Taste Me

by Tamara Hogan

  A self-deprecating expression slid over her face. “Where should I start? Exhaustion? Fear?”

  Scarlett, scared? He sat up straighter, felt his chest expand. Of what? Of… whom?

  “Will you throttle back?” she said with exasperation. “I can see you revving up from here. If there’s any ass to be kicked here, it’s mine. I was a mess when I left to go on tour. Running scared. I couldn’t sing my own songs, because to do that, I had to actually let myself feel the lyrics first. And I… couldn’t. It was easier to channel someone else’s emotions rather than my own.”

  Lukas shot her a look. “You didn’t have any problems with emotion the night of the show at Underbelly.”

  Scarlett winced. “I wasn’t ready to deal with you yet, and there you were, everywhere I looked.” She looked out of the passenger window. “I wanted to make you suffer, to imagine me with someone else. To feel even a fraction of the pain I felt the morning you made love to me and walked away.”

  Lukas’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. There was nothing he could say to—

  “And you’re still uncomfortable about the same thing, even after last night.” Scarlett pursed her lips. “I was joking before, but maybe we need a safe word after all.”

  Oh, man. Lukas sighed, and reached over to take her hand again. “This is going to sound like a massive cliché, but it’s not you. It’s me. And I’m… working on it.”

  “It would help if you worked on the right problem in the first place. What do you call it, root cause analysis?” She stroked the bruises smudging her wrist like they were bracelets of precious jewels. “Some of those problems you’re so worried about aren’t problems at all; they’re entirely in your imagination.”

  The air turned electric as their eyes met. He helplessly inhaled her desire, the taste he would always crave like the very air he breathed.

  “You know the song I was writing earlier? Any idea what it was about?”

  He snorted a laugh. “I know what my dick thought it was about, but tell me anyway.”

  “It’s about how I feel when we make love—then, and now.” She was silent for a moment. “I haven’t written a new song in a really long time.”

  “Why?”

  “When you walked away that morning, you took my voice with you. I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t—” She stopped. “No, strike that. I’m responsible for how I reacted after our… night together. I shut down, and I can’t let you take responsibility for that.”

  It didn’t matter what she said. The responsibility was his. He was older, and he should have known better. He should have controlled himself—

  “Don’t! Damn it, I can see you flagellating yourself from here. You’re so wrong.” She looked to the ceiling of the car as if to request guidance from above. “You didn’t physically hurt me, then or now. What hurt me was that you just… walked away, Lukas.” She turned her head back toward the window, like she couldn’t stand looking at him anymore. “You walked away from me—from us—without saying a word.”

  Her hurt ricocheted into him like a bullet to the heart. How could he make her understand the regret he’d felt that morning? Make her understand that he’d walked away for her own good? “I looked down at you that morning, saw what I done to you,” he started.

  “What you’d done? You melted me into an orgasmic puddle of goo! You horrible, horrible man.”

  Lukas dragged the memories out to the vicious light of day and tried again. “Your wrists. Your thighs, your breasts. I could see my fingerprints all over you.”

  “Yes.” Her voice deepened with desire. “And after you left, I ran my fingers over and over them until they finally faded, and only memories remained. Do you remember how much I begged? Screamed? Just like last night.”

  No. No way. His subconscious fought to keep hold of the lifeline he’d grabbed onto all those years ago—that leaving her was for the best. But she yanked it out of his grasp, leaving him to sink or swim.

  “Lukas. Don’t you understand? I love what you do to me, love what we do together. I love—” She swallowed, then forged ahead. “I love you, you stupid, stupid man.”

  He blinked dumbly.

  “And I’m tired, Lukas. I’m tired of running from this—” she gestured vaguely with her hand “—whatever this is. Push me away if you have to. Walk away, again. But if you do, you’re going to damn well look me in the eye when you do it, not slink away in the middle of the night, leaving me wondering what I did wrong.”

  Guilt, joy, and testosterone battled inside of him. The need to take, to claim, pounded with each beat of his heart. The words welled up from his throat like lava. “I love you too.”

