Harper frowned. “Hard to read how? Like she’s a little guarded, or like she’s a sociopath?”
“She’s not a sociopath,” Hunter said. “She has some emotions, but she only lets you see what she wants you to see. Her mental shields are impressive. If she doesn’t want you to know what she’s thinking or feeling, you won’t.”
Mischa felt jealousy grab her by the throat. “When did you talk to Miss Texas?”
He met her gaze steadily. “When she offered to blow me as soon as the competition was over.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you fucking kidding me? What a whore!” Then a treacherous thought crept into her mind. “What did you say?”
He smirked at her. “Would it matter to you?”
Yes! I love you, you fucking moron! Isn’t it as obvious as the nose on your absurdly handsome face? The nose I kind of want to punch right now? And also, because you’re mine, damn it!
But she didn’t have the right to blurt any of that out. No matter how she felt, she had no real claim on him. She still needed to apologize for her behavior after he’d turned her. And, if she was being totally honest with herself, she should probably apologize for neck-raping him, too. But having that kind of talk in front of Harper and Riddick didn’t seem prudent.
So, instead of blurting out the first thing that popped into her head, she blurted out the second thing that popped into her head, which probably wasn’t much better. “Did you get to talk to any of the other contestants?”
“Kansas, Delaware, Hawaii, and one of the Dakotas.” He shrugged. “Can’t remember which one.”
“All the big square states in the middle are the same as far as I’m concerned,” Harper said, waving a hand dismissively. “I can never remember which one is which.”
Mischa made a mental note to ensure that Kansas, Delaware, Hawaii and both Dakotas were miserable for the remainder of the competition. The innocent of the two Dakotas would just have to be considered collateral damage.
“What about the crew?” Riddick asked.
Hunter scowled. “All human and all there to scope out pretty girls who might be willing to turn them into vampires.” He stabbed a finger at Mischa. “Stay away from that photographer, Vincent.”
Harper leaned forward. “Why? Is he suspect?”
“No. I don’t think he knows anything about the missing girls. I’m betting he’s too busy trying to think of ways to get the remaining contestants into bed with him to even realize there are missing girls.”
His glance back at Mischa was telling. Ha! She barely resisted the urge to throw her fist in the air triumphantly. She’d thought Vincent had shown her a little more attention than he’d shown the other girls. Hunter must have seen something about her in the photographer’s thoughts.
So, Mr. Calm, Cool, and Detached wasn’t as immune to her as he pretended to be. “Would that matter to you?” she taunted, throwing his own words back at him. “Jealous?”
He leaned toward her, and her gaze fell immediately to his mouth, which was irritatingly, enticingly close to her own.
“I’m over five hundred years old,” he said through obviously clenched teeth. “I don’t get jealous.”
If she stuck her tongue out the slightest bit, she’d be able to run it over his bottom lip. “So why tell me to stay away from him?”
He raised a single brow, which was sexy and annoying all at the same time. “Can’t have you disqualified before the competition even begins, now can we?”
He probably didn’t even think about it because it was all old hat to him by now, but she was just starting to realize that she could pinpoint the smells related to certain emotions.
Oh, it was true. Every emotion had a distinct odor. Fear had a weak, urine-like smell to it. Anger smelled sharp and burned the nostrils a bit, almost like inhaling a fistful of pepper. Lust smelled sweet, like roasted marshmallows. Jealousy was faintly sour, like milk a few days past its expiration date.
And right now? Roasted marshmallows and sour milk. He was jealous. And he still wanted her.
Her heart did a little happy dance.
“Hey, Hunter,” Harper said, “What would you do if Vincent laid so much as a finger on Mischa?”
“I’d rip his lungs out through his nose, turn them inside out, then cram them back down his throat,” he said on a growl, not breaking eye contact with Mischa.
There was momentary silence in the wake of that pronouncement before everyone turned their attention back to Harper, who looked pretty damned pleased with herself.
