Mary grimaced at the name.
“He’ll want to know if you are awake yet and that the turn went well,” Francis said quietly as Russell slipped out of the room.
Mary nodded and then movement caught her attention, and she glanced to the bed to see that Dante was sitting up. The phone must have woken him, she realized, and smiled as she watched him wipe sleep from his eyes.
“Sleeping Beauty is awake,” Francis sang out. Getting up and smiling at Mary, he said, “I shall go wait outside with Russell while the Hulk here dresses and then we will take you for breakfast. I know you are starved.” His gaze slid over her as she stood up and he added, “Then we will take you shopping.”
“Shopping?” she asked, reluctantly tearing her gaze from Dante’s naked chest to peer at him uncertainly.
“We need to buy you clothes,” he decided and then pointed out apologetically, “Darling, you are dressed like an old woman.”
“I am an old woman,” she said with amusement.
“Yes, but you look like Barbie. We should dress you accordingly.” He grinned suddenly. “It will be such fun.”
Mary smiled faintly, thinking it might very well have been fun. Unfortunately, she didn’t have her purse, and therefore didn’t have money until she found a bank. Actually, she realized with sudden concern, even then she’d have a problem, since she had no way to prove who she was so that she could gain access to her accounts. She had no ID. Not that that would help since she no longer looked like the sixty-two-year-old woman she was.
“Stop fretting,” Francis said lightly, heading for the door. “The council will take care of everything.”
“The council?” Mary murmured with confusion, but Francis had already slipped out the door and was closing it behind him.
“The council is basically our governmental body,” Dante explained, his deep rumble sounding directly behind her.
Mary turned sharply and he immediately drew her into his arms.
“Good morning,” he growled just before his lips covered hers.
Mary sighed into his mouth and slid her arms around him as they kissed. But when he began to back toward the bed, pulling her with him, she broke the kiss and dug her heels in to stop him. “Francis and Russell are outside.”
“Good. They can stay there,” Dante muttered, his mouth moving to nuzzle her neck.
“They’re taking us to breakfast,” she breathed, tilting her head to give him better access despite her hunger.
Dante paused, then sighed and slowly straightened. “Food.”
Mary chuckled at his expression. It looked to her like he was weighing his different hungers in his mind. Food or her? She helped him out by saying, “I’m hungry.”
“So am I,” he admitted, and then muddied the water by grinding against her so that she could feel the morning erection he was sporting.
Mary moaned, and then pushed herself away from him. “Food first.”
“You are a hard woman, Mary Winslow,” he complained, turning to move back to the bed to grab up his jeans.
“I’m not the one who’s hard,” she said on a laugh and headed for the door.
“Sassy wench,” he said with affection as she slipped from the room.
Fourteen
“Did you have any trouble replacing the mattress?”
Mary glanced up from the bacon and eggs on her plate at that question from Dante and followed his gaze to Russell as the man shook his head. They were in a mom and pop restaurant up the road from the hotel. The décor wasn’t much to look at, but Francis had assured her the food was extremely good when she’d joined him and Russell in the hall back at the hotel. He’d then led her to the room next door to the one she’d woken in, and made her feed on three bags of blood in a row while they waited for Dante to dress.
Mary hadn’t thought she’d been feeling that kind of hunger at the time, but Francis had insisted it was better to be safe than sorry, especially since they were going out among mortals, and the moment he’d handed her one of the bags, her canines had dropped down into fangs. So Mary had gone through the three bags he’d handed her and even asked for a fourth when those were gone. As he’d said, better safe than sorry. The last thing Mary wanted was to find herself attacking some poor waitress or store clerk on her first outing as an immortal.
“The store manager was very accommodating,” Russell said now, drawing her attention back to the conversation. “She arranged to have the new mattress delivered right away and even had her deliverymen take away the old one.”
“Yes, and we did not even have to use mind control to get her to do that,” Francis said, then added with amusement, “After Russell gave her one of his sexy smiles, she was smitten. I think she would have dragged the mattress out herself to please him if she had not been able to get ahold of her moving men.”