Wanted: Wild Thing (Midnight Liaisons) (5 page)

“No problem,” I told her. “Marie and I used to do coffee runs all the time.” I couldn’t help the wistful note that rose in my voice.

“You miss Marie?” she guessed.

I nodded. “Now that she’s working days and I still work nights, we don’t see each other much.” We had lunches together and chatted by phone and email, but it wasn’t the same as sitting across from each other eight hours a night.

I shrugged and turned to Hugh, who was looming over my shoulder. “Go have a seat.” I pointed at the stool.

He opened his mouth, clearly to contradict me, then snapped it shut. Scowling, he moved to the stool and sat with a thump, glaring at my back. Whatever. I turned to Savannah. “Any clients on the books tonight?”

She opened her day planner. “A vampire. Frederick. Comes in at ten.”

“Oh, I know him,” I said. “He was one of Marie’s. Just flirt with him and you’ll be fine.”

She gave me a repulsed look. “Flirt? With a vampire?”

“Yeah, he’s difficult unless you know how to work him.” I leaned over the desk and gave her a saucy wink, tossing my hair over my shoulder. “Why, look at you, Fred,” I cooed. “You here to visit me? I was just telling myself that I needed a tall drink of vampire tonight.” And I licked my lips in an exaggerated fashion.

There was a sound of crushing Styrofoam and the clatter of ice cubes hitting the floor.

I turned . . . and blinked. The remains of Hugh’s destroyed cup were in his hand, and soda and ice lay splattered on the floor around him. His cat-eyes were gleaming, but the look on his face was impossible to read.

Geez, the man was tough on our floors. “You made the mess, you clean it up.”

Chapter Four

T
he hours crawled by. It was a slow night, and I filled the evening with backlog projects and training Savannah on Marie’s old tasks. We were repeatedly interrupted by her trips to the bathroom and Hugh’s occasional ridiculous question. He was worse than a bored toddler.

I put him at my desk and turned on a local news feed to keep him occupied. Savannah gave us a few curious looks, but she seemed distracted.

While I worked, Marie sent me a text.
Hey! We having lunch this week?

I sent back immediately.
Okay! Sounds awesome!

I peeked over at Hugh, thought for a moment, and texted,
Hey, Marie, do you know of any cat shifters with furry forearms, big claws, and stripey hair? Oh, and fangs?

Uh, not off the top of my head. Want me to ask Josh?

No
, I sent quickly.
I was just curious. New client and all. See you at lunch!

I clicked off my phone before Marie could ask more questions. I didn’t want her getting suspicious, not when I wasn’t sure what to do with Hugh myself.

I started to yawn around 2:00 a.m., an hour before we normally closed. Savannah looked as if she wouldn’t make it another five minutes, much less another hour. I felt sorry for her. “Why don’t you go ahead and call it an evening? I’ll be fine here.”

“You’re sure?” She looked uneasily at Hugh.

“I’m sure.” I waved a pink manicured hand in the air. “It’s not at all busy.”

“All right, then.” Savannah picked up her purse and pulled out her car keys. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“I’ll be here,” I said cheerfully and returned to hanging the newest calendar of events on the bulletin board.

The moment the door shut and it was just myself and Hugh, I glanced over at him. “Speaking of calling it a night, where are you sleeping?”

He looked up from the news feed, and I was again struck by how catlike his eyes were. They weren’t remotely human, not like a regular shifter’s. His pupils were thin and elongated like a cat’s, and his eyes reflected light when he turned his head. “Mmm?”

“I’m going home after work. Where do you plan on going for the night?”

Those catlike eyes grew heavy-lidded in a way that would have made him look sexy if it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d irritated me all evening. “I am going with you.”

Wha-? I should have expected it, considering he’d even tried following me to the bathroom at one point, not realizing where I’d been heading. Yet hearing it stated out loud? It was still mind-boggling. “You can’t go home with me. I didn’t invite you.”

“I know this. Yet I cannot be assured of your safety if I leave you unattended. I will remain at your side.”

“Not while I’m sleeping,” I said in a harder voice. I was never going to get any sleep if he was standing over my bed and staring at me all night. No way.

“Then I will guard your doorway.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Then I shook my head. “Never mind, I know you’re not kidding. Fine. It’s clear I’m not going to win this argument.”

“It is not an argument if we both agree, Ryder,” he said, amusement in his voice.

My fingers itched to go around his neck. This man was driving me insane. Why was it that I could flirt the pants off every other man I was around, yet the moment Hugh opened his mouth, I just wanted to stuff a sock into it? I grimaced. “Just let me finish up here and we’ll go. I guess.”

