SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (147 page)

A second later, Devlin stepped to the door and smiled, and I confess, I wasn’t doing much more thinking. He swept one hand wide, inviting me inside and then he shut the door behind me.

Alone with Devlin.

Woo Hoo.

He gave me a smile and escorted me to the chair in front of his desk. “It’s good to see you again,” he said and wow, his voice really had an amazing timbre to it.

Sunlight splashed over the dark green walls of the huge room and my heels clicked on gleaming wooden floors. His desk was massive and I was really hoping this wasn’t a case of male compensation.

“Thanks,” I said, “um, who was that guy who just left?”

Why did I ask? Couldn’t tell you.

“Oh.” He frowned slightly. “Frank. He’s a bartender here.”

I nodded. See, Cass? Perfectly reasonable. Ridiculous to think my car killer would be here, anyway. So. Back to business.

“You brought the bid?”

“Yes,” I said and laid the manila folder on his desk as he took his seat opposite me. “You’ll see that it’s a very fair price for the job you want done. We’re fast. We’re bonded. And we’re very good at what we do.”

“You don’t have to sell me,” he said, leaning back in his chair and tapping his fingers against the folder he hadn’t even opened yet. “I’ve asked around. Clean Sweep is very popular in La Sombra.”

Pride had me sitting up a little straighter. After all, this was my baby. I’d built my business up the hard way, client by client, relying on word of mouth from satisfied customers to keep me growing. And it had worked. With this contract, it would be working even better.

Up until now, all of our customers had been residential. But if we could prove ourselves with Magic Nights, we could expand into any number of the businesses in town. Heck, Carmen could hire six or seven of her cousins.

“Don’t you want to look at the bid?” I asked, anxious to get this deal sewn up.

“Of course,” he said, “but I’m sure it’s fair.”

“That’s trusting of you.”

“Not at all. As I said, I researched you thoroughly.” He sat forward, leaned his forearms on his desktop and

stared me in the eye. “I like what I’ve discovered.”

Well color me happy. I let loose a breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding and slumped a little in my chair.

“Thank you,” I said. “Good to know.”

He smiled and my insides did a gleeful little two step. The man had some serious magnetism working for him, and I was pretty sure he knew it, too.

“So, if I hire you, are you still willing to go to dinner with me?”

Hell yes. But I didn’t think it was smart to be quite so eager, so I said, “And if I wasn’t?”

His lips curved again. “Then I’d have to seriously rethink hiring you. Because if there’s a choice, I’d rather see you personally than professionally.”

Whoa.

Okay, he was way past a Masters in flirting. We’re talking Doctorate at least. “Then let me make it easy on you,” I said. “I’ll still go out with you.”

“Then you’re hired.”

“Just like that?”

“Is there a problem?”

No. No problem. But he hadn’t even looked at the bid that Thea had burned brain cells over. The bid I’d worried over and thought about and fretted over turning in. “You still haven’t looked at the bid.”

He sighed, flipped open the manila folder, glanced at the neatly printed out estimation of labor and service, then slapped the folder shut again and looked at me.

“You’re hired.”

I blinked. Okay then. “Well, I like that you make up your mind fast.”

“I have,” he said and stood up, walked around the desk to me and helped me to my feet. “About a lot of things.”

Oh, boy. Just being this close to him was setting off brush fires in every corner of my body. He bent his head to mine. Closer, closer. Wow. I had been in the longest sex drought of my life and now all of a sudden, two different men wanted to kiss me, two days in a row. How slutty was I? Never mind. I really didn’t want the answer to that question anyway.

Oh, I knew this was so unprofessional. I should have stopped him, but I wasn’t a dummy. I moved in too, closer, closer. God. He smelled so good. Like...

“What is that perfume you’re wearing?” he asked and pulled his head back.

“It’s um,” think, Cassidy, think. Couldn’t really tell him it’s ‘demon spray’, now could I? “
Jasmine,”
I said quickly, thinking the demon hunter would get a kick out of it if she knew.

He frowned a little. “Doesn’t smell like jasmine.”

“You don’t like it?” Mental note. Do
not
spritz before big date. My body was humming but clearly, there wasn’t going to be any fun and games at the moment.

