Biting Me Softly: Biting Love, Book 3 Page 6

  “We met at the Meiers Corners festival. I’d spew the deets, but we’re due in five. So can you put Steel on?”

  “He’s not here. His people are. Want to talk with one of them?”

  “No, it’s gotta be Steel. What time is it, anyway?” A deep murmur in the background told me Julian was answering her. “Huh. Feels later. Liese, can you steno a message? I tried Steel’s phone but got caged in voicemail jail. Tell him he’s gonna have to take the negotiations with Nosy, ’cause Julian’s staying with me on tour. The meet’s set for Friday night, six-thirty.”

  “What? What negotiations? And who’s Nosy?”

  “Steel’ll know. Julian’d head back but we’ve got Nosy over the barrel, so this thing’s a slam-dunk. Besides, Julian doesn’t want to leave me ’cause I’m preggers. Hey, thanks, Liese. Well, gotta go.”

  “Preggers? Nixie what…?” I was talking to an empty line.

  After that conversation, I felt a little like I’d been smacked by a solid-bodied guitar. Then again, Nixie affected most people that way.

  The Steel Security people left around five. Logan said they were installing the “base security network”, whatever that was. It wasn’t the whole system, so I had a job for at least one more day. I decided I’d carry on like the good little trooper I was.

  Besides, every day I worked was one less day of COBRA hell.

  A little before six p.m. I was updating the shipment calendar when the door slammed open and a man dashed in.

  He was tall and lanky with light brown hair cut in a mullet. A young Richard Dean Anderson except for the dissolute face, slouchy jeans and shapeless flannel shirt. MacGyver, yes, but melted a little.

  Mullet-boy was flushed as if he’d run a marathon. He clapped hands to knees, breathing heavily.

  First Logan and now this. I seriously needed to lock the door after hours. “Can I help you?”

  He panted, “You Liese Schmearling?”

  “Schmetterling. And you are?”

  “Raz…” He blinked a couple times, like he’d forgotten who he was. “Uh, Race. My name is Race.”

  “Do you have a last name, Race? Maybe Bannon?”

  Muck-Gyver pushed a hand through his mullet as if it would lighten the burden between his ears. “Uh…uh…” His eyes lit up. “It’s Gillette.”

  I thought Jillette, and Showtime. “Bullshit! Where’s Teller?” I beamed at him, waiting for him to get the joke.

  His face was as blank as a hard drive in a magnet factory.

  “Yes. Well.” Obviously he only got basic cable, in more ways than one. “Welcome to the Blood Center, Mr. Race Gillette. If you’re here to donate, our nurse is only available mornings.” I brought up the shared calendar. “She’s not here every morning, but if you’d like to make an appointment, she has an opening—”

  “No!” Race Gillette waved hands like he was warding off an army of needles. “I’m not here to give blood.”

  Some of the biggest guys keeled over at the sight of a needle, seemingly contradictory, but there it was. I shrugged. “Is there some way I can help you, then?”

  He shuffled a bit. Glanced at his arm. “I’m a friend of Nixie Emerson.” He tipped his head like he was reading cribbed notes. “She said if I was in town I should look her up.”

  “Nixie’s not in Meiers Corners right now. Guns and Polkas are on tour.”

  “’S’okay. She said I could talk to you.” He looked up and saw me for the first time. Interest lit his eyes. “But she didn’t tell me you were such a dollface.”

  I blinked. First, because dollface had dropped out of use in the last century. Second, though Nixie and I were friends, Elena was her best friend. “Me? Are you sure she didn’t say Elena Strongwell?”

  “Strongwell!” That panicked him more than the needle. “No. She said, ‘Race, if I’m out of town, go see Liese, that cute little blonde at the Blood Center.’”

  “That doesn’t sound like her.” Nixie was WYSIWYG to the bone (what you see is what you get). Her nickname for me was Cyberchick. She’d stab herself in the eye before calling anyone cute.

  “I maybe didn’t get all the words right.” His fists hit hips. “But she said I should look you up.”

  “I thought you were supposed to look her up.”

  “I didn’t…stop balling me up!”

  Apparently Race had a bit of a fuse. “Sorry, Mr. Gillette.”

