Kiss at Your Own Risk (14 page)

“I’ve got it, Prentiss.” She touched her grandson’s arm and moved up beside him. A united front.

She levered a hard stare at her ex-true love, and really looked at him. At the laugh lines around his eyes. At those full lips that had kissed so many other women. At the underperforming hands that had failed to give her the ultimate pleasure those thousands of times she’d entrusted her body to him. At the violet-blue eyes that had looked right at her and rejected her. At the handsome face that had haunted her for so long. “This is my home now,” she said. “You aren’t invited.”

Prentiss grunted with approval, and respect flashed in Napoleon’s eyes.

And then the womanizing man-whore opened his big mouth. “I hate to divest you of your self-empowered notions, but this home is actually mine. The magic that holds its walls up responds to me, and nothing can keep me out.”

Crap. Was that true? She’d never had the grounds inspected. Next time a man walked out on her and left her with a castle, she was so going to bring in an expert surveyor.

“Why are you here, Gramps?” Prentiss interrupted.

Napoleon finally looked at him “My boy, you are quite impressive. Details of your successes have reached me across the worlds. I never thought you would wind up controlling the fate of every soul in existence.”

Prentiss drew his shoulders back, and she saw the pride flash in his eyes. “You’ve heard?”

“Of course I have. I keep track of you.” Napoleon walked across the mats and held out his arms. “I never stopped thinking of you. I’m proud of you.”

Prentiss stiffened. “No thanks—”

Napoleon grabbed his grandson in a huge hug. For a moment, Prentiss resisted, and then Angelica saw a little boy expression of complete vulnerability cross his face, and then he was hugging the man who’d played the role of his father before he’d walked out on them both.

Tears filled her eyes as she watched Prentiss embrace the icon of self-gratification who’d abandoned him. How dare Napoleon come back in here and mess with them both? But at the same time… she knew how badly Prentiss had missed his father, his grandfather, and his mother.

Prentiss suddenly pulled back out of the embrace. “Enough.” His voice was hard. “What do you want from us?”

“Can’t an old man come home to see his loved ones?” Napoleon spread his hands, an acorn-sized ruby ring blinking on his left pinkie finger. No wedding ring. Gee, what a surprise. So glad she’d used hers to make penis rings for some of her men years ago. Sort of a fitting use for it.

Angelica snorted at his innocent expression. “Oh, come on, Nappy.” She got a silent chuckle when she saw Napoleon wince. He’d always detested that nickname, so she’d never used it, not wanting to upset him. Now? She just might feel inspired to sprinkle it liberally into their conversation. It had such a lovely ring to it.

“You don’t expect us to believe you came home for a family reunion.” She cocked her head and looked pointedly in the direction of his more intelligent head (the one in the nether regions, of course). “Unless your women have finally gotten tired of not having orgasms and you can’t get laid anymore? Hoping to come back home and play the same game?”

Napoleon’s face went carefully blank.

“Gram!” Prentiss looked horrified. “I don’t want to hear about orgasms from you. That’s the kind of stuff that can damage a man for life.”

Angelica almost laughed at his expression. “For heaven’s sake, you’re Death now. Get over a little sex talk from your grandma.”

“But—”

“I have orgasms.” She was aware of Napoleon staring at her, so she added on. “A lot of them, actually. I’m so aware of my body that I can get a man to bring me to multiple orgasm ten times in an hour. And when I’m by myself, I can climax in under three seconds pretty much every time.”

Prentiss looked like he was going to pass out.

Napoleon’s eyes had gone as dark as the deepest ocean, and his right hand was clutched in a fist by his hip. His pants had gone a little tight, and he was breathing with a little more weight than he had been.

She met his gaze. “Clearly, I wasn’t the problem when we were together. It was the man.”

“Okay, I can’t hear this. I’m out of here.” Prentiss gave her a desperate look as he inched toward the door behind Napoleon. “You okay if I jet?”

She didn’t take her eyes off the underperforming sex peon she’d once loved, afraid to break the sense of self she’d never felt before. She felt deliciously strong. Sensual. A woman of substance. “Yes, I’m fine.” And she was. Yay, Angelica!

“Hey,” Napoleon interrupted, his voice cold. “Any sexual success you have now is because of what I taught you. It wasn’t my fault you were too frigid to abandon yourself to the pleasures I could give you.”

Prentiss whirled toward his grandfather. “Don’t you dare speak to her that way.”