Riddick cleared his throat, giving her a stern look. She shrugged, examining her nails. “What? I was getting bored. They were taking forever to get to the part where they both admitted they still want each other. I don’t have all damn day, here.”
“Actually, you do,” he told her, gesturing to her belly and the bed around them.
She rolled her eyes, but grinned up at him. “Nuance. So, anyhoo, you two crazy kids get the hell out of here and work out your differences. I won’t have the case compromised because you’re going at it like cats and dogs.”
“Sorry,” Mischa mumbled at the same time Hunter mumbled, “It won’t happen again.”
“Damn straight it won’t,” Harper said, then moaned obscenely when Riddick dug his thumbs into the arch of her foot. He didn’t look up from his task, but grinned and shook his head.
Mischa looked back at Hunter. “Clary’s?”
Clary’s was a pub a couple of blocks away from Harper and Riddick’s apartment. It was mostly dark and quiet (except for karaoke night) and would serve quite nicely as neutral territory.
Hunter’s nod was terse, but she’d take it as a victory. At least he wasn’t running away from her anymore.
Chapter Sixteen
She was nervous.
If the hand-wringing and shifting eyes weren’t a clear indication that Mischa was anything but comfortable sitting across from him, her scent made it obvious. Nervous energy had a faintly floral scent to it, and right now? It smelled like he was sitting in a whole fucking field of wildflowers.
He supposed he could understand it. He’d bailed on her—like a complete pussy—while she slept, leaving her to wonder what the hell was going on in his head.
He couldn’t be of much help, there. It’s not like he wasn’t a fucking basket case, doing and saying shit that made absolutely no sense.
He just hadn’t trusted himself to wake up with her. Hadn’t trusted that he wouldn’t end up begging her to stay and scaring her off again.
Her knee started bouncing under the table. He sighed. “There’s no reason to be so nervous,” he said, trying to project a calm energy he wasn’t really feeling. “It’s just you and me here.”
She snorted. “Yeah, sure. Just me and the guy who hates me. Nothing to be at all nervous about.”
Hunter frowned. “I don’t hate you.”
She either didn’t hear him or didn’t believe him, because she let loose with, “I’ve never really said I’m sorry for anything in my life, so I’m not very good at it, and the first time I need to do it—because I really, really need to do it—it’s with someone who can’t even stand to wake up with me in his bed. My instinct is just to run away, but Vi says I’ll always be twisted if I keep running away, so I’m just—”
Hunter couldn’t take it anymore. He leaned over the table and grabbed her hands. Her wide eyes flew to his and her mouth snapped shut. “Stop,” he said quietly. “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”
If he was capable of hating her, he wouldn’t be such a fucked-up mess right now.
Her lower lip trembled and he wanted nothing more than to kiss away any lingering nervousness she felt.
See? Fucked. Up. Mess.
“You don’t owe me any apologies,” he finally said.
She shook her head. “No, I really do. After you turned me, I was—”
He squeezed her hands. “Don’t. I know. It was normal for you to be confused and scared. I had no right
to expect anything different from you, and you had every right to hate me.”
She was quiet for a moment, then, in a voice so raw with emotion that his own heart ached just hearing it, she whispered, “I didn’t hate you. I couldn’t. I lov—”
“No,” he interrupted, his jaw so tight it actually hurt to force the word out. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare tell me you love me right now.”
Her smooth brow furrowed. “Why not?”
Because if you say it, I’ll come across this table, kiss the hell out of you, and never let you go again? Because we’ll fall back into the same old patterns—I chase, you run, I keep chasing, you keep running—time and time again for all eternity?
He cleared his throat. “Because I don’t believe you.”
She jerked back like he’d slapped her. “You think I’d lie about that?”
Christ, he’d really become a shit communicator since he was incarcerated. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “No. I think you’re too confused right now to make a statement like that. You’re…different now. What you may or may not have felt before…” he trailed off, shaking his head, “…isn’t relevant right now. You have to figure out who you are and love yourself before you can love anyone else.”
