[English] BEAUTY DATES THE BEAST

Beauty Dates the Beast
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“I always fuss over you. Besides, you fainted.” I ran a hand over her bare arm, feeling for telltale fur. “How are you now? Are you good?”

“I’m fine,” she said, shoving my hands off of her like she would an overprotective mother. “It just startled me. Tell me about your date.” A shadow crossed her face. “He didn’t ask about me, did he?”

“Dinner was very nice. The restaurant was lovely. You would have liked it.” If you ignored the car thing, the drop-in from the werewolf, and my date telling me he was going into heat.

“Your face is red,” she said. “You like him, don’t you?”

I focused on the front yard, avoiding her gaze. “Don’t be silly. I’m just going out with him this one time. It’s not going to go anywhere. You know it can’t.”

“You like him,” she restated slowly. “And you don’t like anyone. Huh.”

I ignored her, scanning the house for Beau again. He had insisted on checking out the place one more time in cougar form. When that yielded nothing, he shifted back and made a few phone calls while Sara and I waited in his car.

All of my suggestions to go into the house were met with a small growl.

“Should we call the police?” I rolled down the window and asked.

He shook his head at me. “I don’t think what was in your house was human. We can’t notify the police—that would compromise the Alliance members in the immediate vicinity.”

I didn’t give a crap about the Alliance. I wanted to get back inside my house and see what was missing or touched or disturbed.

Beau circled back toward the car, pulling his pants on and buckling his belt. “I smelled a mixture of things. Like werewolf and something else.”

Sara stiffened next to me, and fear clenched my heart. “We can’t smell anything,” I told him. “You’re the one with the shifter nose.”

He gave me a sheepish look. “Right. I keep forgetting.”

“Isn’t it safe to go back in?” I asked again. “You’ve gone over the property three times.”

He shook his head and reached for his shirt. “One of the tigers in the Merino clan knows forensics. He’ll be over shortly to dust the house and look for evidence.” His hand stretched toward me. “House keys, please?”

I held my purse tightly. “Why?”

“So Mike can check out the house while I take you two to a hotel.”

No way. Not with Sara’s scent all over the place.

Beau continued, “Mike insisted that we leave the crime scene intact, and that’s what we’re going to do. I can go inside and get you some clothes once he gives the okay.”

Sara’s hand clutched mine anxiously, and I knew what she was thinking. If Beau went inside and dug through her things he’d find wolf scent all over her clothing—or worse, he’d find the clothes that she had last used when she changed: a torn T-shirt and a wrinkled pair of shorts that reeked of the change.

“We’re fine,” I blurted. “We don’t need clothes. Let’s just go.”

Beau’s eyebrows went up and he glanced over at Sara in her pajamas. “All right,” he said slowly. “I’ll buy you girls some clothes and we can check things out in the morning. Sound good?”

I still didn’t like the thought of a stranger poking around in our house, especially one with a shifter’s nose. “We sometimes take care of the neighbor’s dog for her,” I lied, to explain the canine scent sure to be in the house. “Tell Mike that if a woman with a dog comes to the doorstep in the morning to call me.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Beau’s mouth. “I’ll tell him.”

Without another reason to stall, I handed him the keys.

He walked away to greet the car that pulled up.

Mike turned out to be an enormous man with short, close-cropped black curls and a cheerful expression, despite it being nearly midnight and freezing outside. He and Beau talked for a couple of minutes, then Beau showed Mike to the front door and they went inside. I clasped my hands tightly to stop myself from dashing inside and dousing the house with some scent-masking sprays—or better yet, chasing the men out of the house.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Sara told me, trying to ease my worry. “You know I’m careful. And if Beau didn’t notice anything before …”

At least I had the clothes on my back. Poor Sara had only her pajamas.

Beau returned a few moments later and I got out to meet him. He moved to my side as if he belonged there and began to rub my shoulders. “Mike’s going to be several hours, so he’s going to drop your keys off to me in the morning.”

“All right. Sara and I will stay at the office,” I said.

“You can’t sleep at the office,” Beau argued, putting his warm arm around me. He gestured at Sara, still huddled in the car, her legs tucked under her. “She looks a little freaked out. Wouldn’t you rather stay in a nice, comfortable hotel room?”

I glanced over at my sister. She was a dainty, fragile sort, so unlike me with my tall, sturdy frame. Tonight she seemed even smaller, staring at the house with worried eyes, waiting for Mike to discover her secret and ruin her life. She was shivering, too.

I sighed. “She could use a good night’s sleep. Thank you. We’ll stay at the hotel.”

He nodded and pulled me against him, tucking me under his chin and cradling my body to his.

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I stiffened a little, but he only ran his hands gently up and down my back. It felt lovely and soothing, and I finally relaxed a little.