At Napoleon’s words, Angelica felt that tug at her gut, the one that made her feel smaller, weaker, insecure. She lifted her chin against the sudden shrinking of her heart, against the little voice in her head wondering if he was right, if there really was something wrong with her as a woman. She scowled and set her hands on her hips, ignoring the sudden pounding of her heart. “You don’t get to belittle me anymore,” she said. “I—”

“I can treat you however I want, my love. You’re mine, and you always have been.” His gaze shifted to include Prentiss. “You’re both mine. Family bonds never die.”

Prentiss stalked across the room and slammed his fist into Napoleon’s jaw. Nappy went flying back into the wall and landed on the blue mat with a startled look.

Wow. She was so wanting to do a girly cheerleading chant for her grandson right now.

Prentiss leaned over his grandfather. “You stopped being my family the day you murdered my parents.” He spat the accusation then strode through the wall without another word.

Booyah for young men!

Prentiss stalked out, leaving Angelica alone with the man who’d once had the power to make her smile simply by acknowledging her presence. Now? She was in charge of her own smiles, thank you so much. She propped herself against the weapons table as she watched Napoleon struggle to his feet, rubbing his jaw.

Did her grandson have potential or what? Sometimes there was just no substitute for a caveman-like blow to the jaw. There was something so elemental, so manly, so raw about it. A punch like that over some bastard insulting his woman would give Prentiss a great deal of wiggle room for his other faults, and holy cow, it was some kind of high to be the recipient of that kind of protection. Every girl should have a moment like that—

Wait a minute. She hadn’t done a lot of hand-to-hand combat training with her boys lately. Seemed like it would benefit both the girls and the men. She immediately whipped out her Blackberry and began to type a reminder to herself.

“He’s become quite the pugilist. Impressive.”

She didn’t even bother to look up. Maybe she’d start as soon as this afternoon. Reschedule the exploding asp torture session and bring them all to the Girl Power room for—

“Hey.” Napoleon yanked her phone out of her hand. “I’m talking to you.”

She frowned at him. Hello? Did the blind man not see that she was working? “I’m brainstorming.” She snatched the phone back and tried to remember what she’d been working on. Ah, yes, she was going to need to do some role-playing where the guys insulted her girls and then another one punched him out. Oh, how delightful! Then she frowned. Were her girls tough enough for even pretend insults? They were such vulnerable sweet things—

The phone suddenly melted, dripping through her fingers like microwaved peanut butter. “Napoleon!” She cupped her hands, trying to catch the precious bits of data and phone before it slid through her fingers onto the floor. “Fix this, you copulating underperformer!”

“Don’t dismiss me, my dear.” His voice was cool, and she looked up sharply.

He strolled over to the tea set and picked up the pot of hot water. “Your aura is awfully white for someone who’s been engaging in black magic for three hundred years.”

She tensed, not liking his smug tone. Did he know something that he could use against her? “Yeah, well, I’m part angel.” She hurried over to the stack of towels and dumped the melted goo pile onto the top. She so should have synched it last night. A whole day’s worth of experiments were in that electronic device.

He set a tea bag in the Girls Kick Ass mug and then poured hot water into it. “You learned your black magic manipulation from me.” He sounded thoughtful, like he was processing something.

“Actually, what you taught me was to distrust any man who dabbles in magic or women.” The goop began to ooze off the side of the towel. She quickly picked up the edges like a kerchief and tied the corners together. Okay, so it shouldn’t be that hard to fix a melted Blackberry, right? She would have notes… in her phone. Damn.

He dropped a sugar cube into his tea, and droplets splashed onto the lace cloth that one of her boys had hand woven two days before he’d frozen to death in the Tunnel of Frigidity. She cherished that doily, and she bet Nappy had soiled it on purpose. A complete bastion of rude and nitpicky insults.

He tossed in another cube. More splashes. “You created a smut monster to take all the backlash from your experiments, didn’t you? You’re so clean, it must carry every bit of filth you’ve ever generated.”

“Of course not. I use only white magic. I’m a good girl.” She grabbed a towel and hurried over to the table to wipe off the lace. Yeah, big-time lie. Just ask Charles Morgan, the manipulative real estate mogul who’d taken advantage of her vulnerability after Napoleon had walked out. After she’d realized exactly what a devious snake Charlie was, she’d gifted him with her dirty laundry for the rest of eternity. Smutty, as she affectionately called him, was well hidden from all society. Well-hidden as in unkillable and eternally shifting form, of course.

