“Okay, ladies. That’s enough,” Sloan said, jumping up, a disgusted scowl on his beautifully chiseled face. “I can assure you I do not wear diapers, and have never, not even once, considered them as an accoutrement to anything sexual.”
Charlene clasped her hands together at her breast and sighed with a dreamy rasp. “Ohhh, he knows what the word accoutrement means. He’s a smart one-night stand. Way to pick ’em, Jeannie.” She, too, punctuated her statement with a much more enthusiastic fist pump than Betzi’s and gave Jeannie an encouraging smile.
“For the last time, he is not a one-night stand!” Jeannie yelped with a stomp of her bejeweled foot, making the tassels on her shoes quiver. “What I told you about how this all happened is true, Betzi Cable! I didn’t pick him up at the party I catered, and I definitely don’t want to have a one-night stand with him!”
Sloan beat the place on his chest where his heart was with a fist. “Ow. That cuts so deep.” He gave her a somber glance, but his eyes, a light blue and hooded by dark lashes, gleamed.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Jeannie stood in front of him, just barely reaching the top of his broad shoulder. “My heartfelt apologies.”
Sloan put a hand on her shoulder, using a light grip, one that while she was sure wasn’t meant to, nonetheless made her shiver. “No, no. No need to apologize. You’re on edge. I’d be on edge if I were wearing gauze, too. No amount of intricate embroidery can make up for that.”
Jeannie’s chin lifted as she shrugged his hand away. His big, unfamiliar, warm, sexy hand. Stranger danger. “This isn’t funny, Sloan.”
“I’ll say.”
Jeannie backed up with slow steps, careful not to hit the corner of her messy desk. Since they’d both arrived at her brownstone in a puff of lavender smoke smack-dab on her doorstep, she’d had no choice but to invite him in because she couldn’t get very far without him. He’d had the very same look she knew mirrored hers. Utter confusion.
And what had that master thing been about? The word had slipped off her tongue like she’d always addressed strange men in that manner—though, she’d discovered, if she bit her tongue hard enough, she could now choke back the word. The use of that particular title troubled her far more than some whacky genie costume. Jeannie Carlyle was nobody’s bitch. So, yeah. “Why can’t I get away from you?” she asked with a frown of discontent.
“Because I’m irresistible?”
Jeannie wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No, I’m pretty sure that’s not it.”
His lean jaw clenched. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on. It’s like I said, I have no information on genies or whatever it is you are. I’m a werewolf. Genies and werewolves don’t play in the same sandbox. But Marty, Nina, and Wanda will be here soon to help figure this out. Nina just texted me to say they’re on their way.”
Yeah. She vaguely recalled him explaining the three magical women that were going to tip her paranormal world right side up again by helping her get through her paranormal crisis. “And then what happens? Shorty, Tina, and LaShonda wave their magic wands and make everything okay?”
“It’s Marty, Nina, and Wanda,” he emphasized, his eyes somber. “I’d get that right, if I were you, specifically Nina’s name. She’s probably the meanest woman alive. No, I take that back. There’s no probably about it. She is the meanest woman alive. I can’t make any promises for your safety if you get her name wrong. Just a heads-up. As to what happens next?” Sloan shrugged his wide shoulders. “Can’t say for sure. I’ve never been involved in their little support group or any of the adventures they seem to manage to get tangled up in. I was just answering the phones for them because Marty made me. She’s my sister-in-law, another werewolf, and when she wants something, you give it to her or she badgers you until you do.”
It might be crazy to even consider such myths existed, but after tonight, who was the crazy one if she didn’t at least give this paranormal explanation some serious credibility. There was no denying she’d been trapped in a gin bottle. There was no denying a man had popped out of the gin bottle just before she’d been sucked into it.
OMG. Mulder had been right. The truth really was out there.
Located in a gin bottle full of stale cigarette butts and piles of beer cans.
The slight throb of her temple increased. She rubbed it with an errant finger and gathered more of her thoughts. “So this kind of thing has happened before? They’ve helped other people who’ve had accidents like me?”
