Vincent roller over, opened his eyes and peered at the bedside clock, a frown drawing his eyebrows together as he saw the digital reading. Eleven, forty-eight. Dear God, it wasn't even noon. He usually slept until six or later to avoid as much sunlight as possible.
Eleven forty-nine. Vincent glowered at the changing digital reading. Something had obviously woken him. His sleepy mind was just trying to sort out what that might be when the sound of voices came muffled through his bedroom door. Frowning, he turned to peer toward it. It was two men's voices, growing louder as the speakers drew nearer. He tensed as they reached his door, then they apparently continued on down the hall because the voices began to fade again.
"What the hell?" Tossing his blankets and sheets aside, Vincent slid his feet out of bed and got up. He didn't bother dressing, but moved to the door and pulled it open to peer out, eyes widening at the sight of all the men moving in and out of the half dozen open doors off the hallway.
Leaving his room, Vincent started forward, glancing through each open door he passed. There was only one door on the upper floor that was still closed, the door to the room where his aunt Marguerite slept. Wondering how she could possibly sleep through all this racket, Vincent took the stairs, his thoughts scattering as he reached the main floor and found it flooded with light. Every window in the house was covered with a heavy protective curtain that kept the light out and made it safe for him to move around when necessary during the day. Presently, every one of those curtains appeared to have been pulled open to allow sunlight to spill across the hardwood floors.
Growling, Vincent headed for the kitchen, expecting to find Tiny there, but the man was conspicuous in his absence. Turning away from the empty kitchen, he started back up the hall, glancing in each room he passed, searching for Jackie and an explanation for the small army of men who had taken over his home. Vincent found both Jackie and Tiny in his office.
"Morning," Tiny rumbled on spotting him, then turned back to watch Jackie who was on the phone.
"I've already explained who I am. I'm Mr. Argeneau's new personal assistant and he asked me to call and have you send over this information. Just pull the files and fax the list to me." Jackie sounded impatient, apparently not appreciating the resistance she was getting from whomever she was talking to. Vincent watched her expression tighten as she listened for another moment, then Jackie clucked with irritation and snapped, "He's just walked into the office. Hold one moment, please."
Leaning forward, she pressed the button to put the call on hold and scowled at Vincent.
"Your production assistant is being difficult. Please tell her to fax over the list of employees on the New York production," she snapped, then pressed the hold button again and handed him the phone.
Vincent hesitated, not used to being ordered about, but then sighed and took the phone. "Lily?"
"Oh, Mr. Argeneau, that woman claims she's?
"Yes, yes," Vincent interrupted, then tried for a more pleasant tone as he said, "Yes, Lily. Jackie is my new personal assistant and I did ask her to contact you. Just send over whatever she's asked for and anything else she calls you about in future. Okay? Thanks."
Vincent handed the phone back to Jackie without waiting for agreement, then listened impatiently as she repeated orders she'd obviously already given several times. Once finished, Jackie hung up. "Thank you."
When Vincent's mouth tightened, Tiny considered his exhausted face and then announced, "I think I'll go check on lunch."
Jackie watched the giant go and then said, "Really, thank you. Your Lily was being a pain."
Vincent had intended on blasting her for the noise the men were making, but curiosity got the better of him and, instead, he asked, "How did you find her number?"
"It wasn't hard; you put her under P for production assistant in your Rolodex," Jackie pointed out with amusement.
"Finding her wasn't the problem, getting a hold of her was. When I called her office, the switchboard gave me her home phone number. I must have called twenty times before she finally answered."
"She didn't have to answer at all," Vincent muttered. "Lily doesn't normally start work until I do."
"Which reminds me, what are you doing up so early?" she asked with a frown. "I expected you to sleep at least until dinner."
Her question reminded him that he was annoyed and Vincent scowled. "What are all these men doing in my house?"
Jackie appeared surprised at the question. "You know very well what these men are doing here. They're the security team. They're finishing the installation of the alarm system and cameras on the windows and doors upstairs."
Yes, he did know that, but... "Couldn't they have come later in the day? They woke me up."
