Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (47 page)

Sara didn’t make it sound like a request, but a direct order. Pete was not intimidated. She could say “no” better than she could “yes” when she needed to.

“I don’t think so, but thanks. I have a part-timer tomorrow morning, and I need to get home now. You all should be fine and I’m sure the doctor will have whatever you guys need. I have to get going.”

Pete looked at Mel, daring her to say something about her job, but Mel only nodded and went back to touching the little girl in her arms. Pete moved closer to the door and was proud of the fact that she had only staggered twice more on her way through to the kitchen.

Pete felt the man move toward her, but decided not to acknowledge him in any way. She knew now he was a part of the family somehow, but he was not Sara’s mate. Not that it mattered to her one way or the other. With her walls back up, Pete was not even sure if he was like them or not, and didn’t care either way. She didn’t think he was any less insane than she had before.

The Hangchows, owners and cooks of the restaurant, stopped her twice on her way out. Once to thank her for the blessing she had placed upon their establishment with the birth of the twins. It seemed that their equivalent of her Mother Nature blessed households where healthy children were born as not many survived were they had lived. The second was to ask if she could take a delivery to Booger for them. She agreed. She was going that way anyway and went ahead and paid for it for him. The man followed her closely as she left by the back door of the restaurant. She turned sharply and glared at him.

“I want you to go away and leave me alone. No matter what you think, I didn’t take anything from the MacManus’ or Mr. Hangchow. I’m not a thief. The food is for someone who lives at the house I live at and he had placed an order. I’m just delivering it for him. And right now, I don’t have the energy to deal with whatever you think you might have to say to me. I want you to stay the fuck away from me. You’re insane.”

Pete could feel the sting of the tears in her eyes, and decided that she was just overly tired. She knew that he followed her to the door and out to her bike, but she chose to ignore him. It wasn’t as if he was speaking to her anyway. She loaded the food bag into the back of the bike’s saddle bag, and threw her leg over the seat.

“I’d like to have a word with you, please. I think I might have said some things the other night that may have been a little rude and I—”

“You may have said some things that were rude? Are you fucking nuts? You attacked me, you stupid asshole. I didn’t even know you existed and you came at me as if I was…I was some sort of stalker or something. You need to have your head examined. And stay the hell away from me.”

Before she could say anything else to him, or start the engine, he touched her forehead with the palm of his hand and simply said, “Sleep.”

CHAPTER NINE

When Pete woke up the, she didn’t know where she was. She sat up slightly and looked around. The room was nice with lots of old but beautiful furniture. The bed she was in was huge and smelled like warm nights.

Now I am nuts, she thought and started to rise. She saw him then, sitting in a dark wingback chair staring at her intently. She didn’t speak to him but got up anyway, as she really needed to use the bathroom.

Throwing off the heavy comforter, she swung her long legs to the floor and stood up. She staggered only a little, caught herself, and took a step toward the bath. He was in front of her in a flash. Pete put her hands out to stop her forward momentum, but still hit him in the chest. She looked up at him and saw that his eyes had started to change to a deep red.

“Are you like them, like the MacManus’s?” she asked before she remembered she was not going to speak to him.

“A vampire. Yes, I’m a vampire. Are you afraid of me?”

There was a weird cadence to his voice, she noticed. It was husky and deep. As much as she hated to admit it, she liked the way it made her feel—warm and protected, nothing like he had actually made her feel in real life.

“No. I have to pee, and if you’ll move, I’ll take care of that right now.” She moved to the right at the same time he did to the left. The same move occurred when she moved left. “Do you mind? I want to use the facilities.”

He looked at her again, just stared at her for the longest time. She glared at him and began to step back and away from him. When he slowly leaned toward her, it felt as if she was frozen in place, just waiting for him to kiss her.

His lips brushed against hers softly, then a second time. He pulled back slightly, tilting his head more, sliding his hand up to the back of her head, cupping it and pulling her forward and into his kiss. He kissed her gently at first, and then pulled her lower lip into his mouth to suckle it.

Suddenly, everything around her just dropped away—the sounds, the smells, everything seemed to fade away as he deepened the kiss. When his tongue slid along the seam of her lips, begging her for permission to enter, she let him in. As soon as her mouth opened slightly, his tongue darted forward to mingle with hers.

Pete had been kissed before, but nothing like this. Her whole body responded to him, to his mouth, his body. She hesitantly slid her tongue along his and felt his growl, felt it rumble from his chest she was pressed so tightly against. He suddenly pulled away, stepped back from her. She staggered again, only this time it was not from exhaustion but being tossed back by him. When he went to grab her, to keep her from falling, she stepped back further and snapped.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me again! Who the hell do you think you are? Are you enjoying this? Are you trying to drive me insane? Because I gotta tell you, you—” This time, it was she who growled and turned away.

