by Mary Hughes
So. Thwart rogue vampires. Respect Junior’s need for distance. Protect Mishela from a wily kidnapper. And try not to fall in love.
Closing night couldn’t come soon enough.
Chapter Nine
“Well, that was an interesting show, wasn’t it, Gunter Marie? I especially liked the cute little doggie who played with all the Munchkins. And the charming jig he did, raising his little hind leg…”
Mrs. Ruffles, Detective Dirk’s mom and this year’s Lutheran Ladies president, had cornered me midreception for a “quick” chat. Quick in Ruffles-land was as long as they were breathing, so I’d been there a while.
I would have escaped, but she held a cheese ball in her hand. Mrs. Ruffles is accident-prone like a deer in traffic. (In case you haven’t had that pleasure, deer don’t have the smarts God gave a peanut. When you swerve to avoid them, they swerve the same way to hit you.) So I stayed real still and hoped she didn’t accidentally bomb me.
Although if she’d had the fluff instead of a mere snot-ball, I would’ve damned the torpedoes and run.
Mrs. Ruffles kept talking. I kept nodding. Oh for a shield, but I’d left instruments and jacket in the prop room. Smile and nod, smile and nod. If I replaced myself with a Junior-sized bobblehead, would she notice?
Suddenly, Mrs. Ruffles broke off. Wow. I’m pretty sure that’s one sign of the apocalypse, after gas prices coming down.
All around me, people turned. Women smiled. Men looked jealous. I turned.
Glynn had glided into the room.
I waved desperately, but he ignored me. The fucker. He was so dead when I cornered him, if being a vampire didn’t mean that already.
“Oh look, Gunter Marie. There is the nice young man who played the pretty witch. Well, not pretty since he is a boy, but handsome. He has such a nice voice, doesn’t he?” She stared at him and waved too.
I did not get to be MC Sausage Executive of the Year by being slow to capitalize on an opportunity. While Mrs. Ruffles’s attention was snared by Glynn, I escaped.
“Such a nice voice, right, Gunter Marie? Gunter Marie?” Without even looking she grabbed me. By the arm.
With the cheese ball hand.
LLAMA balls are a little runny. Nixie says they’re made of pus and mayonnaise. Warmed from Mrs. Ruffles’s hand, it certainly felt like bodily fluids running viscously (and viciously) down my bare arm. My stomach lurched, trying to escape out my mouth. My brain would have followed if it could have fit.
I whimpered.
Glynn was instantly at my side, his face dark with anger and worry. I’d have been gratified if I weren’t so nauseated.
Mrs. Ruffles blinked and actually stopped talking again.
Cheese ball remains dripped steadily down my arm. My expression was probably set on creamed upchuck because Glynn took one look at me and focused his piercing stare on her. He said, “You have work to do.”
Her mouth opened. She echoed, “I have work to do.”
And then, because she was a Ruffles, she added brightly, “Setting out more cheese balls.”
“Cleaning up cheese balls.”
“Cleaning up cheese balls.” She paused. “And then setting up more?”
Glynn clamped eyes momentarily, as if he was gathering strength. Maybe he was. Controlling a Ruffles brain was probably like lassoing wild stampeding horses. Or herding cats.
His eyes opened and he hit her with a stare so hypnotic I almost went under. “You will clean up cheese balls. You will set out sausage from the Wurstspeicher Haus. You will quietly excuse yourself to stand in a corner and contemplate higher things. You will—”
“Glynn! There you are.” Emerald, ruby and amethyst paisley beelined in our direction, sans headset. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Correction.” Glynn spoke quickly. “You will latch onto Director Dumas and tell him everything you’ve ever wanted to talk about.” Glynn grabbed my arm and beat a hasty retreat.
Ooh, talk about capitalizing on opportunity. Glynn made me look like a noob.
Mrs. Ruffles turned a bright face toward Dumas. He zigged to catch Glynn. Mrs. Ruffles zigged in his direction. Glynn zagged to avoid him, dragging me.
Dumas zagged. Mrs. Ruffles zagged and broke into a trot. Dumas sped up, but he was only a world-class Broadway director. Mrs. Ruffles was a Lutheran Lady.
She stopped, pointed at two Ladies manning the drinks and desserts tables. Two-fingered, she made you/follow/attack motions like a LLAMarine.
