Flirting With Disaster (2 page)

He’d used her. Used her on national television to catapult his nonexistent acting career. He’d be famous after this. And she’d be ruined.

She glanced at the grand clock behind the bar. Her heart raced and her breathing became labored. Tears swelled in her eyes.

“You need help, miss?”

Jude stiffened. That deep rasp sent chills down her body like a good head massage at the hairdressers. She wiped at her tears with the sleeve of her cardigan. “Only if you happen to have a shotgun with a real strong scope.”

“I left it in my pickup with some roadkill I picked up for dinner and a carton of unfiltered Camels.”

She turned and encountered…
The Scarred Beast
. Her breath caught at his sheer masculine beauty, despite the jagged scar running from his temple to his chin and marring his high cheekbone. His eyes were the color of rich whiskey, reflecting the candlelight in the room. And his hair… A decadent, wavy brown that beckoned her fingers.

His angled brows lowered over those ethereal, piercing eyes. “What’s his name?”

Jude gaped, transfixed. He was doing that mind trick thing vampires did. She was sure of it. “I call him Asshole,” she muttered.

The Beast smirked. Not an amiable smirk, by any means, the left side of his mouth slightly crooked from the scar. “I’m sure.”

“Here’s your drink, miss,” Steven interrupted.

Beast continued to stare into her eyes, doing his mind trick thing, keeping her captivated with his savage beauty. “That will be enough, Steven. Ms.…?”

“D…Darling…” She couldn’t dare tell anyone her real name for fear of connecting her with
The Harry Strubel Show
.

“Ms.
Darling
has had more than enough.” Her false name poured from his beautiful lips like smooth, heated rum…with a twist of suspicious intuition.

Something in the back of her muddled mind protested. “On the contrary, Steven. Thank you very much.” She grabbed the glass while glaring into those vampire eyes, wiped blindly at the rim with her napkin to be sure it was relatively clean, and chugged.

She slammed the glass down on the bar and folded her hands in her lap. Hopefully, she hadn’t dripped any on her Brunello Cucinelli, organza, waterfall maxi.

“I hope you enjoyed that. Those drinks contain about five shots of liquor.”

“Nonsenssse.” She flicked her wrist at the young bartender. “Steven has made me a special iced tea, knowing I’m from New York. Are the tea leaves grown on Long Island?”

Steven smiled as he washed a glass. “No, but the alcohol may have been distilled there.”

Her mouth dropped as The Beast’s smirk widened into a full-out, condescending grin. His teeth were remarkably white—Hollywood, toothpaste-ad, white. She squinted and looked a little closer at his canines for extrusive points. “Are you a…vampire?” she slurred.

Jude Duffy never slurred her words. She hiccupped, and quickly covered her mouth. Maybe The Beast/Count could use those beautiful, sharp, white teeth on Evan’s cheating penis.

She laughed into her hand. Needing a respite, she stood to leave, but her foot tangled with the leg of the stool. Her body tilted, the floor approached…

A muscular arm wrapped around her waist and righted her descent.

Nailed it.

His alluring scent wrapped her in a cocoon of seduction that was completely unfamiliar. “Maybe I should escort you.”

Escort.
Is that what Count Vampire was? A male escort supplied by the Castle to entertain plain, boring spinsters like her? “Is that your game, sir? Are you planning on taking advantage of me, by ravishing me to satisfy your primal urges for sexual satiation?”

His grin mocked her. Her hand rose to touch the offensive brute’s bladed, scarred cheekbone, an insatiable need to assess the contradiction of perfection and destruction. His features froze, a portrait of impassioned torment. She quickly recovered and clenched her fingers.

He stepped back, the movement so fluid she was momentarily drawn toward him. “No ravishing tonight, Ms. Darling,” he stated blandly. “Consider me only your polite escort. Management rules.”

Jude tried to organize his words in her foggy brain, but she kept getting mired in his thick, masculine purr. “So, you’re an escort? A male escort? And you are rejecting me based on management rules?”

Her virgin-self, damned the management. So unlike her. Dr. Jude Duffy was polite, polished, and poised. She tucked a fallen lock of hair back into her tight bun. Her life was perfectly ordered. It was safest that way.

“It’s for the best.” His features gave nothing of his thoughts away. “Trust me.”

“Fine.” Insulted, she slung her Nina Ricci bucket bag over her shoulder. She took one step and found the floor wasn’t as level as she’d expected. It
was
an old castle.

Count Beast steadied her again with the agility of an athlete. His touch electrified her. The tingling vectors shot through her body like a lightning storm. It was…mystifying. Familiar in a way no stranger’s touch should be, yet utterly compelling. She melted into his arms, wanting to stay there forever, his spicy scent enveloping her in a fog of comfort, need, and…
lust
.

Just how un-orderly
could
the resident gigolo, Beast-Count make her life? Because, incontestably, order and management hadn’t done
shit
for her up to this point.

