by Devon, Cat
The moment Daniella walked into the shop, Xandra started playing “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. “Defying Logic and Caution” was more in tune with Daniella’s mood, but because she’d told Xandra about her costume, the song selection was appropriate.
Lois joined Xandra behind the counter. “You look lovely,” she told Daniella. “You look nice, too,” she told Xandra, who’d exited the shop’s employee bathroom in Goth attire complete with spiky dog collar around her neck before playing the music.
“You didn’t enter in a bubble,” Xandra said. “That would have been sweet. Did I tell you I’ve seen Wicked six times?”
“You may have mentioned it,” Daniella said with a smile.
“I love its message. It never fails to get me totally stoked. Have you seen it?” Xandra asked Lois.
“No.”
Xandra eyed Lois’s outfit of a tweed skirt and white cotton blouse with a discreet scarf tied around her neck. “Did you forget to put on a costume?”
“Can’t you tell who I am?” Lois countered.
Xandra shook her head.
“What about you?” Lois asked Daniella.
“Well, uh, you look a little like Mrs. Cunningham from the classic TV show Happy Days,” Daniella said.
Lois nodded happily. “That’s what I was aiming for. I’ve been told I look like her.”
“Okay, everyone. It’s noon,” Xandra said.
Daniella viewed the three customers who were already waiting at the counter. “Nice music,” the first person in line, dressed as a cowgirl in jeans and a checked shirt, said. “Great costumes, too. I could tell you were Mrs. C,” the woman told Lois. “I’ll have a Whipped Scream Delight, a Devil’s Feud, plus a Black Magic Banana. And a Thriller Killer Chocolate for my free cupcake.”
Eyeing Nick’s frowning face as the song’s finale came, Daniella decided that like Elphaba from Wicked, she was not going to let anyone bring her down. Including vampires.
* * *
Nick was not amused. He stood by Heavenly Cupcake’s front door to check each person as they walked in to verify for himself that they were human. He should have spent their time upstairs ordering Daniella to refrain from having any more of these spontaneous marketing events. No flash mobs, no costumes, and no open invitations on social media sites.
Yes, that’s definitely what he should have been doing instead of fondling her back and her breasts.
This all had to be coming to a head soon. His arousal sure was. But also the situation.
He lost count of how many humans came through the door in the next fifty-five minutes. They all passed the sniff test, although several could have used a shower. His vamp’s heightened sense of smell was definitely getting a workout.
A familiar and unwelcome scent caught all his attention as Nick recognized vampire Andy’s smell.
Grabbing hold of him before he could enter the shop, Nick told the few remaining in line, “We’re out of cupcakes. Sorry.”
The humans started grumbling. He had to disperse them. “Come back tomorrow.”
“You’re closed tomorrow,” someone said.
Nick quickly went down the line of ten remaining customers, confirming all were human and that none had been compelled by Andy. Humans had a certain scent while being compelled. Once that was done, Nick opened the door and allowed them into the shop before closing it again. It was one o’clock, so the special offer was done anyway.
Now he could focus his entire attention on Andy. Nick held the vamp’s arm in a bone-crunching grip. “I thought I told you not to show your face around here again,” he said with flinty menace.
“I’m not showing my face,” Andy said, his voice muffled by the mask he wore. “I’m wearing a George W. Bush mask so my face doesn’t show.”
“I’m not amused,” Nick said. “This is your final warning. Do not enter our territory again.”
“My sire wants you to know that he considers the truce broken by your hostile actions of hacking our computer system.”
“Your boss broke the truce when he first sent you here. And again by having you come to the flash mob. If I find out that you were behind the wheel of that Hummer that tried to mow Daniella down, then you will wish for a death by decapitation.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill her. That Hummer is hard to drive. Besides, I’m not afraid of you,” Andy said, despite his trembling voice. “You haven’t killed any vamps or humans in over a century. Your reputation is based on stuff that happened ages ago.”
“I haven’t killed any vamps or humans that you know about,” Nick said. “Unlike your boss, I don’t brag about my work.”
“You’re lying.”
Nick tightened his hold. “Am I?” He would have stared him down as well but Andy’s mask was in his way, so Nick yanked it off.
Andy automatically put his arm up to block his face from the sun before lowering it to defiantly stare back. “You aren’t the only ones who can take the sunshine,” he said. “We can do that now, too. You no longer have any advantage over us.” A moment later he winced and then started to sizzle. Yelping, he leapt to some nearby shade beneath a small tree that had lost all its autumn leaves. Realizing his mistake, Andy rushed a bit farther down the block.
“Looks like your sunblock doesn’t work as well as you thought it did,” Nick noted.
“My sire knows as much about the cupcake maker as you do,” Andy shouted as he huddled beneath the dental clinic’s awning.
“Having trouble out here?” Doc Boomer asked. He’d gotten his nickname from his booming voice and his overwhelming physical appearance. He was a mountain to Andy’s skinny aspen. “Shall I escort this specimen out of the area?”
Nick nodded, keeping one eye fixed on Daniella in the shop. “But be discreet.” There were no humans on the street at the moment, but there would be in a second.
