by Jill Myles
Outside I frowned at the mess of cars, trying to locate our limo driver in the sea of waiting black stretch limos. Not an easy task.
“We can take my car.” Caleb produced a set of keys from his pocket. “It’s over in the garage.”
“That seems like our best option,” I said guardedly, though I wasn’t thrilled about the thought of letting Caleb be the one to drive us back to the city. He seemed nice enough, but he had fangs and red eyes, which told me he was no good guy. “Which way is the garage?”
Caleb pointed with the keys, and he and Ethan began to walk in that direction. As I began to follow, something snagged my flimsy sandal. The ground rushed up and I planted, face-first, into the sidewalk. My strappy shoe snapped and my ankle flashed with pain as it twisted.
Zane was immediately at my side, helping to pick me up. “Are you all right?”
I dusted off my scraped elbows and tried to place my weight on my foot. Pain immediately shot up my leg, and I clutched at Zane’s forearms, hoping he’d pick me up again. “I don’t think I can walk. My stupid shoe—”
He told Caleb, “Why don’t you get the car? I’ll wait here with Jackie to make sure she isn’t attacked.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed, though the friendly grin remained on his face. He gestured at Ethan. “Come on, then. We’ll get the car and pick you two up in a minute,” he said, casting a meaningful look in my direction.
Without waiting for my response, they turned and walked to the back of the house, Ethan walking behind Caleb as if he were trailing a cobra and waiting for it to strike.
I leaned heavily on Zane, who seemed distant. With his free hand, he lit a cigarette and began to smoke as I tried to fix my shoe. Puzzled and a little hurt by his cold demeanor, I plucked my shoe off to see if the broken straps were fixable.
There was a boot print on the back of my heel. Someone had stepped on it to trip me.
But the only person behind me had been Zane. I stared at the print a moment longer, then turned to Zane, shoe in hand. “What the hell is this?”
He dropped the cigarette as soon as Ethan and Caleb rounded the corner of the building, watching to see if they would reappear. Then he turned to me, pulled me close, and began to kiss me with hungry, aching need. His mouth swallowed my gasp of surprise and his tongue stroked into my mouth boldly, demanding entrance.
Emotion swelled through me and I was only too happy to comply. I had my Zane back.
The shoe fell to the ground and I wrapped my arms around his neck, leaning in as he devoured my mouth like a starving man. His tongue flicked against mine repeatedly, tasting me, teasing me. My tongue met his, my fingers curling in his hair, and I moaned with delight. He pulled away after a moment, dazed, his eyes focused on my mouth. Then he began to kiss me again, sucking lightly at my bottom lip, stroking into my mouth with his tongue, then sucking on my lip once more.
It was as if he were starving for my touch, and I was definitely craving his.
Zane finally broke the kiss. His fingers caressed my cheeks; his eyes frantically searched mine. “I can’t believe you’re here. That I’m touching you again.” His mouth hardened in a twist. “I keep thinking this is another one of her tortures—her worst one yet. To bring you to me, only to pull you away again.”
My heart gave a euphoric little flip. “I’m not going anywhere, Zane.”
He pressed his forehead to mine, as if he needed to touch me again to believe that. “I’ve missed you. It hasn’t been the same without you.” He swallowed roughly, and I could hear his throat working. “I thought I could go back to the way I was before, but …”
I held my breath, waiting.
He pulled away slightly, giving me a rakish smile. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about.”
I moved forward, sliding my arms around his waist under the jacket and feeling the tickle of feathers against my skin. “We’ll have time to catch up. Don’t worry.”
“No, that’s just it,” he said, and pulled me off of him. “We don’t.”
“We don’t?” My arms fell to my sides, and I gave him a hurt look. “What do you mean?”
He glanced around quickly, then moved forward and pressed another fervent kiss on my mouth.
My body instantly ignited with lust again, and when he pulled away, I tried to keep him there with my lips, my head following his as he took a step back. “We don’t have time.”
“What do you mean, ‘We don’t have time’?”
