Wicked Fantasy (13 page)

Conall winced.

She glared at him. “Put them on my bill.”

But at least the cat looked up from its ice cream. It stared at her from amber eyes the same color as Sparkle's and Edge's. Then it carefully licked the ice cream from its mouth with a pink tongue. “You've got a vicious streak, babe. Love that in a woman.” The voice was low and husky. Male.

With a sob of near hysteria, she grabbed for the phone and dialed Payton's number with shaking fingers. When he picked up, she didn't even wait for him to speak. “I'm bringing Jinx in. Burke can take over here.”

She could hear Payton's huge sigh. “I'm afraid Burke won't be there anytime soon. He has chicken pox. They started popping out last night. You'll have to stay.”

“Chicken pox?” As she talked, her fangs retracted and her head cleared a little. “Well, send another agent.”

“Sorry, they're all in the middle of important operations. It's you or no one.” He sounded impatient. “I realize you're new to the force, but you'll just have to hang in there until I have another agent free. What's happened so far?”

“So far I've interacted with a cosmic troublemaker, a messenger of Bast in cat form, a wizard, two vampires, the Irish goddess Morrigan, an ex-demon of sensual desire, a pregnant cell phone . . .” She glanced at Conall. “And an immortal warrior.” Gerry was shouting, but she didn't care. “Now there's a freakin' cat eating ice cream on my coffee table. And, and, and I didn't even buy any ice cream.” She held her breath to keep from exploding into tears. A mental breakdown would
not
be good for her career.

“Hmm. Interesting. Do you have any leads on the entity we're hunting?”

“
We're
hunting? I don't see any
we
here. Someone set fire to my bed tonight. Any flames licking around your toes lately? No, I didn't think so.”

Payton's sigh grew louder. “I hate to threaten, but if you abandon this assignment, I'll be forced to assume you're not right for the organization. In other words, I'll fire your vampire ass.”

Gerry hung up. She raked her fingers through her hair as she turned to Conall. “I forgot to mention the plant that scarfs down sexual energy, but I don't think it would've made any difference to Payton.”

Conall sat on the couch and drew her down beside him. “One thing at a time.” He met the cat's stare. “What're you doing here, Ganymede?”

Ganymede did a cat stretch and then leaped from the coffee table. He padded over to the plant and sat to study it. “Sparkle sent out an SOS. Said her current project was in danger. So here I am.”

Conall frowned. “Project?”

“That would be us. Sparkle told me she was committed to hooking us up.” Ganymede? Where had she heard his name before? Oh, yeah. “You're the evil entity that caused Brynn so much trouble.”

If a cat could smile, Ganymede was grinning. “Evil entity? That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in years.” He cocked his head to get a different angle on the plant. “Doesn't look like Houston's getting any.”

“Like I have time to worry about a plant? Sparkle can take him. He'll be bushy and bright in no time.” Gerry was finally calm enough to string a few rational thoughts together, but she was still totally ticked off. “Why're you in my room?”

“Just checking to see if any erotic happenings are going down here. This room is a sexual wasteland. That'll piss Sparkle off big-time, and she won't be in the mood for a night of sizzling sex. Too bad.” He abandoned Houston and padded toward the door. “Oh, I charged the ice cream to your room-service bill.”

“Whoa, halt, stop. Get your chubby kitty behind back here.” She was over her panic attack. What she wanted were answers. “You have the same color eyes as Sparkle and Edge. Are all of you cosmic troublemakers?”

“Yeah. I'm one of the most powerful beings in the universe. In the bad old days, I spread chaos around the world. But I made the Big Boss nervous. So he said no more death and destruction. Bummer. If I want to have fun now, I have to sneak around behind his back.”

“And you're here to do what?” Oh, to have a few hundred years of vampire power under her belt.

Ganymede yawned. “Check out the babes, enjoy a few great meals, and make sure no one gets in Sparkle's way.” He paused before leaving the dungeon. “I haven't met this Edge dude. What's he like?”

