Stephanie Rowe - Date Me Baby One More Time

Color-- -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9-

Text Size-- 10-- 11-- 12-- 13-- 14-- 15-- 16-- 17-- 18-- 19-- 20-- 21-- 22-- 23-- 24

DATE ME BABY

ONE MORE TIME

By

Stephanie Rowe

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

He bent his head and trailed his lips

over the side of her neck.

"Do you still have the Goblet?"

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. She hadn't felt a man's kiss in so long. "Yes. Her name is Mona." She

tilted her head and let him kiss her lower. Over her collarbone. Across her chest. Oh, wow. Her dress

was way low cut. How low was he going to go? And in case the Otherworld judges were watching, it

was all in the spirit of protecting Mona. She was interrogating a potential threat. And if she had to use her

body to get answers, then that just showed what a dedicated Guardian she was. Right? Of course, right.

Ask a question about Mona to prove it. Oh, good call. A question. She could think of one… urn…

"Are you after Mona?"

He slipped the spaghetti strap off her shoulder, his breath hot against her skin as he kissed where it had

been. "Yes. I need to kill you and then steal her."

Oh, God. That was like the sexiest thing she'd ever heard. "I love a man who isn't afraid to tell the truth."

by Stephanie Rowe

Book design by Stratford Publishing Services

Cover design by Diane Luger

Cover art by Michael Storrings

Warner Forever is a registered trademark.

Warner Books

1271 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: May 2006

To my grandmother, Bonita Humphrey Black, who, at ninety-six years old, inspires me daily with

her courage, her sense of humor, and her intelligence.

Acknowledgments

I am so fortunate to have an unbelievable team around me who supports me and pushes me to new

heights every day. My incredible agent, Michelle Grajkowski, whose unwavering belief in me is a gift

every author should have the opportunity to experience. My absolutely brilliant editor, Melanie Murray,

who went to extraordinary lengths in her editing and her advice on this book. Her insight and support

drove me to make the book so much better than it otherwise would have been. And my husband, whose

contributions to my career are unending.

Chapter One

Today Derek LaValle was going to reverse the Curse, even if it meant saving the life of his

blight-on-the-family-name cousin, Les LaValle.

Well, okay, most of the family would claim Les was blight number two. Derek was blight number one.

Except when they wanted money from him. Then Derek was blight number one with an asterisk.

Derek's cell phone rang just as he was walking up the broken front steps of the dump Les lived in. It was

his second-in-command, Becca Gibbs. "What's up?"

"The folks from McDonald's are here to talk to you about selling our pretzels in their stores." Her voice

was slightly elevated; too much caffeine as usual. Becca was one high-strung woman. It made her a great

business partner, though. She never slept and got more work done in an hour than most people did in a

month. "The meeting's in five minutes and you're not here."

He glanced at his watch. Three minutes until his cuz bit the dust. "I don't have time to deal with them.

Reschedule."

"Don't you realize what a huge opportunity this would be?" Her voice shot up a few more decibels. "You

can't miss this meeting!"

"I need to deal with Les first." He swung the baseball bat loosely from his fingers as he rapped on the

front door and rang the doorbell. "Les! Open up!"

"Derek! You blew off Dunkin' Donuts last week because you were in the library doing research on that

goblet, and you missed the Starbucks meeting on Friday because you saw a woman with a dragon tattoo

at lunch and got arrested for stalking her." She made a sound of aggravated distress. "These are

incredible distribution opportunities and you need to take them seriously. McDonald's wants an exclusive,

and we need to think about whether that makes sense for us, and we can't do it if you're off chasing some

damned mumbo-jumbo myth!" She was practically snarling at him now, and he grinned. His business

would have been neglected into bankruptcy if it wasn't for Becca.

"Go ahead and meet with them," he said. "They'll realize you're a hell of a lot more on top of things than I

am, and they'll be thrilled to work with you instead of me." Hiring Becca five years ago had been his best

business decision since deciding to open Vic's Pretzels. She was a business and marketing genius, and

the stock price of Vic's Pretzels proved it. Gave him time to pursue more important things, like saving his

cousin's life. Not that Becca agreed with his priorities.

Who did?

No one.

Of course, everyone who knew of his plans thought he was insane, so he supposed the fact they didn't

support him was to be expected.

He tried the doorknob. Locked. "Les!" A quick glance at his watch told him he had only two and a half

minutes now. Damn New York City traffic and his cousin for living so far out of the city. He felt his

adrenaline kick in, and his heart began to pump.

