Your Coffin or Mine? Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  I pulled a Dead End Dating card…

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Epilogue

  Read on for a tantalizing taste of Kimberly Raye’s

  Also by Kimberly Raye

  Copyright

  For Debbie Villanueva,

  for always being supportive and understanding,

  and for never, ever bitching when I drag you to the

  bookstore to buy my latest book!

  Acknowledgments

  Writing is hard work, and I couldn’t do it without the help of several key people: my wonderful editor, Charlotte Herscher, who makes me feel like I can actually write a good book; my agent, Natasha Kern, who calms me down when I’m frantic and also makes me feel like I can write a good book; my loving husband, who doesn’t mind eating take-out when I’m on a deadline; my writing buds, Nina Bangs and Gerry Bartlett, who are always supportive and eager to dish about the ins and outs of the publishing business. My heartfelt thanks to all of you!

  And many, many thanks to my readers who send notes and e-mails, and visit me on MySpace. Your encouragement means everything to me!

  I pulled a Dead End Dating card…

  I pulled a Dead End Dating card from my purse and handed it to Ash. He stuffed it into his pocket.

  “I’ll be in touch if I find anything.”

  “That, or if you get lonely.”

  A grin split his face and my heart gave a tiny little pitter-patter. “That’s the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard.”

  I tossed a major shut up! at my hormones and frowned. “I’m not trying to pick you up. I’m a matchmaker. It’s my job to help lonely men and women the world over. So,” I eyed him, “are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Lonely?”

  “No.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  “A blow-up doll named Ginger?”

  He shook his head. “You do talk a lot.”

  Love was definitely in the air.

  One

  I was being followed.

  If that wasn’t creepy enough, it was dark out, I was all alone, and I was standing in a smelly alley near Times Square.

  Talk about a Wes Craven flick.

  For me, however, it was just another day in the life of a fantabulous five-hundred-year-old (and holding) born vampire. My name? Countess Lilliana Arrabella Guinevere du Marchette, but my best buds call me Lil.

  Because of my BV heritage, I ooze sex appeal, and since it’s oozing out of a totally hot package (great body, great face, kickin’ highlights), I’ve had more than my share of stalkers. Like the rest of my kind, I attract the opposite sex en masse.

  Okay. So maybe en masse might be stretching things a teensy bit. Particularly since I haven’t had an official date in…

  Well, I can’t actually remember the last time. (Fix ups DO NOT count, Ma.) To make matters worse, I was sorta, kinda dumped recently by a megahot bounty hunter after our one and only night together (sniffle).

  But neither of those is due to a lack of hotness on my part. The Dating Deficit? My choice. No, really. I’ve given up meaningless flings in favor of finding my eternity mate, settling down, and propagating the species.

  As for the bounty hunter…I’m sure (fingers crossed) he’ll soon realize what a vampilicious babe I am and come begging my forgiveness. I, of course, will tell him—as would any female who’d been dumped with not so much as a Later scribbled on a Post-it—to go bite himself.

  At least that was the revenge fantasy I was currently tuning into. In between numero uno—I rip off all of his clothes and we make like jackrabbits—and three—he rips off all of mine and we make like jackrabbits.

  I know, right? It was one measly night. I should get a life (or an afterlife in my case) and forget all about him. And the way he kissed. And touched. And tasted.

  Yes, I’ve tasted him, too, but not during sex. I’m weak, but not that weak. The tasting occurred before the sex.

  I’d been staked and he’d been trying to help me re-coup my strength. I’d drank from him and since then we’ve had this mental connection thing going on. He can send me thoughts and vice versa.

  Not that he’s sent me anything in the past months.

  No desperate apologies. No sweet nothings. No flowers. Not even a measly IOU for a night of hot, wild, primo mattress dancing.

  All the more reason to push him completely out of my mind and get back on track, right? Right.

  So, um, where was I?

  Oh, yeah. Dark, creepy alley. My being followed. No huge deal.

  Until now.

  Wedge heels tapped the pavement behind me and thundered through my head as I rounded a corner and started down another alley. The sharp aroma of cheap hair spray mingled with generic body spray burned my nostrils. I turned and caught a glimpse of a chipped manicure clutching a tiny disposable camera before my stalker realized I was looking and ducked behind a Dumpster.

  A man I’d expected (see the long rambling above), but a woman?

  While I knew chicks got off to really hot chicks everyday (I could appreciate the latest Angelina Jolie pic as much as the next mature, sexually confident, semilonely woman), I couldn’t shake the gut feeling that there was more to this than a love-struck groupie eager to feed her own private fantasies.

  I kept staring at the Dumpster until she stole another glance at me. My gaze collided with hers for a nanosecond and her stats rolled through my head like movie credits (another perk of being a vampire is that I can look into someone’s eyes and read their mind).

  Gwen Rowley. Thirty-nine years old. Italian. Fulltime fourth-grade teacher and part-time private investigator. Divorced mother of three. Hated men. Even more, she hated her mother, who’d put her up to following a small-time matchmaker when she could have been (a) grading tomorrow’s math assignment, and then, (b) tailing her ex and his new girlfriend. They were going bowling. Gwen hated bowling, too.