Unfortunately, snuggling with a man was not the way to get rid of him.

At the hotel, Beau got us the room adjoining his. The hotel room was lovely, the blankets turned down, and fluffy robes hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I felt sleepy just looking at the big, plush bed.

“I’ll be on the other side if you need me,” Beau said, standing in the doorway that connected the two rooms. “Sleep tight, ladies.”

With a wink at me, he closed the door.

As soon as he was gone, I slumped on the edge of the bed and sighed. “God, I wish he wasn’t so hot. That would make this all so much easier.”

Sara tapped her ear, indicating that his shifter hearing could hear our conversation.

Oh, well. It wasn’t like I’d done a good job hiding it anyhow.

She moved to the closet and opened it, scanning the contents. Then she turned to me and mouthed, “Are there extra blankets?”

“Why?” I mouthed back.

She gestured at herself. “I still smell like whatever was in the house,” she mouthed, her voice barely audible. “I need to shower and get the stink off of me. But if I do …”

She’d smell like herself again. And if I slept next to her all night, I’d smell like her, too, because I didn’t have any other clothes to sleep in.

Should I go downstairs and get a third room? Beau was sure to be curious if I did, and we would have to be more cautious than ever.

Unless … he’d already figured out that Sara was a werewolf? I discarded the thought. He’d have questioned me about it immediately if he had, or demanded to speak to Sara. Our secret was still safe.

Sara trembled slightly as she stared down at the bed, knowing she couldn’t get into it and relax. Knowing that our being here wasn’t a full reprieve, that in the next room was a man who could give away everything we had worked so hard to conceal. As I watched, she rubbed her arms. They were covered in goose pimples, a sure sign that she was about to shift due to stress.

I waved a hand to get her attention, then gestured at the connecting door. “I’m going to go sleep with Beau,” I mouthed. “You take this bed.”

Her eyes went wide with shock and she forgot to whisper. “Bath, what—”

I cut her off with a quick wave of my hand, then mouthed, “Not like that!” I moved closer to her to explain my plan. “I’ll just tell him that you snore and I won’t be able to sleep. It’s perfect, because if I sleep in the same bed as him we’ll have the same scent, and he won’t suspect a thing.”

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It was a perfect plan, but it wasn’t why I wanted to sleep next to him. I wanted to sleep next to him because the very thought made me shiver with excitement.

“Bath, no.” Sara mouthed the protest. “What if he’s a creep?”

I shook my head. “He’s not a creep,” I whispered back. “He’s nice. He won’t do anything.” I decided not to mention the whole “in heat” thing.

She didn’t look convinced, but I saw her gaze sneak back to the bed, and she sighed. “I can sleep on the floor,” she began, but my eye roll cut her off.

She sat down on the foot of the bed, then gave me a weak thumbs-up that I returned. When she was freshly showered and wrapped in the bathrobe, I flicked the lights off, then closed the door behind me, stepping back out into the hall.

A loud, fake snore began to rise from the room, so I took a deep breath and knocked on Beau’s door.

He opened it a few moments later, his hair tousled, chest bare. My gaze went immediately to the low-slung plaid sleep pants around his waist, noticing the dark trail of hair that crept down his abdomen.

“Hi, again,” he said.

I jerked my head up, caught staring. “Oh. Hi.”

“Something wrong?”

Not in the slightest, I thought as warmth spread through my body. I gestured at our room. “I hate to ask, but my sister snores and I thought I might sleep with you.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Sleep in the same room as you,” I amended quickly. “We could put pillows between us or something. And it’ll give us a chance to … talk.”

“I can get another room,” he began.

“I’d rather stay with you,” I said. “It’s not a come-on. I just feel safer with you in the room, if that’s all right.”

He stepped aside to let me in. “Of course.”

Ever the gentleman, Beau immediately offered me a spare set of pajamas, and I took a quick shower and brushed my teeth with the complimentary toothbrush. When I emerged the room was empty, with a note that Beau had gone to get extra pillows from the front desk.

He returned a short time later. The click of the lock on the door was the only thing that let me know that he’d come back; other than that, he moved as silently as a cat. Hah.

I had already prepared the bed for his return. Pillows were stacked in the middle and I’d wrapped myself in one of the extra blankets, leaving him the sheet and the duvet. His lips twitched at the sight, but he said nothing. He simply put the extra pillows down and clicked the light off.

“I thought we were going to talk,” I reminded him.

The other side of the mattress dipped with Beau’s weight as he chuckled. “My mouth works just fine in the dark, Bathsheba. I imagine yours does, too.”

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Now that was a blatant double entendre. My heart pounded with nervous excitement. Oddly enough, I was a little breathless at his pursuit. Would he shove the pillows aside and take me into his arms? Kiss me senseless?

