by Brit Blaise
"I'm sure you think you know everything," I told him.
"I've seen your medical records."
Bingo. "So?" I kept my face void.
"So, what's the word they use for women who can't get enough?"
That's it? He's thinks I have a sexual disorder? I almost didn't stop the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "Use the word nympho and you'll be sorry. I have an organic glitch, an overly active production of hormones, nothing more."
"An organic glitch?" He sounded amused.
"PSAS, if you want the latest, modern clinical name. Female Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome." I jerked back, arched a brow above my glasses and silently dared him to make a wise crack.
"PSAS, huh? And I have no reason to be concerned?" He pressed into the juncture between my legs where I was already on fire. I could count the change in his pocket, if not for the more significant lump distracting the hell out of me. I knew what he wanted. He thought he could scare me off with this?
Bring it on.
Please?
With a quick jerk, he slipped my T-shirt from my waistband to skim his warm hand along bare skin. I know enough moves I could've avoided this. Frankly, I wanted to see how far he'd go. Yeah, right.
My reaction was fast and furious as an implosion of sensations rocked me to the soles of my feet, but I didn't let it show. Holy macaroni, the man knew how to rotate his hips, once he'd shut his mouth and danced. A million questions buzzed in my pheromone-soaked brain. If this guy was already getting to me, I had a problem. I needed to find a solution. Fast.
The irony of being in the arms of a man whose primary mission in life was to kill vampires gave me the willies because it felt good--too damned good. I wanted him and I wanted it bad.
I thought back to the days I'd decapitated my Barbies and reminisced about what I'd done to Ken. Poor Ken. Did I dare try it on a living, breathing man? Since I didn't have any cherry bombs or Superglue, I needed another plan.
"What were you saying about hormones?" He touched his hot lips to my ear and let his words brush down my neck. This made my concentration flash on and off like a traffic signal in hyper-drive mode. Stop equals concentrate. Go equals feel.
Concentrate. Feel. Feel.
On fire, and fucking stuck on go, I burrowed against him with a surge of lightning-like passion frying my internal just-say-no circuits. "It's okay for you to have a hard-on, but I'm not allowed to feel the same?"
"I'm only trying to be accommodating."
"I'll accommodate myself until the vampires are dead." I gave him a shove and he let go of me. I turned back toward the table. At least my arousal wasn't visible across a dark room.
Coop grabbed my arm from behind to stop me as I started to walk away. He pulled me back into his arms and snaked an arm around me, cradling the back of my head and neck in his large hand. The other hand, he brought up to cup my chin. As he ran his thumb along my throat, a pulse in my crotch beat so strongly it signaled my toes to start curling.
His moist lips first delivered a whisper of a kiss and the moment I allowed my mind to wrap around the poignant sweetness, he deepened it. That heart-stopping, mind-numbing kiss took me to a place I didn't know existed. Never dreamed could be real. A place so full of promise, I felt a sharp sting at the back of my eyelids. This warned me I could burst into tears. Sheesh!
He kissed me like he wanted to erase my memory of ever being kissed by another man. Did he ever! With one single, magnificent kiss, he obliterated my past and put my entire future in jeopardy.
I fought for control and instead got a surprise. My heart began to steadily beat in my chest. Not the intermittent, or rushed and out of control beats since my death. This was...normal? My preternatural blood pumped through my veins like before I'd received the bite of death. What would happen next?
I decided I didn't want to know. Not right then. Not in a crowded bar.
On the verge of a spontaneous orgasm, his kiss also adrenalinized me and one thing I know to be true about vamps. I'm strong! I just reacted. A bolt of raw, pure, invigorating karate energy and the next thing Coop saw was the ceiling as he lay flat on his back. To give him credit, I don't think he expected me to cut loose on him. I jumped back, pretending to worry he'd reciprocate.
Coop sat halfway up, leaning back on his elbows with a silly grin on his face. Extraordinary. If I'd known getting his ass kicked amused him, I would've done it sooner.
In the next second, his eyes darkened. "Get your gear and meet me outside. We're heading for Colombia in the morning. You can dance for Sandoval, but that's the extent of your involvement."
