"Mmm. Your hair smells good."

"Umm, gee, thanks, Bob." Lissianna Argeneau peered around the dark parking lot they were crossing, relieved to see they were alone. "But do you think you could get your hand off my ass?"

"Dwayne."

'"What?" She glanced up into his handsome face with confusion.

"My name is Dwayne," he explained with a grin.

"Oh." She sighed. "Well, Dwayne, can you get your hand off my ass?"

"I thought you liked me." His hand stayed firmly planted on her left butt cheek, squeezing in an altogether-too-friendly manner.

Resisting the urge to club him over the head and drag him into the bushes like the Neanderthal he was, she forced a smile. "I do, but let's wait till we get to your car to--"

"Oh. Yeah. My car," he interrupted. "About that..."

Lissianna stopped walking to peer up into his face, her eyes narrowing suspiciously on the discomfort that suddenly flickered across his expression. "What?"

"I don't have a car," Dwayne admitted.

Lissianna blinked, her brain slow to accept this news. Everyone over the age of twenty owned a car in Canada. Well, practically everyone. Okay, perhaps that was an exaggeration, but most single males of dating age had wheels. It was like an unwritten law or something.

Before she could comment, Dwayne added, "I thought you'd have one."

It sounded almost like an accusation, Lissianna noted and scowled. In some ways, the women's movement really hadn't done them any favors. There had been a day when he, as the man, would have had the vehicle or taken on the responsibility of finding them a place to be alone without a second thought. Now he was looking displeased, as if she'd let him down somehow by not having a car.

"I have a car," she found herself saying defensively. "But I rode here tonight with my cousin."

"The chick with pink hair?"

"No. That's my friend, Mirabeau. Thomas drove," Lissianna answered absently as she considered the problem. He had no car and Thomas had locked up the Jeep when they'd arrived. She supposed she could go back into the bar, find Thomas and borrow his keys; but really, Lissianna didn't want to use his Jeep for--

"Well, that's all right. I don't mind the great outdoors."

Lissianna blinked her thoughts away with a start as he grasped her by the hips and drew her against him. She instinctively leaned away, putting some space between their upper bodies, but that did nothing to stop their lower bodies from meshing. It was suddenly clear that the idea of the great outdoors really didn't bother Dwayne. If anything, the hardness pressing against her suggested that the idea excited him. He was obviously an excitable guy,

Lissianna decided. She herself didn't see the attraction of the great outdoors, at least not during a Canadian winter.

"Come on." Releasing her hips, Dwayne grabbed her hand and hurried her to the back of the parking lot. It wasn't until he was dragging her behind the large metal garbage bins in the back corner of the lot that she realized his intentions.

Lissianna bit back a sarcastic comment about his romantic nature and decided to just be grateful that it was early winter. While they hadn't had their first snow, it was cold enough that there was no odor from the rotting food in the large metal containers.

"This is good." Dwayne urged her back against the cold metal of a bin and crowded up against her.

Lissianna sighed inwardly, wishing she'd not left her coat inside. She was more immune to the cold than the average person, but not completely. The cold metal at her back was leaching heat out of her, forcing her body to work harder to stay warm. Hungry and dehydrated as she was, the last thing she needed at the moment was for her body to have to work harder.

The sudden sloppy assault of his mouth on hers forced Lissianna's thoughts to the matter at hand and convinced her it was time to take control of the situation. Ignoring the probing poke of his tongue at her closed lips, she caught her fingers in the front of his jacket and turned, slamming him up against the bin a little harder than she'd meant to as she traded places with him.

"Whoa," he chuckled, eyes brightening. "A wild woman."

"Like that, do you?" Lissianna asked dryly. "Then you're gonna love this."

Releasing his coat, she raked one hand into the hair at the back of his skull and caught him by the short strands there. Jerking his head sideways, she moved her mouth to his neck.

Dwayne murmured with pleasure as she ran her lips lightly along the line of his jugular vein. Once she'd found the best spot for her purposes, Lissianna opened her mouth, breathed in through her nose as her canines slid out to their full, sharp length, then sank them into his neck.

Dwayne released a little gasp and went stiff, his arms tightening around her, but that only lasted for the briefest of moments. He soon began to relax against the cold bin as Lissianna sent him the sensations she was experiencing; the satisfaction as blood coursed up through her teeth and straight into her system, the dizzy rush as her system moved eagerly to absorb this offering.

The only description she could have given to explain that initial reaction, was the off-kilter list of a boat when everyone on board rushed to one side of the deck, making it tilt in the water. Lissianna's body had the same reaction as her hungry blood rushed to absorb the new blood, racing from every part of her body toward her head, where her teeth were sucking in what her body so desperately needed. It caused a not-unpleasant head rush. She imagined it was similar to what people experienced when they took a drug. Only this wasn't a drug, it was life to Lissianna.

