Mummy Dearest: The XOXO Files, Book 1 Read online

  “That’s just Lionel,” Noah said indifferently. “Christ knows he can be tactless.”

  “He’s not the only one. Maybe you can take a casual attitude about the fact that he’s openly undermining my professional credibility, but I can’t, and the fact that you’re having dinner with him is…hurtful.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Drew. You’re being childish. I’m not going to cut myself off from my old friends and colleagues because you’re insecure and jealous.”

  “I’ve never asked you to. And if I am insecure and jealous, it might have to do with the fact that the minute I go out of town without you, Lionel’s inviting you over for dinner.”

  “I’m not going to discuss this any further.”

  “Do you deny that Lionel would like to get back together with you?”

  “Drew, you’re being ridiculous. We’ll talk about this when you get home.”

  I told myself to let it go. He was right. Now was not the time to get into this.

  My heart was pounding so hard I felt sick as I said, “You know, Noah, in the space of a two-minute conversation you’ve called me ridiculous three times. Also insecure, childish and jealous.”

  Noah said tartly, “That, beautiful boy, is because you’re behaving ridiculously. Now I’m going to have my dinner and I’ll talk to you tomorrow evening.”

  “Don’t hang up on me, Noah.”

  “Goodbye, Drew.”

  My voice shook, but I made myself say the words. “Noah, if you hang up on me now, it really is over.”

  He clicked off.

  I listened to the dial tone. Lowered the phone and stared at the screen. He hadn’t hesitated. Not even for a second. Not a single thing I’d said had made the least impression on him. Not even the threat to end our relationship.

  Speaking of which…had we really just broken up? Had I actually ended our relationship? Ended the relationship with my lover?

  My lover and my department chair.

  The elevator doors opened. I stepped out. The elevator doors closed. I couldn’t think of where to go or what to do next.

  A long, moss-green, upholstered stool sat beneath a rectangular mirror in the elevator foyer. I lowered myself to it and stared out the window opposite. A single plane winged slowly across the October night like a slow-moving star. I watched it until it moved out of sight beyond the window frame.

  I felt numb. Cold and numb.

  Of course it didn’t have to be over. If Noah had heard me, he hadn’t taken my threat seriously.

  Which was strange—because I’d meant it.

  Cautiously, I contemplated that revelation. I’d meant it at the moment, but did I really mean it? Did I really want to break up with Noah? I still loved him. Didn’t I? And despite the fact that he was having dinner with Lionel, I believed he still loved me. He did, didn’t he?

  I didn’t believe he and Lionel were doing the wild thang on Lionel’s Dutch Colonial divan. For one thing, neither of their backs would survive it.

  Although who the hell knew? They’d been together for fifteen years before Lionel had blown it all to hell by having an affair with his teaching assistant.

  No. No. No. It really wasn’t that I thought Noah was going to screw around on me. At least, I didn’t think it was, but it seemed wrong, disloyal—given the things Lionel had said about me—for him to spend the evening there. Or was I being as ridiculous as Noah thought? Ridiculous…and all the rest of it.

  I had been sure three minutes earlier. Now I wasn’t.

  The elevator doors slid open. Fraser stood there smearing his bottom lip with ChapStick. At the sight of me his face lightened. He dropped the ChapStick into his jeans pocket and stepped out of the elevator.

  “Hey there. Waiting for a bus?”

  “What?”

  “Waiting for a—” He broke off, brows knitting. “Is something wrong?”

  I shook my head.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked at my cell, which I was still holding loosely clasped in my hands. “Did you get some bad news?”

  My own bitterness surprised me. “I think so.”

  He hesitated. “Did you want to talk about it?”

  I stared up at him. Did I?

  Yes. Suddenly I did want to talk about it—I needed to talk about it—and the fact that Fraser didn’t know either me or Noah made it easy. Made it all the better.

  I said, “Is that dinner offer still open?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  I stood up.

  “Do you have a jacket or something?”

  “A jacket?” I repeated.

  “It’s pretty chilly out.”

