Basil’s lips quirked with amusement. “Stephanie mispronounced it. My name is Basil,” he said, pronouncing it Baw-zil.
“Sorry,” Steph said from the front seat. “Katricia always just refers to you as Father. It was Cheetah who told me your name. I guess he mispronounced it.”
“Cheetah?” Sherry peered at her curiously.
“An American Enforcer who was delivering something or other to Mortimer,” Stephanie explained, and then glanced to Basil and added, “I don’t think he mispronounced your name on purpose. He’s from Cleveland. All of his a’s are pretty nasal.”
When Basil merely nodded and then turned his attention back to her, Sherry forced a smile and said, “So it’s Baw-zil, not Bay-sil?”
Basil nodded. “It’s short for Basileios.”
A car horn honked as he spoke, and she wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Tilting her head, she asked, “Bellicose?”
“No, not ‘bellicose,’” he said with a chuckle. “That is a temperament not a name. My name is Basileios.” He spoke slowly and loudly this time to be sure she heard.
“Basileios,” Sherry murmured, and then pursed her lips briefly as the name tickled her memory. “So you weren’t named after a spice, but some big snake from Harry Potter? Nice.”
He blinked. “A snake? What the devil are you talking about?”
“I think she’s getting Basileios mixed up with basilisk,” Stephanie said helpfully, turning in the front seat to grin at them.
“Basilisk, right,” Sherry said with a smile, and then shrugged. “They sound very similar.”
“They are not similar,” he said grimly. “My name is ‘Baw-sill-ee-os.’”
“Well, you said it fast the first time and it sounded kind of like ‘basilisk,’” she said apologetically.
“It did kind of, didn’t it?” Stephanie agreed.
“It did not,” Basileios said indignantly.
Feeling herself relax a bit, Sherry teased, “Well, if you’re going to go and get all bellicose about it, maybe we should just go with the spice and call you ‘Bay-sil’ after all,” she said, pronouncing it like the spice. And then she whispered, “Or Pep.”
Apparently, he had excellent hearing. Expression blank, he asked, “Pep?”
“Short for pepperoni,” she explained with embarrassment.
“As in you’re the pepperoni in her pizza,” Stephanie said, and burst out laughing.
Basileios stared from one to the other blankly, and then asked Stephanie, “You’re quite sure this woman is my match? There is no mistake?”
Stephanie laughed even harder at the question, but Sherry wrinkled her nose at the man. “Be nice, spice boy. I woke up this morning on earth. Five hours later I’ve stepped into the twilight zone. Cut me some slack here. I was just teasing you to let off a little steam.”
“Hmmm,” he murmured, and then allowed his eyes to rake down over her figure as he offered, “There are many much more pleasant ways to let off steam.”
Sherry went completely still as images of some of those more pleasant ways suddenly flashed through her mind. They were hot and sweaty flashes of them naked, her head thrown back, neck exposed as his mouth and hands traveled over her naked body.
Cripes, the flashes were so real it was like they were doing it right then. Sherry’s body actually responded as such, her breathing becoming low and shallow. Much to her dismay, her nipples even hardened and liquid pooled low in her belly and then rushed down to dampen her panties.
Flushing bright red, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat and then turned to peer steadfastly out the window as she tried to banish the images and her body’s reaction to them.
Jeez, she’d never experienced anything like that before. She just wasn’t the sort to have sexual fantasies about a virtual stranger. Heck, she’d never even had such powerful imaginings about anyone she ever dated. Truth be told, she hadn’t known it was possible to turn yourself on with just a thought. And having them now, in the backseat of an SUV, with Stephanie, Justin, and Basil there . . . well. it was just embarrassing as all hell. It made her glad Stephanie couldn’t read her thoughts. She hoped Basil and Justin couldn’t either.
Sherry didn’t get to worry over that long. Her eye was caught by a mane of dirty blond hair amid the pedestrians they were passing. Focusing, she recognized the man Stephanie had called Leonius. Surrounded by his boys, he was moving through a crowd just starting to cross the street, walking in the same direction they were driving. Even as she recognized him and thought his name, the man turned his head in their direction as if she’d called out to him. His eye caught Sherry’s, and her heart stopped as recognition flared in his expression. Then the SUV turned right, away from him, and he was out of her line of vision.
Her breath suddenly caught in her chest, Sherry craned around in her seat as much as her seat belt allowed and sought out the man again, this time through the back window of the SUV. She immediately wished she hadn’t when she saw him move to the first car stopped at the light behind them. Pulling the front door open, he dragged the driver out. His men were right there with him, opening the other doors and pulling out the passengers, in order to get in themselves. All but one passenger, she saw, as a woman tried to follow the others out of the vehicle’s backseat but was forced back inside by the man with the ponytail, who slid in beside her. Then another of the men got in on the other side, trapping the woman.
“We have company,” Basil said quietly beside her.