Twice as Hot

by Gena Showalter

Chapter Seventeen

 

  What the helll?

  My narrowed gaze followed Rome across the building, past a throng of people and - I lost sight of him, unable to see from my vantage point. A moment passed before I spotted him again. He was still moving through the - No, wait. He'd stopped in front of a busty blonde, and my jaw dropped at his let's-get-this-party-started body language.

  My fingers curled over the edge of the table. The blonde smiled up at Rome seductively, clearly in agreement; she even traced her fingers down the planes of his stomach. I couldn't help but notice that he did not pull away from her.

  Maybe he'd brought me rather than Lexis tonight because he didn't want his precious Lexis to see him flirting with other women. Bastard. I wished to God my powers included supersonic hearing.

  Once I would have known he would not do anything sexual with this woman. Once. But no longer. I was so angry at that fact, I felt like calling Memory Man back and telling him to keep the stupid memories. Rome didn't deserve them.

  With that thought, I could almost feel M-Squared's longing for me stretching across the void between us. . . him craving everything I had to give. . . demanding more. . .

  Where was he? Had he followed me to Colorado? I found myself glancing around the club as if I might catch sight of him.

  A waitress passed me and I called, "Ma'am, I'd like - "

  She didn't even glance in my direction.

  She placed the drinks balanced on her tray on another table, the male recipients eagerly lapping them up.

  They were joking and laughing and clearly already intoxicated. One even pinched her ass. She tossed him a grin that belied the gleam of irritation in her eyes.

  Done with them, she moved toward me again.

  "Excuse me. I'll have a - "

  Once more, she couldn't be bothered to spare me a glance. Perhaps karma was belatedly kicking in, punishing me for having been a less than solicitous coffee wench - er, barista - back in my days at Utopia Cafe. Or maybe the waitresses were instructed to only answer to the men. That made sense. I hated it, but it did seem fitting in this Men Are Superior club. I wondered how many of said men would feel superior to me while writhing in the heat of my fire.

  Now, Belle. You are not a violent person. You do not enjoy doing bad things. What would your mother say?

  My shoulders sagged. My dad's voice kept popping into my head at the oddest moments. It wasn't fair, either. He knew just how to get to me, how to shame me into better behavior. It was one thing to hurt someone in order to save a loved one, but quite another to do so out of spite.

  "Hey, hot stuff. We've never seen you here before," a male voice said.

  Next thing I knew, a twentysomething guy with cute, puppy-dog eyes and a dimpled smile was sidled up to me. He smelled of expensive cologne - and sex.

  I crinkled my nose. "I'm taken," I said. Kind of.

  "By who? You don't look taken to me. "

  The voice was identical to the one that had first spoken, but it came from my other side. I quickly switched my attention - and found myself staring into a face identical to the one I'd just been looking at.

  Another quick switch - first guy was still there. Twins, then. I studied them closely. Only difference was, guy number one had three freckles beside his right eye, like a half-moon. Guy two didn't.

  "What?" I asked, having lost the thread of the conversation.

  Both men laughed.

  "Whose woman are you?" the second asked.

  "Oh. Uh, I belong to Delta. " That's the name Rome had used to get in, so that's the only name I'd use to refer to him. He hadn't told me to do so, but better safe than sorry. I didn't want to remove my attention from my unwanted guests, but I did for a second, searching for Rome.

  He and the blonde were no longer by the wall. In fact, as far as I could tell, they were gone entirely.

  My teeth ground together.

  "Delta? Never heard of him. You want us to fight him for you?" another voice asked. It was identical to the other two.

  I gasped when I spotted a third familiar face: same puppy-dog eyes, same dimpled smile. Triplets, then.

  I'd never encountered triplets before. Like the second, this one lacked the half-moon freckles. "No," I said. Damn, they'd surrounded me. They weren't big and muscled, were merely average height and lean.

  Still. Three against one, not good odds when the one was me. Wait. You have powers, dummy. You are a force to be reckoned with. Oh, yeah. I hated that I had to keep reminding myself.

  "Who do we have here?" a fourth voice asked.

  No way. No freaking way. But there he was, the exact image of the others. He, too, was without the freckles. They all wore the same white button-up, same jeans. And all four were squished around me at the table.

