Skinny Pants

by Pamfiloff, Mimi Jean

  “Get off me, Hunt! I have to get to class.”

  He tightens his iron grip, biting down on a shit-eating grin. “Not until you say yeeees,” he sings.

  I have no clue what he wants, but God, I loathe jocks. I hate the way they laugh at each other’s douche-bag jokes. I hate how they strut around like they’re God’s gift to the universe herself. I hate their obsessions with cheap beer, pickup trucks, and blonde girls in short skirts.

  And I especially hate this guy, Hunter Johnson. Aka Hunt. Also referred to by himself and his followers as “The Hunt,” “The Man,” “Mr. Amazefootball,” and my own creation, “Dickhead.” Okay. Mine isn’t so original, but neither is the dipshit hugging my knees for no other reason than after all these years, he still hopes he’ll get a rise out of me. But I wouldn’t queef in Hunt’s general direction to save his life. Not that I’ve ever queefed. Or had sex. Or…anything. But, hey, I have my “better than you” scoreboard. Hunt – 1. Tassie – 562.

  And just why is my score so high? This game has been going on for as long as I can remember, starting in preschool all the way through high school. Hunter and I were neighbors. Technically, we still are since our parents continue living next door to each other back home.

  Lucky me. But imagine my delight when I learned that Hunter and I would be going to the same university.

  Both on full scholarships.

  Unbelievable. I worked my entire life for straight As. I made sacrifices—mostly to my social life and girlish figure since studying didn’t leave room for much else. Hunt, on the other hand, just threw around a ball while wearing tight pants and humping his way through the cheerleading squad.

  Fed up with his little game, I reach down and grab a fistful of Hunter’s dark brown hair that skirts his annoyingly strong jawline. His hair is longer than he used to wear it back in high school, and it’s surprisingly soft, too. I can make nice earmuffs out of it after I scalp him.

  “Ow! Hey,” he squawks, but goes right back to locking up my legs the second I release his silky hair.

  “All right,” I say through clenched teeth. “What do you want, Hunt?”

  “Say yes. That’s all. Please, Tass?” His callused fingers press into my bare calves underneath my floral, knee-length skirt. Strangely, his hands feel satisfyingly rough.

  What? No. You are not enjoying this.

  Hunter’s thumbs make tiny circles behind my knees, almost like he’s heard my thoughts and agrees with them: “Yeah, giiiiirl! You know it.”

  A silent cringe tears through me.

  “Dammit, Hunter,” I say, doing a wiggle-step, trying to keep my balance. I’d prefer not to fall over and show the world my Hello Kitty Friday underwear beneath my skirt. “Get off!”

  “Would love to.” He laughs, wiggling his dark eyebrows. “My place or yours?”

  “Har, har, asshole,” I say.

  “Ouch. Such words, little Tassie.” He chuckles and his breath tickles my inner thighs. It feels oddly intimate, and I don’t like it one little bit. “Now, you really have to say yes.”

  “Yes to what? Use your words, tiny man.” Tiny refers to his brain, not his body. In the size department, he’s a tall, lean, mean football machine. A complete waste of a nice male body.

  “I need your help.” He makes a pouty face that quickly turns into—

  “Nooo. Don’t you do it! I’m so not in the mood. Don’t you dare use the—”

  “Paweeez, Tassie…” His blue eyes are super big and the tip of his pink tongue darts out the side of his mouth.

  Oh God. Not the puppy face. I refrain from cracking a smile. He first used it on me when we were five to wheedle a graham cracker. Over the years, he’s used it to convince me to do things like lie to his parents—“Yes, Hunt was with me, studying”—or to tutor him with algebra when he was failing. I never understood why I helped him because the guy made my life a living hell. It’s totally the puppy face. Case in point, it still gives me the uncontrollable urge to laugh. It’s just that stupid.

  “Hunter, I swear you’re the biggest…” Trying not to smile, I notice a few of his football buddies doubled over, cracking their shit up behind a row of books.

  My smile vanishes like a wisp of steam over morning coffee—fair trade, French roast—in case you’re wondering what I’m imagining dumping over his head at this very moment.

  “You bastard,” I curse under my breath. “This is some sort of dare, and you’re still living in high school. Well, here’s a blast from the past!” I manage a small jab-kick just above his knee, which creates enough space for me to land a real kick into his rib and—ouch! My foot!—rock-hard abs.

  “Tass.” He laughs, releasing me and rolling on his side. “Come on…”

  There is no justice in this world. Not for women like me who reject this form of juvenile henpecking, just like I reject push-up bras, oppressive dictatorships, and football—okay, basically any sport that pays its athletes millions of dollars while people go hungry. Intelligence is the only currency that matters.

  And Hunter Johnson is dumbass broke!

  Okay, right about now you’re probably asking yourself if I’m one of those nerdy girls who had a crush on the quarterback back in high school and got her heart decimated every time she saw him walking down the hall, because he didn’t actually see her.

  Oh hell no.