He gave me another smile and shrugged. “It’s... different.”

Hooking my arm through his, he walked me to the door, then opened it for me. “I’d like for you to start at the club next week. Monday?”

“Great. We’ll be here. First thing in the morning.”

“Good. I’ll have keys messengered to you this afternoon.”

This was great. A terrific job, a great looking man who wanted to take me to dinner. Everything was perfect. Except for the whole demon thing. And my car. And Logan. And oh yeah, Thea. Well, perfection was overrated anyway, right?

“And I’ll see you Saturday night?” His voice was low, husky, and sent a shiver of expectation rattling around inside me until I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear my knees knocking with the force of it.

“Saturday.”

“Seven?”

“Seven.”

Then I left and on the way to the parking lot, my brain kept up a steady stream of criticism.

You kissed Logan last night.

He kissed me, I argued with my rotten conscience.

And you almost kissed Devlin.

Not my fault.

How is it not your fault that you’re lusting after two different guys?

It just happened!

You’re going to have to choose between them.

I don’t do decisions. And besides, why do I have to choose? Why couldn’t I want both of them? Was there a law nobody told me about? Some decree that you were only allowed to fantasize about one man at a time?

I didn’t think so.

Men do it all the time, I argued silently. Nobody tells them they have to take one woman at a time.

That nasty little voice reminded me why.
That’s because we’re way more civilized than they are. They can’t help themselves.

You know what? I was tired of being civilized. Maybe it was time to let loose my inner barbarian.

Trouble...

I stopped dead, shook that voice right out of my head and said aloud, “A little lusting never hurt anybody, so get off my case, okay?”

An old man hunched over his shopping cart looked up from sorting his cans and bottles and said, “What’d I do, lady?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I snapped, then handed him a five dollar bill before marching to my ugly rental car and driving home with my radio blasting high enough to drown out that annoying little voice.

More than Fiends: Chapter Ten

“I brought pizza.”

I looked at Logan, standing there hopefully waving a pizza box at me from the front porch. Gotta say, he really knew the way to get in good in our house. The pizza did smell good and... “Fine. Come on in.”

I’d had a great day. A brand new contract for Magic Nights, a little training with Jasmine, another fight with Thea, and let’s not forget that almost kiss with Devlin.

Why not top it all off with a visit from my teenaged heart throb, who still knew how to knock my socks off with a kiss?

He grinned at me and hustled through the door as if half afraid I’d change my mind and slam it on him. And to be honest, it could have happened. But there was THE KISS to think about and damn. Now I was thinking in capital letters. Until the night before, I had actually forgotten just how good Logan was at tonsil examinations. Besides, I was hungry and I figured pizza might be enough to even get Thea out of security lockdown.

“Thea,” I shouted, “Pizza.”

Logan was already on the couch. In my spot, by the way, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I sat on the floor and pushed Sugar off my lap before she could get comfortable. When Logan lifted the lid on the pizza box and those hot, cheesy fumes poured out, the dog whimpered and I was right there with her.

“No way does that dog get my pepperoni,” Logan warned.

“He’s selfish, baby,” I murmured to Sugar and gave her a piece of mine. “Just so you know, hogging the food is so not the way to win friends in this house, Logan.”

“What kind of pizza?” Thea asked, stepping into the room and stopping dead like she’d walked into a solid wall of ice. Glaring from me to her father-(was it wrong for me to enjoy seeing him get
his
share of teenaged angst?) she said haughtily, “I’m not hungry.”

“Of course you are,” Logan said and jumped up from his seat on the couch. I thought about snatching it, but I was already comfortable. Besides, I had a better seat for the action. Poor Logan. He was trying so hard.

Too hard.

If he kept pushing at Thea, he’d push her so far he’d never be able to reach her.

He offered Thea a slice of pizza, but she walked past him, went to the coffee table and got her own. Have to say, I’d seen that one coming.

Then looking down at me, she said, “I want it understood that my taking this food does not mean that I’m through being pissed. It only means I’m hungry.”

“Got it,” I said around a mouthful of amazing pizza.

“Explain it to HIM,” she said.

Still with the capital letters.