"We're done battling for now?" I took another step back, to make it look good. Then it sunk in. I'd won! "Yes, sir," I said with a salute.
I walked back to the table to grab my duffle. My luggage had already been delivered and stored at the airport. The locals remained conspicuously silent while Coop's rowdy gang made juvenile remarks about what I'd done to Coop. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw the waitress duck into the restroom.
"You've got a lot to learn," Coop growled over my shoulder.
Maybe I should check my vampire manual.
Chapter 3
* * *
I pulled the shimmering gold material down over my head and let it float to touch the thick shag carpet under my gold sandals. The floor-length mirror in my posh room in Sandoval's Bogotá hotel had to be magic. The woman staring back didn't look like tomboy terror Jenna Bradley. I fought the urge to yelp.
The gown cut downward over my shoulders with a wide-open vee in the front that ended at least eight inches below my waist and showed off my emerald-studded bellybutton. Since I'd soon be doing stomach undulations and shimmies, I used double-sided tape at the shoulders to keep it from falling off. The gold thong underwear made it appear as if I wore nothing from behind. Plus the dress dipped to show the crack of my ass and the two dimples on either side of it, in case anybody couldn't see through the material. In front, the small triangle of matching gold cloth on the thong saved me from showing I'm not a natural redhead. I might as well have worn a windowpane over my gold-dusted skin.
My bare, overflowing C-cups would be visible for anyone who cared to look. My explosion of hair would cover them and even my ass, but I have a tendency to flip my hair.
I reached up for the gold chain-link belt hanging over the corner of the mirror. The bells sounded at my touch. With a hundred tiny bells spaced an inch apart, it would make a racket when I danced. I fastened the belt low on my hips to follow the line of my thong. The ends hung to reach the hem of the dress.
"Are you tinkling?" Joe called from the main room of our hotel suite. I heard him both live and in the receiver in my ear. Joe, Coop and I would all be able to communicate via our nearly invisible transmitters and receivers.
I watched myself roll my dark kohl-rimmed eyes in the mirror and almost smiled for the first time in days. I hadn't had much to make me happy since we'd arrived in Bogotá. The lame-brained idea for me to get Sandoval's attention by dancing in his club seemed more like a way to fuckin' humiliate me.
I'd agreed I'd do it months earlier, when John Wilson had first broached the idea. I like to think I'm tough, but this whole getting-naked-in-front-of-everyone thing scared the undead shit out of me.
After giving my hair a final tug, I strategically positioned it to cover my gold-glittered nipples. Next, I applied gold-flecked lip gloss. John had thought of everything. There wouldn't be any jokes about combat boots tonight.
"Are you about ready in there?" Joe called.
I sat the gloss on the counter and took a deep breath. I could face a murdering vampire, but I felt squeamish about showing a little T-and-A? Well, maybe not a little.
"I think I'm ready," I called out to him, then steeled myself. It'd be easy to face Joe, but Coop was another matter.
The necklace John had given me at his brother's and Rosa's funeral winked at me. I touched it reverently. There were three stones. The largest
in the middle was a chatoyant or cat's eye emerald. For whatever reason, Sandoval wanted this pricey necklace. He'd bid on it at an estate auction and lost almost before I'd even been born. The idea was, if I couldn't tempt him with my body, the necklace would get his attention.
When John gave it to me, he made me promise never to take it off. His assurance the necklace would eventually bring Sandoval to me had made me promise. And I'd kept my word. I didn't even take it off when I showered.
I heard Joe walk into the bedroom. When I looked away from the emerald, his gaze glued to my bare ass made me cringe.
Joe swallowed so hard I could see his Adam's apple bob in his throat. "You look like you've been dipped in gold. I'm dying here."
"I feel better then." I did a sarcastic whoop-tee-do double-twirl with my rigid index finger covered with gold-glitter nail polish. "Have you heard from Coop? Is Sandoval at the hotel?"
