Smiling, she turned sideways and studied her full, feminine curves. Then she groaned and frowned. “Oh, holy crap.” She wasn’t sure when it had happened, but she was starting to look older and droopier.
Drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, she shook her head. It was true. She was really starting to look older. She readjusted her bra and smoothed her hands over her dress. It didn’t help her appearance. She turned to look at her other side in the mirror. It didn’t look any better to her.
Turning to face the mirror, she cupped her full breasts. One thing was certain: her girls weren’t getting any perkier. She turned again and, looking over her shoulder, studied her butt. Damn. Damn. Damn. Gravity had finally started to take its toll on her body.
She turned to face the mirror again. She needed to make a drastic, life-altering change before it was too late and she became a lonely, wrinkled-up old lady sitting in a rocking chair and knitting sweaters. “No.” She shook her head. “Not just a change. I need to find a man that wants to do more with me than talk about what looks good on the menu.”
Of course, there was a problem with that goal: ever since she’d met Jake, no other man ever dared to approach her. He always acted like a hairy, chest-beating, club-wielding, and knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. He glared, sometimes even growled, at every other male who seemed to notice her. Even her doctor at the hospital had been a victim of Jake’s notion that he owned her. He acted like a fool, puffing out his big, heavily muscled chest like some savage brute guarding his property. And the doctor had been very kind—and extremely good-looking.
Closing her eyes, she smiled. Jake did have a totally fabulous chest. It was no use in pretending his entire body wasn’t fantastic. And yummy. Oh, God, yeah. The man looked scrumptious as hell. No matter how mad she was, she couldn’t deny he was an incredibly hot, mouth-watering specimen of masculine perfection.
Oh, damn it. Her eyes snapped open, and she glared at her reflection in the mirror. More than anything else, she wanted to hate him, but he’d saved her. And whenever she thought about him she obsessed over his body. Why did he have to kiss her? How would she ever forget it?
To help renew her anger, she started to meditate on his annoying traits. It didn’t take long. It didn’t really matter how perfect his body was, because from the moment they’d met he was always crowding her, using it to maneuver her through crowds so that no other man could ever possibly get close enough to even brush up against her.
Night after sleepless night, she’d tossed and turned. She wanted … no, she needed a hell of a lot more romance. Much, much more. Her wants and needs weren’t outrageous. What living, breathing woman wouldn’t want a more gratifying sex life? Okay. Getting more wasn’t really the problem. She didn’t have a sex life at all. In fact, she’d never had a sex life worth bragging about. Just having one would be totally fantastic.
Lee Anne’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a toilet being flushed. She blinked. Then, smiling, she blotted her lipstick. Enough was enough. It was a difficult fantasy to forget, but it was time to face reality. If she was going to get any sexual satisfaction, it wasn’t going to be from Jake Mann.
A few seconds later a lady left the stall behind her and walked over the sink to wash her hands. The woman looked at Lee Anne’s reflection in the mirror. “I couldn’t help but notice the hot hunk you were arguing with.”
“What?” Lee Anne heard her, but she was a little shocked by the woman’s forwardness.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t help myself sometimes.” She giggled. “I bet you can’t wait to get him home and make up. Lucky, lucky girl. I’d give anything to get a man like him between my le … er, I mean, sheets.”
Lee Anne rolled her eyes. “Yippy skippy.” Spinning around, doing a little unenthusiastic dance, she stumbled and had to grab the sink to keep her balance. “Woo hoo. Lucky, lucky me.” Sure, he was tall, dark and wickedly sexy, but what did all that matter if he wasn’t willing?
“It wasn’t just a quarrel?”
Lee Anne narrowed her gaze on the woman. “No.”
“There’s serious trouble in paradise, isn’t there?” The woman looked and sounded far too pleased for Lee Anne’s liking. Obviously, the vulture was looking for an opportunity to swoop in and sink her talons into Jake’s flesh.