I squirmed a little at the thought and forced myself not to think such things. I had told him this would be innocent, and he had agreed. Why was I fantasizing about him ravishing me? I rolled over on my side, facing away from Beau, and tried to relax. It was a near-impossible task—my body was utterly conscious of the man who lay so close to me.

I tried to think of something to say. After all, the premise of my being here was that I wanted to talk to him, right? So I needed to talk.

One arm snaked out and grabbed me by the waist, pulling me across the bed. Instead of the wall of pillows I expected to meet, I slid across the sheets and bumped into his chest. “Shhh,” he said softly in my ear, his breath warm. Hot snakes of desire coiled through me.

“So tell me,” he whispered quietly in my ear. “Who would want to kill Sara?” His thumb began to stroke my arm in a rather distracting, shivery pattern.

I stilled in his arms, shocked by the rush that crept over my skin. It took me a moment to recover, and then I realized what he was asking. Lots and lots of people probably wanted to kill Sara, but I couldn’t tell him that. I feigned ignorance. “What do you mean?”

“Whoever was in the house.” He pulled me closer until my backside was spooned against his front. The breath stole out of my lungs at the warmth that flooded through me. His arms enveloped me, and huddled next to him, I felt like the smallest, daintiest woman in the world rather than my five-foot-ten self. It was pretty close to heaven.

“The intruder?” I asked. “No one who knows Sara wants to kill her.”

It was all those wolves that didn’t know her that were the problem.

I could feel his warm breath against my ear and neck. “Any ex-boyfriends or angry lovers?”

I was silent. The only ex-boyfriend she had was a dead one.

I knew he was dead because I’d shot him.

“No angry lovers,” I said. “Sara’s not seeing anyone. Do you think she was the target?”

I could feel his chest moving with every breath. His hand slid off my arm and down my waist, then across the cradle of my hips in a very intimate embrace. “Would someone be after you, then?”

He was making it damn hard to concentrate. I struggled to gather my thoughts and shook my head. “Not unless I’ve pissed off the bookkeeping mafia. We’re dangerous people, you know.”

“Shhh. Keep your voice down,” he said, then bit my earlobe gently.

That playful caress made my entire body flare, and I flexed my hips back against his instinctively. A small whimper rose in my throat.

I heard his groan in my ear, and his spread hand flexed across my belly. “Did you like that?” he murmured, and repeated the action. His teeth scored against the edge of my earlobe, and I felt his tongue flick against my earring. “Shall I tell you how ***y you look wearing nothing but my pajamas?” Nip, nip.

Dear God, this was the best thing I’d ever felt. Why in the world was I still a virgin? My hand covered his, my fingers pulsing in time with his, kneading the flesh of my stomach as well. I felt his c**k against my backside, hard and obvious, and began to entertain some very naughty thoughts.

But I couldn’t. I removed his hand from my belly and could have wept. “I’m not going to sleep with you, Beau.”

He chuckled as I tried to move my head. He was lying on my still-damp hair. “Who says we have to sleep?”

I jerked on my hair and he moved, leaning over me instead of next to me. His breath fanned across my neck. Though I was free now, I made no attempt to move, excited and quivering. What would he do?

To my surprise, Beau leaned over me and bit my collarbone. Too low to be a vampire bite at the carotid, but I felt the definite scrape of teeth at the base of my neck, and then the sensual slide of his tongue over my flesh.

It felt so good that I wasn’t able to contain my moan of pleasure, and when his tongue stroked over the sensitive spot again, my hand twined in his hair to hold him in place, encouraging him to do it again. With every stroke of his tongue, a whimper of enjoyment slid from my throat.

“Shhh,” he whispered against my ear before nibbling at it again. “You’re going to wake up the neighbors.”

Through the wall, I could hear Sara fake-snore loudly.

I froze.

What was I doing? I wanted to thank Sara for the obvious reminder, and smack her on the head for interrupting. As smoking-hot as Beau was, he was a shifter, and off-limits in more ways than he could imagine. He also just wanted someone to slake his needs while he was in heat.

My sister was probably scarred for life, listening to me make out with Beau. My hand went to his face and I pushed him away. I felt Beau’s snort of amusement against my fingers, but he took the hint and backed off, returning to his side of the bed.

There, he grabbed my hand, then pressed a kiss to my palm. “We’ll talk in the morning, Bathsheba. Get some sleep.”

“Good night,” I whispered back. I lay there, awake and breathing hard for long minutes. My body still thrummed and my legs felt curiously liquid. Just from a nip or two at the neck and ear.

I fell asleep picturing myself and Beau in some naughty situations, hoping I wouldn’t say his name in my sleep.

