Beauty Bites

by Mary Hughes

  I waved the air in front of my hot face. Not Gray’s but all the snakes and long hard rods… I was obviously flustered at the idea of being Ric’s lover. And really, really turned on too.

  “I thought it was my idea,” Camille was saying. “Coming to Minnesota to snatch you up for my ad campaign. But now I’m wondering. Did Mr. Nosferatu mention you first? Well, either way, he wants me to bring you to him.”

  Ric’s jaw continued to tic. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  ”That won’t do, darling.” Her eyes narrowed. “Should I take one of your people instead? Maybe little Rosie here?”

  Ric growled, low, barely audible. The sheer animal menace in that soft warning sent frissons up my spine. Classic vampire sound, and in front of the definitely non-vampire Rosie, a problem. I cleared my throat. “Holiday. Your slip is showing.”

  Camille swiveled her head to me, weirdly fluid. Something reptilian lit in her eyes. Talk about her vampire showing. “I’ve had an idea.” She spoke to Ric but her lizard eyes were fastened to me. “I’ll take Synnove instead. Mr. Nosferatu would love to meet Synnove.” A threat iced her tone which I didn’t understand. Nosferatu was a businessman. Why would meeting him be dangerous?

  But Ric’s growl stopped abruptly. “Damn you, Camille.” He cut an irate glance at me. “Both of you. This way.” He spun and headed for the far corner along the back row of offices, veering to avoid direct sunlight. Camille followed almost precisely in his footsteps.

  He led us to a huge windowless office lit by recessed lights, filled with art, splashy fabrics, sleek furniture and a teak aircraft carrier desk holding an insanely thin laptop. But the desk was strewn with papers and notes, and the matching credenza was stacked with equipment and models. Image was important but this was a working office too.

  He shut the door.

  Camille sauntered to a guest sofa, plopped her tiny tight butt into it, patted the cushion next to her and grinned at Ric. My fingers curled.

  Ric ignored her. He strode behind his desk and adopted a power stance, the “I’m more fucking dangerous than a hungry cheetah” kind. “All right, Camille. I’ll consider your proposal.”

  I drew an outraged breath. “You can’t give her—”

  “I’ll consider yours too, Synnove.” The frigid anger in his tone cut me off quicker than a raised voice would have. “Here’s what will happen. You each have one week to put together your vision for Meiers Corners. I’ll gather a team of my best—account and production managers, copywriter and art director. If you convince them to take you on, I’ll do it.”

  Camille’s green eyes narrowed. “You’ll come to Meiers Corners?”

  “Yes. On behalf of whichever campaign is chosen. Ladies.” He strode to the door and opened it. “You have what you want. Good day.”

  Camille rose, tossed him a pert smile and sashayed out. Without a word to me, Ric left too.

  I stood there, strangely deflated. I had what I wanted? Then why did it feel like a disaster?

  Chapter Eight

  I dawdled leaving so I wouldn’t run into Camille—or Ric. Surprisingly, given the regular pantsing that fate had been handing out, I didn’t encounter either of them. See, I argued with myself as I pushed out of Holiday Buzz’s glass door. Not everything ends in disaster. Surely I was just on edge because of the past week, with The Incident and then Twyla dressing me in spiral cut hams and sending me into the lion’s den.

  Starring tawny, muscular Ric as the powerful lion.

  My thoughts shifted. Powerful, yes, but when Camille threatened him with Nosferatu, Ric had jumped like he’d been stabbed. What was up with that? Nosferatu was a harmless old businessman. And when she suggested taking me to meet Nosferatu, well, Ric had gotten downright feral.

  I jabbed the elevator’s down button. CIC Mutual was one of the big insurance companies, based in Chicago. The very city Ric avoided. There had to be a connection. Ric, Camille, Nosferatu…was Nosferatu a vampire too?

  Yikes. I was seeing fangs everywhere. Yet it went kerchunk in my head, like a puzzle piece dropping into place. I wondered when Scully would show up to whack me over the head with the meat cleaver of reality.

  A ding startled me, the elevator arriving. I started forward before the doors cracked, anxious to get away from both my thoughts and dangerous men who might be more.

