Fiancee for Hire (Front and Center)

by Tawna Fenske

“I noticed. Your Spanish is very good.”

  “Thank you. I’ve done volunteer vet work in El Salvador and Guatemala.”

  “I know.”

  Kelli cleared her throat again. “So tell me about Griselda.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Is she pretty? Smart? Flirty?”

  Mac gave her a guarded look, an expression that had become all too familiar to Kelli. “I suppose so. On all counts, I guess. Does it matter?”

  “Yes. A real fiancée would be threatened by at least one of those things. Maybe not overtly, but jealousy would rear its head at least a little.”

  “Hmm. That makes sense. So you’re deliriously in love with me and leery of my former mistress?”

  “And you’re completely smitten with me and blind to her charms.”

  Mac smiled and turned onto the highway. “I think we can manage that.”

  They chatted easily for the drive from Mac’s place in Todos Santos to Zapata’s place outside San Jose del Cabo. By the time they arrived at the stucco mansion on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, Kelli was beginning to feel relaxed.

  Okay, maybe not relaxed. But as calm as she could be, considering she was a fake fiancée in a borrowed dress and too-high heels preparing to meet a vicious arms dealer and his vixen wife. At least she had Mac. And at least she might not have to try all that hard to appear smitten with him. Her lifelong crush had given her plenty of practice.

  Mac parked the car in front of an elaborate stucco mansion. Kelli swallowed hard as she looked up at the home, noticing the elaborate brickwork, the staggering ocean views, the armed guards at every corner.

  Mac walked around the side of the car and opened her door. Kelli hesitated, feeling nervous all of a sudden. He smiled and offered his arm.

  “You’ll do great,” he murmured. “I promise.”

  “Any last words of advice?”

  “Take my lead. Smile a lot, don’t say much, and try to look as ridiculously in love with me as you can muster.”

  “Got it.” She fought the urge to salute and settled for raising one manicured hand for him to grasp. He pulled her gracefully to her feet, and she wobbled a bit on the heels. Mac steadied her, cupping her elbow in one of his large palms. She held tight to his arm and let him lead her to the front door. Her heart was in her throat as Mac rang the bell, then pulled off his sunglasses as footsteps approached the door.

  “Breathe,” Mac whispered.

  “Okay.”

  “You’ve got this.”

  She gave him a weak smile, and Mac smiled back, then squeezed her arm.

  She turned back to the door, waiting for a servant to greet them. When the door jerked open, Kelli jumped in surprise. She took two steps back as a petite brunette in a Prada dress cried out, then launched herself into Mac’s arms.

  “Oh my God,” the woman sobbed into the front of Mac’s shirt as Mac looked down with alarm. “Something horrible has happened!”

  …

  The sight of Griselda sobbing and hysterical sent a rocket of ice down Mac’s spine. He felt the pinch of the shoulder holster holding his pistol beneath his suit jacket, and calculated how quickly he could detach Griz and push both women behind him while drawing the weapon to defend them against whatever waited inside.

  Mac rested one hand on Griselda’s back as her arms twisted around his neck and she sobbed into his coat. He shot a look at Kelli, knowing she was probably terrified. She met his eye with a questioning look.

  “Go back to the car,” Mac whispered. “Let me assess things here and—”

  “Don’t leave me!” Griselda wailed. “Come quickly, both of you.”

  With that, Griz grabbed Mac by one arm, Kelli by the other, and pulled them into the foyer. Mac was on high alert now, his hand reaching for the pistol, his eyes scanning the room for the threat, for a body on the floor, for a hostage situation for—

  “A lizard?”

  Mac blinked as Zapata stepped into the room cradling something that looked vaguely like a dinosaur. Judging from the slump of Zapata’s shoulders, it had to weigh fifty pounds. The animal flicked its tongue at Mac, assessing him as though he were a meal.

  “An Argentine black and white tegu,” Kelli whispered reverently, her bare arm brushing Mac as she step forward. “He’s beautiful.”

  “He’s dying; we must take him to the hospital now,” Zapata barked, his accent more pronounced than normal as his eyes made a frantic scan of the guests. “I apologize for dinner, but we must go quickly.”