Gerry knew it was petty revenge, but she couldn't help herself. “He's gorgeous. Tall and built with this dangerous air women love. Gee, I bet he's as powerful as you are.”

The cat hissed at her and the whole room shook. With a squeak of alarm, she grabbed the back of the couch. Turning his back to them, he stalked out of the room. The dungeon door slammed shut with enough force to almost rip it off its hinges.

Conall sank onto the couch. “That went well. Look, I know you don't need one more person interfering in your life, but Ganymede will take some of the pressure off. He'll distract Sparkle so she won't have as much time to make our lives hell. And he's the most powerful entity I've ever met, so you want him on your side.” He frowned as he thought of something. “Are you leaving?”

She stretched out on the bed and gazed around her. “No. I want to keep my job.” God, he must think she was a complete idiot after that last display. For whatever reason, she wanted him to understand.

“I was the victim of a bite-and-run vamp attack. I honestly don't know who turned me, but suddenly my life and my career were over. I tried to explain to my parents, but they're in denial. I'm their ‘Goth' daughter to friends.” She let her gaze rest on Conall's face—the harsh masculine beauty of it, strength in the line of his mouth and his calm gray eyes. Gerry wondered how many of her ancestors had slept more easily knowing Conall was there. Heaven knows, she would.

“How do you feel about being vampire?”

No one had ever asked her that question. “It's only been two years, and sometimes I forget what I am. I still think like a human. I still get
scared
like a human. Everything that's happened since I got to the castle freaked me out, and I finally just lost it.”

Conall nodded. “Hey, I don't blame you. You've met some powerful entities. Fear is a survival instinct. It makes you careful. You'll exist a long time if you know when to back off.”

“Thanks for understanding.” Right now he was the calm in her storm. “I want to be the one who catches the wife killer, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not a twenty-eight-year-old sales rep anymore.”

She sighed. Time to stop laying all her fears and insecurities on him. “I like the living-for-centuries concept, but I miss a bunch of things.”

“Like?”

He looked interested. Was that part of his curse description: Know everything about the rotten Kavanagh you'll be stuck with? “Pizza, a summer day on the beach, and . . . men.” Maybe she should've left that last part off.

“Men?” His lips tipped up in the beginning of a smile.

Loved that smile. “I don't feel comfortable with mortal men anymore. I tried, I really did. When I first became vampire, I didn't know how to control anything. The guy I was going with took me to a sexy movie, and when he made a move on me I bit his neck. No more phone messages from him. Another guy I went out with came on too strong, so I threw him across the room when all I wanted to do was push him away.” She shrugged. “And I haven't met that many nonhuman males.”

“Until now.” His smile widened.

“Yeah.” Call her picky, but he was the only one who gave her a serious case of the wants.

Gerry yawned. She was starting to feel a little tired. Dawn mustn't be far away. Maybe as she grew older, it wouldn't affect her this early. “So when are you going back to your room?”

“I'm not.” His expression said she'd have to pick him up and throw him out. “I'll sleep on the sofa.”

She thought about arguing. Who was she kidding? She needed him. And . . . she sort of liked having him around. “Okay, but once we catch the wife killer and find out who wants me more dead than I already am, I'm turning you loose.

“Turning me loose? Like back to the wild? You still don't understand. You
can't
turn me loose. Neither of us has any say in how the curse works.” He hesitated a second before continuing. “And we can't make love.”

Her eyelids stopped drooping. “Wow, major buzz kill.” She peered at him from under her lashes. “Right, no making love. I got that back in the Sultan's Palace. Only I've always hated dumb stories where he wanted her and she wanted him, but there was this big ‘something' keeping them apart. I never did understand why they couldn't just talk about the big ‘something' and then make love.” She paused to see how he was taking things so far.

“Go on. I'm listening.”

“The curse is our big something. If at some point we get past the Great Wall of our last names and want to make love, why not?” She should be all embarrassed by what she'd just said, but she wasn't. He'd wanted her during that fantasy, and lord knew she'd wanted him right back.