But Becca wasn't finished. "These people want to meet with the inventor of Vic's No-Carb Pretzel, not

his lieutenant. I will stall them for exactly thirty minutes and if you don't get your designer-clad heinie over

here by then, I'm going to hand them the recipe and tell them to have at it." She slammed down the

phone.

She'd sounded like she meant it. Crap. Time to save Les's butt and get back to the office.

Barely two minutes left. "Les!" He slung the baseball bat over his shoulder and sprinted around the side

of the house. The gate to the backyard was locked, but he scaled it easily, an advantage of being over six

feet tall. He vaulted up the rickety stairs to the back deck and nearly crashed into his cousin, who was

sprawled in a lawn chair, absorbing the rays. "Damn, Les. Didn't you hear me?"

"Screw you." Les had his feet cooling in a murky plastic wading pool, his bulging stomach hanging over

the waistband of his Speedo. "I'm not listening to any of your b.s."

"I don't care if you listen or not," Derek said. "I'm here to save your sorry behind anyway."

"I don't need saving. I take care of myself just fine." For the last six years, Les had been collecting

disability for an "injury" to his back. He now spent all his time furthering his Internet poker addiction and

bullying the neighborhood children into going to the store for him. The only time he wasn't at the

computer was when he was too hungover to focus on the screen. Solution? Sun and beer for a couple

hours to revive himself. "And if you keep running around insisting the LaValle men have been cursed,

someone's going to pack you off in a straitjacket."

Derek shrugged. "Better insane than dead." His family had already tried to have him committed more than

once. Having a vast disposable income came in handy for purchasing his freedom. "Every LaValle man

for four generations has died at the moment he turned thirty-one years, forty-six weeks, four days, six

hours, three minutes, and five seconds old." He looked at his watch and cursed. "That's in just over a

minute for you."

He hoisted the bat to his shoulder and searched the yard for rabid pit bulls and homicidal yard

implements that might develop a mind of their own. I know you're out there, you murderous son of a

bitch. I'm ready for you.

Les took another slug of beer. "The LaValle men have had a run of bad luck. Nothing more."

"So everyone says." So his dad had claimed until the moment he'd become the victim of a wayward

butter knife. Died right in front of fifteen-year-old Derek, while they'd been sampling a no-calorie waffle

together.

"There's no Curse and I don't need you here to protect me against some crap you made up." Les folded

his flabby arms over his saggy chest and glared at Derek.

No Curse? Not likely.

Not when you consider the way they'd died. One had been found impaled on his toothbrush. Another

had choked to death on lemonade. How about the one who'd been kicked in the head by a newborn

baby and suffered fatal brain damage? One unfortunate sod had actually shot himself in the head while

cleaning his gun—although that could have been legit. The one that had been mauled to death by a pet

hamster? Seemed a little fishy.

As if fate was grabbing whatever was available at that precise moment.

"I'm going to call my mom and tell her you're over here talking about the Curse again," Les whined. "And

then I'm going to call the cops and—"

"Shut up and let me concentrate." If he could keep the Curse from succeeding with Les, he was hoping

that would be enough to stop the chain before it bit him and his fraternal twin when they reached the right

age. Which was in just over a week.

Forty-five seconds. "Maybe you should go inside," Derek suggested. "You could drown in that pool."

His bat wasn't going to be much good if the water suddenly swelled up in a massive tsunami and swept

Les away.

"You go inside. Get me another beer." Les belched and let his head drop back against the lounge chair.

"Order a pizza while you're at it."

Derek looked up at the sky. No lightning bolt could come out of that blue sky, could it?

Ten seconds. He kicked an old pizza box off the deck. Not sure how cardboard could be deadly, but he

wasn't taking any chances.

Les yawned. "I'm gonna take a nap."

Five seconds.

Les belched again and picked up a beer.

"Give me that bottle. I don't want glass near you." Before he could grab the bottle, Derek's watch alarm

went off, and a huge rock came careening over the back fence, heading straight for Les's head.

Les screamed and dove out of his chair. Derek swung for the rock. It shattered his bat but ricocheted

away from Les and smashed through the living room window. "Believe me now, Les?"

No sound from Les.

Derek spun around. His cousin was lying on the deck, motionless, his neck twisted at an angle that was

unnatural and very, very wrong.

Frustration ripped through him. "Dammit, Les. Why didn't you listen?"

No one listened. And everyone died.

Well, Derek wasn't going to die, and he wasn't going to let his brother die. He glared at the overgrown

backyard. "You've just taken your last LaValle man, you hear me?"

He could have sworn he heard laughter on the wind.

