Out of Mind (16 page)

A click came from his throat and he swayed forward, tore her panties off and caught her beneath the arms.

Willow rocked her head from side to side. With her eyes squeezed shut, she felt tears run along her temples. Ben moved her as if she were nothing, spread her across the middle of the bed and mounted her. She felt him try to gentle the first thrust, but his restraint broke and they came together as if he were flowing lava filling her up.

Her breasts and belly ached and she didn’t want them to stop aching.

Once, twice, he surged into her. Then the climax broke. His and hers. Bursting over them, drawing out a fine sweat that turned their bodies slick, melded their skin into one skin bonded together.

Ben stilled. The only sound was their panting.

She reached down to feel where their bodies were still joined, his strong shaft impaling her just as it was meant to.

Slowly, he slid out, and she held his face, brought it to hers and kissed him, opened their mouths wide, got as far over and into him as her tongue would take her.

His fingers, landing on her unbelievably sensitive clitoris again shocked Willow. She tried to say his name, but he took over the kiss and she couldn’t speak.

He was tall.

She wasn’t.

Kissing her into oblivion while he worked where she could barely stand to be touched was easy for him. She vaguely felt the rumble of satisfaction in his throat.

He slid fingers up and inside her, drew out and swept to finish what he had started.

Willow struggled beneath him, then fell back, sated, incapable of moving.

He began to kiss her breasts once more, and she spread her arms wide to give herself to him again. The nudge against the entrance to her still-throbbing body opened her eyes.

“Is it okay?” he said. “Again?”

“Again, and again.”

“I
know who you are,” he said. “The blindfold is senseless. And it’s irritating.”

Best ignore him,
she thought. Breaking him might take time, but break him, she would.

“My name is One. Say it,” she told him.
One
suited her well, for that’s what she was, the first one, the most important one. “Say it.” This time she raised her voice.

“One.”

Sullen. Why must these underlings always become sullen? She knew the answer. He was male and chafed against not being able to control her. But she had brought him with her and he would share in her success.

“You are…” She thought about it. “Servant,” she said with satisfaction.

“Damn you—”

“Damn you,
One
.” She cut him off.

“I am no woman’s servant.”

“You are my Servant for as long as I want to play with you. You are such fun to play with, but I have some lessons to teach you first. I have a purpose to fulfill and I do what I set out to do. Your future depends on my success, but it won’t be easy.”

Sunlight slanted through a window high in one white wall, slanted across his naked body. She stood before him, glad of her height, and stroked him until he tried to catch her hands.

One laughed and slapped his face.

He bared his teeth, made fists at his sides. He knew better than to strike out at her, even if he didn’t quite mask the brief start of what would have been his transmutation. The forked tongue actually flashed from his blackening lips, but he collected himself quickly enough to show only what he wanted humans to see in the two male images he had perfected.

“This is a very important day,” she said, lowering her voice to a warm, whispering, soothing hum. “The most important day of your life. Do you want to know why?”

He breathed heavily.

“Because if you don’t do exactly as I tell you, it will be your last day.”

“I don’t have to take this.”

“But you do,” One said, still all but purring at him. “You made a mistake. You acted on your own. You decided to make your mark by doing something I hadn’t told you to do. That was a mistake…Servant.”

Power thrilled her—and fear. This man longed to dominate her, but did not dare to as much as try.

“What I did will help us,” he said. “It will save time. You need what I brought you.”

“You took a risk. I knew nothing about this…Caroline. If you have made a mistake, you’ll suffer. I will report you to the Embran Council and their judgment will be swift—and final.”

“I made no mistake,” he said. “What I did was to help
you. The woman, Caroline, she has no family. No one will look for her. I made sure.”

“No one has looked for her yet,” she pointed out. “If they do, you will join our research into saving our kind—as a subject.”

He laughed and relaxed for the first time since she’d called him in. “I’m not the right makeup,
One
. I don’t think I’d serve your purpose.”

“We will need host Embrans,” she told him. “Didn’t you think of that? Hosts to test our findings on. This could be a good thing. If our experiments go well, whatever we implant in you could make you live forever as we all used to. If not…” She let him consider what she had not quite said.

As with his other human manifestation, he was beautiful, an outstanding specimen, one of very few of his kind in their world.