  “Whatever.” He controlled himself with visible effort. “You done working? Let’s go hit Nieman’s Bar.”

  “You and me? I’m sorry, I have to—” stay here to let Logan in, to do his stupid interviews. Oh, yeah, it’d be nice to go drown my sorrows.

  On the other hand, I might not have a job much longer. Maybe never again, considering my resume. I twisted my “diamond”. “I’d like to, Mr. Gillette, but money’s a little tight.”

  “Call me Race. My treat, dollface.” He dug in his pocket, pulled out something round and red. “I’ll let you push my Big Red Button.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  Language was just too dangerous to let some people use. “Um, no.”

  “C’mon, you can probably use the break. Things being tough now that Steel’s shown up.”

  I jerked. “How did you know that?”

  “I’m in the security biz too.” Race smirked as he eased the BRB back into his pants. “I know all sorts of stuff. I know Steel’s installing some big fancy system here. Using autoficial intelligence, so it’s totally automatic.”

  “Autoficial…you mean artificial intelligence?”

  “Whatever! It means no live humans needed.” Race fired a malicious grin at me. “Whatever big words you use, that means you’ll be out of a job. So I guess Nieman’s sounds pretty good now, huh, dollface?”

  Yeah, it did. I opened my mouth to agree—when he parked his butt on my desk. In a replay of Logan’s arrival, Race leaned in so close I could feel his body heat on my face. I closed my eyes, imagining Logan’s lazy drawl caressing me. And what, my Red Delicious, does the L stand for?

  “So, dollface. Wanna go get a beer?”

  My eyes flew open. Fleshy lips moved inches from mine. The breath that warmed me smelled of stale pennies. The ass that slid closer was bony, not buff.

  I recoiled, sending my chair bang into the wall. Little bits of plaster poofed. “Love to, Race, but can’t. I have to stay. Here. Right here. Work to finish up.”

  Race shot to his feet, posture stiff and distinctly threatening like he was about to turn nasty on me. He did have a temper.

  But, grinding his teeth, he managed something that might have been a smile. “We’ll hook up later.” At the door, he turned. “I’ll be at the bar if you change your mind.”

  After Race left I wavered between doing a lifetime’s worth of work before Logan booted me out and doing absolutely fuckall for the man doing the booting. ’Cause Race had reminded me how this would play out. A case of blood was missing. I’d suffered enough politics at Andersly-Dogget to know the incoming genius had a six-month free pass to blame any and all problems on the previous fuckup (me). That the case really had gone missing on my watch only added to my misery.

  I called Mom to vent but she was out shopping with Rolf’s wife so I left a message and set my mood-timer. Five minutes later I put away my bad attitude but still had half an hour until Logan came so I pulled up Spider Solitaire, my latest addiction.

  Sounds resonated around me as I played, normal blood center sounds. The hiss of my computer’s fan. The drip of the old bathroom sink. The burr of the refrigeration units in back. The scrape of—scrape? That wasn’t normal.

  I got up to investigate.

  The back room was a combination donation facility and storage area. Cheery wallpaper lined a nook with recliner on the north side. The south wall was filled with refrigerators. The scraping sound was coming from…below.

  I got to my hands and knees to inspect the floor, carpet glued to bare concrete. Getting my nose right into the fuzzy threads, I could see wher
e one corner had been peeled away. I tugged at it. It lifted easily.

  Underneath was fresh concrete, still wet.

  I sat back on my haunches, stunned. Had this been there all along? Well, obviously not, if it was still wet. But why?

  Well, duh, Liese. To patch a hole.

  Like between here and the sewer?

  I followed that line of thought, didn’t like where it led. Hole here. Gang guys below. Missing blood.

  The connection was quite literal. There was a tunnel between.

  And Logan—Logan had kept me from going farther into the sewer. Kept me from discovering the tunnel. He had gone to great lengths to do so, going even so far as to…seduce…me…hell.

  He didn’t want me so badly he couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t even to shut me up. Logan had slammed me into the male inferno of his muscular torso, had kissed the intelligence right out of me to sidetrack me.

  Damn it, why did I have to figure it out? Why couldn’t I be blissfully ignorant? Why couldn’t I believe Logan wanted me because I smelled good or tasted good or even maybe because he really thought I was beautiful?

