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  THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

  An Ellora’s Cave Electronic Publication in association with authors:

  Jaid Black, Marilyn Lee, & Treva Harte

  ISBN # 1-84360- 024-2

  All Rights Reserved. http://www.ellorascave.com

  Naughty Nancy: Book 4 ½ Trek Mi Q’an © Copyright Jaid Black, 2001.

  Bloodlust © Copyright Marilyn Lee, 2001.

  A Little Too Charming © Copyright Treva Harte, 2001.

  Ellora’s Cave, Ltd.

  P.O. Box 28041

  Edinburgh

  EH16 6WW

  Scotland, U.K.

  This book/e-book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by email forwarding, copying, fax, or any other mode of communication without author and publisher permission.

  Edited by Cris Brashear & Tina Engler

  WARNING:

  The following material contains strong sexual content meant for mature readers. THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT has been rated NC-17, erotic, by three individual reviewers. We strongly suggest storing this electronic file in a place where young readers not meant to view this e-book are unlikely to happen upon it. That said, enjoy…

  Naughty Nancy – Book 4 ½: Trek Mi Q’an

  © Jaid Black, 2001. All Rights Reserved.

  Part I

  Nancy Lombardo bit down onto her bottom lip as her eyes shifted warily toward the old woman. She had to be a witch, she thought. In a town like Salem, Massachusetts—and on Halloween night no less!—she couldn’t be anything but a witch.

  Either that or an extremely eccentric looking homeless person with a penchant for wearing black robes and loud blue eyeshadow while she stood there stirring only God knows what around in a cauldron as she chanted in what sounded to be Latin.

  Nancy sighed. She really should have taken that job in Anchorage. The weirdest thing she would have had to worry about encountering in Alaska was getting kidnapped by a lonely mountain man who hadn’t laid eyes on a woman since his inbred wife had passed on to—wherever it is inbred wives pass on to.

  Nancy’s back went ramrod straight as she continued walking down the dark alley. She refused to be afraid, she sniffed. This was her night, damn it. The night she was going to saunter into her friend Lori’s party and shine like the belle of the ball.

  No more wallflower Nancy. No more being the fat girl out. No more watching through the spectacles perched on the end of her nose as men looked past her to the dimwitted idiots standing behind her with the buffed bodies and the unbuffed brains. Tonight she was going to be one of those dimwitted idiots with the buffed bodies and the unbuffed brains, she thought with a harrumph.

  Well okay, so she wasn’t exactly dimwitted. And her body wasn’t exactly buffed. And, she grimly conceded, she had graduated at the top of her class in law school.

  Her lips pinched together in a frown. Damn it!

  “’Tis naught tae worry aboot,” the old woman croaked out, causing Nancy to lose her train of thought.

  “Huh?” Nancy’s gaze shot toward where the old woman had been stirring her cauldron—the very same black-clad figure who had been standing on the opposite side of the alley, but who had somehow managed to land directly in front of her. “Goodness,” she breathed out as her hand instinctively flew up to shield her heart, “you scared me.”

  The old woman’s weathered face crinkled into what on most people would be considered a smile. On her it looked more like a pasty slit in between a bunch of equally pasty wrinkles.

  Nancy swallowed a bit nervously as she waited to see what the old woman wanted. She absently adjusted her Xena the warrior princess costume and shifted the sword belt to the side. She winced and moved it back. The tip of the sword kept poking through its scabbard and jabbing her in the thigh.

  Damn it!

  “Can I help you with something?” Nancy asked in clipped tones, her voice unnaturally harsh. Call her a tad on the defensive side but it was Halloween night and the old woman gave her the creeps. She kept staring into her eyes as if searching for something, but otherwise the mysterious witch remained silent.

  A suspended moment passed in eerie quiet as the two women locked eyes. It gave Nancy enough time to let the guilt settle in. She sighed. “I didn’t mean to yell at you,” she said quietly, her expression apologetic. She smiled. “I guess we all get a little freaked out on a night like this.” She decided to ignore the fact that the old woman was the reason she was freaked out to begin with.

  “’Twill be a long journey,” the old witch murmured. Her palm came up and rested on Nancy’s forehead as she continued to study her face. “But ‘twill be worth the sacrifices when all is said and done. And love shall be yers.”

  Nancy’s eyes darted back and forth as the old woman began to chant. She nibbled on her bottom lip.

  Back in law school Nancy had been taught how to effectively deal with many different types of bizarre situations, but this one had definitely not been covered in any of the college texts. When the old woman’s chanting picked up to a fevered squeal akin to the sound a pig might make when being slaughtered for Sunday dinner, she felt her cheeks redden.

  Nope, definitely not covered in the law school texts.

  Damn it!

  “Are you okay?” Nancy asked wearily. She tried to politely remove the old crone’s palm from her forehead, but the wrinkled thing wouldn’t budge. She absently wondered if the old woman had been an arm wrestler in her heyday. “Do you need an aspirin or something?” Her tongue darted out to wet her lips as the squealing grew shriller. “I think I have a stick of gum tucked away in my scabbard if you—”

  Nancy blinked. Her breath caught in the back of her throat.