“I have a question for you,” he said. “This plan of yours—your
backup
plan. Did you clear it with the Council? All they sent you here for was to make sure the work got done and the Millet specimen they selected is captured and taken to Home Place—by the one who thinks he is here alone to complete the task.”

Anger tightened her. “You know better than to question me.”

“My only purpose is to serve you,
One
. I live to serve you. My fate depends upon you. It wouldn’t help my career if something went wrong because you decided to become the big hero by charting your own course. Is this sexy little sideline you’ve come up with, this secret collection of shrunken specimens, in keeping with the Council’s wishes?”

“You’re beginning to bore me.” In fact, he caused her to question her own decision, which she would not tolerate. To question was to risk doubt—doubt could cause careless mistakes, or complete disaster.

“Why am I here now?” he asked, but she saw how he braced his feet apart, flexed the heavy muscles in his arms and his thighs, and aimed his hips in her direction.

“That’s why,” she said, and almost wished she could really purr—like a panther with huge, lethal teeth.

He made sure his subtle movements showed everything off to best advantage. “I’d like to see you,” he said, managing to make a simple request sound suggestive.

“I can see you. That’s all that matters—I’ll make sure everything goes where it needs to go.”

He trembled. His color heightened with excitement. “Whatever you want,” he said.

“First, what I want you to do—later. You took matters into your own hands. I didn’t like that, but you accomplished the task well. I have a list of names with information about where they can be found. There are many names, men and women. Amazing how many loners there are among these humans. All these people with pasts to hide—and they have hidden them well. You will deal with the women. We will gather as many as we can before we must return to the Home Place.”

He laughed.

“Make it fast,” she told him coldly. “Don’t waste time prolonging your own pleasure. The men are mine.” She smiled at that.

“This has become a competition,” he stated flatly.

“Not for you,” she reminded him. “But I will win. I
will accomplish everything our friend was supposed to do for the Council, only so much better, and return to Embran before he even realizes he has failed. They will recall him in shame.”

“He thinks he is here alone. You were not supposed to come…One.”

“I got permission to watch him and make sure the mistakes of his predecessor are not repeated. It isn’t my fault if he thinks he can take his time, enjoy himself among the humans. When he gets back to the Home Place with one of the Millets—if he manages to catch one—we will be well on our way to curing the sickness these creatures caused us. And I will have proved that our plague could have started with the introduction of any human elements, not exclusively a Millet.

“True, the woman who married Jude Millet and then returned to Home Place got there at the same time as the first cases of the Torturous Death. It is likely she introduced the disease through her resumed contacts with her own kind, and they began to die. But I believe that if each Embran were what these creatures call
vaccinated
with the essence of the human, we would become immune to them and be saved. My goal is to find that essence from the human specimens I take back.”

“You are brilliant,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “My way is so much more efficient. We must move quickly.”

“I’m ready,” he said.

“You are indeed. Have you heard about the
bats
that are attacking the citizens of New Orleans?”

He laughed. “Amazing how many they have seen—and how many people are demanding rabies shots.”

“Without seeing these bats, let alone being bitten by them.” One snorted.

“Do it.” His voice changed at once, sounding not just eager, but demanding.

For her the change was simple. She could accomplish her transmutation at will and smoothly—that was her greatest accomplishment and, added to her enhanced intellect, it made her formidable. Too bad the Council continued to prize man-Embrans above the females of their species.

Lacing her hands across her breasts, she angled her elbows upward, bowed her head and sank into a crouch, grew smaller while thin membranes formed over the bones of her arms, turning them into vibrating black wings. She drew them rapidly through the air, reveling in the beating sound. The folding and reshaping of her transmutation happened rapidly. She had been told how graceful her change appeared. Graceful and potentially deadly.

A moment of discomfort came with the sprouting of short, tight fur all over her newly forming body. Sharp, quill-like hairs dug at her enlarging eyes until they protruded enough to be free. She felt her mouth stretch wide and heard the popping that came with erupting teeth, and fangs she could extend or retract. The slime that dripped from her lips would burn like acid if she willed it. Her size could change, depending upon her needs. At the moment she needed no more than a few inches of girth and less of height. She tucked the fangs away but let her softer teeth remain extended—they were so useful in these moments.

Servant panted with anticipation.

She hovered above the floor, rose to just the right height and set herself spinning. Closer and closer she drew to him until she fastened onto his groin, slid those softer teeth along until they pressed into his tensed body.