Jackie sat back with a sigh. "The sooner everything's in place and fully operational the better."
Vincent scowled, but he was unable to fault her reasoning. Unfortunately.
"I did ask them to try to keep the noise down," she added apologetically. "I'll talk to them again so that you can get some more sleep."
"No, no. I'm awake now." Vincent shifted impatiently on his feet, his gaze looking over Jackie, noting she wore another business suit, this one gray with a red blouse under it. Very sharp, very nice on her, he thought, his gaze slipping to the wide expanse of neck left bare by the open top two buttons. He found himself staring at the creamy white flesh with fascination. To him, it was tantamount to waving a pizza under the nose of a starving man. Without even thinking about it, Vincent found himself taking a step closer, pausing only when his thighs bumped against the edge of the desk.
"For heaven's sake, stop looking at me like lunch!" Jackie said irritably as she stood up. "And, do you always have to wander around here shirtless?"
Vincent blinked and glanced down at himself, only now becoming aware that he was wearing only a pair of soft cotton pajama pants. Apparently, she found his state of undress distressing, he noted, and glanced up to catch Jackie staring at his chest. Her eyes slid down over his pecs to his flat stomach in a caress he almost felt. Vincent found himself with the sudden urge to stretch and flex some of those muscles she was eyeing with such interest, but before he could, Jackie blinked as if waking from sleep and jerked her eyes up to his face.
She blushed bright pink at being caught gawking, then he saw her mouth tighten and spoke quickly to prevent her grouching at him again. "So what's all this then?"
Jackie hesitated, then glanced down at the stacks of paper on his desk. Sighing, she pushed one hand through her golden hair and visibly relaxed. "This is your mail, Mr. Argeneau."
"Hmm. Mail." Vincent ignored the return of the formal address and nodded as he glanced over the piles. He never opened his mail. He just stacked it up on the table in his hallway until the table couldn't hold it anymore, then dumped it all in a box.
"You had three months worth of mail in your hall," she informed him dryly.
"Yes, well?
"I opened and sorted it all, stacking it in order by date with the oldest on top," Jackie went on, ignoring his efforts to explain himself. "This first pile is just bill receipts. I gather you have direct debit for all your bills?"
"Yes," Vincent answered absently, his gaze slipping from the stack in question, to the creamy flesh of her throat and lingering there before he forced it away.
Jackie nodded. "I'll file them later today if you'll tell me where your files are kept."
"I usually just toss them in a box and throw them in that closet," Vincent admitted, gesturing to a door to their right.
Jackie's eyes widened incredulously at this news. "What about when tax time rolls around? Don't you?
"I send the boxes to my personal accountant," Vincent answered. "Most of it isn't stuff he needs, but I let him sort it out."
"That'sthat? Jackie paused, cleared her throat and then said, "Accountants charge by the hour to sort out such things."
Vincent shrugged, not terribly concerned. Money wasn't a big issue for him. Between his shares in Argeneau Enterprises, along with his own company interests and investments made over the last four hundred years, he wasn't stinking rich, but he was rich enough.
"Whatever," she said finally with a shrug. "I'll put them in the box."
"Sure." His gaze slid to her throat again and away. He really had to move this along and see about feeding. "What is the rest of this?"
Jackie pointed to the next stack. "This is all nice fan mail. It's pretty obvious you don't answer your fans."
He could hear the disapproval in her voice and propelled the conversation along again by gesturing at the last two piles. "What are these then?"
"This stack is all business letters," Jackie answered, pointing to the larger pile. "Letters from your agent, play directors, etc."
She paused then and he suspected Jackie was biting her lip on commenting on the fact that he hadn't bothered to open such important mail. Clearing her throat, she gestured to the last pile. "This pile is the important one. It's what I was looking for when I opened your mail in the first place."
"What are they?" Vincent asked, picking up the top letter.
"They're unusual fan letters and nasty letters from angry employees who were fired, and upset actors and actresses who were passed over for roles. They're possible suspects."
