“Have you been up near Ellijay? It’s gorgeous up there this time of year. Water ban has sucked though. No campfires,” Clara said.
“You . . . camp?”
Clara looked vexed. “Why does this surprise you?”
“You just don’t really look like a camper. Too damn pretty and –”
“You’d best quit while you’re ahead,” Henry chuckled. Clara was clenching her silverware so tightly that she’d bent her knife.
“Making judgments about my abilities? Based on my appearance?”
“No!” Shamira replied. Then she paused. Clara was dressed in a fashionable and far-too-short skirt and a gorgeous silk blouse tied off in a knot just below her bustline. While definitely athletic, her skin was smooth and not defined and . . . “Yeah. I guess I was. Forgive me?” Shamira tried the pout thing with her lip and failed miserably. But she did get a reaction.
“Forgiven,” Clara said. Then she grabbed Shamira’s collar, pulled her close, and laid a kiss on her that Shamira would probably never forget. Shane’s kiss the morning before had been about power, but Clara’s was much more about finesse. Her tongue was so soft and so nimble and it felt like it was going to crawl all the way into Shamira’s being and buy property. Her lips were so damn soft and warm and damn inviting, and then they were gone.
“Wuh . . . what was that for?” Shamira muttered. That had been a real kiss, with a woman, and Shamira realized she’d been kissing right back.
“Admitting you’re not perfect,” Clara said smoothly. “I was beginning to wonder.”
“Trust me, I’m far from perfect.”
Clara looked at her companion through hazy, lusty, half-closed eyes and said, “We’ll see later tonight.”
Shamira gulped. “We will?”
“Oh yes.” Clara leaned back and just smiled.
“What’s going on?” she asked to Henry who was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“Shane gave ya until after midnight lunch as a freebie. Who do you think already has you claimed before the second lunch is over?” he explained.
Shamira’s eyes slowly moved back over to Clara, whose face had gone from soft to sinister in a heartbeat. “Oh yes,” she said, leaning forward and placing her head next to Shamira’s. “Tonight, I’m busting your sapphic cherry wide open,” she murmured, then nibbled on the other woman’s ear. Then she kissed Shamira’s neck.
“I’ve been so very, very patient, and I made all the other girls promise not to touch you until I’ve had an opportunity, and I’m going to make the most of that opportunity for hours,” she kissed Shamira’s neck, “and hours,” followed by another kiss on the lips that didn’t last nearly long enough, “and hours.”
Shamira had lost the ability to speak, or to even think reasonably coherently. Her mouth remembered the small taste she had just gotten, and it craved more, needed more.
Then “dominant” Clara went away again and “normal” Clara came back. “We need to go hiking sometime,” she said. “Hey, once the house is stronger, we’ll take a summer off and hike the Appalachian Trail. How’s that sound?”
Shamira’s lips started to move, but words or even sound were strangely absent.
“You broke her,” Raul said.
“Not yet,” Clara said slyly. Then more seriously, “Shamira, you’ve stepped one foot into our world, but we don’t live there all the time. We have lives outside the house, and you will too. Maybe not anytime soon, at least not until we get our numbers up –”
“Okay ladies and gentlemen,” started a gangly man who appeared to be in charge, “let’s get in our places. Men on that side and women on this side. You’ll have five minutes with each participant –”
“Listen, you guys don’t have to stick around,” Shamira said.
“Oh yes we do,” Henry said, eyeing some of the women present.
“It’ll be fun!” Clara added.
At five minutes per person, the interviews were surprisingly drab for Shamira. The last time she’d tried this, she had tried so hard to sympathize with every guy she spoke to and tried to coax their life stories out of them. But now they seemed so . . . boring. She noticed that her comrades were having a great time though. Apparently flirting was a magical skill. She sighed. She probably wouldn’t get any numbers tonight after all. ‘I’m just not . . . likable. What am I even doing here?’
Everyone finally got to visit with everyone else and then filled out their cards. Did you like this person or not? Shamira tried to be kind, but only thought two or three guys would even be interesting enough to have coffee with, if she ever actually wanted to. The host would contact them later with any offers.
It was obvious that several ladies wanted to “talk” to Raul and Henry, and an equal number of men were trying to catch Clara’s eye. Shamira had been sitting closest to the door, so she just stepped outside. Getting fresh air, or at least that’s what she told herself. She walked out towards the center of the square, moving her mind back to Shane’s business. At least that she might be good at.
