by Michelle M Pillow & Mandy M Roth

Delectable Dates         

Michelle smiled as she hung up the phone.  It’d been a week since she’d last laughed and the fact that she was doing it now wasn’t lost on her.  She was just in shock over who had made her laugh.  Karl Wakeman of all people.  

Michelle had met Karl the day after Barbie came in the picture.  She’d been avoiding the Raven for obvious reasons and she and Mandy weren’t on the best of terms yet.  She’d hoped things would blow over after their little heart-to-heart, but Mandy had refused to leave the club with her that night and had barely spoken two words to her all week.  Michelle knew that they were both being stubborn, or at least she hoped that was it.  The thought of irreparable damage to the friendship was almost too much for her to bear.            

Her cell phone rang and she laughed when she saw Karl’s number flicker across it.  He was handsome, successful, and beyond interested in her, but he was no Dmitri.  Now, figuring out if that was a good or a bad thing was all that Michelle had left to do.  She knew that Mandy didn’t care much for him, so she was iffy on what to do.            

“I just hung up with you.  This better be important,” she said into her phone.  

Karl laughed.  “Of course it is.  I’ll pick you up tonight at eight.”   

“Pick me up for what?”  

“Our date.”  

“Umm, Karl, we don’t have a date.”  

He let out a throaty laugh.  “Yes we do.  See you at eight.  I’ll pick you up in front of that club you mentioned, the Raven.”  

She rolled her eyes automatically at the thought of the Raven and Dmitri.  “Sounds good, I guess.  I needed to pick some things up from there anyways.”  She hung the phone up and shrugged her shoulders.  At least this would give her the excuse she needed to go down and pick up her notes on her latest Tribes of the Vampire books she’d been working on.   

The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to work on it before her date with Karl tonight.  She glanced at the clock on her computer and grabbed her keys.  Armando would be up by now, he’d let her in to get her stuff.  

James was a friend with strings.  He always seemed to have getting in her pants as a motivation.  Dmitri was just Dmitri.  Nothing more, nothing less, and since she and Michelle weren’t getting along so great, it was nice to have someone to talk to.  Besides, they sulked well together if nothing else.  

Something else crashed and Mandy ran past the offices to the tiny bathroom in the back, the one that was for employees only.  The door was half-open and she could see water flying everywhere.  Dmitri cussed and Mandy peeked in to see what he was doing.  He stood there in his boxer shorts holding a piece of pipe in his hand.   

“Planning on knocking over a liquor store and using ‘stare at my abs’ as a way to distract from your face?” she asked.  He jumped and shook his head when he saw her standing there.  “Good hearing lycan-boy.”  

“Yeah, I was a bit preoccupied.”  He looked at the stand-up shower and shook his head.  “Damn thing went crazy when I tried to use it.”  

“Can I ask why the hell you’re showering here?  Your place is better than this, not to mention cleaner,” she said, pushing his tool box with her foot.  

“Hey, it’s a mess because I’ve been in here working on it all damn day.”  

“Do you want me to call someone?”   

Dmitri’s grey eyes narrowed on her.  “I can fix this.”  

“So, you’re stubborn on more than just the Michelle front?” she asked.  He gave her a dirty look and she winked at him.   

“I’ll handle the Michelle problem as soon as I fix this.”   

“Yeah, looks like you’re doing a bang up job there buddy.  Sure hope Michelle doesn’t want to kiss and make up any time this century!  I’ll let you finish and then you can get dressed.  As tempting as it is to work with a man in his skivvies, I’ll have to pass.  Michelle’s my best friend and I’d rather not know all the details.”

 Dmitri let out a chuckle and reached up to double-check the showerhead.  He gave it a good twist and then stepped back to try the handle.  Mandy turned to leave and tripped over his toolbox.  She fell forward and slammed into the door.   

“Mandy?” Dmitri yelled right before he let out a yelp.

 The sound of water filled Mandy’s head as she got to her feet.  She looked over at Dmitri and found him trying to put the knob that was in his hand back on.  “What?” He looked over at her.  “I was holding it when you fell.  I…I…ouch.”  He jerked back from the spraying water.  Steam encompassed him.  

Mandy’s eyes widened.  “Way to go He-man, that’s the hot.” 

Dmitri made another attempt to reach to put the nozzle on.  “Mandy, shut the water off.  The turn off is down there.”  He pointed towards the wall.   

Mandy dropped to her knees and did her best to turn the nozzle.  She thought she heard someone outside the door, but continued with her mission.  “It’s…too…hard…I can’t…get it…to…”  

Dmitri let out another yelp and appeared behind her.  “Here,” he said, twisting the nozzle tight.  The water stopped spraying everywhere and Dmitri sunk down on the floor.  Mandy touched his red stomach and he flinched.  “Well, that’s as hot as I’ve been in a while.”  

