Twice as Hot (31 page)

“Oh,
don’t send us away,” the one with the freckles pouted.

“We
only want to play,” another said.

“You’ll
have fun, we promise.”

“You
haven’t met our other brothers yet.”

There
was a fifth? Sixth? Dear God. “How many of you are there?”

“Eleven,”
they said in unison.

My
eyes nearly bugged out of my head. “From the same litter?”

“Meow,”
one said.

“Of
course,” another replied.

I
shook my head in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” They had to be. But in
this world…maybe not.

All
four shook their heads.

“But
how’d your mother have you? That would have killed most women. Unless you’re
petri babies?” Grown in a dish, perhaps? Hey, it was possible. Wasn’t it?

Now
they all four burst into laughter.

“See,
we’re having fun already,” Three said.

Four
rubbed his hands together in glee. “I love it when someone brings a novice into
our midst.”

“Petri
babies. Cute.”

“You
look like you could use a drink,” yet another familiar voice said. Five had
just appeared. He motioned the waitress over. This time, she didn’t hesitate to
rush to my table. Her bare breasts jiggled as a round of tequila shots was
ordered.

“And
make one for yourself,” Four said.

She
grinned at him before bouncing off.

I
clapped my hands to gain everyone’s attention. “Someone please explain to me
how there can be eleven of you.” I hadn’t forgotten that they’d easily
sidestepped the question.

The
brother across from me grinned—and disappeared. As I gaped, I directed my
attention to the one to my left. He grinned—and disappeared. I stiffened,
switching focus again. The brother to my right grinned—and disappeared. What…the…hell?
A magic act? An illusion? But I’d seen and heard them all.

Only
the brother in the middle, the one with the freckles, remained. He grinned,
too, but didn’t disappear.

“How
did you do that?” I gasped out.

Before
he could reply, the waitress arrived with our drinks. She didn’t seem the least
bit surprised that more than half of our table had vanished. Calmly she set the
glasses on the tabletop, gulped one down herself, patted the remaining brother
on the head and scampered away to take someone else’s order.

My
uninvited guest scooted a glass in my direction and downed one himself.

I
took it, but didn’t drink.

“We’re
different people,” he said, pounding his empty glass on the table, “but we’re
trapped in the same body. Make sense?”

No.
“Of course.”

Laughing,
the brothers materialized around the table one at a time until the entire
eleven-member gang was there. What kind of power
was
this?

“We
were born this way. Eleven minds in one body, though we’re all allowed to come
out and play at times. Now drink,” Six said, lifting my glass to my lips.

“I
really shouldn’t.” But I licked the rim and eyed the clear liquid. If I didn’t
drink it, I’d look like a prude and the boys would probably leave me. If they
left me, I wouldn’t be able to question them like a good agent should.

Question
them…yes! That’s exactly what I needed to do. Sitting here looking, well,
slutty, wasn’t exactly good agenting. Unlike Rome, who had dumped me here so he
could chat up some dumb blonde, I would be a good agent.

“Come
on.” Eight. “You know you want to. All the cool kids are doing it.”

They
laughed again.

“Well…”
One shot wouldn’t destroy me. I knew that, at least. Still…

“Don’t
be a downer.”

Rome
might have told me not to do this, but sometimes, to get results, rules had to
be broken. “All right,” I said. “Fine.”

They
cheered me on as I drained the shot.

The
tequila burned my throat and settled like lead in my stomach. Had I eaten
dinner? I didn’t think so, and maybe that was a good thing. I didn’t want to
vomit. Thankfully, though, the burn subsided and the lead turned to jelly.

“That
was good,” I said on a cough.

More
cheering.

“What’s
your name?” Ten asked me.

“Viper,”
I said. Rome hadn’t given me a name to use, and I didn’t want to offer the
truth, but I didn’t want to lie, either, and risk not answering when I was
called.

“Cool.
You’re a snake-shifter, then. Show us!”

I
shook my head, experienced a wave of dizziness. “I’m not a shifter.”

Eleven
frowns greeted my announcement. “Then what are you?”

Crap.
I’d walked right into that one. “Pleasure Girl,” I said with a smile.

There
was another round of laughter, as I’d hoped. There was even some backslapping
and high-fiving, like they knew they’d picked the right girl to accost. Good. I
had them right where I’d wanted them. Right? Because I needed to…what? I wanted
to…Shit! I couldn’t remember. And asking myself all these questions was—

Questions!
Yes, that was it. I wanted to question them. “So. You boys come here a lot?” I
propped my elbows on the table, hoping I looked like a rapt audience rather
than the cheap drunk I was beginning to fear I was.

“Every
weekend,” Eleven said. “Now let’s talk about you, Pleasure Girl. Tell us about
your man. How long have you guys been together?”

“Not
long,” I said, refusing to give a number. Even though our courtship had been a
whirlwind, it felt like we’d been together forever.

“Do
you love him? Does he love you?”

To
keep from having to answer, I picked up one of the still-full glasses and
pretended to sip. The others, not wanting to be left out, threw back their
drinks and ordered another round. As they waited, they talked among themselves
and I was thankfully forgotten—though I still seemed to be the subject of their
conversation, along with the waitress and every other female in the place.

“She’s
hot.”

“I’d
do her.”

“What
about her?”

I
was getting whiplash looking from one to the other. A few times, their banter
made me laugh out loud and I realized I liked them. They even reminded me a
little of Tanner.

Two
called Four a pussy and dared him to ask the waitress for a blow job. Six
dropped a pocketful of pennies on the floor and bent down to “pick them up,”
but used his vantage point to peer up a woman’s dress. Despite their antics, I
didn’t sense anything menacing about them—but then, let’s face it, I was not
always a great judge of character.