  “Are we going out?”

  “You don’t want to eat here in the hotel, do you? We’re more than likely to run into some of my crew.”

  Sensible thought. While I felt the need to talk, I wasn’t looking for an actual audience. Just one pair of sympathetic ears.

  “I’ve got a jacket in my room.”

  He followed me down the hallway. I unlocked my room, pushed the door open and we went inside.

  The door swung heavily shut behind us. Darkness fell over us like a warm blanket. I felt intensely aware of Fraser’s silent, shadowy presence beside me. Too aware. I fumbled for the light switch.

  Light sprang on, illuminating the generic furniture and red-and-black-plaid bedspreads. I stared at Fraser, he gazed steadily back at me, and suddenly we were in each other’s arms. I couldn’t swear as to who made the first move. I think it was me. Full-body slam.

  I couldn’t get my belt unbuckled or my jeans unzipped fast enough. My hands were shaking, I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath and that my balls were in knots. Fraser’s arms locked around me, hugging me tight and further impeding my attempts to get my pants down.

  His face bumped into mine and his mouth latched on. I hadn’t been thinking in terms of kisses. That seemed something that belonged to another time, place, relationship, but the softness of his lips and beard—contrasting with his considerable hunger—robbed me of protest.

  And then I didn’t want to protest. I think it was the ChapStick that did it; he tasted like ChapStick and Jack Daniels. That reminder of human vulnerability got to me in a way that polished experience wouldn’t have. Not that he had lied about the experience. This was a man who knew his job, but underneath his bravado was something I totally understood. Instead of insecurity making Fraser mean and greedy, he was generous. He kissed me with such sweetness it was almost unbearable. And he kept kissing me, giving me barely time to breathe, let alone think.

  Then his tongue pushed against mine and I jumped. No tongues was one of Noah’s rules. We used to joke about it, referring to Elizabeth’s line in Young Frankenstein, but Noah really didn’t like French kissing.

  Feeling my recoil, Fraser mumbled, “Sorry” against my mouth.

  I shook my head and thrust my tongue back against his, because I did like it. I felt Fraser’s surprise and then his tongue thrust discreetly back. We threw discretion to the winds and used our tongues to search and explore. Yes, I liked it. I liked the taste of Fraser, and I liked the feel of his rough, wet tongue dipping deep into my mouth, even as I tried to tangle my tongue with his, I liked his erratic breaths mingling with my own, I liked the feel of his hands on my body.

  He kept making a deep “Mmm” sound like I tasted delicious, as though he was savoring me, and as distracting as it should have been, it turned me on all the more.

  He pushed me back against the wall, and that little bit of roughness was even more exciting. For a second or two we leaned against each other, breathing hard, and I wondered what he’d do next, and if I would go along with it or not. I felt unusually receptive to the idea of pretty much anything—up to and including being fucked.

  The idea should have shocked, but it didn’t, which was maybe testimony to the skill of those kisses.

  His heart was hammering harder than my own. I could feel it against my c
hest. It was endearing somehow that this was a big deal for him, and it was. I could tell by the way he touched me, helping me get my jeans open and down, my briefs over my rigid cock without doing me harm.

  Ready and waiting, my cock bobbed up so that it nearly tapped my stomach.

  “Well hello there,” Fraser greeted it seductively, and I nearly choked on a laugh.

  I sobered when he slipped down to his knees, fingertips grazing my ribs, flanks, as he settled between my legs. I swallowed hard, looking down at the top of his head. His fair hair gleamed in the lamplight, soft and springy as a child’s.

  He began to lap at me, tasting and teasing, his tongue rasping pleasurably warm on fragile skin and delicate muscle. Everywhere he touched, my skin seemed to flare into life. I closed my eyes, let my head fall back against the wall, giving in to it, giving in to all that delicious sensation. Fraser buried his head in my crotch, kissing the thin skin over the femoral artery, nuzzling me.