Mandy swatted him and he gasped.  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to do it that hard.  Will you be okay?”  

“Just give me a few minutes and I’ll recover.”  He patted his chest.  “Lycan-boy heals fast.”  He glanced up at the shower and shook his head.  “I guess we can have another go at it.”  

“We’ve done enough damage,” she said, attempting to stand up.  She slipped on the water soaked floor and fell forward.  

~*****~ 

Michelle walked into the club and looked around.  Mandy’s car was in the parking lot, but she was nowhere to be found.  She turned to head to the office and ran smack into what felt like a brick wall.  “Oophf!”  

“Michelle?” Armando asked softly.  

She looked up and shook her head.  “Could you please wear a bell or something?  I wouldn’t walk into you if I knew you were there.”  

“Sorry, I just arrived and saw that….”  He stopped in mid-sentence.

 Michelle touched his arm.  “Hey, it’s okay to admit that you were hoping to find Mandy standing here.  I was sort of hoping for the same thing myself.”  

“Oh?”  Armando cocked an eyebrow.  “Having troubles with her too?”  

“Yeah, but mine don’t stem from another woman, they stem from you.”  It was harsh, but necessary.  “Can I ask you something?”  

Armando nodded his head, but didn’t say a word.  “When you took Elizabeth home the other night, you do anything with her?”  Michelle didn’t want to come out and ask if he’d boned her, so she left it at that.

 “No, I did not have sex with Elizabeth.  Why?  Does someone think otherwise?”   

Michelle tossed her hands in the air and let out a low moan.  “Let’s cut the niceties.  I’ll stop evading the issue of you sleeping with your sire, if you’ll stop avoiding saying Mandy’s name.  Deal?” she asked, putting her hand out to him.  

His cool hand slipped into hers.  “Deal.”  

“Great.  Now, to answer your question, I think that Mandy might be under the impression that you did screw Elizabeth.  I had some papers to drop off to her at work and sort of overheard her on the phone with James.  She flat out told him that she suspected you gave into Elizabeth’s advances because you didn’t return to the club that night.”  

“No, I did return, only to find Mandy and Dmitri drinking together in the back office.  They seemed to be ‘getting along’ well, so I left.”  

Michelle’s eyebrows came together.  “What?  You’re not insinuating that Mandy and Dmitri have something going on, are you?  She’s my best friend.  She’d never….”  A loud bang came from the back of the club.  Michelle looked at Armando and they took off running in that direction.  They stopped just outside the employee bathroom when they heard voices.  

Michelle heard Mandy’s voice first.  “It’s…too…hard…I can’t…get it…to…”  

“Here,” she heard Dmitri say with a grunt.  “Well, that’s as hot as I’ve been in a while.”  

She heard Dmitri gasp before Mandy said, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to do it that hard.  Will you be okay?”  

“Just give me a few minutes and I’ll recover…. Lycan-boy heals fast…. I guess we can have another go at it.”  

“We’ve done enough damage,” Mandy said.  

Michelle looked at Armando and felt the blood drain from her face.  His dark eyes narrowed on the door as he thrust it open.  Michelle ran in behind him.  Her eyes widened as she found Mandy lying on an almost naked Dmitri with her head buried in his abdomen.  

“What the…?”   

Mandy and Dmitri looked up at them and then at each other.  Their eyes grew wide.  “Do not try to act innocent Mandy.  We all know that you are anything but an angel,” Armando said, the hurt evident in his voice.  “I expected retaliation on me for you finding about Elizabeth, but I never thought you would hurt Michelle too…and you,” he said, pointing at Dmitri.  “You call yourself my friend.”  

“Armando, NO!  It’s not what you think.  Mandy was just helping me with….”  Dmitri started to offer an explanation, but Armando put his hand in the air.   

“Do not bother.  You have nothing that I wish to hear.  I wondered how long it would take you to return to your old habits.”  

“Yeah, well I’d sure the hell like to know what’s going on!” Michelle said, on the verge of screaming.  She glared at Mandy.  “How could you do this to me?”  

Mandy pushed up off Dmitri and her feet went out from under her.  Dmitri was up and catching her before she could hit the floor.  “Michelle….”  

Michelle turned and ran from the room.  She couldn’t bear to look at the two of them any longer.  She pushed through the front door and came to a grinding halt when she saw Karl standing there.  

“You all set?” he asked, with a smile on his handsome face.  

“Hey, Michelle, my belle.”  The sound of James’ voice made her cringe.  She glanced at the blonde vamp as he approached the club door and rolled her eyes.   

“I’ve never been more ready,” Michelle said to Karl.  

“What runs through your head, Mandy?  What makes you so bent on being unhappy that you do the things you do?” he asked, pulling her to him in one hard jerk. 