She heard Dwayne give a small moan of pleasure. It echoed the silent one she was experiencing as the cramping in her body slowly began to ease.

Too slowly, Lissianna suddenly realized. Something was wrong.

Keeping her teeth deep in his neck, she began to sift his mind. It didn't take her long to find the problem. Dwayne wasn't the healthy specimen he seemed to be. In fact, very little about him was as it appeared. From his thoughts she learned that the bulge pressing against her lower stomach was a cucumber he'd shoved down his pants, his broad shoulders were a result of padding under his jacket, and the attractive tan he sported came from a bottle. It was meant to hide the natural pallor caused by... anemia.

Lissianna jerked her mouth away with a curse, her teeth quickly sliding back to their resting position as she glared at him. It was instinct alone that made her slip into his thoughts to rearrange his memories. She was so angry at the man...

And Mirabeau, too, she decided. After all, it had been at her friend's insistence that she'd brought the fellow out for a quick bite. Knowing her mother would have something lined up for her, Lissianna had wanted to wait until reaching her birthday party to feed, but Mirabeau--and cousin Jeanne--had worried that her pallor would lead Marguerite Argeneau to put her on an intravenous the moment she arrived at the house.

When Dwayne had started to hit on her, Lissianna had allowed Mirabeau to persuade her to bring him out for a quick bite. And now she might have a problem. It had taken her several moments to realize there was something wrong, then a couple more minutes to find the information that he was anemic. She only hoped she hadn't taken too much blood from him in that time.

Finished with his memory, Lissianna eyed Dwayne with equal parts irritation and concern. Despite his bottled tan, the man looked pale, but at least he was still on his feet. Putting her hand to his wrist, she took his pulse and relaxed a little. While a bit accelerated, it was strong. He should be fine by tomorrow morning. Dwayne wouldn't feel well for a while, though, but then, it was lit-tie more than he deserved for running around all padded and cucumbered to snare a girl. Idiot.

People could be such fools, she thought with irritation. Like children playing dress up and pretending they were older than they really were, adults now ran around padded, corseted, or siliconed to be something they really weren't, or to be what they thought was attractive. And it got worse all the time. She wondered why they didn't understand that their true selves were good enough, and if they weren't, then the someones they weren't good enough for were really the ones not good enough.

Lissianna put the thought in Dwayne's mind that he'd come out for some air because he hadn't felt well. She made sure to instruct him to stay there until he felt better, then to take a taxi home, then had him close his eyes as she completed wiping herself from his memory. Once assured she'd done the job properly, Lissianna left him swaying where he stood and walked back around the bins to the parking lot.

"Lissi?" A figure crossed the dark lot toward her.

"Father Joseph." Eyebrows rising, Lissianna changed direction to meet the elderly man. The priest was her boss at the shelter where she worked the night shift. Bars were not usually his sort of hangout. "What are you doing here?"

"Bill said there was a new kid on the streets. He doesn't think the boy's more than twelve or thirteen and is pretty sure he's been eating out of the garbage bins back here. I thought I'd see if I could find him and convince him to come to the shelter."

"Oh." Lissianna glanced around the lot. Bill was one of the regulars down at the shelter. He often pointed them toward people who might need their help. If he said there was a new kid on the streets, then there was. Bill was de-pendable about such things. And Father Joseph was equally dependable about going out in search of such strays in the hopes of getting to them before they did something desperate or stupid, or got dragged into drugs or prostitution.

"I'll help," Lissianna offered. "He's probably around here somewhere. I--"

"No, no. This is your night off," Father Joseph said, then frowned. "Besides, you aren't wearing a coat. What are you doing out here without a coat?"

"Oh." Lissianna's gaze slid to the garbage bins as a thump sounded behind them. A quick probe of Dwayne's thoughts told her that he'd thumped his head against the bin as he leaned against it. Idiot. She turned back to find Father Joseph peering toward the containers and spoke quickly to distract him. "I forgot something in my cousin's car."

It was a bald-faced lie, and Lissianna sincerely hoped the man hadn't noticed where exactly she'd come from, but would think she'd been in the little black Mazda parked beside the bins. Not wanting to lie any more than necessary, she rubbed her arms, and added, "Gosh you're right though, it is cold out here."

"Yes." He peered at her with concern. "You'd best go back inside."

Nodding, Lissianna wished him good night and made her escape. She hurried across the parking lot, then around the corner of the bar, only slowing once she stepped inside the loud and crowded bar.

