TOMMASO, Book #2, Immortal Matchmakers, Inc. Series (Standalone)
SOMETIMES, HOT MEN CAN BE REAL MONSTERS…
Release Date: May 24th, 2016
Self-Published
From New York Times Bestseller Mimi Jean Pamfiloff…
TOMMASO, Book #2, Immortal Matchmakers, Inc. Series (Standalone)
SOMETIMES, HOT MEN CAN BE REAL MONSTERS…
Tommaso Fierro is used to the finer things in life—nice suits, nice car, nice house. Okay, his past isn’t so nice, but that’s in the past. Or at least it was until he blacked out after meeting the woman of his dreams.
Annnd possibly capturing her.
Annnd possibly terrorizing her before she got away.
Annnd discovering that he’s turning into a horrible creature he loathes with all his heart.
Luckily, there’s a cure. Unluckily, it will require him to track this woman down and convince her to give him a second chance. But if he finds her, will she ever believe that he’s really not a monster?
Seven days to go from lethal immortal assassin to Prince Charming? Not likely.
Demigod Andrus Gray may look like every woman’s dream, but when it comes to charm, he sees no point pretending: He has none and makes no apologies for it. Behaving nicely hasn’t made him the deadly assassin he is today. But is that really the reason he’s still single?
The Goddess Cimil—owner of Immortal Matchmakers, Inc.—thinks yes. So when she foresees a mate in Andrus’s near future, she’s determined to make the match happen. That means hiring aspiring actress Sadie Townsend to help the barbarian “act” a little more civilized.
But are seven days really enough? And why does the idea of seeing Sadie everyday excite him more than meeting his mate?
EXCERPT
PROLOGUE
Lying in bed, I sifted through the darkness with my tired eyes, in search of the strange noise coming from…
Holy crap! It’s above me!
The dark figure came into focus, and I let out a yelp that should’ve been a terror-filled scream. What in the name of fuck is that? I thought, feeling my entire body turn ice cold with fear.
In the yellow light of my alarm clock, I saw the monster’s face hovering over mine, its eyes pits of glowing crimson swirling with black.
Oh shit. Oh shit. What is that? I opened my mouth to finally deliver that scream, but the beast quickly slapped its sickly hand over my lips to muffle the noise.
Oh, God. Help me. He smelled like death and evil. He smelled like desolation and despair—everything bad in this world mixed together.
Knowing I was about to die, I felt my eyes begin to tear.
“Please,” I mumbled through the gaps in its sticky fingers, the unmistakable smell of dried blood filling my nostrils. “Please don’t kill me.”
Slowly, it dipped its head, allowing me to see its face up close.
Christ. He’s human. Or something humanlike, resembling a man covered in black soot and the stench of death.
“Please, I’m begging you—just let me go,” I whimpered.
The man slid his hand from my mouth, studying me. Then there was a flash of something I didn’t expect in their depths: fear.
“Save. Me,” he mumbled in a deep gargle. “Please…save…me…”
What the…? I was the one who needed saving!
“I think it’s the oth-other way around,” I stuttered and then reached for the reading lamp to my side and swung. He stopped it inches from his face, and an icy rage replaced any semblance of kinder, gentler emotions.
He roared and then grabbed me by the hair, dragging me from my bed.
“Let go!” I yelled, and he did. He tossed me to the floor as if I were completely weightless.
Oh, God. He was so strong.
I yelled for help, but no one was coming. I lived alone out in the middle of the desert.
Looking pleased by my fear, he reached into the waistband of whatever he wore as clothing and drew a buck knife or machete or something one might use to murder an innocent twenty-six-year-old golf instructor who lived ten miles outside of Palm Springs, liked to binge on crunchy food, and owned two Jeeps, a cat that hated her, and four rescue chickens. Yeah. It was that kind of knife. A really, really big fucking knife.
“Oh, God. Please no. Please…I’m sorry,” I cried. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry!” Of course, I wasn’t sorry. I was simply terrified and wanted to live. Unfortunately, the odds were not in my favor.
I watched in terror as the blade barreled down toward my face.
