by Jenna Black
It was tempting to snap out a yes, but I knew exactly what he was asking, and it was a fair question. No, I didn’t plan to tell Dominic anything. But sometimes my mouth had a tendency to run away with me, especially when my temper was roused. Might I let something slip in a moment of anger? I had the uneasy suspicion the answer was yes.
“You should tell him yourself,” I said instead of answering the question. “There are ways he can find out other than me blabbing, and they’d all make you look far worse than you would if you just fessed up.”
Adam shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
I shrugged. “Then maybe you should stop going to the goddamn club. That idea ever occurred to you?”
Adam stopped in front of a café that billed itself as a teahouse, then pushed the door open and gestured me in. It seemed as good a place as any to talk, so I stepped inside.
It was pleasantly quiet, with the scream of the cappuccino machine the only exception. New Age music played softly on the speaker system, and though the place was hardly empty, it wasn’t exactly hopping, either. Most of the people inside looked like tourists, here to take in the sights of South Street but needing a break from the craziness every once in a while.
There were tables set up in the middle of the café, with a long bar lined with stools against one wall, and cozy arrangements of easy chairs in each corner. One of those corners was empty, and Adam and I made a beeline.
“What can I get you?” he asked, indicating the line at the counter.
“Just sit down.”
He pointed at a sign that informed us the seating areas were for customers only, then repeated the question. He could probably pull his badge and the staff would be happy to let us sit there without buying anything, but maybe we both needed a couple minutes to cool down.
“Just plain coffee,” I finally said. When I leaned into the soft chair, my back informed me that the bruises were well on their way to setting in.
Adam came back before I was ready to face him again, but then that would probably have been true if he were gone for an hour. He laid my coffee, along with one cream and two sugars, on the end table between our chairs. From the scent that wafted over to me from his cup, I gathered he was drinking mint tea himself. It seemed a strange choice for a tough guy, but then people thought the froufrou drinks I ordered at bars were strange for a tough broad with a tattoo and multiple ear piercings, so who was I to judge?
Adam took a sip of his tea as I began doctoring my coffee. When I was finished, I leaned back into the chair—more carefully this time—and waited for him to say something. It didn’t take long.
“I don’t want to hurt Dom,” he said, staring into his tea.
“Yeah, you said that already.”
But he shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.” He looked up and met my eyes. “Since Saul’s been gone, I’ve come to realize that what we did together served more than one purpose. Yeah, it was a sensual pleasure, for both of us. But it turns out it was a good way for me to blow off a little steam, too.” His eyes slid away from mine once more. “I have to be so careful with Dom,” he said softly, his breath stirring the steam that rose from his cup. “If I don’t… let loose every once in a while, I’m afraid of what might happen.”
“Shit,” I muttered as I finally understood what he was getting at. “You really think you’d hurt Dominic if you didn’t play your little games at the club?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to find out.”
I let out a long sigh. Obviously, Adam wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but in this one instance I suspected he wasn’t doing himself justice. “Far be it from me to suggest you have any redeeming features,” I said, “but if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you’d never do that to Dom.”
He looked up at me, obviously startled. “You really believe that?”
“Yeah, I really believe that. I also really believe you need to talk to Dom about this. If you can convince me to cut you some slack about it, then I’m guessing you can convince him, too.”
Adam laughed, and I could almost see the weight lifting off his shoulders. I laughed a bit, too, but for different reasons. How ridiculous was it for someone like me to be giving relationship advice to anyone, much less to a sadistic demon?
“Maybe you’re right,” Adam conceded when he stopped laughing. “I’ll think about it, I promise. Now tell me, what on earth were you doing in The Seven Deadlies?”
“Good question,” I muttered under my breath, then proceeded to tell him all about my lame-ass plan to meet with Tommy. I’d drunk half my cup of coffee by the time I was through, but the jolt of caffeine didn’t make my plan sound any better.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Adam shaking his head. “And what were you going to do if by some miracle he blurted out a confession?”
I shifted uncomfortably. That had always been the weakest part of my plan.
“That’s what I thought,” Adam said, then leaned forward in his seat, drawing my gaze. “You’re not a cop. You’re not a private investigator. You’re an exorcist. Leave this to the professionals, love.”
Yes, he was totally right, but that didn’t stop me from bristling. “It was me Claudia Brewster hired, not you.” Well, maybe technically she didn’t hire me. I hadn’t accepted any money from her.
Adam seemed less than impressed. “You brought the case to me for a reason, and it wasn’t because you wanted to hang out with me. Let me do my job, okay?”
I’d have loved to argue with him if he weren’t making so much sense. Of course, being me, I wasn’t about to agree with him, either, so I just gulped more coffee instead of speaking.
“You said we needed to talk about something,” he said when it became obvious I wasn’t planning to say anything more. “Obviously it wasn’t about this, so what’s up?”
He’d already said he didn’t want Saul back in Dominic, but when I’d asked him, he hadn’t known that’s what Lugh wanted. I believed Lugh was right, and Adam was a good little soldier. What his king commanded, he would do, no matter how much it hurt him, or anyone else.