Pete started to move toward the door to leave the bedroom, and he flashed in front of her again, this time to stop her. Again, she stepped back, but instead of backing away from him, she clasped her hands together, brought them around, and connected with his right jaw, snapping his head hard to the left. Then in a nasty move, brought her knee up and connected quite nicely with his groin and his manly parts. Her hands snapping against his jaw had hurt. There would be a bruise tomorrow, she thought. But the satisfying grunt coming from him made her think it was worth it.

She went into the hall and realized she was in the MacManus’ house, and moved quickly to the front door. She saw Aaron step out of the kitchen so he was sure to intercept her just as she cleared the last step of the grand staircase. She was so not in the mood for him either and didn’t say a word to him but kept moving toward her goal of out of this house.

“Pete, I’d like to have a few words with you while Dominic recovers, if you wouldn’t mind?”

She didn’t even think about how he knew the other man, Dominic, she supposed, was hurt.

“As a matter of fact, I do mind. Stay away from me. I don’t want to have to hurt you either.”

He either didn’t listen or didn’t think she’d follow through. But she was beyond being pissed and didn’t stop to think about the fact that a full grown man, a vampire, was in her way. He was just there.

Without thinking about what she was going to do or slow down her forward motion, she swung her entire body around, landing on her hands just as her feet slammed into his chest. It was a nice trick she had learned from a guy she traded computer lessons for. He taught her how to fight dirty and she taught him how to use the Internet. Aaron flew across the living room and hit the far wall, knocking the wind out of him.

Another man—Christ, was everyone this man knew huge?—came out of the kitchen at full speed. He grabbed her around the waist, leaving her arms free. He will regret that soon enough, she thought with a smile. She twisted around in his arms, grabbed two handfuls of his long hair, and knocked her head into his nose, breaking it. When he loosened his grip enough, she broke free and brought her knee up and for the second time, she unmanned a vampire. She stepped over his inert body and out into the early morning.

She was nearly to the garage where she could see her bike parked when Sara cleared her throat behind her. Pete turned quickly and just managed to catch herself from harming the woman a few feet behind her.

~~~

Sara knew what had happened to each of the men. As soon as she felt Pete wake up, Sara got up herself thinking to go to her and thank her again. She had been standing just inside her bedroom door when she heard Dominic groan in pain. Reaching out to him, she realized what Pete had done and why, and smiled.

Following Pete down the stairs, a goodly distance behind her, she watched as Aaron had tried to stop her as well. That fancy footwork had Sara smile and wince. Aaron would be fine, but he would be mad. She had told him before that women, especially pissed off women, did not like to be cornered and were not rational either.

Colin must have felt Aaron’s pain and came running out of the kitchen and got a broken nose for his trouble. Sara was still smiling when she walked out the door and saw that Pete was going to leave.

“You fight dirty. And mean. I like that. Going somewhere?” Pete seemed to relax a little, but Sara could tell that she was still wary. She was sure that Pete would not hit her, but she wasn’t taking any chances and stayed five feet from her.

“He kissed me. The fucking bastard kissed me. He kissed me and then pushed me away like I had attacked him or something. This whole house is nuts, you’re aware of that, aren’t you? I’ve never…I’m leaving. Don’t you dare try to stop me. I mean it, Mrs. MacManus. I’ll hurt you as well.”

Pete was crying and Sara’s heart went out to the young woman. He had hurt her. He had not hurt her physically, but she still hurt deep inside. Sara wanted to take Pete into her arms and hold her, and then go in and kick some vampire ass.

“I’m not going to stop you, well, not really. But I did wonder if you knew that you are only dressed in a t-shirt and panties? I have no doubt that you can ride that monster without shoes. But I’m reasonably sure that once you get to your apartment, that Booger person and whoever else lives there will notice your lack of attire.”

Pete looked down at her clothes, and then at the house. She began playing with the hem of the shirt. Sara realized that she had never seen that shirt before, that it must have belonged to Dominic. It was much too large to belong to the tiny woman who was wearing it. Pete took another quick look at the front door, and then looked back at Sara.

“He kissed me. Why did he do that? Why did he do it then toss me away? I’m not dirty and I…I didn’t ask him to, didn’t even want him to. I mean, it was nice. Very nice, but I didn’t ask him to do it. I just wanted to go pee. Then I was going to leave.”

“I have a good idea why he did it, but I’ll let him explain that to you. Would you please come into the house and talk to him? Or we could just gather up some clothes and you can leave now. Okay?”

In a voice that was low, so low that another human might not have heard it, Pete said, “I don’t even know his name and he kissed me.”

Sara stiffened at that. To have a mate meant all sort of wonderful things to a couple, especially a vampire who was as old as Dominic. Sara knew that now that he had tasted her, touched her, he would only want more from Pete, need more from her. But to not even tell her who he was, or even to talk before kissing her was...Sara and Dominic had a lot to talk about, it seemed.

Sara led Pete into the house, and left her in the kitchen while she went to Dominic’s room to gather Pete’s clothes. Sara told the men that were recovering in the living room not to even think about confronting the woman in the kitchen. Or they would have to answer to her. And she left them in no doubt that she would not be as gentle as Pete had been.

“And you,” pointing to Dominic, “don’t even think about leaving this house. You and I are going to have a conversation and it won’t go well for you if I have to go looking for you. And believe me, I will. I’m in no mood to fuck around anymore with you. You will be right here when I return or you’ll be one sorry man. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“Yes, mistress.”

Sara continued on up the stairs. She had just had twins and these people were making a mess of things. Well, no more.

After Pete left the house, Sara sat down with Dominic. She didn’t want Aaron there, but he insisted that he was there purely for entertainment value, he told her. Dominic just glared at the vampire. For some reason she could not understand, that pissed her off more. She owed that woman her life and those of her children. It was time someone made him realize he could not toy with Pete as long as she was around, or he would have to answer to her.

“I want you to stay away from her. You brought her here against her will, you kissed her, and she doesn’t even know your name. As your master’s mistress and his mate, I demand that you stay away from her from now on. It is quite clear that you don’t want her as your mate. You have made that perfectly clear from the moment you met her. Fine! Then don’t go near her again. If you do, then I will make sure that you either regret it, which you know I can, or you’ll mate with her—your choice. Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly. Is there anything else?”

She wasn’t happy with his tone, but she would live with that. When she said that there was not, he got up and left. She looked over at Aaron who was smiling at her.

“Well done, my dear. Nothing like making someone want something they really need by telling them it’s off limits to them. I’m impressed.” She hoped he was right, hoped they were both right.