Her jaw visibly tightened, but she didn’t look angry, just…resigned and a little sad. “You sound just like Vi. Did they have you watching Dr. Phil while you were in prison?”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Hardly.”
She gave him a sexy little smirk that was so familiar his heart ached. She might be different, but not everything had changed.
“So, what do we do now?” she asked, sounding hesitant. “I mean, it’s not like we can avoid each other, not with both of us working for Harper. And frankly,” she averted her eyes, the scent of flowers rising in the air between them again, “I don’t want to avoid you. Can we start over? Can we be…friends?”
He let go of her hands and leaned back in his seat. Was it possible to be friends with a woman who’d ripped his heart out time and time again? One look at her hopeful, nervous face gave him his answer.
“I’d like that,” he said quietly.
Her answering smile was the second most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his unnaturally long life. The first, of course, being her face in the throes of an orgasm he’d just given her.
Don’t go there, dumbass.
“There is one thing you have to let me apologize for, though.”
He raised a brow at her when she hesitated.
She pointed to his neck. “The…um…neck raping. I got a little…out of control.”
He snorted. Neck raping. As if there was anything nonconsensual about it. “You definitely don’t have to apologize for that.”
“So you didn’t…mind?”
He met her gaze levelly. “I think I made it pretty clear I didn’t mind.”
If she was still human, she’d be blushing, if her scent was any indication. “Do you think the…attraction between us will be a problem?”
Yes. Every damn minute he was with her and not touching her. Or kissing her. Or inside her. “I can control myself if you can,” he said, striving for a nonchalant, teasing tone. And failing miserably, he was pretty sure.
But true to form, her pointy little chin tilted defiantly and she shot back with, “I’m sure I can manage.”
She offered him her hand as if to shake on their new arrangement. He made the mistake of accepting it and holding on too long. Her skin was so smooth, so soft…
Her gaze dropped to his lips and seemed to get stuck there for a moment.
Yeah, sure, he thought wryly. They could start over and just be friends.
And yet he’d agreed to try.
Seemed like Mischa wasn’t the only one who was a little twisted.
Chapter Seventeen
The fitting for her bikini for the swimsuit competition was, without a doubt, the most humiliating experience of her life. And given some of her recent humiliations? Well, that was saying a whole fuckuva lot.
The wardrobe manager was a guy named Saul who was several inches shorter than her—and if his grizzled appearance was any indication—roughly seven hundred years old. And, no, he wasn’t a vampire. He was just the oldest living human Mischa had ever seen in her life.
His advanced age didn’t stop him from grabbing handfuls of her boobs while measuring her bust size, though. The horny old goat had tried to pawn it off as an accident, too. A side-boob brush she could write off, but a full-on grab and squeeze? Yeah, not so much. Saul was a pervert.
And in her capacity as an undercover investigator, she couldn’t very well smack him around and risk drawing too much attention to herself.
Instead, she’d let her elbow “accidently” swing back into his gut with enough force to double him over. She profusely—and sweetly—apologized, of course, but she was pretty sure he’d gotten the message not to fuck with her.
The one who hadn’t gotten the message? Miss Texas.
Mischa wasn’t sure if Jaslene was responsible for the disappearances of the former Miss New Jersey and Miss New York, but she was kind of starting to hope the bitch was guilty. At least then she’d be able to hate her with a good, just cause, instead of hating her because she looked at Hunter like she wanted to eat him for dinner.
When Mischa had reminded the woman—who was annoyingly beautiful with big blue eyes and shiny black hair that cascaded down her back in thick waves—of the rules prohibiting fraternization with event crew, she’d laughed a tinkling little laugh ripe with condescension.
“The show won’t last forever,” Jaslene had stage-whispered. “And after I win? He’s mine.”
Over my undead body, Mischa had thought.
