A Demonic Bundle (33 page)

She stared at them for a moment, then reached out to take the pages. Carefully, she studied them, flipping through one page then another then another.

She knew her eyes must have been the size of one of the flowers on the wall when she finally looked up at him.

He didn’t wait for her to speak, or maybe he realized she couldn’t.

“As you can see, I have plenty of experience working with—” he smiled at the kids, who still watched him as if he was a superhero come to life, “these little—fellas.”

He reached out to scruff the boy closest to him on the head. He smiled broadly at the child, but Jo noticed this time it seemed a little more strained.

She continued to gape at him. He wasn’t really saying he wanted to volunteer? He didn’t really have experience? He couldn’t. He just—couldn’t.

“Let me see this?” Cherise appeared at her side, snatching the résumé out of Jo’s numb fingers.

After a few seconds, she let out a low whistle. “Gorgeous and experienced.” Her chatty little eyebrow rose. “You must have dropped right out of heaven.”

Maksim grinned and extended a hand. “Something like that.”

Cherise readily seized his hand, grinning back at him with moony, dark eyes as if she was half in love with him already.

The image of her no-nonsense daycare director practically deifying this man was the thing that snapped Jo out of her daze.

“Excuse me,” she bit out to Maksim, roughly extracting Cherise’s hand from his. She dragged the much larger woman out of the room, discovering strength she wouldn’t have thought she had.

“What are you doing, girl?” Cherise said as soon as they were in the hallway.

“We are not hiring this guy,” Jo stated.

“I know that.”

Intense relief flooded Jo’s body to the point she almost sagged against the wall.

“But we are sure as hell going to get him to volunteer until we can afford to hire him.” Cherise leaned back to sneak a peek in the doorway. “Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Her chatty eyebrow rose, again speaking volumes about what she thought of the man.

Jo couldn’t help peeping around the corner herself, just in time for Maksim to notice her. He waved and she jerked back out of sight, this time allowing herself to lean against the wall.

“No,” she said to Cherise. “No, no, no.”

“Why ever not?” Cherise asked, which was a fair question. And one that Jo couldn’t answer honestly. She couldn’t tell her daycare director that he couldn’t work with her, because Jo was worried she was too attracted to him. How professional was that? Not professional in that least, that’s how.

Cherise held up the list of places he’d worked and volunteered. Big Brother/Big Sister, a basketball coach for mentally handicapped children, a counselor at a camp for kids who were terminally ill.

“How are we going to find anyone better?”

Jo stared at the sheets. They weren’t. He was a dream. He was.

“He isn’t what he seems,” Jo finally said.

“You know him?” Cherise’s eyebrow said she was willing to listen if Jo had some facts about the guy.

“I’ve met him a few times before,” she said, realizing that hardly sounded incriminating enough. Especially for the virtually perfect volunteer.

“So do you think these things are made up?” Cherise waved the paper slightly.

“Maybe,” Jo said, grabbing onto that suggestion, although she again didn’t sound as convincing as she thought she should.

“Well, they’d be easy enough establishments to contact.”

Cherise was right. Of course. Her and her always accurate eyebrow.

Jo nodded, then took the résumé from her. She would tell him that she needed to contact a few of his past employers and then let him know. That was a reasonable way to get him to leave, and then, once she wasn’t so completely discombobulated by his presence, she’d come up with a believable reason to reject his offer to volunteer.

Walking back into the room on legs that she hoped looked steadier than they felt, she crossed directly to him.

She forced a smile. “Maksim, this résumé is very impressive.”

He nodded, and she noted his humble expression didn’t quite meet his eyes. See, he
was
up to something.

“So—” She paused as she felt a tug on her arm. She glanced down to see Damon at her elbow.

“Wait just a moment, Damon,” she told the boy.

She returned her attention to Maksim. “So, as I was saying—”

Again there was a tug on her sleeve, this time more insistent.