~~~

Pete showed up at the Mackey Corporation at seven-thirty that morning. She was going to be working for them for at least a week setting up their new payroll and accounting programs.

Mr. Mackey had contacted her a few days ago, telling her that he had had her investigated and had found nothing that would make him not want her to come in and work for them. He did tell her that a query around the computer shops and programmers in the neighborhood said she was not only the best in the field, but that she was the most trustworthy person around as well.

“I really appreciate your advice and the heads-up about Sailor. He was into the company for over six hundred thousand. It was a hard hit to the company, but I believe we are going to be able to get most of it back. He tended to spend his money locally and I’m getting his purchases, as it where. He is in jail for theft. I don’t want this to happen again. I’d like for you to show us what you can do to prevent this from happening in the future.”

Pete spent the next two days going through each program that they had and made a list of who had access to the files and how the information was obtained by a person. Some of the techs had both card reader access and password. Most of the other personnel had only password. And a majority of them had their passwords written down somewhere. A few even shared them with co-workers. In some cases, she found programs left running and email and payroll information up while the person went to lunch or the bathroom.

She had better computer skills than she had people skills so she stayed to herself during most of this time. The men in the office nearly fell all over themselves trying to get her attention and the women just tried to ignore her. But a woman as beautiful as her and as elusive just drew more attention.

Pete just didn’t notice anything going on. Well, she did but chose to ignore it. She was so wrapped in what she was doing that she could have been alone in the entire building and it would have made the same impression on her. She liked staying busy. It kept her from thinking.

She and Mackey met on Thursday morning in his office. His daughter Shelia was there as well. Shelia had a pretty good head on her shoulders about the computer aspect of the business. She was no way near the level of Pete and they both knew it. They were comfortable with it. Shelia told Pete on Tuesday that she was glad to have her there and that her dad was finally coming into this century.

“How do you want this, Mr. Mackey? Straight up or honey coated? I can do either, but straight up will save me time trying to figure out how to say it nicely.” She grinned at him.

“Straight up, Pete. I think I can take it.” She hoped he could as well.

“You have a crappy set up to input your payroll. There are over seventy people who have access to the files that generate the final checks and over two hundred who can manipulate their own time sheets as late as the night before checks are printed. That has got to be a nightmare for your payroll department, by the way. There are, at the very minimum, eighty-four input errors on last week’s timesheets alone, costing you a cool ten grand. I’ve already fixed the time sheets for this week’s payroll and froze the account as of Tuesday morning. You also need a centralized accounting and a clock-in program, one that charges each person’s work to the specific department. That is where you’ll find most of your problems—double payroll when someone works in another department and charges their time to each one.”