“Ouch,” she gasped.  “Let go of me.  If you’re not going to believe your best friend of over a hundred years, you sure the hell aren’t going to believe me.”  She looked into his dark eyes and watched them swirl.  “Drain me, or let me go.  My life doesn’t concern you anymore.”  

“There is where you are wrong,” Armando said, snatching her hand and pulling it to her face.  “This makes it my….”  He stopped when he realized that she wasn’t wearing his engagement ring.  His face was full of emotions, yet void of any telltale sign of exactly how he felt.  

Mandy jerked her hand away and reached into her shirt.  She pulled a chain out and yanked it off.  “Here, I’ve been meaning to give this back to you,” she said, thrusting the chain and ring into his face.

 “No,” he said, shaking his head.  “Mandy, please….”  

“This is perfect.  You can go finish your little thing with Eliza-bitch, I can continue my non-affair with Dmitri, keep using James as a ‘crutch’, and I don’t have to sit around and wait for you to screw-up.” She stopped to take a breath before moving on.  Armando looked puzzled.  “Look, just take it.  It was fun while it lasted.”  

“Elizabeth means nothing to me, and I have not been with her in centuries.”   

“Oh, lover, walking a thin line of truths there aren’t you?”  Elizabeth’s voice brought their attention to the bathroom door.  She gave Mandy a sinister smile and winked at Armando.  “You didn’t seem too eager to run away from me the other night when you were alone with me at my hotel room, and you never did tell me why you showed back up after you went off to find your pet human, not that I’m complaining.”  

Armando sighed.  “Your plane leaves in an hour.  Why are you still here?” 

“Oh, lover, how could I not come back for one last romp with you?” Elizabeth said, with a laugh.  “I do miss the way you would pin me to the wall face first and fu….”  

“Enough, Elizabeth,” Dmitri warned.  

Mandy felt her cheeks grow hot.  She faced Armando and let the ring fall from her hand.  He caught it before it hit the ground, without batting an eyelash.  She glared at him, willing him to read her thoughts.  She wanted him to know exactly what she thought of him.  She felt him push through her mind, almost like someone had pulled a curtain back.   

Armando looked at Dmitri.  “I am sorry to have accused you of wrong doing.  It is clear that nothing happened.”  

Mandy’s mouth dropped open.  She’d wanted him to get exactly how pissed she was with him, not the truth about what had happened with Dmitri.  Armando lifted her hand to him, took the ring from the chain, and placed it back on her finger.  He closed her hand in his fist and held it tight.  “I will beg if need be.”  

“Humph, don’t make him resort to that.  I haven’t seen him beg in all the time I’ve known him and sure the hell don’t want to see it now,” Dmitri said, replacing the hot water knob on the shower.  “Do you want to marry him or not?”  

“Dmitri, I do not think you are helping here,” Armando said.  

“No, I think I am helping.  She either wants to marry you or she doesn’t.”  

            Michelle looked across the restaurant at Karl and tried to smile.  It really was nice to be on a date with one of her own kind—a human.  Karl was all class and it was nice to be wined and dined.  The restaurant he’d chosen was five star and very elegant.  It sure wasn’t any Trolly Cheese. 

            Why was she thinking of Dmitri again?  Here she was on a perfectly good date, with a man who treated her like a lady, and she was thinking of that damned arrogant lycan!  ARGH!!!   

            Michelle forced a smile.  Determined, she vowed she was going to enjoy Karl’s company no matter what!  She wouldn’t allow herself to find one flaw with him, though his smile wasn’t as cute as….  She was hopeless, utterly and completely hopeless. 

            “You certainly look delicious tonight, my dear,” said Karl with a wide grin.  His eyes dipped over her shoulders.  “Your skin looks like it would be comfortable to wear.” 

            Michelle blinked.  Surely she heard him wrong.  “Excuse me?” 

            “Your skin, it looks soft,” said Karl with a handsome, seductive smile. 

            “Uh, thanks,” answered Michelle, confused.  What exactly had he been talking about?  She really needed to pay attention.  “I moisturize.” 

            Karl chuckled and murmured, “Yes.” 

            Michelle opened her mouth to respond, but the waiter came to take their order.  Instead, she just smiled and nodded her head. 

            Mandy glanced at Dmitri nervously as he ushered Elizabeth and her pet Barbie from the overcrowded bathroom.  Armando grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him.  He looked down at the ring on her finger and cocked an eyebrow.  He wanted an answer and now.  

            “No,” she said, flatly.  “I think that I could’ve done this before, but I can’t now.”  

            Armando didn’t move, and she was suddenly very aware of the fact that he wasn’t human.  Fear gripped her and she tried to take a step back.  He held tight to her and brought his face down hard and fast.   

