by Mary Hughes
Then he nipped, just barely, at my lower lip.
I ignited. I wrapped my arms around his neck, smacked my mouth to his, and tried to lever my tongue down his throat.
He chuffed a laugh and simply lifted his head, pulling his mouth from mine—damn, he had strong neck muscles. I tried to follow, but he was too tall. The only way I could keep my lips mashed to his was to clamp him between my thighs and climb him like a tree.
“Slow isn’t good enough,” I panted. “We need to act.”
“While I admire your enthusiasm, I have the advantage of long experience. We’ll do it my way. Slow and subtle.”
He gave my lips a light flick of his tongue.
That hot lick flashed straight to my sex. Hunger hit frustration and spun into a perfect storm of him, now. “My way.” I speared fingers through his hair, tried to yank down his head but ended up raising myself using my grip to get in range—and nipped his lower lip.
His eyelids lifted in surprise. “Kat,” he murmured. “You never cease to amaze.”
“Amaze this.” I dove in, tongue first.
He resisted, lips closed, an instant longer.
I released him with one hand, unzipped my weapons vest, and pressed my body against his, and my tight, needy breasts.
He groaned and opened his mouth.
Now. Now see who’s leading. Me.
I was wrong.
As I plunged hungrily into the fiery cavern of his mouth, his hand cupped the back of my head, covering most of my skull. Protecting it as he pushed me, hard, into the wall with his body.
His hard, thick, aroused body. So potent it shot a shaft of longing into me, a need that stabbed me deep.
Abandoning subtlety, his tongue met mine and battled for supremacy, spearing hot and fierce. His hips pushed against me, his urgency plain, driving me higher.
“More.” I grabbed his hand and thrust it between us, against my breast.
His fingers pulsed once, as if tasting the heft. The tip tightened and throbbed.
Then, gently, he removed his hand. “Too fast.” His voice was dark with lust. My heart hammered harder.
“Not too fast—”
“Try this instead.” He kissed me silent with a slow swirl of mouth and tongue, like butterflies dancing on my lips.
My urgency…changed. Still hungry, still needy, but the coiled desire was transformed into pure, sparkling pleasure. I wrapped arms around his neck and immersed myself in the wonder of it.
He kissed me, thoroughly. Kissing me, not for any goal, but simply because it was enjoyable.
No, more. Because it was magical.
A sense of amazement filled me. Could slower actually be better?
Or was I simply becoming enthralled with this man?
…
Could faster, harder, hotter be better? Or was he simply bedazzled by this woman?
Ryker was shuddering with need from Kat’s demanding mouth, the heat of her lithe, muscled body pressed against his, her breast in his hand. He wanted her almost to the point of taking her against the wall in broad daylight.
Inadvisable, from a number of standpoints. What if another church lady caught them? It wouldn’t bother him, but it might trouble Kat. And while he could stand direct sunlight for some time, he couldn’t stay out here forever.
Yet what really stopped him was Kat. He wanted to please her. It would be unforgivable of him, letting them jet to a good time when they could have something better, something special.
He sighed and settled into showing her how pleasurable kissing could be. Her soft lips and sweet taste made the demonstration shimmer with delight, enough that he looked forward to future displays. To helping her slow down and truly enjoy the sensual arts. To showing her how she could smolder with arousal for hours until she burned, ready to climax from such dizzying heights that it destroyed them both.
It would only take a few gratifying decades to demonstrate.
Decades percolated up through the haze of lust in his brain. I’m thinking of spending decades with her—like a relationship?
Panic crashed into him. He leaped back, putting cool October air between them.
She blinked up at him, skin flushed with pleasure, confusion in her gaze.
He wanted nothing so much as to kiss away the confusion and stoke her pleasure again until they both burst. He was surprised at the strength of his need.
Her flush began to fade, her gaze to narrow. Anger plumed just beneath. She was about to push him away.
His gut flinched. This was why he didn’t get involved with women except on a very superficial level. The pain of rejection when he screwed up simply wasn’t worth it. He pulled away before she could with a half-hearted, “Follow me.”
“No.” Her expression hardened. “You follow me.”
She stalked past him and threw open the door to Roller-Blayd Hall.
Chapter Eight
Needing to get away from Ryker’s big, too-masculine body, I yanked open the hall’s door. Though I didn’t regret kissing him—the guy was ten kinds of hot—I wasn’t happy with myself, either. Besides him being besties with a vamp, this whole attraction thing had escalated stupidly fast. It was an infatuation I wasn’t sure I could afford.
I entered a cavernous space of concrete and metal. The squeal of cart wheels, clatter of plates, and bright chatter of mostly female voices reverberated and expanded through an airplane hangar’s worth of area.
Broken surveillance cameras ringed the hall, smashed or hanging askew from their perches. The far end held a bare stage. Midfloor, a spiral staircase led up to a metal mesh platform, a security hub or sound booth atop it. One of the booth’s windows was damaged.
There’d been a fight here, all right. The question was, had it involved the deadly, graceful vampire king?
Ryker slipped in behind me. Speaking of deadly and graceful. At least with Ryker, I was attracted to a human. Maybe, given time, I could even change his mind about the monsters.
