Biting Oz: Biting Love, Book 5 (3 page)

Here was no little girl, but a young woman of consequence.

Her expression eased into a welcoming smile. “Please, come have a drink. Don’t mind Glynn and me.”

Her soft voice carried across the lobby, great acoustics or a truly brilliant actress. As we approached, she stepped back from the water fountain, leaving her hulking male no choice but to do the same.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re in the pit, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” I eyed Glynn (such a lovely, musical name, lyrical as his deep baritone…phooey, when did I go poetic over
names
?). If he wanted to be alone with her, he didn’t give me any nonverbal hints. Of course, if he wanted to be alone with her, he shouldn’t have hogged the water fountain to do it.
 

The drinking fountain activated with a side lever handle. I turned it halfway to get a moderate stream and sipped.

Rocky said, “I like your Dorothy.”

“Thank you.” The young woman gave a silvery laugh. “I have to admit, she’s a bit of typecasting for a small-town Iowa girl like me.”

“Iowa?” I backed off for Rocky. “I thought all the stars were from New York. Where in Iowa are you from?”

“Coralville. I’m not quite New York yet.”

“I bought my flute in Coralville,” Rocky said between sips. “It’s not so small. Just a few miles from the University of Iowa.”

The girl gave Rocky a dazzling smile. “Most folks think we’re all corn and cattle. I’m Mishela.” She held out a hand.

Rocky shook. “I’m Rocky. This is Gunter Marie, but everyone calls her Junior.”
 

“My parents’ idea,” I said. “Hey, it’s better than a female Gunter.” Mishela’s hand, when I took it, was slim yet strong. I nodded nonchalantly at Mr. Gorgeous. Well, trying to be nonchalant. “And your shadow?”

Mishela gave me a rueful smile. “Glynn Rhys-Jenkins. But I call him Warden.”

“Mishela.” The warning in his tone was plain.

“Custodian? Keeper?” She smiled at him, a playful beaming that, aimed at anyone else, would have turned him into a pile of mush.

Glynn just glowered. “Seventeen is not too old to spank.”

Her smile turned saucy. “Some might say it’s the perfect age to spank.” She touched a finger to his massive chest. “If you were my type.”

Glynn’s glower darkened. “Just because Elias lets you get away with your sass—”

Oh great, a lovers’ quarrel. I suffered a rush of heat, backed away. “Nice meeting you both. But, um—”

“I’m sorry. Please don’t go.” Mishela turned from Glynn to touch my arm. “It would be nice to talk to other women. Especially other performers.”

Her tone caught at me. She seemed…lonely. Even if she was older than I thought, she was still a young woman away from home. I heard myself say, “Want to do something after rehearsal? Sodas at Nieman’s Bar?”

She perked up immediately. “I’d love to. If you don’t mind the looming watcher.”

Big, muscular Glynn,
watching
us… My belly heated and my panties felt a little too tight. Which annoyed the crap out of me (I had goals), so I said, “He doesn’t have to come.” And promptly flushed.
Come
. Perfectly innocent, except in connection with this hunk of striding sex…in the same sentence…much less the same room…
uh
. “We’re adults, Rocky and I. We’ll chaperone you.”

“Mishela doesn’t go anywhere without me.” Glynn crossed arms, pumping his bold chest into the opening of his jacket. Mounds of muscle strained against cotton and leather. My eyes fell out my head and my panties shot directly to broil. Phooey.

“Glynn speaks. End of discussion.” Mishela sighed. “My guardian would agree.”

Rocky and I exchanged a glance. So who was Glynn, beyond being insanely gorgeous? Her brother? Bodyguard? Lover?

A clap sounded behind us. “Places, ladies.” Coral-and-chartreuse buzzed past and through a side door.

“Yes, Mr. Dumas,” Mishela called after him.

Ah, Dumas. That explained Nixie’s Director Dumbass.

“You heard the man.” Glynn took Mishela’s elbow and hustled her toward the theater.

She called back to Rocky and me, “Nice meeting you both. See you after rehearsal.”

“Well, that was interesting.” I saw Rocky juggle flute case, water bottle and fountain handle and automatically stepped in to help, twisting the handle so Rocky could fill her bottle…all the while trying not to panic. Glynn was even better than I remembered. How could I focus on duty and goals now?