He surprised her. “I agree. But it's not only about our feelings. Morrigan is a control freak. If she thought I enjoyed making love with you, she'd punish both of us. Don't think for a minute she has any warm fuzzy feelings for you because you're Sean's descendant. You're just the instrument of my punishment.”

“Hmm.” She thought about that as she climbed from the bed, grabbed her jammies and headed for the bathroom. By the time she came out, she had a plan. Not for tonight, but for an emergency if the wanting got too much. For both of them. She didn't think she'd share with Conall until he needed to know.

Slipping under the covers, she watched him. He'd picked up the lamp and TV, and now he was checking to see if the TV still worked.

“When will you get some rest?” She scooted farther under the covers.

“When you wake up at dusk, I'll catch some sleep.”

She let her lids drift shut. “You know, if you were in
my
harem, I wouldn't start at the top.”

“No?” He sounded cautious.

“No. I'd make you lay on your stomach, naked, and then I'd do erotic things to your sexy bottom.”

“Hmm.”

“I'd massage your luscious butt cheeks like a cat kneading while it thought about bowls of thick sweet cream.” She licked her lips.

“Would you purr?”

“Oooh, yeah.”

“Then that's good.”

She was into it now. “I'd order you to turn over. I'm impatient, what can I say? I'd scrape my teeth over each of your nipples and then slide my tongue past all your scenic wonders until I reached the overlook for the whole panoramic you. Probably I'd pull over. Maybe take a hike to see if the real thing was as spectacular as it looked.”

“You're killing me, here.”

“I certainly hope so.” She smiled. “I'd run my tongue around and around each of your sacs until you moaned for release.”

“Would you give it to me?”

She thought about that. “No. I'm in charge. And I'm not done.”

“You're a cruel woman.” His soft laughter sounded strained.

“Cruel women rule. Okay, back to business. I'd glide the tip of my fingernail—filed to a sharp point because cruel women always have daggers for nails—the length of your cock.”

“And?” His voice was a husky murmur.

“And I haven't thought out the rest of it.”

He exhaled deeply. “This is payback for the Sultan's Palace, isn't it?”

“Maybe a little.”

“More than a little.” He got up and headed for the bathroom. “I need a shower.”

“Do cold showers really help?” If it worked, maybe she'd try it.

“Not really.” He paused in the doorway.

“I meant it. Only a tiny part of that was payback.”

“Uh-huh.” He closed the bathroom door.

“Houston needed plant food,” she explained to the closed door.

Gerry opened one eye. Bed not on fire. Goody. She opened the other one. Conall asleep on the couch. Relief. Not the reaction she wanted. Her logical self knew that wanting him to be there when she woke could lead down a dangerous path. But her emotional and sexual self thought he'd be a fine beginning to each evening.

His big body looked all scrunched up on the couch. Some men seemed younger, softer in sleep. Not Conall. He was all coiled power and danger even with his eyes closed. And so tempting he made her clench body parts that hadn't gotten much exercise. Ever. Fine, so she had high standards when it came to her lust objects.

She studied the evidence: TV still on and almost empty coffeepot on the table. He must've lost the battle with sleep sometime during the day. Sort of endearing. Morrigan hadn't given him the ability to stay awake forever, but he'd sure tried.

She crept quietly out of bed. Sleep had helped her. Once again she felt in control. Okay, maybe not completely, but enough to put things in perspective. She had two problems.

One was straightforward. Find and arrest homicidal wife slayer. The second was fuzzy around the edges. Discover who wanted her dead, find out why, and stop them.

She couldn't picture any of the people from her life before the Castle of Dark Dreams hating her enough to move themselves to murder. Sure, she'd arrested a few petty criminals, but she couldn't see anyone connected to them caring enough to stalk her.

So that left someone here. Conall was the only person in the castle with a close connection to her. She'd bet this was about Conall. She just had to figure out how.