Sloan’s forehead wrinkled in thought. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Twice, I think. So far anyway. I dunno. I don’t keep track. Like I said, I was just at OOPS helping out while they shopped—or something. They don’t get many serious calls. Most of them are pranks.”
“So how did you get here again? To my house?” When her lavender smoke had cleared, and she’d realized where she was, Sloan had been right behind her like they had some invisible leash binding them together.
Sloan planted his hands on his hips, making his leather jacket crinkle. “It was the craziest damn thing. One minute you were there, right in the middle of the road at that guy’s mansion—the next you were gone and I was right behind you. Poof. You know the rest. Puffs of girlie-smelling smoke—me outside your house, et cetera.”
Betzi circled the two of them, her heart-shaped face full of mischief. “Okay. I think it’s time for Charlene and me to hit the bricks. You guys go back to your one thousand and one Arabian nights fantasy, and I’ll call you in the morning for the juicy details after I plan that menu for the Morgans, yes?”
“No!” Jeannie shouted, clutching Betzi’s hand, panic racing through her veins. “No way are you leaving me here alone when I have more creatures coming!”
Sloan clucked his tongue in clear admonishment again. “Another tip from me to you. Ixnay on the word eatures-cray. If I wasn’t sure Nina’d be mad as hell that you called her Tina, I’m positive she’d eat your lungs for lunch for calling her a creature. I don’t want to scare you, but I think it’s only fair to tell you Nina can be very touchy and confrontational. Not to mention, she has absolutely no filter from brain to mouth. We’re called paranormals. I’m a werewolf just like Marty. Nina’s a vampire, and Wanda’s half werewolf, half vampire. Period.”
Charlene’s eyes, pretty and blue, went wide behind her stylish glasses. “I think this”—she flapped her hands between Jeannie and Sloan from behind Betzi—“whatever it is, has just become much too weird for me. This is role-playing gone extreme. You’re both in way too deep for my comfort level. Beware the Dungeons and Dragons syndrome, mate,” Charlene warned with a slight hitch to her worried words and a fearful expression.
A loud knock at her front door had Sloan moving through the women at a rapid pace and Jeannie hot on his heels, unable to keep herself from following him. She shot Charlene and Betzi a see-what-I-mean glare when she scurried past them with shuffling feet and yelped in panic, “Would you guys keep an eye on the twins in the bedroom? You know what they’re like with strangers.”
Betzi herded Charlene toward Jeannie’s bedroom with a nod and one very clear skeptical eyebrow raised.
“Thank Christ. That’s probably the girls,” he said over his shoulder as though their appearance was going to make everything all better.
Right. Shorty, Dina, and Tawanda.
Jeannie stopped short only to fall into his wide back, and for a brief moment, she reveled at how hard and secure it felt. She pressed her hands to his lean waist to catch herself, only to yank them away as though she’d been burned.
A naturally gorgeous brunette leered back at Jeannie from the other side of her chain lock. Her pale face, peeking out from a black hoodie, eerie and beautiful, didn’t look too pleased. Ah. This must be the infamous Lena.
She wormed her fingers under the chain and flipped the pair her middle fin
ger. “Open the fucking door, fleabag. See this?” She pried her lips apart with her free hand and opened her mouth wide with a rough grunt, encouraging them to look. “See my fucking fang? It’s broken, goddamn it. This is the kind of shit that happens when you send blondie into a full-on freak with your 911 texts, Sloan. She hit the fire hydrant outside with that big SUV Keegan bought her so she’d have room for all her bullshit designer shopping hauls. I clipped my friggin’ fang on the dashboard, numbnuts. For that shit? You gotta pay.”
As Sloan let the chain slip, he popped the door open and backed away, and on cue, Jeannie went with him. Her eyes went wide while she gazed in openmouthed horror at the woman’s teeth.
She really did have fangs. Like really. The unbroken one, long and so white it glowed, hung over her lower lip when she closed her mouth, jagged and sharp.
The brunette circled Sloan and Jeannie, her almond-shaped, coal black eyes narrowed, her long, lean body throwing off a cagey sort of energy. She waved a slim finger in Jeannie’s direction. “So, this is her?”