“Paradise?” Turning to face the woman, Lee Anne snorted. Unladylike? Yep. But she didn’t care. She didn’t like the woman at all. She’d noticed the woman gawking at and drooling over Jake while they were in the lobby waiting to be seated. “Knowing Jake is the furthest thing from paradise.” A trip to the lowest, hottest depths of hell was a more accurate description of spending any amount of time with him.
“You’re kidding.” The woman pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and dried her hands. “I know you’re not serious. The man has it going on in all the right fabulous ways.” She tossed the towel in the trash and turned to walk away.
“I’m serious.” Lee Anne turned toward the woman. Truthfully, she wanted to slap the woman; she was clearly asking for it. But Lee Anne had a better idea. “In fact, if you really want to go out there and give him a try, go for it. I’m certainly not going to stop you.”
“You’re not serious.” The woman started to open the door but stopped. She faced Lee Anne. “He did something horrible to you, didn’t he?” She stepped away from the door and walked back over to Lee Anne. “What did he do to you?”
“He didn’t do anything to me.” That definitely wasn’t a lie. If he’d ever bothered to do something to her, she wouldn’t be in the middle of concocting the perfect plan to distract him and punish the woman while she made her escape from the restaurant.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing at all.”
“I don’t believe it. If he and his equipment aren’t defective in some way, why don’t you want him?”
“There’re just no sparks between us.”
“Now I know you’re lying. I saw the way he looked at you.”
“I don’t know what you think you saw.” Lee Anne wished she’d seen it. “Jake and I have known each other for a very long time. We’re more like brother and sister.” She shrugged. “He’s yours if you have what it takes to go out there and get him.”
“You mean it?” Looking more than a little suspicious, the woman narrowed her gaze as she laughed nervously. “I know you’re not serious. Why would any woman want to give another woman a chance with him? He’s hot as hell. Just looking at him made my blood burn.”
“He’s okay. But he’s certainly not the hottest, most shockingly handsome man I’ve ever seen.” Okay. That was a big fat lie. But so what? She didn’t owe the woman the truth. “And I’m dead serious.” Lee Anne did her best to flash her most sweet, innocent smile. “There are no sparks between us.”
“Awesome.” Grinning from ear to ear, she nodded. “I’ll go out and introduce myself to him.” Lee Anne frowned as the woman turned to look at her annoying as hell perfect image in the mirror. The woman had the body of a toned eighteen-year-old and the smooth, flawless face of a seductive angel. “I’ve never had a problem getting any man I wanted.”
Lee Anne didn’t doubt the woman was speaking the truth. And that made her very angry. “Wait.” Lee Anne didn’t dare look in the mirror because of what she was about to say; she was fairly certain she would see horns sprouting on her head. She really didn’t like the woman. She moved quickly to get in front of the woman to stop her from opening the door. “There’s something very important you should know if you truly want to leave here with him tonight,” she said, trying to appear as innocent as possible.
Looking a little worried, the woman stared at her. “What?”
Lee Anne struggled to keep from laughing. “There’s only one way you’ll be able catch his interest enough to get him to leave with you tonight.” Taking a deep breath and holding it, she paused for dramatic effect.
The woman nodded. “I’m listening.”
“
He gets bored very easily. He likes a woman to be extremely aggressive when she approaches him.”
“That’s fine. I can do aggressive.” The woman smiled widely.
Lee Anne noted that woman’s teeth were seriously crooked. Ha. She was very pleased to see the flaw. “I’m serious. You need to be the take-charge type of woman when you first introduce yourself to him.”
“I heard you.” The woman sucked in her belly and stuck out her breasts and then turned to give Lee Anne a good look at her. “Look at me.” She giggled. “Does it look like I have any problem being sexually aggressive with a man?”
Dirty, nasty, filthy whore! “I sure hope not for your sake.” Lee Anne smiled. “You’ll only get one chance to get together with him. Once he decides something isn’t worth it, he drops it forever. If you don’t do and say the right things, he won’t want anything to do with you.”