  “I know—and I’m glad.” She leaned over from the passenger seat, bringing her hand to his jaw. “Listen. I need you to be exactly who you are, and I need to know I can be myself with you.” Stretching the seat belt mightily, she licked his chin with her clever tongue. “I love how you make me feel. I love knowing I can make you lose control. That’s only fair,” she breathed, “because you make me forget my name.”

  The car swerved when he captured her mouth with his. “Damn,” he muttered, jerking his eyes back to the road. Black Bear Casino loomed off the highway to the right, thank the universe, because he needed to be inside her—now—and at this moment, pulling off onto a gravel hunting road and bending Scarlett over the hood of the car would have been sufficient.

  Andi Woolf could wait. Killers could wait. He jerked the steering wheel and squealed down the exit ramp.

  From the passenger seat, Scarlett hummed with approval, the sound bubbling like champagne on his tongue. “I like how you think.”

  Chapter 23

  Scarlett glared at the portable mixing board. “You worthless piece of crap.”

  She saw the song in her head. She saw how to build it, layer by layer. The final version of “Undertow” glowed in her imagination like the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and she was stuck here with this… this… Paleolithic piece of shit that didn’t have a chance in hell of producing the percussion transition she absolutely required for the song’s bridge.

  She was dead in the water.

  Oh, in the reasonable portion of her brain, Scarlett knew she could work on other areas of the song, but the bridge was lodged in her psyche like a sliver. Adding insult to injury, her own state-of-the-art recording studio sat empty less than a mile away. But the last thing Lukas had said to her before leaving for the hospital? “This isn’t over yet. Stay put.”

  “Stay put,” she mimicked, shoving the chair back away from the desk with a satisfying clatter of wheels against the hard wood floor. “Damn it.” The taste of his blistering goodbye kiss still lingered in her mouth, but it didn’t make his decree any less annoying.

  So, now what? She whirled the chair in slow pirouettes as she considered her options. For all she knew, Andi had named her attacker and the combined force of Sebastiani Security and the MPD had already come down on the guy like the proverbial ton of bricks. He might be in custody right now, no longer a threat to anyone.

  Whether they’d caught the guy yet or not, Lukas wouldn’t be home for hours. She could go to her own studio, get in some solid work, and be back before he even knew she’d been gone.

  No. Scarlett discarded the idea almost as quickly as she’d formulated it. No matter how annoyed she might be about his autocratic tone and her worthless equipment, leaving would not only be monumentally stupid—it would be a violation of trust that she wasn’t sure their fledgling relationship could recover from. She was stuck here.

  But she didn’t have to like it.

  She hugged her legs to her chest and plopped her chin on her knees. Why was it okay for him to take risks, to put himself in harm’s way, while she sat home, cocooned in bubble wrap? She’d seen enough scars, scabs, and scuffs on Lukas’s body to know that he wasn’t content to stand back and let the police do their job without his help. No, at this very minute, Lukas could
be pounding his fist into someone’s face, dodging a knife, or diving to the pavement. Fighting for his life. Scarlett’s fists clenched. Didn’t Lukas know that people worried about him, worried about his safety? He was hardly immortal.

  Once this guy was behind bars, they needed to have a serious talk. The conversation they’d had in the car was a good start, but they needed more than a long weekend at the cabin and a few stolen hours at a roadside hotel.

  The hotel. Three precious hours of lust and love and laughter, of muttered demands, of whispered promises. Of having all of his attention focused solely on her pleasure. After a shower that was supposed to be fast but most emphatically was not, they’d stumbled back out to the car, leaving behind a wrecked bed, a room reeking of pheromones, and an outrageous tip for the housekeeping staff.

  But the minute they’d hit the highway again, Lukas shifted back into work mode, returning the messages that had piled up during their little time-out at the hotel. Andi Woolf was coming out of her coma, and Lukas made plans to meet Jack at the hospital just as soon as Lukas dropped Scarlett off back home. He’d told Gideon Lupinsky that he’d stop by the latest crime scene. He set up a con-call with Bailey, Valerian, and Wyland for the next day.