Sure, the music would absorb me during rehearsal, but what about after? We were going out for drinks together, for pity’s sake. How could I avoid seeing him, wanting to touch, to kiss…no, Rocky would stop me. And Mishela. She’d joked about Glynn the Warden, but how could any woman not want such a prime male? If I got too familiar with Glynn, she’d intervene. “Mishela sure doesn’t look seventeen.”

“She doesn’t. I wonder when she figured out she’s gay.”

My hand jerked on the handle, spraying water. “What? How do you figure that?”

“Didn’t you catch it?” Rocky pushed her nose piece. “The comment about ‘if you were my type’?”

“Well, yeah, but…wasn’t she flirting with Glynn?”

“More teasing him, like a sister.”

“And his sticking to her?”

“Protective hovering.” Rocky capped her water, only half-full because of my ham-hand on the handle, and started back. “Maybe he’s her bodyguard.”

My underwear roller coaster had evidently made me miss some things. I felt strangely lightheaded and lighthearted—missing yet another obvious fact, this one about me.

Then I thought of a downer. If Mishela was gay, only Rocky would stop me if I slid my hands under Glynn’s black jacket to pet those broad shoulders…panic flared and I ran to catch up.

Rocky said, “So how do you know Glynn?”

“I don’t.”

“Oh.” The normally neutral syllable was lengthened and pitched high, filling it with her skepticism.

“I don’t,” I repeated, as if saying it again would convince her. “I just met him tonight.”

“So I only imagined he was looking at you ‘that way’?” She elbowed open the house doors and trotted down the aisle.

“What way?”

“Like he wanted to eat you up. Which reminds me, did you see Rob brought pit chocolate?”

My voice wouldn’t work. Glynn was looking hungrily at
me
?

Panic flared anew. More people. I needed more people between me and Glynn. Rocky, and…and… “Rob brought chocolate?” Speaking of hungry, I’d worked my folks’ register right up until time to go and hadn’t had dinner. I couldn’t think. “Chocolate goes straight to my pads.”

“Think that’ll stop Nixie?”

“No. But with her tiny body, if she doesn’t eat every hour she’ll implode.”

“Her metabolism,” Rocky agreed. “Worse now that she’s pregnant. Good thing Julian feeds her regularly.”

Hey. Nixie and Julian were more people. I could ask them to come to Nieman’s.

And Takashi, who stopped me outside the pit.

But before I could harangue…I mean ask him if he wanted to go out, he said, “Dumas noticed a solo missing. I didn’t tell him specifically it was you but…” He fingered his baton. “Try to be on time tomorrow,
hai
?”

I winced. “Of course.”

Could have been worse. At least Takashi had covered for me. But Dumas had noticed, a ding against my professional image. I sank into my seat. Then I straightened, determined to play my ass off.

Next to me, Nixie was chowing down on Rob’s bag of chocolate bars. Seeing me, she offered the bag.

“That’s cruel,” I said. “You know I can’t have any until we’re done. Not unless I want a two-hundred-dollar repad.”

She snatched the bag back, chomped down another bar and heaved a contented sigh. “Shoulda brought a toothbrush.” She grinned, showed me her foldaway.

“Buy me one for Christmas. Hey, I’ve got a new joke.”

Her husband Julian groaned, but Nixie stopped chomping. “Feckin’ awesome. Lay it down.”

“A conductor and a viola player are in the middle of the road. Which do you run over first, and why?”

“The conductor,” Nixie said. “They’re all puffed with their authority. Except for Takashi.”

“The violist.” Julian set his bow on his stand. “All your jokes are bad viola jokes.”

“Nope,” I said. “The conductor. Business before pleasure.”

Nixie laughed. Julian’s head jerked up.

Steve, the Gollum-like assistant, darted from stage right across the proscenium. He had what looked like a pair of pink and green bikini underwear dangling from his hand. A dark jacket arrowed after, Mr. Chiseled ‘n Sexy. I frowned. Nixie half-rose.

“Stay here.” Julian snapped to his feet, one hand on her shoulder. “Stay out of trouble.” He vaulted onto stage and dashed after Misters Gollum and Gorgeous on very long legs of his own. Nixie sat.

“What was all that about?” I asked.