  Mac looked at Kelli, who was studying the large reptile with professional calmness. He felt a surge of pride as he touched her arm.

  “I may not have mentioned it, Señor Zapata,” Mac said. “but my fiancée is a veterinarian.”

  The arms dealer looked at Kelli with wide eyes. “This is true? Dios mío, you will look at Felix?”

  “Of course,” Kelli said, setting her purse on a bench beside the door and taking a step forward. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “His manhood,” Griselda wailed. “It has exploded.”

  Mac winced as Zapata angled the large lizard up and he caught sight of something that did indeed look like an exploded manhood.

  “Holy shit,” Mac murmured. “His dick blew up. They probably didn’t cover that one in vet school?”

  “Of course they did, sweetie,” Kelli replied, looking bizarrely calm. “It’s a prolapsed hemipenis, very common in reptiles.”

  All three pairs of eyes swung to her, looking baffled. “A hemi-what?” Mac asked.

  Kelli was already crouching low, inspecting the lizard from beneath. “A hemipenis or hemipene. Many kinds of reptiles have not one, but two intromittent sex organs everted for reproduction via erectile tissue. The hemipene is one half of the paired, erectile, copulatory organ protruded through the cloaca.”

  Mac blinked, as distracted by the view down the front of Kelli’s dress as he was by the words coming from her mouth. “Lizards have two penises?”

  “Sure, so do snakes, sharks, koalas, kangaroos—well, technically the marsupials have a bifurcated penis, which is more like one penis that splits into two.” She looked up at their dumbstruck hosts from her position on the floor at their feet. “Have you had him long?”

  “Only a few weeks,” Zapata said. “He was a gift from a collector. Is he dying?”

  “No, but we need to treat him. He’s not going to be able to retract the organ on his own. Where is your bathroom?”

  Griselda touched a hand to her throat and sniffed loudly. “There’s a powder room down that hallway and to the left.”

  “Not a powder room, a bathroom. With a bathtub.” Kelli stood up and looked at Griselda. “I need you to bring me sugar and some mineral oil. If you don’t have mineral oil, we can use a sexual lubricant like KY Jelly, if you have it.”

  Griselda blinked, then nodded. “The kind that warms when you blow on it?”

  “I don’t think Felix is too picky about that.” Kelli turned to Zapata. “Let’s bring him into the bathroom and start running a warm bath. Have you bathed him before?”

  Zapata shook his head, looking nothing like the ruthless arms dealer Mac knew him to be. “I did not know I needed to.”

  “It’s okay. I just wanted to know how he tolerates water. Most tegus are fond of it, especially if we run the water a bit warm. Mac, would you grab my purse? There’s a little medical kit I need.”

  Mac stared, dumbfounded. “You brought a medical kit to dinner?”

  “I never leave home without it. Come, let’s get to work.”

  Mac brought up the rear, feeling ridiculous holding a beaded purse and marching behind his fake fiancée, his ex-girlfriend, and notorious arms dealer carrying a double-dicked lizard. Griselda fell into step beside her husband carrying a five-pound bag of sugar and a half-used tube of KY Jelly.

  How the hell did I end up here? Mac wondered, as they paraded down the hall.

  By the time he reached the bathroom, Kelli
was already kicking off her shoes. She climbed into the tub, running water over her bare feet as she tested the temperature with her fingers. Mac resisted the urge to admire her butt as she bent down to plug the tub.

  “This bathtub, it was just cleaned,” Griselda offered helpfully. Beside her, Zapata was cooing something unintelligible into the lizard’s ear. Did lizards have ears? Mac wasn’t sure, and obviously wasn’t too familiar with the anatomy of reptiles. Two penises? Holy shit.

  “May I have the sugar, please?” Kelli asked, stepping out of the tub.

  Griselda handed her the bag without comment, and Kelli dumped a generous amount into the tub and swished it around with her hand. Then she held out her arms. “May I please have Felix?”

  Zapata eyed her with surprised. “He is very heavy, be careful.”

  Kelli gave him a smile. “I do this sort of thing all the time.”

  Mac nodded trying to look like a man accustomed to seeing his beautiful fiancée fixing lizard penises in a bathtub. “First you perform dog surgery in a wedding gown, and now you’re fixing lizard dicks in a cocktail dress.”

