’s hands and headed for the phone.

“I think I’ll introduce her to your father’s lawyer at tomorrow night’s hunt.”

I.e. the vamp’s version of the Outdoor Channel’s
Hunting for Dollars.
We all gathered at my folks’ and hunted the
it
person to keep our skills sharp. The prize? Bonus vacation days from Moe’s.

“He’s nice. Single. His fertility rating isn’t all that impressive, but Jonelle has all of the children she wants,” my mom went on. “She’s looking forward to grandchildren at this point, so I doubt she’ll be turned off by—”

“I was about to put Hans in a cab.” The words rushed out as I picked up the phone. “I barely got home from work and found him. Just this very second,” I added. “I haven’t even had a chance to slide off my shoes, much less slip into a robe and stretch out on the bed for what I’m sure would be the massage of my afterlife. Really.”

“Lilliana, I don’t appreciate you undermining my efforts with Jack’s human.”

“Her name is Mandy and I wasn’t undermining anything. She doesn’t like massages,” I blurted. “Not if they’re given by, um, Swedish people. She’s, um, allergic.” You try coming up with something better when you’re naked and oily and totally stressed.

“Really?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Wonderful.” My mother cheered immediately. “I’ll have Hans serve the drinks at tomorrow night’s hunt. That ought to inspire a nasty reaction. Make sure you’re on time, dear. I have another plan and I need your help.”

No. Not happening. Not this vampire. No way. No how. Nuh-uh.

“Lilliana?”

“Okay,” I heard myself squeak.

She’s my mother, for Damien’s sake. She endured labor and hardship and ungodly cravings (she’d snacked on Attila and a few of his Huns during the third trimester). The least I could do, the very least, was pretend to indulge her wild and crazy plan to prevent my brother and his wife from procreating.

“I’ll be there,” I vowed.

“Early,” she pressed. “Your dad’s demonstrating his new right-hand driver. I’ve seen it in action about a thousand times this past week, so he needs a new audience. Speaking of which, I’ve invited Remy.”

“Great.” Remy I could handle. He knew about Ty and so I didn’t have to pretend to like him. He would respect my space. We could hide out in the pool house, laugh about old times and have a completely innocent time. No pressure.

“Unfortunately, he can’t make it,” my mother added. “So I’ve invited Ivan the OB/GYN.”

“Ma—”

“Wear something sexy,” she cut in. “No need to put all of our nails in one coffin. A vampire of your
caliber should have options, so make sure you go for tight and low cut.”

“How about a noose?”

“Lilliana?”

“Tight. Low cut,” I grumbled. “Got it.”
Not.
I hung up and turned to Hans.

“No massage?” He looked heartbroken.

“Sorry, big boy. You’re past your curfew.” I headed for the bathroom to trade my robe for some sweats. I wiped off the warm oil and slid into a pink set of Juicy Couture.

Back in the bedroom, I helped him into his clothes—a white T-shirt and matching white slacks—and then ushered him out the door and down the stairs.

“What about my cheese vheel?” he asked as I pushed him down the front walk toward a waiting cab.

“I’ll bring it tomorrow night.” I fed him and his bag of massage oils into the idling cab, gave the driver the address and watched them pull away from the curb. I was just about to turn and head back inside when I felt the first drop of rain.

It wasn’t the cosmic crap I’d expected, but it was close enough, particularly since there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

I glanced up in time to see my upstairs neighbor framed in the window. His eyes were glazed over and I could smell the beer on his breath. He shook his package, stuffed it back into his pants, and
disappeared into his apartment and the waiting poker game.

Ugh.

A wave of ickiness swept through me and I hit the stairs at the speed of light. Two seconds later, I was frantically soaping myself under a hot shower. I scrubbed fiercely for the next fifteen minutes and then I did what any super-hot born
vampere
would do after getting pissed on.

No, I didn’t go on a killing rampage.

Make that any super-hot born
vampere
with an aversion to violence.

I climbed into bed, and cried like a
bebe.

“It lives,” Max declared when he opened the door of my parents’ house early Sunday evening.

Max was my oldest brother and the one who should have been fulfilling my mother’s dreams of grandchildren. Unfortunately, he couldn’t seem to find a suitable eternity mate. As for unsuitable? He’d become quite the expert. He’d been having a hush-hush affair with a hot-blooded female werewolf who happened to be my father’s next door neighbor and arch enemy.

“How’s it going with Viola?”

He glared and gave me a shush with his hand. “Could you keep your voice down?”

“You still haven’t come clean?”