Vincent grunted and read the letter he'd picked up. It was only a couple of lines long. He read it, paused, then reread it, his hunger suddenly forgotten.
I know who you are. I know what you are.
Frowning, he glanced at the envelope Jackie had stapled to it. The postal cancellation was local and dated little more than two months old, the return address was his own. He shifted the letter and envelope to the bottom of the pack and read the next, and the next. The first several were all the same. Short. Simple.
I know who you are. I know what you are.
Then one read:
Oops, someone had an accident.
Vincent stiffened and glanced at the envelope. It was dated the day after the stage set accident where the actress had broken her arm. Frowning, he set it aside and looked at the next. It read:
Oops, someone stumbled.
Vincent knew what he would find before he even looked at the envelope, but he checked anyway and his mouth flattened out with anger as he saw it had been posted the day after Dan Henson broke his leg.
"These are from him?" Vincent said, shifting that letter to the bottom to reveal the next.
Someone was thirsty.
He wasn't surprised to find the cancellation was New York and was dated in the midst of his cast members coming down with their contagious anemia.
"Yes, it would seem so," Jackie said, taking them from him. "But they might not be. They're creepy, but don't make any threats. And they're all posted the day after the events. It could just be someone with a sick sense of humor."
When Vincent snorted at the possibility, she shrugged. "I don't want to jump to conclusions. Any of these other letters might be from him. Tiny and I will look into them all."
Vincent nodded and then asked, "Why did you want the list of employees?"
"I'll have to check into everyone working for you, but I want to start with the play you were rehearsing in New York."
"Why especially that one?"
"Four of the plays were already open when the actresses or actors walked and anyone who went to them could see who was the lead and so on. But that isn't the case with two of them, one in Canada and the one in New York. You hadn't yet publicized who was in Dracula, the Musical, had you?" she asked.
"No. We were still in rehearsal and preparing promotion, but hadn't released any information yet," he admitted.
Jackie nodded. "The attacks in New York would have to have been carried out by someone with access to the sets and actors. To have been biting your cast, they had to first know who was in your cast. I presume the rehearsals weren't open to just anyone who felt like wandering in off the street?"
"No." Vincent sighed. "There were security guards on the doors at the theatre we were using in New York to be sure no one came in."
Jackie pointed out, "Of course, one of your kind could have controlled the minds of the security guards to allow them to get in. If that's the case, the lists won't help. We'll just have to hope he took a job on set to assist in gaining access. Otherwise, we'll have trouble tracking him down."
When Vincent frowned, she added, "We'll worry about that after we go through the people on the list, which we'll do the minute your production assistant faxes them over." She pursed her lips. "That could be a while. This Lily has to actually go to the office and then find the files."
Picking up the first stack of letters, Jackie moved around the desk, passing Vincent on her way to the closet. He inhaled as she went by, eyes closing briefly at the scent of spices and her own skin. God, she smelled good. And he was so hungry. Vincent was always hungry when he first got up, but this went beyond that. The more he stood about looking at and smelling Jackie, the hungrier he got, to the point that he was now almost unbearably ravenous. If he didn't leave soon he might be moved to do something rash, which was never a good thing. His kind learned at a young age that rash behavior could be deadly behavior.
Forcing his eyes open, Vincent saw that Jackie was framed in the door of the closet. She was muttering to herself and shaking her head as she bent to rifle briefly through the large box of mail on the floor. His gaze trailed over her pert bottom as her gray skirt pulled tight over her behind and he found himself licking his lips as he imagined walking over, running his hands over those sweet curves, then letting his hands slide up and around her waist as she straightened in surprise before him.
Vincent could almost hear her little murmur of surprise as he'd urge her bottom back against his groin. Cuddling her there, he'd then let his fingers slide up over her stomach, urging her jacket open so that he could cup her full breasts through the silk material of her red top. He'd hold them as she arched into the caress, then urge her long blond hair to the side, baring her neck. He'd press kisses to her neck and then?/p>
Vincent stopped his thoughts abruptly as he felt his teeth slide out. He then blinked in surprise as he realized it wasn't the only part of his body that had responded to his imaginings. He was sporting a very healthy erection that was making a tent out of his cotton pajama bottoms. Even more surprising, as Vincent had imagined what he would do, his feet had carried him over to stand behind Jackie. He was close enough to smell her sweet perfume and it was a sort of torture that only increased his hunger, both of them.
