This grin he didn't bother to suppress. "Where would you like me to set up?"
Graham shrugged. "That's up to Sam. She's the one who keeps everything in its place around here."
It didn't take a mind reader to see that Sam wanted to put Noah outside with the trash. Or maybe to banish him to another continent. But that wasn't her decision.
Sam forced a pleasant expression onto her face. "I'll have one of the staff bring in a desk and some chairs. If we set them up near the fireplace on the far side of the room, it should give you some privacy for your sales pitch."
And get Noah as far from her as possible without banishing him from the room. Still. He'd save his fighting for other battles. "That works for me. Why don't you just tell me who on the staff I need to talk to, and I'll take care of my own supplies. I'm sure you have plenty of work to do without worrying about me."
"Great." Graham clapped Noah on the back. "I'll leave you to it, then. If you think of anything you need, just let Sam know. I'm putting her entirely at your disposal."
Noah saw Sam's eyes widen and her lips part to protest, but Graham had already retreated to his inner sanctum and closed the door behind him. Patiently Noah waited for Sam to turn her wary gaze back to him before he let the satisfaction bloom across his features.
"That," he said, his voice low and purring, "suits me perfectly. I can hardly wait to get started."
By four o'clock, Sam found herself wishing for a gun, a Valium, or a spot in the witness protection program. Noah Baker had obviously made it his life's work to drive her demented. She had to admit, he seemed to have a talent for it.
After fifteen minutes of discussion that had felt more like fifteen years—during which Sam asked questions about what furniture and supplies he would need for his area and he watched her with those penetrating hazel eyes that tracked every flicker of her breath—Sam had sent him off to see Richards about plundering from the other rooms of the club. The butler would be able to handle Noah while Sam took measurements to determine exactly how many bottles of Scotch would fit in the bottom drawer of her desk.
Laying her head down on a stack of paperwork, she gave a heartfelt groan. "This is never going to work."
"Don't be a pessimist," announced a familiar voice. "If I survived years of living in the same house with him, you can make it a couple of months in a shared office."
Sam groaned again, but she didn't need to lift her head to know that Noah's sister had let herself into the office. "I really don't need any more surprise visitors today, Abby, especially not ones with smart mouths."
"Better a smart mouth than a dumb one." Sam heard light footsteps and a slight rustling as Abby Baker settled herself in one of the chairs on the far side of the desk. "Come on, Sam. Aren't you being just a little bit melodramatic? I admit that my brother can be a pain in the tuchis, but he's not that bad. You managed to get along with him at my engagement party."
"I was dressed up," Sam grumbled, "and those little meatballs looked like they'd stain."
"With all the Lupines in the room, I doubt any of them would have landed."
Reluctantly Sam raised her head and propped her chin on her hand. "I'm sure that would have amused your family, to see all the werewolves leaping for flying meatballs. I can see your brother's face now."
Abby's friendly odd-colored eyes watched her sympathetically. "Yeah, I know he drives you crazy. That's why I came to lend you moral support. Rule just told me what was going on."
"Are you sure you didn't want to make sure I wasn't snacking on his femur?"
"Of course not. I'm over that old fear. You werewolves are just great big lap puppies." Abby's tone was airy, but her eyes twinkled.
Sam snorted. "Right. You should so work in our press office." Resisting the urge to whine like a two-year-old, she settled for making a disgruntled face. "I want you to know that it's because I consider you a good friend that I'm going to try to get along with him."
"And I appreciate that, even though I still don't get what it is with you two that constantly has you snarling at each other."
That was a question Sam chose not to consider too closely. "Just lucky, I guess."
Abby laughed. "I guess. But, hey, the other reason I came over was to ask if you had plans after work? Missy said the boys are playing poker tonight and they invited Noah to sit in. So Tess suggested drinks and DVDs at her place. Are you interested?"
A moment of introspection revealed Sam's choices: she could call Annie and fail miserably to coax her out of her lab, she could hang out with the lively group of friends no doubt included in Abby's invitation, or she could go back to her own apartment and spend the rest of the night brooding about a certain annoying new office mate. Gee, which of those sounded most appealing?
"Very interested," she answered, and glanced at her watch. "It's twenty till five. I've got a few things to finish up, but I should be able to get out of here on time tonight. I'll meet you guys at Tess and Rafe's?"
"Sounds good. I'm going to run out and pick up a couple of bottles of wine and some whole milk."
"Milk?" Sam blinked.
Abby grinned. "Missy still can't drink because she's breast-feeding, but she needs both the hydration and the calories, so you can tell your boss we're taking care of her. I'll see you later."
Sam waved Abby out the door and then looked down at her desk. If she was lucky—or if she shoved a chair under the doorknob—she just might be able to clear most of the pressing paperwork out of her in-box and slip out of the club without seeing Noah again. Then she'd have the whole weekend to brace herself for their next encounter.
Grimacing, she shook her computer mouse and brought her accounting software back up. She hoped Abby bought a lot of wine.
An attack of doubt wasn't enough to keep a good soldier from doing his duty.
Noah was a very good soldier.
