A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands

here he lay, his mind consumed with nothing but the beautiful, blond Lissianna.
    “You need to get your priorities straight,” he told himself firmly. “How about trying to get yourself loose and out of here? You have a plane to catch in the morning, you know.”
    Ignoring the fact that he was again talking to himself, Greg tipped his head back to peer at the bindings that went from his wrists to the bed posts.

Chapter 4

    “Oh Lordy, Lordy. I’ve stepped into baby doll heaven.”
    Lissianna chuckled at Thomas’s comical expression as he entered the living room, where they were having their impromptu postbirthday party “pajama party.” Not one to drive after drinking, Thomas had decided to sleep here, which meant Lissianna, Jeanne Louise, and Mirabeau were staying as well. With the bedrooms taken up by various older relatives staying the day, they had been relegated to the couches in the bigger living room…along with cousin Elspeth and her twin sisters Victoria and Julianna. The three girls had flown over from England with their mother Martine to attend the party and planned to visit for a couple weeks.
    “Thomas!” Jeanne gasped suddenly. “What on earth are you wearing?”
    “What? This?” Thomas held out his arms and did a slow turn. He was covered from neck to ankles in a pair of formfitting Spider-Man pajamas. “Bastien was good enough to supply this most cool sleepwear for me,” hedrawled. “Don’t you like it? The guy has radical taste in sleepwear for a grumpy old dude.”
    “They’re not Bastien’s.” Lissianna chuckled. “They were a joke gift for Etienne when he was helping to program a video game based on some comic book or other.”
    “I didn’t know that, did I?” Thomas said with a grin. “Bastien was most embarrassed at my effusive compliments on his most ‘cool choice’ of sleepwear.”
    Lissianna shared a grin with him, imagining how Bastien must have reacted when he realized how his little attempt to embarrass Thomas had backfired. He’d be mortified to think that anyone might believe he wore pajamas like these to bed.
    “Anyway, I don’t mind. They are comfortable,” Thomas commented, then perched his hands on his hips to eye the rest of them, and said gallantly, “As for you ladies, you’re like a rainbow of lovely flowers.”
    Lissianna glanced down at herself, then at the other women in their nighties. While Jeanne Louise and Mirabeau didn’t have any clothes at Lissianna’s mother’s house, Lissianna did, just not pajamas. She tended to sleep in the nude. The three of them were wearing sleepwear borrowed from Elspeth and the twins. The trio apparently had a thing for baby dolls, it was all they’d had to loan them.
    Still, Thomas’s description was apt. She was wearing a light pink lace baby doll, Elspeth was in red, Victoria in peach, Mirabeau in mint green, Julianna in baby blue, and Jeanne Louise wore lavender. Put them together and they did nearly make a rainbow.
    “So?” Thomas launched himself onto the cot that had been rolled in for him. Scrunching his pillow into a solid ball he could lean on, he eyed them all with interest. “What happens at pajama parties?”
    The girls all laughed at his eager expression as they began to stake out their own spots, two girls to each of the three pull-out couches in the room. Within moments they were settled and peering at each other.
    “Don’t look at me,” Mirabeau said when Thomas glanced her way. “I’m over four hundred years old; they didn’t even have pajama parties when I was a girl. I’m not sure they even had pajamas. I don’t know what happens.”
    Lissianna chuckled, and said with disgust, “Over two hundred years old and still considered a child.”
    “We always will be to Mother and Aunt Marguerite,” Elspeth said calmly. “I guess it’s relative. We are children compared to them.”
    “But ancient compared to mortals,” Lissianna pointed out unhappily. She was feeling her two hundred