  His attraction was nothing more than a sham. Another man seducing me for his own ends. I didn’t know what those ends were but I knew the results. I’d lose my job—and gain more issues.

  Logan had lied to me, big time. I quivered with anger, with justified rage. So when the donation room door opened and the man himself breezed in, all golden good-looks and muscular grace, I launched myself at him, nails scratching.

  “How could you?” I screamed. Everything I knew about martial arts disappeared in a flood of despair—anger. In anger I pounded against the huge pads of his pecs. “How could you?”

  “Liese, what’s wrong?” His voice was warm with concern. “Sweetheart? Why are you crying?” He wrapped me in his hard, strong arms.

  “I am not crying!” I shrieked, dashing at my wet cheeks. “I am tearing up with fury. With righteous indignation. Because you’re a…a…a great big doody-head!”

  “Of course, sweetheart,” he crooned. “I’m the nastiest male there is. It’s my fault, all of it. Shh, Liese, I’ve got you.”

  The last was because I was trembling and clutching him like he was a board floating from the Titanic. “How could you?” I was horrified when my voice broke piteously.

  “How could I what, princess?” Logan held me tight, stroking my hair. And then his voice changed. “Oh.”

  He was staring at the upturned carpet. His hand continued to stroke me absently, but I could tell his brain was whirring. Thinking up a lie, no doubt. I trembled in his arms, waiting for him to lie to me.

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t see that.” With a sigh, he released me. “Come sit down and I’ll explain.” He sauntered over to the donation bed and slid his perfect behind onto it. Patted the bed next to him.

  I stared at him. He was being—reasonable?

  “I won’t bite.”

  “Are you sure?” My voice was rough.

  “I won’t bite right now,” he said with a ghost of a smile.

  The soft expression bemused me enough so that the gentle patting lured me to the recliner. Logan wrapped strong arms around me and pulled me onto his lap.

  My butt fit him like we were interlocking puzzle pieces. I settled in almost automatically. His groin stirred. His eyes fired with sudden interest. I blinked in disbelief but my insides were already warming, melting—

  “Mr. Steel! Are you here?” Zinnia Supermom, with impeccable timing. I groaned.

  To my confusion, Logan groaned almost exactly the same way.

  We exchanged a glance. My confusion grew. Logan was as dismayed by her as I was. Dismayed by his own wife?

  And wouldn’t a wife call him Logan? Unless Ms. Supermom was Ms. SuperProfessional as well. Wouldn’t that just figure?

  The door flew open. “Mr. Steel. There you are.”

  And here I was, doing a Plug-and-Play in her husband’s lap. This would not end well.

  Zinnia was digging in her purse and barely glanced at us. “I’ve organized the interviews for you, slotted in eight-minute increments with a two-minute break between.” She whipped a sheaf of papers from an Elle purse the size of a cargo carrier. “Mr. Dodds is first. He’s a little old, so you’ll have to speak up, but I think he’s worth considering. He’s got at least ten good years left.”

  Instead of doing something sane like moving, Logan and I sat frozen in our embrace. I was depending on him for support. Strangely, I got the impression he was bracing himself against me just as hard.

  Okay, maybe not wife but ex-wife, looking to get back into his life through the working relationship door. The Ghost of Wife Present or Past and hoping for Christmas Yet to Come. I couldn’t believe the relationship was wholly innocent—after all, something had to explain those graceful, golden kids.

  “In the second hour, Dr. Farah’s the real find. A doctor in-house—oh, hello.” Zinnia looked up from her papers. Her eyes landed on Logan’s arms, tight around me. Wandered to my lips, puffy and red—from crying, but it probably looked like I’d been kissed real good.

  I waited for the inevitable explosion.

  Instead she shifted back to her papers. “Most are standard interviewees, except for two in upper management at their current companies. I can help you with those, given my executive secretarial background.” She looked up and smiled.

  Well, heck. If I wanted Logan and found another woman nestled in his lap—but he wasn’t mine.

  “This is your copy, Mr. Steel.” Zinnia squared the papers and shoved them under his nose, or actually our noses. “Schedule times, names, some info on each person. Space for you to jot notes.” I could see everything was clear and concise.

  But when Zinnia pushed the papers toward Logan I heard that low warning growl.