“You betcha,” I assured her and handed off another piece of pepperoni to the dog.

“Explain what to me?” Logan asked, carrying his rebuffed pizza back to the couch.

“That she’s not speaking to us,” I told him and reached for another slice. Hey, it was a long day, okay?

“It’s more than that, MOTHER,” Thea said, ice dripping from her voice. “He has to stop following me around. He can’t talk to my friends at school. Or my teachers. And he can’t check up on me at the mall.”

I choked on a bite of pizza and steaming hot cheese stuck to the back of my throat. Eyes watering I looked frantically for something—
anything—
to drink. But there was only my more-than-an-hour-old cup of coffee. Desperate times. I grabbed the mug, downed a slug of really disgusting cold coffee—who drinks this stuff iced?—and swallowed down the pizza that had probably scarred me for life. Finally, I shot a look at Logan. “You didn’t.”

He fidgeted a little, clearly guilty as hell. “I saw her with some weird looking kid, is all.”

Hell. Weird looking described half of Thea’s class. I looked at her. “Who?”

She shrugged and grabbed another slice of pizza. All this not speaking to us stuff was making her hungry too. “Just Jett.”

“Aw, jeeezz.” Jett, AKA Morgan Talbot AKA the kid every mother feared her daughter would bring home. Nice enough, but every time I looked at his eyebrow ring or God help me, the silver bolt through his nose, I cringed and wanted to go get a pliers to set him free. And that wasn’t even mentioning the spiky black hair, the pants always hanging down around his knees or the fact that he always called me
Dude.

Let’s be clear. Thea was still fifteen. She wasn’t going to be dating until she was sixteen. Or thirty if I could manage it. But she could see friends. Or see them at the mall. Or bring them home. Why that friend had to be Jett, only Thea knew.

But, I could totally understand why Logan had followed his only child when he spotted her with Jett.

“HE,” Thea said, jerking her head in her father’s direction, “totally embarrassed me in front of Jett. Asking PERSONAL questions. Telling him he was going to RUN him, whatever that means. Jett will probably NEVER call me again.”

“You think?” I asked, and maybe my voice was too hopeful, because I got a sneer and then Thea was off, back to cellblock D. With another slice of pizza.

“This parenting thing isn’t easy,” Logan said and took a bite of pizza.

“
Duh
.”

“Right,” he said, leaning forward and studying his slice of pepperoni pizza like it was the first he’d ever seen. “I know. You’ve been doing it for years and I’m coming into it late.” He stopped and waited for me to look up at him. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. Or that I don’t love her.”

Hell.

I could see that and I didn’t want to. Damn it, I didn’t want to have a soft spot for Logan. He was my past and—

“Thea’s not the only one I’ve got feelings for, Cassie,” he said and edged off the couch to sit beside me on the floor.

He was way too close. My blood started humming even while I was trying to edge away.

“Logan,” I said, “last night was...”

“Great,” he whispered and leaned in closer.

God. He not only looked good, he smelled good, too. Some kind of spicy aftershave mixed with the scent of his black leather jacket.

“I told you I’ve thought about you a lot over the years,” he said.

“Bet Tipsy was happy about that.”

“Misty.”

“Whatever.”

He smiled. “I know you know her name.”

“Sure, I remember Fluffy.” I grinned and took another bite of pizza.

“You always could make me a little nuts,” he admitted, and moved in even closer, edging the dog out of her comfy spot. Sugar took exception and huffed out a breath before scooting away from both of us. Logan took advantage and eased in even closer. “Mmmm. What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”

Apparently the demon brew had a different effect on Logan than it did on Devlin. Lucky me.

“Jasmine” I said, since I was in no shape to think up a new lie.

“Yeah?” Logan said, “Smells great. Makes me hungry. Makes me want to take a big bite of your neck.”

“Yeah?” I turned my face and oh, look what happened. My mouth was just a breath away from his.

See, this was why I hadn’t wanted him around. Sixteen years ago, he’d made me burn. Now? I could smell smoke and I swear I could feel the flames licking at my feet. Apparently I hadn’t gotten any smarter about him over the years. I looked up into his eyes and heard myself say, “Show me.”