After spending a good amount of time instructing Vircolac's butler as to what he needed in his office area, Noah beat back the impulse to return there for the pleasure of tormenting Samantha for a few more minutes. Instead, he slipped out through the club's kitchens and walked the eight blocks to the second-closest pay phone. There he punched in the number trained into his memory.
"Yes."
The voice on the other end of the line didn't introduce itself, but then neither did Noah. "They're setting me up today. By Monday, I should be able to get down to business."
"Good. Is everything going smoothly?"
"Yes, sir. The pack and the Alpha are being very cooperative." And he was learning to ignore the feeling he got from lying to all the people around him all the time.
"Make sure it stays that way. I shouldn't have to remind you, Major, that not only do we need results on this; we need them quickly."
Noah's mouth tightened, but the man on the other end of the line couldn't see that. "I'm aware of that, sir."
"Fine. I'll expect updates whenever it's feasible. I definitely want to hear something next week."
"Understood."
The click of the line disconnecting was the only reply Noah got.
Feeling grim, he replaced the receiver and turned toward the liquor store at the end of the block. Returning to the club with a couple of six-packs for tonight's poker game would explain his absence if anyone had missed him or, even less likely, had seen him slipping out. But Noah knew no one had.
He was very good at his job.
* * *
CHAPTER THREE
It hadn't taken Noah very long after he'd learned of the existence of the Others to realize that, aside from the obvious, the differences between the species were actually remarkably few. Some things just never changed. Poker nights were among them.
The room on the second floor of Vircolac might be a little more elegant than the ones Noah was used to playing in—hell, half the time he ended up playing in a tent or a shack or inside a Bradley fighting vehicle—and the service was a hell of a lot better than he was used to. He could get accustom
ed to having a waitstaff bringing him a fresh, cold beer every time his bottle even threatened emptiness. But once he got past the surface polish, everything else looked and sounded pretty familiar, from the haze of cigar smoke to the flutter of shuffling cards. Poker was poker, and men were men.
Even, apparently, when they were also wolves. Or jaguars. Or demons.
"Five." Noah tossed his chips into the center of the table and listened to them click. He recognized that sound as well.
"See you."
"I'm in."
"Same."
Rafael De Santos clasped the stub of a very expensive, and mildly illegal, Cuban cigar between his first two fingers and leaned back in his chair. "See and raise. Another five."
Noah grinned. The werejaguar and head of the Council of Others said that so intently, as if the amounts they were betting wouldn't have gotten them laughed away from any serious table in Vegas. Noah liked Rafe. He had from the beginning. There was something steady and purposeful about the other man, for all his air of lazy elegance and weary sophistication. At first glance, a person could make the mistake of writing him off as too much of a pretty boy to worry about.
Noah wasn't that stupid.
He was, however, playing a very edgy hand. In more ways than one.
He threw in his chips and met the raise. "Let's see what you've got, Mr. Kitty."
"Three of a kind." Rafe arched an elegant brow. "You?"
Grunting good-naturedly, Noah tossed his cards onto the table. "Boot marks on my ass, apparently."
"That should teach you." Rafe grinned and leaned forward to rake in his chips.
Graham sighed and squeezed his hand into a fist, cracking open a handful of peanuts. "I don't know why we even bother playing with this bastard," he grumbled, and crunched. "His luck is better than Quinn's."
Noah had never met Sullivan Quinn but had heard of him. The Irish werewolf had come to New York at the beginning of the movement toward the Unveiling and ended up marrying Cassidy Poe, the granddaughter of one of the most influential members of the Council of Others. He and his wife split their time between Manhattan and Dublin these days. So far, their time in New York hadn't overlapped Noah's.
"Don't let the Irishman hear you say that," Tobias Walker snickered over his beer bottle. "He's a touchy son of a bitch."
"Why do you think I waited for a night he wasn't playing?"
Everyone laughed, and Noah tipped his chair back to indulge in a long, lazy stretch. His muscles felt unusually tight, whether from sitting at the poker table or from the tension of being constantly on-duty he wasn't sure. He didn't suppose it really mattered. He'd get out of the chair in a few hours. As for going off-duty… that might take a bit longer.
Rule gathered the cards for his deal and shuffled the stack in his powerful hands. "Incidentally, Noah, your sister asked me to send you her love. She would also like to know if there is anything she can do to help you settle into your new office."
Noah chuckled. "I'm fine, but you can thank her for me."
The demon's mouth curled in a small, very satisfied smile. "It would be my pleasure."
The legs of Noah's chair landed back on the floor with a thunk, his mouth turning down in a scowl. "Hey, we talked about this. You promised no looks like that. That's my baby sister you're thinking about… thinking about."
"Of course." Rule smoothed his expression back into its normally austere lines. "I apologize."
The other men at the table snickered.
"You realize he hasn't stopped thinking any of it, right?" Graham asked, grinning.
Noah snagged a fresh beer off the tray the waiter presented to him and glared. "Shut up, Fido."
"Whatever you say, pal, but I want you to know my sympathy for you is genuine. It drives me crazy enough, and all I've got is a few dozen female cousins." Graham shook his head. "I should send my parents a thank-you card."