  Zinnia abruptly drew back. “Mr. Steel?”

  I sighed. Just because she made me feel vulnerable didn’t mean I had to act like a jerk. “Logan, take the papers.” Reluctantly I added, “She did a good job organizing for you.”

  The growl stopped. He took a deep breath, slapped out a hand. “Fine.”

  Gingerly Zinnia shoved the papers into it. “Where are we holding the interviews?”

  “Here,” Logan snapped.

  As Zinnia unstacked chairs a hesitant knock came from the connecting door. A gray head peeped through. “Excuse me. It’s seven o’clock. I’m first, right?”

  This must be the venerable Mr. Dodds, who had at least ten good years left. Time to extricate myself from Logan’s embrace. At first he held on as if he didn’t want to let me go. But he was going to have to, wasn’t he? If only because it wouldn’t look professional to the people he was hiring to take my place.

  Issues on top of issues. They propelled me from the haven of his lap and I fled to the front office. I should have gone home but morbid curiosity drove me to see the kind of people he chose to interview. Yeah, that was it. Certainly I wasn’t staying because Logan was in the next room and this might be my last chance to see him. Oh goody, another fricking issue.

  Men and women trooped off the bus, their expressions a mixture of scared, hopeful and eager. Who could blame them? In the current economy, even a bad job was better than no job, and Steel Security would be like winning the employment lottery. Heck, I’d want to work for Steel. I wondered, if I interviewed, whether Logan would hire me.

  Assuming I could get on Zinnia’s tight, well-organized schedule in the first place.

  I tried to keep my hands busy. Some women knit. Some embroider. For me, it’s a spool of cat-five and a crimper to make network cables, but tonight I couldn’t seem to get it right. Either I cut the cable too short or too long, or I got a bad crimp and had to start over.

  My cables got worse and worse as the interviewees got younger and lovelier, until they were Girls of Spring Break babes and I was trashing every other cable. Logan thought I was “beautiful”, right. Compared to what, the women around when we first met? Eve
n I could win Miss America against my old Dell.

  I tossed another cable in the garbage. The tangled nest of failures reminded me of the state of my life and I wondered if things could get any worse.

  Yeah, just strap me in black leather, put a ball gag on me and yell come-’n-get-it, Marquis de Sade.

  A fairy in human skin glided in. She looked exactly like the character River Tam in Firefly, a slender brunette in the first blush of womanhood, an even bigger contrast to my well-fed curves than Zinnia. She made me feel like a cow.

  Botcher would adore her. I wanted to puke.

  “Is Mr. Steel here?” Her voice was soft, beguiling. Arrgh. It was so unfair. Couldn’t she sound like a rusty gate, or have a tiny bit of cellulite?

  I jerked my head toward the back which jerked my hand which twisted my crimp so bad the connectors looked like a second-grader’s teeth. I flung the ruined cable into the garbage in total disgust. Two more cables hit the trash before the door reopened and sylph-girl glided back through.

  From the back, Logan called, “Thank you for coming, Brianna. There are a limited number of spots open, but I’m sure we’ll find you something.”

  Fairy-girl smiled. I punched the crimper so hard I broke the plastic.

  Chapter Five

  The phone rang. Oh, goody, another Meiers Corners crazy to distract me. “Blood Bank. Deposit or withdrawal?”

  “Liese?” My mother, sounding doubtful. “Aren’t you at work?”

  Oops. Mom-wisdom #35 was on the importance of being sober and conscientious on the job. “It’s not what you think. It’s after hours and I was expecting Elena, and you know what a great kidder she is, ha-ha. Yeah. Why are you calling?”

  “You left a message, sweetie.”

  “Oh. Well, you sound kind of tired, and we can talk tomorrow.”

  “I know that tone of voice, Liese. Something’s wrong. Your job? Or a man?”

  The greatest number of Mom-wisdoms had to do with men. Never date someone you wouldn’t marry. Don’t sell yourself cheap. No sex without a ring on your finger.

  Until yesterday I had followed her advice. My fiancé was the first man to touch my breasts. Actually Botcher was the first man to even notice I had breasts, or any body parts other than a brain. And I’d loved him for it, idiot that I was. I blinked down at my huge worthless glass ring. “It’s nothing.”