Betting on Julia (A Melville Sisters Novel) (Entangled Covet) (3 page)

“No?”

“I don’t…I don’t date.”

“You’re seeing someone else?”

Her rosebud mouth pursed. “Er…no. It’s more of an…ethical thing.”

“Ethical?” What the hell did that mean? Had she taken up religion? His research hadn’t found that out.

“Maybe ethical isn’t the right word.” Her gaze wandered around the room for a few seconds before settling on the phone clasped in her hand. “I have a girlfriend,” she said.

His eyes widened. “You mean a
girlfriend
?”

A big beaming smile lit up her face as if he’d been really bright. “Yes.”

She was a lesbian? That hadn’t shown up in the research either.

She took another step and gripped the edge of the door. “Nice to meet you, Sebastian. Now I have things to do. Important things.”

And she slammed the door in his face.

Chapter Three

Sebastian stared at the blue front door she’d just slammed in his face.

A lesbian?

That might complicate matters.

He’d thought he might have to work at turning himself into Julia Melville’s type—hence the pink shirt—he was pretty sure he’d never worn the color before. And he’d accepted the idea of reining in his sexual behavior, playing nice as it were. He’d believed he could do that for the cause. His tastes had changed over the years and while he might blame his more deviant sexual behavior on appeasing Dante, he couldn’t deny that the things that turned him on these days were a long way from the “boring”—Dante’s word, not his—sexual adventures of his youth. Two hundred years possessed by a demon would do that to you.

But strangely, Julia had turned him on and you didn’t get much more wholesome and vanilla than Julia Melville. Except for the lesbian thing. What was he going to do about that?

His cock twitched again. Yeah, it was official—he was a fucking pervert.

Maybe she’d let you join in…

The words whispered through his mind.

“Fuck off.”

What he wouldn’t do to be free of that malicious whispering voice. But not at any price. There were some things he would never do—like turn the demon loose on an unsuspecting world. The truth was, he could be free of Dante any time he wanted. All he had to do was release him and walk away. He would go, because Sebastian had been a big disappointment. Nowhere near the fun the demon had been expecting.

When he’d invited Dante in, he’d hardly been himself. A prisoner, and mad with grief and rage, he would have made a deal with the devil himself to avenge his wife and save his daughter.

So he’d drawn on the black magic he’d learned in his youth and called for help. Dante had answered. The demon needed a place to hide and where better than inside another’s body?

Over the years, he and Dante had reached an uneasy truce. He did what he could to appease the demon, but while he was willing to indulge in some seriously kinky sex and didn’t mind getting into the odd fight, there were lines he would not cross. He would never take an innocent life.

Dante on the other hand, had no limits. He craved blood and dark sex and death. The battle was constant, and Sebastian knew his very soul was being eroded with each day he was possessed by the demon.

He glanced up and realized he was still standing outside Julia Melville’s front door.

What was Dante’s real interest in her? There had to be more than a wager he believed Sebastian couldn’t win.

He had to win. That meant staying focused on Julia. And he had to make decisions with his brain not his dick, which was difficult when he was in her presence.

She was a novelty, that was all.

And a challenge, though he knew she didn’t only like girls; she’d had boyfriends in the past—his research had shown that. He needed to be clever. Not come on too strong. Perhaps make her believe all he wanted was friendship…that he was new to the big city and lonely. Get her to like him first, and then, when she was in too deep, he’d turn on the heat. He’d been told he was good at that. Maybe too good. He didn’t want to shock poor little Julia too much.

He hoped she wasn’t close to this girlfriend, because the relationship was over.

Spoilsport.

“Piss off.”

…

“So tell all,” Lissa said.

Julia sat back on the sofa and admired her pretty pink fingernails while she considered what to tell her best friend.

“All what?” she asked to give herself more time.

“The hottie you’ve avoided talking about all afternoon. You know you totally suck at lying, so it’s obvious something is going on.”

Lissa knew her too well. Probably better than anyone else in the world. They’d been best friends ever since Lissa had come to Julia’s boarding school as a scholarship student when they were eleven.

She’d been so cool. Tall, with black hair and golden eyes, she was completely different from anyone Julia had ever met. She’d had a Manchester accent and a propensity to punch anyone on the nose who tried to tease her about it. Julia had loved her from the start, and they’d become fast friends until Lissa was almost part of the family.

Now she was. A few months back, she’d married Julia’s older brother, Daniel, so now they were really sisters.

Lissa always told her everything, except when she’d kept back the tiny fact that Daniel was a werewolf. Of course, she hadn’t been able to hide it for long. And then…

Julia shook off the memory of that night when her world had changed. This was her “normal” time, and she wouldn’t think of her “not normal” time until she absolutely had to.

No, better to think of Mr. Hottie.

“He asked me out,” she said.

Lissa gave her a thumbs-up. “Wow. Fast work. So where are you going?”

“We’re not going anywhere.”

“You’re not.”

“No. I told him I was a lesbian.”

“What?” Lissa had been getting wineglasses out of the cabinet, and now she turned to stare.

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I said I had a girlfriend.”

“And do you?”

Julia grinned. “Only you. So if we see him…give me a kiss or something.”

“Ugh. I don’t think so.”

“Hey, we’ve done it before.”

“Yeah, we were both twelve and wanted to practice. But I’ve got to tell you, I never want to repeat the experience.” She poured a glass of Julia’s favorite Spanish wine, brought it over to the sofa, and handed it to her. “So what was wrong with him?”

Julia closed her eyes and pictured him, all long, lean, and dark. That beautiful face, the hint of bad boy that usually didn’t turn her on.

“Nothing,” she said.

Except something had been wrong. Yeah, he’d been sexy, though she’d met hot guys before and never had to fight the urge to drag them into her bedroom and shag their brains out thirty seconds after meeting them. But standing there, staring at the man on her doorstep, a mental image had flashed up in her mind. She was on all fours and he was behind her, fucking her doggy-style.

And she’d liked the image.

Then he’d touched her. Her mind flashed back to that first contact of his hand against hers and the shiver that had run through her. Not a good shiver. It had been as though
Thing
had awoken and scraped her claws down Julia’s spine. From the inside. Ugh.

The sensation had the same effect as a bucket of cold water on a couple of mating dogs, and the whole lesbian thing had just popped out of her mouth in a deluge of panic.

“So if nothing is wrong with him, and he’s hot…then why?” Lissa asked.

“I can’t go out with him. I’ve been doing this great job of pretending everything is normal and I’m normal. I can keep that up with myself, and even with you because you know, but not with a stranger.”

“Maybe it would take your mind off everything.”

Perhaps she needed some information. She hated to talk about it because it made everything more real. But she had to know how much of a threat Sebastian was to her balance. Because
Thing
had never woken outside of the full moon before. It was the only way Julia had been able to cope, been able to pretend that she was “normal.”

“Could you ask Daniel something for me?”

Lissa raised an eyebrow. This was a first. “Of course, though you might be better asking Joe. Daniel is still learning.” Although Daniel had been changed years ago, up until recently, he’d kept himself aloof from the pack. Then Ethan Stone, the old Alpha, had kidnapped her and Lissa, things had come to a head, and Daniel had killed Ethan in combat. That made him the new pack leader, and he was getting a crash course in pack culture. Joe had been Ethan’s second and was now Daniel’s.

“No, I don’t want to ask Joe.” The man scared her, but she wasn’t going to admit that to Lissa.

“Okay, I’ll ask. What is it you need to know?”

“
Thing
woke up.”

“
Thing
?”

“You know…
it
.” She curled her lip in a snarl, and Lissa’s expression cleared. “She’s never done that before,” Julia continued. “Except at full moon. But she did while Sebastian was here.”

“Sebastian?”

“Mr. Hottie.”

“Oh.” Lissa took a sip of her wine. “Maybe coincidence?”

“I hope so.” Except she didn’t believe in coincidences.

“So you panicked and told him you were a lesbian.”

“Yeah.” She gulped her wine in one go, poured another, and held up the bottle to Lissa. She shook her head. Julia swallowed the second glass and heaved a huge sigh. “But he’s moved in next door, so I’m not going to be able to avoid him totally.”

“He’s your next-door neighbor?”

“Didn’t I mention that? He came to borrow some milk. And he’s gorgeous. He even wore a pink shirt.”

“Gay?”

A shiver ran through her. “You didn’t see the way he looked at me. I nearly spontaneously combusted.”

“Wow. I’ll ask Daniel and soon. And you’d better start thinking of a story for how you’ve split up with your girlfriend.” Lissa winked at her. Brat. “One thing Daniel did tell me was that when he was first changed, the only thing that kept his…
thing
under control was sex.”

“He didn’t tell you that.”

“He did.”

It almost sounded too convenient, the perfect excuse to have sex with the hottie. Sort of came under the heading of medicinal purposes. She liked the sound of that.

She’d wait and see what Daniel said, but if it was just coincidence, an echo from the night before, then she would go see Sebastian. “I could buy him a moving-in present. Go around and cry on his shoulder, tell him how my bitch of a girlfriend threw me over for another woman.”

Lissa grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”

Worry nagged at her mind through the day. What if Daniel came back with the wrong answer? What if something really weird was happening and she’d be unable to pretend even between bouts of FMS or full moon syndrome as she liked to refer to her little problem? She wasn’t sure she would cope with that.

Daniel called her later that evening.

“Have you found my cure yet?” she asked.

“Not one that won’t kill you along with your wolf.”

She winced at the word. While she felt just a little guilty referring to
Thing
as
Thing
—after all it wasn’t her fault—she wasn’t quite ready for the “
w
” word. But perhaps it was time to come up with a new name as it didn’t look as though they’d be parting company any time soon. “You’ll keep trying, right?”

“I’ll keep trying. But Julia, you’d be much better off accepting what you are.”

“No, thank you.” She shuddered as she remembered the pain from her transformation the night before. “I’m not into masochism.”

“If you’d accept the change, there would be no pain.”

“I’ll take your word for that.”

“Christ, you’re stubborn.”

She ignored the compliment. “So did Lissa ask you about my little…issue?”

“Yes, and I don’t think it’s a problem. I talked to Joe, and he reckons it’s quite common around the full moon. Your wolf is restless, but the further you get away, the calmer she’ll become.”

“Good. Because this is
me
time.”

“Lissa said you have a new neighbor.”

“I do,” she said cautiously.

“And is he what’s making your wolf want to come out and play? Should I come over and check him out?”

“Now, why would I want you to do that?”

“Make sure he’s okay.”

“In what sense of the word? And you’ve never bothered before.”

“You’re a member of my pack now. We take care of each other.”

“Ugh. Look, thanks for calling with the info, but keep the pack stuff to yourself, okay?”

She still woke up sweating at least once a week from nightmares about the night she’d been kidnapped and forcibly changed by Ethan Stone. The idea of being among so many of them terrified the life out of her, though she wouldn’t admit that to Daniel. Not even to Lissa.

Daniel had stayed with her the first month she had changed. And since then, each month, he assigned one of the pack to keep an eye on her, but that was all she was willing to put up with.

She put the phone down without waiting for him to say anything else. Anyway, he couldn’t talk—he’d spent the last six years pretty much denying what he was. Ethan had changed Daniel, too. Her brother was a scientist, a geneticist—the best in his field and they had wanted him to work on a cure for the silver poisoning, which was the one thing that could destroy a werewolf. They’d kept him in line by threatening his family and had gone so far as to kill Babs, their oldest sister, to prove the threats weren’t idle. Daniel had kept all that to himself, worked on the cure, but also on a few experiments of his own.

He’d killed Ethan, who had apparently been eaten by the pack, though luckily, Julia had missed that part of the evening’s entertainment.

She still found the whole craziness impossible to believe. She hated the sight of blood. How the hell could she be a werewolf?

She shook her head; she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about this now. That was her plan: deal with it when she had no choice. Pretend it didn’t exist the rest of the time. Since that one moment with Sebastian,
Thing
had been quiet. Julia could do this.

Especially now she had her hot neighbor to take her mind off things. She’d pick up a bottle of wine on her way home from work tomorrow night. Go over there and welcome him to the neighborhood. Cry on his shoulder about how her dastardly girlfriend had run off with another woman and put her off women for the foreseeable future. And maybe they could spend a little time together, maybe even have a shag to remind her of what she’d been missing. Get her back in the swing of dating.

Great. She had a plan.

…

Sebastian straightened his dark red tie and tightened his fingers around the laptop case he carried in his right hand. More of his nice-ordinary-guy disguise.

He avoided peering sideways as he passed Julia’s house, but he knew she was in because her car was parked on the road outside and a light was on in the living room. He planned to pop over there again in a little while, though he really needed to think of a better excuse this time than borrowing fucking milk.