Chapter Four

When I awoke and squinted at the sunlight streaming in through the window, Beau’s side of the bed was cold and he was gone. A note sat on a nearby stack of clothing, along with my keys.

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I sat up and grabbed the note—not that I was eager to hear from him. Nope. I squelched the shadow of disappointment that I felt at not seeing Beau this morning. Like I cared how he looked in the morning. Or if he had a five-o-clock shadow.

Or if he had those cute, tousled cowlicks in his hair when he woke up. Or if his eyes had that sleepy look that made my legs jelly. Nope. Didn’t care.

His handwriting was scrawly and loose, but somehow intimate, and just looking at it gave me the warm fuzzies.

Bathsheba,

Mike didn’t find anything unusual in the house. I’m going to go and check things out for myself. I’ll be watching the house to make sure nothing—or no one—returns. If you can, please stay away for a few more hours, until I know it’s safe. I went down to the gift shop and got you both some clothes—I guessed at your sizes. Hope that’s okay. There’s some money in the pocket for a cab, and use my cre*** card if you need it. You have my cell number. Call me later today and we can make plans. I’m not letting you get away easily.

I sighed.

In true masculine form, Beau had incorrectly guessed at both our sizes. The Dallas Cowboys sweatpants and T-shirt he’d gotten for Sara were about two sizes too big. Her slim form swam in the sporty clothing, but she gushed about how thoughtful Beau was.

My clothes—me being taller and bustier than Sara—were too tight. The shirt was indecent and the jogging pants were so short they could have been capris. I put them on anyhow and wore my minidress over them as a tunic.

“Good thing Giselle is never in the office,” Sara said, rolling up her sleeves. “She’d have a heart attack if she saw us dressed like this to come to work.”

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Luck was not on our side. We’d no more than arrived at the small Liaisons office and told the nighttime girls (Ryder and Marie) about our harrowing break-in before Giselle breezed in, a vision in a red minidress. Her dark, wavy hair cascaded over her shoulders.

I swallowed hard at the sight of my boss. “Giselle,” I said weakly. “You’re back early.” Well, ****. That just complicated things.

“Bathsheba,” she called in a clipped accent. “I want to see you in my office. Now.” She didn’t bother to look at the four of us gathered at Sara’s desk.

All my senses on alert, I straightened my clothes. Giselle must have somehow heard about my date with Beau and had come into the office to put the smack down on me. ****.

Sara gave me a wide-eyed look as I passed, but she didn’t scurry for the file room. The other girls in the office weren’t shifters, and Giselle was a siren. Sirens had a lot going for them, but the preternatural sense of smell wasn’t one of them. It was why we’d been able to work here for so long.

Giselle was not the most understanding boss, however. She kept odd hours, expected her employees to be held to higher standards than her own, and had a bunch of weird quirks that I’d written off as supernaturally based, but she wasn’t a fool. She might chide us for dressing down for one day, but it wouldn’t affect how we answered the phones or handled clients. Her anger had to be because of my date.

I’d let myself get carried away with Beau’s attractive face and my own raging hormones. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

As soon as I entered Giselle’s posh corner office, she shut the door behind me. I picked an empty chair and sat down. Her office was furnished far better than the rest of the building—the chairs were plush and thick, and fine art hung on the walls.

We had one lousy motivational poster in the outer office.

She took her time crossing over to the far side of the room and sat down at her desk, a coy look on her face. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, Bathsheba?” Her voice was singsongy and deliberately sweet.

Not a good sign.

I plucked at the hem of my dress and hoped she hadn’t noticed that the pants underneath had a sports logo on the hip. “I only met Mr. Russell to tell him that I wouldn’t be going out with him. I tried calling, but you were unavailable.”

Giselle pulled out her cell phone, flicked the screen a few times with her thumb, then offered the phone to me.

I looked at the picture she’d pulled up. Beau and me, sitting at the restaurant table. My eyes were closed, the look on my face rapturous as Beau fed me something.

Whoops.

She leaned over and snatched the phone out of my hand. “Isn’t the first rule of working here that you cannot date the clients? Haven’t I explained to you that humans and Alliance do not mix? Ever?”

I swallowed hard. “I know.” Oh, God, I was going to lose my job.

“And yet you disobeyed my rules.” She pointed at me. “His mark is all over your neck. Do you know how I heard about this?”

“No.” I touched my neck and blushed. The spot where he’d bit me didn’t have a visible mark, though it felt hot to me. Did sirens have X-ray vision?

She crossed her arms. “I had no less than four—four!—calls last night. The werewolf community is quite upset and they’re threatening to boycott my service if I fix up more humans. They’ve made calls to several other important leaders, and I’ve already had one VIP pull his account. Not only is the entire Alliance upset, but they’re furious that I”—she stabbed her finger at her chest—“have given an authorized visa to a human. Even worse, I have not extended the same offer to other leaders as I have to the leader of the Russell clan.”