Giving himself a mental shake, Vincent backed a step away and then turned on his heel and moved to the door. He had to feed. Now.
He glanced back toward Jackie as he opened the door, but she was still busy in the closet. Leaving her to it, Vincent slid silently out of the room.
Jackie stared at the heaping box of mail in the office closet and shook her head. How the man made any money was beyond her. He didn't answer his fan mail, didn't even look at his business letters, and his accountant must be charging him through the roof for sorting through the mess in his closet.
"You seriously do need a P.A., Argeneau. It's just an incredible waste of money having your accountant wade through this junk and?
Jackie paused and scowled as she turned to find the office empty. The man had slid out as silently as a thief while her back was turned. Frowning, she moved to the door and opened it to peer into the hall just in time to see Vincent stop one of the security guys as he came down the stairs. She watched narrow-eyed as he spoke to the man, then he suddenly herded the worker into a side door further down the hall. And herding was the only word for it. Jackie pictured the poor man as a sheep being led to the slaughter. Not that she thought Vincent would kill him. He was just going to feed on him, she was sure.
Jackie slipped out of the office and moved quickly down the hall to pause outside the door the two men had disappeared through. She glanced quickly around to be sure no one was in the hall to see, then pressed an ear to the wood and held her breath as she listened.
Not a sound came from the room. Not a word. Not a murmur. Nothing.
After another hesitation, her mouth flattened out grimly and Jackie opened the door and slid inside to peer around. She spotted Vincent and the worker almost at once. The security man stood across the room, staring out of the window. Vincent stood behind him, his teeth sunk into the man's neck.
"Ah-ha!" Jackie cried as she slammed the door closed behind her.
Vincent stiffened and then whirled to face her, guilt on his face and a drop of blood by the corner of his mouth. The worker didn't react at all.
"I thought you said you didn't feed on your employees!" Jackie snapped, hands on hips.
Vincent's mouth curled down with displeasure. "I don't. He's not my employee."
"Oh, that's just semantics," she protested. "He's in the employ of a company in your employ. That makes him your employee, if only indirectly."
Vincent opened his mouth to respond, then paused and turned back to his dinner. The worker immediately began to move. His face utterly blank, he turned around and crossed the room.
Knowing that Vincent controlled him and was probably sending him from the room and back to where he belonged, Jackie opened the door and held it for him to exit, but turned to raise an eyebrow in Vincent's direction before closing it. The vampire ignored her look of enquiry for another moment, his attention wholly on the laborer. She knew he was rearranging the man's memories and thoughts, so waited patiently until he glanced her way and nodded.
Jackie immediately closed the door as soundlessly as possible and then waited for Vincent to speak. He didn't keep her waiting long.
"I was hungry."
"That's it?" she asked with disbelief. "That's all you have to say for yourself?"
Vincent shrugged. "I was hungry so I fed. What do you do when you're hungry?"
"It's hardly the same thing," Jackie growled.
"Why? Because you feed on fluffy little baby cows and chickens and I feed on mortals?"
Jackie could only glare in response.
"At least my feedings do not necessitate the death of my chosen meal," Vincent pointed out dryly.
Jackie found herself blinking several times in response to this comment. She was at a loss for words. Not a single argument was coming to her aid here and for a moment frustration reared within her, but then she realized there simply was no argument to that. She and her kindmortalsdid kill to eat. His kind didn't have to kill to survive. In effect, immortals did much less harm to their chosen meal than mortals did, she realized, and suddenly felt on uneven ground as most of her outrage slipped away like smoke.