  “It is a beautiful dress,” Griselda said earnestly.

  “Thank you,” Kelli said, wrapping her arms around the lizard and pulling him to her chest. “Mac helped me choose it last night.”

  She smiled at Mac, a flicker of mischief in her eye as she held the massive lizard against her breasts. She stepped toward the sugar bath, cooing to the creature as she moved. “Here we go, big guy. We’ll get that pork sword back in place in no time.”

  The lizard flicked its tongue and gave Mac a look he could have sworn was smug. Mac bent down so he was eye level with Felix. “Don’t get too comfortable, buddy. She’s going home with me.”

  Kelli smiled and lowered the animal into the water. It was only a couple inches deep and liberally laced with sugar. Mac expected Felix to thrash or fight, but he seemed to relax at once.

  “What does the sugar water do?” Griselda asked.

  “It’s one way to reduce the prolapse,” Kelli said, kneeling beside the tub and rubbing a handful of sugar against the creature’s underside. “Right now, it’s too swollen to be pulled back into his body where it belongs.”

  “And the, uh—” Mac glanced at the tube of KY Jelly in Griselda’s hand. He looked away fast, not certain what etiquette called for when one’s ex-girlfriend stood gripping a half-used tube of sexual lubricant in the presence of her arms dealer husband and her ex-lover’s fake fiancée.

  “The lubricant will allow me to slip the prolapsed hemipene back in place,” Kelli replied. “Then I’ll use a purse-string suture to tighten the opening enough to hold both organs inside.”

  “And you believe he will live?” Zapata asked.

  “Odds are very good, yes,” Kelli said. “There doesn’t appear to be any infection, and we’re catching it in time. Most male tegus copulate with the penis on the right, so there’s a good chance he could still reproduce if you’d planned on doing that.”

  “Good news, buddy,” Mac told the lizard, resting a hand on Kelli’s shoulder. He felt stupidly proud, which was ridiculous. He hadn’t done anything.

  He looked at Zapata, who wore a bewildered expression completely unlike anything Mac had seen in his prior meetings with the man. The guy made multimillion dollar arms deals with terrorists and ordered hits on his enemies, but he seemed completely undone by the lizard crisis.

  Zapata looked at him and nodded. “Thank you. Both of you. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” He shook Mac’s hand with ferocious warmth.

  “It’s no problem,” Kelli called, her dress dragging in the water as she knelt to maneuver the lizard. “That’s a nice boy, Felix. Does that feel good?”

  “Can I answer for him?” Mac offered.

  “He looks happier already,” Zapata said. “Doesn’t he look happy?”

  The lizard flicked his tongue as Kelli probed his underside, and Mac nodded. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Can I get anyone a glass of wine?” Griz called. “Perhaps a cocktail.”

  “Cocktail,” Kelli replied dodging Felix’s tail as he thrashed it. “Maybe later.”

  Felix thrashed his tail again, splashing sugar water down the front of Kelli’s dress. She didn’t move, but stroked his head to calm him. Mac moved into place beside Zapata, and they all stood watching Kelli and the lizard.

  “Okay, big boy,” she cooed. “I just need to touch your beef bayonet again.”

  “That is the medical term?” Zapata asked.

  “Should this be turning me on?” Mac asked.

  “Shhh!” Griz ordered. “Let her work.”

  “Very nice,” Kelli murmured, ignoring them all. “The swelling is already going down.”

  “This really shouldn’t be hot,” Mac murmured.

  “Be strong, Felix,” Zapata coached. “¡Fuerte!”

  “Shhh!”

  Kelli kept working, her expression serene and patient.

  Zapata looked at Mac and shook his head in wonder. “Your bride—she is amazing. I had no idea.”

  “She is amazing,” Mac replied, looking back at her.

  And I had no idea, either.

  “I’m going to give him a few more minutes to soak,” Kelli said. “If you’re at all squeamish, you might not want to stick around for the next part. The suturing process isn’t pretty.”

  Griselda paled at that and glanced at her husband. “Come. Let us check on dinner and find something for Ms. Landers to change into when she is finished.”