  His previously relaxed expression tensed and hardened a little more with each phone call, with each southbound mile.

  Scarlett’s eyes shifted to the bottle of Pepto-Bismol sitting on his desk. How did he juggle all his responsibilities, and still hold on to his sanity? His sanity might yet be intact, but his stomach lining was another matter entirely. Trying to be everything to everybody—and damn it, succeeding at it—was definitely taking its toll. At this very moment, Lukas was probably putting himself in danger to catch her sister’s killer, and while she wanted justice for Annika, and certainly for Andi and Stephen, she didn’t want Lukas to hurt himself to achieve it. The price would be too high.

  Scarlett dropped her legs to the floor. “Um, duh.” Stephen. Drummer. Percussion. Percussion effects, and damn good ones, too. She shot out of the chair with new energy. Lukas had told her to stay put, but he hadn’t said she couldn’t invite anyone over—and after all, Stephen was on her approved visitors list.

  Yes, she thought, creative juices already flowing as she near skipped to Lukas’s desk. She picked up the phone and dialed Stephen’s cell.

  She and Stephen could do this the old-fashioned way. She’d drag Stephen away from whatever—or whomever—he was doing, ask him to bring over a few drums, some sticks, brushes—hell, as much equipment as he could donkey over on his motorcycle.

  Win-win. Problem solved.

  ***

  Lukas could hear Andi half-screaming, half-howling the minute the elevator doors opened onto the empty reception area of the VIP floor. Something shattered against the inside of her closed hospital room door, followed by unmistakable slams and bumps.

  Fighting, hand-to-hand in an enclosed space.

  Gideon pulled his police-issue.

  “Where the fuck’s the guard?” Lukas, Jack, and Gideon approached the door, using instinctive choreography: Gideon on point, Jack to Gideon’s right, his gun pointed to the ceiling, and Lukas coming in low and left with no weapon at all.

  “Police,” Gideon called loudly. “Open the—”

  The door abruptly swung open. “Come in, gentlemen,” Krispin Woolf said, gesturing them into his daughter’s room with a courtly sweep of a hand bleeding from several small cuts. He stood in shattered glass, and several peony stems lay on the floor in a puddle of water. Andi sagged against the bed in her hospital gown, breathing heavily behind a hand covering her mouth. The bodyguard stood between father and daughter, cradling a broken wrist.

  “As you can see—”

  “Quiet. Everyone stay put.” Gideon skirted the perimeter of the room, ducked his head into the bathroom, and then entered, sweeping back the shower curtain. Lukas wondered who the hell they should be covering.

  “Clear,” Gideon called out to Lukas and Jack before exiting the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He approached the guard and asked for his weapons, then approached Krispin Woolf. “Are you carrying?”

  Lukas took Krispin’s deadpan expression as a yes. Gideon did too, because he politely but methodically frisked the WerePack Alpha, coming away with a semi-automatic handgun, a clutch piece, two knives, and a garrote.

  “A man can’t be too careful these days,” Krispin said blandly.

  “Dad, you’re not helping matters any,” Andi said hoarsely. The trach tube she’d been sporting the last time Lukas had visited had been removed, replaced by white gauze bandages. “It was me.”

  “What was you?” Gideon asked before Lukas could.

  Andi’s arm gesture was very much like her father’s, somehow managing to encompass the entire room with a flick. “The guard approached as I was waking up, and I… overreacted.” She cleared her throat, raising a hand to the bandages. “Sorry. Hang on a sec.”

  Andi picked up the small plastic pitcher on the bedside table and drank, not bothering to pour the water into a glass. While she quenched what had to be a vicious thirst, Lukas and Jack entered the hospital room, cheerfully cluttered with colorful cards, banners, and enough flowers to stock a florist shop. A bouquet of Mylar balloons hovered near the ceiling.

  It wasn’t until Andi tipped her head back to get the last drops of water from the pitcher that Lukas noticed the mark on the underside of her chin. The matching love-bite Scarlett had suckled onto his left hipbone a few hours ago throbbed. “Andi, where did that mark on your neck come from?” he asked, careful to keep his voice neutral.