Jeannie nodded numbly, unable to tear her eyes from this beautiful creature’s mouth. Still stunned, she created a million reasons in her mind, beyond the obvious, as to why someone would possess incisors the size of tusks. “This is her,” she acknowledged.
The woman gave Sloan a hard shove to his shoulder with a flat palm, using such force, Jeannie saw him plant his feet more firmly on her tiled entryway to prevent himself from bucking backward. “Is she fucking on fire, Sloan?”
Sloan smiled at her, his eyes clearly taunting. “Look, Jeannie. It’s the OOPS organization’s friendly community vampire. Bet she wants to be your neighbor.”
“Did you hear me?” the alleged vampire rasped around her fang. “I said, ‘Is she fucking on fire?’”
“Why ever do you ask, vampire?” Sloan cooed at her.
“Because Jesus Christ and a flippin’ calico kitten, you got Marty so worked up with all your ‘hurry the hell up, I wanna get away from this chick’s texts, she rushed over here assholes and elbows and took out a fire hydrant in the process. Now I have a broken fang. Do you have any idea how painful that shit is? I’ll be goddamned. I’m not supposed to feel any pain unless you stake the shit outta me, but bustin’ a freakin’ tooth is like hella painful? Jesus, this vampire shit,” she muttered, her tone disgusted, her angry eyes pinning Sloan to the wall.
Seeing the tension mount between the two, Jeannie thought to intervene. She spoke the words before she was able to stop herself. Regret was for sissies anyway. “You’re Katrina, right?”
“Nina,” she hissed at Jeannie, her eyes flashing. “And you’re Ali Baba’s main squeeze, right? Did you hook up with a Groupon or some shit for belly-dancing classes or what?”
Jeannie eyed the gorgeous albeit pale woman while repeating her name over and over again in her head. She so sucked at names. They took time to remember. Time and repetition. “No. I’m Ah-ladd-in’s squeeze. Ali lost his Baba a long time ago. Now he’s just boring and old. But wow. That Aladdin.” She gave a low whistle.
Nina smirked, her tooth somehow smaller now. “Good, you’ve still got your chuckles. You’ll need it wearing that. Way to rock the flimsy, lady.”
“So you’re the one who’s supposed to help me? My friendly and supportive paranormal crisis counselor?” Because this Dina—she mentally corrected herself, damn, Nina—appeared neither helpful nor friendly.
Sloan snorted.
Nina planted her hands inside the pockets of her hoodie. “Oh, sure, I’ll help you. I won’t like a single second of it, but I’ll help, because my two bleeding heart BFFs make me do it. But it damn well won’t be ’cus I like it.”
“Can anyone make you do anything? I didn’t get the impression someone of your caliber could be made to do what she didn’t want to.” Jeannie didn’t mean it as a slur at all. She really meant it. At well over five inches taller than Jeannie, Nina-Tina-Dina had Amazonian properties. No way was she going to poke the caged beast.
Sloan was immediately in Nina’s path. He shot Jeannie a pointed look. His handsome face held a warning. “Stopping now. Remember the warning I gave you?”
Jeannie nodded obediently. Right, right. “Yes, massster . . .” She bit her tongue and winced. If she focused, she’d found she could control her words. “I mean, right—she’s the meanest woman alive. Don’t rile her.”
Nina cracked her knuckles and glared at Sloan before her eyes fell back on Jeannie. “He said that about me?”
Totally ready to do whatever she had to in order to ingratiate herself to this beast with big teeth, because honestly, this Bettina—er, Nina—was her manna from heaven, she planned Operation Suck-up. If giving up the Reluctant to Help Her Sloan was what would appease Nina, too bad. It was a dog-eat-dog world.
So Jeannie nodded furiously. “He did. He said not to call you a creature or forget your name because you’re confrontational. He also said you have no filter from your brain to your mouth. Totally said you were the meanest woman alive.”
Nina’s face went from dark to light in seconds, a smile wreathing her beautiful face. “At least he got something right.”
“Then I shall forever call you Meanest Woman Alive. How’s Mean for short?” Jeannie asked.