“Understood. I do believe he needs some dental work.” Doc Boomer hauled Andy out of the shade and disappeared with him.
The instant Nick returned to the shop, Daniella pulled him back into the relative seclusion of the work area. “What was that all about?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“You’d better,” she warned him before flouncing off. Or maybe she stomped off and it was just her pink fluffy costume that made it seem like she’d flounced. Her attire reminded him of women in his own time.
What if he’d met her back then, when he’d been a decorated war hero, before he’d been turned? Would their relationship be as stormy if he was human? It definitely wouldn’t be as dangerous, that’s for damn sure.
Caressing her as he had in her apartment earlier was a risky move on his part. He’d restrained himself for days. If called upon, he could even list the number of hours he’d spent with her. Hell, he could list the minutes. And the touches. They’d mostly been accidental. A brush of his hand against hers as she reached for the remote control.
Then today she’d turned her back to him and asked for his help. He’d been unable to resist.
But he had to resist … or risk her death.
* * *
Daniella knew that Nick had been involved in vampire business. She might not know the details, but she knew that much.
She couldn’t dwell on it because she had to focus on taking new special orders. Of course, it was too late for Halloween orders because the holiday was tomorrow. But she had several special orders for as far out as Christmas.
Business was so brisk that they ran out of cupcakes and had to close early. All the special orders had been picked up earlier, including the True Blood party cupcakes. The hostess was pleased with the results even if Nick wasn’t.
“Let’s call it a day,” Daniella said. Things had gotten so hectic that she hadn’t even had a chance to change out of her Glinda dress, which was not designed for easy movement. She’d already almost knocked Xandra off her feet several times and had nearly poked her own eye out with the star wand she waved. Well, she’d waved it for the first few min
utes. After the eye incident, she’d stored it safely out of the way.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Xandra said. At Daniella’s blank look, she added, “The fang contest.” She showed her teeth and her online purchased fangs before turning to Lois. “Now let’s see yours.”
Lois turned her back to them before facing them again, fangs bared.
“Those are totally legit,” Xandra said, clearly impressed.
“Yes, they are,” Lois modestly said before turning away for a moment.
“Let’s call it a tie,” Daniella said.
“No, Lois wins,” Xandra said. She hugged Lois. “Congratulations.”
Once Xandra was departed, Daniella was left alone with Lois and Nick.
Daniella turned to face Lois and said, “So I’m guessing Happy Times Dental Clinic also has the policy of no fangs, no service?”
“We used to take some human walk-ins,” Lois said. “But it got too … complicated. They’d bleed and we’d be tempted.”
“I thought you were just the receptionist so you wouldn’t be in the room with the patients.”
“I help out where I can.”
“Like working here,” Daniella said. “I’ll bet Nick came up with that idea.”
“Actually I was against it at first, if you recall,” Nick said.
“Because you knew that your saying that would make me want to hire her all the more,” Daniella said. “You saw the advantage. Lois could spy on me and report back to you.”
“That may have been the case in the beginning,” Lois said. “But once the surveillance cameras were installed—”
“Wait,” Daniella interrupted Lois. “What cameras?”
“They’re all over Vamptown. Didn’t you tell her that, Nick?”
“No,” he said curtly.
“You should have,” Lois said.
“Damn right, you should have.” Daniella was furious. She felt violated. “So in addition to being a vampire, you are also a Peeping Tom pervert.” Looking around, she demanded, “So where are they?” She yanked open the bathroom door. “Are they in here, too?”
“Calm down.” Nick was using his soothing voice, although it did have a crabby edge to it. “There are no cameras in any bathrooms.”
“What about my bedroom?” Daniella said.
“Not there, either.”
“But here in this room? And in the rest of my shop?”
Nick nodded. “And in the rest of your apartment as well. It’s for your own safety.”
“I am so sick of this!”
“You poor dear.” Lois patted Daniella’s shoulder.
“If you have cameras everywhere, why can’t you find the person driving that Hummer that almost hit me?” Daniella challenged Nick.
“He was taken care of.”
Nick’s words sounded ominous. Her squeamish self didn’t want to hear the details. Maybe they just put the driver in vampire jail or something.
She’d checked her Vespa and it wasn’t damaged. She wasn’t hurt, and Nick’s injury had healed. What if they planned on chopping the vampire driver’s head off? Or frying him? She didn’t want to be responsible for a vampire’s death. “Maybe it was just an accident…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nick said.
“Of course it matters.”
“He was trespassing on our land.”
“Actually the alley belongs to…” She stopped when she saw Nick’s flinty yet fiery glare. “Never mind.”
“If you don’t need me any longer, I’ll let you two continue this conversation alone,” Lois said.
Daniella prepared the shop for closing. A quick glance out the front window let her know that the sun was setting. Not that she could see it with the surrounding buildings, but that special buildup in the sky had a certain glow. Of course, it could just be the streetlights going on.
Daniella had been consumed with her shop’s grand opening and, more recently, coping with her vampire bodyguard. So she hadn’t really been paying much attention to the weather, which fluctuated between Indian summer and chilly fall this time of year. Soon it would be November. The time had gone by so quickly.