The Ladies picked up cheese balls and moved out. Dumas, his attention on Mrs. Ruffles, never saw them coming.
I turned my head away from the carnage at the last minute. But remembering Method acting, I mentally cheered the Ladies on.
“That was close.” Glynn drew me over to the buffet, where he snared a silk napkin, dipped it into a glass of beer, and gently wiped my arm.
I stared at his long fingers, cleaning me of cheese snot. “That’s an expensive baby wipe.”
“Cloth washes.” He eyed the napkin in his hand. Streaks of eye-scorching orange, possibly radioactive, smeared its perfection. Bits of fiber bristled as if the cheese stuff was eating through the threads. “Actually, this may need to be destroyed.” He smiled slightly.
He had the most edible smile. The most kissable lips. The most tongue-able—I cleared my throat and looked away. “Nice save, by the way. You can really sing.”
“The pit helped. I don’t think the audience knew the Wicked Witch and I weren’t original actors.” He dipped more beer, wiped again.
“Sometimes the roles are played by men, so it wasn’t so far-fetched.” I relaxed as his slow, gentle strokes cleaned me. Warmed me. “You got the lines perfect.”
“I’d heard it often enough. The show must go on, right?”
When my gaze flew up in surprise, he smiled again, well-shaped lips and strong white teeth combining into an expression so gorgeous my eyes drooled.
I blinked it away. “Are you secretly a theater person?”
“I’m secretly a lot of things.”
I waited for him to expand on that, but he only kept rubbing my arm in that same sensual way, smiling that same smokin’ smile. I wondered what that smile would look like rising from between my…the warmth developed an uncomfortable edge. “Um, well, at least now we know the baddie isn’t Scarecrow. Not enough time to strip off the Witch costume and make his entrance.”
One black brow slashed up. “No, Jon Wise isn’t the idiot who took Lana’s costume, but he might be the brains and the Witch a confederate.” He stopped rubbing. “That actually makes more sense than that cock-up of a witch running things. He didn’t even know the lines.” Glynn’s tone turned distinctly offended, and I realized that, among other things, he was a true performer.
Bodyguard, singer, tracker, performer. What else? Lover, my breasts supplied. Expert lover, added my pussy with a purr.
Hellooo. My brain waved for attention. Off-topic here. Mystery-man to discover.
I’d like to discover his mysteries, my mouth said.
Oh yeah, my sex chimed in. Muscular, dark mysteries, thrusting mysteries, deep hard myst—
“Would you guys shut up?”
“I’m sorry?” Glynn said.
“Not you.”
“Hey, there you are. You guys ready to dip out?” Nixie breezed up, Julian in tow. Five-nuthin’ towing six-plus—like a toddler hauling a Great Dane. It was even more stunning because you knew the Dane was letting the child walk all over him out of love.
A far door swung open. LLAMA VP Mrs. Gruen traipsed from the kitchen with a long silver pan. Cheese balls came on plates so… Noooo. “Beyond ready. Just let me collect my instruments.”
“Already done. Twyla took your stuff back with mine to the household.”
“Our townhouses,” Julian clarified pointedly. “They took the instruments to the townhouses.”
Nixie bumped him playfully with her hip. “Nah, Junior caught the 4-1-1 herself.”
&n
bsp; Glynn’s brows rose. “Does she ever speak English?”
Julian kissed the top of Nixie’s curly head. “Not any that you or I would recognize. One of the many things that keeps our marriage fresh.”
Mrs. Gruen catered in another pan. To my horror, she started shoveling up fluffy, bilious green goop. “Yeah, um, could we get going?” My voice squeaked.
“There’s danger?” Glynn scanned the room, only his slightly widened stance and big hands at the ready telling his immediate response to the perceived threat. Damn, he was good. He followed my gaze. “Pistachio fluff, a menace?”
“Did you say fluff?” Nixie shuddered, and Julian too, but they were MC natives. Well, in Julian’s case, naturalized. “You don’t want to be here if LLAMA starts serving the goo. It’s haunted alien slime, slurping everything in its path.” She latched on to Glynn’s leather sleeve and tried to make for the door.
Glynn stood like a rock. “Come now. Fluff is a staple at every church potluck west of Greenwich. How can it be dangerous?”