  The old woman was gone.

  “Good grief,” she mumbled as her head darted back and forth. “Where did she go?”

  After a suspended moment of just standing there with her mouth agape—no doubt looking like the village idiot—she shook her head and sighed. She really should have taken that job in Anchorage.

  Straightening her back regally, Nancy dismissed the oddity of the situation from her mind and continued to walk down the dark alley. She could hear music and laughter floating out of a window a ways down, which could only mean she was almost at the old warehouse Lori had renovated for tonight’s Halloween party.

  Nancy took a deep breath as she wondered for the fiftieth time since she’d left her apartment an hour ago what everyone would think of her new look. Not the Xena costume itself, but the bodily changes that had gone along with it. During her two-month leave of absence from the law firm, she had used the time to completely transform her image.

  Gone was the schoolmarm bun she had always tightly wrapped her hair into, and in its place was a sultry mane of light brown cascading hair, which her stylist had thoughtfully added golden highlights to. Gone was the spinsterish pair of oversized spectacles that had always sat suspended on the tip of her nose, and in its place were a pair of translucent contact lenses that showed off the rich chocolate brown of her eyes.

  And, she thought with much relief, gone were those extra forty pounds of bulk. In their place was a voluptuous form that was beginning to show the first signs of muscle tone from daily exercise and sensible eating. She wasn’t sk
inny and knew she never would be, in fact she was still somewhat fleshy, but for the first time in years she looked and felt healthy.

  The Xena outfit was more than a costume to her, she realized. It was the very symbolism of the new Nancy Lombardo, a Nancy Lombardo who was no longer content to sit on the sidelines as a passive spectator while life passed her by. She was an alpha female now. A warrior woman. A warrior woman who hadn’t had sex since three presidents ago.

  Damn it!

  But that pitiful circumstance would change tonight, she reassured herself as she straightened her shoulders and walked determinedly up the back steps that would take her to the renovated warehouse loft above. Times were changing. The wallflower had died. She was a phoenix rising up from the flames of abject grief and despair. She was—

  Bah! Times were changing. Enough said.

  Nancy took a calming breath as she pushed open the warehouse doors and strolled inside. She instantly forgot about her nervousness as she glanced around, the smile on her face indicative of her festive mood. The old Stapleton warehouse looked great.

  Lori had decorated the place perfectly, the dark atmosphere and lit jack-o-lanterns scattered about setting just the right mood. Skeletons stood across the room at either side of the buffet table, grimly guarding the different sweets and appetizers that had been set out for the hungry guests. The music playing in the background had a New Age, gothic feel to it. She loved it. The old warehouse looked perfect.

  “Nancy! Is that you? Wow!”

  Nancy’s head snapped to attention as a beautiful, vivacious redhead strolled up to her side. She smiled. Janna looked great tonight dressed in a slinky little witch’s get-up that emphasized the curviness of her body. “Yep, it’s me,” she said as she grinned. “How’s life at the ad agency treating you these days?”

  Janna groaned as she rolled her eyes. “Busy. I even have to work later tonight if you can believe it.”

  “On Halloween? You’re kidding!”

  “Afraid not.”

  “You’re not staying at Lori’s party then?”

  Janna embraced her in a hug, the two friends not having seen each other during Nancy’s entire two month long absence. “I’ll be here for another hour or so, but I have to cut out early.” She sighed. “There’s a man my firm is interested in hiring on and I have to go lure him into the familial fold as it were.”

  “How exciting,” Nancy said dryly.

  “Exactly.” Janna grinned. “But enough of me—look at you! Nancy you look head to toe terrific.”

  Unused to compliments of a physical nature, Nancy found herself blushing. “Thank-you.”

  Janna patted her on the shoulder. “Go mingle while I use the little witch’s room. I’ll be right back.”

  Nancy chuckled. “Will do.”

  After Janna left her side, Nancy took her first thorough look around at the other invited guests. To her utter amazement and delight, she found more than one pair of male eyes flicking over her new form and checking her out. Flustered by the attention, and as unused to it as she was to compliments, she nervously lifted her hand to push the spectacles up the bridge of her nose only to realize halfway there that she wasn’t wearing any.

  Damn it!

  She took a deep breath. She could do this. She could mingle with the male guests and behave as natural in a social setting as any other woman would. She was more than a woman, she reminded herself. She was a warrior woman. Xena. Phoenix from the—

  Bah! She could do this. Enough said.

  Her chin going up a notch, Nancy firmly told herself that she would—right now at this very moment in time—join the party and seek out an attractive male to talk to. A simple thing to most women, perhaps, but a portent symbolism to herself.

  Strolling further into the renovated warehouse loft, the next person Nancy’s gaze clashed with was not a male’s, however, but another one of her closest female friends. She grinned at the hooker costume Erica was wearing, thinking she looked absolutely gorgeous in it. But then again, Erica looked gorgeous in anything she wore with her statuesque, blonde good looks.

  Erica’s eyes lit up as her gaze flicked up and down Nancy’s body. Nancy couldn’t be certain from across the room, but she could have sworn she’d seen Erica mouth the word “wow”. Nancy was about to approach her friend for a hug when a tall man dressed like Count Dracula appeared seemingly out of nowhere and stalked determinedly up to Erica’s side.