Before Jackie could rally her defenses, he started forward, continuing, "I was hungry. I always wake up hungry, and you smelled as delicious as Tiny's homemade cookies. However, you and Tiny are off limits for biting, so I bit one of the workers from the security company." He shrugged. "As you saw for yourself, he walked out of here. He was not unduly harmed, and will not remember the occasion. I am sated for now and no harm was done except perhaps to your delicate sensibilities."
Jackie had to force herself not to take a step back when he paused directly in front of her. Vincent was close enough that she could smell him, close enough she could feel the heat from his naked chest, close enough she could touch him if she chose to and part of her really, really wanted to. Instead, Jackie barked, "My delicate sensibilities?"
Managing to tear her eyes away from his very close, very wide chest she scowled at Vincent. "Is that some kind of insult?"
Vincent raised his eyebrows, looking every bit as arrogant and condescending as his kind could get. "Not at all. I am simply surprised that someone who knows so well what we are, and has worked with us for so long, would be so shocked and outraged when she sees us doing what it is in our nature to do."
"Doing what it is in your nature to do," Jackie echoed grimly. For some reason the words reminded her of the old fable about the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion convinced a frog to give it a ride across a river, but stung it halfway across. As the frog began to sink under the river's surface, taking the scorpion with it, he asked why, and the scorpion said it was "in his nature."
It was a good reminder to her, Jackie supposed. She mustn't ever forget that Vincent was an immortal, a vampire with a vampire's nature and attitudes. She and Tinyand every other mortal he encounteredwere probably nothing more than walking dinner to him.
Still, his irritation with her upset urged her to remind him, "The others of your kind drink blood from a cup, or even straight from the bag, but you're the only one who actually bites people."
"Hardly the only one," Vincent said with a shrug that drew her attention back to his bare chest. "Simply the only one you've met."
Jackie knew that was true, but she was finding it terribly difficult to think with the man standing so close.
"Besides," he pointed out. "You wouldn't have seen it at all if you'd simply minded your own business, rather than followed me in here."
That, unfortunately, was also true. She'd followed him in here expecting to catch him in the act, had even wanted to, but this was his home and it really was none of her business. Unfortunately, Jackie was very curious about his feeding.
Tilting her head to the side, she gave in to that curiosity.
"Do you prefer men or women?" she asked and thenwhen he stiffenedadded hastily, "To bite."
Vincent relaxed and shrugged. "Do you prefer meat from a male or female cow?"
"There isn't a difference," she said with confusion. "Steak is steak."
"And so it is with me. When I'm hungry, I don't care. Whichever is handiest or easiest to get to; it's all blood whether from a male or female."
"Oh." While she could understand that blood was blood, Jackie still found it surprising thatto himfeeding was just feeding. None of the files had got this in depth into their feeding habits. Most had been filled with data about the history of their people, each person's individual history, and so on.
The only thing any of the files had said about their feeding habits was that they could survive on blood without food, but not food without blood. That they were now restricted by their council to feeding off bagged blood rather than off living hosts except in cases of emergency, or necessity such as in Vincent and his father, Victor's, case. And the only exception was love bites as they were called, bites between an immortal and a consenting mortal or immortal lover. Jackie had some experience with the last rule. She'd consented to let Cassius bite her while they were dating and it had always been an incredibly erotic experience. In fact, it made it hard for her to imagine that feeding might not be that mind-blowing, sexy, whole-body rush of pleasure that she'd known.
She wasn't willing to discuss Cassius with Vincent, however, so simply said, "I guess I've been influenced by books and movies over the years. They always portray it as much morewell, it appears somewhat... intimate and sensual, yet you make it sound like sitting down to a sandwich."
"It can be both," Vincent acknowledged. "Though more often than not it is like sitting down to a sandwich. I am hungry, so I feed."
"Do you always bite from behind?" she asked.
"I prefer to approach men from behind; it makes it easier to alter their memory. They can look at television or at the scenery and I can put the memory in their mind that while they continued to watch T.V. or to look out at the yard, I was chattering on with some horribly boring diatribe."
When Jackie looked confused, he explained, "Men are more visual by nature and rarely listen to conversation they find boring. Their minds drift and they focus on something else, usually what they're seeing. They learn to simply respond in a way that seems appropriate to tonal changes."
