Suddenly, she had an idea. What did the clone like even better than attention?
“Cookies,” she shouted at Rory. “Run to the kitchen and get some cookies. We’ll lure him off the table that way.”
“Got it!” Rory headed off, pushing through the crowd in the direction of the kitchen while Cass continued to try and get the clone to come down off the table. Her efforts were unsuccessful, however, until Rory returned with a plateful of Oreos.
“Cookies!” her sister shouted enticingly. “Hey Brandon, don’t you want some nice cookies?”
“Cookies?” The clone stopped bumping and grinding and came closer to the edge of the table. “Me like cookies!”
“Here they are. Come and get them…” Rory held an Oreo out to him enticingly. “Come on, sweetie, come to Rory.”
“Cookies!” The clone jumped off the table like a naked Tarzan and reached for the cookie.
“Quick,” Cass shouted as the mob of angry Trekkies began to converge on the naked clone. “Lead him upstairs! I’ll hold off the crowd.”
This, however, proved to be easier said than done. The drunken mob of costumed women didn’t want to be held off. They pushed past Cass and would have followed Rory and the cookie-hungry clone right up the stairs if Nana’s new boyfriend hadn’t intervened.
“ta’ ghobe’ ‘el jaH DoH!” he shouted angrily, spreading his arms to block the foot of the stairs.
“I think that means ‘go back’ or ‘get away’ in Klingon,” Nana said helpfully in Cass’s ear.
“Right, thanks for the translation,” Cass said dryly. “Exactly how long is this little party of yours going to go on for, anyway, Nana?”
“I don’t know.” Nana bit her lip. “Honestly, I had no idea it would be this elaborate. I thought we were just having a few other people in costume over to play bridge. I didn’t know there was a dress code and a whole new language to learn when Hrak asked if his group could have a little get together here.”
“Well I think it’s time you sent everyone home,” Cass said, ducking under the swarthy Hrak’s arm to follow Rory and the clone up the stairs. “Things are getting out of hand, Nana.” Which wasn’t unusual when it came to Nana and men, actually. But still, enough was enough.
“Oh dear, maybe you’re right.” Nana looked troubled. “And we didn’t even get to play that game of Trek Twister Hrak was telling me about.”
Cass didn’t even want to imagine her spry but elderly grandmother playing twister in the tiny blue minidress she was wearing. Especially not with the swarthy man who was still shouting in Klingon at the drunken conventioneers.
“Just get rid of them,” she said. “And maybe ask a few more details about the ‘little get together’ before you approve another one.”
Then she turned and raced up the stairs, hoping to get the Brandon clone locked away again before any more mischief could occur.
Nineteen
“Whew!” Rory sank down on Cass’s bed with a weary sigh. In the corner, the Brandon clone was crouched nude, gobbling cookies. Cass was in her closet changing into something more comfortable than the rumpled skirt and blouse she’d fallen asleep in.
“Thanks for your help,” she said to Rory when she emerged from the closet in a comfortable pair of yoga pants and an old t-shirt. “I never would have gotten him back up here without you.”
“No problem.” Rory sighed glumly. “It’s not like I have anything else to do on a Friday night. Unless I want to go down and join Nana’s little party. Which I do not.”
Cass made a sympathetic face at her little sister. “No plans for the weekend? I thought you said you might go out with that cute guy from the kennel where you volunteer.”
“Marty? Yeah, he asked me out.” Rory shook her head. “I told him no.”
“Why’d you do that?” Cass demanded. “I thought you liked him.”
“I do. Just not as much as…” Rory sighed. “Just not enough to go out with him, I guess.” She made a visible effort to brighten up. “But what about you? What are your plans for the weekend?”
“I’m still trying to get ready for my I.C.U. showing.” Cass felt herself deflating. “Which is going to be cancelled for sure now since I can’t paint anymore without whatever I’m painting coming to life and jumping off the page. I’m minus my main showpiece and there’s no way to make a new one.”