CHAPTER ONE
9:42 a.m., Los Angeles
Covered in bright red blood, Tommaso Fierro stumbled from his sleek black Mercedes and staggered across the litter-filled 7-Eleven parking lot, clutching the front of his sticky gray dress shirt.
“Sonofabitch,” he groaned. This can’t be happening. He’d gone through far too much, survived far too much, only to end up like this.
No. No. No. You are not turning evil again.
But then why had his turquoise eyes—the telltale sign of his godsgiven immortality—turned black? Why did his heart feel like it was being prodded with a red-hot poker?
And where the fuck did all this blood come from? It sure as hell wasn’t his.
He looked at his sticky red hands, suddenly seeing images of the dark-haired woman in his head. She was bound and gagged in his closet, screaming at him through a rope knotted between her lips.
Shit. Please don’t tell me I killed her. Because she was the one. Yes, the one. And no, he couldn’t explain why he had no clear memory of what happened, but he did remember the wave of intense desire he’d felt the moment he spotted her leaving the singles mixer last night—Wait. Was it last night? Everything was a blur after that, like watching a violent movie on a dark screen that sporadically flickered.
Godsdammit! Wouldn’t this just be his godsdamned luck? He finally meets the woman of his dreams—his true mate—only to turn evil for no other reason than the Universe had decided to be a huge bitch and mess with everyone.
More blurry images swarmed his mind: the woman screaming and then…images of him letting her go, only to start chasing her, like a cat playing with a mouse it wanted to torment before the kill.
That is very fucked up.
Tommaso suddenly felt like his skull was splitting open. Aaagh… He shoved his fingers into his sticky short hair, pressing the sides of his head. Then his lungs began closing up. I can’t…breathe. He fell to his knees on the hard asphalt. And godsdammit, he had just gotten his awesome pin-striped slacks back from the tailor. Three hundred bucks just for the hem.
A candy apple red Mustang tore into the parking lot, nearly colliding with a parked car before coming to a tire-screeching halt a few feet in front of him. The driver door popped open and out stepped a familiar face: Zac, God of Temptation.
The sound of Zac’s heavy biker boots thumped toward Tommaso as he tried to keep his vision from blacking out.
“Wow,” said Zac in his usual cocky tone while brushing back his mane of shaggy black hair with his usual affected gesture. “You weren’t joking. You really are turning into a Maaskab—not such a great look for you, by the way.”
Maaskab were an ancient sect of powerful, bloodthirsty Mayan priests who excelled in the dark arts. With their blood-caked dreads, soulless pits for eyes, and grime-covered bodies (they believed bathing robbed them of their powers), they looked like death warmed over, reheated in a microwave, and then deep fried in evil waffle batter. And though they were talented at many malevolent things, manipulating dark energy and enslaving others to do their bidding were their claims to fame, something Tommaso knew firsthand. For two loooong fucking years, he’d been pumped full of Maaskab poisons and used to spy on the gods’ army. It was a miracle he’d escaped, but an even bigger miracle the gods had chosen to help him versus ending his life after he’d been discovered.
Only now, he wasn’t so sure that he’d been cured (or what had happened over the last twenty-four hours or why he was in a 7-Eleven parking lot covered in blood with only a vague recollection of taking his newly found mate captive). In any case, Zac had been the first name that came to mind when he’d called for help.
Perhaps not such a wise choice. Zac wasn’t known for being the most compassionate of the gods. Okay. None of the gods were compassionate. Bat-shit crazy, the whole lot of them.
Tommaso looked up at Zac, seven feet of pure conceited asshole in leather pants. And topless?
“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” Tommaso grumbled. Proper attire was essential, even when one was in the process of transforming into a monster, as in his case. Didn’t see him ripping off his clothes and acting uncivilized.
“Casual Friday.” Zac shrugged and then bent to help Tommaso to his feet.
Tommaso’s gaze gravitated toward the hazy figure of a petite blonde standing beside the god, wearing only a pair of enormous flowery granny panties and matching brassiere. He recognized her to be Tula, the new assistant at Immortal Matchmakers, Inc., which was run by Zac and Zac’s insane redheaded mess of a sister, Cimil—the Goddess of the Underworld.
“What’s with Tula’s outfit?” Tommaso mumbled, wondering if he wasn’t dreaming.