Thomas was nowhere in sight, but--thanks to the fuchsia-tinted tips of her ebony hair--Lissianna didn't have any trouble spotting Mirabeau at the bar with Jeanne.

"Well, you look..." Mirabeau hesitated as Lissianna reached them, then finally finished with, "the same. What happened?"

"Anemic." She spat the word with annoyance.

"But he looked so healthy," Jeanne protested.

"Padded shoulders and bottled tan," she said. "And that's not all."

"What else could there be?" Mira asked dryly.

Lissianna grimaced. "He had a cucumber down his pants."

Jeanne gave a disbelieving giggle, but Mirabeau groaned, and said, "It must have been a seedless English cucumber, the man looked huge."

Lissianna gaped. "You looked?"

"You didn't?" she countered.

Jeanne burst out laughing, but Lissianna just shook her head and glanced around the bar. "Where's Thomas?"

"Here."

She spun around as his hand settled on her shoulder.

"Did I hear you right? Was your Romeo sporting a cucumber down his pants?" he asked with amusement, giving her shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

Lissianna nodded with disgust. "Can you imagine?"

Thomas gave a laugh. "Actually, the sad fact is I can. First women padded their bras, now men pad their boxers." He shook his head. "What a world."

Lissianna found a reluctant smile tugging at her lips at his expression, then gave in and allowed her irritation to drop away. She wasn't really upset that Dwayne had sported a cucumber; she hadn't been interested in what was in his boxers anyway. Hell, she hadn't even really wanted to take him out for a bite. She was just annoyed at the waste of time and the fact that she'd used up more en-ergy staying warm out there than the man's weak blood had supplied. She was even hungrier than she'd been before going outside. All the outing had managed to do was whet her appetite.

"How long until we can go to Mom's?" she asked hopefully. Her cousins and Mirabeau had decided to take her out dancing before heading to the birthday party her mother was having for her. Lissianna had been pleased with the idea at the time, but that was when she'd only been hungry. Now she was ravenous and eager to get to the party and whatever offering her mother would have on hand. She'd even accept an intravenous at that point, which was saying something. Lissianna hated being fed intravenously.

"It's only a little after nine," Mirabeau announced, with a glance at her wrist watch. "Marguerite said we weren't to bring you to the party until ten."

"Hmm." Lissianna's mouth twisted with displeasure. "Do any of you know why the party starts so late?"

"Aunt Marguerite said she had to pick up something for you in the city before the party, and couldn't do it until after 9 p.m.," Thomas offered. "Then, she has to drive back too, so--" He shrugged. "--no party till ten."

"She must be picking up your gift," Mirabeau guessed.

"I don't think so," Thomas said. "She mentioned something about Lissianna and feeding. I suspect she's picking up a special dessert or something."

"A special dessert?" Jeanne asked with interest. "In the city? After nine?" Her gaze slid to Lissianna full of excitement as she suggested, "A Sweet Tooth?"

"It must be," Lissianna agreed, grinning at the prospect. She'd inherited her mother's love of sweets and nothing satisfied it like a Sweet Tooth, which was how they re ferred to undiagnosed diabetics who ran around with dangerously high blood sugar levels. It was a rare treat, made rarer by the fact that afterward they always put the thought in the person's mind to call his doctor and arrange to have a blood test, thus removing one more Sweet Tooth from the menu.

"That could be it," Thomas commented. "It would explain Aunt Marguerite's willingness to drive around downtown Toronto. She hates city driving and generally avoids it like the plague."

"If she drove," Mirabeau commented. "She could have had Bastien send one of the company cars out to chauffeur her around."

Thomas shook his head at the mention of Lissianna's brother, the head of Argeneau Enterprises. "Nope. She was driving herself and not happy about it."

Lissianna shifted impatiently, and asked, "So, how long till we can go?"

Thomas hesitated. "Well, it is Friday night, and the traffic might be bad, with everyone trying to escape the city for the weekend," he said thoughtfully. "I'm guessing we could go in another fifteen minutes and not risk being too early."

"How about if we leave now and you drive slowly?" Lissianna suggested.

"That boring, are we?" he asked with amusement.

"Not you. This place. It's like a meat market," Lissianna wrinkled her nose.

"Okay, brat." Thomas ruffled her hair affectionately. He was four years older and more like an older brother than her own brothers were, but then they'd been raised together. "Let's head out. I'll do my best to drive slowly."

"Yeah, right," Jeanne Louise said with a snort. "Like that will ever happen."

Lissianna smiled as they collected their coats and headed for the exit. Thomas was a bit of a speed demon, and she knew Jeanne Louise was right. She had no doubt they'd arrive early and annoy her mother. It was a chance she was willing to take.