He lit another cigarette, his hands twitching as he devoured me with his eyes, sucking heavily on the cigarette as if that could replace my mouth on his. “It’s Caleb,” he explained, his voice short and terse. “The queen sent him as a spy, not because she expects me to need help. This is yet another test for me, the misbehaving protégé. She’s putting you in my reach and has forbidden me to touch you. And Caleb will report back to her.”
“Oh.” Words failed in my throat, and disappointment crashed through me. “So we can’t … be together?”
He shook his head, silent. The only sound was the sizzle of the cigarette paper. A long moment passed between us. “I thought it would be enough just to be in your presence again, but …” He gave me a rueful look from under a floppy lock of hair, and my heart melted all over again. “You’re very hard to resist.”
That made my legs weak with desire. “But you just kissed me.”
His eyes grew hot as he stared at me. “Oh, I plan on kissing you and touching you every time he turns his back. You have my word on that.”
Liquid heat poured through my body at the thought. “I see. And feeding?” I hadn’t missed the redness in his eyes—he had yet to feed this night. “Not just yours, but mine, too? I’m due tomorrow and Noah is still in Mexico.”
“What about that big warrior guy?” Zane flicked his cigarette away.
I reeled as if slapped. “You’d be okay with me sleeping with him? Really?”
His eyes met mine and I sucked in a breath at the anguish I saw in them. “No, I wouldn’t be okay with it,” he said hoarsely. “But we’re low on options, and I’d rather see you fucking another guy than dying in my arms.”
“I don’t want to touch him,” I said, moving forward to touch his chest. “I want to touch you. Be with you.” Tears pricked behind my eyelids, but I blinked them away. “This is cruel.”
“That’s what she likes to do best,” he said, his hand resting over mine for a moment before he moved away again. “I won’t be able to stand being near you and not being able to touch you. We’ll just have to figure out ways to distract Caleb and sneak a moment here and there.”
Sneaking a quick feel in the corner in order to continue my Afterlife? My, how the mighty had fallen. Still, a quick feel from Zane trumped amazing sex with a stranger. “I’ll take it,” I said. “Feel free to touch me anytime, anywhere. This is going to be as difficult on me as it is on you.”
“It’ll be a nightmare for both of us,” Zane said, gazing at me with hunger. “Christ, that dress—it’s a torture. Didn’t look like that in the catalogue.”
No, I imagined it hadn’t. Thanks to succubi genes, my breasts were a very perky double-D, and they made the dress do obscene things. “Next time you’re picking out clothes for me, pick out something with a back. Oh, and a front,” I said sarcastically.
His wry, bladelike smile returned, and for a moment it felt like old times. “Now where’s the fun in that, Princess?”
Fun, indeed. His nipples weren’t about to snap off from the cold. “There’s the car,” I said, turning away. “Looks like it’s time to put on our game faces.”
“I’m going to need more smokes,” Zane muttered.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Since Remy’s house was trashed and my apartment had been leased while I was in Mexico, we ended up at a hotel.
Caleb had generously offered for the three of us to shack up at his place, but it was quickly declined. I wasn’t keen on taking anyone back to Noah’s penthouse, either, becaus
e it held way too many memories for me and way too many pictures of Noah and me together for Zane’s liking. We settled on the Four Seasons in downtown New City—swanky and expensive. Caleb brought out the credit cards. “You’re the queen’s employee for the next three days. The least we can do is put it on the corporate account.”
Lucky me. Still, considering that my purse only had what I’d taken from Noah’s safe in Mexico, a big fat engagement ring, and Remy’s necklace, I was willing to let the vampire pay.
Caleb ended up getting us three rooms. One for him, one for Zane, and the last room consisted of a single bed for myself and Ethan.
Zane looked ready to murder Caleb when he distributed the room keys, but I suspected that was part of the vampire’s plan. He wanted to remind Zane at every turn that I was officially off limits, and making me room with another tall, handsome man was doing the job admirably.