“Wait a minute,” Rory said. “What exactly did you wish? Was it to get more life in your art or in your painting?”
“In my painting,” Cass said after a minute. “Yes, I’m almost sure that was it. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“You know how specific the FG’s magic is. If you said you wanted life in your painting, that should be the only thing that’s affected. And who says you have to paint your showpiece anyway?” Rory demanded. “You do lots of other kinds of art, don’t you?”
“You’re right—I do!” Cass gave her sister a quick hug. “What a relief! I thought I was going to have to give up art until Jake got this whole mess with the FG straightened out.”
Rory beamed. “You could sculpt a statue. Or—”
“Too time consuming,” Cass interrupted. “I’d never get it ready in time.” But her little sister’s idea had her thinking. It was true she didn’t have time to sculpt something and she couldn’t paint, but what was to stop her from using some other medium? She could do a portrait of Brandon in oil pastels—that wasn’t paint, right?
Of course, it would mean starting all over again but now that she had the clone, she didn’t have to rely on the real Brandon to pose. She could set up a canvas and work all night with her subject right in front of her. “Yes,” she muttered to herself. “It just might work…”
“What might work?” Rory asked, frowning.
“This.” Cass was already setting up a new canvas and pulling out her pastels. “Do you think we could lure him a little closer?” she asked Rory. “Are there any more cookies downstairs?”
“Yeah, I’ll get some.” Rory left and came back shortly with a brand new package of Oreos. “Here, they were buy one get one at Publix. But you owe me.”
“Thanks, sis.” Cass smiled at her gratefully. “Now let me see if I can just get him into position.” She waved a cookie under the Brandon clone’s nose. “Come on, sweetie. Just come sit over here…”
The clone had finished the other cookies and was willing to be lured. He sat on the stool Cass indicated and began eating the new pack of Oreos.
“Perfect!” Cass picked out one of her larger pastels and began to sketch.
“Well, I’d stick around and talk to you but you’re getting that look in your eyes which means you’re going into a creative fog nothing can penetrate,” Rory remarked.
“Huh?” Cass looked up, frowning. “What did you say?”
“Never mind.” Her little sister sighed. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Fine. Thanks again.” Cass barely heard the door to her bedroom shut as she went happily back to her sketching.
But her creative high didn’t last for long. Just as she was getting a good likeness, the Brandon clone ran out of cookies. And just like the real Brandon, when one appetite was satisfied, he turned to gratifying another.
“Okay, doing really well here. Just perfect. Just…” Cass looked up from her canvas and the words died on her lips as she saw what the clone was up to. From the side of her bed, which often doubled as her laundry hamper, he had grabbed a pair of her best silk panties and was rubbing them against his crotch. He looked up at Cass with a crooked grin on his purple mouth.
“Pretty. Feels good.”
“Hey!” Cass shouted. “Hey, stop that, you nasty thing!” Pretty underwear was her one girly indulgence and she didn’t intend to let the clone ruin one of her favorite pairs by humping a hole in them. “Give those back!”
She lunged at the clone which leaped nimbly back, still clutching the panties to his immense erection. “Pretty! Mine!” he insisted.
“They are not yours. Those cost me an arm and a leg at Victoria’s Secret. You stop molesting them right now!”
The clone frowned. “Mine!” he insisted stubbornly, still humping her underwear.
“Why you nasty—” Cass leaped forward again and managed to grab the panties. Unfortunately, she grabbed the part which was wrapped around the clones pulsing love pole. “Eww!” she exclaimed, trying to get the silky garments untangled from the Brandon clone’s privates.
It occurred to her that the panties, no matter how expensive, might not be worth the situation she now found herself in. The clone was moaning and thrusting as she tried to take back her underwear. Clearly he was enjoying himself to the utmost. It was truly disgusting.
Just then she heard a brisk rapping at her door.
