Hungry for You (15 page)

“That’s what friends are for,” Alex responded at once.

“Friends can’t give you sex,” she snapped finally.

“Friends with benefits can,” Alex said with a grin, actually enjoying her sister’s frustration.

Sam sounded surprised when she asked, “Do you have a friend with benefits?”

“No,” Alex admitted, her smile fading. Truly, her love life was a barren wasteland at the moment and had been for a while. It was depressing to even think of it. Forcing her shoulders straight, she added, “But a BOB fills in nicely until I get one.”

“Who is Bob?” Sam asked with confusion.

“Not a who, a what,” Alex explained dryly. “A battery-operated boyfriend.”

“What?” Sam sounded completely lost now.

“A vibrator, Sam,” she said dryly. “Geez. You’ve heard of those, haven’t you?”

A long sigh came down the line, and then Sam said, “Alex, please … Just give Cale a chance. If you don’t, you could be passing up on the greatest happiness of your life.”

Alex was silent for a moment, wondering if she
was
passing up on a good thing with Cale. But then she reminded herself that he was only here for a short time and would be returning home eventually.

“How is Cale taking your … reticence,” Sam asked garnering her attention again.

Alex felt her eyebrows rise, and said slowly, “He said he’d like to get to know me better, but I made it plain I don’t have time for men right now and he’s respecting that.”

“What an idiot,” Sam muttered, making Alex smile with affection. Her sister loved her and
would
think the man an idiot for not pursuing her ardently. It was sweet, Alex thought, but her smile faded as she glanced out to the kitchen and saw Sue placing orders on her shelf.

“Honey, I have to go,” she said apologetically. “The orders have started rolling in now.”

Sam sighed, but said, “That’s all right, I need to call Marguerite anyway.”

“Marguerite Argeneau?” Alex asked with surprise. It was the only Marguerite Sam had ever mentioned to her.

“Yes,” Sam muttered, sounding grim, and Alex felt her curiosity stir. She hadn’t realized the two women knew each other that well. Sam always talked about the woman like she was some sort of goddess or someone high above their social standing, but it sounded like she was making friends with her.

Sue rushed into the kitchen with more orders in hand, and Alex grimaced. “Right, you call Marguerite then, but first I want to tell you … thank you thank you thank you for sending Cale to me. He’s working wonders and keeping me from bankruptcy. You saved my life. I love you, Sam.”

Alex barely waited for Sam’s depressed “I love youtoo” back before hanging up and hurrying out to her station.

Cale had just rung the doorbell of Marguerite’s large house when the door was opened. The woman had obviously been watching for him.

“Cale,” she said happily, and stepped forward to hug him. “Right on time. Now we’re all here.”

“Who is we?” Cale asked with a frown, as he hugged her back. He’d taken to keeping mortal hours now that he was helping out at the restaurant. It meant consuming a little more blood than usual to make up for the damage the sun could cause; but he’d minimized that as much as possible, bundling up against the sun as well as the cold and working mostly from Alex’s office at the new restaurant, where there were no windows.

Unfortunately, it meant his hours were at odds with that of his relatives, and he’d played telephone tag with most of them this last week. Marguerite had called several times Friday, the last message sounding so urgent that Cale had arranged for an early wake-up call this morning so that he could get ahold of her before she and Julius retired at dawn. Cale had been more than a little surprised when all she’d wanted was to invite him to dinner that night. Since it was Saturday, and Alex would be working anyway, he’d accepted.

“I invited a few others,” Marguerite said evasively as she urged him inside.

“Who?” Cale asked as she set to work helping him remove his winter clothing as if he were a child.

“Oh, Julius is here of course,” she murmured, hanging up his coat.

“Of course,” Cale said with a faint smile. The only time he’d seen Marguerite without Julius was when she’d helped him at the restaurant. In New York and then here, the man seemed attached to her side like a Siamese twin. “Who else?”

“Come and see,” she said gaily, and took his arm to urge him into the living room.

Cale came to a halt the moment he reached the door and saw the people seated inside. Julius was there, crossing the room to join Marguerite as if the few minutes apart had been unbearable. The man slid his arm around Marguerite and pressed a kiss to her forehead as he hugged her to his side, but Cale’s attention had turned to the others in the room. Lucian, Leigh, Mortimer, Sam, and Bricker all stared back, and he got a distinct sense of déjà vu. This reminded him of the day he’d arrived and stopped here at Marguerite’s behest to find Lucian and Leigh waiting with Marguerite and Julius. He’d felt ambushed then, and did again now.