Jackie's lips twitched, knowing thatunless you were discussing work, or sports, or something they found interestingmen did "zone out" and just respond with nods or affirmative murmurs when your voice became questioning.
"And women?" Jackie asked, curious about his take on the female sex.
"Women pay more attention to conversation. Communication is more important to them, sowhile men will be satisfied with a vague memory of my blathering on with some boring subjectwomen would fret over not recalling what it was about. It's easier to approach them face to face and embrace them as you bite, then give them the vague memory of a passionate moment."
While Jackie could agree that men were less verbal than women, the idea that women were less likely to remember the actual physical activity seemed odd to her. "I can believe that women find conversation more important, but surely when it comes to passion, if it's just a vague memory, they will fret over that too?"
"Oddly enough, no. Most women seem less concerned with the intimate details of where they were touched and so on and tend simply to recall how they felt and the passion they enjoyed."
Jackie wanted to argue the point, but as she tried to think back to her last boyfriend and recall his kisses and caresses, it was all rather blurry. She had a vague recollection of standing in her kitchen and his urging her back against the counter as he kissed her, but other than that it became a blurry memory of sensations and her body's responses. Now it made her wonder if men remembered it more clearly, like a play-by-play in a football game. While she was curious about that, Jackie didn't have the nerve to ask Vincent and soothed herself with the promise to maybe ask Tiny sometime... maybe.
Blinking her thoughts away, she found herself staring at Vincent's chest. Her gaze slid over him, taking in the pearly white flesh that had rarely, if ever, seen sunlight. In this day and age of sun worship and tanning salons, it should have appeared unhealthy and even unattractive to her. It wasn't. Instead, he was beautiful, almost like a marble statue come to life. Her eyes traced the breadth of him and then traveled down over pecs and an admirably flat abdomen toward the waist of his cotton pajama bottoms. They were loose and comfortable, but there was no missing that he definitely had a healthy package. This was when another question occurred to her.
"You said you give them a memory of... er... passionate moments. Does that mean you don't actually make love to them every?" Jackie paused abruptly as the slight bulge in his pajama bottoms became more noticeable and she realized that not only was she staring rudely, but what she was asking was incredibly rude and nosy as well.
Dragging her eyes from his lower body, Jackie glanced toward his face to see that Vincent had arched an eyebrow at her impertinence. She immediately began to backpedal as she felt her face suffuse with a blush. "I just mean, surelywhile you obviously wouldn't every timesometimes you might be moved to... ?"
He continued to stare at her in silence and Jackie shifted her feet, angry at herself for being so stupid. After a moment, however, she came to the conclusion that it was his fault. He was the one standing about half-naked, giving her these ideas. Shifting impatiently, she turned abruptly away and headed for the door.
"Where are you going now?" Vincent asked, following her out into the hall.
"Lunch," Jackie answered sharply. "Tiny put on chili this morning and promised it would be ready for lunch."
"Chili?" he asked with interest, keeping pace with her when all she wanted was to get away from him and the overwhelming effect he was having on her normally sensible thoughts.
Jackie glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, then shook her head. "I don't mean to be rude, Argeneau, but if you're joining us for lunch, you can just go put on some clothes. I can't think of anything less appetizing than your sad, white chest staring at me across the table."
Vincent scowled and stopped walking. Leaving him glaring after her, she stepped into the kitchen and let the door swing shut between them.
Vincent remained standing there for several minutes, scowling after her, then he recalled the way her eyes had slid over his chest when he'd first entered the office. His tension immediately began to ease.
Jackie may claim his "sad, white chest" was unappetizing, but her eyes had been saying something entirely different earlier... which meant she didn't want him half-naked at the table for another reason, like maybe she found it too attractive and distracting.
Well, Vincent decided, she'd just have to suffer his sad, white chest staring at her across the table today. In fact, he might just walk around shirtless more often. All the time, even. Smiling to himself, he continued on to the kitchen. Vincent suddenly had an appetite for chili.