  She retreated behind the massive metal monster and the connection ended before I could find out the really good stuff.

  Like who in Damien’s name was her mother and why would she want me followed?

  And, more important, had Gwen started dating again?

  FYI: In addition to being a hot, happening vampere, I’m also Manhattan’s newest primo matchmaker.

  Gwen peeked around the corner once more, camera poised, and my instincts screamed for me to shift into Super Vamp mode, make like my last client fee, and—poof—disappear.

  Fast.

  Our species, and the dozens of Others out
there, hadn’t survived thousands of years by keeping a high profile. We exercised caution and kept to ourselves and avoided cameras at all cost.

  I paused and made a show of adjusting my shoe (snakeskin Prada stiletto for the record), and gave her my best profile.

  Hey, we’re talking stiletto. As in mucho P-A-I-N. I simply had to stop and wiggle my toes.

  And ease my own conscience. What can I say? I’ve got a soft spot for potential clients. Even more, I’m a jumbo marshmallow when it comes to potential clients with bossy, overbearing mothers (DO NOT get me started).

  The camera clicked a few times. Finally, I ceased with the hamming it up and shifted into action mode. I stepped forward, my feet moving so fast that I emerged from my back alley route a half a block away, walked into the massive high-rise near the heart of Times Square, and sailed onto the elevator before Gwen had a chance to blink, much less follow.

  Did I mention that born vamps are superfast in addition to being total mind-reading hotties?

  While I wasn’t opposed to giving the woman a few pics so she didn’t go back empty-handed, I hadn’t taken a back alley route for the great scenery. The last thing—the very last thing—I needed was to be caught dead (or undead) in a place like this.

  I stepped off the elevator on the eighth floor and walked into the lobby of KNYC, a local cable network near the NBC studios. KNYC was responsible for several homegrown news programs, a handful of talk shows, and the recent reality smash Manhattan’s Most Wanted.

  MMW was a local version of The Bachelor that paired up one of the city’s most sought after males with fifty marriage-minded, crème de la crème females, and let him weed them down to The One.

  At least that was the idea. The last guy—a Wall Street financier—had narrowed his bevy of bomb-shells down to The One Who’d Taken the Rock and Hauled Ass. She’d pocketed the cash, headed for Mexico, and the financier had ended up on Dr. Phil.

  This year’s bachelor? Some heartthrob weather guy at one of the local stations. Since I don’t really watch much television (except Date My Mom and I Love New York, both purely for research), I couldn’t say exactly which one. But being a super-intuitive vampere, I didn’t have to see him to know the really important stuff. Namely, he actually had a job and decent looks, otherwise he’d be telling fortunes on Coney Island instead of on television.

  Inside the lobby of the station, plush gold carpeting cushioned my stance and eased the pressure on my tootsies. Pale yellow walls decorated with gold Art Deco mirrors surrounded me. Cinnamon-colored leather chairs traced the perimeter. Several tables overflowed with magazines. A man stood near a glass doorway marked STUDIO A, a headset hooked around his neck and a clipboard in his hands.

  The only man in a room that otherwise overflowed with single, successful, smart, attractive, desperate women.

  Talk about a target-rich environment.

  I’d taken on several vamps and weres over the past few months, but Others were much harder to pair up than your average human. For vamps, there was too much emphasis on Orgasm Quotients (the number of times a female vamp sang “Oh Happy Day” during any one sexual encounter) and Fertility Ratings (a little digit that reflected how likely a male was to hit a bulls-eye when it came to procreation). Likewise, weres were obsessed with alpha males and lunar cycles. Since I’m an equal opportunity matchmaker with enough credit card bills to make the national deficit look like chump change, I’d decided to take the easy route and beef up my human client list.

  I smiled, reached into my leather Prada clutch for a stack of business cards, and stepped toward the first cluster of females.

  I was just about to slide a card into an attractive woman’s hand—twenty-five, nurse, fed up with losers with great big egos and tiny penises—when I heard the deep, familiar voice.

  “Help me.”

  Two

  My entire body went rigid and my heart paused mid-beat. (Yep, I’ve got one and it keeps time like everyone else’s.) If I wasn’t a vampire with a royal heritage to uphold and a Christian Dior skirt and jacket to keep wrinkle-free, I would have fainted dead away.

  It couldn’t be…Ty?

  It wasn’t, I realized a few frantic heartbeats later when I heard the voice again. Higher pitched this time, and not nearly as stirring.

  “I could use some help here. I think my boobs are crooked.”

  My heart started beating again and I turned to see the female who’d come up behind me.

  She (and I use the term loosely) had long, flowing red hair. She wore a pale beige lip gloss (MAC Spring Sunset) and a faint shimmer of bronzing blush. My attention shifted downward, over a clingy crimson dress, shapely calves, to a pair of strappy red suede high heels.