“Come in and help me,” she shouted, certain it was Rory coming back. “This damn thing has my favorite undies and it won’t let g—”
The words died on her lips when she looked up and saw not her little sister, but Jake O’Shea standing beside her with a disapproving look on his face.
“What sort of help do you require, Cassandra?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at her. “You appear to have the situation in hand as it were.”
“Crap!” Cass let go of the panties abruptly and took a step back, distancing herself from the bizarre tug of war. “You don’t understand,” she told her court-appointed elf. “He’s got my panties—a really nice expensive pair too. And he’s about to…to ruin them.”
“Yes, he does look dangerously close to ruination.” Jake eyed the clone speculatively. Brandon 2.0 had gone back to pumping Cass’s panties with a single-minded look of pleasure on his idiot face. His eyes were crossed and the tip of his tongue was stuck out in a look of ridiculously fierce concentration.
Cass couldn’t help thinking the clone looked exactly like Brandon when he was about to come—it was one reason she always kept her eyes closed during sex. There was no way she could look up and see that expression of cross-eyed ecstasy looming over her without losing it and Brandon did not like to be laughed at.
“Pretty,” the clone moaned obscenely. “So preeeeeetieeeeee.”
“Oh my God.” Cass was filled with a mixture of exasperation and embarrassment. “He’s about to—”
Beside her Jake spoke a single power-filled word and the clone suddenly froze in place, just as the children and the soul-sucker had frozen earlier that day in the art room at the Tight-Ass Academy. Then he walked up to the clone and, being careful not to touch its package, he snagged the edge of the silk panties and tugged. The slippery material slid free and he held them out to Cass.
“Here.”
“Uh…” Cass made a face. “I’m not sure I want them anymore.”
“They appear no worse for the wear.” Jake examined the panties in his hand. “These are very like the other pair you were wearing earlier. Do you have a special liking for pretty underthings?”
“Give me those.” Cass snatched them away, her cheeks heating, and dropped them on the floor behind her.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I thought you didn’t want them.”
“That was before you started giving me the third degree about my underwear choices,” Cass snapped. “Which, by the way, are none of your business.”
“There are many things that may not be my business but I will ask about them anyway,” Jake remarked. “For instance, who is this? Your lover?” He gestured to the clone.
Cass sighed. “No, it’s more like a clone of him. When I made the wish out loud that I could get more life in my paintings, he’s what I was painting. He crawled out of the picture frame and Rory and I have been trying to keep him corralled ever since.”
“I see.” Jake frowned. “So this is yet another example of your fairy godmother’s malfeasance which means it is my business. Why didn’t you tell me about him earlier?”
“Because I had…other things on my mind.” Against her will, Cass found she was blushing. “The soul-sucker thing for one. And…and the way you healed me. Why are you even here, anyway?” she asked desperately, trying to change the subject.
“For two reasons.” Jake’s face grew grave. “First I wanted to offer to remove myself from your case.”
“What?” Cass felt an abrupt sinking sensation in her stomach. “But…but why?”
“In light of what happened between us earlier when I was healing you of the soul-sucker’s bite, I thought you might prefer to have another attorney.”
“No, of course not!” Cass exclaimed. “That is, uh, unless you want to remove yourself,” she added hastily. Maybe Jake O’Shea was tired of dealing with her stubborn human ass. Maybe—
“No, that is the last thing I wish.” An expression of relief flitted across his stern features. “I want to see you to the end of this case. To protect you and be sure your fairy godmother can never hurt you again. But I thought after the way I healed you…”
“Uh, about that.” Cass felt suddenly shy. “I, uh, I know a little more about why you had to…to do what you did,” she said awkwardly. “I mean, I understand what could have happened if you hadn’t taken care of that bite. It could have been really nasty—I could have been maimed for life.”
“I’m glad you don’t think I was touching you for my own personal pleasure,” he said gravely. “If there had been any way to heal you other than giving you an orgasm, I would have done it.”
