Chapter 5-
by Michelle M
Pillow & Mandy M Roth
Holy Toledo,
Vampman!
“I can’t go alone, please
come with me,” Michelle cried into the cell phone.
She listened as Mandy let
out a long sigh. “I can’t come. It’s tonight, and I don’t have a date
lined up. As much as I love ya babes, I’m not willing to be the third
wheel. Besides, I’m spending the evening with a pint of ice cream and a
sappy movie.”
Michelle clutched her phone
tighter and nearly swerved off the road. “Please, I can’t go alone with
him.”
This comment made Mandy
laugh even harder. “He’s blind and harmless.”
“Yeah, right! Dmitri could
be headless and still not be harmless. Please, Mandy, please, I’ll find you
a date I promise and the ice cream will keep.”
“UNCLE!” Mandy shouted.
“I’ll go. Not because I don’t trust Dmitri with you, only because I can’t
stand to hear you beg anymore.”
“Thank you,” Michelle said,
taking a left hand turn and heading towards Mandy’s house. “I should be
there within fifteen minutes.”
“No, change of plans. My
laptop cord broke. It’s the strangest thing…oh, never mind. Point being
that my computer is dead. I called Armando and he was more than willing to
let us use his office to go over book notes.”
“You really trust that he’s
got a set up for us to use? He probably has an old typewriter from the
eighteenth century, or better yet a quill and parchment. He just wants to
lure you down to spend time with him.”
“Nope, not true,” Mandy said
sternly.
“How can you be so
sure?” Michelle asked, ready and willing to go to bat with her friend if no
other reason then to save her from herself.
Mandy snorted. “Well, I’m
sitting in his office right now, gabbing to you while I type on one of his
four top of the line computers.”
“Oh,” said Michelle,
grimacing. So much for faking sick later and getting out of meeting Dmitri
at the bar. He’d wanted to pick her up at her house, but she’d gladly told
him it was stupid since he couldn’t see. Truth was, she didn’t want him
knowing where she lived. Mandy’s breath hissed heavily into the phone,
impatient. Grumbling under her breath, she uttered, “Fine. I’ll be there
in a few minutes.”
~*****~
Michelle sighed in
frustration. Armando’s office was spacious, with a black leather couch,
wide desk and, as Mandy had promised, four really kick-ass computers. If
she wasn’t so uncomfortable with the thought of her impending date from
hell, she’d have been in writer heaven.
“Gawd, it’d be nice to have
this set up at home. I could really get a lot of writing done here,” said
Michelle, trying to take her mind off of proofing the first Tribes of the
Vampire novel. Though, it was hard to write about vampires when she had
lycans—well, a certain lycan—on the brain.
“You may come here any day
you like,” said Armando, standing in the doorway. A lazy smiled tilted his
face as he looked at Mandy. “Both of you are welcome anytime.”
“Kewl!” said Mandy, jumping
up from her chair and tossing her arms around Armando’s slim waist. She let
go of him quickly and smiled. “Sorry, umm, got a little excited there. I
think I’ll just make this my new office. It’s not like we have to go into
the Nocturnal Journal but once or twice a week anyway.”
“Hey, what’s a vampire need
all this stuff for anyway?” asked Michelle.
Armando started to speak.
Mandy plopped back in the chair and pointed at Michelle. “Hey, what did I
tell you? Get to work on proofing The Dragon Lords… Perfect….
Warrior…. Dark…. whichever of the four shapeshifting Prince things it is
you’re working on now.”
“The Barbarian Prince
and it’s done already,” grumbled Michelle, shooting Armando an amused look
behind Mandy’s back. “I’m on the first Tribes book, Redeemer of Shadows.”
“Don’t think I can’t see you
making faces at me,” said Mandy without turning around. “I have eyes on the
back of my head.”
“So do half your
characters—freak,” Michelle shot back. She couldn’t help it. She was
starting to feel cooped up.
“Hey, don’t think ‘cause you
got awesome reviews for The Mists of Midnight you can get lippy,”
began Mandy, swirling around in the comfy leather chair and shooting her an
‘I don’t think so girlfriend’ look.