"Why don't you think about wearing your hair up or maybe shaving it off?" He gave me a funny, exaggerated wink in the mirror. "Sandoval is here. I haven't heard from Coop. He's got a bug up his ass about your involvement so don't expect much."
Joe didn't have to tell me that Coop was unhappy. His absence communicated it clearly. To make matters worse, from the moment he'd kissed me, something serious had happened. I needed to know what.
"How about a drink?" Joe extended his pinkie with his thumb near his mouth and rocked his hand back and forth like he was pouring from a bottle or the hang loose gesture I'd seen from half-Hawaiian Yam about a dozen times on the plane ride over.
I followed Joe out into the main room to the mini-bar and waited while he made us both a drink. Joe handed me a glass of Laproaig scotch before he held his to his to nose and sniffed loudly.
"I'm not a connoisseur of blended whisky," I told him before I walked onto balcony. The warm night air cocooned me. Torches burned around the Olympic-sized pool below while several people enjoyed the water. It made a nice picture, but I couldn't relax and enjoy it.
"You look tense, Jenna. Want a backrub?" Joe teased as he joined me.
"I'd rather kick a little ass," I told him and felt another smile start. "How about a fight instead?"
"Are you two done with your lover's quarrel?" Coop's voice in the receiver hidden in my earring startled me. It was the first time I'd heard his voice since we went our separate ways at the airport two days earlier. I looked at Joe to see if he'd heard. Joe nodded at me.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"In the lobby with Yam. Sandoval went into the lounge a few minutes ago with his mistress. Yam and I are going to find a place to sit where we'll be able to see the show. The place is filling up, so don't be long."
"We'll be down pronto," Joe said.
Coop didn't answer.
Joe put his hand under my chin and lifted until I met his hard gaze. "It's not too late. You don't have to go through with this."
I shuddered despite the warm breeze. "Yes, I do."
I walked back into the room, the tiny, golden bells jingling as I moved. Joe followed, took the glass from my hand and laid it on the coffee table next to his.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Let's get this over with." I didn't wait for him. I kept my eyes straight ahead and moved toward the door. Joe caught up at the elevator and pressed the button. When the doors slid open, there were three people inside, but I pretended the elevator was empty. They could have been standing on their heads and I wouldn't have given any indication I noticed.
That was hard enough, but the walk through the crowded lobby was like walking on hot coals. But with each slow, precise step I gained strength and resolve. Every movement was measured, clear-cut and without fault. Anyone watching would believe me to be oblivious to my surroundings--and nakedness. They'd be so wrong.
Coop had been on the mark about the lounge filling up. Joe had to part with several bills to get a table next to the dance floor, near where we knew Sandoval would be sitting. From the second we walked into the dimly lit, swanky nightclub, my skin crawled with fissions of heat, while the smell made me nauseous. Two feet inside the door we came face to face with a vampire. He looked like any normal, beautiful man, but vibes like touching your tongue to a battery ran along my nerve endings.
The male vamp watched me with undisguised interest in his coal black eyes. Joe reached his arm around me while we continued to walk. I couldn't be certain if Joe knew we'd just encountered our first vamp or if he went into protective mode just naturally.
When we passed a table where two more vampires sat, they stopped talking to look at me. I kept my eyelids hooded, allowing Joe to lead. The wormy spirals of heat inside my undead body raged out of control and a cloud of cloying, web-like restraint shrouded me. Much worse than the battery to the tongue thing, I searched for a reason. Then I saw him. Sandoval.
My maker.
We walked past Sandoval and his mistress as if they didn't exist, but my body was on fire. When we were shown to our table, Joe pulled my chair out. Before I sat down, I turned into his arms and planted a kiss on his mouth.
I liked Joe and I didn't mind kissing him in the least. Joe was shorter than Coop, so we almost stood nose to nose. To anyone looking, we would appear to be devoted lovers. Poor Joe. I should have told him I planned to kiss him.