“I…I know.” Cass felt her cheeks getting hot again as she remembered his hands on her body and cursed herself inwardly. Damn it—she wasn’t usually this stuttering and shy when it came to sex. She was the outspoken one of her sisters—the one who went after what she wanted and didn’t let embarrassment hold her back. Yet Jake O’Shea somehow managed to reduce her to a stammering schoolgirl called to the principal’s office.
“Well then, if you’re certain…”
“Yes, very certain.” Cass cleared her throat. “Let’s just, uh, try to put it behind us and not mention it again. As long as you promise me you won’t perform anymore, uh, sexual healing, I think we’ll be fine.”
“But I can’t promise that.” Jake stepped closer to her. “Look at me, Cassandra,” he murmured, lifting her chin so they were eye-to-eye. “If you were hurt and the only way to heal you was to touch you intimately, I would do it again without hesitation.”
“You would?” Cass didn’t like how breathless her voice sounded or how she could feel the heat from his big body radiating against her skin.
“Absolutely.” Jake nodded his head firmly. “So you see, I cannot promise not to heal you again unless you promise not to get hurt.”
“I…I’ll try to watch it,” Cass whispered.
She felt like she was drowning in the pale green depths of his eyes. God, did he have to look at her like that? And why couldn’t she seem to be her old snarky self? Abruptly, she pulled away.
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” she said crisply, trying not to look at him. “And now, do you mind telling me what you’re doing here in the middle of the night? Aside for threatening to dump my case?” Actually, the clock on the wall informed her that it was still before ten, but she liked the dramatic way it sounded.
“Ah yes, the middle of the night,” Jake said dryly. “Well it just so happens that it is not the middle of the night in the Realm. In fact, it’s two hours before noon and your new court date adjourns in an hour.”
“What?” Cass looked at him in horror. “My new court date? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “I came early to give you time to change. You seemed very distressed last time at being forced to appear in court in your sleep wear so I thought—”
“Yeah, it’s really nice of you to give me extra time,” Cass interrupted. “But what I don’t understand is how you could have gotten the court date so quickly. Don’t these things take time?”
“Time moves differently in the Realm. It has been several days since our last enc
ounter. Also, I have been pushing to have your case seen because of the hardship the loss of your painting skills is causing you.” He eyed the pastel sketch of the Brandon clone. “Although you appear to be compensating quite well.”
“Thanks.” Cass sighed and looked at the sketch. She’d been happy while she was doing it—well, until the damn clone started jerking off with her panties anyway. But she had to admit it wasn’t nearly as good as the portrait which had been ruined by the clone’s defection from its canvas.
Part of it was the fact that she felt more comfortable painting than sketching but part of the problem was also her subject. She needed to really feel something for whoever or whatever she was trying to capture on canvas to do her best work and she couldn’t feel a thing for the idiotic copy of her boyfriend.
Well, that’s not so surprising—you don’t feel a whole hell of a lot for the original either, whispered a disloyal little voice in her head. Maybe that’s why you could never get his portrait quite right.
“Are you all right?” Jake asked, interrupting her thoughts. “You seem pensive, Cassandra.”
“I was just thinking that this really isn’t going to cut it.” She gestured to the canvas. “And not just because it’s sketched instead of painted. I need to feel for my subject—have some kind of connection with them. And I don’t have any connection to that thing other than the fact that it’s a bad copy of Brandon.”
“And you feel for this Brandon—for your lover?” Jake said quietly.
“Well, I don’t know—I guess so.” Cass sighed. “I mean, I feel more for him than I do for his clone, anyway. But I mostly just got involved with him because I wanted to paint him.”
Suddenly she realized that she was revealing her innermost thoughts and feelings—or lack thereof—for her boyfriend to the irritating elf. God, what was wrong with her, rambling on like this and talking to him as though he was one of her sisters?
“Um, but he’s a really good boyfriend, though,” she added hurriedly. “I mean, when I can actually get him to show up and pose for me, anyway.”
Be Careful What You Wish For (The Swann Sisters Chronicles Book 2) Page 18