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I put my hands to my forehead and slowly went over everything she’d spouted at me. “Could you repeat that?”

“If one clan of weres can date a human, all can date a human, or so I’m being told. As you can see, I have a problem.” Giselle gave me a look of disgust. “A big problem that you have created. My best clients with the biggest accounts want to know why the were-cougars are so special that they get exclusive treatment over my regular clients. Exclusive access to a papered, pedigreed human virgin—”

“Wait,” I interrupted. She made me sound like a dog. “Pedigreed human virgin?”

She gave me a look that said I should be quiet, then continued. “Rights to a human woman who has been cleared and declared fit for the Alliance. What am I supposed to tell these very important men?” Her eyes narrowed into slits.

I wrung my hands in my lap and hoped she didn’t notice. “I only met him because …”

“Because?”

Could I tell her the truth? That Sara had been freaking out and I’d been distracted by another customer and the answer had blurted out of my mouth before I’d thought about it? Finally, I admitted the truth.

“I tried calling you, but I got your voice mail and knew you didn’t want to be disturbed, so I had to make a decision. He asked me to go out with him, and I thought maybe one teeny date wouldn’t hurt.”

Giselle’s mouth formed a hard line. “You thought wrong. I should toss you out on the street, along with your sister.”

My heart sank. Giselle paid us both very well. If we were fired, it’d be hellish trying to find jobs that paid as much as working here. And here we were safe, because we knew where the packs were and what they were up to. We knew that the were-cougars lived up in Little Paradise on the edge of Fort Worth. We knew that the wolf packs lived on the far side of the Metroplex. We had tabs on every single shifter in the area who used the service, which made Sara safer, knowing who and where to avoid.

If we were fired we’d have to leave the city and start all over again. We had some money, but not enough for a move cross-country into blind territory. What if we moved to Portland or San Diego and the weres were thicker there than here?

“Please don’t fire me or Sara,” I begged. “We need this job.”

Her eyes were hard as they focused on me. “Are you loyal to me and my company?”

“Yes.” Anything to keep my job.

“Will you do whatever it takes to get back in my good graces?”

A few unpaid overtime shifts would be well worth it. “Whatever you want. My schedule is open.”

Giselle leaned back in her chair. “Good. I should almost thank that were-cougar for marking you,” she said absently, staring at my neck. The patch of skin burned under her scrutiny. “His mark makes you infinitely more desirable to others, now that you’ve been staked out as someone else’s property.”

That wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting. “Beg pardon?”

Her perfect mouth curved in a smile. “You, my succulent little human virgin, are going to go on another date. Several of them, actually.”

Beau must have called and made arrangements early. That made my stomach give a happy flip, but I quelled it. I had to think of Sara, not my hormones. “Mr. Russell is charming, but—”

“You’re not going out with Mr. Russell,” she snapped. “You are done with the Russell clan unless they go through the service and pay the fees.”

My brow wrinkled. “I’m not following—”

“This is a dating service. And you know as well as I do that desired females are very much in demand.”

Giselle stood up, towering over me. “As I said, since last night, I have gotten calls from four very important account holders. They were not aware that we had sanctioned human women available, much less a virgin.” Her lips curved into a smile. “I told them that it was a new offering, of course. And since you have the blessing of a clan leader, not only are you papered and authorized but you are also very desirable.” She strolled around her desk and approached the chair that I huddled in. “You, my dumpling, are going to go out on dates with these men. Or mermen. Or werewolves. Or naga. Or whatever I decide. They are going to pay an extra charge to go out with our sweet human virgin with the pretty blond hair.” Her pitiless mouth curved. “And you are going to keep them interested in my dating service, or you are out on your sweet, virginal ass. Understand?”

Each date meant Sara was in more danger—but I couldn’t afford to lose my job, either. “What exactly do these dates entail?”

“No ***,” she said bluntly. “Most of your appeal is that you are virginal. That’s rare in a full-grown human these days. You play sweet and coy and you blush, and you keep them interested. And then you get to keep your job. You and that little Sara bitch.”

I stood up, liking that when I stood, I was half a foot taller than her. “Don’t call my sister a bitch, Giselle.”

“But isn’t that what she is, Bathsheba? A little bitch.”

I stared at Giselle, my mouth dry. Was she hinting at what I thought she was?

“You and your sister think you are so smart. So smug that you’re keeping a secret from your supe boss.” Her eyes were ice cold. “Nothing goes on in this business that I do not know about. Understand? All it takes is one phone call to the wolf pack and she’s done for. Do you understand?”