Bunches of women and a few men whisked around, setting up tables with food, drink, and decorations. I took a cautious step forward, not wanting to attract their attention.
After a brief hydraulic delay, the door shut with a boom.
I flinched. How would we explain our presence? I couldn’t just blurt, “Hunting vampires.”
Eyes came up. At the same time, Ryker stepped in front of me and pressed me back into the shadows. Only the central work lights were on, so there were plenty.
Protective and quick thinking. I was impressed. His dark clothes must’ve blended perfectly because the women and men went back to their work.
I murmured at Ryker, “What now?”
“Now I search.” His eyes gleamed, his face sharp with intent. He moved into the hall, quick, sure, his stalk sleek and silent like a lion poised to take down big game.
Worry shifted to intrigue. I’d only seen him as the urbane PI. There was something primitive to him now, something instinctive.
I liked it.
…
Ryker took a step beyond Kat’s beguiling self and let his vampire senses extend.
He swiveled, nostrils flared, separating the scents. Despite being overlaid with human police and CSU chemicals, he could still detect the signatures of a fierce fight. Blood, testosterone, and adrenaline, pouring off several males.
Along with another odor. Sweet, but with a metallic, rancid undertone.
Like rotting blood.
He blew air and shook his head, trying to get the repellant taste out of his nose and off his tongue.
“Are you okay?” Kat’s strong fingers landed lightly on his arm.
Her touch was surprisingly comforting. It helped him put aside the unease that metallic smell/taste sparked in him. “Elias was ambushed here. You can still see the fight’s destruction.” He po
inted at the broken surveillance cameras dotting the hall.
“Are you sure it was the king?”
“Let’s see what the evidence tells us. The crime scene unit will have processed most of the trace, but I think we can find enough to help us. Like that.” A second entrance door bore long scratches in its paint, a visual hint at the appalling tale his nose was telling him. He moved closer.
An ancient of his kind had stood at this door, in such great distress that the sharp odor lingered even after nearly two days.
The ancient’s pain and deep terror was unmistakable. Ryker’s throat constricted. If this was his friend… He took another cautious breath. Terrified, yes. But not for himself. For his mate.
Not Elias. His friend was unmated. Ryker released a relieved sigh.
“Talons?” Kat moved up beside him, her gaze on the scrapes.
“Marks of an ancient, desperate to get out.”
“What’s an ancient?”
“You’re the vampire hunter, and you don’t know?”
He said it lightly, teasingly, but her face reddened and her mouth opened.
Before she could start on his no-doubt richly deserved dressing down, he touched a single finger to her soft lips. “Shh. You don’t want to call the attention of the terrifying church ladies.”
“I don’t think they’re so terrifying,” she muttered around his finger. He liked her mouth moving against his skin and had to work to lower his hand.
“Perhaps. An ancient is… Well, Elias told me that age grants a vampire increasing power. Healing, then misting, then shape-changing.”
“Misting at a hundred, shapeshifting at a thousand, yeah.”
“After about four thousand years, their healing is nearly perfect, their compulsion is almost impossible to resist, and their battle armor is next best thing to impervious.”
“Oh. Like the king.” She nodded, as if slotting the fact into that quick, tenacious brain of hers. Then she threw him with, “That rancid odor is strange. Suspicious.”
“You can smell that?” Surprise lit him, and delight, and caution. She was perceptive. He liked that, though he’d have to stay on his toes around her. “My police source mentioned drugs. Maybe the attackers were under the influence.”
…
The mention of drugs made me think of Alexis’s ruby serum. I took another whiff of the nasty, sweet-rancid stuff. “You said Elias was ambushed? That would take some doing. If I wanted to ambush someone as powerful as the king, I’d weaken him first. Like maybe with a vampire-incapacitating drug in the air.”
“An aerosolized hallucinogen or anesthetic?” Ryker rewarded me with a considering nod. “That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? There’s some damage in the control booth. Let’s see what we can find there. Keep your voice down, now.”
Our path skirted the scurrying women. I tried to walk as silently as Ryker.
He stopped beside the spiral stairs. He bent to retrieve a tag of dark shirting from the shadows. “Ah. Here he is.”
“The ancient?”
He slanted me a quick grin. “To some, he is the ancient. The king. Fighting multiple attackers.”
“How can you tell?”
“The cloth, because I recognize the quality of the material. The number of attackers… Well. Even drugged, a single attacker couldn’t have touched him. Three or four good-sized vampires—probably armed. And still, he fought.”
“Elias is that powerful?” I shivered, remembering the king’s deadly dance, scything through two dozen vampires. “Yeah, of course he is. How did the police miss that scrap?”
“We must thank the terrifying church ladies. Limited time meant the police were forced to concentrate their efforts on the main fight areas. The front of the building. And probably, from that damaged window, the booth upstairs.”
“I really don’t think these women are so terrifying—”
“Yoo-hoo! Excuse me.” A silver-haired lady broke away from the tables, headed for us at a brisk trot, a tray of something tucked against her waist.