"At the very least." Rafe picked up his new hand and began to rearrange the cards. "You do have everything you will need, don't you, Noah? Tess and I would be glad to assist if you think we could be helpful."
He shook his head. "I'm good. Graham's got all the information I need. I'm grateful the pack has been so accommodating."
Graham waved away Noah's thanks. "No problem. Like I told you before, I'm happy to help."
Noah forced a smile and looked down at his cards. Damn it, he'd prefer if they gave him a hard time. It would make his job easier in the end. Until then, he could at least change the subject. "You have. Sam's been great, too."
"She's great professionally. Possibly genetically, too. I gotta say, it can get annoying at times," Graham grumbled, but he was smiling while he said it. "But since without her babysitting skills Missy probably would have tried to divorce me ten times over by now, I try to bear up under the strain."
"You seem to be doing fairly well with that." Noah tossed back two cards, took two new ones. "Abby tells me she's been working for you for at least five years."
Tobias snickered. "You might say that."
Noah raised an eyebrow.
"Let's just say I've been paying her for about five years now. You could make a case for the fact that she's been working for me a lot longer than that." Graham took a drink from his bottle and saw Noah's expression. "She's one of those cousins I mentioned earlier. I may have sent her on an errand or two when she was younger."
"You could put it that way," Tobias laughed. "You could also say she was his minion. Or his retriever."
"You sure as hell wouldn't say that in front of her."
Tobias made a face. "Do I look that stupid?"
Graham turned back to Noah. "She was a helpful girl. You had a little sister. You know how girls are always trailing after you, pestering you. She liked it when I gave her jobs to do. It kept her happy."
"And off your back," Tobias pointed out.
"That, too."
The rest of the men at the table snickered.
"Oh, like none of you have tried anything similar." Graham scowled good-naturedly at the group. "Remember, I know your mates. I know what you've done trying to keep them occupied."
Noah watched the men in question grin and shift in their seats. None of them looted particularly disturbed by that statement. In fact, most of them looked pretty damned content with the world.
"Speaking of them," he said, "I'm surprised none of them has stuck a head in here tonight. They seem to be a pretty curious bunch."
"Oh, they are. But Tess invited them all to our home this evening," Rafe said. "She said that if we were going to indulge in our masculine pastimes, the ladies would need to arrange something to keep themselves occupied."
The clink of chips on the table heralded a moment of silence. A long moment. The men looked at one another.
Carefully Tobias laid his cards face down on the table and cleared his throat. "So, Rafe, did Tess happen to tell you what they had planned?"
Rafe shook his head slowly. "No, she did not. When I asked, she simply told me not to worry."
"That sounds…" Rule frowned, "… worrying."
"I'm in for fifty."
"I'll raise."
"I'll see that."
"Yeah? Well, in that case, I'm all in."
Sam rolled her eyes. "I thought it was the boys' night to gamble."
Tess De Santos raised her eyebrows and smiled over the rim of her wineglass, looking almost as feline as her were jaguar husband. "So? I'm feeling sporting."
"Me, too." Fiona Walker popped a grape into her mouth and looked cheeky, which pretty much counted as her normal expression.
"But do you have to sport with my love life?" Sam grumbled, refilling her glass with Shiraz.
"Trust me, Sam, where I come from, it's practically a rite of passage." Missy Winters smiled to soften her words, but Sam noticed she made no effort to take them back.
While the Silverback Luna was generally one of the softest-hearted people Sam had ever met, Missy had also met the Alpha through a series of nig
htmare dates her closest friends had arranged for one another. Those friends, frankly, terrified Sam, so she should probably watch what she said before Missy decided to throw her on their untender mercies.
"We all have your best interests at heart," Tess said. "I mean, how long has it been since you and Pete broke up?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Fiona grinned. "You mean aside from providing the info we need to handicap this little wager of ours? Come on, Samantha. We're girls. We gossip."
"But do you have to gossip about how long it's going to be before I get laid again?" Sam gulped more wine.
"Of course we do," Fiona said, her grin widening. "After all, the rest of us all have mates, so we know exactly when we're getting laid next. You're the only one with an element of chance for us to gamble on."
"Shouldn't you be in Faerie kissing royal ass right now?" Sam grumbled.
"Darling, I am royal ass." Which was technically true, although most of the time the Fae princess went out of her way to avoid the title and lived life like nothing more exciting than Tobias' wife. Sam noticed that Fiona wasn't afraid to use it when it suited her purposes. "But that's hardly the point. We weren't discussing my ass, spectacular though it may be; we were discussing yours. More specifically, we were basing a friendly wager on the fact that several of our mutual acquaintances would like to get a piece of it just as soon as you stop sulking about Peter."
"Sulking? I'm not sulking. I dumped him. Months ago. And for good reason. He was a wimp," Sam protested. Then she paused, her ears metaphorically perking. "Really? Several?"
Tess wriggled her eyebrows. "As in more than a few."
"Greater than a handful," Missy agreed with a grin.
Howl at the Moon Page 3