A Million Kisses or More Read online

  He shook his head, a smile still on his lips, “I’m content with my life as it is now.”

  “Well, I’m glad,” she said, nudging his arm with her shoulder. As they reached the top of the stairs, she pointed to the right and gave his hand a little tug, “She’s in the guest room over here.”

  “Right.”

  Stopping outside of the open door, she looked up at him. “You know, I don’t mind watching her tomorrow. I figure we can get some work done on her costume and you can get some sleep.”

  “Please say yes,” Jolie’s voice came from the bed, making both of them chuckle.

  “I shouldn’t take advantage of you like this….”

  “Oh, I can imagine plenty of ways for you to take advantage of me,” she said under her breath, her eyes sparkling with wickedness. Her words made his semi-hard cock stand all the way at attention and he had to shift slightly to ease the increased size. At her knowing smile, she leaned in and whispered, “But watching Jolie isn’t one of them. I don’t have to work this weekend and I wouldn’t mind the company.”

  Trying to reconcile her words with the intent in her eyes, he said, “At least let me pay you.”

  “In kisses?” The hopeful note in her voice in addition to the ridiculous makeup on her face made him grin, though it did nothing to ease his erection.

  “In kisses,” he agreed with only the slightest hesitation. He wanted her and they were only kisses….

  “A million kisses?”

  “Or more,” he said, his smile fading as he realized he wasn’t teasing. He was entirely serious about kissing her and he thanked god that she wasn’t eighteen. Swallowing down his lust, he rasped, “I’m going to say goodnight to my daughter.”

  “I’ll give you a moment,” Ana murmured, though she didn’t move away. Staring at his lips as her own lips parted, she seemed to forget what she was doing. Shaking her head, she lifted her eyes and looked up at him, “I’ll wash off my lipstick so you can give me a kiss good night as well.”

  Jolie’s giggle made Ana jump away from him and made him shake his head in wry humor. Taking a moment to get his unruly body back under control, he watched Ana slip into the bathroom. As soon as the door shut, he turned and headed into the guest room, sitting down on the edge of the bed. His daughter still had that blinding smile on her face but at least the makeup was gone and she looked like his little girl again. Brushing her silky hair off her forehead, he murmured, “I’m glad you had fun tonight.”

  “I love Ana,” Jolie blurted, her child’s honesty startling and oddly appropriate. “She doesn’t treat me like I’m a baby.”

  “You’re not a baby,” he told her. “You’re my little girl.”

  “She doesn’t treat me like a little girl either,” Jolie continued, an enormous yawn making her words slur a little. “She treats me like a real person.”

  He bit his lips to keep from laughing but he did understand what she meant. Pressing a kiss against her forehead, he whispered, “Get some sleep, princess.”

  “I will.”

  She was practically asleep before he left the room, a piece of his heart staying behind. Looking up, he saw Ana standing in the doorway of the bathroom, her arms crossed beneath her luscious breasts, a soft look in her eyes as she stared at him. Her face was scrubbed clean and she looked fresh and wholesome and so damn tempting it made his teeth hurt.

  Before he could think better of it, he closed the distance between them. He curled one hand around the back of her skull and wrapped his other arm around her waist. In the next moment, his lips were on hers and he kissed her. Hell, this was more than a kiss, it was a claiming and he felt her body melt as she willingly surrendered.

  Knowing he would be damned if he touched her anywhere else, he left his hands where they were, tightening his hold as his resolve faltered. Her scent was intoxicating, she was intoxicating, and as her lips parted on a soft gasp, he took advantage of the opening and slid his tongue inside, tasting her sweetness from within. Heat rushed through his body, making his cock harden to the point of pain. He wanted her more than his next breath but the pressure of having his gun belt digging into his waist reminded him that he was still on duty.

  But then she curled her fingers into the front of his shirt and molded herself against his body and he was lost, or very nearly so. Damn it, he was still on duty! Pulling away from the temptation of her lips, he rested his forehead against hers, willing his body to calm down and release her. It was pointless as he continued to hold her in his arms, unable to let her go.