Perhaps Zane hadn’t noticed that Ethan acted like a skittish kitten every time he even caught a glimpse of side-boob, or he wouldn’t be jealous.
We stood in the lobby for a few minutes, making plans.
“We’ll start tomorrow night,” Caleb said. “Night’s almost gone already and I haven’t had a chance to feed.”
I hadn’t had a chance to eat, either, and my stomach growled just thinking about it. The hors d’oeuvres at the party had done little to sate my succubus appetite. But feeding my stomach was lower down on my list of to-do items. “I only have three days. Why can’t we start tonight? There’s still two good hours left before the sun starts to rise.”
Caleb’s baby-faced smile was disarmingly cute. “Nope. We need to get feeding taken care of before the evening is over, or I’m afraid we’ll both be terribly cranky.”
Shock hit me like a splash of cold water, and I glanced over at Zane. He needed to feed tonight, which meant he was going to hook up with another woman, since I was off limits. So I’d have to sit by and watch while he seduced another woman . “I see.”
“Great, so we’ll regroup here at sunset? I’m in room 7401 and Zane is in 7402. You guys are floor two—the honeymoon suite.” Caleb winked as if sharing a secret.
Ethan made a strangled sound. Zane’s fists curled, and he shoved another cigarette between his lips, only to pull it out again. Couldn’t light up in the lobby.
“Spiffy,” I said, trying to keep a cheerful face on things. “But no one has mentioned how we’re going to find Remy.”
“Oh, I have a plan,” said Caleb. “She’s still here in New City somewhere, looking for another vampire to off, so we’ll give her what she wants.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m not sure I like the sound of this plan.”
“A trap,” Zane gritted, and I realized that he already knew about the plan and just hadn’t told me about it yet. “We have free use of the club, Midnight. The queen wants us to lure Joachim there and take him down.”
I swallowed again, my flesh suddenly covered in goose bumps. “And how are we going to lure Remy there?”
“Bait,” said Caleb cheerfully. “She—he—wants your head on a platter. So we’re going to give it to him. We’ll use you to draw him forth, and when he appears, take him down once and for all.”
“Didn’t you say he’d taken down seven vampires at once?” I croaked.
“Yes, but you’ve got us to protect you,” Caleb said, with a cocky smile. “You should be just fine.”
This didn’t sound fine to me. I turned my frightened gaze to Zane. If I was safe—and I wasn’t entirely sure I was—would he be safe? Or was the queen literally looking to kill two birds with one stone?
At my silence, Caleb smiled and tweaked my nose like I was a child. “Nothing to worry about.”
I slapped his hand away.
Zane began to stalk away to the elevator, his long coat fluttering around his legs. I could have sworn that I saw the back of it twitch, his wings probably shivering with forced control.
If that was their idea of a good plan, I was screwed. Zane was screwed. We were all screwed.
I turned to Ethan. “I guess we should go see our room, right?”
“Succubus, neither of us sleeps,” Ethan said, pointing out the obvious. “I can wait in the lobby for you.”
Clearly Ethan wasn’t keen on sharing a room with me. I gave his shoulder a friendly smack. “Don’t be so worried,” I said, trying to keep my voice cheerful. “I won’t go on a molesting rampage until tomorrow night at the very earliest. You’re safe until then. And sitting down here in the lobby would just make people wonder.” A seven-foot-tall warrior with shoulders like a linebacker and long, silky black hair in a half-busted tuxedo didn’t exactly blend with the surroundings. “We’ll regroup upstairs and figure out what we do from here. I want room service, anyhow. You can watch TV or something.”
“Television?” he asked slowly. “I have heard of it but never seen it.”
Did they not allow TV in his sanctuary?
“You’re in for a treat, then,” I said, tucking my arm in his. “But take it from me. Avoid any channel with ‘Spice’ in the name.”