--- Gộp bài viết: 27/01/2016, Bài cũ từ: 27/01/2016 ---

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She knew. I didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. My legs felt weak. Everything we’d worked so hard at, and Giselle knew exactly what Sara was.

“I understand,” I said numbly.

“Good. Now go and talk to your sister, if you like.” Giselle made a shooing motion in my direction. “See if she wants you to go out on these dates, or if she wants to explore that wild side she’s been suppressing.” Her expression was all sweetness and light. “I’ve heard that the wolf pack is very friendly to females.”

I’d seen—and had—firsthand experience of how friendly. Most of the women who dated a werewolf didn’t date one a second time. They were cliquish, irritable, possessive, and liked to fight. In short, they acted like the wolves they were.

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She flicked her hand at me. “We’re done now. Go. Let me know when you’ve made up your mind.”

“Made up my mind?” I laughed bitterly. “We both know what my answer is, Giselle. I’m not going to let anyone touch my sister, including you.”

Her eyes gleamed with avarice. “So … ?”

“If I do this, you can’t tell anyone about Sara’s … problem. If you do, all bets are off.”

Giselle’s smile was wide. “My dear, it’s far more profitable for me to keep her secret. It’s safe with me as long as you play by my rules.”

“I have one ad***ional rule,” I said, thinking fast. “Wolves are a deal breaker,” I said in a hard voice. They’d pick up Sara’s scent immediately and know an unfamiliar werewolf was out there somewhere. Then it wouldn’t take them long to realize it was Sara.

She shrugged. “I don’t see why I’m bargaining with you, but I’ll allow this. We don’t do much business with wolves anyhow.”

I left her office, shutting the door behind me, a sick feeling clenching my stomach. Giselle knew everything. Someone must have told her; she couldn’t have sniffed it out on her own. That meant someone else knew about Sara’s secret and was keeping quiet.

Who else was going to show up and attempt to blackmail us? I felt nauseated at the thought.

Sara waited by my desk, her face white and anxious. Immediately, my resolve strengthened. I’d date whatever bird, cat, or rat shifter Giselle dug up, and do it with a smile. And once I had enough money in the bank account, we’d leave in the middle of the night and start over again.

I couldn’t tell Sara what Giselle knew, though. She’d be paralyzed with fear and completely unable to work. So I gave her a cheerful smile that hid the fact that I felt like crying. “Giselle was mad about Beau, but since it’s set a precedent, she wants me to go out on a few more dates. It’s nothing big.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Her expression was clearly surprised. Then a slow smile spread across her face. “Is it because of Beau? You really liked him. Do you get to go out with him again?”

I waved my hand in a carefree manner. “Maybe so, maybe not. You know just as well as I that it can’t go anywhere.”

She hesitated, clearly confused by my reaction, then swallowed. “What about … you know.” She brushed a finger under her nose, indicating scent.

“We’ll be very, very careful,” I said firmly. “Like we always are.”

The phone rang, interrupting us. “I bet that’s Mr. Russell,” she said. “He called twice while you were in Giselle’s office.”

Of course he had. He wanted to make sure we were on for the rest of the week. Being in heat, he wanted to hedge his bets. I remembered how nice it was to be curled up against him in bed last night, then overlaid that brief, tantalizing thought with Giselle’s cold face and Sara’s pinched, worried one.

It would never work.

I picked up my phone and put on my business voice. “Midnight Liaisons. How can I help you?”

“I’ve been thinking about your ears all morning,” he said, then his voice dropped a little. “Thinking about the sweet curve of your earlobes, and how I’d love to nibble on them again tonight.”

Warmth unfurled in the pit of my stomach. God, he knew just what to say to make me tremble. “I can’t. Working.”

“You’ve been at work since seven a.m. Don’t tell me you’ll be working at, say, eight tonight?”

“I’m pulling a double shift,” I said immediately.

“What time does your shift end?”

Giselle’s red dress flashed in the corner of my eye as she cut across the office. I froze. “If you want to see me again,” I blurted, “you’ll have to schedule it through the dating service.”

“What—”

I hung the phone up before he could finish and buried my face in my hands.

Sara’s safety came before my heart, and if chasing Beau off was what I had to do to keep her safe, I’d do it.

I repeated that to myself over and over again, hoping it would make the ache in my chest go away.

Beau wasn’t the type to give up easily. He showed up at the office a few hours later, an enormous bouquet of flowers in his hand.

I stood up at the sight of him, clenching my hands so I wouldn’t do something girly like straighten my hair. “You shouldn’t be here. I can’t see you unless you go through the service.”

“The service,” Beau drawled, “is exactly why I’m here. Where’s Giselle?”

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I frowned and gestured at her office. “Back there.”

Beau nodded and knocked on her door. A moment later, he disappeared inside. I turned, looking for Sara; her supernatural hearing would come in handy for spying on their conversation. But in true fashion, she’d disappeared as soon as she’d seen Beau.