  I reached down, fingering his hair, and it was so soft. I stroked him. The words to encourage him were lodged in my throat, and if they tore loose I was afraid I’d embarrass myself completely, so I settled for patting him.

  His mouth closed over the head of my cock and he began to suck me. I made a stifled noise, just managing to stop the unholy cry that nearly tore out of me. I felt almost sick with the excitement and tension. Dear God. My balls throbbed at the incredible sensation of pushing against the back of Fraser’s throat, that hard, dragging suction combined of lips and cheeks and throat and just a hint of teeth. How was he doing that? And his tongue…that tongue was going to drive me to shrieking insanity, pleasure so exquisite it was actually painful.

  Talk about technique. But I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to feel. He was giving me so much to feel: a groundswell building, building, beginning to whip itself in a great rhythmic lashing whirlpool of a serpent’s tail. Swirling faster and faster, and then my hips bucked and it surged up and over. I was coming. Splashing sea spume everywhere, coming so hard and for so long you’d have thought I’d been celibate for weeks, months. A tidal wave of a climax.

  In the wake of it, as Fraser rose, holding me in his arms, I thought dizzily, we should have undressed all the way…

  That was the last coherent thought I had for a while. After a bit I noticed we were lying on the bed, both of us in a considerable state of disarray. Fraser was smiling down at me. He looked happy and relaxed, amazingly so for a guy who hadn’t come himself.

  Uncomfortably, I thought about this generosity, and I began to wonder what he’d want in return. I had a pretty good idea. I’d been all right with the possibility when we’d first started ripping our clothes off, but now I wasn’t so sure. That wasn’t fair, of course, but it was the truth. In fact, I was wondering what the hell had got into me.

  Or, more precisely, what I had got into.

  Fraser ran a gentle finger down my profile.

  God oh God oh God. I’d just had unprotected sex with a stranger.

  Okay, true, the danger would have been Fraser’s, and as such it was nonexistent, but the danger wasn’t the point. The point was that I’d had a fight with Noah and I’d raced off to have sex with the first stranger I could find.

  Except…I hadn’t had a fight with Noah. I’d ended our relationship.

  Except I couldn’t really have ended it. Noah didn’t even know I’d ended it. And I wasn’t ready to end it. Was I? After laboring so hard for two years to try and make it work.

  Laboring. That wasn’t exactly a good sign. That our relationship had felt like labor so much of the time. It had been good between us. Lots of times it had been good. Lots of times it had been easy and loving and…

  And I had never felt as cherished as I had two minutes ago being sucked off by Fraser Fortune. Oh, Noah was an expert lover. He knew exactly the things to do to give me pleasure—make me weak with pleasure. And I knew everything he liked and expected. We had it down to a science. But in two years Noah had never lavished such tenderness and attention and affection…

  “Was it that bad?” Fraser asked, aghast.

  “No, no.” I wiped hastily at the wet spilling over my cheeks. “It was…the best. Seriously.” I managed a smile. “You weren’t exaggerating.”

  He couldn’t help looking a little smug, his confidence bouncing right back, though his eyes were still concerned. “You want to tell me about it now?”

  I laughed shakily. “I don’t know. Isn’t that how we got into this mess?”

  Fraser chuckled. “True. Very true.” He reached out and brushed his thumb against my cheekbone, curiously examining the tear that glistened there. “Anyway, not such a mess, is it?”

  “Isn’t it?” I wiped my eyes again. I glanced past his shoulder and froze. I’d left the curtains open about two feet. And neither Fraser nor I had given them a second thought. Anyone standing in the pool yard would have a perfect, if narrow, view of the inside of my room. And someone was standing in the pool yard. In fact, they were standing on the fenced patio right outside my room, peering in through the glass door.

  As disturbing as that was…it got worse.

  I gawked at the figure staring in at us. I couldn’t be seeing what I thought I was seeing. But there it was. A tall, white form swathed in bandages from head to foot. I couldn’t tell if it had a mouth, but the eyes were glowing red.

  A mummy was watching us through the glass door.