His arms surrounded me as I moved my body against him, fusing my mouth to his. I could taste the scotch as he opened his mouth to me. His kiss began to cool the fire in me and the invisible restraints began to lift. Joe's kiss, nothing like Coop's, gave me a way to disconnect from whatever was happening to me. I didn't want to stop, however, the large protrusion in the front of Joe's trousers signaled trouble. When I started to pull away, for a second he resisted.
At the sound of a growl from my receiver, Joe let go and reached for my chair. His eyes were dark and unreadable, almost making me wish I hadn't been so impulsive.
A waiter came to ask for our drink order. "Champagne?" Joe rasped.
"Only the best," I said. "After all, I do have an expense account to pad, darling." The waiter moved in for a closer view of my chest.
"Your best bottle of champagne," Joe said.
"Right away sir." The waiter spoke English with a heavy Colombian accent.
After he left, Joe pulled my hand up to his lips and stared into my eyes. "If it's the last thing I do, I'll get even with you. You should've warned me."
"A kiss, no biggie," I said and listened to Coop growl again.
"No biggie? Just business." Joe looked away. "How much do you suppose their best bottle of champagne costs?"
"The cost doesn't matter," I told him. "John can well afford it."
The frown on his face worried me. Joe looked unhappy.
"Can you hear us Coop? Where are you?" I resisted the urge to look for him since we didn't want anybody to connect the two of us until we were ready.
"As long as I live, I'll remember that dress," I heard Yam say. He wasn't wearing a mic, so Coop had to be picking up the sound of Yam's voice.
"The way she looks in it--the way she moves," Yam continued.
"Shut the fuck up," Coop said.
"Guess they're here," Joe said to me.
"Guess so," I agreed.
"This dance you'll do," Joe said. "It's called the dance of enticement?"
"Redundant, isn't it?" I shrugged. The see-through dress over my naked gold body was all the enticement anyone needed.
"Maybe overkill is more appropriate." Joe stroked his chin between his thumb and forefinger like he had a beard.
I could see the wheels turning behind his gray eyes. I just couldn't tell what direction they were headed. If his mood was about a single kiss, I didn't know what to do about it, and this wasn't the time to worry.
"There are two seats opening up at the bar," Coop said. "Yam and I will be over there. Jenna, it's a direct route to the ladies room. Let's get this show on the road. Make your lover jealous."
"I already am." Joe finally smiled, but his eyes stayed
dark. Our cover story, Joe and I on a lover's holiday, seemed real now that he was pissed at me.
When I stood, I caught sight of Yam. Easy enough since he's a very big boy. I headed his way. Every step sent a signal. My movements vibrated the bells in a unique siren song. As I walked, I could feel the caress of my hair swinging at my ass. Then, I saw Coop--a different kind of Coop.
My breath caught in my throat. Not that Coop had looked like he'd spent time in Turkish prison, all tortured and gross-looking before, but he'd for sure captured the market on bad-boy-biker-rugged. Now he was GQ-edible-eye-candy. That was the moment I found myself immersed in as I looked at Coop. It sucked any air I might have left, right out of my gold chest. My golden girls pointed to him like they thought I hadn't already seen him.
Dressed in black Armani, accented with a crisp, white, tailored shirt open at the throat to expose the dark hair on his chest, Coop looked so delicious my mouth started to water and I started to caress myself in public until I realized. His long hair, always pulled back tight, hung free over his shoulders in shining mass of glorious black. His eyes narrowed as he watched my approach.
The nude-gold dress stroked me with each step until I vibrated with need. My desire had to be visible. I could feel it shimmering in the air around me. It had a force strong enough to make people stand back to make way for me.
"Can I buy you a drink?" he asked as soon as I came close enough for him to speak.
I hesitated and then stopped just like we'd planned. "Have we met?"
"In my dreams," Coop answered. "How about that drink?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm with someone. Maybe another time." I reached out to touch his chest and gave him a slow, seductive smile. With the contact, my heart pumped in my chest so hard I nearly fell on my ass when I jerked my hand away. What had happened in the bar hadn't been an aberration. This man had some sort of power over me. I continued on my way, hoping my confusion didn't show. Having a heartbeat is a valuable part of staying healthy. I'd always taken it for granted.