The bulletin board was my last project for the evening. It was a simple update—just pin the calendar and be done. But my desk was occupied by a big, weird guy, and I wasn’t about to go and hover around him. So I took my time straightening the calendar and moving some of the other items on the bulletin board around. Profile of the month. Helpful dating tips. Local restaurant suggestions. Wedding photos of fruitful matches. Even though we had a very particular clientele, Midnight Liaisons was very successful with its pairings. I looked at the married couples wistfully, running a finger along the edge of one picture. The couple looked so very delighted and carefree—no one would know from their photo that one was a were-badger and one was a were-mongoose, and their families hadn’t been pleased with the union until the wedding day had arrived and everything had been forgotten. Once the couple’s devotion had been vowed before all, it hadn’t mattered what their animal side was. All that mattered was love. And that was what I wanted—complete and utter devotion. Happiness with my chosen partner.

I’d never get it, though. Not with the path I was on. I was heading straight for poodle territory.

I sighed and turned away from the board. “Come on. Let’s lock up.”

H
ugh was wildly out of place in my condo.

To better disguise my inner ugly, I kept up my cheerful theme. My sofa was pink with lemon-wedge-shaped cushions and a lacy dust ruffle. My curtains were white eyelet, and knickknacks of unicorns and baby animals cluttered my shelves. One of my dates had once complained that it looked like the living room of a ten-year-old.

Hugh took in my living room soundlessly as I locked the front door behind us. “I guess you can sleep on the couch,” I told him. “As long as you promise no funny business.”

“Funny . . . business?” he echoed, clearly not understanding the sentiment.

“You know. No trying to touch me. No hanky-panky.”

He stared at me, then snorted. “You are quite safe in that regard.”

Ouch! “You sure do know how to sweet-talk a lady. A
lot
of guys happen to think I’m quite cute.”

Hugh regarded me for a moment, and I could have sworn there was color in his cheeks. Embarrassed? He crossed his arms over his chest. “It would not matter if you were the most beautiful creature on earth. I am forbidden to touch you, as outlined in my vow.”

“Oh. So what exactly does your vow entail?”

He was silent.

Ah—clearly one of those questions that would give away too much information. “Gotcha. Well, it doesn’t involve sleeping with ugly changelings, so it doesn’t matter, I suppose.”

“I did not say you were ugly.”

I suspected this was as close to a compliment as I’d get from him. Mollified, I shrugged and headed to my linen closet. “I’ll get you a blanket.”

I didn’t often entertain visitors, so I didn’t have much in the way of extra linens. I ended up using an old throw quilt from the rocking chair. By the time I returned to my living room, Hugh was checking things out. I watched as he picked up one of my strawberry-vanilla scented candles, sniffed it, and gave it a tentative lick.

“Um, you don’t eat that,” I told him, trying not to laugh at his revolted expression. “You don’t have candles in the fae world? Really?”

“I am primordial,” he said simply, as if that answered everything. But he put the candle back down.

“And I
still
don’t know what that is,” I said, patting the blanket. “So do you care to share? Or are you just going to keep tossing it around like it means something that I should understand?”

His mouth twitched with amusement. “The latter, perhaps.”

I rolled my eyes. “More of your vow?”

“No. Just . . . difficult to explain.” He rubbed his jaw, and I noticed that there was stripey fur at the edges of his jaw, almost like sideburns. Why was that so oddly attractive? “We are like your shifters, but different. Very different. Much where I come from is nothing like . . . all this.” He gestured at my bright, colorful living room.

“I’m told this isn’t like most people’s stuff anyhow,” I said, heading to the couch and beginning to toss stuffed animals and cushions off of it. “Marie laughs at my fondness for pink.”

“It is quite . . . interesting in here.” He gazed around and then looked back at me. “Very colorful.”

“Blinding. You can say it. I like the color. It makes me happy.”

“Yes, outwardly you seem easily pleased.”

I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but Hugh knew all my secrets. It made me feel vulnerable to realize that he knew everything I was, yet I knew nothing about him.

It was starting to bother me.

“We weren’t talking about me,” I said. “Don’t change the subject. We were talking about you and your people.”

“Mmm.”

“Brothers? Sisters? Big family? Get along with your parents?”

“None.”

“None what?”

“I have none. No brothers, no sisters. No parents.”

“Everybody has parents.”

“If I do, I do not recall them.”

“How can you forget if you have family?”

He simply stared at me.

Okay, our agreement that he would be silent when he didn’t want to answer was getting a little annoying. “How old are you?”

“That is a question I have no answer for. Time passes differently in the fae realms.”

