Thwarting Cupid (8 page)

“I think I had a pretty similar dream.” His hand stilled for a moment at her quiet admission. She'd dreamt they were married, too? How weird was that?

Before he could respond, the phone next to him rang. Looking for an out and not considering the consequences, he reached over to answer it.

“Hello?”

The silence on the other end made him aware of his mistake even before her raised eyebrow did. Where did he get off answering her phone? And first thing in the morning, too. Just because he'd dreamed they were married didn't make it so. What if the caller was her lover intending to give her an early morning thrill? That thought turned him defiant. The last thing he wanted was some other man giving her any kind of thrill. He frowned. Was that jealousy? Heck, yeah.

“Hello?” he asked again when the caller still hadn't spoken.

“Uhhh, yes. Is...uh...Carissa available?” The male voice on the other end of the line gave him pause. Hutch raised an eyebrow and looked at her. She reached for the phone, but he held it out of reach.

He put on his most pleasant voice. “May I ask who's calling?” She made another grab for the phone. This time she fought her way to a sitting position. She didn't seem to care that she'd managed to pin his hand under her rear end.

“This is Scott. I'm quite sorry to bother her at home, but it's a bit urgent.”

Hutch's jealousy eased. The man didn't sound like a lover or anyone who had any kind of designs on her. Hard as that was for him to imagine.

“One moment.” He handed the phone to Carissa, who snatched it from his grasp and treated him to a glare. “It's Scott.”

She frowned and spoke into the phone. “Hi, Scott. What's going on?”

Hutch reclined against the pillows and watched her face while she talked. The covers had slipped down to his waist, baring his chest. If he wasn't mistaken, she was devouring his torso with her eyes. To test his theory, Hutch stretched his free hand up and cradled his head. He knew the move showed off his muscles. He had fewer of them now that he spent a lot more time behind a desk, but he was still pretty sculpted.

“Are you serious?”

He tuned in to her side of the conversation out of curiosity, even though she kept sweeping her eyes over him. More than once, her gaze paused on the slightly smaller tent he was pitching under the sheet. Smug satisfaction settled over him. If Scott was a lover, he wouldn't be too happy to find out she was checking out another man's cock while on the phone with him. Hutch knew he wouldn't be. Of course, if she were with him, she wouldn't be in a bed with another man. Ever.

“But no one was hurt?”

He frowned at her question. Something serious must be going on. He raised his knee to kill the tent so she could concentrate on whatever was being said to her. Carissa met his gaze and blushed to the roots of her hair like she hadn't known he'd been watching her every expression.

“Thank you. Please keep me posted.” She hung up the phone and bit her lip. “It appears that I won't need you to take me to work today after all.”

Okay. So he wasn't expecting that. “Your back is still bothering you,” he observed.

“No... I mean...yes, but that wasn't going to stop me. A truck carrying some type of hazardous material crashed into the corner of the building. The office is closed until they can assess the damage and get everything cleaned up.”

The surprises just kept coming this morning. “And no one was hurt?”

She shook her head. Perhaps due to her shocked state, she lay back down next to him. Once his hand was free, he wrapped it around her. “It happened before anyone got to the office this morning. The security guards were in an undamaged section of the building so they both got out. Nonetheless, the company is closed for a bit.”

Her springy hair tickled his chest while her finger drew lazy circles on his stomach. The tent was getting bigger, but he kept his knee in place. Now was not the right time to make a move. Her back obviously still hurt and she'd need to be in top condition for what he'd like to do with her.

“How long is a bit? That's a bit imprecise.”

He felt her shrug. “That's all they know at the moment. Scott is exploring the possibility of our team working from home. Finance doesn't stop just because the building does.”

“And Scott is...” Hutch hoped his question sounded casual. He knew he'd failed when she tipped her head up to give him an amused look.

“Hmmm. Is that a jealous note I'm detecting in your voice?”

He shrugged and tried to play it off. Flashes of her from his dream flitted across his mind. Maybe now wasn't the right time to be playful. He needed to stake his claim and let her know he'd staked it. “Yes.”

She looked stunned at his serious response. The amusement faded from her expression. “He's my boss.” Carissa giggled. “He sounded pretty thrown that a man answered my phone. I'm not known for my dating habits around the office.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and pulled her closer. “Good.”

She snuggled so easily into his embrace it was like they'd been made for each other. Who knew? Maybe they were. He’d explore more later. Right now, he felt a nap coming on.

Chapter 7

Quincy was finally through with the roughest night he could remember in recent history. By recent, he meant the last half century or so. There'd been the guerrilla uprising in Guatemala because a rebel leader suspected his wife had been unfaithful with his second in command. Boy, had that taken every bit of wits to squash. He'd had to make them recall every single one of the good memories they'd shared before the rebel leader believed her again. That had been no easy task considering most of their good memories consisted of her tending to the wounds he'd received in battle. Couldn't the man just take her dancing once in a while?

Either way, Quincy had been successful. When he'd left, the couple had been busy making out in the tent. They'd been so wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t even noticed the gunfire erupting around them. All in a day's work. Of course, he'd had some help since the rebel leader had ordered his second in command to be shot in the head. Just in case.

Quincy rubbed his temples. That just made more work for him. Now he had a poor peasant girl in a nearby town who would be brokenhearted once the news traveled back to her. He'd have to match her with someone new. Suitable matches were not a dime a dozen in a war torn area. He would've stuck around to see which matches were available, but he knew she wouldn't be ready for anyone else for a little while. A couple weeks at least.

He never understood the form human grief took on nowadays. Back when he was just a young cupid, they'd cry for thirty days then get up and go on with their lives. Now, they made a national case out of it. Some of them grieved for lost loves the rest of their lives. Which totally screwed up new potential matches for both themselves and their match. Pretty darned selfish in his opinion.