I knew eventually I’d have no choice but to tell him what Lugh wanted me to. But that didn’t mean it had to be now. Lugh shot me a little headache to let me know he disapproved of my decision, but it was only a brief stab of pain. If he really wanted to show his displeasure, he could hit me with a pain so bad it could bring me to my knees.
“Never mind,” I told Adam. “It’s not important.”
I’m sure he saw through my lie, but he didn’t challenge it. I glanced at my watch and was startled to discover it was already two in the morning. I hadn’t realized how long I’d sat in that damn club! The twenty-four hours Lugh had given me were almost up, which meant that if I didn’t tell Adam now, Lugh would hijack my body the next time I fell asleep.
I took one more look at Adam, then decided it was time to get a refill on my coffee.
Adam gave me a bit of a funny look when I returned to the table with my fresh cup of coffee. De spite a concerted effort, I still haven’t learned how to keep everything I’m feeling from showing on my face, and he probably knew something was wrong. Something other than his cheating on Dominic, that is. And though I fully understood why he was doing it, as long as Dom didn’t know, it seemed like cheating to me.
“I gather you haven’t had a chance to visit with Sammy yet?” I asked, hoping that would stave off any questions he was tempted to ask.
Adam raised an eyebrow. He knew a diversionary tactic when he saw one. Luckily, just this once, he decided to let me off the hook.
“I dropped by his office today and found out he’s on vacation. I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets back. But meanwhile, I’ll focus on Tommy. I suspect I’ll have no trouble getting some, uh, private time with him.” He stared at his cup of tea, though I suspected it had been empty for at least fifteen minutes.
It wasn’t hard to guess what he meant, and I had to fight my surge of disg
ust. “You mean he likes the hardcore shit,” I said, my voice rising, “and you’re going to cheat on Dom with him.”
I was loud enough that a few people turned to look at me. I swallowed hard and lowered my voice. “I’d rather you let me question him myself.”
Adam put his cup down and leaned toward me, anger glinting in his eyes. “I am not cheating on Dom,” he snarled. “And with your charming personality, you’ll have him clammed up and suspicious within the first five minutes. If I take him down into Hell, I can get him into a frame of mind where he’s not thinking straight. And since I’m a police officer, I can act on it if he tells me something he shouldn’t. You’ve done your part by bringing the case to me. Now stay out of it like a good little exorcist and let me handle it.”
I was getting pretty damn tired of being told to stay out of it, but for once my common sense spoke up in time, and I kept that thought to myself. I doubt Adam expected me to heed his warning, but I didn’t think arguing about it was going to help my case.
“Fine,” I muttered, slurping down more coffee. “You go on back to Hell. It’s where you belong anyway. ”
I stood up, meaning to make a dramatic exit, but Lugh sent a stab of pain through my eye, and I stumbled. I almost pitched face-first into Adam’s lap, but with demon-quick reflexes, he caught me. For a moment that felt like forever, I looked into those dark brown eyes, my nose inches away from his. I caught the scent of the spicy aftershave he favored, and beneath that, a salty undertone that reminded me of an ocean breeze. Despite my dislike of him, despite his sexual habits, despite him being a demon, I had to admit to myself that he was one hell of a sexy specimen of manhood. Against my every wish, images flashed through my mind. Images of Adam, naked and aroused, images of him with Dom, images of—
With a jerk, I shoved myself away from him, shutting down that line of thought with all the ferocity I could. I did not want to think of Adam that way. I was already in love with Brian and in lust with Lugh. I didn’t need any more… complications.
One corner of Adam’s mouth rose in a half-smile, but it wasn’t a nice expression. There was no question in my mind that no matter how much I wanted to deny it to myself, Adam knew I found him attractive. I had a distinct feeling he would use his knowledge against me if he had half a chance.
Knowing that anything I said would just make things worse, I settled for shaking my head before I turned on my heel and strode to the door. Lugh did the eye-stab thing again, but it was merely a brief annoyance. It wasn’t like this was a battle I could win. No matter how much caffeine I ingested, eventually I would fall asleep and he would take over. But eventually was better than now.
Wondering how I was going to keep myself occupied during the wee hours of the morning, I made my way back to the garage to retrieve my car.
Chapter 11
It was past four when I finally let myself into my apartment, so I didn’t have as many wee hours to kill as I’d expected. The day was getting a head start toward being really shitty. On my way home, I’d gotten pulled over for speeding. Naturally, the cop who pulled me over was female and not a good candidate for the eyelash batting that had gotten me out of tickets with the testosterone brigade. I wasn’t really going that fast, but I guess she was bored and I made an easy target. Always happy to help our women in blue pass the time.
I shoved the speeding ticket into a drawer with my growing pile of unpaid bills and then made myself a pot of coffee. My body ached for me to throw myself onto the bed and sleep for a week, but this was a case of mind over matter, and I wasn’t going to give in.
I had to find a way to keep myself busy, otherwise the lure of sleep would be too much to resist, but I couldn’t think of anything useful to do on the Brewster case. I could drop by Tommy’s apartment again, but I didn’t think it would do me much good. Besides, I had semi-promised Adam I’d let him handle things. Not that I felt particularly bound by that promise, but I figured it would be decent of me to at least let him make first contact. Besides, for all I knew, he’d gone back to the club last night and convinced Tommy to confess everything.