  “I have to go,” he panted, barely able to catch his breath.

  “You’re always leaving,” she whispered, resting most of her weight against him.

  “You’re always tempting me to stay.” Brushing his thumb over her swollen, lower lip, his cock twitched as a shudder worked its way through his body. If he didn’t have to get back to work, he’d strip her naked and carry her off to the nearest bedroom. But his daughter was just down the hall and no matter how tempting Ana was, he didn’t feel right fucking a woman while Jolie was in the same house. He was going to have to work out the logistics of having a relationship with Ana while being a responsible father.

  Heaving a sigh of disappointment, she released her grip on him and took a step back. “It’s probably not a good idea with Jolie right down the hall.”

  Again, it was as if she had read his mind. Instead of disagreeing with her, he started down the stairs and realized he hadn’t seen the cat, who was notorious for wrapping himself around a person’s legs. “Where’s Angelico?”

  She looked up at him and he had to remind himself that he was still working and his break was over. But her lips were still swollen and glistening from his kiss and her tender skin along her throat was slightly chaffed from his stubble. As he drank in the sight of her, she started to laugh and he remembered he had just asked about the cat. “The poor demon cat didn’t like the bows we attached to his collar. I’m sure he’ll show up once I go to sleep. He likes sleeping on my feet.”

  He smiled as he stepped outside. Nodding towards the door, he murmured, “Lock your door, Ana.”

  “I will.” At his look of doubt, she added, “I promise.”

  Chapter 6

  Over the next two weeks, Ana spent quite a bit of time with Jolie since she offered to babysit the little girl while Harrison worked as long as it didn’t coincide with her work hours. Though he was willing to kiss her, he kept offering to pay her but she refused. It just didn’t feel right accepting money from him when she got to hang out with his amazing daughter. Unfortunately, she didn’t get to spend a lot of time kissing him because she barely got to see him for more than a few stolen moments here and there. His schedule at work was insane but he promised that after Halloween, he’d have more time. She knew that it was only a matter of days before they slept together, though she doubted there’d be any sleeping involved. Once she ended up in Harrison’s bed, she wasn’t going to waste a single moment.

  During one of her evenings with Jolie, Ana was able to do a light plaster molding of Jolie’s face so she could make prosthetics for the zombie costume. They had discussed just how gory Jolie wanted to be and just how gory the school permitted. Since the school was pretty anti-gore, they decided to dress her up as a princess for the day and as soon as she got home, they were going to transform her into a zombie. Ana had found a perfect dress for zombie Jolie at a second hand store, which she proceeded to rip up and stain with a blood-like substance. It was a nice, oversized dress and Jolie would be able to wear warm clothes underneath so she wouldn’t freeze.

  Since Harrison had donated two of his shirts for the whole zombie process, Ana had taken the second shirt and made a pillow out of it. Oh, she knew it was slightly creepy and stalker-ish but it was going to be her memento of her time with him. She even discovered what scent he used… well, he didn’t use colognes or anything. But he did use soap and she bought some so she could keep her Harrison pillow smelling like Harrison.
>
  Yeah, creepy and stalker-ish.

  Ana was going to be doing the opposite of Jolie, dressing up in all of her zombie gory first and then toning it down for her shift at the restaurant. Since she had it on good authority that some of the cops were going to be showing up when they got off work, including a certain, gorgeous author, she was going to dress in one of those ridiculous “sexy zombie” costumes. As if a zombie could ever be sexy. It went against all of her inclinations to do a domesticated zombie but in order to tempt Harrison, she’d do it.

  After Ana had gotten her makeup kit set up and everything was good to go, the doorbell rang. With a huge grin, she let Jolie in, giving the little girl a hug as had become their customary greeting. “Hey, Jelly Bean.”

  “Hi, Ana,” Jolie returned, taking off her jacket and dropping her backpack. She looked like a little princess in her fancy pink dress that Harrison probably spent way too much money on. Her deceptively elaborate-looking hairdo that Ana had styled that morning was still in place but the tiara was slightly askew. Jolie tilted her head back and truly looked at Ana, her eyes widening in her head, “Why aren’t you ready yet?”