  My father is a software engineer who’s created six different algorithms to track global-warming patterns, my mother is an award-winning bioengineer working on a cure for cancer—I want to be her someday—and my brother is a tech CEO and millionaire at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. Don’t even get me started on my aunts, uncles, and cousins—all doctors or scientists. With my 3.99 GPA and full scholarship to a university that is not Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, I’m the black sheep of the Summerset clan. But for better or worse, that’s my family, and I love them. Even if their standards are incredibly high. Either way, there is zero, and I mean zero interest in sports or men of sports on my part.

  Hunter especially.

  So exactly what is the rub between me and him? I’ll have to get to that later, because right now, I need to flee from this giant, six-foot-two turd who’s determined to latch onto my crotch zone and embarrassed the hell out of me.

  I push my glasses back up my nose and head quickly for the exit, praying that no one in my chemistry club has witnessed the altercation, but knowing the library is their turf and the chances of this moment not coming up at tomorrow’s study group are nil.

  “Great. Just great,” I mumble to myself and throw my weight into the heavy steel door to go outside.

  “I just want to fuck you, Tass! I need a virgin!” Hunt yells out.

  A gust of hot sticky September air flows over me as I pause mid-step in the doorway, wondering if I’ve actually heard his words correctly.

  No, the boy who beat the hell out of Kurt Lipmann in the eleventh grade, defending my honor, would not sink so low. But I’m not stupid, hard of hearing, or delusional. Yep. This cave-dwelling crustacean actually said what I think, and from the roaring laughter radiating inside the library, I know everyone else heard him, too.

  Wow. Now I’m pissed.

  I slowly turn to face my nemesis, who’s standing with a gloating grin baked onto his piehole. He thinks he’s got me. He thinks I’m going to lose it right here in front of all these people.

  Not today, Huntie baby. My self-worth doesn’t come from his approval or my sexual status. I am a strong, smart woman.

  I take a deep breath, let it out, and return with a lifted chin and confident strides. “But Hunter, did your concussion-warped mind forget? You already fucked me. You did it to me in kindergarten and every year of my life since.”

  Ewwws! and yucks erupt from the theater of onlookers. Yeah, I know I made it sound like he had sex with me when I was six. Nasty! And point for me. Tassie – 566.

  I go on, using a sweet, calm voice to twist the knife, “So now that we’ve established you’ve
achieved your perverted goal, I think you should consider fucking yourself next. In that giant asshole of yours. Oh, but wait. Your shrimp dick won’t reach.” I make a pouty face and hold up my pinky. “Poor Hunter. But at least I’m technically still a virgin because of it, which allows me to be deflowered by a real man someday.”

  His cocky grin morphs into a flat pair of lips and twitching blue eyes.

  He’s pissed. Another point me.

  I sigh contentedly, turn, and exit the library.

  Brains beat brawn every time.

  For BUY LINKS AND MORE…

  www.mimijean.net/smartass.html

  From New York Times Bestseller Mimi Jean Pamfiloff comes a Horribly Sunny Mystery, The Librarian’s Vampire Assistant.

  NOBODY MESSES WITH HIS LIBRARIAN. . .

  Who killed Michael Vanderhorst’s maker? It’s a darn good question. But when the trail brings Michael to hellishly sunny Phoenix, Arizona, his biggest problem soon becomes a cute little librarian he can’t seem to stay away from. He’s never met a bigger danger magnet! Even her book cart has it out for her. And is that the drug cartel following her around, too? “Dear God, woman! What have you gotten yourself into?”

  Things go from bad to worse when local vampires won’t play nice.

  Can this four-hundred-year-old vampire keep his librarian safe and himself out of hot water? Can he bring his maker’s killer to justice? Yesterday, he would’ve said yes. But yesterday, he didn’t have a strange connection with a librarian. Yesterday, people weren’t trying to kill her.

  EXCERPT THE LIBRARIAN’S VAMPIRE ASSISTANT

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Oh! I’m so sorry!” says a blonde at the front of the coffee line, forcing my attention away from the phone in my hand. She’s wearing a rather unattractive red coat and has apparently rammed into a UPS guy carrying a hot cup of tea.

  “Serves him right. Only weak men drink tea,” I growl under my breath and return to my screen.

  My name is Michael Vanderhorst, and I am not usually this grouchy or this close to doing something terribly unwise—throats torn, heads lopped, appendages removed. Unwise. However, today is quite possibly the worst day of my life, and a silent rage is brewing inside me.

  But let us not start off on the wrong foot. I am actually a nice guy. Some might say I’m a classic gentleman, and they don’t mean I know which fork to use, though I do. They mean gentleman in the true, old-fashioned sense. I open doors for ladies and stand when they rise from the table. I keep my word, pay my debts, and believe in being polite to others, even when they don’t deserve it.

  Do not get the wrong impression. I am no pushover either. I get my hands dirty when the situation warrants, but generally I am an agreeable man.

  Or I used to be.

  A man.

  Now I’m a vampire, and like most of my kind, the journey hasn’t been an easy one.

  No, this is not the reason I’m in a foul mood. Neither is the fact that I’ve been in line for over ten minutes, waiting to order coffee.