“Okay,
stop,” I said, and all of them faced me. “I can’t keep thinking of you as One,
Two, Three and so on. What are your names?”

“Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Roman, Corinthian, Gala, Ephesian, Philip and Crunch.”
As their names were called, they raised their hands. I’d never remember all of
them. Fine. I’d go back to numbers.

My
brow furrowed as something occurred to me. All were Biblical names but one.
“Why Crunch?”

The
guy across from me leaned forward, the candlelight stroking his face. I noticed
nothing different about him to set him apart from the others. Same puppy-dog
eyes, same pretty face. “That’s the sound bones make when I break them.”

Ouch.
My own bones ached in sympathy for his victims. “You do that a lot, then? Break
bones, I mean?”

He
smiled. “I was kidding. Just eat way too many Crunch bars.”

“So
back to that guy you were with. Delta. What’s his deal?” Eight asked.

Damn.
I wanted to set them straight about who was supposed to interrogate whom at
this table, but instead I forced myself to smile. “Him?” I waved a dismissive
hand through the air, hoping the pulse hammering away in my neck didn’t give
away my nervousness. “The truth is, I’m just using him for sex until I can find
my real boyfriend.” Wow. That was so close to reality, I could have laughed. Or
cried.

All
eleven guys leaned into the table.

Nine
said, “Do tell!”

Six
added, “Any girl who uses a man for sex is a girl I want to get to know
better.”

My
gaze continued to shift between them. God, I was dizzy. It took a conscious
effort to pull an image of Cody into my mind. Wouldn’t hurt to use his face
since I was looking for him. “My real boyfriend has white hair and these killer
silver-purple eyes.” I added a shiver for good measure. “He’s—”

“Friends
with Candace Bright and dating her sister,” Two interjected with a shudder of
his own. “Kiss him goodbye forever, then, sweetheart. He’s not coming back to
you.”

“Not
in one piece,” Five added. “I heard the last few guys to travel that road were
lifeless
shells
when the girls were done with them.”

“What!”
I sat up, my spine straight as a board. “You’ve seen him?” With Desert
Gal/Candace Bright? Suddenly the night was looking up.

One
nodded. “His name’s Cody, right, and he’s got a thing for electricity? Well, he
just started working for Big Rocky, where we work, and Candace, our boss,
noticed him right away.”

Cody,
huh? He’d used his real name, even though his message had said he was going in
undercover. He could have changed his last name, I supposed, but how many
electophiles with the first name Cody were out there? Not many. Dare I say just
one?

With
that small amount of info, Candace could easily learn he worked for PSI. If
that happened…

“Candace
called him into her office for a private meeting. Then she left and her sister
showed up. They had a private meeting, too. But theirs didn’t just last an
hour, if you know what I mean.”

At
that, I forced myself to scowl. One question was now answered. Candace was
passing Desert Gal off as her “sister.” “So where is this Candace Bright?
Where’s her sister? I’ll fight them both for him. He’s my man, and I don’t give
up what’s mine.” A lesson Lexis really should have learned by now, I thought
darkly.

Just
like that, two of the guys disappeared.

“Trust
me,” Four said, patting me on the shoulder, “they’re bad news. Don’t mess with
them. Forget you had a man.”

Three
others disappeared.

They
were
that
scared of the woman? “Hey, don’t leave! I have more
questions.”

Another
vanished.

Number
One leaned toward me, those freckles seemingly darker than before. “Meet me at
the Holland Hotel. I’ll get a room. You just show up at nine tomorrow night and
ask the front desk for Matthew Brooks. Maybe I can help.”

“But
I—”

“Just
make sure you ditch your sex puppet. He comes, I’ll tell you nothing.” With
that, he pushed to his feet. The rest of the boys disappeared, too. Or rather,
they got to their feet and walked into One’s body.

Without
them surrounding me, I was suddenly given a clear view of Rome. He stalked to
my table and glared down at me.

One
saw him and beat a hasty retreat.

I
didn’t apologize, didn’t explain my actions. And he didn’t immediately demand
to know who I’d been talking to. Because he didn’t care? Because he was too
pissed? I’d disobeyed his orders, after all. “Where’s your blonde?”

He
flashed his teeth as he fell into the seat beside me. His hair was mussed, I
noticed, and his clothing wrinkled.

I
gasped. “Have you—”

“No,”
he snapped. “I haven’t. Were you…drinking?” The last emerged incredulous.

“Yes.
I caved under peer pressure, what can I say?”

“You’re
sorry, to start.” He scrubbed a hand down his face.

“I’m
not the one who stomped away for a make-out session with the Fembot. What’s her
power, anyway? Inducing sexual comas?”

He
pinned me with a hard stare. “She’s an employee of Big Rocky. I hacked into
their HR files earlier and recognized her from her photo. I flirted with her a
little, hinted about needing a job, but couldn’t get her to give me any details
of what goes on at Big Rocky HQ or what Desert Gal’s role might be.”

“Maybe
she couldn’t talk with your tongue down her throat,” I suggested helpfully.

“Nothing
happened.” He turned away from me, jaw tightening. “You have my word.”

“Yeah.
Right. Look at you! You’re like the poster child of Men Who Have Just Been
Making Out.”

“She
had her hands on me, I can’t deny that. But I didn’t let it go anywhere.”

“Yeah.
Right,” I repeated.

“Look,
if you must know, you’re the only woman I get hard for anymore. And it’s
driving me insane! Why else do you think I left you behind to talk to her? My
attraction to you would have been obvious.”

“Whatever,”
I said, but thought,
Thank God. He’s mine, he’s mine, he’s mine.