Beau stayed inside Giselle’s office for an hour and a half. Not that I was timing it. Or listening at the door—not that I could hear anything. Quiet, conversational chatter continued the whole time he was in there, muffled by the occasional throaty peal of laughter from Giselle. The sound of Beau’s rumbling bass laugh made my knees weak.

Gee, I was glad they were having such a good time together.

Beau emerged from Giselle’s office without flowers and gave me the lazy, confident smile I was already getting used to. “Hello again,” he said, heading toward my desk, where I tried to look busy. He stood across from me, directly in my line of view.

I got up and grabbed a big stack of filing. “I’m really busy, Beau.”

“Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious as to what I talked to Giselle about?”

I opened the file cabinet and dropped a stack of Qs into a J folder. Who cared? I’d fish it out later. “All right, then. What did you talk about?”

“You and me seeing each other. Giselle is fine with it; you’re not in any trouble. In fact, we’re going out tonight.”

I plopped another set of files randomly into the drawer. If only he knew the truth: I wasn’t in trouble because of the simple fact that I was being blackmailed. “Great,” I said, trying to force enthusiasm into my voice. “I can’t wait.”

Actually, the small, selfish part of me was very excited about going out with him again. The practical, thinking-of-my-sister’s-safety side was worried. And all of me was concerned about Giselle. “What about the rest of the week? Until your heat?”

“Taken care of, If you’re willing to put up with me,” he said with a smile.

I didn’t have a choice. “I’m sure I’ll manage,” I said in a voice that I tried to make light and teasing. “You’re pretty hard on the eyes, but I’ll try and suffer through for a good cause.”

A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. The warm feeling fluttered in my stomach at the thought of seeing Beau again so soon. It grew when he moved closer to me and put his hand on my arm. He smelled terrific, sun-warmed. I wanted to lick him and taste it.

I blushed at the thought.

“Tonight at eight,” he said, reaching out to touch the soft end of my long ponytail. “Dinner. Wear your hair down, please. For me.”

Giselle emerged from her office, a hint of a frown crossing her lovely face at the sight of the two of us standing so close together. I skittered backward and rammed into the file cabinet. Ow.

Beau glanced over at Giselle, then took my hand and pressed a light kiss to the back of it. “I’ll pick you up here,” he said, and left the office with a quick nod and smile to Giselle.

Uck. Giselle. I froze against the file cabinet and didn’t move until Beau disappeared from sight and the bell on the front door clanged against the glass. Then Giselle slithered forward like a snake with prey in its sights. “You’re going out with him at eight.”

The tension in my shoulders eased. “I know.” I took the information sheet from her with cautious fingers.

“To be on time, you’ll need to be dressed and ready to leave by two.”

Where were we going to dinner? Timbuktu? “Two?”

Her smile was brilliant. “You have a date with one client at two thirty. Another client at five. Then you see Beau at eight to placate him.”

She was going to stack my dates one after another, for maximum use of her new toy—me. I immediately felt dirty but shoved the feeling aside. I’d agreed to do this, even if it made me feel used. “Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. Then I asked, “Clothes?”

She handed me a pink business card from her dress pocket (where did she have pockets in that thing?). “You’re going to see my friend Francesca over at Saks in the Galleria. She’ll get you set up with some decent clothing.” Giselle studied my appearance. “See if she can’t do something with your hair and makeup, too. We want innocent but seductive.”

“Right.” I said, taking the card from her. In the corner of my eye, I saw Sara exit the filing room, and just as quickly go back in at the sight of Giselle.

“So who am I dating?” I forced a smile to my face.

“Do you remember Mr. Jason Cartland? He was in yesterday.”

I drew a blank for a moment, then gasped. “The hot guy? Were-cougar?” We seemed to be brimming with horny were-cougars lately.

“It would seem so,” she said smugly. “He’s your two thirty.”

Well, this might not be so terribly awful. Jason was a beautiful man, and he seemed nice. Comfortable, despite his too beaming white smile. “Who’s the five?”

“His name is Garth,” she said with a look of delight, as if she’d just seen dollar signs flash in front of her eyes. “He’s very rich. Middle-aged, never been married. Country music song writer. He likes baseball and trucks. He’ll be quite a catch.”

Blech. “Sounds lovely,” I said. “And he is …” Tall? Short? Fat? Desperate? Deaf? Mute? Lord, I hoped he was mute.

--- Gộp bài viết: 27/01/2016, Bài cũ từ: 27/01/2016 ---

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“Naga.”

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I blanched. “Snake?” I hated snakes.

“Snake,” she agreed. “And you’re going to tell him that you love snakes. Understand?”

