He shuffled forward, too-big sneakers flopping with each step. “Miss Crowe brought her television to be repaired.” He nodded less than subtly at an off-brand 32-inch lying screen-down on the counter. I hadn’t noticed the TV. Damn it. She reallywasa customer.
“And she just wandered into the back room on her own?” I demanded as Lori—or was it Lolita?—inched forward hesitantly.
Lacey shrugged, freckled cheeks flushing. “She had to use the restroom, so I showed her the way.”
Never mind the fact that we had aniron clad“no restroom available for customers” policy. There were only two rooms in the back: the workshop and the restroom. The toilet wasn’t that hard to find, even for a busty bit of jailbait without the sense to dress for cold weather. But Lacey was burdened with that pesky Y chromosome, and she was underage sex personified. He would probably have signed over his pension plan, if she’d smiled just right.
Fortunately for all involved, he didn’t have a pension plan. Which wasmyidea.
“Um, I should go.” She swayed forward gracefully on four-inch white spiked heels, as if she were waiting for one of us to object to her departure.
I followed her gaze to Lacey just in time to see his expression change. To see it practically melt from his face, revealing…devotion. Or pure puppy-lust, if there was such a thing.
Understanding clicked into place in my hung-over, sleep-deprived brain. Lori wasn’t a child—not according to the legal, human definition, anyway. She was a succubus. A nasty, no-good, lust-sucking little parasite. And she was feeding on my only employee, who was apparently too damn dumb to realize it.
My regrettably empty hands curled into fists at my sides. “I’ll show you out,” I snapped, anger clipping my words short. Glaring at Lacey, I crossed our small office and shoved the glass door open wide enough that I wouldn’t have to touch the leach’s too-warm flesh as she passed by me into the late October chill.
“I’ll call you when I’m ready,” Lacey said, and his entire face flushed roughly the shade of her Jeep. Because that could only beherpink Jeep. “When your TV’s ready, I mean. I’ll call you!”
She shot him a bewitching smile over one shoulder, then tossed her pale, red-blond ponytail and flounced out the door.
“You know what she is, don’t you?” I asked, pulling the door closed as the strawberry tart settled into the driver’s seat of the pink Jeep. She shot me an innocent smile as she backed out of the parking spot, a scantinchfrom grazing Rusty with her side view mirror.
“A customer?” Lacey grabbed a screwdriver from the counter and headed into the workroom.
I followed him. “She’s a succubus, Lace.”
“Even succubae sometimes have broken TVs, Lex. She just came in for a repair. That’s it. She’s not dangerous.”
“The hell she isn’t.” I stopped in the doorway to the workroom. “Do you really believe that jailbait-looking parasite came here for your technical skills?”
“You’re right. She’s probably here for my raw animal sex appeal.” He spun to face me, grinning with both arms outstretched so I could get a good look at his rail-thin arms and sunken sternum. Lacey hung the screwdriver in its spot in the size-order line-up of other screwdrivers dangling from a pegboard that ran the entire length of his half of the room, above a wall-to-wall workbench. His side was flawlessly organized and clean, every tool, bottle of cleaner, and spare part in its place.
“She thinks she’s found a free meal and intends to suck you dry at the first available opportunity,” I insisted as he lifted his short, thin frame onto a stool and went back to work on the handheld radio I’d dropped last week. On average, gremlins were about the same height as goblins, but they lacked the bulky build, extraordinary physical strength, and general toughness. Like any species, individuals were unique, but generally speaking, Gremlins were highly intelligent, un-aggressive, and full of energy, which made Aaron Lacey the perfect dinner for a hungry succubus. “If I’d come in an hour later, I’d have found you on the workroom floor, bearing no obvious injuries, and no signs of life.”
He looked up from the radio, still grinning. “Is this your way of saying you love me?”
I crossed my arms over my chest as I leaned against the door jamb. “This is my way of saying I don’t have the time, energy, or patience to train another employee if you die. No piece of ass is worth risking your life over.”Trust me.
Lacey actually winked at me, the impudent little runt. “Love you too, boss.”
He thought I was being melodramatic. But I wasn’t.
Lori Crow may have looked like something from a teenage boy’s wet dream, but she was easily his worst nightmare. Succubae feed on sexual energy, on lust. If not stopped, a succubus will gorge herself until her prey is too weak to eat, drink, move, or even think. She can literally drain her victim’s life-force. The medical examiner’s report would likely blame heart failure or something equally non-specific, but the result was the same, no matter how the official words read: death.
Lacey should have known better. I’d personallytaughthim better. At least, I’d tried to. “Donotlet her back in unless I’m here,” I said as I stomped back into the front room for the envelope of cash.
“Don’t let the paying customer back in to compensate me for my time and labor,” he called from behind me. “Solid business model, boss.”
“Okay, you’re manipulating phrasing to make my perfectly valid request sound ridiculous, when it isn’t.”
Lacey looked up from the radio as I headed back into the workroom. “Is it possible—justpossible—that you’re making a snap judgement based on your own bias?”
“It is not bias—”
“I mean, I know you had a bad experience with a parasite once, but—”
“That’s not relevant,” I snapped, shutting down that line of questioning before it could dredge up any embarrassing memories. “And it isnotbias to say that parasites live by draining the lifeforce from others. That’s just fact.”