“Oh, your reviews were just
as good as mine for Daughter of Darkness,” countered Michelle,
pushing the keyboard off her lap and sitting forward on the couch. “I think
if anyone is getting high and mighty it’s you, Miss
I-have-a-book-coming-out- each-month, Mandy Roth!”
“Ah, ladies,” began Armando,
worried that they were going to get into a full blown fight.
Mandy waved at him to be
quiet. She stood from her chair. Her green eyes flashed. “Oh, yeah? I
think you’re jealous!”
“I have just as much coming
out as you!” Michelle stood and thrust her face into Mandy’s. They glared
at each other for a long moment. Suddenly, Mandy’s tongue darted out and
licked Michelle’s cheek. Michelle didn’t even flinch. “You better now?”
“Yes, thank you,” said
Mandy, turning her back on Michelle.
Armando’s mouth fell open.
He stood there gaping at them, as they both returned to their seats and
began typing with renewed force.
“So how is the Vampyre
Productions series coming anyway?” asked Michelle absently, like nothing
had happened.
“Finished with Valkyrie,”
stated Mandy simply, still typing away. “On Immortal Ops right now,
almost finished and will start proofing Peace Offerings next, then
Misfits in America and then I will be done…well, until the next one
anyway.”
“Cool,” Michelle answered.
“I’ve got all four Dragon Lords done, then working on Tribes of
the Vampire book three and then will start proofing this little story I
wrote about a very naughty….”
“Lycan?”
Michelle froze, hearing
Dmitri’s smooth voice. She couldn’t look at him. She actually was writing
the novel about lycans, though she wasn’t going to say that. She was going
to say troll, because there was one in the book. Hell, she would have
agreed to say anything to keep from admitting that she had lycan on the
brain lately.
“Oh, just admit that you’re
writing about naughty lycans and then you can admit that you were writing
about me,” he said with an overconfident grin. Michelle grumbled and tried
to turn her chair from him, but he put his hands behind her and kept her
chair held firmly in place.
“Tell me, Michelle, do any
of your heroines ever get mounted by their lycan lover?”
Her breath caught in her
throat, and for a minute she couldn’t remember how to breathe, to think, to
respond. Mandy’s giggle brought her back from the edge of making a fool of
herself and she turned the chair quick and hard, rolling over Dmitri’s foot
in the process. He made a small grunting noise and Michelle glared at him.
“I’ll tell you if they get mounted if you tell me what flea collar you
recommend most.”
Dmitri’s mouth opened and
his eyes narrowed in on her. It hit Michelle then that Dmitri wasn’t
wearing his eye patches and that his grey eyes were clearly focused on her.
She shot up and out of the chair. “You’re not blind! Damn you, you tricked
me into a pity date and there isn’t a thing wrong with you.” She turned and
looked down at Mandy. “Did you know about this?”
Mandy shook her head and
gave Dmitri a ‘you’re so very screwed’ look before turning to type
again.
Dmitri took a step towards
Michelle and gave her a good glance over. “Humph, it doesn’t matter if you
thought it was a pity date or not, you didn’t even bother to get dressed up
for it. Yeah, you look like you’re ready and willing to make up for almost
blinding me,” he said, looking at her faded jeans and old sweatshirt.
Michelle refused to back
down. “Oh, what did you expect me to come in here decked out in heels and a
thousand dollar dress?” She looked at Dmitri’s black suit and for the first
time noticed that he was wearing a tie as well. “Oh, gawd, you did expect
that.”
He pulled at his tie and
glared at her. “As a matter of fact I just came from a meeting. I haven’t
had a chance to change my clothes yet!”
“Oh, whatever!” Michelle
yelled as she stormed past him, heading towards the ladies room.
~*****~
Mandy spun her chair around
and watched as Armando gave Dmitri a quizzical look. “Business meeting? I
wasn’t aware that we had any meetings tonight,” he said with a mocking smile.
“Not a word,
not one damn word,” Dmitri said, marching out of the office.
Mandy glanced up at Armando
and wondered what was going on. He shook his head no, to indicate that he
wasn’t willing to discuss it with her. Not being one to take no for an
answer, Mandy stood up and quickly covered the distance between she and
Armando. She wanted to touch him, she always wanted to touch him, but he
was so far out of her league that it wasn’t funny. Smart, sexy, successful
men didn’t fall for her. Out of work, losers, with the personality of a
paperweight, now, those were the type of men she seemed to attract.