“This is LLAMA we’re talking about.” I grabbed his other sleeve. “Remember the cheese ball you wiped off my arm?”
Glynn’s wrinkled nose said he did.
“That’s just an appetizer for the fluff. You want to be here when it goes looking for the main course?” I pulled leather, urging him into motion.
This time, he came.
I mean went along. Came, as in he accompanied us.
Julian and Nixie owned a pair of four-family townhouses on Eighth and Walnut. The buildings faced each other, two letter Is typed on the dotted line of Walnut. A driveway used to separate them, but it had been seeded over and was now a shared front yard. The mouth of the driveway was still there, leading to underground parking. Julian had apparently remodeled extensively underground, which made a whole lot more sense now that I knew he was Sun-shy the Vampy Guy.
The rain had mostly cleared, so we walked. No masked men attacked us, probably because Julian and Glynn were in extra-growly mode. Though neither were openly fanged up. I think Glynn wasn’t because he didn’t know I knew about v-guys. Julian wasn’t because his neighbors were all nose.
The party was in full outdoor swing, a couple dozen people sharing the small grassy space with a quarterbarrel, a table of munchies and a game of rubber horseshoes. Everyone was having a great time, drinking and laughing.
Except for Julian’s “assistants”, hot Greek Nikos and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Nikos was Twyla Tafel’s squeeze. I didn’t know Rebecca except by sight. She was the kind of woman who wrestled bulls for fun. She wore bib overalls with no shirt and I kept expecting to see hay in her hair. Rebecca was actually her name, but probably not the Sunnybrook Farm part.
They stood like grim-faced bookends to the party, which made sense if they were really Julian’s guards, alert for vampire rogues.
Twyla was waiting for me with my pink satin jacket. Lips compressed, she handed it over. “Where did you get this?”
“Don’t dis the jacket,” Mishela said before I could reply. “I’d love it for my costume closet. It’d go great with my poodle skirt.”
“Your skirt’s the color of cherry vomit?” Twyla’s moue of distaste underscored her words. “The style makes Frankenstein’s bolts look chic.”
“Mom gave it to me.” I shrugged the satin on. “Mothers prefer comfort to style.”
Twyla raised a fine brow. “Not all mothers are fashion-blind.”
“The Lutheran Ladies are.”
“I thought your mother was Italian.”
“She’s a born-again German.”
“Huh. Well, if you ever want to give it a facelift, I’ll bring the gasoline. Your instruments are inside.” She pointed at a townhouse, then exchanged a brief, inexplicable thumbs-up with Nixie, hooked arms with Mishela and wandered off.
Glynn, standing beside me, watched them go.
I frowned at him. “Why aren’t you doing the Mishela-hovercraft thing?”
“I’m off duty.”
“Go party then.” Plastic glasses of beer sat in neat rows on a nearby table. I snagged one. He was still there. “You don’t have to hang around for me. I know these people. I’ll be fine. Go on.”
He nodded. “That would be best.”
“Okay. See you later.” I sipped beer, pretended to ignore him.
He didn’t move. “Do you think tonight’s incident will affect attendance?”
I took another sip, but it didn’t make Glynn’s behavior any clearer to me. “It’s theater. Murphy’s the lord of chaos. I’m not making bets either way.” I took another sip. I was a bit warm—maybe the jacket, maybe the May evening turning muggy. Certainly not Glynn’s blue gaze running over my skin like his big, hot hands… I cleared my throat. “Well.”
“Well.” An awkward silence. Glynn crossed arms. “You’ll be all right then?”
“I said I would.” My neck prickled with perspiration. Damn hot tonight, not anything to do with Glynn’s intense body. I drank more beer.
“I’ll just be going then.” He turned reluctantly.
I released a pent-up breath.
Behind me a horseshoe whipped through the air, headed straight at me. I swore. At the sound Glynn spun back, eyes red, canines flashing.
I barely registered the shock of seeing Glynn in half-vampire mode before the horseshoe hit…the cup in my hand. Beer kicked up and out, a flying arc of night-silvered amber—and splashed full force on his chest.
His black tee absorbed the liquid with barely a change in color, but I could tell it soaked him from the annoyed tchah he made and the way he plucked the shirt from his skin. His fangs abruptly retracted, his eyes cooled to an irritated blue.