She had spent all afternoon checking out Mysti-pedia and other files that Shane had acquired over the years. The fairies, weres, and vampires were her first line of inquiry, then the drug known as morning star. She knew she was supposed to be simply expanding her knowledge base, but Shamira’s mind always had to have a direction. After seeing those videos of what happened in a morning star bleeding house, she had made it her first mission as Shane’s new vampire enforcer to hunt these guys down.
“There you are,” Clara said, walking down a path from the bar to the center of the square. She looked so good, it just wasn’t fair. “Why’d you take off? This was your idea.”
Shamira shrugged. She knew how Clara would respond to her sitting around feeling sorry for herself. “Just thought it would be different this time.”
Clara sat down next to her. “Different how?”
“That the whole vampire mojo might actually make people notice me. I guess I’m just as attractive as I ever was.” She closed her eyes.
“You are,” Clara said, watching Shamira’s eyes open again. “What? Expect me to feel sorry for you? First, you don’t get the ability to turn on the pheromones like you’ve seen in movies until you’re a full vamp, which means for you it’ll be another two centuries. Two, I looked at the host’s score card, and every guy you talked to say ‘yes’ to you.”
“What? No one said anything –”
“Because you left!” Clara said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “You’re so bound and determined to believe that no one is going to accept you that you walk away before anyone can. Hell, Shane had to chase you down to convince you to come back to us. We HAVE accepted you Shamira.” She gripped the muscular woman’s hand. “I’m looking forward to having you around,” she said warmly.
Then without warning, she kissed Shamira again, just as hot and heavy as she had in the bar. Suddenly Shamira was wondering if she needed to add getting laid in Marietta Square as a fantasy to the list that Shane had begun to compile. “That’s not all I’m looking forward to,” Clara said when she finally, reluctantly, released Shamira’s mouth.
“How do you do that?” Shamira whispered. “It’s just one minute you’re just a beautiful girl acting like my friend, then you turn on that –” She waved her hands, unable to come up with a word or phrase that fit.
“I’m not ‘acting’ like a friend,” Clara said, partly offended. “I AM your friend. Everyone in the house likes and/or respects each other, otherwise it wouldn’t work. Shane’s careful about keeping people around him that he can trust. And as I told you, it’s no mojo. I just enjoy what . . . and who . . . I do. Problem with getting brought over as a teenager is that you’re pretty much perpetually horny.”
Shamira snickered. “Wait, a teenager?!”
Clara grinned. “Shane brought me over when I was eighteen. That was sixty-two years ago. My ID always says that I’m twenty-one. We tried going older than that once, but no one bought it.”
“I can see why,” Shamira said, looking somewhat hungrily over that nubile young-looking body so close to her own.
“I’m eighty years old and it’s a pain in the ass for me to rent a car for crying out loud!” Clara looked so miffed that it took all of Shamira’s control to avoid laughing. “I mean, try going to a Falcons game and ordering a beer when you look like this. Every time, it’s a friggin’ hassle!”
“You like football?”
“Who doesn’t?”
Shamira smiled. “Okay, now I KNOW you’re too good to be true.”
Clara planted another kiss, lighter and more friendly, but still really damn hot. “I know. Wait until sunrise, and you’ll have found out how good I can be.”
———– ———–
At dinner . . .
———– ———–
Shamira was a little alarmed at what she was seeing. She had been getting ready to enjoy a nice medium-rare NY strip steak when Shane’s dinner had arrived. And by dinner, he meant the wife of a district appeals court judge. She was a woman who was still quite comely in her mid forties, with the body of someone who had worked long and hard to keep from losing her youthful figure. It had worked.
She seemed to know everyone at the table except Shamira, whom she greeted warmly. Then she had straddled Shane’s lap and he had bitten into her neck. The rest of the table just grinned and went back to eating. Mrs. Tabitha Grunholdt, the lady in question, was grinding against Shane’s lap as he drank from her neck.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” Renata asked. The werejaguar leaned in and whispered, “She and her husband have an open relationship. Not surprising since he’s a closet homosexual AND a Republican. She was able to get her kicks however she wanted as long as it didn’t go public. Shamira wondered if he would say the same if he actually knew how she got off.
“So is she –”
“A sub? Oh yeah. Shane will take her back and keep her entertained for the rest of the evening. If you find a good donor, it helps to keep them happy. Or so I hear.”
“Right. You’re a were, so no need for donors.” Shamira was almost in awe. The woman with her hair up in a conservative bun and her nicely proportional figure contained in a thousand-dollar dress suit was riding Shane like a bicycle as he consumed her blood, and she didn’t seem at all embarrassed by it.