“Don’t need to isn’t the same as don’t want to, doctor.” She strolled into the kitchen, swinging her hips. She took a pull from her cigarette, expelled another cloud of fragrant smoke.

“You shouldn’t be smoking in the house,” he said. “We’ve got children here.”

“Going to make me stop?” she asked. She opened an upper-level cabinet, reached, withdrew a brandy snifter. The movement lifted the edge of her shirt, giving him a glimpse of her glorious, bare ass.

Troy swallowed. She was playing with him. All of this was only a shameless tease, a tactic to blur his thoughts, and it was working. Raw, naked lust clawed at him, and he had a sudden vision of bending her over right there at the kitchen counter and plunging into her from behind . . .

He squeezed his hands into fists, his fingernails digging into his palms, and the sharp pain brought his thoughts back into focus.

“I know what you did to my mother,” he said. “She told me about your gift, those homemade creams you gave her. I know they were full of hallucinogenic substances.”

“Is that so?” Grace crossed the kitchen. From another cabinet, she removed a bottle of brandy.

“I know about the candy you’ve been giving my kids, too, the happy candy. I know also about the tea you give my wife that makes her sleepy, compliant.”

Grace poured a couple of ounces of brandy into the snifter. She swirled it around in the glass, inhaled deeply.

“Nightcap?” she asked, lifting the snifter.

“You aren’t my wife’s mother,” he said. “I had a DNA test run on both of you. You and my wife have almost the same damned DNA, like identical twins.”

Grace took a small sip of the liquor. She appeared thoroughly unconcerned by everything he had said.

“Who are you—really?” he asked. “My wife’s twin sister? Separated at birth?”

She dipped her tongue into the glass. Except it was not a normal tongue—it was at least twice as long, like an obscene pink tentacle. It flicked the base of the glass.

Troy had taken a step back. Did I really just see that?

Grace had pulled the appendage back into her mouth, took a short sip of brandy. He was left worrying that his eyes had deceived him.

Foreign material, the lab had said about Grace’s sample. Something they hadn’t charted in DNA before. Something unknown.

“Fascinating ideas, doctor.” She swirled the liquor in the glass. “But I’m in a naughty mood and wouldn’t mind another erotic episode with you, this time purely for pleasure. Are you game? You know I’ll make it worth your while.”