  My palms began to sweat. Which meant my heart began to race and my blood to thicken. I did not want to freeze these men in place. That would draw unwanted attention to myself.

  "Gentlemen, I hate to be rude, but uh, could you kind of leave?" I shifted uncomfortably, grimaced when I rubbed against one of the quadruplets. "I'm expecting my date back any moment. He kind of frowns on me talking to other guys. And by frowns I mean kills. " Any other time, that sort of statement would have made me cringe. And I would have looked down on any girl who said it, thinking she needed a new man.

  Right now, I couldn't get the words out fast enough.

  "Oh, don't send us away," the one with the freckles pouted.

  "We only want to play," another said.

  "You'll have fun, we promise. "

  "You haven't met our other brothers yet. "

  There was a fifth? Sixth? Dear God. "How many of you are there?"

  "Eleven," they said in unison.

  My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. "From the same litter?"

  "Meow," one said.

  "Of course," another replied.

  I shook my head in disbelief. "You're kidding, right?" They had to be. But in this world. . . maybe not.

  All four shook their heads.

  "But how'd your mother have you? That would have killed most women. Unless you're petri babies?" Grown in a dish, perhaps? Hey, it was possible. Wasn't it?

  Now they all four burst into laughter.

  "See, we're having fun already," Three said.

  Four rubbed his hands together in glee. "I love it when someone brings a novice into our midst. "

  "Petri babies. Cute. "

  "You look like you could use a drink," yet another familiar voice said. Five had just appeared. He motioned the waitress over. This time, she didn't hesitate to rush to my table. Her bare breasts jiggled as a round of tequila shots was ordered.

  "And make one for yourself," Four said.

  She grinned at him before bouncing off.

  I clapped my hands to gain everyone's attention. "Someone please explain to me how there can be eleven of you. " I hadn't forgotten that they'd easily sidestepped the question.

  The brother across from me grinned - and disappeared. As I gaped, I directed my attention to the one to my left. He grinned - and disappeared. I stiffened, switching focus again. The brother to my right grinned - and disappeared. What. . . the. . . hell? A magic act? An illusion? But I'd seen and heard them all.

  Only the brother in the middle, the one with the freckles, remained. He grinned, too, but didn't disappear.

  "How did you do that?" I gasped out.

  Before he could reply, the waitress arrived with our drinks. She didn't seem the least bit surprised that more than half of our table had vanished. Calmly she set the glasses on the tabletop, gulped one down herself, patted the remaining brother on the head and scampered away to take someone else's order.

  My uninvited guest scooted a glass in my direction and downed one himself.

  I took it, but didn't drink.

  "We're different people," he said, pounding his empty glass on the table, "but we're trapped in the same body
. Make sense?"

  No. "Of course. "

  Laughing, the brothers materialized around the table one at a time until the entire eleven-member gang was there. What kind of power was this?

  "We were born this way. Eleven minds in one body, though we're all allowed to come out and play at times. Now drink," Six said, lifting my glass to my lips.

  "I really shouldn't. " But I licked the rim and eyed the clear liquid. If I didn't drink it, I'd look like a prude and the boys would probably leave me. If they left me, I wouldn't be able to question them like a good agent should.

  Question them. . . yes! That's exactly what I needed to do. Sitting here looking, well, slutty, wasn't exactly good agenting. Unlike Rome, who had dumped me here so he could chat up some dumb blonde, I would be a good agent.

  "Come on. " Eight. "You know you want to. All the cool kids are doing it. " They laughed again.

  "Well. . . " One shot wouldn't destroy me. I knew that, at least. Still. . .

  "Don't be a downer. "

  Rome might have told me not to do this, but sometimes, to get results, rules had to be broken. "All right," I said. "Fine. "

  They cheered me on as I drained the shot.

  The tequila burned my throat and settled like lead in my stomach. Had I eaten dinner? I didn't think so, and maybe that was a good thing. I didn't want to vomit. Thankfully, though, the burn subsided and the lead turned to jelly.

  "That was good," I said on a cough.

  More cheering.

  "What's your name?" Ten asked me.

  "Viper," I said. Rome hadn't given me a name to use, and I didn't want to offer the truth, but I didn't want to lie, either, and risk not answering when I was called.

  "Cool. You're a snake-shifter, then. Show us!"