“Damon,” she said, but stopped when she saw the boy’s pallor and the expression on his face. Out of instinct, Jo stepped aside, just as the boy heaved. Vomit spewed from the boy’s mouth in a flying spray, all of the chunky, foul-smelling stuff landing directly on Maksim’s shirt and pants.

Jo stared, stunned, absently noting that at least Maksim’s polished black Kenneth Cole shoes had remained unscathed.

Jo started to open her mouth to say…Well, she didn’t know what, when nausea swelled in her own stomach. Then his expensive Kenneth Coles weren’t so unscathed anymore.

She retched again.

“I
told you I couldn’t eat the yogurt,” the nasty little creature who’d just covered him in vile, slimy stench said almost smugly before the large woman, who Maksim was really beginning to like, whisked him away.

Couldn’t eat yogurt was an understatement. The dreadful little beast had puked in Exorcist-sized proportions—all over one of his favorite shirts, no less. But Maksim’s attention was drawn away from his soiled clothing to the woman who’d added to the disgusting mess.

Jo still stood in front of him. Well, stood implied that she was on her feet; it was more like she leaned heavily on the table where the children squealed and gagged and pointed at the disaster clinging to his $200 hand-tailored shirt from Milan and his $300 Armani trousers.

But he disregarded both his destroyed clothes and the creatures surrounding them, who sounded like a flock of agitated farmyard birds. Instead he stared Jo, a strange sensation he didn’t quite understand making him feel—like he needed to help her.

Shake it off, man, he told himself. No piece of ass was worth this.

But instead of leaving, he reached forward to balance her. She jerked away, nearly slipping off the edge of her precarious perch. Even though she was stubbornly and stupidly avoiding his touch, he wasn’t willing to let her fall.

Instead he pulled her to his side, keeping her away from the side Damon had covered, with more than just yogurt, he might add.

“Where’s the bathroom?” he asked.

She gestured, with a weak wave of her hand toward the hallway. Maksim walked her in that direction, supporting most of her slight weight. His instinct was to carry her, but he suspected she’d really be irritated by that, and not just because she’d be unavoidably covered in what he was.

When he reached the hallway, he looked both ways, then spotted the door labeled
GIRLS
. He headed toward it, expecting to find the large woman in there with the little puke machine. But instead, the gray-tiled room was empty. He led Jo to the sink and held her until she seemed to have herself braced against the edge.

She stood there for a moment, her fingers gripping the white porcelain so tightly, they were nearly the same color.

“Can I get you anything?”

She shook her head, then winced as if the gesture caused her pain. If possible, her skin drained even further of color until she seemed to blend in with the gray and white of the lavatory.

“I just need a minute.” For a brief moment, her dark eyes met his in the mirror. He saw embarrassment there, but also a flash of something else. Something that looked remarkably like despair. Then they dropped again, her focus returning to the sink that seemed to be the only thing holding her upright.

Maksim watched her for a second longer, making sure she was truly steady on her feet. Then he began unbuttoning his shirt, easing the ruined mess away from himself.

“What are you doing?”

Maksim paused, the garment off one shoulder, meeting her eyes again. “I’m getting out of this thing.” He finished slipping out of the shirt and dropped it in the trash can near the sink.

When he looked back to Jo, she was still staring at him in the mirror. He considered pretending not to notice, but he couldn’t pass up seeing her expression.

But he didn’t see in her eyes what he thought he would. Instead of surprise, or interest, or even disapproval, her gaze was flat, emotionless.

“You’re not planning to take off your pants too, are you?”

“Not unless you want me to,” he said, wagging his eyebrows, then added once she didn’t react—yet again, “No, my pants aren’t too bad. My shoes, however…”

That gained him a pained wince. “Sorry.”

He shrugged. “Vomit happens.” Had he really said that? Normally he’d be very, very unhappy about something like this, and an unhappy Maksim was a bad thing. But right now, all the could seem to care about was Jo.