Napoleon leaned so close his lips brushed her ear. “Where’s your smut monster, my love?”

She jumped at his question, accidentally banging the towel into the teapot. She lunged for the silver receptacle, barely catching it before it tipped over. Was her sudden klutziness because of his question, or the endearment? She righted the pot and set it carefully back in place before turning to face him. “I am not your love.”

He didn’t crack a smile. “You are, and you always will be. I’m here to take you back.”

She quickly turned away, pretending to mop up the rest of the spilled hot water. Yeah, that would so not be a good thing if that was really why he was playing the prodigal son thing. As tough as she was, she wasn’t entirely convinced that she could resist a full-scale assault on her independence. “You don’t get to have me.”

“Ah, but I do.”

At the smug finality in his voice, she peeked over at him. He was wearing an extremely satisfied expression that made her grip tighten on the towel. The well-endowed warthog thought he had something all figured out, that was clear.

He met her gaze. “And you want to know why I get to have you?”

“No. Not particularly.” Abandoning the tea set, she grabbed the towel with her phone goo and hurried for the door. By all that was broad-shouldered and arrogant, how was she going to get rid of him? Absolutely nothing good could come of further interaction with him. “I’m really past the days of caring about your interest in me.” Wow. How haughty had that sounded? Damn, she was good.

He twirled the tea bag around in his cup as if he had all the time in the world. “I’ve been brought into town as an expert consultant.”

“Congratulations.” She reached the door and toed it open. “You know the way out—”

“There’s a shape-shifting monster running around town killing otherworld beings.”

Angelica paused at the door, not quite able to walk out. “And this matters to me why?” So not party time if that particular creature happened to be her own dear Smutty. She hadn’t checked on him in years. Just passed him fallout through their connections and let him be. Most people kept their smut monsters chained up, but she felt that the fact he was contaminated was enough punishment. Seriously, it wasn’t like she was heartless or anything. She’d given him an extra zing to make sure he was unkillable and then she’d let him go have fun.

Napoleon took a long sip of his tea, his gaze never leaving her face. “The troublemaker I’ve been brought in to deal with killed someone important, and now he needs to die.”

Panic shot through her, then she immediately halted it. Get real, Angie. What were the odds it was Smutty? Last she’d heard, he was running around in the North Pole trying to kill Santa. “Well, that’s great. Right up your alley, isn’t it? World renowned black magic assassin and all that.”

It was one thing to be a great hit man. It was something else to be able to kill people and leave absolutely no trace of the target. One snap of Napoleon’s powerful fingers, and he could make it seem like his victim had never even existed. It made him highly sought after and very, very expensive.

And yes, she’d tracked him a bit once he’d gone off with his blow-up dolls. She’d once been naive enough to be impressed with his career, until she realized he was a brutal mercenary. No morals. Just money. Prentiss at least was fulfilling the important role of soul management. It wasn’t like creation could exist without him, even if he was abusing it somewhat. Napoleon on the other hand? Money grubbing fornicating bastard.

“It is up my alley,” Napoleon agreed, taking another sip. “The Triumvirate has already made arrangements to have it killed, but a few members don’t expect success. They’ve paid me to come and assess the situation, and then to take action if the first plan doesn’t work.” He smiled. “You can’t imagine how much they paid me just to come take a look.”

She blinked at him. “Oh, so you’re here to offer me spousal support? Fifty percent of your earnings? That’s fantastic. And to think I thought you were a selfish bastard who took off on his own wife and left her with nothing. So sorry to have misjudged you.”

Napoleon ignored her barb. “Imagine my surprise,” he continued, “when I located the target in question and saw that he was loaded to the horns with my wife’s smut.”

Angelica felt the blood drain from her face. “That’s impossible.” Oh, yeah, excellent comeback. Sure to bowl him over with that one.

Napoleon walked over to the buffet and set his cup down. “I’m not sure what you did with the first waste receptacle I created for you, but there’s a serious amount of tarnish on the new one.”

Try three hundred years’ worth. She’d cleansed her life of anything having to do with Napoleon, including taking all the smut from the homeless waif he’d rotted up and dumping it all onto Charles. The girl had become one of Angelica’s first projects, to try to help rehab her from the damage Nappy had done to her emotionally, and as a woman. But Angelica had been very, very careful about how she’d managed it. She was the queen of safeguards. “Smutty can’t be killed,” she said. “I’ve made him immortal.”

Napoleon appropriated a lace napkin and tapped it over his mouth. “We both know nothing is truly immortal. I’ll be able to kill him. You know I will.”

Angelica clutched the phone-goo-towel more tightly. Of course Napoleon could kill Smutty. It might take him some time, but there was a reason he was the best assassin in existence. He’d even usurped the vampire triplets who’d been so effective with their three-pronged assault on the mind, the body, and the spirit. “You’re wrong.”

Hoorah for the completely convincing denial. Not.

“Am I?” He crumpled the beautiful lace treasure and tossed it onto the floor, and then sauntered toward her. “And what do you suppose will happen if I kill your garbage disposal?”

She knew exactly what would happen. The three hundred years of backlash that had turned Smutty from a good looking, debonair fairy prince into a grotesque, humpback den of iniquity, brutality, horrible body odor, and lethal dementia would come flying back and hit her right smack in the face.

She’d be insane before she had a chance to get rid of it, and she knew from the look on Napoleon’s face that he was well aware of that fact.

Smutty’s death would be her own epitaph, as well as the death of all the boys and girls in her care, because the minute the spoilage took over her mind and body, it would be a kill ’em all fiesta until all that was left was blood, carnage, and hell.

Napoleon eased to halt less than a foot away, completely invading her personal space. “I want something from you, babe, and you’re going to give it me. Or your smut monster dies.”

She raised her chin, refusing to take a step back and relinquish her territory. To think there was a day when she’d thought manly, controlling men were hot. She folded her arms over her chest, and her heart started to pound. “What do you want from me? My true love? Because you burned that bridge a long time ago.”

He trailed his finger over her cheek, exactly like he used to do. “I don’t care about your love.”

The words were like a sledgehammer to her gut. Of course he didn’t care about her love. Why had she even let herself think it? Because despite three hundred years of self-training, she apparently still sucked at protecting her heart from him. She smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped.

She could handle this. Negotiate the deal and get him out of her life for good. As long as she kept this all business, she could survive intact. It would be a test. She loved tests. Made her stronger. Imagine the example she’d set for her girls? In fact, she didn’t even need to out-negotiate him. All she had to do was keep him at bay until she could find Smutty and hide him. She could do that, right? Yeah, right. Girl power! “I can’t imagine what I have that you want.”

He caught a lock of her hair and tangled his fingers in it. “It seems that my ugly duckling has blossomed. Word of your allure and sexual talents has reached me even across the globe.”

“You want lessons?” Oh, wow. She brightened and pulled her hair out of his grasp. “You want to stay at the Den for a while? I could totally whip you into shape.” God, she knew she’d been a good girl! The universe delivering Napoleon to her for sensitivity training? Torturing him without recourse? “That’s a great idea. I’ve got some empty beds in the Hair and Makeup area and—”

“No.” He cupped the back of her neck and yanked her close. His chest was so broad, and he was so near that she had to crane her neck to look up at him, to meet his gaze. “I don’t want lessons.”

She caught the scent of sulfur and burning cinnamon, and her knees began to tremble at the familiar smell of death and sweetness, of taint and spice, of man and demon. “So, what do you want?”

Then she saw the look in his eyes. The arrogance. The gleam of anticipation.

Oh, man. This was not going to be good.

“I want the one thing you wouldn’t give me before.”

She swallowed and braced her hands on his chest, trying to keep distance between them. “What’s that?”

He fisted the back of her hair and anchored her head still. “Total and complete surrender.”

She grabbed his wrist and tried to pry his hand off, but his grip was unyielding. “No chance. I’m not the woman I used to be. I have my career and—”

“I don’t give a shit about your career.” His gaze went to her mouth, and suddenly she knew what he wanted.

The one thing that would break her soul forever if she gave it to him. The single area where she had no defenses. The sole vulnerability that would turn her back into the sniveling, weak, desperate woman she used to be, the one she’d spent three hundred years leaving behind, the cycle of self-destruction she’d worked so hard to protect her girls and boys from getting sucked into.

All her dreams. All her hopes. All that she’d accomplished.
By all that’s powerful and womanly, please let me be wrong.

But he smiled, and she knew she was right.

“All I want, my love, is the total and complete surrender of your body.” He thumbed her lower lip with his free hand. “Your body has always belonged to me, and I’m here to take it back.”