  I shook my head, experienced a wave of dizziness. "I'm not a shifter. " Eleven frowns greeted my announcement. "Then what are you?" Crap. I'd walked right into that one. "Pleasure Girl," I said with a smile.

  There was another round of laughter, as I'd hoped. There was even some backslapping and high-fiving, like they knew they'd picked the right girl to accost. Good. I had them right where I'd wanted them.

  Right? Because I needed to. . . what? I wanted to. . . Shit! I couldn't remember. And asking myself all these questions was -

  Questions! Yes, that was it. I wanted to question them. "So. You boys come here a lot?" I propped my elbows on the table, hoping I looked like a rapt audience rather than the cheap drunk I was beginning to fear I was.

  "Every weekend," Eleven said. "Now let's talk about you, Pleasure Girl. Tell us about your man. How long have you guys been together?"

  "Not long," I said, refusing to give a number. Even though our courtship had been a whirlwind, it felt like we'd been together forever.

  "Do you love him? Does he love you?"

  To keep from having to answer, I picked up one of the still-full glasses and pretended to sip. The others, not wanting to be left out, threw back their drinks and ordered another round. As they waited, they talked among themselves and I was thankfully forgotten - though I still seemed to be the subject of their conversation, along with the waitress and every other female in the place.

  "She's hot. "

  "I'd do her. "

  "What about her?"

  I was getting whiplash looking from one to the other. A few times, their banter made me laugh out loud and I realized I liked them. They even reminded me a little of Tanner.

  Two called Four a pussy and dared him to ask the waitress for a blow job. Six dropped a pocketful of pennies on the floor and bent down to "pick them up," but used his vantage point to peer up a woman's dress. Despite their antics, I didn't sense anything menacing about them - but then, let's face it, I was not always a great judge of character.

  "Okay, stop," I said, and all of them faced me. "I can't keep thinking of you as One, Two, Three and so on. What are your names?"

  "Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Roman, Corinthian, Gala, Ephesian, Philip and Crunch. " As their names were called, they raised their hands. I'd never remember all of them. Fine. I'd go back to numbers.

  My brow furrowed as something occurred to me. All were Biblical names but one. "Why Crunch?" The guy across from me leaned forward, the candlelight stroking his face. I noticed nothing different about him to set him apart from the others. Same puppy-dog eyes, same pretty face. "That's the sound bones make when I break them. "

  Ouch. My own bones ached in sympathy for his victims. "You do that a lot, then? Break bones, I mean?"

  He smiled. "I was kidding. Just eat way too many Crunch bars. "

  "So back to that guy you were with. Delta. What's his deal?" Eight asked.

  Damn. I wanted to set them straight about who was supposed to interrogate whom at this table, but instead I forced myself to smile. "Him?" I waved a dismissive hand through the air, hoping the pulse hammering away in my neck didn't give away my nervousness. "The truth is, I'm just using him for sex until I can find my real boyfriend. " Wow. That was so close to reality, I could have laughed. Or cried.

  All eleven guys leaned into the table.

  Nine said, "Do tell!"

  Six added, "Any girl who uses a man for sex is a girl I want to get to know better. " My gaze continued to shift between them. God, I was dizzy. It took a conscious effort to pull an image of Cody into my mind. Wouldn't hurt to use his face since I was looking for him. "My real boyfriend has white hair and these killer silver-purple eyes. " I added a shiver for good measure. "He's - "

  "Friends with Candace Bright and dating her sister," Two interjected with a shudder of his own. "Kiss him goodbye forever, then, sweetheart. He's not coming back to you. "

  "Not in one piece," Five added. "I heard the last few guys to travel that road were lifeless shells when the girls were done with them. "

  "What!" I sat up, my spine straight as a board. "You've seen him?" With Desert Gal/Candace Bright?

  Suddenly the night was looking up.

  One nodded. "His name's Cody, right, and he's got a thing for electricity? Well, he just started working for Big Rocky, where we work, and Candace, our boss, noticed him right away. " Cody, huh? He'd used his real name, even though his message had said he was going in undercover. He could have changed his last name, I supposed, but how many electophiles with the first name Cody were out there? Not many. Dare I say just one?

  With that small amount of info, Candace could easily learn he worked for PSI. If that happened. . .

