Seducing the Chambermaid [Notorious Nephilim 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (7 page)

Andras grinned. “I’ve been resisting the urge to go up to the fourth floor all day. We may have to reassign her work to someone else.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be noticed by anyone.”

“Okay, bad idea. But I want to invite her to dinner. I mean a real one. Candles and the whole deal.”

Leo gave him a droll look. “You know that would backfire. We don’t know her past experience. If you lead her on and give her the wrong impression, it could bring trouble.”

“She’s already in trouble.”

“You know what I mean, Andras. You give a woman the idea you’re interested in her romantically, and she starts hearing wedding bells.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen, is it?”

“No kidding. But she doesn’t know that, Andras.”

Andras shrugged and plopped into the nearest chair, resting his hands in his chin. “Then let’s tell her the truth.”

Leo averted his gaze. He didn’t want to admit to Andras he’d been thinking the same thing. “We can’t get involved with them. Not that way. You know the rules.”

“Do you think that’s real? The conditions placed on our imprisonment?”

“Don’t you?”

The two stared at each other. The same fear coursing through Leo’s body was reflected in Andras’s eyes.

“I don’t know. None of us have actually tested it.”

“Andras, you aren’t serious. One hour with her and you’re dizzy with a dame?”

Andras ran his hand through his hair in a gesture that reminded Leo of Zach. He’d picked up many of Zach’s habits working in that tiny office with him all day for fifteen years. “I don’t know. I mean, maybe. Shit. I can’t get her out of my head, Leo. And I feel terrible about the way we handled it. She was scared, and we seduced her. You know as well as I do she didn’t steal that damn necklace. And I’m still not sure what went down with the jewelry in the alley, but I don’t believe she’s working for her father or that she stole anything from him or his clients.”

“I don’t either.” Leo pulled a chair across from Andras. “But I’m not ready to throw in the towel, Andras. Sure, we’ll have our fun with her, but let’s be careful, okay? We don’t know anything about her.”

“Then we should get to know her. The proper way.”

Leo laughed. “The proper way? A girl like Blair deserves to be courted. I’ll agree with you on that one. But we can’t do that, now can we? Not the proper way. Our intentions aren’t proper. Our intentions are more of the same as we got yesterday and a few other things, if we can talk her into it. Not that she needed much persuading—”

“Shut your mouth, Leo.” Andras’s eyes flashed with anger.

“What?”

“I said shut your fucking mouth.”

“What’s your story? She’s no gold digger or moll, but you can’t tell me you aren’t wondering the same things about her. She didn’t exactly stop us, and she certainly knew what to do when we—”

Andras stood up so fast his chair nearly toppled. He clenched his fists. “We used our powers on her.”

Leo stood and faced his friend. “All right. Calm down. You’re right. Man, Andras. You have it bad.”

“I’m having dinner with her tonight. I don’t give a shit if you approve.”

Leo waved him away. “Fine. Go. But don’t come crying to me when she starts talking about china patterns and what she wants to name her children.”

Andras slammed the door, and Leo stared at it for a long time, trying not to picture him naked with Blair, tangled in the sheets. Why the hell had he reacted that way when Andras told him how terrible he felt about the way they’d seduced her? What he’d said was the truth. They’d treated her like a whore, and she hadn’t deserved that. Now, instead of helping Andras make it up to her, Leo had a mountain of work to finish tonight. Alone. Without Blair and her big blue eyes. Fuck.

By the end of the workday, Blair was in no mood to eat dinner with the staff. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Leo and Andras in the arms of another woman, and her stomach was tied up in knots. But she knew if she didn’t eat something, she’d wake up in the middle of the night from hunger pains, so she decided to take a sandwich and maybe some roasted vegetables up to her room. Those were always so good. Her mother used to make them, and the taste reminded Blair of happier times.

Maybe she’d listen to the radio and sit in front of her open window to enjoy the warm night? It was almost Independence Day. Did they shoot off fireworks here? She hoped so. It had always been her favorite holiday. Her mother had loved to watch fireworks over Lake Michigan. After she died, her father eventually stopped taking Blair to see them.