It was then she decided that being friends with Hunter probably wasn’t going to be easy. What if he decided to take Jaslene up on her offer—or if he eventually met someone else and fell in love? How was she supposed to sit idly by and watch the man she loved—and had carelessly tossed aside—ride off into the sunset with someone else?
Harper had advised her to bend him to her will. To take what she wanted through any means necessary. Her suggested means? Orgasms. Lots and lots of orgasms. She said orgasms made men more malleable. Typical Harper Hall advice.
Vi suggested a more straightforward, grown-up approach. Her plan for winning Hunter back involved them having an “open dialogue” about their feelings, and making when-you-did-that-I-felt-like-this statements to each other until they decided to either give their relationship another try, or abandoned it altogether.
But since she lacked Harper’s confidence, and lacked the patience Vi’s advice would require (and frankly Vi’s advice sounded akin to Chinese water torture, anyway) her best hope at this point was to try her hand at being his friend and hope that he fell in love with her all over again. It was a possibility, right? Stranger things had happened. She hoped.
Benny elbowed her in the ribs, jarring her out of her musings. “Hand her that one. That’s one I picked up. I’ll bet that one gives her a vision.”
Mischa handed Harper a gold key chain with Las Vegas spelled on the face in red glitter.
Benny and Mischa had spent the better part of the evening breaking into the apartments of the missing contestants and collecting various personal items. The hope was that one of the trinkets would trigger Harper’s visions, giving them a clue about what had happened to the girls.
So far, they had nada.
Harper leaned back against her pile of pillows, shuffling the key chain from one hand to the other, eyes closed. After a moment, she dropped it on the bed next to her and wiped her palms on her sweatpants. “Ew,” she said, nose wrinkling. “The former Miss New York had quite the time in Las Vegas. Let’s just say that multiple dudes and one very confused-looking donkey were involved.”
Mischa pantomimed gagging. “Sweet Christ, spare us the details.”
Harper held up her hands, looking nauseated. “Hey, I’m not saying anything e
lse. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
“Except herpes, man,” Benny added helpfully. “That shit stays with you forever.”
Harper studied him in expressionless silence for a moment before turning to Mischa. “Anyhoo, do you have anything else, or is that all of it?”
Mischa glanced back down at the now-empty box of knickknacks, jewelry, and clothing they’d stolen—or rather, borrowed—from the girls’ apartments. “No, that’s all we had. Should we go back and get more?”
Harper let out a frustrated sigh. “No. Honestly, I haven’t had a helpful vision in a couple of months. I think the baby is messing with me, making me see only stuff I don’t want to see. I think he/she has quite the sense of humor.”
Like mother, like child, Mischa thought. Speaking of mothers… “Did your mom come up with any info?”
Harper snorted. “Other than gossip about how much you and Hunter want each other, and how Miss Michigan had butt implants? No, not so much.”
So many questions, Mischa thought. Just how much did Hunter want her? Was it half as much as she wanted him? She hadn’t even seen him during the last dress rehearsal, or after her final fittings. Where had he been all evening?
And beyond that…butt implants? Why would anyone want a bigger butt?
But Mischa kept her mouth shut, lest she come across as the pathetic, needy loser she felt like every time she was around Hunter.
“By the way,” Harper said, “Did you work everything out with Hunter? Did he accept your apology?”
“He wouldn’t let me apologize.”
Benny let out a disgusted snort and shook his head. “Are we still talking about this? I already told you what you have to do to get him to forgive you. It’s easy.”
Harper frowned at him. “She can’t just show him her boobs, Benny. The situation is much more complicated than that.”
“There’s no situation so complicated that boobs can’t fix it,” he said in a desert-dry, heart-attack serious tone.
Mischa wasn’t about to admit that she had shown him her boobs and it hadn’t made a difference. Maybe her boobs weren’t as all-powerful as Benny seemed to think they were. “It doesn’t really matter. We’ve decided to start over. To try just being friends.”
Semi-Twisted: Page 8