“Oh no, dear. This isn’t an ambush,” Marguerite said at once, and he glanced at her sharply, realizing that she’d read his thoughts. He didn’t feel any better when she said, “Actually I’m not so much reading them as you are shouting them. It’s this new life-mate business. It makes it hard for you to guard your thoughts and even seems to amplify them. We’ve all been through it,” she added sympathetically, and urged him to take a seat across from the sofa where Lucian, Leigh, and Bricker were seated. Mortimer and Sam were seated ona love seat on his right, and Marguerite and Julius now settled onto the love seat on his left, leaving him feeling like he was surrounded and under interrogation.

Cale shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing over the people staring back at him, and then ran one hand wearily through his hair. “So if this isn’t an ambush, what is it?”

There was a moment of silence as glances were exchanged, and then Marguerite said, “We just want to help with Alex.”

“I don’t need help,” Cale said stiffly.

“Oh? It’s going well then?” she asked gently.

Cale felt his mouth tighten, he wouldn’t say well exactly. He hardly saw the woman. He worked at the new restaurant, she at the old. She had Mondays and Tuesdays off and he Saturday and Sundays and while he’d dropped by the old restaurant several times and she’d dropped around at the new restaurant as well to check on things, she’d kept the talk strictly to business. Cale had tried to steer it into more personal conversation several times, but Alex always steered it firmly back to business. It was incredibly frustrating, and he hadn’t a clue what to do about it; but he wasn’t willing to admit that.

Forgetting that they could read his mind and would know all this, he said stiffly, “It’s going very well.”

“Have you slept with her yet?” Lucian asked abruptly.

“Luc,” Leigh reprimanded, slapping his shoulder. “You’ll embarrass Cale.”

“Honey,” Lucian said gently, “Cale is over two thousand years old. Nothing should embarrass him anymore.”

“Are you that old?” Sam asked with amazement.

“He was born in 280 B.C.,” Lucian informed her, and Sam blanched. Cale got the distinct impression she was reassessing him as a mate for her sister and finding him wanting now that she knew how old he was.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Lucian pointed out, reclaiming Cale’s attention.

“No,” he said at last. “I haven’t slept with her yet.”

“And you won’t,” he announced firmly.

Cale frowned at his certainty. “What makes you think—?”

“She doesn’t sleep with employees.”

Cale scowled at the title employee. He was a business owner in his own right in France. Actually, he had his own miniempire. The idea of her thinking of him as a mere employee rather than an equal who was helping her out was a bit distressing to him. “I am a coworker. Not an employee. And that’s only temporary anyway. I’m just—”

“Fine. She doesn’t sleep with coworkers either,” Lucian interrupted dryly, and added, “She told Sam that on Friday night. Sam immediately called Marguerite for advice, and Marguerite got us all here tonight to help you.”

Cale sat back in his seat with defeat. He’d known it was an ambush. “Fine. What do you suggest?”

There was a moment of silence, and then Marguerite said, “I wish Lucern was here. His Kate had issues withthe idea of getting involved with one of her writers, but they managed to get past that. He could tell us how.”

“Dream sex,” Lucian said abruptly, drawing all eyes his way.

“Dream sex?” Cale said uncertainly.

Lucian nodded. “It’s hard to avoid temptation when you’re having shared wet dreams.”

“Yes, it is,” Sam agreed excitedly, and then flushed when everyone glanced her way. “Well, it is. I was pretty into my career and not looking for a relationship when Mortimer came along, but those dreams …” She shook her head, blood rushing up her throat and into her face as she recalled them. “They made it pretty hard for me to resist Mortimer. Every time I looked at him, I was remembering those damned dreams.”

“Thank God for that,” Mortimer murmured, hugging her close.

Sam smiled and melted into him.

“You haven’t turned yet,” Cale commented, and when Sam and Mortimer glanced his way with surprise, he pointed out, “Sorry, but Bricker and I overheard your conversation when I came to the enforcer house last week. You were agreeing to the turn. But you haven’t yet?”