She was lost in memories of her childhood as she made her way from the bathroom at the end of the hall, where she’d just taken a quick shower. She liked to get hers in early, before the rest of the chambermaids who lived on this floor lined up to wait their turn after dinner.

Dressing in blue jeans and a simple cotton blouse, she glanced at the clock. She had just enough time to get dinner before they stopped serving it. As she rounded a corner near the staff dining room, her gaze was on the floor in front of her, and consequently she didn’t see the muscled chest of Andras Neville until she ran straight into it. Just as she had the day before in front of the elevators.

“Oh…Mr. Neville…” Heat flooded her neck and face. Every erotic image from last night’s dreams came rushing back. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”

“That’s two days in a row.” He glanced around then fixed her with a grin that made her pussy flood. “It’s all right to call me Andras.” He lowered his voice. “We’ve seen each other naked, after all.”

Blair bit back a moan as his soft, sexy voice washed over her.

“I came up here looking for you.” He produced a red rose from behind his back. “And to invite you to dinner.”

Blair stared at the rose with her mouth open. No one had ever given her a flower, let alone a red rose. He placed it in her hand then tilted her chin up with one finger. “Will you have dinner with me?”

She’d do anything he wanted. All he had to do was ask. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes.”

“Yes.”

Andras offered his arm, and she took it. He guided her toward the elevator. She couldn’t get in there with him. It was too close and tight. There was no way she’d be able to keep her hands off him. The scent of the rose mixed with his smell of peppermint, forcing memories from yesterday into her already crowded imagination.

Blair inhaled deeply and wished she could think of clever words to use like the women in the moving pictures. They always knew exactly what to say, how to bat their eyelashes, and just the right way to smile to make the man fall crazy in love with them.

Andras pulled back the gate and ushered her inside. She squeezed against the back wall and tried not to stare at his forearms as the sleeves of his jacket fell back a bit. As she recalled the fine dusting of blond hair on them from yesterday, an urge to run her fingers across it washed over her.

Would he want to have sex again after dinner? Blair sighed, hoping he hadn’t heard it. She was still sore from yesterday, but at the thought of his thick cock inside her again, her nipples tingled and her clit throbbed. Would Leo be there, too? They had said it would take time to work off what she’d done, giving her the impression they meant she’d be working off her debt with both of them.

“Thank you, Andras.”

He smiled at her, and Blair’s panties grew wet again. “What are you thanking me for?”

She held out the rose. “This. It’s beautiful.”

“So are you, Blair.”

Blair blinked a few times, trying to pretend she was Carole Lombard or Jean Harlow. What would they say right now? “You’re not so bad yourself, Andras.”

His grin forced her to bite back another moan. “I’m glad you think so.”

“Oh, I do. You and Leo both. You’re so handsome.” Blair swiped at the beads of sweat collecting along her hairline. Was this elevator ever going to stop?

“Here we are.” Andras opened the gate onto the second floor. He led her out a side door, onto a stone patio enclosed by tall bushes and flowering plants. Bees buzzed, and birds sang. Andras waved her into a wicker chair and took a seat in the other one, across the table from her.

“I love this time of year, don’t you?”

Blair nodded.

“This is one of my favorite places to come and sit. It’s very secluded, but still outdoors. Dinner will be here in a moment.” He glanced at the rose, still clutched in her hand. “We should put that in some water so it doesn’t wilt.” She handed him the rose. “I’ll be right back,” he said, rising.

He went back inside, and Blair looked around, wondering which part of the building they were in. She hadn’t had much spare time to go exploring, even though she was off one day a week and only worked a ten-hour day. She usually spent her day off in her room or walking around the lake.

There were three lakes on the property, but she liked the large one out front the best. There was a dirt trail around it that wound into the woods. Walking along it made her feel like she’d disappeared into another world. One where men like Frankie or Lenny didn’t exist.

She’d spent anxious minutes staring at the front of the building from across that lake the day she discovered this resort, debating whether to take a chance and go inside to ask for help. The idea of exploring the rest of the place had never occurred to her. It was enough they’d given her a job, clothes to wear, and a room to sleep in.