“Casual Friday,” Zac answered for Tula. “Did I not just explain that?”
“Okay, you two,” said Tula, in a sugary tone, “let’s get out of here before the police show and suck up another day with all their questions. I’m still trying to get them not to press charges for the singles mixer.”
Tommaso hadn’t stayed for more than a minute at that party, but he could only imagine the long list of reasons the police had been called. Things tended to end up decimated or lit on fire when a group of immortals got in a room and started drinking. Belch, aka the God of Wine and Intoxication, for example, held the all-time record for destroying the most hotels. Five hundred and twenty. All burnt to the ground. All by accident.
Tommaso winced, the pain of whatever searing through his veins becoming almost unbearable. “Take me home.”
“Who said anything about home, compadre?” Zac said. “You’re not safe to roam freely with the masses.”
Zac looked at Miss Flower-Power Panties and instructed her to retrieve Tommaso’s keys from his pocket.
“But Zac,” Tula protested, “a man’s pocket is his private space. Next to his privates.”
She was standing in the middle of a public parking lot in broad daylight, wearing only her undergarments—albeit, very unsexy undergarments, but undergarments nonetheless—and she was concerned about improper behavior?
“My keys are in the ignition,” Tommaso groaned, the splitting pain in his head and heart only worsening. “And I’m sorry about all the blood in the car.” Sorrier than anyone could ever know. Please don’t let it be my mate’s. Please.
Zac bent his head and gave Tommaso a whiff. “Hate to break it to you, evil buddy, but if what’s in your car is the same stuff that’s on your shirt, that’s not blood. Cherry Slurpee is my guess.”
Really? Tommaso looked down at his sticky gray shirt. “I killed a woman and went to get a Slurpee? I am a monster.”
“Do you specifically remember killing someone?” Zac asked.
“No, but—”
Sirens began wailing off in the distance.
“Time to go, big man. Let’s get you to a secure location. We’ll sort it all out later.” Zac turned toward Tula, who was already getting into Tommaso’s Mercedes. “I’ll meet you back at the office.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“And, woman?” Zac said, his deep voice filled with agitation.
“Yes?” she answered.
“The next time I see you, you’d better be wearing proper office apparel. We hold to certain standards at Immortal Matchmakers, Inc. Even on casual Friday.”
“For the last time, I am not going to work naked, Zac!” She slammed the driver-side door shut and zoomed out of the parking lot.
“Humans,” Zac grumbled. “So damned uppity! You know what I mean?” Zac looked at Tommaso, fishing for validation.
Tommaso frowned up at the deity, whose face was becoming a mishmash of swirls. I’m losing my mind. “Sure. Yeah. Wearing clothes is so last year.”
“I know, right?” Zac grabbed Tommaso’s arm to steady him as he began falling sideways. “All right, let’s get you off to jail.”
“You’re taking me to jail?” Tommaso stumbled along toward the Mustang, without a hope or a prayer of getting free. Not in my condition.
“Well, I’m really taking you to Cimil’s basement until we can get you moved to our real prison. But where else would I take an evil, bloodthirsty Maaskab to rot for eternity?”
Rot? Eternity? Oh hell. Maybe Zac was right; that was where he needed to go. Because if Tommaso had harmed a hair on his mate’s head, he deserved to putrefy in a dark dungeon for all time.
But what if she’s not dead? He had seen an image of him untying her and of her running away. Gods be damned. I have to find out what I did… He needed to know she was all right. Okay, and his heart demanded to see her again and beg her forgiveness.
But who was she? He’d only seen her for a moment in passing as she left the mixer—that part was clear. As for how would he go looking for her when he could barely see straight? Not to mention you’re going off to immortal jail.
There was only one person he could turn to.
Gods help me…
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About the author:
MIMI JEAN PAMFILOFF is a USA Today and New York Times bestselling romance author. Although she obtained her MBA and worked for more than fifteen years in the corporate world, she believes that it’s never too late to come out of the romance closet and follow your dream. Mimi lives with her Latin Lover hubby, two pirates-in-training (their boys), and the rat terrier duo, Snowflake and Mini Me, in Arizona. She hopes to make you laugh when you need it most and continues to pray daily that leather pants will make a big comeback for men.
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