Armando looked down at Mandy
and his rose-colored lips curved into a half smile. “Dmitri’s business with
Michelle is his business. I’ll not tell you a thing.”
“Oh, that sounds like a dare
to me.” She ran her hands over his lower abdomen and leaned up and into
him. She let her voice drop a bit, and spoke with an air of breathiness.
“Are you sure that you can’t tell me what’s going on?”
Armando tipped his head back
and he knocked his head against doorframe twice before speaking to her.
“Mandy, I cannot tell you!”
She batted her eyelashes and
moved her body closer to his. Flirting came naturally to her, a little
too naturally, but she’d never tried it on a man she seriously liked
before and doubted very much that he’d fall for it. Armando’s arms moved
around her and he pulled her closer to him.
Holy Toledo, Vampman, it
really worked!
“Dmitri was looking
forward to this evening. He spent the entire day planning it. He gave up
his tickets for the Supernatural Bowl and he lives to cheer for the
Jack-In-Irons. You know what a sports fanatic he is. He gave that all up
when Michelle agreed to go out with him. He even enlisted my help when he
found out that you and I were going as well. He….”
Mandy cut him off. “What do
you mean? You and I were going, too?
Michelle asked me to go and said that she’d find a date for me.” It hit her
then that Armando was the one who’d been roped into going. “Oh, sorry, you
drew the short straw.”
“Nonsense, Mandy I really….”
She didn’t need or want to
hear Armando’s reasons for taking pity on her and subjecting himself to her
for the evening so she interrupted him again. “So, how huge was this date
going to be?”
His fingers caressed her
back and she tensed up. She didn’t want to be an easy lay for him, a
one-night stand. Those were a dime a dozen and she wasn’t in the market for
that. Problem was, no one else had gotten that memo. Mandy took a step
back and waited for Armando to continue. Let him think what he wanted to
about her, he was good at assuming she slept with anything that would crawl
out of the bar with her. Well, maybe the assumption was her fault to. It's
not like she ever corrected the mistake.
“Dmitri was able to get box
seats at the playhouse tonight and even managed to call in a few favors and
got Rothfield Park lined up for a moonlight picnic and a weekend stay.”
“Isn’t that in England?”
Armando moved towards her
and ran his pale hand over her bare arm. “Yes, but with the jet it wouldn’t
take us long to get there.”
Mandy looked down at his
hand and was instantly sick to her stomach. Men with access to jets didn’t
want women like her and if they did, it was only for sex. “I see.”
“You see what?” Michelle
asked, appearing next to Mandy.
Armando shot Mandy a warning
look and shook his head slightly. She wouldn’t betray Dmitri’s secret. No,
she knew what it was like to want someone so bad that you’d do anything for
them, but each time it was close, something ruined it. If ,
and , or when Dmitri wanted Michelle
to know that he’d taken the date extremely seriously then he could tell her,
she wouldn’t.
~*****~
Something was up. Michelle
just couldn’t figure out what it was. Mandy looked at her and smiled. “You
know, I have an extra dress in my car.”
“It won’t fit me,” Michelle
said, unwilling to give in to the idea of taking the date
seriously.
“Sure it will, come on,”
Mandy said, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards the door.
“I haven’t shaved my legs
today,” Michelle said under her breath. They both came to a grinding halt
and Mandy looked at her with understanding in her eyes.
“Right, then, so no dress,”
Mandy said. “Well, at least your jeans don’t have holes in the knees.”
Michelle did a double take
to be sure. Most of her jeans had sprouted holes over the years and that
never once stopped her from wearing them. Thankfully, she was safe. She
ran her fingers through her hair and wondered how she looked.
“You look great, come on,
I’ve got some make up in my bag.” Mandy seemed to read her mind.
"This wasn't supposed to
matter, Mandy. The guy wasn't supposed to be able to see me." Michelle
would have frowned, but the idea of Mandy helping her apply make-up
lightened her mood and made her laugh. She put her hand up and shook her
head. “Uh, besides, I'll have to pass. I’ve seen your black lipstick.
It’s a date not a funeral.”
“Har- har! ”
