One Lucky Vampire (35 page)

“So you followed us,” Jake guessed. It was the only explanation.

Ball-Cap Boy nodded. “I left the lawyer with his mouth wide open and followed you. I had to hire a taxi to do it.” He smiled. “I told the taxi driver the brunette was my wife and the two of you were having an affair. He was very sympathetic. It seems his wife ‘stepped out’ on him, as he put it.” He shrugged. “We followed you to that car rental place and while she was returning her car, I rented one, and then I followed you back here.”

“And poisoned the hot tub?” Jake asked, and then said with certainty, “No, not then. You didn’t have the poison with you in the rental car.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I saw the hot tub that night. Disgusting things,” he added with a shudder. “Only whores and whoresons use those. Poisoning it was the only thing to do.”

Jake frowned. He was recalling his first night here when he’d arrived with Marguerite. The door had been unlocked when they’d arrived, he recalled. They’d locked it, and then when he’d checked later it was unlocked again.

“You followed us here, you weren’t here before us?” he asked, despite knowing he couldn’t have been.

Ball-Cap Boy looked at Jake as if he were the one who was crazy. “I told you I followed you. The angels led me to you, they don’t give out addresses.”

Jake didn’t react to that, his thoughts were on the fact that the door had been unlocked when they’d arrived. Nicole had claimed she’d locked it behind Marguerite when she’d left, but it had been unlocked when they’d arrived. The only answer was either Nicole had only thought she’d locked it, or she’d locked it and then unintentionally unlocked it when she’d turned the key back to take it out of the lock. But he knew Marguerite had locked it when they’d entered. He’d even checked it himself afterward. Yet it had been unlocked again later.

“You were in the house,” he said with certainty.

“The studio door was cracked open.”

Jake frowned. Marguerite had searched the main floor while he took the upper when their calls hadn’t drawn Nicole out. Marguerite must have just stuck her head into the studio, or maybe she even just glanced through the French doors. Whichever the case, she hadn’t noticed the sliding glass doors being open.

“I was really impressed with the girl’s paintings,” Ball-Cap Boy said now, surprise in his voice. “I expected them to be orgy scenes and such, but they were well-done portraits. Of course, I realized then that the angels had left the door open for me so I could see my next targets. Obviously, a servant of Satan would only paint other minions of hell.”

“Christ,” Jake muttered, thinking of the portrait of Christian and Caro. The man was saying they were now a target too, along with the actress and the politician.

“Don’t you dare utter Christ’s name in vain,” Ball-Cap Boy barked, suddenly on his feet, the gun Jake had been sure he had in view and pointing straight at him. Ball-Cap Boy had held it tucked between his arms and body, hidden until he was ready to reveal it, which was exactly what Jake had suspected.

He eyed the weapon warily, very aware that Nicole, as one of Satan’s minions, was also a target now. He definitely couldn’t afford to be incapacitated, even for moments. Trying to turn the man’s thoughts from his anger and get answers at the same time, Jake asked, “Did the angels lead you out of the house through the front door?”

Ball-Cap Boy looked at him with disgust. “Don’t be ridiculous. I decided to go that way myself after the brunette went upstairs and I’d searched the main floor. It was closer and easier than marching through the snow.”

“Right,” Jake murmured, but at least he knew how the door had got unlocked after Marguerite locked it. “And you tried to run over Nicole in the Canadian Tire parking lot?”

He shrugged. “She’s in league with you.”

Jake nodded grimly. “And you messed with the SUV’s brakes and accelerator?”

“Well, I would have just shot you, but the police are still suspicious of me, and you aren’t my primary target. I can’t get caught until I complete my mission and kill all the politicians in the world.”

Jake’s mouth twitched. As missions went, he couldn’t really say that was a bad one. Jake wasn’t big on politicians. Politics seemed to be peopled with greedy, larcenous, uncaring morons who couldn’t run a corner store let alone a country. Geez, there were at least two mayors of major cities in just this province right now who were in hot water. One was accused of using government funds for the wedding of one of his children, the other of using his position to strong-arm funds for some pet charity of his or something. Charity was good, but using such tactics to get money for it made people think maybe he was getting a percentage of the donations. Why else risk your job?

