Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel (2 page)

I turn around. Stefan's face is close to mine. We're nearly the same height, but I'm wearing three-inch heels and Stefan thankfully is not. He has big, dark puppy-dog eyes. They've been the downfall of many a model. I just can't be one on a list of many. Still, if the man had hair, I'd cave. I know I would.

“The wings are secure,” Stefan says. “You look fantastic. Let's get to work.”

When we're working, Stefan and I lower our guard and get nasty with one another. It's foreplay without the actual follow-through of sex, and it's as far as I'll go with him. I'm ready to get nasty with him today. More than ready.

*   *   *

I'm not ready for conditions on the roof. The first thing I discover is that, like most men, Stefan lies. A little wind was an understatement. A little snow was an understatement. How about howling gales and a blizzard? How about goose bumps bigger than the zit on my forehead? I can't believe I'm thinking this, but I wish I had that werewolf hair back on my shoulder now. I wish I had it everywhere.

“Cindy!” Stefan shouts over the wind.

A petite blonde huddled inside a blanket hurries over. Her lips are blue and her teeth chatter. Cindy Emerson would rather wear a tool belt than carry a makeup kit, but she's too short and skinny to be a construction worker. Cindy is a lesbian. How do I know so much about her? Cindy's my best friend—has been since kindergarten. Every monster has its “Egore,” and I guess Cindy is mine.

“Feeling okay, Lou?” Cindy shouts.

One word will clue her in. “PMS.”

She cringes and steps closer. Cindy whips out a brush to powder my face. “You should have called in sick.”

Cindy's right, but the dream had me spooked. I didn't want to stay home alone. While Cindy works on my face, Stefan instructs the crew to hit the lights. He pries blankets off the other girls and herds them toward the lovely fake ice castle he has set up. An ice castle about to collapse in the wind.

Once Cindy finishes with me, we move toward the rest of the crew. A sudden wind gust nearly has me airborne. Cindy grabs hold of me, which is a joke. She's such a weakling that if anything, I'd take her flying with me. Cindy might be a weakling, but I have a rather embarrassing amount of upper body strength. I hold on to her and we reach the crew.

“This sucks, Stefan!” Karen Sims, a leggy black girl from Queens, shouts at Stefan.

Adjusting his camera, he yells back, “It's going to be great. Just wait until you see the finished product!”

This is what Stefan always says when subjecting his models to the elements. He considers himself an artist. We all suffer for his art. I take up a position in the middle of the other models. The wind whips my midnight-black hair around my face. Once my hair was simply a nondescript brunette color. At one time my eyes were only hazel and now they are a vivid shade of jade green. I like the look but, good grief, I could have accomplished the same thing with hair dye and contacts, and not had to deal with the wolf stuff.

Stefan poses the other models. He stops before me and raises his camera. He lowers it a minute later and frowns. Stepping behind me, Stefan pulls my bra up, thus bringing my boobs beneath my chin. His hands are still warm and he's not wearing gloves. He returns to the front, stares at my breasts, glances up, and says, “Marvelous.”

“I know,” I assure him. “Hurry up before they freeze this way.”

A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. He leans close and whispers, “You are going to give it to me today. Right, Lou?”

We both know what he wants me to give him. My mind wanders to a place of tangled sheets and sweaty bodies. The thought warms me even though it's freezing in realityland. I smile at him, just a hint of one, the kind of smile that promises things I cannot deliver.

“That's what I want.” He backs away and lifts his camera. “That sly smile. Like the cat that's just lapped up all the cream.”

Stefan needs to suffer for his art like we do. Glancing at the other models, I say, “Let's go, girls,” in my best Shania Twain imitation. Then we proceed to rock Stefan's world.

My hair is wet by the time Stefan calls for a wrap. More than my hair is damp. While Stefan shoots, he makes little sounds in the back of his throat. Sex sounds. My hearing is superior to that of a normal human being. The other girls can't hear the sex sounds, but I can. They bring out the beast in me. Which I wish were just a figure of speech.

Cindy rushes up and offers me a blanket. The blanket is damp and cold and I doubt I can get it over my giant wings. I brush her off and make a mad dash for the doors leading down to the service elevators. Reaching the door without busting my ass takes effort, but I manage. I'm about to open the door but it suddenly bursts open, banging with the wind.

A man steps out onto the roof. He's shrouded in black from head to toe. Black leather jacket. Black jeans. Black boots. Dark sunglasses. Sunglasses? I glance up at the cloudy sky.

“I'm looking for Lou Kinipski!” he shouts. “Her agency told me I could find her here!”

About the time that it registers that he's looking for me, it also dawns on me that his jacket has emblems on the sleeves. He's a cop.

“What's this about, Officer?” Stefan shouts.

“Private matter!” the cop shouts back. He points to the badge pinned on his jacket. “Official business!”

A sick feeling settles in my bloated gut. The officer stares at me and I know it's not just because I'm half naked and beautiful. It's hard to remain anonymous when my face is plastered on a ton of billboards all over New York City.

“Is there somewhere we can talk, Ms. Kinipski?” he asks me.

I can only think of three things a police officer might want to discuss with me. Texas. Seven years ago. Prom night …

CONFESSION NO. 2

Men in black are hot … unless they've come to arrest you for murder.

I'm in the bathroom again. I managed to get the tattered angel wings off and put on a robe. The cop waits on the other side of the door. I'm sure Stefan, Cindy, and the other models are in the hallway speculating as to what's going on. Most of them, all except Cindy, probably think I have a bunch of unpaid traffic tickets.

I wish. I don't drive. Not in this city. I may sprout fur, fangs, and howl at the moon on occasion lately, but I'm not crazy. I'm thankful I haven't had another outbreak to deal with on top of a police officer wanting to speak with me, but my hair is still wet and it smells like a wet dog. I notice the cop sniffing in the elevator and hope he thinks it had something to do with the feathers on my wings.

Taking one of the hotel's fluffy towels, I wrap it around my head. I dig in my beauty bag and spray myself with perfume, hoping to mask the smell. My street clothes are in the other room so I'm stuck in the robe. I'm also stuck about what I'm going to say if the good-looking officer in the next room asks me about Texas, seven years ago, prom night.

Has someone finally dug up Tom Dawson's body? Have they connected the crime to me even though I look completely different now and I've changed my name? Cindy told me that everyone in Haven thinks Tom and I eloped on prom night, which is about as unlikely as me turning into a werewolf and killing him. I suppose someone could have dug him up. I don't get much news from Haven these days.

Cindy's lifeline to home has been cut off, as well. A girl doesn't tell her father she's a lesbian when he's the pastor of the Haven First Baptist Church. Or so Cindy learned when he kicked her out and told her not to come back.

A soft rap sounds on the door. “Miss Kinipski? Are you all right in there?”

“I'm fine!” I yell through the door. “I … I'm fixing my makeup.”

Sounds plausible to me. I am a model and therefore assumed by most to be totally into my looks. Which reminds me, I should fix my face. I grab my beauty bag and get to work. While I smooth streaked makeup, cover the third eye on my forehead, and wipe away running mascara, I try to think of something to say if the officer does ask me about a past I thought I had left behind. I've tried to forget about that night for the last seven years, but it floats to the top of my suppressed memories.

I can almost smell the rich dirt of Mr. Riley's cornfield, almost hear the rock and roll playing on Tom's truck radio, feel the gentle caress of spring on the night air …

“Come on, Sherry, I just want a kiss. A kiss isn't going to hurt anything, right?”

Sherry Billington had never been kissed. Oh, okay, once in the third grade by a boy with buckteeth, glasses, and a nasal condition, but that didn't count. Tom Dawson was the kind of boy who counted. He was the star player of our high school football team and had already been offered countless college scholarships. I was no one. Not in the scheme of things in Haven, Texas, where nothing much went on anyway.

It was hard to believe that Tom had actually asked me to dance at the prom. Harder yet to believe when he drove up beside Cindy Emerson and me walking home afterward and offered me a ride. He hadn't offered Cindy one and that should have been my first clue that he had no intention of taking me home.

Now he wanted to kiss me. “Why” was the only question that came to mind. Tom had recently broken up with Abby Sinclair, head cheerleader and voted most likely to grace the centerfold of
Playboy
at some point in the future. I'd heard the breakup had something to do with the fact that Tom would nail anything that moved if it stood still long enough. That thought brought me back to reality.

“I'd really just like to go home,” I'd said. “My parents will be worried about me.” That wasn't true. Clive and Norma Billington went to bed every night at ten-thirty sharp, right after the news. The last thing either would be worried about was me in a truck with a boy parked beside a cornfield making out. I'd never given them any trouble. They'd never given me much of anything in return. They treated me okay, but neither were affectionate people.

“Just one kiss, then I promise to take you home,” Tom had insisted, pouting his lips when he looked at me.

He was cute. I'd found myself thinking, why not? Maybe it was time I had a “real” kiss. Maybe Tom was tired of gorgeous, big-breasted girls and wanted someone a little more down to earth.

“One kiss,” I had agreed. “Then I really need to get home.”

Tom leaned in for the kiss. I shyly met him halfway. He had his tongue down my throat in a heartbeat. He nearly gagged me. I tried to pull back but he grabbed my shoulders and hauled me closer to him on the truck seat. His hand shot up my dress. My knees immediately knocked together. His breath smelled and tasted funny, like he'd drunk more than the sweet punch being doled out to us in the gymnasium.

“Relax,” he'd said against my bruised mouth. “You'll like this. I promise.”

Being unpopular hadn't made me stupid. That's when I knew Tom Dawson had more on his mind than a kiss.

“Stop it,” I'd said firmly, trying to get away from him. “I want to go home. Now!”

Tom's fingers cut deeper into my shoulders. “You're not going anywhere!” he'd barked. “Not until I collect on a little bet I made with Phil Brewer. I told him I'd bring your panties back with me. I bet him a hundred bucks.”

A sick feeling had settled in my stomach. I should have known Tom paying any attention to me had to be some prank. A joke. It had been foolish to believe for a second he might have been interested in me. Tom had always been a bit of bully, but if he thought I was too intimidated by him to do anything but roll over and play dead, he had another think coming.

“I hope you have a hundred bucks, asshole.”

It had been the wrong thing to say
.

“Miss Kinipski? I really need to talk to you. Will you come out now, please?”

The rock and roll playing on the radio fades. The biting feel of Tom's fingers digging into my tender flesh fades. Haven, Texas, fades. I blink and look at my face in the mirror. For a split second, I see Sherry Billington staring back. I blink again and she's gone. Where am I? Oh, yeah, New York. Hotel room. About to be arrested for murder. I take a deep breath, walk to the bathroom door, and open it.

The officer leans against the doorframe. He's removed the sunglasses and now I know why he wore them. The cop has the biggest, bluest eyes I have ever seen. The eyes don't match the rest of his hard body image. I suppose that's why he hides them behind the sunglasses.

“I'd like to ask you a few questions,” he says.

Stalling seems like a good idea. “And you are?”

“Detective Terry Shay. NYPD.”

Using another stalling tactic, I ask, “Really? Seems like most of the detective shows I see on television, the detectives don't wear the uniform. They wear nice suits or sometimes casual clothes—”

“What detectives wear is not what I'm here to talk to you about, Ms. Kinipski,” the officer interrupts. “We're not exactly into fashion at the precinct.”

I asked about the dress code because Cindy and I watch cop shows all the time. Cindy likes them. She enjoys watching them in my apartment on my big screen, even though she lives next door and could just as easily watch them on her television.

Stalling is not working. Shay doesn't seem distracted by the fact that I'm considered famous in certain circles or that I'm barely dressed and we're in a hotel room together. I'm not used to that. Have I actually met a man who doesn't think with the front of his pants? If I have, he'll be the first.

Now that I think about it, maybe jail wouldn't be so bad if he was my warden. He could bring his handcuffs to my cell … damn this PMS, bitch-in-heat stuff. I do not look good in orange. Jumpsuits went out of style in the eighties. I can't go to jail. They probably wouldn't let me keep my beauty bag on hand to fight the werewolf outbreaks. The inevitable can't be put off any longer, however, so I ask, “What do you want to talk to me about, Detective?”