  “Thank you, that would be lovely,” Kelli said. “Mac? Would you mind sticking around and giving me a hand?”

  He stooped down beside her, barely noticing as he knelt in a puddle of water. “Fondling a lizard in a bathtub full of sugar water,” he murmured. “Not how I pictured this night going.”

  Kelli grinned. “Your life with me is full of surprises.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he replied, and braced himself to give a lizard a handjob.

  Chapter Eight

  By the time Kelli finished the final stitch and set aside her needle holders, she was soaked to the bone.

  So is Mac, she thought admiringly, glancing at the front of his trousers in appreciation. She turned and washed her hands at the sink as Felix flicked his tongue from the freshly dried bathtub Kelli had lined with clean, soft towels.

  “We’ll want to keep him isolated there for a little while, but that went well,” she said. “He should be fine in a few days.”

  “That was incredible,” Mac said.

  “Aw, I’m sure you say that to all the girls who fix lizard penises.”

  Mac laughed and lifted the pile of clothes Griselda had just handed him. “You sure you’re still up for dinner? They said we can postpone for another night.”

  Kelli shook her head and began repacking her medical kit. “This is a business dinner, and you need to talk business.” She hesitated, not sure how much to say, since Mac had already warned her the bathroom was likely bugged. She settled for nodding at the pile of clothes. “As long as there’s something in there that’ll fit me, I say let’s do it now.”

  “You’re a real trooper, you know that?”

  She grinned, thinking that was one of the nicest things he’d ever said to her. After all these years of not being noticed by Mac, it felt odd to suddenly have him so aware of her.

  “Will Felix be okay in here for now?” he asked.

  “Yes, as long as we close the toilet lid and make sure there are no small spaces he can climb into. Tegus are very curious by nature, and they can hurt themselves wedging their bodies into too-tight spaces.”

  “Judging from where you just put those stitches, Felix probably won’t be wedging himself into anyone’s tight spaces for a little while.”

  Kelli laughed and closed up her kit. “Shall we see what sort of clothing our hosts provided?”

  She turned and began pawing through the pile while Mac locked the bathroom door to offer
some privacy. Griselda was a good six inches taller and three times bustier, so Kelli gave a dubious look at the pair of strapless cocktail dresses she’d brought. She didn’t doubt there was a touch of female passive-aggression at play.

  “You saved my lizard, so let me repay you by making sure you look like a six-year-old playing dress-up in mommy’s gown,” Kelli muttered under her breath as she held up one of the dresses.

  Mac held up a black gown. “That’s Griz for you. How about this one? It looks like it might fit.”

  Kelli eyed the black garment and shrugged. “Sure, I’ll give it a shot.”

  She started to reach for it, but Mac pulled it back. “You know, after all you’ve done here this evening, the least I can do is help you get dressed.”

  Kelli rolled her eyes and reached for the dress. “Your control-freak tendencies are admirable, but I’m pretty sure I can dress myself.”

  “I insist,” Mac said, tossing the dress behind him on the counter and reaching for her. He pulled her into his arms and spun her around, making it clear he had more in mind than helping with her clothing.

  She shivered with pleasure as his fingers found the zipper at the back of her gown. He slid it down slowly, taking his time, tantalizing her. She gasped as his fingertips grazed her spine, tracing a soft line on her flesh as he drew the zipper down, down, down.

  “So you decided to go braless,” he murmured, his voice low in her ear as he breathed against her neck. “Good choice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are these panties or gift wrap?”

  “Are you mocking my butt-bow?”

  “On the contrary, I’m admiring.”

  The zipper hit the bottom and Kelli felt the fabric fall away and drop to the floor. He gripped her by the rib cage, turning her around to face him. She looked up into his eyes wearing only her thong and a smile. “Well then,” she said, licking her lips. “Admire away.”

  Mac’s eyes were molten as he slid his palms to her ass and pulled her hard against his body. She went willingly, arching her back to press her breasts against his sodden shirt. She moaned and twined her hands behind his neck, pulling him closer, kissing him back as fiercely as she dared. His pants were damp from the bath, his muscles hot and hard beneath the fabric. His kiss grew more fierce with a possessiveness that left her panting.