Her eyes lingered on him a moment longer, then she realized he was watching her watching him. A slight flush of pink tinged her pale cheeks and she looked down.

Again, moving her head seemed to disorient her and her knuckles whitened as she held fast to the sink. He stepped closer, just in case.

She lifted one of her hands to the faucet, her fingers pausing there as if the act of just turning on the water was too much for her at the moment.

Maksim leaned forward, his bare chest brushing against her shoulder and arm as he placed a hand over hers and twisted the water on. The rush of water echoed through the stark room.

Her eyes moved back up to find his in the mirror. They locked for several moments, and he began to wonder if the loud rush reverberating through the room wasn’t the swell of his own longing coursing through him like churning white water. His yearning and the look in her eyes, finally a spark of something, some response, left him coiled and breathless. And filled with a need to…

Immediately he dropped his hand from hers and backed away as if she’d scalded him.

“I’ll let you freshen up,” he mumbled and continued to walk backward away from her. Her dark eyes followed him, that despair there again. Calling to him. Pulling at an emotion in him he didn’t understand, but he knew he didn’t like.

He turned and left the room.

Maksim didn’t stop until he was outside the community center, standing on the cracked, uneven sidewalk, his breathing irregular, his thoughts jumbled. He’d finally gotten a reaction from her, but it wasn’t the lust he wanted. It had been heartbreak, desperation, fear—and maybe lost somewhere in those emotions was a hint of attraction. So why in the world had that reached out to him, made him want to protect her? To make those feelings disappear? Help her?

A man in a dirty sleeveless undershirt and denim shorts tottered down the street. He grimaced at Maksim as he passed, revealing missing teeth and grime accenting his frown lines.

Maksim narrowed a look back, the vagrant’s disdainful reaction snapping him back into his normal frame of mind. When was he
ever
the object of someone else’s derision? He knew he was a superior species to these lowly mortals, and most mortals instinctively knew it too. How dare some filthy transient look at him as if he was beneath him?

Then he glanced down at himself. No shirt, vomit-spattered pants and shoes, and a look of complete bewilderment in his eyes.

What the hell? He was standing here, on the sidewalk, covered in stench, musing over a mortal woman like some uncertain teenage boy. And, damn, he was never uncertain—not when it came to his wants. Not about anything. And he’d sure as hell never been a teenager. So what the hell was wrong with him?

He made a disgusted noise deep in his throat as he glanced down at himself again. No piece of ass in Hell or on Earth was worth this.

He should just leave. But instead, he found himself striding to the side of the building and ducking into an alley that ran the length of the community center and the building next door.

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. No one was around. Remaining very still, he closed his eyes and concentrated. He knew if anyone were to watch him, he’d look like an image in a camera going in and out of focus. An effect they’d most likely blame on their own vision. But there was no point in taking unnecessary risks.

When he opened his eyes again, his soiled clothes were gone, replaced by a new tailored shirt and designer trousers. His shoes were Roberto Cavalli. The defiled garments were on the ground around him. He carefully stepped over them as if they were a heap of vermin liable to jump up and cling to him. He’d loved that outfit, but it was replaceable. Most things were.

Being able to materialize things was one of his favorite demon tricks, although damned irritating at times, because he could only materialize things he actually had somewhere. Because, frankly, if he could materialize a stiff drink, he would.

He stepped back out onto the street, smoothing down his shirt, then adjusting the cuffs. Now, he’d go back in, remember why he came here. And it wasn’t to help a wounded mortal.

It was to get laid.

Jo splashed another handful of water on her face, relishing the way the cold stung her skin, taking her mind off the events of the past few moments. She cupped water in her hand and lifted it to her lipes, rinsing her mouth again, swishing the cold water for several seconds. Then she splashed her face again. And again. She had to gather herself and get back out there to work, but she couldn’t make herself leave the bathroom.

She just wanted to hide. To not deal with anything.

No, she had to get back to work. That would help. It always did.