“I love snakes,” I parroted back in a gushing, idiotic voice. “Snakes and baseball and country music. They’re my favorites.”

“Good girl,” Giselle said, patting me on my cheek like I was a dog.

Chapter Five

A couple of hours later, I looked utterly delicious and felt completely miserable. Francesca had picked out a few outfits for me, not one of them practical in the slightest. I was currently trussed in a black lace ****tail dress with terribly cute but impossibly high heels. My feet hurt after just five minutes, but I had to admit that the effect was impressive.

So was the bill for everything.

Francesca had sent me to a beauty salon after she’d picked out my clothing. My long straight hair had been fluffed and teased and blown-out within an inch of its life, and the resulting white-blond mess atop my head was gorgeous, artfully tousled, and crunchy with hairspray. It looked great as long as you didn’t touch it. The makeup artist had lined my eyes with a delicate gray liner that made them seem bigger, and had pinked my complexion with some artful blush. The resulting effect was dewy, and I looked very much like a nubile ingénue.

Jason seemed to think so, too, and the looks he was giving me were going to cause a permanent blush.

He was every inch as dazzling as I’d remembered. He had a heavy build, all muscle and tanned flesh, whereas Beau ran toward lean (but with very broad shoulders). He wore a charcoal wool jacket with an open-neck pale blue silk shirt. He looked every inch the rich playboy—except for one thing. For all his gorgeous looks and his money, Jason was very heavily into cheap cologne. Very. Heavily. Either BRUT or Old Spice.

Still, the character of a man wasn’t determined by the quality or quantity of his cologne, and I resolved to look past it. I gave Jason a faint smile over my water glass.

“Is that all you’re going to eat?” he said, indicating my small salad. “Please order anything you’d like.”

I gave a small shrug. “I’m really not that hungry.” Actually, I was ravenous, but Giselle had two more meals scheduled for me, so I was holding back. Plus, everything I put in my mouth seemed to taste like Old Spice. So I drank my water and pretended interest as Jason talked.

And tried not to think about Beau. He’d smelled really nice. Last night when I’d been cuddled up against him, a faint, spicy scent had clung to his skin that I hadn’t been able to figure out. Deodorant or body wash, maybe. Very subtle, and clean.

My nose itched. I decided that I liked subtle and clean.

“—friends with Beau Russell?”

I focused back in on my date, who was beaming a megawatt white smile at me. “I’m sorry?”

“I was asking about Beau. He’s a friend of yours?”

Blank, I stared at him. He’d heard my phone conversation and wanted to call us “friends”? “I guess you could call it that.” Is that what Giselle was calling it? Best to play along.

“I hear he’s an important man in his clan.”

Talking about him made me unhappy, so I said, “I wouldn’t know.”

To my relief he took the hint and switched the topic to other things. Jason was a wonderful date—he was witty, charming, laughed at my attempts at humor, and made me feel pretty. Women slowed as they walked past our table, checking him out. He touched my hand repeatedly, devoured me with his eyes, and made it obvious that he wanted to eat me up like candy.

So why was my brain entirely focused on the man I’d been out with last night? Both men were were-cougars. Both men were handsome. Jason was the epitome of niceness, while Beau’s playful smile drove me crazy with desire.

Torn between two cougars. Strangely enough, not a problem I’d ever thought I’d have.

My next date wasn’t much better.

It was another restaurant (the default setting, of course) and it started out well. At least for the first five minutes. After that we steered directly into uncomfortable territory.

“So,” Garth the naga said, “what do you do?” His eyes watched me with entirely too much interest, his gaze focused on my cle**age. At least Jason had had the decency to look me in the eye.

I toyed with a bit of chicken parmigiana. Was I supposed to admit that I worked at the agency, or should I lie about it? As I hesitated, Garth’s tongue flicked over his lips. Good God, was that thing forked?

Distracted momentarily, I had to regroup. “I’m a professional bookkeeper.”

The forked tongue was seriously giving me the creeps.

“That’s fascinating,” he said in a tone of voice that meant it was less interesting than Styrofoam. “So how did you get into Giselle’s agency? It’s very exclusive.” As in, how did a lowly human manage to become worthy of notice?

“Oh, the usual way.” I didn’t know what the usual way was, but I was willing to bet he didn’t, either. Something slithered against my shoe and I recoiled. What the f**k? Was that his tail?

He gave me a look that I assumed was supposed to be seductive. “Sanctioned humans are rare,” he said, his eyes glued to my neck like I was wearing some sort of flashing beacon around it. Could he see Beau’s mark as well? “Especially virgins.”

“Giselle told you I was a virgin?” I tried to ask it in a casual tone of voice, as if I hadn’t been screaming inside. As one might ask if their date was a Republican or a Democrat. Or a naga.