After the hard night he'd had, he was looking forward to peeking in on Carissa. Seeing her always cheered him up. With any luck, he'd catch her getting in or out of the shower. It was a tossup which state he preferred. Granted, he could watch longer if she was just getting in, but he loved seeing her all flushed from the water's heat and her body slicked with moisture.

It was an appreciation he'd acquired from a match he'd made back in the fifties. He'd made a stupid mistake and became visible to the man he'd been trying to match. Quincy smiled when he remembered the friendship they'd struck up.

George had been a high priority case. He was quite the ladies' man, which created a problem in the cupid world. It was much harder to overcome the baggage of a “love 'em and leave 'em” lifestyle and settle a person in a lifetime commitment. George had been the King of Luggage. Both his own and his conquests’.

When Quincy got to know George, he learned that George just appreciated women. All women. He'd shared that appreciation with Quincy. Taught him about everything to love about the female form. If George was to be believed, there wasn't a whole lot to not love about a woman. Still, Quincy had managed to find the man a match. Not once had George strayed from his wife during the forty plus years they'd been married.

That assignment had put quite a feather in Quincy's cupid hat. No other cupid had ever managed such a feat before or since. The feathers on his wings rippled a bit with pride. The icing on the cake had been his newfound appreciation of women. Granted, he was a bit more discerning than George had been. Then Carissa had been assigned to him.

Quincy couldn't ever remember seeing such a perfect woman as she. Given his centuries of service, that was saying something. Her big, brown eyes were fringed with thick lashes. Her full lips were a perfect compliment to her full breasts and hips. Her skin was the color of burnt honey that always seemed to glow. Sooner or later, he'd find her a match. But for now, he was keeping her to himself.

Quincy popped into Carissa's living room, where he expected to find her at this time of morning. She always ate breakfast on the couch while catching up on a few of her favorite television shows before heading off to work.

He smiled at the pizza box on her coffee table. He didn't get her obsession with that particular food, but she had it quite often. He paused to consider the box for another moment. It wasn't like her to leave it out overnight. She always put the leftovers in the refrigerator and munched on them for the next few days. Something strange was going on here. He wondered if she was still crying over her back pain. Maybe that's all it was. He’d hoped she'd be over it by now, though. It would totally mess up his plans if she wasn't.

The apartment wasn't that big. Her keys were still by the door so he knew she hadn't gone anywhere yet. The door to the bathroom was open and the kitchen was silent. That just left the bedroom.

What in the heck? Quincy stopped short in the doorway and stared at the bed, where his precious Carissa was curled up in the arms of some bare-chest Neanderthal. All of a sudden, he understood why the second in command had to die the night before. Who was this man and where had he come from? Why was he asleep in Carissa's bed? Why was she asleep in his arms? Didn't she have to get to work?

Quincy snapped his fingers and held out his hand expecting a file to drop into it. He frowned when his hand remained empty. He snapped again. Still nothing. What was going on here? Wasn't there a file on this guy? He tried to still the growing panic in his heart. Of course the guy had a file. They all had files. He wouldn't be able to do his job if they didn't.

The barest hint of a breeze stirred the feathers on his wings. Miss C. materialized beside him. She had a large smile on her face and a file in her hand. So that's where the file had been. He was getting a very bad feeling about all this. Miss C. rarely, if ever, left her office. Now, all of a sudden, here she was in the field. In the middle of his assignment. What was going on here? Had she decided he couldn't be trusted after all?

“Aren't they cute?” She held out the file to him and sighed while watching his Carissa sleeping with another man. Quincy gritted his teeth and nodded.

“Adorable.” He almost choked on the word, but he got it out since he knew that was what she expected to hear.

She turned and studied him for a moment. Quincy worked to keep a benign expression on his face. “It seems records may have been at fault for the failure on this assignment. We found his file in the deceased pile. It was no wonder you were having such a problem finding her soul mate.”

Quincy swallowed hard. Carissa's soul mate? This dude? The one who had his hand on her ass like it belonged there and they weren't even committed to one another yet, much less married? No way could this be her one and only. Quincy didn't like him. He frowned when a memory tickled his consciousness. Deceased pile, huh? Why did that ring a bell? He flipped open the folder and found the guy's name. James Hutchington. Everything came flooding back to him.

There'd been a charity event a few years back. Carissa and Hutch had both been stressed out working to make things run smoothly. He'd started flirting with her. To Quincy's surprise, she'd flirted back. She never flirted back. It had made him take a harder look at Mr. Hutchington. He hadn’t liked what he'd seen. The man had just looked too good to be true. If Quincy had let things progress, Carissa and Hutch would've hooked up back then. But he was no good for her.

A couple days later, Quincy had introduced Hutch to another woman and they'd hit it off. Not that Hutch forgot Carissa right off the bat or anything. He hadn't. That was why Quincy had had to create a wonderful job opportunity for her that was elsewhere. The out-of-sight changed to out-of-mind and he had figured he was in the clear. He had dumped the guy's file in the deceased pile so no other case workers would stumble upon it and try to match him with Carissa.

He kept his head down like he was studying the file Miss C had given him, but Quincy cast a covert look her direction. His plan had worked. Until now. It was a shame, really. Hutch seemed like a nice enough guy. It's just Quincy wasn't ready to give up his Carissa yet. He glanced back at the couple cuddling on the bed. He might feel bad about this later, but he was going to have to break them up. How hard could it be? Until less than twenty four hours ago, Hutch hadn't even been on Carissa's radar. Quincy seriously doubted that she'd been on his.