“Unfortunately, you are turning out to be difficult to kill,” Ball-Cap Boy said with a perplexed frown. “I mean, I wouldn’t expect the devil to make it easy, but I don’t know how you managed to survive the hot tub. I saw you get in, and thought for sure I’d succeeded when you started vomiting blood. I went away thinking I’d come back in a day or so to take care of the girl, but when I returned you were on your feet and those two behemoths were here.”

“So you followed us to the mall and messed with the SUV while we were inside shopping,” Jake said.

“Yes.” He scowled. “But you survived that too.”

Jake wondered if the guy expected him to apologize or something, and then movement behind Ball-Cap Boy drew his gaze to the sliding glass doors and the woman easing into view on the deck outside. For a moment, he was so distracted by the outfit that he didn’t look at the face. Cripes, talk about a sex trap. The only cover the outfit offered was scraps of almost see-through black material over the three most important bits. They appeared to be held in place by crisscrossing straps or lacing . . . and were those thigh-high boots? There wasn’t enough material in them to put together to make a proper shoe. But then there wasn’t enough material in the whole outfit to make anything decent. Who the hell—?

His gaze slid upward, finding a fedora perched at a jaunty angle on long, wavy blond hair and then he focused on the face. Nicole! Jake suspected his heart stopped at that moment and he would never know how he managed to control his expression and keep his jaw from dropping to thud on the floor. She looked fricking amazing, hot as hell, sexy as sin . . . and boy was Ball-Cap Boy gonna want to kill her for that outfit. He could imagine him shrieking Jezebel! and shooting her full of holes. This was not good, not good at all.

“So I thought a personal approach was called for,” Ball-Cap Boy announced.

Realizing he was staring and likely to draw the man’s attention to Nicole, Jake shifted his gaze quickly back to the man as he waved his gun around. He opened his mouth to say something clever, but all that came out was, “Er . . .”

It was the best Jake could come up with, and, really, he thought that was pretty good considering his penis was reacting to Nicole’s outfit by trying to form a pup tent in his pants. Jeans are much more resistant to such things than jogging pants, he noted, shifting uncomfortably as his gaze skittered back to Nicole. She had slid through the door and was now raising something she’d been carrying at her side, something big and white and—a pillow.

Seriously? Jake thought with amazement. This wasn’t a pillow fight. What kind of person brought a pillow to a gunfight? Cripes, she was dressed for a pillow fight too . . . well, a sexy pillow fight that ended in toppling her onto the bed, ripping her panties off and thrusting—

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Ball-Cap Boy asked suddenly, distracting him from his less than helpful thoughts. “You’re panting and your eyes look funny. Are they glowing?” he asked with a frown, taking a step closer.

“I’m possessed,” Jake blurted out on inspiration. That inspiration being that he mostly felt possessed . . . by his penis. It seemed to have a mind of its own and didn’t particularly care what kind of situation he was in. It wanted Nicole bad, and seemed to be trying to force its way through his jeans in her direction.

“Possessed,” Ball-Cap Boy looked alarmed. “But—”

“I didn’t want to stop you, the demon possessing me did,” Jake added, his gaze skittering from Ball-Cap Boy to Nicole and back. She was only a step behind the man now, and was raising her pillow as if she planned to smack him with it. Was she CRAZY? he wondered, and gave his head a small shake, trying to tell her with the gesture not to do it. You didn’t piss off the man with the gun and that was the only thing hitting him with the pillow was going to do. Dear God, when this was over, he was going to have a stern talk with her about self-defense tactics.

“Possessed,” the man said and frowned uncertainly, obviously not sure what to do now. “What—?”

The word ended on a surprised “oomph” as Nicole wielded her pillow. Much to Jake’s surprise it seemed to pack quite a wallop. She must have stuffed it with rocks or something, he thought as he watched in amazement as Ball-Cap Boy flew sideways under the blow, crashed into and bounced off the table, then slammed his head on the island counter as he stumbled and fell forward.

“I did it!” Nicole squealed, jumping up and down in her ridiculously sexy heels, the heavy pillow held aloft. “I saved you.”

Jake rushed forward now, kicking the gun away from Ball-Cap Boy’s body, and sparing a moment to be sure he was unconscious. He then turned to catch Nicole in his arms mid-jump and planted his mouth on hers.

