The drive to the nearby Transylvania Hotel was passed with conversations highlighting the plan of action for tracking the Meduse and destroying it, but emotions were running high. Pulling up to the building, Sam observed its austere beauty. Located at Transylvania Ave. 6-5000, the exclusive hotel had been built for the sole purpose of catering to vampires and shapeshifters. There were no windows in the rooms from floors one to seven, and every room was fitted with an elaborate coffin. Inside the mini-bars were bottles of blood. And mirrors where everywhere. (In spite of vampire lore, the undead could not only be seen in mirrors, they gloried in their good looks. After dying and coming back as one of the Nosferatu, a human's looks were enhanced. An ugly person could become pretty; a pretty person could become a Helen of Troy.)
From floors eight on up, the Transylvania Hotel had installed large windows with ornate wrought iron balconies, completely caged in but providing the much beloved view of the sky—a necessity for any self-respecting shapeshifter. Heavy steel doors led in and out of each room, which werewolves or other more violent shapeshifter species couldn't break or claw through. Bouncing balls, old shoes and live mice were provided for entertainment.
Inside the elegant hotel, Nic firmly took Sam's arm. Eyeing the others with a look of stern warning to stay put, he turned back to Sam, holding her firmly. "I'll escort you to your room. We're on the same floor."
Glancing at the others' expressions, Sam could tell she wasn't going to get any help from them. Saying a gruff good night, she reluctantly allowed Nic to lead her to the elevator doors.
Stopping at the lift, he glanced down at her, his expression intense. "I've wanted to be alone with you. No interference. We didn't get a chance to talk on the jet since you almost broke your neck sitting by Ripley. And at the Barrington brownstone, there didn't seem to be an appropriate moment."
"So, you've decided to strong arm me?" she asked pettishly. "Subtlety must not be your specialty."
Tapping her foot, Sam wished the elevator would hurry up and arrive, because she needed to get away from Nic before her control slipped. She couldn't let him know how much he affected her.
"Come on, Sam. Give me a break."
"Give you a break?" she asked in outrage. "Nuts! I knew you were no good for a woman when I first laid eyes on you. I really knew you were no good when you seduced me in three days. I'm not easy!"
Nic studied her flashing blue eyes, and crossed his arms on his chest. "Your point?"
"I'm not finished yet, buster!" She had barely stepped up to the plate and already she was swinging. "I really, really knew you were no good for a woman when you let me experience your expertise. Finally, I recognized you for the hardheaded heartbreaker that you are when you added me as just another notch on your bedpost and left without a word! You ditched me, plain and simple. Despicable."
"I was going to call, Sam, but things got in the way," Nic said, hiding the anger that was burgeoning deep within him. Women didn't criticize him; they made love to him.
Nic didn't even know why he cared what Sam thought of him. Yet he did. Each time he saw her, the ache in his groin increased and his possessive nature wanted to take her in front of God, the bellboys and any other creature in the vicinity. She drove him crazy faster than anyone he knew, and made him so mad that he wanted to walk off into the sunset, never to return—but only if she came with him.
"Ha! You guys are all alike. You never call after a one-night stand," Sam argued heatedly. Then, realizing what she had implied, she frowned, adding too quickly for Nic to get a word in edgewise: "Of course, if a man called after a one-nighter then technically it wouldn't be a one-nighter, but a one-night stand with a little extra. Not much better, but still something. Something you didn't do."
"This is all hypothetical bull and beside the point. We were discussing you and me. You weren't a one-night stand Sam—never that."
"No? You didn't write, call or come by. I'd say that really clinches it. You know something, Nic, you made me feel on top of the whole supernatural world when you made love to me. Then you made me feel like the Queen of Dunces by letting me know just how little I meant to you. You made me feel used and sleazy, and no one does that."
"What can I do to make it up to you?"
Tapping her foot impatiently, Sam complained, "This has got to be the slowest elevator since the dawn of time. Think you can manage to get it to open?"
Nic was frankly thankful for the elevator's slow descent; he needed all the help he could get, even from simple machinery. "I never meant for you to feel stupid. And I love it that I made you feel special."
Poking a finger into his chest, she retorted hotly, "Liar! I know what you're thinking. You think you can sweet-talk me and I'll cave like a Jell-O mold. Well, Mr. Big Shot Strakhov, I know what I know, because of what I know. I also knew what you thought, but you were way off base about what I thought. Think! You're the equivalent of Russian rat poison to a woman like me. I demand respect. I deserve it! I'm nobody's plaything. I'm not something to pick up when you're horny and then shove back in the corner when you want to get on with your regular life."