  Nancy blinked. Old women magically disappearing. Tall, handsome men magically appearing. What a night.

  Deciding she would wait and talk to Erica later, she smiled and waved at her friend rather than intrude on the conversation that Dracula was attempting to engage her in. Besides, she reminded herself, it was time to quit stalling and find a man to chat with. Erica would be pleased with her decision. She was always trying to set Nancy up on blind dates with various, assorted men of her acquaintance.

  Taking what felt like her millionth calming breath of the evening, Nancy adjusted her sword belt and resumed her stroll through the throng of guests. Tonight, she would get a life. Tonight, she would find a man. Tonight, she would end the bitter solitude of not having known a man’s bed since big hair had been in fashion. Tonight, she would—

  Bah! She would get some cock tonight if it killed her. Enough said.

  Bloodlust

  © Marilyn Lee, 2001. All Rights Reserved.

  Erica Kalai resisted the urge to tug at her short, tight, form-hugging dress in an effort to get it to cover more of her body. It was useless. The black dress she wore ended so far above her knees that nearly all her stocking clad thighs were exposed. There just wasn’t enough material to pull down and the dress was cut so low that any one with half an eye would have an excellent view of her breasts.

  Now, at the party, was a fine time to decide that coming as a hooker might not have been such a good idea. She was dressed as a hooker and she was there. She might as well make the best of it. She would make the best of it. It wasn’t every day a woman turned 40 and she meant to enjoy her night out.

  Still, she hated to think what the teenage girls she taught at an exclusive private school just outside Boston would say if they could see their "respectable" instructor stalking around a renovated loft in spiked heels, blatantly looking as if she were on the prowl for cock. She thought about the condoms tucked in the tiny leather bag hanging off her shoulder and was thankful for the overall dark atmosphere of the interior. Her cheeks burned. She was on the prowl for cock.

  After the breakup of her five-year marriage, she had spent so much time trying to fix up her friend Nancy that her own love life had suffered—a deliberate refusal to deal with her wariness, she knew, for she hadn’t been all that eager to get out and start meeting men again. In fact, if not for her and Nancy’s mutual friend Janna, she probably wouldn’t even have come tonight.

  She glanced around, taking a sip of the spiked apple cider. From what she could see all the men here appeared to be at least ten years her junior. She thought of the old woman she’d encountered in the alley as she arrived and tossed her head disdainfully. Love would be hers indeed. Forget love. After two years without a significant other, she would happily settle for a one-night stand with a man with a nice, stiff dick. It wouldn’t even need to be large or thick—just hard. But unless she planned to rob the cradle, she wouldn’t likely see any action tonight.

  Not that she had much about which to complain. At least she didn’t have to spend part of her Halloween night working like poor Janna. Because of the excessive hours Janna had been putting in lately, all their recent contact had been by phone.

  She glanced around. Instead of spotting her pretty red-haired friend, her eyes locked with those of a man across the length of the warehouse. Her breath caught in her throat and she found she couldn’t look away. He was tall, dark, and handsome with a capital H.

  Who was he? Where had he come from? He hadn’t stood next to the jack-o-lanterns just minutes before…

&nbs
p; No way she wouldn’t have noticed him. Not only was he dressed as her favorite anti-hero, Count Dracula, but more to the point, he stood there staring first at her exposed breasts and then into her eyes. While she was used to men staring, she’d never looked into a pair of eyes as dark or as compelling as this man’s. Nor had she ever seen a man who oozed sex appeal from every pore in his body. Even sharing his gaze from across the room caused a stirring between her legs.

  Abruptly, the man casually tossed back the cape he wore and cast a quick look down. Her gaze followed his and she sucked in a breath, her heart suddenly thumping in her chest. There, against the side of his leg, she saw the clear outline of a long, thick cock.

  She stared at it, slowly and unthinkingly licking her lips, her cunt beginning to pulse with unbridled hunger. A lonely, sex-starved woman could surely enjoy a long, lustful one-night stand with a man packing that kind of piece.

  But what was she thinking? She, who was always warning her students against the dangers of allowing teenage boys to talk them out of their clothes and into bed? She forced her gaze back to his face. He had the most sensual lips she’d ever seen on a man, she knew they would be honey sweet. And those eyes—dark and magnetic. Someone had once said the eyes were the windows to the soul. She felt as if he were trying to drain the soul from her with his gaze alone. What was more, it was working—big time.

  But she was being ridiculous. The spiked cider, the incessant beat of the music, along with the raw sensuality of the handsome stranger dressed as Dracula, all combined to help loosen her grip on reality. Okay, she’d fantasized about meeting a man as forceful and compelling as The Count since she’d first read Dracula. However, she was no longer an impressible fifteen-year-old. She had no reason to stand staring at a stranger’s cock—a young stranger at that. She might be horny, but…

  She wrenched her gaze away, looked across the room and then did a double take as she saw Janna walking away from a woman dressed as Xena. Could that be…no. It couldn’t be Nancy.