  Not bad.

  I might have bought the whole XX act if I hadn’t been gifted with the deluxe benefits package that comes with my kind at birth.

  Super-hearing? Check.

  Night vision? Check.

  Mind-reading ability? Check.

  Unsurpassed beauty? Check, check.

  Big brown eyes rimmed with kohl collided with mine.

  John Schumacker. Forty-two years old. Insurance adjuster. Divorced. No children. Wife had an affair. But not because John had driven her to it or anything like that. So what if he’d worked a lot of hours? He’d wanted to give her nice things. He hadn’t been desperate to avoid intimate contact because of a certain erectile dysfunction and even if he had, it was no big deal. Men the world over had the same problem. He was just a little fast on the draw, that was all. Nothing major. Certainly not enough to send Melba running into the arms of some Latino lover named Julio with a big bank account and an even bigger—

  I tore my gaze away and concentrated on his perfectly lined mouth. Gender aside, the man knew how to use a lip pencil.

  “What do you think?” The question came out soft and breathy, as if he were doing his best to convince me that he was more Jane than John. He wiggled his shoulders as if to adjust an uncomfortable bra strap.

  “I think you need a personal shopper.”

  “What?” He glanced down. “I bought this off the mannequin at Macy’s just yesterday. It’s the latest for this season. And it all matches.”

  “The dress is great. But it’s a dress.”

  “So?” He frowned at me. “A chick can’t have a nice dress or what?”

  “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not a chick.”

  His gaze narrowed. “I’m one hundred percent, prime, Grade A chick. I’m chick to the bone. I’m—”

  “Chicks don’t say chicks,” I cut in. “When I refer to one of my same sex sistahs, I say woman. Or lady. Maybe the occasional you dumb bee-yotch. Chick is a guy term. Like broad or hot mama. The shoes are a nice touch, though.” I hadn’t read cross-dresser in his mental repertoire and I couldn’t help but wonder. “Enzo Angiolini?”

  “What?”

  Cross-dresser my ass. “Enzo is a who, not a what, and you are definitely NOT a chick.” I eyed him, my gaze sweeping him from head to toe—oooh, nice pedicure—and back up. “You’re not even close.”

  “Am, too.” Panic chased desperation across his face and I suddenly felt like the IRS agent given the lucky task of auditing Mother Teresa.

  “Come with me,” I said before I could stop myself. “I grabbed his hand. When he didn’t budge, I exerted a little vamp strength and hauled him along after me.

  “Come on, lady,” he muttered, his voice deeper now. “Don’t turn me in. I’m just trying to make a living.” He tried to dig in his heels but only succeeded in stumbling after me. His voice lowered a notch. “I’m undercover, okay? I’m working an insurance fraud case. See that blonde over there?”

  I stopped. My head swiveled to a group of women. All blond.

  “The tall one. Blue dress. Nice legs. She’s currently collecting a check for a debilitating back injury.”

  “She looks all right to me.”

  “Exactly.” His voice lowered as if he were about to tell me something
I didn’t know. “She’s lying.”

  “You think?”

  He nodded. “She’s milking the insurance company. I’ve been following her for two weeks now.”

  I glanced at her shoes. Three-inch pumps. “So what are you waiting for? Take her down.” If the height wasn’t cause for an arrest, the fact that they were white and we weren’t even close to Memorial Day would have been reason enough.

  “I can’t. Yes, the shoes are a direct violation of her doctor’s orders, but it isn’t enough ammunition to hold up in court. She’s just standing there. She hasn’t really done anything. Yet. But if she sets one foot on the dance floor, goes waterskiing, bungee jumping, or any of the other crap they do on those group dates, her butt is mine. That’s why you can’t blow the whistle on me. I’m tailing her.” He held up a maroon clutch purse. “And I’m getting it all on tape.”

  “Won’t it be on tape anyway because the show is being taped?”

  “If she makes it that far. But what if she doesn’t? She might not make it past the applicant phase, and I need to crack this case regardless. I’m filming everything in the meantime. My promotion is riding on it.”

  A promotion he desperately needed since his wife had taken him to the cleaners and he was now living in a one-room efficiency eating SpaghettiOs every night.

  My chest hitched.

  Excitement, I told myself. Divorced? Lonely? Smacked of potential client to me. I certainly didn’t care that he was divorced and lonely.

  All right, already. So maybe I cared a little. Have you ever smelled a can of SpaghettiOs?

  “Come.” I hauled him through the glass doors and out into the hallway.

  “Wait.” His voice fell several octaves as he struggled to keep up. “Stop. Please don’t do this, lady. You can’t blow the whistle on me. I need this. I need—”

  “—a better bra,” I finished for him as I jerked him into the ladies’ room.

  The door rocked shut behind us. I leaned over and checked to make sure the stalls were empty before I turned back to him.

  “My best piece of advice: underwire. Otherwise, you’re liable to lose the stuffing. What’s in there anyway?” I stepped back and eyed the uneven lumps.