Sloan mouthed the words suck-up at her, his gorgeous lips transfixing her gaze.
Nina’s head fell back on her slender shoulders when she cackled. “I guess if you had to fuck up, playah, you fucked up with a chick who’s got some swingin’ tenders. Booyah, Romeo.” She clapped him on the shoulder.
Sloan shook his dark head. “Oh, no, I did not, as you so callously put it, fuck up. I was answering your phones when this went down. I did exactly what you said to do when I answered, too. I was sensitive. Kind. Warm even. And I rescued the damsel in bottle distress, but I definitely didn’t create her or her predicament because, had I? She would have been blonde and about six inches taller.”
Jeannie glared at Sloan. “I find that so surprising, Sloan the Werewolf. Would she have been empty of head, too?”
Sloan clucked his tongue and redirected his gaze at Nina. “My work here is done. Over. Now. So where’s my car? I think I can still catch the highlights of the game on ESPN. Did you pick it up on your way over here?”
Jeannie gave him a mocking disappointed pout and poked at his chest. “That’s it? You’re just going to leave without any concern for the outcome of my not-blonde-enough well-being?”
He eyeballed Jeannie without an ounce of sympathy. “Um, yep.”
Nina smacked her lips, her face full of amusement. “You’ll probably have to wait on that, chicken shit.”
Now Sloan’s eyes narrowed. “Why do I have to wait, vampire?”
In that moment, a petite blonde rushed in, her pretty face flushed, her trendy purple heels clacking on the floor. She threw her arms around Sloan’s neck, the length of her long ponytail bobbing against her stylish, deep purple coat. “I’m sorry! I’ll pay for it. Swear on my Louboutins!”
Sloan put his hands on her waist and set her from him. The look he gave her was hesitant, yet Jeannie also noted a hint of fondness in it. “Pay for what, Marty?”
“Hoo, boy,” another voice, soft and sweet exclaimed. The woman that belonged to the voice stopped in front of Jeannie. She was tall, slender, and dressed like some modern-day Audrey Hepburn. Though, Audrey probably would have had her forehead and left cheek waxed. The tufts of hair poking from those spots on the woman’s face definitely deserved investigation, but that wouldn’t come from Jeannie Carlyle, PI.
She didn’t want to know . . .
“First, my apologies for this.” She touched the hair on her cheek. “In times of great stress, I still have a little trouble controlling my shift. It’ll be gone in a matter of moments.”
Jeannie scanned the woman before her. Her chestnut brown
hair was pulled into a loose bun at the back of her head, her makeup, while artfully applied, was meant only to enhance rather than wow.
“Sloan? Maybe we should wait to talk about this until after we’ve talked to Jeannie? She is our first priority, after all.” Tugging off her leather gloves, she dropped them into a matching large taupe handbag dangling from the crook of her elbow. “So clearly, by the look of your outfit, you’re a genie. Er, Jeannie. I’m so sorry we weren’t here sooner. We took a personal day that went a little long.”
Nina sidled up to her and bumped Jeannie’s shoulder with hers. “Know why we were fucking long? Because blondie over there”—she pointed a finger at the woman in purple standing next to Sloan—“just couldn’t fucking decide which dress would best enhance her fat ass and hairy legs.”
“And we’re off,” Sloan muttered on a cackle, stretching his bulky arms in front of him before crossing them in front of his chest.
The elegant woman’s sigh was long and maybe even a little tortured to Jeannie’s ears. She ignored the Amazon Nina and instead addressed Sloan. “So Jeannie’s aware of the nature of our origins?”
Sloan nodded, his eyebrow cocked. “Oh, she’s very aware. And if she wasn’t before, she is now, due to Fangalina here.” He thumbed a finger at Nina.
With a matter-of-fact nod back at Sloan, the pretty woman gazed at Jeannie, her eyes warm. “So, introductions, then? I’m Wanda Schwartz-Jefferson. Werevamp—which explains the hair on my face. Two paranormals in one.” She smiled and held out her hand. A hand Jeannie blatantly hesitated taking.
The Accidental Genie Page 4