Ryker gave me a small smile. “I think we’re about to find out for ourselves.”
At least he didn’t say follow my lead. I slid slightly in front of him as the woman bustled up, ready to protect him just in case.
“I’m Mrs. Gelb, this year’s VP of the Lutheran Ladies Auxiliary. We’re not ready for the public.” Under her breath, she added, “Not that it’s our fault.” Raising her voice, she said, “You must leave.” She underscored it with a scolding finger shake.
Leave? Acid ate my stomach. We couldn’t afford to stop our investigation, not now with our first real clue.
Ryker surprised me. “Ah, good Mrs. Gelb. Perhaps you can help us.” He smiled winsomely at the woman, with a sweetness I’d never seen before.
He wasn’t just big and bad, he was cute. I stifled a delighted laugh.
Smoothly, he went on, “Is this one of the delightful events put on by the town to engender good cheer during Oktoberfest?”
Her finger stopped scolding, and she bit her lower lip as she tried to process his words.
Damn, he was also good.
“Such Old World charm,” he continued. “We were so looking forward to partaking in the gemütlichkeit here.” He waved an elegant hand at the tables.
Even as I was goggling at him—where’d he get words like gemütlichkeit?—her whole manner changed. She went from disapproving teacher to welcoming host in the blink of an eye.
“Ach, ja. You are a vacationing couple, here for the romantic Couples Beer and Cheese Tasting?” Somehow learning we were tourists gave her a German accent.
He’d completely won her over. I had to hand it to him—sometimes subtlety did beat raw power.
Wait. Couples tasting? As in, me swiping right for Ryker?
“Exactly,” he said, so confidently even I almost believed he’d known about the event. He made a moue of puzzlement. “Shouldn’t it have started already?”
“Ja, at ten this morning, pünktlich. Ten o’clock sharp, but we are late setting up because, oh, now it’s a crime scene.” She rolled her eyes. “And then those nosy Steel boys came wanting to look over every inch, as if they were police, too. What is so important they are having to interrupt our moneymaking…er, wunderbar wonderful fun event?”
“How difficult for you.” Ryker set his face in a sympathetic frown. He did diplomatic-sad almost as well as a newscaster or undertaker.
“We will be ready soon. If you and your girlfriend can come back, say in half an hour—”
“Girlfriend?” I squeaked. “We’re not—”
Ryker shot me a tight “no” head shake.
Like that’d stop me. “—a couple. Why would you even think that?”
“You’re together at a couples’ event,” she said reasonably. “You wear no rings. You are cute together.”
This time he was the one to startle unpleasantly. “Cute?”
My turn to smile sweetly. “You are cute.” Then, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Honey.”
He shot me a tight grimace, which morphed into a gracious smile as he turned toward Mrs. Gelb. “Couldn’t we stay? It would be ever so lovely to see the magic behind the wunderbar event.”
“Well, I don’t know…”
“Please? After all, everyone raves about the wonderful church ladies and their exquisite…” His gaze flew briefly over the tray, balanced against her hip like a laundry basket. “Cheese balls.”
Her face brightened so fast I could almost hear the click of high beams. “You’re interested in our cheese balls?”
“They are famous nationwide.” He nodded so seriously even I believed him. “World-famous, even.”
“For such obvious admirers—stay. But don’t get in the way.”
“We promise not to interrupt the magic.”
&n
bsp; She turned away. I let out a puff of relief.
Too soon. She spun back, eyeing me suspiciously. “Are those swords? We do not allow weapons as part of our fun.”
“No!” My vocal cords had tightened, and it came out like a squeaky toy. I worked to sound less panicked. “They’re props. I have a job at the Bristol Renaissance Faire this summer. I’m carrying them to get comfortable with the weight and…”
Ryker elbowed me gently in the ribs. Over-explaining, sure sign of a lie.
“…and stuff,” I dribbled off.
She scrutinized me so closely I started to sweat.
“I’m not supposed to, but since you say such nice things…here.” Reaching under her arm, she slid a ball from the tray. It separated from the stainless steel with an alarming thwuck, like an octopus tentacle. Lying in her palm, the ball was the eye-bleeding orange used for emergencies, covered in wilted green speckles that looked like mold but was probably oregano. I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised to see it inch toward us and open its eyes.
Ryker gingerly took the cheese ball from her. Or, given the smell and appearance, the word cheese didn’t seem to apply, but it was a ball. She trotted away.
This time my relief was tinged with sympathy for him. “What’s next?”
His gaze was pasted on the goo in his palm, his expression horrified awe. “Finding a safe place for this.” His eyes lit on the spiral staircase. “There. That will do.”
I followed him back. “Then what are we looking for?”
“Anything out of place. Cover me while I search. I’ll do the same for you.”
“Right.” I reached for one of my knives.
His lips folded between his teeth, as if he was biting back a grin. “Not quite what I meant. Mrs. Gelb thinks we’re staying to observe them, so appear attentive. Maybe even smile. You have a lovely smile.”
Lovely…? A splash of pleasure hit me. I attempted to cover it with a caustically arched brow, though mine didn’t work as well as his. “I think you have the easier job.”