“Well, you are just a fountain of information, aren’t you?” I was getting testy. “So I’m supposed to know nothing about you but trust you with my life for the next month? Is that right?”

“It is.”

How was it that a guy who couldn’t lie managed to be so incredibly unhelpful? “And then I’m supposed to just go along with the fact that someone thinks he can own me?”

He shrugged.

“So what happens if I say no? What if I want to live out here in the human world, and just embrace my changeling half or something?”

He looked intrigued. “Is that possible?”

I had no idea. But I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. “I don’t see why not. There are people other than the fae who have information on changelings.”

“Is that so?” He seemed nonplussed.

“It is,” I told him in a lofty voice. “I can break the curse if I find a man to give my virginity to before my twenty-fifth birthday arrives.”

He said nothing.

That infuriated me all over again. “And furthermore, if I find my True Love, I won’t turn when he touches me. I just have to find him before I hit my birthday.”

Hugh remained silent. Was he irritated that I knew so much already? Had he and Finian conspired to withhold this information from me?

“Well?” I said.

“So this is your plan? To find a human man and have relations with him?”

“It beats the alternative, don’t you think?”

“You do realize that your changeling body is much stronger than a normal human body?”

“So?”

“So you might overcome a human male. You could damage him or even kill him.”

I swallowed hard. Hugh said he never lied. “Then I’ll have to find a nonhuman man, won’t I? I can get a nice shifter guy to hook up with.” I’d just have to explain my little “problem” and hope for the best. Surely someone that changed into another shape himself wouldn’t mind that I changed into . . . something.

“I’ll have to prevent it.” Hugh’s look was stony.

“You will not!”

His smile was cruel. “Why do you think Finian sent me to your side now? You are getting desperate to escape your curse. You’ll try anything . . . and I’m going to be at your side to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

“I hate you,” I spat at him, throwing the quilt down on the couch. “You’re an awful, awful man.”

He gave me a grim look. “I know. But that is how it must be.”

I stomped to my room, slamming the door.

D
espite my fury and the bizarre events of the day, I slept soundly and woke up around noon. My condo was quiet and I sat up, cocking my head and listening for Hugh. I could hear nothing. Even putting my ear to my bedroom door, I could hear nothing. I tossed a robe over my frilly pink pajamas and went to check things out.

Immediately, there were signs of Hugh. I picked up an empty Pop-Tart wrapper in the hallway and, a few steps later, a demolished chip bag. Half-eaten cookies were crumbled on the wooden floors, and it looked like the contents of my pantry had been strewn about and taste-tested, including boxes of uncooked spaghetti noodles. I could hear water running somewhere in the house and headed toward that.

The tap was running in the kitchen sink, and I turned it off, frowning. The room was an unmitigated disaster area. My electric stove had been turned on; the burners were bright red, and I quickly clicked them off. The refrigerator door hung open, and plastic wrapping covered the floor, including an empty package of steak and some tubing that had held ground beef for the spaghetti I’d planned on making for dinner.

Irritated, I swiped the wrapping up and tossed it in the trash. “Hugh?”

No answer.

He’d left? That made no sense. He’d declared he was going to be my shadow for the next month; why would he leave me here by myself? I could almost think I’d imagined the whole thing if it hadn’t been for the fact that every bit of food I owned had at least one bite taken out of it.

I walked down the hall of my small condo again. “Hugh? You here?”

Still no answer. I checked all the doors—even the closet—but nothing. I went to the front door to check outside . . . and it wouldn’t open. I tugged at the handle. Nothing. Alarmed, I ran my hand along the door frame, looking for something jamming it, but there was nothing. It just didn’t respond. I could turn the handle, but the door was stuck fast.

Perplexed, I took a step back. What to do now?

There was nothing
to
do but wait. I went back to my room and showered and dressed. Wearing my favorite pink-and-white tracksuit with a pair of sneaker pumps, I blow-dried my hair, fixed it into two topknots with puffy pink bands, and curled my bangs. Then, as I waited for Hugh to return, I set about cleaning the mess that he had left.

I’d just finished sweeping the last of the crumbs off my hardwood floors when I heard a sound at the front door. I tossed aside the broom and rushed to it, just in time to run into Hugh’s enormous chest entering the room.

“Eep!” I staggered backward, automatically putting a hand up to push him away before he could get too close. “Hugh! Where have you been? What’s going on? Why couldn’t I open the door?”

Hugh stepped inside and shut the front door behind him, blocking me from the outside. He was holding a large fast-food bag and a coffee, and he looked down at me with one raised eyebrow. “Which of your questions do you wish for me to answer?”