One more splash, then she fumbled around for the paper towel dispenser, finding the lever and pumping it several times. She pressed the crumpled paper to her face, even appreciating the roughness of it on her cheeks and forehead. The discomfort of icy water and scratchy paper towels was something tangible to focus on, a welcome distraction from what had just happened. And she wished she was referring only to the vomiting. Because ridding her stomach of its contents on a man’s ridiculously expensive footwear wasn’t bad enough. No, she’d actually stood there doe-eyed as he’d taken his shirt off, wanting the man with every fiber in her being.

She nearly swooned when the man’s bare chest had come in contact with the skin of her arm. She’d longed for him to wrap his muscular arms around her and hold her and kiss her and…

And what? Take care of her? Make her past disappear? That wasn’t going to happen.

She tossed the damp towel into the garbage can near the sink on top of Maksim’s soiled shirt. The image of him peeling it off flared in her mind, hard muscles covered in smooth, golden skin.

She straightened, taking a deep breath, pulling herself together. This was ridiculous. She moved to the mirror to tuck loose hair back into the knot on the back of her head and wipe away any remnants of water-smeared makeup.

She pulled her glasses out of her pocket, hoping the dark frames would distract from the worst of it. She dropped her hand and stared at her face, not seeing herself, but Maksim. The memory of his reflection staring back at her. The look in his eyes.

She could have sworn she saw tenderness in his stunningly vivid eyes. She looked down at her hand. The hand he’d held as he’d helped her turn on the water. His touch had been gentle, kind.

Her gaze lingered on her hand, which tingled. From the water, she told herself. Then she frowned at herself in the mirror. What was she doing? She couldn’t think of him as some gallant knight who’d come to her rescue.

He wasn’t that. She knew it. She did know his type. Only too well.

But for a moment…

“Enough,” she growled, the word echoing through the tiled room.

Get a grip.

Pulling in a deep breath, she realized as much as she didn’t want to see him, she had to muster up her courage and go apologize to the man. She’d apologize, and then tell him that, while his résumé was impressive, she just didn’t have a position for him.

She couldn’t have him around. It wasn’t possible. And if she was lucky, he’d already left and she could just call him to tell him all this anyway. She doubted he was waiting around out there shirtless and covered in barf.

How would she explain that to her daycare parents?

And that was what had to be her focus. The center.

When she walked back into the daycare room, Cherise had somehow managed to get the floor cleaned and the children on their threadbare mats for nap time. Even Damon was calm and lying with his favorite toy, a tattered dog with one missing eye. Lettie sat in a metal chair at the now vacant tables, her chin on her chest, dozing. She enjoyed nap time most of all.

“Are you feeling okay?” Cherise asked in a hushed tone.

Jo nodded. “For some reason, seeing what happened—just got to me.”

Cherise nodded. “A chain reaction. It happens to the best of us.”

Jo nodded, appreciating the woman’s gesture to make her feel less mortified.

Jo glanced around again, relief flooding her.

“Did Maksim leave?”

“No, I’m right here.”

Jo spun to see him behind her, leaning on the door frame leading to the hallway. Damn, couldn’t, just this once, luck be on her side?

Her eyes scanned down his body, taking in his newest collection of designer apparel.

“I had clothes in my car,” he said, in response to her lingering stare.

Her cheeks burned. She’d wished that was what she’d been pondering, when in truth, her mind had moved on to the way the cut of his shirt accentuated the broadness of his shoulders and chest and how his pants emphasized the narrowness of his hips. Even his feet caught her attention.

She forced herself to meet his gaze. One of his dark eyebrows rose as if he could read her mind and knew she hadn’t even wondered where he got the new clothes.

Great, another one with tell-all eyebrows. He and Cherise could probably hold a whole conversation with nothing but movement of their brows.

“I’m—I’m glad you had—some—other clothes to change into.” She clenched her teeth briefly, irritated with her fumbling speech.
Just get out what you need to, and then get back to work.