She only met Nick earlier this month yet it felt as if it had been ages ago that she’d walked into his bar. She’d never dreamed she’d be held captive in her own building. Well, her father’s building to be exact. And it wasn’t as if she was bound and gagged or anything. But her independence had been compromised. The discovery that cameras were following her every move did not improve her mood. Because now her privacy had also been compromised.
After she set the security alarm, Nick held the door open for her. He always did things like that. Courteous things. And then he went and chopped the head off some vampire.
Okay, so she didn’t know for sure he’d actually done that, but she wouldn’t put it past him.
She remained silent until they entered her apartment. Then her temper blew. “I want to know exactly how long you have been spying on me.”
“It wasn’t spying.”
“The exact date.” She was scrambling to remember what she and Suz had talked about in those early days before the opening. She was sure they’d talked about Nick. “Before my grand opening?”
“I believe so.”
“You believe so? I can’t even tell you how upset I am. I am so mad at you!”
“I can tell,” he said. “Want me to unzip your dress for you?”
“No, I don’t want you to, but I don’t have a choice. I can’t get it off myself without ripping it or dislocating a shoulder. But no extracurricular activities this time. You keep your hands on the zipper and not on me.”
He obeyed her command for the most part although his fingers did brush against skin. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“Are you? I doubt that.” Gathering the drooping bodice, she headed for her bedroom, where she grabbed jeans and a white shirt and then kept going to the bathroom where she slammed the door shut.
Then she looked around the medicine cabinet, the mirror above the sink, searching for a camera.
“It’s not in there,” Nick called out, startling her.
“What isn’t?”
“A camera. I already told you that.”
“You’ve told me a lot of things, not all of them true.”
She kept searching until she’d convinced herself that there was no camera or any kind of a nannycam device. Only then did she remove her costume and place it on the hanger on the hook at the back of the door. The dress was really beautiful. It deserved a better occasion than it got.
Daniella quickly donned her jeans and shirt. She’d forgotten to wear the tiara with the costume, distracted as she was by Nick’s earlier exploration of her spine. The memory of his caresses was seared into her brain.
Lowering the lid on the toilet, she sat down and tried to regain her perspective and defuse her anger. Instead she was distracted by the peeling pale pink nail polish on her toes.
This was something she could rectify. Reaching over her shoulder, she grabbed the plastic bottle of nail polish remover and a bunch of toilet paper. She was out of cotton balls. So sue her.
She set to work then, when she was done with that job, she spent another five minutes trying to decide between O • P • I’s nail polish colors Diva of Geneva hot pink and From A to Zurich deep raspberry. In the end, she selected the Diva color. Propping her foot on the edge of her tub, she started brushing the polish on.
This felt normal. She hadn’t felt normal since Nick had saved her life. She worked slowly and carefully and then waited another ten minutes until the polish was dry for sure.
Admiring her diva-ish toenails, she tidied up and took a deep breath before reluctantly abandoning the bathroom and walking in her bare feet into the living room.
Despite the sort-of-pedicure she’d given herself, her feet still ached from being on them all day. The Cinderella-type flats she’d worn to go with her Halloween outfit hadn’t helped matters any.
Beauty
before comfort usually was not her philosophy because … well, because she wasn’t beautiful.
Daniella plopped onto the couch and lifted her feet onto the pillows. Nick remained silent but he came and sat at the edge of the couch. She deliberately didn’t leave him any room, so he had to lift her feet to sit. He tucked her feet onto his lap.
“I’m still mad at you,” she warned him as he started slowly massaging the sole of her right foot.
“I know,” he said. “But it feels good, right?”
Almost everything he did to her felt good. Except spying on her and lying about it.
She yanked her feet away.
Nick gently returned them to his lap.
“You’re taking a big risk,” she warned him. “I could kick you in your family jewels.”
“You’re too nice to do that.”
“Am I?” She shifted her foot so that she was pressed against the placket of his dark jeans. She exerted just enough pressure to let him know she meant business.
The problem was, what kind of business. Retribution or seduction?
“Still think I’m too nice?” Her voice was silky as she rubbed her foot against him.
“Uh, I hate to interrupt,” Cookie said from Daniella’s laptop, which was on the coffee table aimed at the couch. “Did you forget you had our Skype session set up?”
She had.
“I opened the laptop for you,” Nick said. “I remembered you saying that you moved your Saturday Skype session to tonight.”
Daniella had been so consumed with admiring her Diva of Geneva painted toenails that she hadn’t even noticed the presence of her slim laptop.
That’s how bad off she was.
But Nick had known. Her glare at him warned that he’d better take that smirk off his face or he’d pay the price.
“You have company, obviously,” Cookie said. “Do you want to introduce him?”
“This is Nick,” Daniella said. “Nick, this is Cookie.”
“You must be the mentor,” Nick said to Cookie.
“And you must be the new boyfriend,” Cookie replied. “Well, I can tell you two are busy, so let’s shelf this session and we’ll touch base next Saturday as usual. Unless Saturday nights no longer work for you, Daniella?”