When Andras returned, two young men she recognized as staff followed him. One of them raised his eyebrows when he spotted her but said nothing. Blair averted her gaze and kept it trained on a beetle crawling across the flagstones. A vase like the one she’d broken that morning appeared in the center of the table. Not only her rose graced it, but someone had added baby’s breath and greens to the arrangement as well.

The men put china plates and silverware in front of her and Andras, left several covered dishes in the center of the table, and finished by placing a folded napkin in her lap. Andras thanked them then waited until they’d left before picking up a bottle of wine.

“I hope you like Cabernet Sauvignon.” He poured a glass for each of them then lifted his by the stem. “What shall we drink to?”

Blair raised her glass and stared into his eyes. The air had that odd charged feel again, which made no sense. It was a warm June night, the darkening sky was free of clouds, and barely a breeze blew. Was it coming from him? “Why am I here, Andras?”

He smiled indulgently. “Don’t try to convince me you’ve never been asked out to dinner, Blair.”

“All right. I won’t try.”

He frowned. “You haven’t? Are you serious?”

She nodded. The closest she’d ever come to having dinner with a boy was when Johnny Robards walked around the corner to the diner with her after school twice a week. Their encounters could hardly have been called dates. Most days Blair had to pay for her own burgers and colas. When she refused to have sex with Johnny while his parents went to New York for several weeks the summer after their junior year in high school, he threw her over for a girl named Nadine, who was more than willing to have sex with him while his parents were out of town.

“Well then, let’s drink to your first real dinner date.” He clinked his glass against hers, tasted the wine, then closed his eyes and made a soft sound in the back of his throat. The gesture was so seductive Blair was seized with a sudden urge to lunge across the table and devour his full lips.

She took a sip of wine. It was the most expensive tasting wine she’d ever had. Smooth and chilled perfectly, it slid down her throat and went straight to her head, enhancing the charge to the air and the erotic atmosphere.

“Do you like it?”

“It’s wonderful.”

“The food smells great. Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

Andras lifted the lid off one of the tureens, and the musty smell of oysters filled the space between them. “Do you like oysters?”

“I’ve only had them once.”

“Here.” He lifted one and held it to her mouth. “We make them with garlic and butter.”

She sucked out the middle, moaning a little as the taste exploded in her mouth. “That’s amazing.”

“I thought you’d like them.”

“The food here is incredible, Andras.”

“It should be. We pay our chefs a lot of money to work up here away from the city.”

His half-grin was somehow sexier than any expression she’d seen on his face so far. Blair licked her fingers when she finished her oysters, and Andras laughed. “I love to watch a woman enjoying food.”

“That’s wrong, isn’t it?” The heat rushed up her face.

“Absolutely not, Blair. When you relax and enjoy yourself, it’s never wrong.”

She stared at his hands as he poured her a second glass of wine. Her mother had always said you could tell a lot about a person by their hands. Whether they worked hard, practiced good hygiene, or were healthy. Andras’s hands were clean, with long fingers and hardly any calluses. What would her mother have thought of him?

God help her. She was going to fall head over heels in love with this man. There was no way to avoid it. He was everything she’d ever imagined a real gentleman would be. She and her girlfriends would sit around when they were teens, musing about the things their future husband would do. Romantic and thoughtful things, gleaned from radio shows, books they sneaked away from their mothers or older sisters, and later from the movies.

What a mess. This man was her employer. Blair had no idea why he’d gone to so much trouble with this dinner, but surely it was only because he wanted to repeat yesterday. So why then had he bothered with a red rose, incredible food, and wine? It’s not like he or Leo had worked hard yesterday to seduce her. Blair’s memory of the moments leading up to Leo putting her over his knee and spanking her were still hazy, but she knew there hadn’t been wine or food involved.

“Blair, I owe you an apology.” Andras lifted the lid off another tureen, and the succulent smell of roasted vegetables and lamb filled the air. He spooned mint sauce onto her plate followed by the meat and vegetables.

“An apology? I don’t understand.” She drained her wine glass, immediately wishing she hadn’t. The dizziness passed in a few seconds, but Blair had trouble concentrating on Andras’s next words.