Shaking her head, the woman frowned. “I’m not sure I want to know, but when you say that I must do and say the right things, what exactly do you mean?”
Lee Ann shrugged. “Just be bold.” She wrapped her arm around the woman’s shoulder. “There’s no reason to look so worried. It’ll be a piece of cake for a gorgeous, sexy woman like you.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“You need to walk right over to him and climb up on his lap, and then tell what you want to do to him and what you want him to do to you.”
“You’re kidding.” Shaking her head, the woman giggled nervously.
“I’m serious.”
The woman, shrugging out from beneath Lee Ann’s arm, turned to face her. Her cheeks were bright red. “I’m not a slut. I could never do anything like that in public.”
Lee Anne was fairly certain by the eager glint in the woman’s eyes that she was considering doing it. No. It was more than that. The woman was imagining doing it.
Oddly, it irritated Lee Anne. It shouldn’t upset her—after all, she wanted the woman to distract Jake. Well, it might upset her a little, but she wasn’t going to allow it to stop her. She knew the woman was going to do it. She just needed a little gentle nudging. She could hunt the woman down and smack her later. She smiled. The thought of beating the woman down made her feel much better.
Lee Anne turned away from her. “No problem. You don’t have to do it. You’ve seen him. There’ll always be another woman to step up and give him what he wants. I was just trying to help you.”
“It’s just so wrong.”
“To who?”
“Me.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with it as far as he’s concerned. He likes bad girls.”
“But it’s just so slutty.”
“Would it be so bad to be a slutty with him?” Pretending to be uninterested, Lee Anne pulled a tube of mascara out of her purse and applied it to her lashes.
The woman stared at her for several seconds. Lee Anne almost thought her plan wasn’t going to work. Then, the woman said, “Fine. I’ll do it. You only live once, right?”
Doing her best to not look too happy, Lee Anne placed the mascara back into her purse. “Right.”
~ Four ~
JAKE STARED UP at the woman sitting on his lap wondering how the hell she’d managed to get between him and the table to straddle him so quickly. He also wondered what had happened to the waiter. Thanks to Joseph’s outburst there weren’t many people left, but certainly someone in the restaurant should’ve noticed he was being harassed by a lust-crazed woman.
He’d expected Lee Anne to return to the table and demand that he take her home. He’d expected her to yell at him. Hit him. Kick him. Throw something on his again. He’d expected her to do something mean to pay him back, but he hadn’t expected her to send a woman out to seduce him.
He’d noticed the woman watching him earlier. It wasn’t because he was interested in her; truthfully, the woman gave him the creeps. Her sexual fantasies about him were very loud and uncensored. He’d noticed her because Lee Anne had noticed and was irritated by it. It felt pretty damn good to know it made Lee Anne mad. “What exactly did she say to you?”
“At first, I thought you were a couple. So, I complimented you and congratulated her. One thing led to another, and she explained that you weren’t a couple. It’s okay. You don’t have to explain anything to me. She told me all about the lack of chemistry between you.” The woman bent her head as if to kiss him. “I know how to take charge,” she whispered against the corner of his mouth. “I can make you feel so good, Jake. I can do things to you that will make you scream for mercy and beg for more.”
“No. You can’t.” Jake glanced around. There were a few couples still eating, but none of them seemed even slightly interested in one of the patrons being molested by a woman. Where the hell was the waiter? Shouldn’t the prompt son of a bitch be doing something to get the woman off his lap?
“You’re wrong, Jake.” She wiggled from side to side, rubbing her body against his. “She told me everything. I know exactly how you like it. And I plan to give it to you.”
“She didn’t tell you anything,” he remarked, knowing all too well that Lee Anne had advised the woman on how to seduce him.
“It’s okay. There’s no need to worry about her. She wants me to take care of you tonight.” She moved back and forth, grinding her body against his. “I would really, really love to take a ride on your big, hard, throbbing man beef all night long,” she whispered against his lips, still moving her body against his. “I know you’ll love it too.”