  Ana chuckled, “Because it’s a lot harder to do makeup when one’s a zombie. Don’t worry, Jelly Bean, it won’t take me too long to get my makeup on once you’re done.”

  Jolie digested that for a moment before she nodded, “Okay.”

  Leading the little girl to the work station she had set up in the kitchen, she asked, “Are you ready to be zombie-fied?”

  “I want to make daddy scream,” Jolie said with unholy glee, though Ana doubted there was anything that would make Harrison scream. He just didn’t seem the screaming sort.

  “I’ll try,” Ana said. Handing Jolie her first layer of clothes, a red turtleneck and a pair of leggings that looked like muscles, she said, “Why don’t you run upstairs and get changed into the under layer and then we’ll get started. But hurry because we have lots to do before we head out.”

  Humming to herself as Jolie changed, she went over her makeup one last time, though she knew it all by heart. It had been ages since she had gotten the chance to go wild with makeup. Working with the theater guys, she had been limited to what was needed for any particular play or musical and she didn’t really have a lot of close friends to turn into zombies. Even if she did, Halloween only came once a year and the friends she did have preferred slutty cats or slutty witches to zombies.

  “What are you humming?” Jolie asked from the doorway.

  “A lullaby my mom used to sing to me when I was a little girl,” she answered, grinning when she saw the way Jolie swam in the clothes, the way her muscled leggings sagged. Patting the chair, she asked, “Ready?”

  With a beaming smile, Jolie leapt onto the chair and nodded her head, “Very.”

  Since Jolie’s hair was already up, Ana went to work applying the latex pieces to the young girl’s face. Since there was a large mirror, Jolie would be able to watch the entire process and ask any questions that might pop into her head. While she worked, Ana continued to hum, loving the process of turning a beautiful little girl into a horrifying monster; loving how Jolie watched in awe as she made the transformation. As she worked, they discussed zombies, from how they would survive a zombie apocalypse to whether fast zombies were better than slow zombies. Jolie had a surprisingly vivid game plan in place in the event of such an occurrence and it was apparent she spent a lot of time with Dan discussing it.

  Once finished, Ana smiled, pleased with the results. It looked like half of Jolie’s face had been torn off exposing the muscle and bone beneath. The flap of skin brushed against her artfully shredded throat and the little girl looked beyond gruesome. Jolie also had a dangling eyeball and a “hole” where her eye used to be. Of course, Ana created it so Jolie would be able to see but no one would be able to see her actual eye. It was going to be even more impressive in the dark. Holding up a mirror for Jolie, Ana asked, “So, what do you think?”

  Tilting her head from side to side, Jolie was quiet for a long time and Ana worried that perhaps she had gone too far. But then Jolie’s lips curved into a brilliant smile and she beamed, tickled pink with the effect. “I love it. Uncle Dan is going to be so jealous.”

  Ana grinned because the little girl appreciated gore as much as she did. When it was her turn to get ready, Jolie asked to watch and of course, Ana agreed. Before she put any makeup on, though, Ana put in a pair of watery, yellow contacts to add to the zombie look. It was her least favorite part of doing transformative makeup but the result was worth it.

  “Do you think that I could wear contacts, too?” Jolie asked softly, awe in her voice.

  “No, sweetheart, not until you’re older,” Ana murmured, blinking back the tears from the second contact. For the next hour, Jolie sat transfixed as Ana turned herself into a zombie. Since she had to work that night, her makeup was mostly prosthetics, blended with makeup to appear natural. It was a pain in the ass to apply but it came off easily and that was what mattered.

  When she was finished, she looked like she had been dead for a few weeks, her flesh rotting and falling off. Because she was wearing a heavy sweatshirt and long underwear beneath her clothes, she looked like a bloated corpse, which she used to her advantage. Beneath the tears in her shirt and pants, she had created torn flesh and bone that was absolutely disgusting. She had also decided to go with a ratted up wig so it would be easier to fix her hair later on for work. Looking in the mirror at the horrific pair that stared back, they did almost resemble sisters. Or a mother-daughter zombie duo.