She shrugged. “They’re trying to catch Steve to ask for a headset? It’s theater people. Who knows?”

“Julian is theater?”

“No. But if there’s any trouble, he’s the suit who’ll have to deal with it with his Lawyerly Loquaciousness. He’s probably just mitigating the risk factors or whatever has more syllables than is healthy.”

“I see.” I didn’t, but had given up figuring out the weirdness that seemed to follow Nixie around. “Speaking of trouble, how much can you cause, weighed down by ten pounds of kid?”

Nixie unwrapped chocolate. “If I put my mind to it, or just on instinct?”

“Sorry, forgot who I’m talking to.” I snorted. “By the way, Rocky and I are meeting Dorothy at Nieman’s after rehearsal. Want to come?”

She stopped mid-unwrap. “You guys and Mishela? Going out at night…with Mishela…uh-uh. Not a good idea.”

“What? Why not?”

“Well, because…um.” She hesitated, not at all like herself.

“Why not?” I repeated.

At that moment, Mishela emerged stage left and stalked across the stage, something pink clenched in her fist. As she disappeared into the wings, Takashi gave a short, hissed “Entr’acte” and raised his baton to start the second half. “Why not” would have to wait.

We ran the second half of the show minus Munchkins, sent home at nine. They’d have to stay for the full run tomorrow, if only to get them used to being up past their bedtimes. That, and we still had to choreograph the bows.

Good thing the kids had gone, though. With the secondary characters and even some of the stars flubbing it, Director Dumbass harangued us until midnight. By the time we played the last note and packed up, I was more than ready for that drink, whatever Nixie’s “why not”.

Which remained unexplained. The instant Takashi laid down his baton, she abandoned her instruments and dashed out of the pit. I leaned over to ask Julian if he wanted to come to Nieman’s, but he was turned from me, face pressed to his phone, talking earnestly and inaudibly.

So I disassembled and cleaned my instruments. Even with three, he was still on the phone when I finished, so I gave up.

Rocky and I were trudging up the aisle (thankfully with less equipment than when I came, as my stand and light would stay for the duration of the run) when Julian stopped us.

I blinked. “You’re off the phone?”

“A bit of a problem with my household.” Julian’s voice was a deep, cultured baritone that slipped over a woman’s skin like pearls, so it took a moment for his words to filter through my primitive slobber-brain. Not only does he have a voice set on sex, the man is inhumanly gorgeous. Black hair, startling blue eyes, aristocratic features, and a body that, when he chooses to show it off, can turn a woman’s chair into a Slip ‘N Slide. But he’s so totally in love with Nixie that he has the letters VT stamped on his forehead: Very Taken. Not really. Almost, though. His devotion to his wife only makes him more attractive.

Black hair, blue eyes, unnaturally handsome…actually, Julian reminded me of Glynn. Though there were subtle differences. Julian’s eyes were laser-sharp, Glynn’s were dark jewels. Julian’s hair was perfectly trimmed, Glynn’s was spiky and a bit too long. Julian’s nose and jaw were exquisitely honed, the Renaissance noble; Glynn was the druid prince—watchful, secretive, yet possessing great power and able to fight when necessary.

I flashed a mental image, a tall, broad-shouldered figure swathed in a dark cloak, twirling on a nighttime battlefield, huge silver blade dancing in the moonlight…ooh. That made me hot.

Julian cocked a brow at me.

I flushed. What had he been saying? Oh yeah, trouble with the household. Julian owned a set of townhouses, so I mentally substituted “apartments”. He occasionally used odd words, probably because he was old Boston money. At least that’s what Nixie said. “We’re going to Nieman’s,” I began.

“Yes. I heard you’re going out with Mishela.” His tone was unusually cool.

“Her and Glynn. Want to come?”

“Junior, the thing is, Mishela and Glynn aren’t like you and Rocky.”

He was warning me off, just like Nixie…no, not just like Nixie,
because
of Nixie. The bricky titch had pulled a Sales Maneuver—siccing a well-meaning relation on me. (Cousin Liese had tried to get me to talk her mom out of marrying a reformed bad boy. It backfired because I kind of liked Race.) “Not like us? Are they brain-sucking zombies? Space aliens?” I gasped. “Mimes?”