Great. So he was burdened with a Curse that had a warped sense of humor.

Lucky him.

Four hours later, after dealing with cops and the ambulance and begging forgiveness from Becca for

skipping out on the fast-food meeting, Derek banged open the door to his twin brother's office, making

Quincy LaValle jump and spill coffee all over his desk.

"Damn you, Derek. Why do you always do that?"

"Because I like to pick on my little brother. Hello, Wendy." Derek nodded at the assistant filing in the

corner as he moved a stack of papers off a chair, and dropped into the seat.

Then he looked again. Wendy Monroe had been working for Quincy for the last two years. Every time

he'd seen her, she'd been wearing some gray outfit that barely showed she was a woman. No makeup.

Glasses. She was the epitome of a nerdy intellectual and a perfect match for his math professor brother, if

only Quincy would pull his head out of his books and realize it.

But today she was wearing a red sweater and her hair looked like it had been marked up with blond or

something. What did women call that? Highlighted. Right. She looked like she'd gotten her hair

highlighted. A monumental change for her. She actually looked like she had a personality. "You look nice

today, Wendy."

She smiled at him and looked him in the eye. Another first. "Thank you, Mr. LaValle." She pulled open a

drawer in Quincy's desk and pulled out a napkin, barely keeping her hip a proper distance form Quincy's

arm.

"Derek," he corrected her, as usual.

"Of course." As she mopped up the coffee spill, her gaze flicked toward Quincy, and he was pretty sure

he saw a light in her eyes he hadn't noticed before. Had she suddenly realized what every other woman

on campus already knew? That his antisocial, absentminded brother was apparently a total chick

magnet? That would account for the new sweater and colored hair. "Quincy? Do you need anything

else?" she asked.

Quincy was already back at the computer typing away. He waved his hand vaguely in her direction. "All

set. Have a good weekend."

She gave Derek a knowing smile. It was Monday at one in the afternoon. She still had a thirty-five-hour

workweek until the weekend, but it was beneath Quin to keep track of things as mundane as the day of

the week. "You have to teach class in forty-five minutes. I'll remind you."

Quincy looked up from the computer. "Really? Today? What class?"

"It's your freshman lecture."

"Oh. Right." He frowned and Wendy set a sheaf of papers in front of him. "These are the tests you're

handing back to the students today. And on the top are your notes for your lecture."

Derek grinned as he watched Wendy take care of his brother with calm patience. The perfect woman for

Quin. Maybe he ought to encourage Quincy to notice he had a female working in his office.

After they'd taken care of the Curse, of course. Until they beat it, relationships were pretty much

doomed. Nothing like telling your date that you'll be dead by age thirty-one to scare her off. Somehow

being beheaded by a green bean didn't seem to mesh with domestic visions of white picket fences and

2.3 kids, as their dad's unfortunate butter knife encounter had proven. Just think of the situation Derek

would put his kids in if he had any: How do you explain to your friends at school that your dad was the

victim of a wayward kitchen utensil that had been momentarily possessed by a supernatural force?

Wendy finished instructing Quincy on his plans for the afternoon, then stepped back from the desk. "Do

you need my assistance for your meeting with Derek? If not, I'll keep filing in the corner."

Derek cleared his throat. "Um, would you mind giving us some privacy?"

"No problem at all." She flashed them a small smile and then hurried out of the room.

Derek set a tossed salad and a tuna sub on Quincy's desk. "Brought lunch."

Quincy grinned and began unwrapping the sandwich. "Great. I'm starving. I forgot to eat again."

"I figured that would be the case." The door clicked shut. "Les died."

Quincy looked up sharply. "When?"

"This morning."

Sharp lines tightened behind Quincy's glasses. "At what time?"

"Nine fifty-four and seventeen seconds. As I predicted." Maybe this would convince Quincy. It had to.

Derek needed help to figure what was going on and how to stop it. Time was almost out, and eighteen

years of solo pursuit hadn't gotten him any answers. He needed a partner, and since Quin was the only

person who let Derek discuss the Curse without threatening to get him committed, Quin got the nod.

His brother frowned. "You were there?"

"Yep."

"What happened?"

Typical intellectual. He needed every fact before drawing a conclusion. Derek sighed and filled in his twin

on the details, then fell silent.

"Huh."

"Huh? That's all you can say?"

"Well, what do you want me to say? Oh, sure, I believe all the LaValle men are cursed and you're going

to die in a week and I'm going to die ten minutes after you?" Quincy shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I

don't buy this paranormal spooky stuff. There has to be a logical explanation."