Lissianna had forgotten all about Father Joseph when she'd suggested leaving, but there was no sign of him as they walked to Thomas's Jeep. He'd either given up, or taken his search elsewhere. Her next thought was for Dwayne, and Lissianna glanced toward the bins as Thomas drove by them, her gaze searching the shadows for his seated figure, but there was no sign of him either. He'd left, too. She was a bit surprised at his quick recovery, but then shrugged the matter aside. He wasn't lying unconscious in the middle of the parking lot, so had obviously managed to find a taxi home.

Traffic wasn't bad after all. It was late enough that they'd missed the worst of it and made good time getting to her mother's home on the outskirts of Toronto. Too good.

"We're half an hour early," Jeanne Louise said from the backseat as Thomas parked the Jeep behind Marguerite's little red sports car.

"Yeah." He glanced at the house and shrugged. "She'll be okay with it."

Jeanne Louise snorted. "You mean she'll be okay with it as soon as you give her your charming grin. You always could get around Aunt Marguerite."

"Why do you think I liked hanging out with Thomas when we were younger?" Lissianna asked with amusement.

"Oh. I see!" Thomas laughed as they got out of the vehicle. "So the truth is out. You only like me for my way with your mother."

"Well, you didn't actually think it was that I liked hanging out with you, did you?" Lissianna teased, as he walked around to her side.

"Brat." He gave her hair a tug as he joined her.

"Isn't that your brother Bastien's car?" Mirabeau asked as she climbed out from behind the front passenger seat and slammed the Jeep door closed.

Lissianna glanced toward the dark Mercedes and nodded. "Looks like it."

"I wonder if anyone else is here." Jeanne Louise murmured.

Lissianna shrugged. "I don't see any other cars. But I suppose Bastien could have arranged for a couple of the company cars to pick up and drop off people."

"If he did, I doubt anyone has arrived yet," Mirabeau said, as they started toward the front door. "You know it isn't fashionable to show up to these things on time. Only unfashionable geeks arrive on time."

"I guess that makes us unfashionable geeks," Lissianna commented.

"Nah. We're just trendsetters," Thomas announced, and they all chuckled.

Bastien opened the front door as they approached. "I thought I heard a car."

"Bastien, du-ude!" Thomas greeted loudly, then immediately stepped up to give him a hug that had the older man stiffening in surprise. "How's it hanging, dude?"

Lissianna bit her lip to keep from laughing and glanced toward Jeanne Louise and Mirabeau, then quickly away as she saw that they were also having difficulty controlling their expressions at the sudden change in Thomas. He'd gone from being just your average guy to a space cadet, in the passing of a heartbeat.

"Yes... Well... Thomas. Hello." Bastien managed to disengage himself from his exuberant younger cousin. As usual, he looked uncomfortable and not entirely sure how to handle the younger man. It was why Thomas acted that way, he knew that both her older brothers--at over four hundred and six hundred--tended to look down on him as a young pup, and it never ceased to annoy him. Being thought of as little more than a child at over two hundred years old could be terribly annoying, and so he acted like an ass around them. It never failed to make the older men uncomfortable and--Lissianna suspected--gave Thomas an advantage. Her brothers were forever underestimating Thomas because of their prejudices.

Suffering the same prejudice herself, Lissianna could sympathize with Thomas. She also never failed to enjoy watching her older brothers squirm with discomfort.

"So, where's the party, dude?" Thomas asked brightly.

"It has not started yet," Bastien said. "You're the first to arrive."

"No dude, you were the first to arrive," Thomas corrected him cheerfully, then confided, "You don't know how relieved that makes me. 'Cause if we'd been first, Mirabeau said we would have been unfashionable geeks. But we weren't. You were."

Lissianna coughed to cover the snort of laughter that managed to escape her as her brother recognized that he'd just been called an unfashionable geek. When she regained control of herself it was to find Bastien standing stiff and straight and appearing a tad annoyed. She took pity on him, and asked, "So, where's Mom? And are we allowed to enter, or are we to wait out here for another fifteen minutes?"

"Oh, no. Come in." Bastien stepped quickly to the side. "I just got here myself, and Mother went up to change for the party after letting me in. She should be down in a few minutes. Maybe you should wait in the games room until she comes down. She might not want you to see the decorations until everyone's here."

"Okay," Lissianna said agreeably, stepping past him into the entry.

"Want to play a game of pool, dude?" Thomas asked cheerfully as he followed Lissianna into the house.

"Oh... er... No. Thank you, Thomas, I have to watch for early arrivals until Mother is ready." Bastien backed away along the hall as he spoke. "I'll tell her you're here."