She immediately collapsed against him. Her arms slid around his shoulders even as he heard the pillow hit the floor with a loud thud and slosh that made him wonder what the hell was in it. When she opened her mouth to his with a moan, Jake stopped caring about the pillow or anything else and lifted her off the floor with his arms around her waist and started to turn, intending to carry her to the bedroom and do exactly what he’d thought of doing moments ago.

Some very small part of Jake’s brain knew he shouldn’t, that he should deal with Ball-Cap Boy first, but it was a very small part. There wasn’t much blood left in his brain right now. It had all raced south to fill his still-growing erection. Cripes, if he didn’t find release soon he was pretty sure his erection would explode like an overfull balloon.
Pop, no more penis
, he thought.

“Don’t worry, we’ll handle things here.”

Jake paused and frowned against Nicole’s mouth at that dry announcement. Fortunately, he had enough blood left in his brain to tell him he should stop and see who the hell was yipping at him. Breaking their kiss, he turned with Nicole still held off the ground and peered blankly at Dante and Tomasso.

“How’d you get here?” he asked with surprise.

“A car,” Tomasso said drolly.

Dante gave a laugh, but explained, “We pulled up just as Nicole was slipping into the kitchen. Seeing her getup, we almost backed out to give you some privacy, but then Tomasso spotted this guy”—he gestured to the unconscious man on the floor—“through the kitchen window.”

“And his gun,” Tomasso added.

Dante nodded. “So we thought we’d best come see what we could do.”

“Only she handled it while we were crossing the deck,” Tomasso added, and then smiled at Nicole and said, “Nice pillow work.”

“Yeah,” Dante agreed. “What do you have in that thing? Rocks? It sure knocked him for a loop.”

“Water,” Nicole said, blushing, but didn’t get to explain further. Jake didn’t give her the chance to. He was turning away with her again, and continuing out of the kitchen.

“Hey,” Dante called. “Who is this guy? Is he the one who poisoned the hot tub and messed with the SUV?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know who he is,” Jake answered, not slowing. “Never got his name. He’s just a lunatic who tried to kill one of my clients at work. He thinks angels talk to him and he’s supposed to kill politicians and pretty much everyone I know because I stopped him, so we must all be in league with the devil.”

“Hmm,” Dante said directly behind him and Jake set Nicole down to sit on the side of the bed, then propped his hands on hips and turned to scowl at the man for following them.

“Nicole and I need to talk,” Jake said firmly. “Go deal with sicko in the kitchen.”

“It’s not talking you’re thinking of doing,” Dante said dryly, his gaze sliding to Nicole and a smile curving his lips as he admitted, “And I don’t blame you. Nice outfit, Nicki,” he complimented.

“Thanks,” she murmured, blushing.

Dante turned his attention back to Jake. “But talking is what you should be doing.”

Jake stiffened at the solemn words. “Why? About what?”

“About your situation and whether she’s willing to be your life mate,” Dante said calmly, and then pointed out, “Lucian will want this whole situation settled at the same time rather than sending people out to do a three on one on sicko in the kitchen, and then possibly having to return to do the same for Nicole if she isn’t willing to be turned.”

“Lucian has nothing to do with this,” Jake said stiffly. “Ball-Cap Boy is a mortal.”

“But his target wasn’t,” Dante pointed out. “Or should I say targets?”

Jake almost asked how he knew that, but then realized the man had read his mind while following him in here. He probably knew everything Jake had seen and heard since finding Ball-Cap Boy in the kitchen. So he knew the man wanted to wipe out him, Nicole, and every other person he’d seen enter this house, most of whom were immortals.

“He’s sick,” Dante said quietly. “His family know that and haven’t done a damned thing about it, but hire lawyers to keep him out of trouble and on the streets. They’ll do the same this time and then he’ll be a threat again, not just to you and Nicole, but to us, your parents, Neil, Marguerite, Christian and Caro, Tybo—”

“Basically everyone who he’s seen me with,” Jake interrupted wearily.

Dante nodded silently.

“Right,” Jake said stiffly. “I guess I’d better talk with Nicole then. Would you like to leave so I can do it?”

Dante turned away and headed out of the room for answer.

Jake followed him to the door and pulled it closed, then took a deep breath and turned to face Nicole. One glance at her on the bed in that getup though, and he whirled to face the door again. Damn! How the hell was he supposed to just talk to her with her looking like that?