"Jill? Are you all right? I got your message when we got back. It was followed by a bunch of hang-ups I worried might be you."
"Yes, the hang-ups were me too," Jill admitted with a little sigh, glancing over her shoulder to see Nick walking up the hall to join her with only the towel wrapped around his waist. She smiled softly and relaxed back against his chest as he stepped up to wrap his arms around her from behind.
"What's happened?" Kyle asked worriedly. "You sounded pretty upset in the message."
Jill opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again as all she had to tell him rolled through her mind. This was going to be a long conversation and Jill simply wasn't up to that right now. All she wanted was to collapse into bed and sleep in Nick's arms… and… she decided she could. John Heathcliffe was safely locked up for at least seventy-two hours. Tomorrow morning she would get up bright and early and go over to her brother's house and tell him everything. For now it would wait.
"Jill?" Kyle asked. "What's happened? What were you calling to tell me?"
She opened her mouth, but again paused, this time because Nick had started to nibble at her neck even as his hands slid around to tug her robe open so his hands could run freely over her body.
"I called to tell you…" Jill paused on a soft gasp as Nick's hands closed over her breasts, then finished breathily, "Mr. Handsome Shoes isn't gay."
"Mr. Handsome Shoes?" Nick asked with amusement, pinching her nipples lightly for punishment.
"You were calling to tell me Mr. Handsome Shoes isn't gay?" Kyle asked with disbelief and Jill heard Claire squeal in the background and then cry, "He finally asked her out, didn't he?"
Rather than answer either question, Jill laughed and pushed Nick's hands away, saying, "I'm coming by tomorrow for breakfast."
"Nice of you to invite yourself," Kyle said dryly.
"Trust me, you owe me," Jill responded just as dryly, fending off Nick's roaming hands as she added, "I might be bringing Nick if he wants to come, and believe me you owe him too. We have quite a bit to tell you."
"I heard that," Claire cried, obviously having picked up another phone in the house. "You can't say something like that and then just leave us in suspense. What do you have to tell us?"
"Tomorrow," Jill said firmly and hung up.
"Hmm… Mr. Handsome Shoes," Nick murmured as she turned in his arms and slid her own around his neck "No wonder your brother thought I was gay if you've been calling me that."
"I didn't," she assured him, pressing her body close to his. "Claire did."
He grinned. "You talked about me to Claire, did you?"
"And you talked about me to your family," she pointed out, reaching down to undo the towel around his waist.
"Yes. Maybe we should have done a little more talking with each other."
Jill laughed at the claim and began to press kisses to his chest. "Talking is all we did buddy. It's the other things we should have done more of."
"Oh? Such as?" he teased.
Smiling, Jill pulled away and caught his hand as she began to back her way down the hall. "Come with me and I'll show you."
Smiling, Kyle allowed her to lead him into the bedroom, murmuring, "Somehow, I think this is going to be the best Christmas ever."
About the Author
LYNSAY SANDS is the national bestselling author of the Argeneau vampire series as well as more than fifteen historical novels and anthologies known for their humorous edge.
For more information, go to www.lynsaysands.net.
Six
Marjorie M. Liu
To my parents,
with love
Chapter 1
It was an accident that the Foreign Minister's wife was found—her body had been hidden quite carefully, in several different locations—but the fortuitous combination of the harsh Beijing winter and several hungry dogs made her discovery quite immediate, without time for decay, and once the forsaid. "But we found ensic team had finished analyzing the woman's remains it was only a matter of time before the military became involved.
Which explained how, on the eve of Spring Festival, with the thunder of fireworks shaking the streets, Six found herself in a murky massage parlor in the heart of Shanghai, her hands covered in oil as she pounded the brown filthy feet of a man in a wrinkled black suit.
The air reeked. Cigarette smoke, cheap cologne, a multitude of unwashed bodies that had circulated through the room for hours upon hours, for days on end. The scents made Six's nose run, her eyes itch, and though she had held her job for only 360 minutes—by her watch, anyway, which was atomic in nature and government issued—her brief tenure here was more than enough. As far as she was concerned, the other girls who worked in this place—legitimately, without pretense—deserved medals.
Not that Six had met any of them. As per the agreement with the massage parlor's owner—who, according to his file, had long ago given up his Chinese name for the ridiculous foreign moniker of "Lucky John" — Six had remained virtually locked inside this small room, forced to massage the feet and bodies of one man after another. If any of those paying guests asked for a different girl, Lucky John was to insist all the others were busy. And if he did not do exactly that—or if any one of the men discovered Six's true identity—the repercussions had been made quite clear.
Police clear. Prison clear. End of life, clear.
Six rolled her shoulders, glancing at the man reclining in front of her on the wide red chair. His eyes were closed, his breathing deep and even. Not asleep, but certainly relaxed. His face was broad and flat; a large mole, replete with long black hair, made a target of his chin. A toothpick jutted from between his lips.
Six slid her thumbs along the arch of his foot, pushing between his toes. She pinched hard on the bone. He jerked, grunting, and she applied more pressure. The man opened his eyes and kicked at her. Six allowed his big toe to connect with her chin, though she angled her head just enough to make it a glancing blow.
"Bitch," he growled, slapping the padded arm of his chair with one hard palm. "Careful."
As Six was supposed to be deaf—like all the other girls of Lucky John's massage parlor—she did not respond. Merely ducked her head, allowing her straight black hair to fall loose past her face, hiding the grim flat smile that passed fleetingly across her mouth.
Just outside the room's painted bamboo door, Six heard footsteps. Quick, then slow, accompanied by Lucky John's shrill voice. The man beneath her hands tensed. So did Six.
The door opened. Six glimpsed Lucky John's distraught expression, his eyes large and focused entirely on her—stupid of him, a sure giveaway if these men were in any way observant and paranoid—but her view of the old pimp's quick retreat was obscured by a broad chest and skinny tie, and then there was another man in the room and the door closed with a quiet click.
Six glanced up and met a flat gaze, cold as the thick black ice covering the old concrete of her first training installation, a gymnasium near the People's Hall in Beijing, where she had studied alongside the country's Olympic hopefuls before being culled young, no older than five. She still remembered. She remembered training on that ice, out in the blast of arctic wind. Toughening herself. Knowing she had to be stronger than the others, and for a different reason entirely.
The newcomer stared at her. Six dropped her gaze, but not before observing other oddities, such as the man's utter foreignness, a purely physical difference that nonetheless revealed some kind of Asian ancestor through nothing more than the turn of his dark eyes and the prominence of his cheekbones. There was a hint of red in his hair, though; white man enough, running through his veins. Six could still feel him watching her when he shifted slightly, turned to the man reclining on the chair, and said, "I told you not to call me, Chenglei."