"Math is based on logic. Curses aren't. Forget what you know and open your mind."

Quincy pulled off his glasses and shot Derek a superior stare. "Math is real. Curses are myths. There has

to be something else going on besides some fantastical intervention by fate."

Derek ground his teeth. "Listen to me, Quin. We have to find out how to stop it. One week and then

we're dead. The leisurely approach is no longer an option."

"I'll do some research on the statistical odds of all these deaths happening at such similar times and—"

"Quincy!" Derek slammed his palms on the desk. "This isn't math! It's something more! You'll die if we

don't fix this." Derek hadn't suffered all those black eyes and the broken nose defending his nerdy brother

just to let him die from a rabid ballpoint pen or something equally ridiculous. A fatal carjacking in the city?

Fine. That's fate. A damned ballpoint pen? He had his pride and he simply wouldn't be bested by a

blasted writing utensil. "Don't ignore this, Quincy. I'm not crazy."

Quincy leaned back in his chair and gave Derek his tolerant professor look. "What would you have me

do?"

"Let's find this Goblet of Eternal Youth. Find the Guardian."

"And then what? Kill the Guardian and steal the Goblet as the journal says must be done for the Curse to

be broken? This is the twenty-first century. We can't go around killing anyone."

"What if it's the Guardian's life or ours? You think I should stand back and let us die?"

Quincy leaned forward. "Face it, Derek. There's no Goblet. There's no Curse. There is simply bad luck

among the LaValle men. I'll write up a few equations and show that it's mathematically possible for all

twenty-nine men to have died without any supernatural intervention."

"Fine." Derek stood up. "You do that."

"And then you'll let this go?"

"Sure." He turned away before Quincy could see the lie in his eyes.

Curse or not, Les was going to be the last LaValle man to die at age thirty-one.

He was going to find that Guardian and do what he had to do. But his gut dropped at the thought of

killing anyone in cold blood, even to save his brother.

He hoped she tried to kill him first. Then he could behead her with a clean conscience. Murder in the first

degree wasn't exactly befitting of a pretzel mogul. And what was the point of dodging the Curse if he had

to spend the rest of his life in prison dodging… well… yeah. Probably best not to think about that.

First things first. Find the Guardian.

Deal with the rest later.

Chapter Two

Two hundred years at the same job is at least one hundred and ninety too many. Especially when it

sucks.

Justine Bennett glared at the espresso machine sitting in the afternoon sunshine. "Enjoying yourself?"

The espresso machine, as usual, said nothing. Two hundred years ago Mona had been a jewel-encrusted

goblet. Today, she was an espresso machine, thanks to her chameleonic ability to change form. A kitchen

appliance who expressed absolutely no appreciation for the fact Justine had been chained to this life for

two hundred years, protecting it from would-be evildoers in search of eternal youth.

"Pouting again?" An eleven-foot winged dragon wearing mascara and wine-colored lipstick wandered

into the front room of their high-ceilinged loft. The dragon's name was Theresa Nichols, although she

hadn't been in her human form in almost two hundred years, since she'd taken three sips from Mona.

From rich, indolent siren to a four-footed horned monster with blue shiny scales. It was enough to make

any girl cranky, and Theresa was no exception.

"I'm not pouting," Justine said. "I'm bored."

Theresa moved her horned tail aside and settled onto the navy microfiber couch. Leather was a total

no-go. Scales and clawed feet were hell on natural materials. Worse than a herd of destructive cats on

speed. Certain synthetics, on the other hand, were impervious to snags and tears. Simply fabulous for the

living comfort of dragons. "Me too. What do you say we go barhopping tonight?"

"Sure. You can freak out the entire city of New York, and I'll pick up a cute guy who'll drink from Mona

and then I'll have to behead him. Sounds like a blast." Been there, done that. Lesson learned.

"Hey! If anyone deserves to be pouting, it's me. At least you have breasts and can get men to drool."

Theresa blew a puff of black smoke, the dragon equivalent of a dramatic sigh. A few sparks dropped on

the flame-resistant throw rug. Theresa had burned down their first six houses. It gets difficult to hide a

dragon and remain under the societal radar when your house keeps burning down. Thankfully,

fire-retardant products became available just as the NYFD began to keep an eye on Justine.

Not that it had been that bad. Some of the members of the fire department were quite sexy. Not that

Justine was allowed to indulge. Sigh.

And none of the men, burly as they might be, were quite a match for an eleven-foot dragon who would

very possibly incinerate them in the heat of passion. This meant the two roomies were celibate together,

until and unless Theresa could find a cure for her four-footed form. "You have any luck today?" she

asked.