The elevator doors finally clanged open. "Now shove off, Petroff, Pete—or is it Nic or Nicolas? Just what in the hell am I supposed to call you?" Sam taunted.
She stepped inside the gold gilt elevator, but Nic followed, not wanting to be left standing outside with his hat in hand. Punching floor nine, he turned back to his red-faced quarry.
"Call me anything, anytime, Sam, and I'll come. Or just whistle."
Shaking her head, she replied in a clipped tone, "That line is a cliché. Go bother some other unsuspecting sap and stay out of my hair."
"If I'm annoying you now, you're really going to get annoyed shortly, because I can't leave you alone. I wish to God I could, but I can't. You're like a fever in my brain—and call me Nic," he finished, his voice lowering at the end. Logically he knew she had every right to feel betrayed and angered by his actions, but enough was enough. Why couldn't she accept his apology and go back to the way things had been at the castle, particularly in bed? This was new territory for him, and he was finding himself up in the air on how to deal with this Bustin' temptress with her bad temper. "I know you have every right to be angry, but—"
Sam interrupted snidely, ignoring the warm spicy scent of him in the closed quarters. She could also feel the heat waves coming off his body, burning in more ways than one. "Give the guy a gold star!"
Nic reached and pulled her into his arms. He would kiss some sense into her. Or at least he would try.
Leery of his quick moves, and of the feelings his kiss might engender, like making the earth move, Sam put up her dukes. "You try it and I'll pop you right in the old kisser."
Dropping his arms, Nic sighed. "I remember. You have a mean right hook."
Sam nodded. "Tell me, Nic, how does a guy like you get to be a guy like you? You talk a good talk, but you're all hot air."
Nic hit the emergency button, halting the elevator on eight. He leaned in close, his breath on her neck. "Oh, honey, I'm a lot more than hot air and you know it."
"Ha! Since I've known you, you've sabotaged my company, lied to me, pretended to be someone else, left after a night of wild, hot, wonderful sex with not so much as a good-bye—a night I thought was extremely erotic and rare. I thought you did too. But you fooled me so completely that you should go to Hollywood, because the role you played that night was Oscar material."
Placing his arms on either side of her shoulders, he pinned her, glaring daggers. "I had a damn good reason at the time, or at least I thought I did. I believed you'd sabotaged my company, and now I've apologized like a man. Take the apology like a woman!"
Sam blinked twice. His words made her angrier, but his nearness was confusing her with his virile sex appeal. He made her feel like she was flying, like her feet were eighty feet off the ground.
Her Uncle Myles had once told her it took a big man to apologize, that she should always accept. The problem was, her heart, pride and femininity had been wounded. The least Nic could do was beg, crawl on his hands and knees.
Shoving hard at his chest, she shook her head. "You're just horny and you think I'm easy."
"Oh, come on, Sam! Be fair. There's nothing easy about you."
Reaching behind her, she fumbled until she felt the switch and hit the emergency button, releasing it. Nic stepped back.
"I started to call you a dozen times. I had my fingers on the phone, but I thought you were the enemy."
"And you only sleep with the enemy once, is that it?"
"Not in your case," Nic answered savagely. He was irritated, sad and going to go to bed alone tonight. One look at her face showed no miracle was headed his way, either.
"Sam, I care about you. Even when I thought you were my enemy. It made me angry at myself, but I couldn't help it. I care for you, and believe me, I don't say that too often. I also want you. I want you desperately, like a starving man hungers for a bite of food."
Nic's intensity was too much for her, and she had to look down at the elevator floor. Her body ached from needing his body joined with her own. Foolishly she wanted him like a drowning woman wants a lifesaver; he was everything male, magnificent and macho. He had rung her bells over and over that night they had made love, until all she could do was almost faint from the pleasure. She'd floated away on the clouds of the most earth-shaking orgasms she had ever experienced. Still, her sanity and self-respect were hanging in the balance, making her aware that it was time to downplay all the sex stuff going on in the cramped space. "Look, Nic, I never discuss love on an elevator."
Dragging his hands through his hair, he cursed in Russian. The elevator doors slid open with a ding.
"Saved by the bell," Sam said. Leaping out of the elevator, she hurried down the hall to her room.
Nic followed like a dog after a very tasty bone, talking to the back of her head. "You'll forgive me, Sam. You're just as hot for me as I am for you!"
Inserting her card into her door, she muttered loudly, "You can apologize up, down and sideways. You can apologize until the cows come home, but mad is mad. And that's me right now."
Shoving the door open, she quickly reached into her purse, pulled out two quarters and threw them at Nic. "Now go call somebody who gives a damn." And with those words, she slammed the door in his startled face.