“Mortimer’s a little shorthanded at the moment with everyone away on their honeymoons,” Sam said shyly. “We plan to do it this week, though.”

“You’ve agreed to turn?” Marguerite asked, beaming on the woman. “How lovely. What day are you doing it? I’ll come help Mortimer oversee it if you like.”

“I will too,” Leigh offered.

“You will not,” Lucian said at once. “I’m not having her kick you and possibly damaging the baby.”

“I would never kick Leigh,” Sam said with surprise.

“You wouldn’t mean to,” Lucian said. “But in that kind of pain, you won’t know what you’re doing.”

Sam blanched. “I know Jo went through a lot of pain when she turned, but I thought that was because she was wounded. Won’t it be easier for me?”

“I thought we were here to discuss Cale and Alex,” Mortimer said, no doubt worried that if Sam knew just what she was in for, she might have second thoughts about turning.

“Yeah,” Bricker said at once, backing his friend. “We were talking about wet dreams.”

“Right, wet dreams,” Cale said dryly. He grimaced at the group of them. “Just how am I to make Alex have wet dreams about me when I can’t get into her mind?” When Bricker opened his mouth to speak, he added sharply, “And please don’t suggest one of you give them to her. There is no way in hell I am allowing that.”

Lucian snorted and shook his head. “Didn’t your mother explain the facts of immortal life to you?”

“Of course,” he said impatiently, scowling at the man.

“Then why don’t you know about shared wet dreams?” he countered.

When Cale glared at him, Marguerite said quickly, “They aren’t something anyone gives to her, dear … except maybe you. Life mates who sleep under the same roof tend to share their dreams … erotic dreams about each other.”

“Sam and I weren’t even under the same roof,” Mortimer announced. “We were in neighboring cottages and experienced it.”

Sam flushed but nodded silently.

“Then we need to get you two closer,” Marguerite murmured thoughtfully. “Under the same roof would be best, but somewhere nearby might work.”

Cale scowled at the suggestion, and said, “I don’t see why you think sharing dreams would convince her to bypass her rule not to date coworkers and go out with me.”

“He’s never had them,” Mortimer pointed out to Lucian when the older immortal began to look annoyed.

“Then he should trust us to know what we’re talking about,” Lucian growled.

It was Marguerite who said gently, “Cale dear, right now Alex is just seeing you as the answer to her business dreams. She’s noticed that you’re handsome and is attracted to you, but it’s like seeing a lovely dessert you’ve never tried before when you’re on a diet. It may look delicious, but because you don’t know for sure how delicious, it’s easier to deny yourself. Whereas, if it were a lovely slice of cheesecake that you have tasted and do know will be delicious, it would be harder to resist.”

“I see,” he murmured. “Then couldn’t I just kiss her? She would experience our attraction that way and—”

“Kisses are nice, but she might pull away before you could get very far,” Sam pointed out. “Alex is pretty stubborn when she sets her mind to something. A shared dream really would be better, so that she couldexperience all the passion. A kiss would be like just sampling the first course, and we want her to get the full meal to know what she could have.”

Cale ran a hand wearily through his hair. “Right.”

“How long has it been since you had sex?” Lucian asked, drawing another reprimanding look from Leigh. Sighing, he patted her hand and explained, “If it’s been a while, he may need a refresher course. Or one of those books I bought.”

“You said you didn’t read those books,” Leigh said with surprise.

“Well, no, but I’ve always been exceptional at everything I do and managed to get along without them. However, Cale is not me.”

Cale rolled his eyes. “I’d forgotten just how arrogant you could be, Uncle.”

Lucian shrugged. “That’s a skill too, and, as I say, I’m exceptional at everything.”

Leigh laughed and kissed the man on the cheek as if she thought he was joking. Cale suspected he wasn’t.

“All right, I think we’re agreed the best way to deal with this is to somehow get Alex and Cale under the same roof or at least nearer each other so they can experience the shared dreams,” Marguerite said firmly, and then glanced around the room. “Does anyone have ideas?”

“I could take him over to her place in a van, park on the road, and have him sleep in the back,” Bricker suggested. “That might be close enough for their minds to meet.”

“No goddamned way,” Cale barked, blanching atthe very suggestion. Lying in the back of a van having erotic dreams about Alex while Bricker sat in the front seat able to read what he was experiencing was just not something he was willing to even consider. Dear God!