Page 1 of Forked Tongues Are Fun
Chapter One
The house I was currentlyfleeing from made me feel like I’d steeped myself in cat piss and broken dreams. The crotchety feline shifter who lived there could’ve really used one of the vacuums I pretended to be selling, but she’d claimed to have just bought a new one. Maybe she didn’t know how to use it. Maybe she’d just said that so I’d leave. I was only there on pretense, so I’d smiled politely and done just that.
Now, I hauled my only vacuum down the sidewalk, hoping no one would really buy it, as my tight black pencil skirt strangled my thighs. Summer sun focused its golden rays straight to the armpits of my crisp, white button-up shirt and black suit jacket. The strands of dark brown hair that had fallen from my fancy, saleswoman-y twist clung to the back of my neck. The amount of sweat pouring off my body would’ve been embarrassing if I hadn’t been so nervous with what was about to come. Because the reason for this whole charade crouched low in the one-story house next door.
My heart slammed a twitchy beat. My nerves stretched tight enough to jostle the scarce contents of my stomach. I forced myself to breathe through it, to keep my eyes on the end game—my little brother, Asa, who’d been missing for almost a month. He was only nine, ten years younger than me, and the only thing I had left worth living for. Dragon shifters had kidnapped him right out from underneath me like they so often did to human children. Every month, they used kids as sacrifices to their goddess, Léas, during the full-moon ritual when she restored all dragon shifters’ energy.
But they weren’t sacrificing Asa. I’d worked myself ragged this last month to make sure of it.
He wasn’t inside this house, but the key to finding him before tonight’s full moon was. I just had to find it and get it out without the owner noticing.
It would not be easy.
I climbed the single step onto the porch, set my vacuum down beside me, and adjusted my clipboard so I could smoosh and lift my cleavage a little more than the Wonderbra I’d scrounged from Goodwill already did. The first step to finding Asa was actually getting inside this house by any means necessary. If I had to ride the vacuum like a pole, I would.
With a slow exhale, I pushed the doorbell. A faint chime echoed from inside, a hollow, empty sound. There were no cars parked in the driveway, but there never were. The person who lived inside this house never left. I’d staked out the place for several days to be sure, so I guessed he was elderly or dead or on vacation or something. Mr. Salvador Watson, according to the stack of mail in his mailbox.
A slight tingle crawled over my nipples as if someone were caressing them through the fabric of my shirt and jacket. The drenched hair at my neck prickled. Someone was watching me, likely from inside the house, and getting quite an eyeful as I squeezed my clipboard even tighter against the side of my boob.
This was the very same reason I’d gone to the next-door neighbor’s house—so the man inside this one would see me coming and think I was a legit saleswoman. But would he open the door? I had a Plan C if he didn’t, and it involved breaking—a lot of breaking—and entering. I’d already tried the regular kind of breaking, and this house was fortified as fuck. A lot of breaking and entering would require explosives and maybe not end well for anyone. The sales act would be so much less messy, though, if he bought it, and sure, slightly less against the law if that kind of thing was important to you. As a full-time thief and even fuller-time big sister, it wasn’t important to me, but I only stole what was necessary to keep my brother and me alive.
Come on. Open the door, damn you, I growled inside my head. The full-moon ritual was tonight. I had no time for a pervert eye-fucking my chest.
I blanked my face of anything except what I hoped was perky innocence as I rang the bell again. Short of humping the vacuum, what did I have to do to get this guy to open his door? I knew he was watching me from inside, his gaze like a tickle sliding across my sweat-drenched skin. As if to grab hold of the feeling and bend it to my will, I followed it with my fingertips underneath the collar of my shirt, feeling my heartbeat slam into my palm, and dragged the fabric down to reveal the upper part of my breast spilling out the top of my bra. Not enough to get me arrested for indecent exposure, but almost.
The front door popped open. Score one for my boobs, even if it wasn’t exactly subtle.
Cool air blasted out and hit me in the face. I sighed into it as I blinked into the darkness within. No one stood inside the doorway.
“Hello?” I called and hefted my vacuum over the entryway. “I’m here to tell you all about the Isbon vacuum and all the ways it will change your life for the better.”
Once inside, I hid my sigh of relief. I was in. Sometimes the easiest way into a house really was through the front door. Now all I had to do was find the key that would help me find Asa, and get out. No problem, only I had no idea what the key looked like. No one did.
I loved this plansomuch.
“Hello?” I called again.
The house appeared to be empty, but it didn’t feel like it. Something was cooking, maybe a savory stew from the smell of it, and it made my stomach rumble. I hadn’t eaten in a while because I’d had more important things to do.
Over the raised partition separating the entryway from what looked like a living room, a large, muted television showing a soap opera glowed as the only source of light. The window shades were shut so tightly that nothing slanted through, casting much of the living room, and the rest of the house, in deep shadow.
With a flicker of unease, I rolled my vacuum toward the living room. “Hello? I think you’ll be just as excited as I am once you hear about the Isbon vacuum and why it’s rated number one.”
The front door closed behind me by itself, closing off my only escape with a loudclick.
I swallowed loudly and wheeled the vacuum toward the TV, drawn to its light so I could see better. The same feeling that I’d had outside, that I was being watched, chased up my spine.
An overhead light snapped on beyond the living room. I reeled back, my pulse like an alarm. The light shone on a dining room from the looks of it, though I couldn’t see the whole wooden table within. Footsteps sounded, a chair scooted across the tiles as if being pushed in, and then he appeared. Mr. Salvador Watson.
Tall, with massive shoulders stretching the fabric of a black Henley, and black jeans that slung low on his hips. Silky dark hair fell across his forehead, and he brushed it off his face. Stubble shadowed his angular jaw, and dark lashes framed crafty-looking brown eyes that seemed to look right through me and the real reason I was here. He wasn’t old like I’d imagined, but maybe in his mid-twenties.
And thoroughly lickable.
This was going to be harder than I’d thought.
He tilted his head, a slow, dangerous grin curling his full lips. “An Isbon vacuum, you said?”
“Only the best,” I said, offering my most winningest smile I’d practiced in the mirror this morning. “Could I tell you about it so you can see for yourself?”
