A Quick Bite (22 page)

Teasing her with his tongue, Greg let his hand slide under her top, searching for naked flesh. His fingers skimmed up her flat belly, then encountered the silk of her bra, and he cupped her breast through the soft material, then squeezed more aggressively.

If a door hadn’t closed farther down the hall, bringing him back to his senses, Greg suspected he might have tried to make love to her right there against the door. But the sound was like a dousing by a pail of cold water, and he broke the kiss and stepped back. “I should let you get ready for work.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Greg nodded and waited for her to go into the room, but she simply stood staring at him. He was just starting to wonder why when she cleared her throat, and murmured, “Do you think you could let go of my—”

“Oh!” Gasping, Greg released her breast and slid his hand back out from under her shirt. Embarrassed, he started to back away. “I’m going to bed soon.”

Lissianna nodded, a small smile pulling at her lips.

“I’ll be up when you get back, though.”

She nodded again.

“Maybe I’ll make you a surprise treat.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll look forward to it.”

Greg continued to back down the hall, then said, “Have a good night.”

“You too.” Reaching behind her back, she opened her door.

Nodding, he smiled, then turned away with a sigh as she finally disappeared into the room.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

Lissianna smiled at Debbie’s greeting as she walked into the shelter at the beginning of her shift. “That’s a nice hello. What’s up?”

“Nothing really.” Debbie followed her down the hall toward her office. “The usual. Old Bill was cranky as an old mule tonight and just finally took himself off to bed, two of the young ones got into a tussle and banged each other up a bit before we could break them up, and Father Joseph is still suffering his insomnia.”

Lissianna raised her eyebrows. “Still?”

“Yeah. And he’s starting to talk to himself. Either that or he’s taken to blessing the watercoolers.” She shrugged. “I think the insomnia is getting to him.”

“Probably it is,” Lissianna agreed, shrugging out of her coat as she walked into her office.

“It seems rather weird to have you here on a Sunday,” Debbie commented as she followed. “Weird but nice. That Claudia who takes your shift on your nights off is a whiny piece of work. I’m not sorry to give her a miss tonight when everyone is acting up.”

“Hmm.” Lissianna gave the other woman a sympathetic glance as she hung her jacket on the coatrack in the corner and moved around her desk. In truth, she found the girl rather annoying herself. Claudia took Debbie’s shift two
nights of the week, and Lissianna’s shift during her two nights off as well. So she and Debbie got to work together three nights a week, but both of them worked two nights a week with Claudia. Lissianna preferred her nights while Debbie was working. Claudia grated on her nerves a bit.

“So, is Father Joseph still here or has he gone ho—” Lissianna’s question ended on a surprised squawk as she sat in her chair and something poked her in the bottom.

“What is it?” Debbie moved forward as Lissianna leapt back to her feet and turned to look down at what she’d sat on.

They both stared, dumbstruck, at the cross on her seat.

“What the…”

“A cross sale?” Debbie suggested, and Lissianna glanced at her with confusion to find the other woman was no longer staring at the cross on the chair. Her gaze was shifting over the office with bewilderment. Following her gaze, Lissianna stared at the plethora of crosses filling her office. Big ones, small ones, wooden ones, metal ones; every size and sort, they lay all over her office, covering her desk surface, her chair, the bookshelves, the top of her filing cabinet…They were just everywhere.

“What on earth?” she murmured with bewilderment. Movement out of the corner of her eye, drew her attention to the door where Father Joseph hovered, biting his lip.

“Father Joseph? What…?” She waved her hand around the room vaguely to indicate the crosses.

“I was sorting crosses,” he explained apologetically.

“Sorting crosses?” Lissianna echoed with bewilderment. “In my office?”

“Yes.” Father Joseph nodded. “It was the only empty room today.” He moved a little farther into the office. “I expected to be done before you arrived. Sorry.”

He glanced around the room, then held out his hand.
“If you could just hand me the one on your chair, I’ll start removing them.”

Lissianna picked up the cross and handed it over. Father Joseph accepted the item, stared down at it silently as he rotated it in his hands, then turned to the door. “I’ll go fetch a box for the rest. Could you get them all together while I do?”

Once he was out of sight, Debbie turned an arched eyebrow her way. “He looks like hell, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does. I hope he gets over this insomnia soon. Something must really be bothering him to be keeping him up like this.”

Debbie nodded, her face pensive as they began to gather the crosses. It wasn’t long before Father Joseph returned with a box and Lissianna’s office was once again cross-free. She watched him carry out the box, noting his stooped shoulders and heavy tread. The man was obviously exhausted she thought and shook her head. “He needs to sleep.”

“Yes,” Debbie agreed with a sigh. “I’ll talk to him about getting some sleeping pills or something. This bout of insomnia has to end.”

It was a sentiment Lissianna echoed at the end of her shift when she went in search of a candidate to feed from before heading home and again found Father Joseph prowling the halls. She could have slipped into his thoughts and sent him on his way, but Lissianna tried to avoid mucking about in the minds of the people she worked with. She had to see them on a daily basis and had no desire to learn anything that might make it uncomfortable to deal with them.

Deciding it wouldn’t kill her to go a day without feeding—especially since she’d fed so well the night before thanks to Thomas—Lissianna merely allowed him to
walk her out to the car, wished him a good day, and started the engine.

Once she was on the road, Lissianna’s mind turned to Greg. He’d promised to be up by the time she got back. He was going to sleep through her shift, then have coffee and “
a special treat
” ready for her when she got in. Lissianna hadn’t a clue what the treat was. She suspected it was probably some food or other he was fond of, though Greg seemed fond of
all
food. Lissianna didn’t really care what it was. She was just excited at the prospect of seeing him again.

She liked him, enjoyed talking to him, and the man could kiss like no one’s business…as she’d found out before leaving for work last night. Of course, they’d kissed before, but this time there had been no interruptions, no ties restraining him, and the man had knocked her socks off. She was looking forward to more sock-knocking kisses.

Lissianna smiled at the thought as she parked in the garage. It wasn’t until she got out of the vehicle and was heading for the kitchen door that she noticed the black Porsche parked beside her mother’s little red sports car. The sight made her steps slow and her heart do a little skip of alarm in her chest.

Uncle Lucian was here.

Swallowing hard, she hurried, racing into the house and straight upstairs, fear for Greg clutching at her chest.

In her upset, Lissianna forgot Greg’s saying he would move to the rose guest room that night so she could have her own room back. She burst into her bedroom, expecting to find her mother, Lucian, and Greg there, only to find it empty. Tossing her purse on the bed, she turned back to the door, catching it as it swung shut. She would have pulled it open and rushed out, but the sound of a door being opened up the hall made her pause.

“I will need to call the council, Marguerite,” she heard Uncle Lucian’s deep voice.

“You can use the phone in the den,” her mother answered in subdued tones.

Lissianna stayed stock-still as the footsteps receded toward the stairs. Her mind was swimming with chaos. He had to call the council? Why? It didn’t sound good.

Stepping into the hall, she hurried to the door of the rose room. Lissianna walked in, almost afraid of what she might find. If Lucian hadn’t been able to wipe Greg’s memory, he might already have—

Her breath came out on a whoosh as she spied Greg peering at her from the bed. They had tied him down to the bed again…and her uncle was calling the council. The two things together didn’t paint a pretty picture.

“I knew it was you.” Thomas’s words made Lissianna whirl toward the door as he and the rest of the younger set entered.

“I heard your car,” he explained.

It was Mirabeau who frowned and said, “Lissi, you’re broadcasting fear and panic, you’d better control yourself before you have Marguerite and Lucian up here.”

Lissianna clamped down on the panic that had erupted inside her at the sight of Greg tied to the bed, then forced herself to breathe steadily and concentrate on guarding her thoughts. Strong emotions were always easier to read. They seemed to broadcast themselves so that one of her kind needn’t even be trying to read thoughts to receive them. The last thing she needed was to have her mother, Martine, or Uncle Lucian pick up the waves of emotion and come to investigate. And, somehow, she had to be sure that Greg didn’t broadcast his thoughts either if she was to get him out of this mess.

Chapter 14

Greg was relieved to see Lissianna…
until he noted the way she blanched at the sight of his again being tied down. He’d feared it wasn’t good, but her reaction seemed to verify it. His gaze slid over the others, who were now eyeing his situation with much the same reaction. He gave his ties a tug, and said wearily, “This is a bad thing, huh?”

No one answered, but after a hesitation, Lissianna moved to the bed and set to work untying his wrists, saying, “I need you to not think.”

“Not think?” he asked with disbelief. “How am I supposed to
not
think?”

“Recite something.”

Greg’s mind immediately went blank. “What do I recite?”

“I don’t care,” she sounded impatient, but paused and said more calmly. “A poem, or nursery rhyme or…anything. It doesn’t matter, just recite something and concentrate wholly on what you’re reciting. It’s the only way to keep you from broadcasting what you’re thinking to my mother and Lucian and inadvertently let them know
what’s going on. So, if you want to get out of here, I need you to listen to me and do exactly what I tell you, but without thinking; I need you to concentrate wholly on whatever you recite. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Greg nodded, then admitted, “But, I don’t know if I can.”

“You have to if you want out of here alive,” she said grimly.

“Recite one hundred bottles of beer on the wall,” Thomas suggested, moving forward now to help untie him.

“Thomas.” Lissianna straightened to face him. “You can’t help with this. You—” She paused and glanced over the six people in the room besides herself and Greg. “You
all
have to go downstairs right now and stay out of this.”

Mirabeau snorted and moved forward to untie one of Greg’s ankles. “Not likely.”

“Mirabeau, this is serious,” she tried reasoning. “Really, really serious. This isn’t just about defying my mother now. Uncle Lucian—”

“Oh, shut up, Lissi,” Elspeth snapped, moving forward to work on Greg’s other ankle. “Why should you have all the fun?”

“Besides”—Juli shifted her aside and set to work at finishing untying the wrist Lissianna had started on—“one for all and all for one, remember?”

“We like Greg,” Vicki told her, patting her shoulder as if to soothe her. “None of us want to see him suffer a ‘council of three’ either.”

The tension was suddenly thick in the air, and the grim expressions on those around him were frightening, but it was Lissianna’s expression that distressed him the most. She was scared, and he suspected there wasn’t a lot that scared her. He also very much feared she was scared for him, not herself.

“What’s a council of three?” he asked, suspecting he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Three council members merging with one mortal’s mind at the same time,” Vicki answered. “Some mortals can resist or block one of our kind, but no one can block or resist three working together.”

“What does it do?”

“It destroys the psyche; the person becomes a Renfield.”

Greg supposed “a Renfield” was their way to refer to someone driven mad by their messing with the mind. He couldn’t be positive however, because when he opened his mouth to ask, Mirabeau snapped, “Recite.”

“One hundred bottles of beer on the wall,” Greg began, and continued to recite as they worked at getting him free, but found it difficult. He wasn’t used to
not thinking
, and there were all kinds of thoughts and questions swarming in his head. Most of them had to do with the fact that he had no desire to be “a Renfield.”

Greg was at ninety-two bottles of beer when the last tie was removed.

“Someone has to go down and find out what’s going on and be sure they aren’t aware Lissianna’s back,” Thomas said, as Greg sat up on the bed.

“I’ll do it,” Mirabeau offered. “I’m the oldest and might be able to read more than the rest of you.”

“Okay,” Thomas agreed. “But be as quick as you can.”

Nodding, the woman ran her hands through her spiky fuchsia-tipped hair and moved to the door.

“Recite,” Thomas ordered Greg, as Mirabeau left the room.

Realizing he’d stopped, Greg went back to reciting, his voice filling the silence as they awaited Mirabeau’s return. She didn’t take long, and her expression was grim when she returned.

“They know she’s home and that we’re all up here. Lucian sent Martine out to the garage to watch the cars and Marguerite has sent for Vittorio, Maria, and Julius.”

Greg couldn’t help pausing in his reciting to ask, “Who are they?”

“Maria is mother’s housekeeper and Vittorio is her husband, he tends the yard. They have weekends off, which is why you haven’t met them,” Lissianna answered, sounding distracted. “They live in a cottage at the back of the property.”