  “Synnove, wait.” Déjà vu barred my way in the form of a powerful, well-dressed arm. At least this time I didn’t play bumper cars with my chest. I turned.

  Ric Holiday in his full sizzling glory was right on top of me.

  I stepped back, spine hitting the edge of the elevator shaft. My nipples reached out as if trying to stay in touch. The erection of the mammary papilla is due to muscle contraction, like the pilomotor reflex which causes goose bumps—Stupid nipples. “What do you want?” I spoke a bit sharply, but his heat and heady scent had goosed my frustration into borderline rudeness. I flushed but held my place. Well, fused against the corner of the shaft, I had to.

  He stared down into my eyes, his own frustrated too. “I want to explain.”

  “You made it clear enough. Me and Camille at the O.K. Corral, one week from today.” I looked away. The elevator was leaving.

  “Synnove.” He slid two strong fingers under my chin and urged my face back to him. The blue had softened. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? There’s worse?” I scowled, but I had to work at it. Why did he have to be so gorgeous? Why did his fingers have to be so gentle, so warm? “You’re going to make us bikini mud wrestle?”

  “Ouch.” He smiled slightly. “I deserve that.”

  “No,” I grumped. “You don’t. But you’re getting it anyway.”

  The grin slowly widened, making his whole face edible. “The vaunted Byornsson honesty. I’m beginning to see the advantages.”

  And I was beginning to see the advantages of hot sexy sizzle. But no way I was admitting that to him. Not lying, just omission, which is not a lie. Mostly.

  When my lips parted to say something that was not a lie and definitely wasn’t about how sexy he was, his eyes darkened. “Shh.”

  He replaced the two fingers on my chin with two cupping hands, holding my face gently, like it was something precious. Like I was precious.

  My lips stayed parted but no words came out.

  In that moment of silence, he lowered his head. Slowly, so I could have stopped him.

  Should have stopped him.

  Did not want to.

  He’s nothing but image.

  Image and intense pleasure.

  The lips have one of the highest density of nerve endings in the body…

  Argh. Shut up and kiss him.

  While I was arguing with myself his warm mouth settled on mine, tongue sliding deftly between my lips. It rasped my sensitive skin, rubbing my lips awake like a thorough toweling. A steamed towel, hot and wet.

  Confused feelings fled. I gave a little moan and opened wider.

  He swept inside, all spice and heat. He groaned, a sound of masculine hunger. His questing mouth, his hot kiss, said lust plain and clear. Yet his hands were tender on my face, his sweet caress speaking of something beyond sex, a closeness that transcended the physical.

  Happiness blossomed in my heart. Our groans were intertwined, mutual. For this one moment, the battle was suspended and we were on the same side.

  His fingers tunneled into my hair, holding me firmly while his tongue drove deeper. He pressed closer yet, pinning me to the edge of the elevator shaft with his body, imprinting me with every muscle, every bulge, every place he was hard and primitive under his worsted.

  I rippled against him and moaned softly in response. If he could generate this kind of pressure standing, how would the weight of his body feel, pressing me into a mattress?

  At the thought I nearly exploded.

  He shifted me, his powerful hands urging me away from where the corner of the elevator was digging into my spine and guiding me onto the wall. There he pressed me
into vinyl wallpaper and kissed me like he was starving for me. The honest hunger in his kiss undid me. I grabbed his head and kissed him back with everything I had.

  A big hand slid up my ribs, sparking a trail of heat, stopping under my breast. The mound throbbed, waiting, wanting, yearning for that hot hand to slide up the curve, to touch my delicate and private flesh. To brand it as his own. My soft moans shortened to whimpers, and I arched to thrust my breast more fully into his hand.

  A deep rumbling started, a lion’s purr. His hand moved, fingers barely brushing the bottom curve. I stopped breathing. His fingers skimmed higher, circling nearer, nearer to the hardening tip. I twitched in anticipation, greedy for his touch on sensitive flesh barely covered by a thin blouse and the wispiest scallop of lace. Bless Twyla’s endless supply of sexy bras.

  Finally, finally his thumb scraped my nipple. I shrieked into his mouth, jerking against him. My nipple furled instantly, wordlessly urging him again, more, now.

  He opened his hand and covered my breast, his heat searing. Slotting the nipple between two fingers, he began to pump and tug gently, rhythmically squeezing, pulling. I thought I’d go insane from the sweet soft tugging.

  Until he replaced the hand with his mouth.

  His lips closed on my erect nipple through thin blouse and bra, breath wetting the material until he could have been sucking directly on flesh. It was the dream become real; it was better. More aroused than I’d been in my life, I grabbed his ears and beat my hips into him, not thinking at all, just moving. A pressure built between my legs, a hot, heavy throbbing that made me want him on his back and me naked and clamping him between my thighs.

  A ding startled me; my eyes flew open. The elevator, which had gone and come back again, disgorged half a dozen professional-looking people.

  Before I could even think about dying from embarrassment, Ric gently disengaged and palmed me behind him, shielding me completely with his body. I pressed my hot cheek between his broad shoulders, the fine wool of yet another tailored suit coat soft against my flushed skin.

  “Mr. Holiday, sir. We’ve been looking for you.” Feet exited the elevator, the expensive click of conservative heels, both male and female.

  In a moment they’d see me. I glanced down. The thin material of blouse and bra clung wetly to my skin. I could see the color of my nipple through them. Too bad I’d left Ric’s navy coat under Rosie’s reception desk. No way to cover the very obvious fact of what I’d been doing with their boss, a man they knew and respected. I wasn’t certain either of us would survive with that respect intact—although I’d probably care more than he would. I braced myself for discovery.

  “Stop.”

  Plastered against Ric like I was, the dark power in his voice vibrated my chest as well as my ears. Still, it seemed impossible that a single word could stop six people coming full tilt—when the feet stopped.

  “Go into the office. Work on your most pressing projects. I will be with you after lunch.”

  There was silence. Again it seemed impossible that just ordering those bright, inquisitive people of his to go somewhere else would work.

  The feet tromped away.

  The final weirdness. Enemy action, Mr. Bond. I raised my cheek from Ric’s back, fully convinced he was a vampire.

  I should have been trembling in my shoes and running as fast as I could in the other direction. But Twyla was happy with her v-guy. And after that kiss…I was trembling in my shoes, but not because I was frightened.

  So when he took my elbow and guided me into the still-open elevator, I went. It took longer for the doors to close than it took to drop one floor.

  “Here we are. Thirty one: accounting, shipping, IT and account support.” With a ding, the elevator opened. Ric shepherded me out. “This way.”

  “Why are we here?” Not more kissing, not with this unsexy blue-flecked beige carpet, utilitarian cubicles in navy and oatmeal, and office machinery that was merely current rather than next gen. If not for the silvery chrome and running water, I wouldn’t have known it was the same company.

  Typical, right? Working departments always seem to be shoved below execs and glitzy jobs, both in goodies and in actual positioning. It lends credence to the idea that oxygen is thin in the upper “adminisphere”.

  “We’re here because I owe you, remember?” Ric glided through the cubicles, smiling at workers and greeting each by name. Thin air hadn’t dimmed his brilliance. But that simply might have been because vampires didn’t need to breathe.

  “Owe me? For what…? Oh.” I’d flung that at him after last night’s kiss. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten about it. “I didn’t mean it. Mostly.”

  “I know. But I’ll help you anyway.” Ric led me to a small, windowless work room, like a music school’s practice room with a plank table instead of a piano. He seated me at the table and took the chair next to me. We turned toward each other in a sort of V.

  “First things first. Here’s my personal cell phone number.” He tapped a card onto the desk. “If you have any questions or concerns, call me. Day or night.”

  His eyes were sharply blue, as if he was trying to beam something unsaid directly into my brain. Questions or concerns? Like what to wear to the face-off? Or concerns of a more fangy nature?

  I took the card and rubbed my thumb across thick linen paper with embossed print. I turned it over. He’d written his cell phone number on the back in slashing black ink. “Thanks. You’re helping me, but to do what?”

  “Fight Camille.”