  “What mark?”

  “There’s a red patch under your chin that wasn’t there when you were admitted.”

  A quick flash of something—fear?—flickered into her expression, quickly followed by copper-flavored anger. “That fucker.” She walked to the bathroom door and wrenched it open, completely ignoring Gideon, who followed her.

  “What fucker?” Jack asked.

  Krispin had a rueful expression on his face. “Her young man was certainly enthusiastic.”

  The hair on the back of Lukas’s neck rose. He’d done dozens of interviews with Andi’s friends, family, and acquaintances in the days following her assault. No one had mentioned a boyfriend. “What young man?”

  Jack shot a look at Lukas as he hurried from the room. “I’ll check the guest roster.”

  When Andi came back from the bathroom, her gown was unfastened and her face pulsed with temper. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a lupine growl.

  “Breathe, Andi. Breathe. We’ll wait.” Gideon tied the back fastening of her hospital gown. “She’s covered in them,” he said to Lukas and Jack. His expression flattened as Krispin lapped the blood from his hand. “Okay, one thing at a time. What happened here? Report,” he ordered the guard.

  Despite his injured wrist, the man Krispin Woolf hired to guard his daughter spoke steadily and cogently. “Approximately ten minutes after the doctors left, Ms. Woolf became agitated. I entered her room to check her status. Mr. Woolf followed. When I approached the bed, she reached out and…” A tinge of embarrassment crept into the guard’s voice as he indicated his broken wrist. “She then threw the vase at Mr. Woolf, who used his hand to deflect it.”

  “I just—reacted,” Andi said. “I didn’t know it was you, Dad.”

  “Understandable, my dear,” Krispin responded. “Just coming out of a coma, in bed for days, and she’s still strong enough to protect herself,” he said proudly to the men. “What a girl.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. We hooked up at Subterranean. He nearly killed me that night, and he’s been… visiting me here at the hospital.” A shudder wracked her frame as she looked down at her gown-covered torso. “Visiting me, over and over again.”

  Krispin and his handpicked guard exchanged a shocked glance that said it all. Andi’s assailant had waltzed right into her hospital room, victimizing her anew? Krispin’s face froze
up, as solid as a lake in January, but underneath the surface, his rage and guilt roiled so violently that Lukas had to shake his head to clear it.

  “Dad…” Disregarding the glass, Andi walked to her father and stepped into his embrace. To comfort him or to receive comfort? Lukas wondered. Probably a little of both.

  Krispin picked up his daughter and set her on the bed. When he finally spoke, it was with all of the authority of the WerePack Alpha. “Who is this man? His name.”

  Jack answered his question from the door, where he stood holding Andi’s visitor’s log. “It’s Stephen. Scarlett’s drummer, Stephen.”

  Lukas’s extremities went numb.

  “What?” Gideon snapped incredulously, though they’d all heard the name perfectly well.

  Stephen had taken himself off the suspect list the very night of Annika’s murder, by turning himself into a victim.

  They hadn’t even questioned it.

  Jack shook his head in amazement. “He almost died making it look like he’d been—”

  “We didn’t even look at him twice. Fuck.” Lukas snatched his mini-comp out of his jacket pocket. “Where are you, you sick bastard?” he whispered, his fingers flying over the tiny keyboard to issue a comm blast telling all Council members and their families to ping back, STAT. At least he knew that Scarlett was safely at home.

  Gideon called in an APB, then pulled up a chair, turned on a recorder, and began to interview Andi. She described the hookup at Subterranean as being completely consensual, until she’d been hit with a blast of something that had scrambled every synapse in her head. The longer she talked, the more pissed off she sounded, though she wasn’t letting emotion get in the way of the facts.

  Good. Stay pissed. Fight back. Lukas was massively pissed off too. He hadn’t seriously considered Stephen, even after tasting those damn ashes at his own fucking house. The fact that Stephen had given Antonia drum lessons, alone and with the family’s blessing, chilled his blood.

  From the bed, Andi’s voice was getting louder. “When I get my hands on him, I’m going to—”