  Holding out her hand, Ana smiled down at Jolie, “Ready, Jelly Bean?”

  “Yes,” Jolie grinned, the smile garish as she stretched her rotted lips and exposed her bloody teeth.

  They made their way across the street after Ana locked up, picturing a stern Harrison giving her grief for not locking her door. Not bothering to knock on Harrison’s door, she used the key he had given her and the two of them went in. Jolie was struggling not to giggle since she was determined to scare the living shit out of her father. Ana, on the other hand, wasn’t sure that was the best plan. Pressing her hand against her roiling stomach, she debated whether or not she should call out and give Harrison some warning about what was coming. But it didn’t matter because he wasn’t sleeping when they got to his bedroom. In fact, he wasn’t even in his bedroom.

  “He must be in the office,” Jolie whispered, stepping out of Harrison’s room and dragging Ana with her. Ana wouldn’t have minded staying a few more minutes because his bed was unmade and it looked like he had tossed and turned a lot. She almost missed Jolie as she added, “Sometimes he wakes up early and gets some writing in.”

  “Uh huh,” Ana murmured, still dwelling on the unmade bed but, more importantly, on a naked Harrison in the unmade bed.

  The office was the next room over, the room that Harrison had been in when she had thrown the book at him. So, he really hadn’t been sleeping, not that it mattered anymore. She had made more than enough brownies and other goodies to make up for that altercation, not to mention the kisses they had shared.

  This time, Ana insisted on Jolie knocking before they entered, not willing to give Harrison a heart attack. She didn’t know why she bothered when there was no answer other than the steady clicking of fingers on the keyboard as he typed away. Briefly, she wondered what had inspired him to wake up in the middle of his sleep cycle and start writing to the point where he didn’t even hear the door.

  Slowly, she pushed the door open and her breath caught in her throat as she saw the intensity on his face as he worked. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and if she hadn’t been dressed as a zombie and Jolie wasn’t standing right there, she would have gone in there and just watched him work. How long would it take before he noticed her sitting there? How much time would it take if she was wearing some frilly piece of nothing? God, she could have watched him work for hours, especially knowing he was working on the next Justice novel. She wanted to loo
k inside of his brain and see how his mind worked

  “Daddy?” Jolie asked softly, obviously hesitant to disturb him while he wrote.

  His head shot up and he gasped as he flew out of his chair so fast, he knocked it over. Once he realized who they were, he straightened the chair and then straightened his desk. He tried to act nonchalant even though his pulse was pounding along his throat. Pressing a hand against his chest, he looked at Jolie and shuddered, “Holy crap, you scared the living daylights out of me, zombie child. What have you done with my daughter?”

  “Daddy!” Jolie laughed. Doing a slow pirouette, she asked, “So, what do you think?”

  Ana was too busy staring at his chest, the naked expanse of taut flesh and well-honed muscle and light dusting of hair, to hear what he said. In the weeks since the first and last time she had seen his torso, he had become even more mouth-watering. How was it possible? If she weren’t careful, she’d start drooling, though that might add some verisimilitude to the whole zombie thing she was rocking.

  “Ana used spray paint on my face!” Jolie said, making Ana wince.

  “It’s not actually spray paint,” she clarified in the off chance Harrison thought it was. Rambling on, she tore her gaze away from his tempting pectorals and tried to explain, “It’s a makeup technique called airbrushing that a lot of makeup artists use, especially for movies and magazine photos. It does a better job blending everything together, which is useful when you’re turning an eight year old into a zombie.”

  Slowly, he turned his head and looked at her, his lips pursing in response to her makeup lesson. Or maybe it was in response to how she looked. “You’ve done an amazing job, Ana. You’ve also completely pulled me out of my writing zone.”

  Her eyes widened as far as they could with the makeup on, “If it’s any consolation, you look incredibly hot while you are writing. I’m totally crushing on you right now.”