“Sorry, guys.” Nixie stood across from the horseshoe stake, a second U in her hand. “Guess I threw it a little hard.”
Her smile looked more smug than sorry.
Glynn blew a disgusted breath, shucked his leather jacket. “It’s all right.”
And then in front of me and everyone, he stripped the wet tee over his head and tossed it at the nearest townhouse door.
All partying screeched to a halt. My jaw hit grass and bounced. Sure, I’d seen him shirtless, but hunched over in a cramped bedroom.
Straight on in the bright night…yowsa. Glynn’s shoulders were crowned with bowling-ball deltoids, notched with tongueable grooves. His pectorals, swelling big and round from iron-bar collarbones, screamed “pet me”. His torso, exposed for the world to drool over, was r-r-ripped.
And big. His chest was wide as a freeway, his pecs twin semis, his abs fast, sexy coupes jockeying for position. His waist was a two-lane country road I’d just love to travel by tongue. The dent of navel and feathering of black hair were two definite tourist stops on my licky way.
Did I say it was a muggy night? I meant steaming. I meant flaming…suddenly way too hot, I grabbed blindly for another beer. Drank too quickly and started choking.
All that chest was instantly in my face, undulating centimeters from my mouth, nipples ruby bull’s-eyes…as Glynn slapped my back. Only being helpful. I tried to regain control by sucking in air, got a lungful of hot male and started choking on slobber instead.
He pulled me close. Rubbed my spine as I hacked up lung. “Breathe, babi.” The heat of his breath on my ear was searing. The heat of his naked skin was incinerating.
“Drink,” I rasped.
He gently extracted the beer I was clutching and offered it to me. I managed a sip. That cleared things so I could breathe. He held the cup as I sipped until I nodded that I could hold it on my own.
He handed me my cup and stepped away.
It was like Google maps. Nipples zoomed out to chest, abs, jeans fitting an impressive package… Power and grace sculpted in muscle and bone, the entirety of his male perfection filled my sight.
Desire slugged me, stole my breath like a cold Lake Michigan wave walloping shoreline. My breasts tightened, my nipples peaked.
My fingers ached to grab all th
at muscle. I clenched my plastic cup as a substitute and knocked back beer. Corners people drink beer in moderation with meals, but sometimes we drink just to get drunk. I opened my throat and poured the whole thing down, trying to douse the fire of lust in my belly.
Yeah, alcohol to douse flames. As a business major, chemistry wasn’t my strong suit.
The beer hit my stomach. A fantasy hit my brain. A muscular torso over me, rippling with strength as it drove long strokes of male hips. My legs pulled high over bowling-ball shoulders, ripped power framed by my thighs. Lust slammed me full in the groin. Exploded, a rush of fire through my veins, searing me until I could barely breathe. Until I could barely move.
Until I was scared shitless.
Was I my mother’s daughter after all? Had this bonfire of lust been smoldering all along? Was I a late bloomer and now getting wet in my bloomers?
Damn, underwear again.
I tossed my empty onto the table. “I need to go.”
“So soon?” Glynn’s tone was almost wistful—until the breeze shifted and his nostrils flared. His fingers clenched and his eyes turned a distinct violet. “Right. I’ll go change to take you home. Wait here.”
“My instruments are inside. I’ll come along.” I grabbed his forearm. Mistake, because the heat of his skin, the feel of lean and powerful tendons under my fingers… I released him and cleared my throat. “I mean I’ll follow.”
He nodded and took off for the farthest door. I started after him, got an eyeful of tight ass and clamped my lids shut. Couldn’t see to walk so I slit them, but I kept my gaze firmly on my toes.
Which meant when he stopped inside the townhouse, I plowed into his back. My hands slapped onto flared lats, steel cables winding under his skin. My fingers snaked along their tempting length before he stepped away. I hissed an embarrassed breath.
He was kind enough to pretend not to notice I’d been feeling him up like a melon. “They’re not here.”
“What’s not…oh.” Once I got my head out of my vagina, I noticed a front hallway of terra cotta tile. My instruments were nowhere to be seen. “We’ll have to ask Twyla. After you put on a shirt.” I waved in the general direction of his naked, ripped, luscious…everything. I didn’t look directly, his chest entirely too much like a solar eclipse in both its temptations and its dangers. I still wanted to run my palms over those hard planes and blind myself licking.