I settled for going in to the office again. This would be two times within the space of one week. I was being positively productive! Of course, I hadn’t gotten much work done the last time, Claudia Brewster’s visit having thoroughly interrupted my efforts.
Doing paperwork wasn’t the best way to keep myself awake, I realized a couple of hours later as my eyes crossed and my mind wandered. I took an extended break to get a grande cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso from the nearest Starbucks, and felt marginally more alive after my first few sips. I had almost psyched myself up for the singularly unpleasant task of chatting up my insurance company when I stepped off the elevator into the hallway leading to my office. I was spaced out enough that I took two more long strides toward my door before I noticed the figure standing before it.
In the pictures Claudia had shown me, Tommy looked like a typical sulky, rebellious teenager. Un kempt hair. Ill-fitting pants. Face fixed in a long-suffering expression that said his life was fucked up beyond recognition, but somehow he’d manage to muddle through.
Apparently, demonic possession agreed with him. He still wasn’t exactly what you’d call a snappy dresser. His jeans were baggy, the fraying cuffs dragging on the floor, and his T-shirt had probably once been black but had been washed so many times it was an uneven and particularly unattractive shade of gray. But he carried himself entirely differently. His shoulders were straighter, his posture more confident, his expression much… older.
He was leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he watched me approach. I had no idea what he wanted, but I made an educated guess and decided it wasn’t anything good. I shifted my coffee into my left hand, then reached into my purse and fished out my Taser, arming it while keeping a close eye on him. I didn’t really think he was going to attack me in a public place, not when he’d gone through so much trouble to make himself seem like a legal demon, but I wasn’t one to take chances.
Tommy was a little bit shorter than your average demon host. Most of them topped six feet, but I’d have put him at about five-ten. Give me a good pair of heels, and I’d be able to look down on him. He had the requisite good looks, though. His face was a little rounded, giving him an almost cherubic expression with his small, curvy mouth and apple cheeks. But all you had to do was look him in the eye to kill that illusion. They were a deep shade of blue I’d have called beautiful if it weren’t for the malevolent presence I sensed behind them.
Maybe it was all in my mind. Maybe the fact that I knew he was possessed by an illegal demon made that glint in his eye look evil. Maybe if I had no idea who he was and had just run into him on the street, I wouldn’t have given him a second glance. But I did know what he was, and I hated him before he even opened his mouth.
Tommy pushed away from the wall and gave me an assessing look, one that made me bristle. He watched me pull the Taser from my bag but didn’t seem particularly concerned about it.
“Morgan Kingsley, I presume?” he asked in a cultured tone that I suspected sounded nothing like Tommy Brewster.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I suppose I won’t win any prizes for politeness, but I couldn’t think of any pressing reason to treat him as a decent human being.
“I’d heard you were looking for me,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Where did you hear that?”
“My roommate informed me that I had a visitor yesterday. He also said he suggested you look for me at The Seven Deadlies.” He grinned at me, a creepy expression that made my skin crawl—no doubt just the effect he was going for. “I am sorry I missed you last night.”
I was trying to think of a good retort while simultaneously trying to keep my face from showing how much he was creeping me out, when the elevator dinged, signaling it was about to open.
There was only one other tenant on my floor, a mid-sized and terribly respectabl
e accounting firm. I doubt they were thrilled to be sharing space with me in the first place, and they would be even less so if a customer stepped off the elevator to see me holding a cherub-faced youngster at Taser point.
With great reluctance, I turned the Taser off and stuck it back in my bag just in time. Tommy and I waited in silence for the professional young couple to step off the elevator and push open the accounting firm’s door.
“Wouldn’t you prefer we take this conversation somewhere more private?” Tommy asked, jerking his thumb toward my own closed door.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be trapped in a closed room with him, but it wouldn’t do to risk having innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire if things turned ugly. My hand hovered near my bag, though if Tommy wanted to attack me, I was dead meat. I wouldn’t have time to reach into my bag, pull out the Taser, arm it, and fire before he was on me. Even knowing that, I felt better having it within reach.
“Give me some space,” I demanded. Tommy hesitated, a smirk on his face as he waited for me to acknowledge that if he did as I ordered, he was merely humoring me. I gave him my fiercest scowl, which seemed to satisfy him, and he backed away.
I was twitchy as hell as I approached my door, uncomfortable with the idea that between the coffee and the keys, both my hands were occupied. I needed a third hand for the Taser. But despite my worries, Tommy made no move to attack me, and his lips remained stretched in that infuriating smirk.
As soon as I got my door open, I hurried into the office and put my desk between myself and Tommy. He humored my skittishness, keeping his distance while making it obvious how much he was enjoying himself. I threw my keys onto the desk and drew and armed my Taser once again. Now I felt safe.
I leaned back into my chair and propped my ankles up on my desk, the Taser never wavering. I took a nice long gulp of my rapidly cooling coffee before addressing my surprise guest once again.
“What do you want?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I already knew.