“There’s nothing to come clean about. We broke up.”

“What happened?”

“She was getting too clingy.” He shrugged. “I had to drop the old ax.”

I eyed him. “She broke up with you, didn’t she?”

He looked ready to argue, but then he shrugged. “She said I was too overbearing. Can you believe that?” I arched an eyebrow. “Okay, so I’m overbearing. I can’t help it. It’s in my DNA. Not that it matters now. It’s better that we split. We’re not exactly the ideal couple. Dad said she poured sulfuric acid on his azalea bushes last week and now he’s going to make her pay. He’s talking nuclear weapons this time. He found this guy in Trenton who offered to build him a bomb. Speaking of bombs”—he wiggled his eyebrows—“Mom found you a new guy.”

I started to turn, but he grabbed my arm. “Cheer up. It’s only a few hours.”

“Says you. You don’t have to try to make small talk with someone you have absolutely nothing in common with.”

“So make out instead. That’s what I always do.” A loud snort carried down the hall, followed by my mother’s “Ivan, you have such an interesting laugh.”

“Then again,” my brother added, “I could stall while you make a run for it.”

I was about to give the idea some serious consideration when I heard footsteps. In the blink of an eye, my mother stood next to Max.

“It’s about time.” She gripped my arm and pulled me inside. The door shut and just like that, I was trapped.

She ushered me down the hall and into the main living room. “Lilliana, I’d like you to meet Ivan. Ivan, this is my daughter.”

I smiled. “Hi.”

“Hey.” The acknowledgment ended with a loud snort.

It was definitely going to be a long and painful night.

“Why don’t you two head out to the veranda. It’s time to start.”

“Where’s Rob?” My gaze did a 360 around the room and hope blossomed. “We can’t start until everyone’s here.”

“He canceled,” Max said, coming up behind me.

“He what?” Before I could point out that no Marchette had ever canceled when it came to the hunt, my mother herded everyone to the door. A few steps shy, she pulled me to the side.

“I need you to distract the human after the hunt so that I can slip the pill into her drink.”

“I’m on it.”

I spent the next half hour hiding out in the pool house, listening to Ivan talk about his Ferrari. And his Bentley. And his Hummer.

I have to admit that I’d been initially turned off by the snorting. But it came in very handy. Otherwise,
I would have nodded off five seconds into the conversation.

“… gets terrible gas mileage, but I don’t mind. It’s not like I can’t afford it.”
Snort.

My head bobbed up at the sound and my watery gaze focused on the source.

He was an all right-looking vampire. Boring as hell, but I’m a firm believer that one female vampire’s worst nightmare is another’s fantasy come true. “So you like cars?”

“Expensive cars.”

“And you’re ready to settle down?”

“I’ve been ready. I just haven’t found the right woman. I spend most of my time at classic car auctions when I’m not working. It’s a predominantly male hobby, so I don’t meet too many women. Just car girls, but most of them are human and so they can’t give me what I need.”

“What if I told you that I could give you what you need?”

He grinned. “That’s why I’m here.” He closed his eyes, leaned in for a kiss and …
snort.

I poked him and his eyes snapped open. “Not that.”

“But you said—”

“That I could give you what you want, as in help you find it. I’m a matchmaker.”

“Your mother said you were a manager at one of the NYC Moe’s.”

“In my past life.” The one where I’d died of extreme boredom and embarrassment. “I own a hookup service in Manhattan. I can help you find that perfect eternity mate.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“You and your Visa card. I also take American Express, MasterCard, Diners Club, or you could pay in cash. Cash is always good.”

I spent the next ten minutes doing a verbal Q&A with Ivan and keying in the results on my iPhone before the whistle sounded and the hunt officially ended.

I met up with everyone on the veranda just as my father emerged from the surrounding woods, pulling my brother Jack via the whistle around his neck.

“I win again,” my father declared.

“Again?” Max trudged up the steps behind them. “That makes twice in the past month.”

My father puffed out his chest. “I’m the superior vampire here.”

“But you hadn’t won in the fifty years prior to that. Twice after a fifty-year dry spell. Something funny’s going on—ouch!”

My mother had smacked Max on the back of the head as she came up next to him. “Oh, sorry, dear. My reflexes are still on high alert. Stop being a spoiled sport. Your father won fair and square. And it was well deserved after a seventy-five-year losing streak.” My father glared, and my mom added,
“But not for lack of skill. You are a superb hunter and a magnificent father. Which is why you hold back on purpose, so that your children are forced to hone their skills and rise to the challenge.”