"He loves me," Thomas said with amusement, as Bastien disappeared from the hall, then he opened his arms to shepherd them toward the closed door on the right of the hall. "Come along. Let's go play. Anyone up for a game of pool?"

"I'll play," Mirabeau said, then added, "Lissi, you have a run in your stockings."

"What?" Lissianna paused and peered down at her legs.

"Back right," Mirabeau said, and she twisted to look at the back of her right leg.

"I must have got it caught on something on the garbage bin," Lissianna muttered with disgust as she spotted the long, wide ladder up the back of her right calf.

"Garbage bin?" Thomas echoed with interest.

"Don't ask," she said dryly, then made an irritated tsk and straightened. "I'll have to go change my stockings before the party starts. Fortunately, Mom insisted I leave spare clothes here in my old room when I moved out. I should have a couple pairs of stockings. You guys go ahead and play."

"Hurry back," Thomas called, as she jogged lightly up the stairs.

Lissianna merely waved over her shoulder as she reached the landing and started along the hall toward her bedroom, but she was thinking it was good advice. Marguerite Argeneau wasn't going to be pleased that they'd arrived early, but Thomas would quickly cajole her out of any irritation she might initially be feeling. For that reason alone, it would be better to be with Thomas and the others when she met up with her mother.

"Coward," Lissianna berated herself. She was over two hundred years old and well past the age where she should worry about upsetting her mother.

"Yeah right," Lissianna muttered, acknowledging that she would probably still worry about it when she was six hundred. All she had to do was look at her brothers to know that. They were independent, self-sufficient and... well... just plain old and still worried about pleasing or displeasing Marguerite Argeneau.

"It must be a family thing," she decided as she opened the door to the room that had been hers until recently, and where she still occasionally slept when she stayed too late to make it home before sunrise. Lissianna started into the room, but her steps halted, her eyes widening in surprise at the sight of the man on the bed.

"Oh, sorry, wrong room," she muttered, and drew the door closed again.

Lissianna then simply stood in the hall staring blankly around as she realized she hadn't accidentally entered the wrong room. This was her old bedroom. She'd spent several decades sleeping there and knew her own room when she saw it. She just didn't know why there was a man in it. Or, more importantly, why he was tied spread-eagled on the bed.

Lissianna considered the matter for a moment. Her mother would not have taken in a boarder, and if she had, she certainly wouldn't have done so without mentioning it to her children. Nor would she have put him in Lis sianna's old room, a room she still used on those rare occasions she stayed. Besides, the fact that he was tied down on the bed rather belied the possibility of his being a willing guest.

As did the bow around his neck, Lissianna thought as she recalled the cheery red splotch of color that had been half-crushed by his chin as he'd struggled to look at her.

It was the bow that finally had her relaxing as she realized he must be the special surprise her mother had driven into the city for. The Sweet Tooth Jeanne Louise had suggested. Though, Lissianna thought, the man in her bed had looked healthy enough, but then, you couldn't always tell until you got close enough to smell the sweetness an untreated diabetic exuded.

In effect, the fellow was a walking birthday cake. And a yummy-looking one at that, she decided, recalling his dark good looks. His eyes had been piercing and intelligent, his nose straight, his chin strong... and his body had been rather nice, too. He'd appeared long and lean and muscular, stretched out on the bed.

Of course, after her experience with Dwayne, Lissianna was aware there might be some padding under the jacket he wore. She hadn't looked for cucumbers, but the man hadn't been sporting a tan, bottled or otherwise, yet hadn't looked anemic, but then her mother wasn't likely to make the mistake Lissianna had earlier. Marguerite would have made sure he was exactly what she wanted to give her daughter, and Lissianna was thinking that Jeanne Louise was probably right, and he was an untreated diabetic. Nothing else made much sense. Her mother would hardly drive all the way into town for just a standard healthy individual when she could have ordered a pizza and handed Lissianna the delivery boy, which is what she usually did.

So, he was a sweet to eat, she reasoned, and felt hunger gnaw at her stomach. Lissianna wouldn't have minded a nibble right then. Just a little taste to tide her over until her mother actually gave him to her. She quickly killed that thought. Even Thomas wouldn't be able to cajole her mother out of her bad mood if Lissianna pulled a stunt like that. So, walking back in there and biting him was out, but she still needed to fetch fresh stockings.

While Lissianna knew she should probably just return to the games room without them, it seemed to her that-- as the surprise was already spoiled--it was silly to run around in ruined stockings all night. She was here, and it would only take a moment to grab a fresh pair from those she'd left behind for just such an emergency.