Theresa shook her head. "The Internet is full of crap. With all those Web sites, you think at least one of

them would have a legitimate spell for turning me back into human form." She scowled, which entailed

flaring her cavernous nostrils and scrunching her gold-flecked eyes until they were barely open. "When I

finally figure it out, I'm personally going to go out there and kick the butt of every fraud on this planet who

claims to practice magic."

"Yeah, my day is going equally well."

Theresa held out a claw. "Let me see."

Justine passed over her sketch pad. "I'm supposed to come up with a creature that came from Mars and

looks very sweet but is actually a deadly assassin. Blues, greens, and silver. Male. Maybe a military

background. Can pass as human if he wants to, but is clearly an alien when he's in full kick-butt form."

Justine's second job was as an animation designer for a major movie studio. They sent her specs and she

created the creatures. First by hand, then she transferred the images to her computer and tightened up the

3-D image. It was one of the only jobs she could do and still stay at home with precious little Mona.

Unfortunately, being Mona's Guardian didn't come with a paycheck. Protecting all that's good in the

world was supposed to be reward in itself. Yeah, who needs food and shelter?

Justine did, and supplying enough food to keep an unemployed dragon happy wasn't exactly cheap. At

least their shelter was paying for itself, thanks to an excellent property manager named Graham Winthrop

and centuries of Guardians who had made savvy real estate investments. Nothing like tenants to keep the

income flowing in when they weren't making use of one of their safehouses. Their current lair was the top

floor of a posh condo building filled with rich residents who guarded their privacy zealously. Perfect.

Boring, but perfect.

"Draw me." Theresa pulled her lips back in a dragon grin. "I'm bluish green and I kick ass. I could be

your alien assassin."

"I already used you two years ago for the remake of Puff the Magic Dragon!" She glanced at the date

on her watch. "That ad campaign was supposed to launch this week. Have you seen any of the

commercials? We have to find a way to smuggle you in so you can see yourself on the big screen."

Theresa scowled. "You know I can't go. I'm a dragon, remember? No public appearances for me." She

sighed with melodramatic self-pity. "Draw this new alien to look like me so I feel better. To give me a

purpose in life. A reason to exist."

"I can't. This alien has to look harmless. That's not you."

Theresa tossed the sketch pad onto the wrought-iron coffee table (very fireproof) and flopped back on

the couch. "I want to be adorable again. With pink cheeks and big boobs." She blew a smoke ring and

watched it float up to the smoke elimination fan in the ceiling.

"I'd like to have sex. Or even a date. Dinner with a guy. Anything," Justine countered. That damned

Guardian Oath. I swear to protect Desdemona's Temptation for all eternity until I die.

It sounded simple enough. Until you got to the rest of it:

1. I swear never to trust anyone or make friends or emotional connections with anyone. To trust is to let

down my guard and endanger Desdemona's Temptation.

2. I swear never to become intimate with any man. Temptations are distractions. Distractions are

dangerous.

3. I swear I will never reveal any information about Desdemona's Temptation to anyone other than my

designated successor, who will be chosen with the prior approval of the Council.

4. I swear to keep Desdemona's Temptation within my physical presence at all times, unless an

emergency dictates leaving her with my designated successor.

5. I will kill to protect Desdemona's Temptation and I will die to keep her safe. I am married to

Desdemona's Temptation for all eternity until my death.

6. In all areas not specifically covered by the Oath, I swear to follow the rules as outlined in the most

current edition of the Treatise on Guardianship.

She hated that damned Treatise. It pretty much banned her from doing anything except eating and

sleeping and cutting off people's heads.

And to think she didn't like her job. Go figure. "I'm still ticked off at my mom for roping me into being her

successor. What kind of a life is this to foist upon your only child?"

Theresa rolled her eyes. "I'm so with you. Thanks to her, I have nightmares about the Council now. Hate

them. They're seriously the most rigid, unforgiving, ruthless bastards I've ever met. I almost wish you'd

die so I could be Guardian. First thing I'd do is incinerate them and rescind the ban prohibiting Guardians

from having sex. And we should both disown your mom. After all, she was the one who talked me into

being your successor, which made me agree when you asked, which resulted in me drinking from that

stupid Goblet, which turned me into a full-time dragon, which then ruined me for all time."

"I know. What a sucky year that was. My mom dies, I become Guardian, you get stuck as a dragon, and

we both never have a life again." Mutual bitch sessions were so cathartic.

Stephanie Rowe - Date Me Baby One More Time

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: