“What guy?” Mirabeau looked startled. “Marguerite gave you a
guy?
”
Lissianna gave Thomas a dirty look as the women began exclaiming in amazement. Their reaction was exactly what he’d hoped for, of course.
“It isn’t how it sounds,” she said in calming tones. “He’s a doctor. She brought him to treat my hemaphobia.”
“Yeah,” Thomas assured them. “And the fact that Lissianna was rolling all over him on the bed was just an accident. She didn’t know he was her therapist then.”
“Thomas!” Lissianna shrieked, as the other women began exclaiming and shouting questions anew. Shaking her head with disgust, she turned to the women and quickly gave an edited version of her meeting with Greg Hewitt. Once finished, she sat back and waited for their reactions.
Mirabeau was the first to speak, asking, “So, will he treat your phobia?”
Lissianna hesitated, then admitted, “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Elspeth asked with amazement.
“Well, apparently he was supposed to be going on vacation tomorrow. And then there’s the little matter of Mother’s kidnapping him,” she added, with a roll of her eyes over her mother’s antics.
“It maybe would have been better had she made you an appointment with him,” Jeanne Louise commented.
“Yes. That’s what he said, too,” Lissianna admitted wryly.
“So, can we see him?” Elspeth asked, and Lissi turned on her with surprise.
“What? Why?”
“We’ve seen all your other gifts,” she said, as if it were completely reasonable.
“I definitely want to see him,” Mirabeau announced.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing him myself,” Jeanne Louise said.
“You already saw him,” Lissianna protested.
“Yes, but only a glimpse really, and I didn’t know he was your gift then.”
“What difference does that make?” she asked with exasperation, but Jeanne Louise just shrugged. Shaking her head, Lissianna said, “We can’t just go traipsing up there. It’s dawn. He’s probably sleeping.”
“That’s okay; we only want to get a look at him. He doesn’t have to speak to us,” Mirabeau announced, getting to her feet.
Lissianna gaped as her cousins all hurried to follow suit. When they started determinedly for the door, she scooted off the bed herself, saying, “Oh, all right, but we mustn’t wake him up.”
The blackout curtains on her windows were drawn, leaving the room in inky darkness when Lissianna and the others entered. Still, she turned with a hiss of irritation when the light was flicked on.
“We came up to see him, Lissi,” Mirabeau pointed out. “It helps if there’s light.”
Lissianna let her irritation drop away at the reasonable words and turned to move cautiously up to the bed. She was relieved to note that the light hadn’t woken him,
though it did make him stir sleepily, she saw, as the group spread out around the bed.
“Wow,” Elspeth breathed, peering down on the sleeping man.
“He’s cute,” Julianna sounded surprised.
“Totally,” Victoria agreed.
“Yeah,” Mirabeau said. “For some reason I thought all psychologists looked like Freud, but he’s a babe.”
Julianna and Victoria both burst into giggles at this pronouncement and Lissianna shushed the pair, then glanced back to Greg in time to see Mirabeau lifting the edge of his suit jacket. Her eyes widened incredulously. “What are you doing?”
“Well, he isn’t wearing fake tan,” the other woman said calmly. “I just thought I’d see if his jacket was padded.”
“It isn’t,” Lissianna informed her grimly. “Those are
his
shoulders.”
“How—? Oh, right. You were kissing him and stuff.” Jeanne Louise grinned.
“Yeah, and from his reaction to her kisses and
stuff
, we also learned the man isn’t sporting a cucumber either,” Thomas announced, making Lissianna groan with embarrassment as she recalled the erection that had been very much in evidence when her mother and Thomas had entered earlier…and how it had deflated. She really didn’t want to explain his comment to the others, but could tell by their expressions that an explanation would be demanded and decided right then that Thomas was no longer her favorite cousin.
Greg was generally a deep sleeper, but with light plucking at his eyes and whispering going on around him, he found it difficult to remain buried in the warm comfort of
sleep’s arms and felt himself reluctantly dragged toward consciousness. When he finally gave in and allowed his eyes to drift open, he found himself staring blearily at six gorgeous women standing around his bed in the sexiest damn baby dolls he’d ever laid eyes on. His first thought was that he must still be dreaming…and a sweet dream it was, too, he decided, taking in the bountiful flesh revealed by the skimpy nightwear…until his gaze finally landed on the seventh person standing by his bedside.
“Spider-Man?” he murmured with confusion.
“Dammit! See, now you’ve woken him up.”
Greg’s gaze slid to the speaker, and he smiled faintly as he recognized Lissianna. It wasn’t the least bit surprising that she should feature in his dreams. His last thoughts before drifting off to sleep had been about the things he’d like to do with her. The woman was turning him into a mass of sexual frustration. The worst part was, she wasn’t even trying to do so. He was managing it all on his own, with his own imaginings.
“You’d best not let Aunt Marguerite hear you talk like that, Lissi,” Spider-Man taunted. “She’ll wash your mouth out with soap.”
“Oh stuff it, Thomas. I’m too old for that,” she said grimly, then turned and bent slightly to address Greg. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you.”
He smiled benignly, and said, “It’s okay. You can step into my dreams anytime.”
“Oh, isn’t that sweet. He thinks he’s dreaming us,” a woman in a lavender baby doll said with a smile.
“I don’t know about sweet, Jeanne Louise. Either he
does
have a cucumber in his boxers after all, or he thinks his
dream
is a wet one,” a woman in mint green announced, and Greg blinked in surprise as he noted the color of her hair. Short, spiky black hair with fuchsia tips
wasn’t something he would normally have thought was erotic and he briefly wondered what she was doing in his dream, then he noticed the silence around him and glanced around to see that everyone’s attention had turned to his groin.
Greg lifted his head and peered down at the erection he was sporting.
“Definitely a wet dream,” a pretty brunette in red pronounced solemnly.
“Maybe we should check and make
sure
it isn’t a cucumber.” An auburn-haired young woman in a blue baby doll made the suggestion and turned to share a wicked smile with another girl who was her mirror image. The second one—dressed in peach—nodded, and said, “Oh yeah.”
Greg blinked in surprise as he realized the pair were young, teenagers, he’d guess, and was almost horrified to note how well they filled out their baby dolls. When had teenagers started looking so un-teenager-like, he wondered with distress.
“Oh, cut it out,” Lissianna snapped, then turned her gaze to him. “You’re not dreaming. We’re really here. And I’m sorry we woke you, but the girls wanted…”
“We wanted to see her birthday gifts,” the woman with fuchsia-tipped hair finished when she hesitated. “Which includes you.”
“Yes. We’d seen all her other gifts,” the girl in blue explained. “So it was only fair we see you too, you understand?”
“We’re Lissianna’s cousins,” the brunette in red informed him.
“Well, all of us but Mirabeau,” the girl in lavender corrected, and Greg found himself staring at her. She looked vaguely familiar, but it took a moment for his mind to
place her, then he recalled her coming to the door earlier to inform Lissianna, her mother and a man named Thomas that someone had arrived.
Recalling that earlier scenario made Greg give Spider-Man a second look, and he realized that Spidey was Thomas. He
wasn’t
dreaming.
“I
thought
I heard voices coming from this room.”
Greg glanced toward the door as the crowd around his bed straightened and shifted guiltily to face the newcomer. Dressed in a lace-edged, red satin robe, the woman had long blond hair the same color as Lissianna’s, but that was the only similarity. Her features were sharper, her face longer, and her eyes were the coldest Greg had ever seen.
“Aunt Martine,” Lissianna sounded taken aback. “We were just—I was showing the girls my birthday gift.”
The woman paused at the foot of the bed and eyed Greg with interest. “So this is the psychologist your mother brought to help with your phobia, is it?”
“What on earth is going on here?” Another ripple went through the group around the bed as Lissianna’s mother appeared in the door, dressed in a long silk robe.
“I heard voices and came to investigate,” Martine announced. “Lissianna was showing the girls her birthday gift. He’s rather young isn’t he, Marguerite?”
“Aren’t they all?” Marguerite said almost wearily. “But apparently, he’s one of the best in his field.”
“Hmmph.” Martine turned back to the door, apparently losing interest in Greg. “Back to bed, girls. It’s well past dawn. You should all be sleeping.”
There were mutters and grumbles, but the girls all followed Martine and Marguerite out of the room.
The door closed with a soft click, but Greg could hear the murmur of female voices moving away down the hall
as the older women lectured the younger ones. It wasn’t until a rustle of cloth drew his gaze to the side that Greg realized with a start that not everyone had left. Spider-Man still stood at his bedside, and the man was eyeing him with a determined expression.
“I know you’re probably mad as hell
about being here, but this isn’t Lissianna’s fault and she really needs your help.”
Greg let his breath out on a slow exhalation. He’d been holding it for several minutes as he waited for the man to speak, but this wasn’t what he’d expected. He didn’t have any clear idea of what he
had
expected, but this simply wasn’t it.
The man Lissianna had called Thomas looked to be in his late twenties to early thirties, a little younger than Greg himself. He was also as handsome as everyone else in this madhouse, with dark hair and the same piercing silver-blue eyes as Lissianna and her mother, but while Greg had seen the man twice and Thomas had been smiling good-naturedly both times, he suspected Thomas wasn’t the sort to resort to appeals too often. Yet, he now appeared to be making one on Lissianna’s behalf.
Greg watched the younger man pace to the foot of the bed, then back to his side. “Look, Lissianna…” He hesitated then said, “We’re pretty close. My mom died shortly after I was born and—unfortunately—my dad
didn’t have a clue what to do with me, so Aunt Marguerite took me in. She did the same for my sister Jeanne Louise.”
“You and your sister were raised with Lissianna?”
“We played together, took school together…we’re…close,” he finished helplessly.
“Like siblings,” Greg said, with understanding.
“Yes, exactly.” Thomas smiled. “Lissianna’s like a sister to me, and Aunt Marguerite is like a mother.”
“Okay.” Greg nodded that he got that.
“So, I do understand why Aunt Marguerite brought you here. I know she’s been terribly worried about Lissianna. Her phobia…” He shook his head unhappily. “It’s bad. It would be like you fainting at the sight of food and unable to eat. It affects her whole life and has for ages.”
Thomas frowned and paced to the foot of the bed and back again before saying, “It wasn’t so bad when Jean Claude was alive. Lissianna would let Aunt Marguerite put her on intravenous then, but—”
“Who’s Jean Claude?” Greg interrupted.
“Aunt Marguerite’s husband, Lissianna’s father.”
“Why is he Jean Claude to you rather than ‘uncle’ while Marguerite merits the title aunt?” Greg asked curiously.
Thomas’s lips thinned. “Because he wasn’t much of an uncle. He wasn’t much of a husband or father either. He was controlling and really old-fashioned, and I’m talking
seriously
old-fashioned here. He was also mean as a rattlesnake and made Aunt Marguerite and Lissi miserable when he was around.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?” Thomas asked with confusion.
“Well, you said you were raised by your aunt alongside Lissianna; I presume you had to deal with your uncle, too. Didn’t he make you miserable as well?”
“Oh.” Thomas waved that away as unimportant. “He wasn’t so bad with me. Besides, I didn’t have to put up with him for long. I moved out at nineteen.”
“Lissianna could have, too,” Greg pointed out, but Thomas shook his head.
“No. Jean Claude expected her to live at home until she married.”
“She could have rebelled,” he suggested, bringing an incredulous look from Thomas.
“You didn’t
rebel
against Jean Claude,” Thomas informed him solemnly. “Besides, Lissi would never have left Aunt Marguerite on her own to deal with him. Jean Claude’s mind was really twisted by the end. He was pretty scary.”
“He’s dead then,” Greg murmured. “How did he die?”
“A fire. He partook of too much…er…alcohol and fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand. It started a fire, and he perished in it.”
Greg nodded.
“Anyway…” Thomas began to pace again. “That was the best thing he ever did for Aunt Marguerite and Lissi, but it put Lissi in a panic. She suddenly started worrying about what if Marguerite died? Who would feed her? So, she decided she had to be more independent. She started working at the shelter, and now she’s moved out and is trying to feed herself, but Aunt Marguerite is worried, and so are the rest of us.”
“About what?” Greg asked with interest. It sounded to him like her father’s death had set Lissianna free to embark on adulthood. She was like a bird taking its first flight.
“That she’ll turn out like Jean Claude.”
“Her father the alcoholic?” Greg asked with confusion. “Is she drinking?”
“No, at least not on purpose,” Thomas said slowly. “But it’s her phobia.”