  "Candace called him into her office for a private meeting. Then she left and her sister showed up. They had a private meeting, too. But theirs didn't just last an hour, if you know what I mean. " At that, I forced myself to scowl. One question was now answered. Candace was passing Desert Gall off as her "sister. " "So where is this Candace Bright? Where's her sister? I'll fight them both for him.

  He's my man, and I don't give up what's mine. " A lesson Lexis really should have learned by now, I thought darkly.

  Just like that, two of the guys disappeared.

  "Trust me," Four said, patting me on the shoulder, "they're bad news. Don't mess with them. Forget you had a man. "

  Three others disappeared.

  They were that scared of the woman? "Hey, don't leave! I have more questions. " Another vanished.

  Number One leaned toward me, those freckles seemingly darker than before. "Meet me at the Holland Hotel. I'll get a room. You just show up at nine tomorrow night and ask the front desk for Matthew Brooks. Maybe I can help. "

  "But I - "

  "Just make sure you ditch your sex puppet. He comes, I'll tell you nothing. " With that, he pushed to his feet. The rest of the boys disappeared, too. Or rather, they got to their feet and walked into One's body.

  Without them surrounding me, I was suddenly given a clear view of Rome. He stalked to my table and glared down at me.

  One saw him and beat a hasty retreat.

  I didn't apologize, didn't explain my actions. An
d he didn't immediately demand to know who I'd been talking to. Because he didn't care? Because he was too pissed? I'd disobeyed his orders, after all.

  "Where's your blonde?"

  He flashed his teeth as he fell into the seat beside me. His hair was mussed, I noticed, and his clothing wrinkled.

  I gasped. "Have you - "

  "No," he snapped. "I haven't. Were you. . . drinking?" The last emerged incredulous.

  "Yes. I caved under peer pressure, what can I say?"

  "You're sorry, to start. " He scrubbed a hand down his face.

  "I'm not the one who stomped away for a make-out session with the Fembot. What's her power, anyway? Inducing sexual comas?"

  He pinned me with a hard stare. "She's an employee of Big Rocky. I hacked into their HR files earlier and recognized her from her photo. I flirted with her a little, hinted about needing a job, but couldn't get her to give me any details of what goes on at Big Rocky HQ or what Desert Gal's role might be. "

  "Maybe she couldn't talk with your tongue down her throat," I suggested helpfully.

  "Nothing happened. " He turned away from me, jaw tightening. "You have my word. "

  "Yeah. Right. Look at you! You're like the poster child of Men Who Have Just Been Making Out. "

  "She had her hands on me, I can't deny that. But I didn't let it go anywhere. "

  "Yeah. Right," I repeated.

  "Look, if you must know, you're the only woman I get hard for anymore. And it's driving me insane!

  Why else do you think I left you behind to talk to her? My attraction to you would have been obvious. "

  "Whatever," I said, but thought, Thank God. He's mine, he's mine, he's mine.

  "Damn it, this entire night was a waste. "

  "No, it wasn't. While you were striking out with Blondie, I found out Cody is supposedly dating Desert Gal. But using his real name. Why would he do that? Anyway, she noticed him at work and decided she liked what she saw. Oh, and Candace Bright claims Desert Gall is her sister. " Rome's attention whipped back to me. "How do you know all that? From the men you were talking to?

  The men you should have sent packing?"

  I almost smiled. He wore jealousy so beautifully. "That's right. Those men. You're not the only one who can flirt for information. "

  His eyes narrowed but he ignored the gibe. "When an agent goes undercover as himself, he wants his targets to know who he is so he can pretend to switch sides. " Ah. Excellent strategy. As commander, I'd take full credit.

  "Learn anything else?" he asked.

  "Just that I'm better at extracting information than you are. " Gradually, his hard features softened. "Funny. "

  "And yet true. Those guys want to meet with me. Alone. They say they can help me. "

  "You're not meeting them alone. "

  "Duh. "

  A sigh. "What am I going to do with you?"

  Maybe it was the alcohol, but I heard myself say, "I can think of one thing. " Rome's nostrils flared, his pupils dilated. But rather than lean over and kiss me, he pushed to his feet, dragging me with him. "Trying to seduce me? Well, your timing sucks, you know that? I'm going to have you. I've warned you already. But once I've got you, neither of us will be getting out of bed for a long, long time. Which means we have to wait until this case is closed. So let's mingle like we came here to do and see if we can learn anything else. "