  Chapter Five

  “Uhhhhh…” I gargled, my gaze fixed on the pale figure still hovering outside the door.

  “A what?” Fraser asked, smiling down at me.

  “There’s someone watching us.”

  “What?” Fraser was up and off the bed in one leap. “Hey!” He ran to the glass door, struggling with the locks.

  The white figure scrambled noisily over the wooden fence and sprinted away. I heard the pound of feet down the courtyard, the muffled, iron clang of the gate just as Fraser wrenched open the door to the patio, nearly throwing it off its track.

  I had to stop to drag my jeans back on before I could follow him outside. By then Fraser was down at the end of the courtyard. His shadow smacked the gate and then cradled its hand, cursing quietly, which I took to mean our Peeping Ptah had escaped unscathed.

  I gazed uneasily up at the wall of lit and unlit windows overlooking the swimming pool. Nobody home? If they were, they weren’t paying us any attention. I glanced around the empty yard. The scattered towels had been picked up, the chairs and tables tidied. The underwater lights illuminated the white cement belly of the empty pool, the pale, glimmering steps. It appeared unearthly in the dark night, like the watery entry chamber into another world. The courtyard itself was silent.

  “The son of a bitch got away,” Fraser called, loping back my way.

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “The parking lot.”

  “Did he drive off?”

  He huffed a laugh. “What, in his monster mobile?”

  “I mean if he’s still there—”

  “He ran across the parking lot and I lost sight of him behind the McDonald’s.” Fraser followed me through the little gate in the fence around the patio. “That was weird.”

  “I’ll say.” Inside the hotel room, I shivered, rubbing my goose-bump-covered arms. Wyoming in October was not exactly balmy. Thirty degrees was more like it. “Did you get a good look at him?”

  Fraser’s cheeks were flushed with the cold and his sprint down the courtyard. “That mummy costume? Yeah. Freaky.”

  “You should have seen him from the front. His eyes were glowing red.”

  “Or hers.”

  Our eyes met. “No way,” I said. “Not if you’re suggesting that was Merneith.”

  “You have to admit this is a little out of the way for the average trick-or-treater.”

  “That was no woman. He was too big for one thing. For another, did you watch him vault the patio fence?”

  “This isn’
t much of a fence. Karen or Jeannie could do it. My granny could do it.”

  “Hold on. You’re not seriously suggesting—”

  “No.” Fraser flashed me a dazzling smile. “It would make a great story, but no.”

  “Good, because among other things, the princess isn’t wrapped up in swaddling, and her remains are about a third the size of that monster. That mummy was vintage Universal Studios.”

  I was reminded of the bogus inscription on the princess’s sarcophagus. Coincidence? It had to be, right?

  “I know. That was my thought too.” Fraser seemed remarkably cheerful about the whole incident. I, on the other hand, still felt seriously creeped out. How long had that weirdo been watching us? “I’m guessing our segment on the princess is pretty big news around here. Someone was probably trying to get in on the act.”

  “Except this isn’t your room. It’s mine.”

  He considered that. “Well, then someone probably heard you’re doing an article on the princess and same deal.”

  “But what’s the point?”

  “The point?”

  “How can someone ‘get in on the act’ of an article in Archeology magazine?”

  “I don’t know. What’s your theory?”

  “I don’t have a theory.” I began buttoning my shirt again. “I just think it’s weird.”

  He chuckled. “You think that was weird?” His face fell as he registered what I was doing. “You’re getting dressed?”

  I nodded.

  He hazarded, “You’re upset about what happened?”

  I tucked my shirt inside my jeans. “You could say that.”

  “Which part are you upset about? The BJ or the mummy watching me blow you?”

  I groaned and put my hands over my face. “God. Don’t.”

  “Well, jeez.” Fraser sounded astonished. “What are you getting so worked up about? You think the mummy’s going to go tell your boyfriend?”

  I lowered my hands. “Could you just not say anything else?”

  “All night?”

  “All…night?” I stared at him blankly.

  “We’re still going to dinner, aren’t we?”