Her Servant screamed, shuddered and clutched air. He gave himself to her.

One was nothing but clear mind, and exquisite release.

This was the prize she won for superiority. She could kill, or she could become the giver and receiver of cataclysmic orgasm.

“W
hy are you ignoring me?” Ben asked Willow. He sat in the passenger seat of her van.

“Because I’m pretending you’re not here.”

He looked at her and put a hand on her thigh.

She batted him away.

“Why would you want to pretend I’m not here?” he said. “It feels so good to be with you.”

All he heard from her was a long sigh.

“Doesn’t it feel good to you, Willow?”

Another sigh.

“Willow?”

“Too bad you had to spoil the best day I ever had,” she said.

She came to a stop at a light. Ben leaned his head back and watched the side of her face. The red light turned her hair the color of smoldering embers and caught the brilliance of her eyes. “You’re perfect,” he said, and grinned to himself.

“And you’re a rat. You’re deliberately goading me, Benedict Fortune.”

“But we kiss so well. You’ve got to admit that. We do everything so well together. And if I’m twisted to enjoy
the way I feel with you in my arms, then you’re twisted, too. You like it just as much as I do.”

Ben didn’t miss her little smile.

The light turned green, and she drove on in the gathering gray of an early evening turned dramatic by mounds of silver-edged cumulus clouds.

Sirens hollered behind them, and for an instant Ben expected them to be pulled over.

Willow did pull the van over, but only to let a fire truck pass.

She didn’t immediately drive on. “You haven’t pulled any stunts, have you?” she said. “I wouldn’t be amused.”

“Stunts?” He tapped her bare shoulder.

“Ministorms aren’t likely to hit twice in the same backyard—”

“C’mon—”

“But if I get there and the fire hoses are out, I’ll know who wants to stop me from seeing my clients.”

He sniffed in deeply. Her hair always smelled like jasmine—his favorite scent. In Kauai he grew jasmine just to remind him of her when he sat on the lanai at night.

Her shoulder felt like silk—all the way to her elbow and back.

“I’m driving, Ben.”

“I’d never accuse
you
of being a pyromaniac. Can you even imagine me suggesting you set a fire deliberately?”

“Not if I did it several blocks from the crime scene. We both know I couldn’t change anything, anywhere, no matter how hard I tried.”

He tilted his face up. Willow didn’t know how well
he understood, not only her self-doubts, but her paranormal potential. “Listen, love. Why not give this one a pass and go back to the Court of Angels?” He needed something strong to sell that idea. “We’ve got to find your angel—the one from the Mentor’s book.”

“You know it’s not there. If it was, we’d have found it—and one of us would remember seeing it, too.”

“Not if it’s deliberately hidden. Things might look different in this light, too.”

“Nice try,” she told him, making a left turn. “The way things are going I may have lost half of my clients by tomorrow. The Brandts’ business would fill in for a lot of smaller jobs.”

“Mario didn’t like it when you left him behind.”

“He loves being with Winnie. You’d think they’d been together all their lives. Now concentrate and stop trying to get your own way.”

“You avoided Pascal when you sneaked out, Willow. He’s been waiting to talk to you all day.”

“I’ll talk to him later. Among other things, he’s been trying to get into my mind. That’s not allowed.”

“Uh-uh,” Ben said, hoping he sounding adamantly opposed to such behavior. “He can ask, but he can’t come in without your permission. Did he ask?”

She puffed with irritation. “Well, yes.”

“So what’s the problem? You didn’t let him in.”

Willow glanced at him quickly. “He never used to try. They’ve started taking me for granted. They think I’ve accepted all the…you know, and they intend to draw me into the whole…you know.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, feeling smug. “I know all about it.”

She rolled her window down a few inches, and warm air rushed into the van. People on their way out for the night hooted and laughed, and a horn played a mournful lament in the distance.

“Do not get out of this van while I’m in the house,” she said. “If I need you, I will let you know.”

“That’s an interesting comment.” He leaned to kiss her and felt the softening. He drew back an inch. “How will you do that?”

“Ben!” She sounded as if she were complaining, but her hand ran lightly down his cheek. “Get down out of sight. We’re almost there.”

“I asked how I’ll know if you need me.”

She pulled to a stop beside the Brandts’ tall front hedges. “If I need you, I will open my mind, Ben, and invite you in.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, and crossed his arms, making himself comfortable. She was giving in, even if slowly.

Willow climbed to the sidewalk and reached back for her briefcase. She popped up and ruffled Ben’s long hair, then quickly escaped when he tried to grab her.

From what she could see on her way to the front door, no sign of Ben’s mischief remained. The beautiful house glowed warmly in what was left of the disappearing daylight.

She barely touched the bell before the door swept open.

“There you are, Willow. I’m Chloe Brandt.” And Chloe Brandt was worth looking at. Not classically beautiful, but a one-of-a-kind woman with sharp features and black hair pulled straight back from a heart-shaped hairline. Large, deep brown eyes didn’t quite match the
warmth in her voice, but her red lips curved in a naturally sultry smile and there were dimples in her cheeks.

An A-line burgundy shift accentuated memorable breasts and stopped six inches above the knees on fabulous legs.

“Willow Millet.” Willow shook hands.

Naturally, an impressive professional floral arrangement graced the central table in the foyer. Their shoes clipped on marble tile all the way to the kitchen Willow remembered a bit too well.

“Is it all right if we talk in here?” Chloe said. “It’s my favorite room. Don’t they say everyone always gathers in the kitchen?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you okay?” Chloe spun around. “You’ve had a horrible time and it’s so unfair.”

How could Chloe be certain it was unfair, Willow wondered. “I’m fine,” she said. The woman was only trying to be kind.

“Good. Val will be in shortly. He and Preston are talking about enlarging the cabana. Preston…you met him at the party that night, didn’t you?”

Willow nodded and had a fleeting memory of the man’s smile and his naked body before he jumped into the pool. She felt overheated at once.

“I thought so. Preston makes sure he meets everyone. He doesn’t talk about it, but he’s an architect, even if he doesn’t really practice—he’s so determined to publish his novel. But Val likes to get his opinion on things. He’ll be coming in for a drink with Val. And they’re both such curious creatures, they’re bound to want to hang around and listen in to us. Will you be okay with that?”

As if she could refuse. “Absolutely,” she said.

This woman didn’t look as if she suffered from shyness, as had been suggested. She moved confidently and spoke confidently.

“Chloe?” a female voice called just before the front door slammed shut again. “Where are you, pet? It’s Vanity.”

Chloe expelled a breath through pursed lips. “In the kitchen,” she said, not meeting Willow’s eyes. “Vanity’s a family friend,” she said quietly.

But the emotion Willow felt was too strong for a simple friendship. A complicated pull and push, uncertainty, questions about trust.

“Aha,” Vanity said, sweeping into the kitchen wearing a tiny, tight, black tube top, skinny black capris and expanses of smooth skin.

“Hi, Vanity,” Chloe said, her smile anxious. “Are you okay?”

Vanity shrugged and pulled in the corners of her mouth. “Yes, sweetie. Thanks for asking.” She nodded to Willow. “Nice to see you again after all that furor.”

“Val said you had an unpleasant date,” Chloe said.

Vanity rolled her eyes. “Awful. It was like eating dinner with an octopus—a horny octopus.”

Willow laughed; she couldn’t help it. Then she cleared her throat. “Sorry. You’re so droll—and I think I may have met the same octopus somewhere.”

Both Vanity and Chloe laughed.

“Make us drinks,” Chloe told Vanity. “Since you’re here, you’ll want to sit in on my meeting with Willow and make a nuisance of yourself.”

More laughter.

Vanity didn’t ask what either of them wanted to drink. She busied herself deciding on a bottle from a cooler as large as the refrigerator. Selection made, she opened the wine and set three glasses of white on the glass kitchen table. She sat down and beckoned.

With each moment, Willow felt less comfortable. They seemed determined to turn her into some sort of superconfidante and family manager. And the family consisted of more than just the Brandts.

She sat beside Vanity and pulled a folder from the briefcase.

Chloe joined them. She brought a wheel of Brie and crackers with her. “To my salvation,” she said, raising her glass and nodding to Willow. “The woman who will change my life.”

Crystal clinked and Willow took a sip of an incredible Viognier. She said, “Oh, my,” and both Chloe and Vanity laughed.

“Can you give me an overview of the services you need?” Willow said. She opened a slim binder and jotted “Brandt” across the top of the first page.

“Everything,” Chloe said.

“Oh, can’t we just enjoy our wine first?” Vanity said, drinking deeply. “We’ve got all night for the icky business stuff.” She turned aside a piece of the Brie skin, scraped a knife across the cheese and put a thin layer on a cracker.

Awkward, Willow held her hands between her knees and looked at Chloe, who raised one brow. “We can’t keep Willow too long,” she said. “She’s a working girl. Willow, I’d like to turn over the household accounts to you. That’ll mean you do all the ordering, arrange deliv
eries and take a good look at existing household staff. Those you approve of, keep—replace the rest.”

Willow made notes and hoped her surprise at the sweeping request didn’t show. It had sounded cold. If she did work here, she wouldn’t get rid of a soul who wasn’t causing major problems.

“There are some suppliers in place,” Chloe said, “but if you have people you prefer, feel free. You’ll be able to keep up with scheduled events from my daybook. I’ll show you later.”

Vanity crossed her legs and jiggled a high-heeled black mule from the toes of one foot. “I’m still waiting for the police to figure out what happened the other night when you were here, Willow. I don’t buy the minitornado tale.”

“Someone made a nice job of tidying up,” Willow said, avoiding Vanity’s suggestion and looking through the wall of windows at the gardens. “These odd phenomena happen.”

She made the mistake of thinking about Ben and felt him entering her mind.
“Nothing to worry about,”
she indicated to him and turned her attention back to the other women.

Val Brandt emerged from behind the cabana with sleek Preston Moriarty in tow. They paused, gesturing first at the pool, then at the cabana, before continuing toward the house.

“They’re enjoying themselves,” Chloe said with a faint smile. “Boys and their projects. They’re easily pleased. I really do want you to take over, Willow. My plan is for you to think of this house as your own. When there’s a party, it’ll be your party—you’ll be the boss, the wife, if you like.”

She said it all with a straight and serious face.

“You don’t really know me,” Willow pointed out.

“Of course she does,” Vanity interrupted. “By now she knows almost as much about you as you do. Chloe is excellent at ferreting out all the things you thought nobody knew.”

“And I know all this talk about you being involved in the murders is rubbish,” Chloe said. “The police don’t have any leads. The fact that you’ve even been mentioned shows they don’t have any evidence at all.”

Wooden blinds rattled beside an open window.

Willow glanced at them, but they had stopped moving.

She made a few more notes.

“Do you have to work, Willow?” Vanity asked.

Willow felt Chloe’s disapproval at her friend’s question, but she said, “I do. Independence is very important to me. I’ve always wanted to be able to take care of myself. That’s not so easy when you’re a member of a very close family.”

Vanity’s eyelashes fluttered. “Believe me, I know what you mean,” she said. “I don’t have a close family, but I know all about having to work to maintain one’s independence. I always make my plans well in advance. Modeling is for the young, and I don’t want to try to hang on doing commercials for wrinkle treatments. I’ve got a very promising modeling agency.”

“Congratulations,” Willow said, softening toward Vanity.

“Bring your wine,” Chloe said. She got up and left the kitchen with Willow and Vanity behind her. “I don’t suppose Val gave you the complete tour.”

Without saying much other than which room they
were in, Chloe took them through the house. Each space was flawless. A library and adjoining sitting room brought a grin of delight from Willow. “I could live in these two rooms,” she said. “They are so elegant, but cozy at the same time.”

“You like them a lot, then?” Chloe said.

“I do.”

They wandered through the ground floor, finishing in a long, narrow conservatory on one side of the house. Since it couldn’t be seen from the front of the house, Willow had not known it was there.

Vanity insisted they put on smocks before venturing deeper. “Some of the plants have sticky residue,” she said.

“Heavenly,” Willow said, genuinely charmed by a plethora of shrubs clearly used primarily as a backdrop for dozens and dozens of orchids. A path made from tiny mosaic tiles set in a pattern of interlinking circles ran through the center of raised beds of blooming gardenias. The soil smelled rich.

“It’s amazing,” Willow said, strolling slowly and stopping frequently to look more closely at a bloom. She glanced anxiously at Chloe. “This is very specialized. Obviously, you already have a very able gardener.”

“The conservatory is Vanity’s,” Chloe said. “She takes care of everything here. There’s no room for this sort of thing where she lives, so we gave it to her as a gift.”