  Oh, yes—pause of deep appreciation—coffee.

  “Oh, dear me! I’m so sorry!” I look up again, and the same blonde woman, who I see only from the back, has just knocked over a towering pile of coffee cup lids onto the floor.

  The employees rush to pick up the mess, and when she bends over to help, she hits her forehead on the counter. “Ouch!”

  I am about to step forward to assist, but she seems all right, rubbing her head and apologizing to the entire world.

  I hope she doesn’t stab herself with a straw or spontaneously combust. Then I’ll never get my coffee. I cannot start my day without it.

  Do not be shocked. There are many things people don’t know about my kind. For example, we don’t live exclusively on blood. In fact, I prefer spicy vegan dishes. Indian food is delicious.

  Another myth? Vampires cannot go in the sun. Also untrue. We are merely averse to it. Right now, it’s a cool spring morning in downtown Phoenix, and while I am sweating through my Italian suit and can’t get home to Cincinnati fast enough, the sunny sky outside is merely an annoyance.

  So now you’re wondering just why I’m so angry. It is something so ghastly, I can hardly say the words. Two days ago, someone killed the most upstanding person ever to walk the planet. Clive was a give-you-the-shirt-off-his-back sort of man, which is the likely reason his detective agency wasn’t making money. I once worked for Clive—also a vampire—but his generosity toward his clients, giving away his services, got to a point where he could no longer employ me.

  So I went back to school, obtained yet another degree, and started my eighth profession, this time in biotech research. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you get bored. I find changing occupations every fifty years keeps a man on his toes, and if you’ve guessed that would make me over four hundred years old, you would be correct.

  “It’s your turn, dude,” says the pink-haired man behind me.

  “About time. Thank you.” I step up to the counter, where I order my usual—a nonfat latte with an extra shot of espresso. “No make that two extra shots,” I say to the barista and pop five dollars into the tip jar.

  “Coming right up.” The young redhead attending to me smiles, but it’s the sort of smile that says she wants to bed me. Little does she know that while I am a handsome man—six feet one, deep brown eyes, and a very charming smile—she can’t help herself. Yes, that myth is actually true. Humans find us irresistible.

  I offer the barista a polite nod and step aside to await my coffee, but something outside catches my eye through the plate-glass window. It’s that same blonde woman with a paper cup in her hand, playing Frogger with oncoming traffic.

  Oh! Watch out. Dear woman, what are you doing! She’s nearly run over by three separate cars. I’m about to run after her, but she makes it across to the other side of the street.

  What the devil was she thinking?

  My cell vibrates in my hand, and I sigh with relief. “Finally.” It’s a text from the local society granting me a meeting at one o’clock. Society is the modern term for coven, which is made up of a collection of families. Each territory has a different society and, since vampires are very territorial, I cannot stay longer than a day without a visa—not that I plan to since I’m not permitted to have anything to do with investigating Clive’s death.

  Sadly, I am here to collect Clive’s ashes and take the good man home to his final resting place.

  Regardless, whoever hurt him must pay. Not death, but entombment, which is far worse and the only outcome I’m expecting to hear at today’s meeting with the society’s head. “We’ve caught the bastard. He’s been sentenced to life.” Anything shy of these exact words will cause trouble. From me.

  My order is called at the counter, and I grab my hot coffee, immediately going in for that first delicious sip. “Ow!” It burns my tongue. Why do I always do that? I’m far too eager when it comes to caffeine. Especially in the morning.

  I take a seat at the counter along the window that faces the street. Immediately, my reflection catches my eye. My brown hair is a mess, and I apparently forgot to shave this morning at the hotel. My tie is also crooked.

  I straighten myself out and glance at my watch, a fine antique Clive gave me on my birthday over a hundred years ago.

  Clive… I feel the red-hot rage build again. He was my best friend, my brother, my father, and my maker.

  Nobody touches my family, I snarl on the inside. My strong hand squeezes my coffee cup, threatening to send the piping hot liquid up in the air.

  Dammit all to hell. I need a distraction, something to keep me calm until one o’clock. Otherwise, I won’t stand a chance of keeping a level head when I walk in to meet whoever runs this sunny, pleasant dump of a town.

  My eyes gravitate back outside. I remember passing a library one block down. I’m sure I can find a quiet place there to get some work done on my laptop, which will keep me out of the sun and occupied for the next few hours.
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br />   With coffee in one hand, I grab my things and head to the library.

  FOR BUY LINKS AND MORE:

  www.mimijean.net/the-librarians-vampire-assistant

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MIMI JEAN PAMFILOFF is a New York Times bestselling author who’s sold over one million books around the world. Although she obtained her MBA and worked for more than fifteen years in the corporate world, she believes that it’s never too late to come out of the romance closet and follow your dream. Mimi lives with her Latin lover hubby, two pirates-in-training (their boys), and the rat terrier duo, Snowflake and Mini Me, in Arizona. She hopes to make you laugh when you need it most and continues to pray daily that leather pants will make a big comeback for men.

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