“She doesn’t want you touching me.” Jake had made the statement more to himself than to the woman straddling his lap. He really hoped Lee Anne didn’t seriously want him to be with another woman.
“I swear it’s true.”
“Get off me.” Jake pushed her back, but she grabbed the front of his shirt and clung to him. What was Lee Anne thinking? Her behavior was so incredibly beyond rude. How could she want a woman to be with him?
Jake didn’t blame Lee Anne for being mad at him, but sending another woman to him was quite a shock. Actually, it was quite disappointing. No. Not disappointing. It pissed him off. He would never want another man to touch her. Not even a little. In fact, if a man touched her, it would be nearly impossible to keep from killing the man. And yet … oh, damn.
Jake’s heart sank. He had always planned to hand her over to Jeremy.
“We should go somewhere else, Jake.” Since he was distracted, the woman managed to scoot closer; now she had her arms wrapped around his neck and her breasts pressed against his face. “Somewhere more private so we can get naked and better acquainted with each other.”
Pushing the woman back and turning his head to the right, his lips curved upward in a predator’s smile. There was no way he was going to hand Lee Anne over to Jeremy. He wanted to laugh. Not at the woman making a fool of herself, sitting on his lap, attempting to seduce him. He wanted to laugh at the thought that he’d ever truly believed he would allow Jeremy to take possession of Lee Anne. He wanted to laugh because his behavior had led Lee Anne to believe another woman could distract him so much he wouldn’t know she was attempting to sneak out of the restaurant.
Of course it had never been just a kiss to him. Lee Anne didn’t have a clue. And it was his fault. She didn’t understand how much she meant to him. He smiled. But by the end of the night there she would no longer have any doubts she was all that mattered to him.
“Well?” The woman leaned forward to whisper in his ear, “What do think … your place or mine?”
“Neither.” He stood up, easily taking the woman with him, and then he set her aside. Without even looking at her, he walked toward the front of the restaurant and outside. Dissolving into a vapor, he shed his physical form so Lee Anne wouldn’t know he was with her. He wanted her to proceed as if he weren’t watching. He loved to secretly watch her from time to time, though not in a creepy way. She fascinated him so much more than any other woman.
Besides, he needed a little time to come
up with a plan, because Jeremy would retaliate with deadly force the instant he realized that Jake was taking Lee Anne as his own
* * *
When Lee Anne got into the cab, she imagined Jake still sitting at the table waiting for her. She giggled. It served him right.
All at once she realized what she’d done. She frowned. Starting the process of sobering up sucked. It made her think more clearly. Jake was probably getting ready to leave with the woman because he couldn’t wait to rip her dress off her gorgeous body.
Just then, she heard the sound of Jake’s laughter. It sounded as if he were right next to her. Eyes going wide, she sat back in the seat. It was the oddest thing. She knew she was alone, but she swore she felt his presence. She shook her head. He wasn’t in the cab with her, and yet … even as she rejected the notion, she felt the oddest sensation that she was not alone in the backseat. She took a deep breath and released it with a loud sigh. It also could be the result of a guilty conscience. Not that she had any reason to feel guilty. He deserved to be dumped. At least she hadn’t left him alone.
“Oh, oh, my God.” She turned to look out the back window and watched the restaurant grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared. She was so stupid. Thanks to her he had a beautiful woman keeping him company.
Luckily, it was a quick drive to the club. The last thing she needed was more time to think about what she’d done. Within twenty minutes she was out on the crowed dance floor, surrounded by men. Men who obviously managed to notice that she was in fact a woman, men who seemed to enjoy lavishing her with attention.
* * *
The moment Jake walked through the door he froze. The building was packed with a mixture of humans and impure vampires. Also, one demon was present, Demetri Demidov. It was the last thing he’d expected. But he should’ve known. It was the only functioning nightclub in the vicinity. And after Mary Tate’s club burned down, she would naturally seek a place to market her women and drugs.
Sweet Decadent Fire Page 3