Mandy thought that Armando was going bite her, but when his cool lips collided with hers she relaxed a bit and let him slide his tongue in.  She pushed on his chest to keep him away, but it was pointless.  The harder she tried to let herself go in his kiss, the more she thought about Elizabeth’s words.  Armando had gone back to her and had had sex with her.  As strong as Mandy thought she was, she knew that she couldn’t get past that.  She loved the man before her too much to be able to watch him continue to fall for his sire’s advances for the rest of her life.  She knew that she wouldn’t live as long as Armando and the thought of him going back to his eternally beautiful, yet bitchy, sire sickened her.  

She felt Armando in her mind again, scanning her thoughts.  She didn’t bother to try and hide her concerns.  There was really no point.  She reached to take his ring from her finger and he pulled her close to him.  

“I wish that you could read me as easy I can you.  You would see that nothing happened between Elizabeth and I, and you would know that my heart belongs only to you.”  

“Why’d you go back to her after you dropped her off?”   

Armando took in a deep breath and tightened his hold on her.  “I will not lie to you, Mandy.  I saw you having drinks with Dmitri, laughing and so happy, that jealously overtook me.  I stormed away with the idea that I would make myself forget you, drown my pain away with sex.”  She tried to pull away from him, but he refused to let her go.  “I found myself back in Elizabeth’s room and….”  

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN?”  Dmitri’s voice interrupted them.  

Mandy pulled back from Armando and they ran to the front of the club.  Dmitri stood on the empty dance floor holding James by his collar.  Mandy ran to Dmitri and put her hand on his arm.  “Dmitri, you’re going to kill him.”  

Elizabeth let out a laugh.  “Have you taught her nothing Armando?  James is already dead.”  

“Would you please shut the fu….”             

Mandy was cut short by a flash of blonde before her, and then a hard smack backwards.  “Don’t touch my man!”  

Armando appeared next to her, breaking her fall.  “Are you hurt?”  

“No,” Mandy said, glaring at the walking play toy.  She got her footing and grabbed a chair.  Armando tried to take it from her, but she growled at him.  Mandy pulled the chair back and swung hard at Barbara’s back.  Dmitri saw her coming and dropped James.  Mandy struck Barbie between the shoulder blades with the chair and James stuck his foot out.  Barbie fell flat on her face.  

“Gee, I hope you didn’t pop a breast,” Mandy panted.  James laughed, and Barbie snarled.   

Dmitri put a foot on her back and looked at Mandy.  “Care to explain?”  

“Let’s just say that was for Michelle.  I owed her one.”  

“Michelle!” Dmitri cried out, turning his attention back to James.  “You let her leave with Karl the Cannibal?”  

“Who?” Mandy asked.  

Armando and Elizabeth moved forward.  “Michelle is with Karl?”  

James nodded his head.  “I didn’t think to stop her, she looked pissed.”  

Mandy put her hands up in the air, signifying defeat.  “Would someone pleeeze explain what the hell is going on?”  

Elizabeth, the most unlikely candidate stepped forward.  “It appears that your little friend has taken to a cannibal.”  A wicked grin passed over her face, and she licked her lips.  “I did so hope to get to taste that one.  I liked her spunk.  Too bad Karl got to her first…he’s not known to leave any leftovers.  I didn’t expect him to work so fast, and he picked up the wrong girl.  I told him to contact you, Mindy.  I did so hope he’d make you his next meal.”  

Dmitri growled and put his hand up as Armando tried to rush Elizabeth as well.  “If anything happens to Michelle I’ll…I’ll…”  

Elizabeth smiled.  “You’ll what, wolf?  You’ll give me an evil look?  You will do nothing if you value your friend’s existence.  He is mine, after all and to kill me could mean his death.”  

Mandy tried to attack her, but Armando seized her around the waist and held her to him.  “Calm down.  We need to find Michelle.  Do you know where he might have taken her?”  

            The date was going well from what Michelle could guess.  Karl was an odd man, to say the least, but just because he wasn’t Dmitri didn’t mean he was a bad guy.  He seemed to have a thing for food.  He kept sucking and savoring every bite.  His eyes would dip over her as he did it, as if he wanted to suck on her.  Michelle couldn’t say she was incredibly attracted to Karl, but the sexual attention was flattering and she would take it.  After weeks of no sexual attention from a certain to-remain-nameless lycan, it was pure heaven to be desired. 

            “I’ll bet you taste just like chicken.” 

            Michelle blinked looking at Karl.  “I’m sorry, I think the violin’s too loud.  What’d you say?” 

            “Did you enjoy your chicken?” 

            “Oh, delicious, thank you.” 

            Karl nodded, smiling his debonair smile.  He leaned slightly back as the waiter took their plates.  When the man was gone, he lifted his glass of red wine and swirled it thoughtfully. 

            “Did you know,” asked Karl, musingly, “that when you consume a person’s body, you transfer some of their life’s essence into yourself.” 

            “WHAT?”