She righted herself and teetered toward the exit before any other frivolous, foreign feelings invaded.

A burst of laughter shot from a group of three couples, sitting abreast the huge stone fireplace, surveying a cell phone in harmony. “How the hell did she not know? Just look at him. He’s wearing blush and he’s prettier than my first wife!”

She stopped in her tracks and her ass landed on the nearest barstool. “Steven! Another iced tea, please. No, scratch that. I need something stronger. Give me that Screaming Orgasm from a Fucking Rock Bear!”

And Jude Duffy never cursed.

Two

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”

Albert Einstein

W
hat the hell was
she
doing here?

Fate was a villainous bitch.

Beckette Slader let the cold water cascade over his body, hoping it would calm the massive erection he’d acquired ever since meeting prim, proper, Jude Darling Duffy.

He’d recognized her immediately, but he had no business approaching her tonight. No right to infect her life, once again, with the specter of his noxiousness. That was his cross to bear.

He’d ruined her future long ago, unbeknownst to her. He wouldn’t do it again.

So why had he approached her? Why was he so drawn to her after only one, short meeting?

He’d never been attracted to gingers. He hadn’t been attracted to any woman in forever. That flaming red hair, bolted to her head like a sniper’s helmet. How was it she didn’t have a massive headache? The pale skin, the freckles—he hated freckles—and those slanty green eyes? She resembled an evil, orange tabby.

What the fuck had he been thinking?

His erection throbbed. He had to stop obsessing over a woman he didn’t even know. It was diabolical. He’d been celibate for twelve months—as long as he’d been sober—because sex and alcohol had just gone together for him.

The alcohol had helped him forget his cursed past, and the sex had naturally followed. A “Hail Mary” attempt to feel something—anything—again. Now, tonight, the torrid emotions running through his veins were so foreign and ludicrous, he had to wonder about the stories Alana and Liam had told him about the castle. The secret powers it had to grant the residents’ deepest desires. The ghosts.

In this moment, the most urgent desire he had, was to get off.

He grabbed his cock and went at it, thinking about her. That smart mouth, those plump lips wrapped around him, instead of his raspy, callused hand. Those gorgeous eyes staring up at him with trust and love.

He laughed at those two words, then came harder than he had in ages. He couldn’t be trusted. He didn’t trust himself, not to slide back into the clutches of alcoholism, destroying people’s lives again.

Like he’d destroyed Jude’s, all those years ago.

And Elizabeth’s.

He’d started drinking to fill the gaping wounds of an emotionally abusive father. Sadly, the alcohol bored holes in every part of his life, and had failed to fill his sorrow.

But that was the past. He had to move on and stop blaming Dad for all his shit. He’d finally been given a second chance at rekindling his acting career.

Immersing himself in the numbing hours of pretending to be someone else, would keep him from his demons. This lead in an upcoming motion picture would be his big break, after years of landing weak roles in daytime soaps because of his riotous reputation. The producers of the new vampire-themed movie were willing to give him a chance, but they wanted a respectable professional for the romantic lead.

He’d been nothing but a drunk, violent storm the last six years, ever since Elizabeth had died, and this twelve month hiatus was almost over. Much longer away from the screen and he’d be forgotten by his public, obsolete. He only had so much time to clean up his act.

Getting his career back on track meant he could go back to ignoring the pain. All work and no play, would make Beck a dull boy, but he’d be a sober dull boy. He’d be able to
forget who and what he was. 

A monster.

That was the sole reason he’d changed his name seventeen years ago. A decision forced by his father, so Beck wouldn’t bring any more shame to his family after the accident that ruined Jude Duffy’s life, and started his descent toward self-destruction. Fine by him. He didn’t want anyone delving into his past. Gabriel Beckette Slauter did not exist anymore. Not to him, and not to his family. Only the phantom, Beckette Slader, remained.
      

Beck finished his shower and dressed for bed. He bunked in the lower level since he was only staff. The place suited him—cold, bleak, alone…haunted. His AA sponsor figured doing a little grunge work would help him “find himself.” His agent had suggested volunteering for this twelve month, maintenance man stint at Castle Alainn—which supported many non-profit organizations similar to his own, Angel Wings—would help his recovery and endear him to the producers of Dark Hallows.

All the freaking restraint of the past twelve months was probably why he couldn’t get Ms. Jude Duffy out of his mind.

He needed to get laid.

He didn’t do relationships anymore. He just needed a good fuck. ʼCause there were no such things as fairy-tale spells, and curses that granted secret desires. If there were, he’d have no dark past to keep from her, no daily recovery to saddle her with. And he’d have her here, writhing in his arms, while he fucked her senseless and kept her safe from assholes like himself.

Naive women like Jude Duffy, knew nothing of the games damaged men could play, and they could not be left to their own devices. They needed to be saved, but he’d be damned if he was the one for the job.

He was no savior.

No, quite the opposite.

He was a murderer.

Three