  “Good. Um, how?” I admit I had visions of Camille and me squeezed into strips of spandex, knives strapped to our thighs, me with a bandoleer of stakes across my chest, battling with halberds and maces.

  One corner of Ric’s mouth turned up as if he saw the Xena images in my head. “I’ll help you nail your presentation. If I’m travelling to Meiers Corners, I want to go in on the side of right.”

  “You’re a businessman. Any side with enough money is the right side.”

  The other corner rose. “Winning against Camille isn’t going to be easy.”

  “Of course it is. Meiers Corners as Vegas of the Midwest? Please. All I have to do is show pictures of showgirls in lederhosen. So wrong.”

  His lips twitched. “I know you want logical arguments to win the day. But you’ll be dealing with a committee.”

  “A committee is just people.”

  “People who have personal agendas. Camille will play to that. She knows how to work the system.” He took my hands. “Despite her saucy siren act, she’s ruthless. She fights dirty, and she likes it. She’ll do whatever she has to. Lie, seduce, threaten. Schmooze. You won’t. That’s a handicap.”

  “Being honest isn’t a handicap. Anyway, I’m not naive. I know how to schmooze.”

  “Really? What is schmoozing but little white lies?”

  “It doesn’t require lies.” I paused. “Maybe a little spinning of truth.”

  His brows rose. “Isn’t that still on the evil side of the Lie Line?”

  “Lying for profit is bad. But telling the truth hurtfully is bad too. They’re both on the same side of the Lie Line.”

  “The evil side?”

  “The dick side.”

  He blinked. Then he laughed, a deep masculine chuckle that rippled inside me. The laughter lit his whole face, warming me, making me want to kiss his beautiful curved mouth. I leaned forward…he leaned forward…

  We bumped heads. I sprang straight. “I never understand why people laugh when I’m just telling the truth.”

  “Maybe it’s your delivery.” He had such a powerfully attractive smile. “Synnove, I do trust you, and definitely respect you.”

  Happiness fizzed inside, like Synnove champagne. Then—“There’s a ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?”

  “Now who’s the mind reader?” He said it lightly, but his gaze was warm. His thumb began to caress the back of my hand. “I trust you as an expert in your field, in medicine. My a
rea of expertise is making the right impression, the right way. I’m trying to give you the benefit of my knowledge.”

  “I can win without being another Dr. Bearsylls.” I paused. “Why do we have to bid at all? If you know my side is ‘the side of right’, make an executive decision and go with me. I mean come with me. I mean…” I blushed. “Pick my side?”

  “I can’t.” His lips twisted, his smile self-mocking. “There are circumstances you don’t know about. Suffice it to say that for every nasty thing Camille can hand out, her boss can smack it down ten times harder. If I let this play out, there’s a good chance he’ll stay away. If not, we’ll all suffer his temper. And that’s vicious.” He sounded like he knew firsthand.

  “But what if I lose the bid?”

  His expression went dark. “Then appearances be damned. I won’t work for Nosferatu agai—I won’t work for him.” He cleared his throat, making what, for him, was a visible attempt to recover from that slip.

  Work for Nosferatu again?

  Ric’s hands tightened on mine. “Bottom line, Nosferatu and Camille are serious bad news. A real attack would be devastating. Best to simply avoid it. So. Here’s what you need to do to sell this. First you—”

  “Wait.” Sales. Horrors of school fundraisers, rapping on door after door, selling nothing while my friends made sale after sale—remember, I was the plain, unnoticeable one—made me hyperventilate. “Why start now? The presentation is a week away.”

  “The sooner you’re armed, the better I’ll feel. In case…” He stared past me at the blank wall, but the pain flickering in his eyes told me he was seeing something awful projected there. Maybe having to do with working for Nosferatu again.

  I put a reassuring hand on his.

  His eyes returned to me and the horrors faded. He gave me a small smile. “In case business calls me away.”

  “Business.” I didn’t like any of this, not his evasiveness, not the horror in his eyes, and especially not his trying to teach me about sales. He’d blocked the Nosferatu topic so I threw up my own block. “No sales. I’ve memorized countless Latin terms but sales is different. Sales is hard.”