We ordered room service—steaks, mashed potatoes, a hamburger, some french fries, two chocolate shakes, and a hot fudge sundae for me. Ethan simply got a cup of coffee. There were also Snickers bars and M&Ms in the mini-fridge, so I stashed them in my purse for later. As I ate, Ethan cradled the coffee in his hands and stared at the TV with wide eyes, watching the Lifetime Movie of the Week.
I polished off my food and left him to flip the channels, eager to get out of my skanky dress. Since my bags were still at Remy’s house, I made a mental note to head there in the daylight when the vampires were sleeping so I’d have something decent to wear. For now, I grabbed the bathrobe in my room and walked out on the balcony to clear my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about the plan to “save” Remy.
A trap. Me as bait. I didn’t like this much at all, but what choice did I have?
The air on the wrought-iron balcony was brisk, the wind ruffling my hair. Even only two floors up, we had a great view of the strip in New City. Cars streamed below in scattered fashion—not a lot of people out on the road at four in the morning, but just enough to keep things moving. I stared down at the lit streets, then craned my head up, staring at the balconies that stretched overhead for floor after floor. Which one was Zane’s?
The TV flickered in the room, then went black as a commercial began to play. With the lights dimmed, I caught a glimpse of a dark figure several balconies up, and my heart skipped a beat. Someone up there was watching me. Was it Caleb?
The figure above twisted in the black shadows, then leapt down to the next balcony. The iron rungs made no sound as he leapt from balcony to balcony, moving down to where I stood in a white robe, waiting. As the figure approached, I caught sight of a long, shining pair of slick black feathered wings, and Zane’s dark, rakish hair. His pale chest was bare in the moonlight, his jacket shed. And as he leapt to the balcony next to mine, he extended a hand outward to me and raised a finger to his lips.
I glanced inside at Ethan, whose gaze was still glued to the screen. The coffee mug hovered halfway to his mouth, undrunk, as he watched Project Runway with rapt attention.
He wouldn’t miss me for a few minutes. I leaned over the edge of the balcony and placed my hand in Zane’s.
He grabbed me and pulled me close, and for a too-long second, I fell into thin air as we both plummeted several feet. Zane spread his wings and began to pump them forcefully, and we flew up the side of the building, my arms locked around his neck in a choke hold.
When we got to the roof, Zane set me down gently. I wiggled my bare toes on the rough concrete as he moved past me, checking all four corners of the roof as if looking for someone. I hugged the robe closer, the wind whipping my hair about my face as I watched his familiar graceful movements. The wings fell loose on his back from his shoulders, a waterfall of beauty that shone even in the weak light of the setting moon. I could watch him for hours, his shoulders shi
fting as he loped over the roof, his mussed hair falling over his forehead. So very beautiful.
So sexy. And mine. My nipples grew hard, remembering his body moving over my own. The memory made my blood pulse and my skin flush. I needed sex tomorrow, or I’d start the downhill slide into the Itch.
His hand locked around my waist and he jerked me to his side. The hot press of his erection against my belly fueled my own desire. “Zane,” I breathed.
“I missed you,” he said against my hair, his hands roaming over my back and shoulders as if he needed to touch me everywhere. “God, I missed you. The last six months have been hell.”
“I missed you, too,” I said, feeling guilty. I’d spent the last six months aching for him, but I’d also had the time of my life on an archaeology dig with Noah. I was a bad, selfish succubus. “What are you doing up here? Shouldn’t you feed?” His eyes were still bright red.
He leaned in and began to kiss my jaw, brief, fervent kisses that danced along my chin and neck. “We have to talk first. I can’t—I can’t drink from another woman with you a few floors away, knowing what I’m doing.”
So he wasn’t the only one who had been agonizing over that. I held his head close to mine, shivering when I felt him nip lightly at my neck, then lick at my collarbone. “Where’s Caleb?”
“Off with twins. I brought their friend back to my room just in case he checked in, and she’s napping, thanks to a ‘suggestion’ I gave her.”
Vampires had a hypnotic charm—I had no doubt that the girl would think she’d had sex with Zane, even if he never touched her. It was a great cover story. “So where does that leave you and me and your feeding?”
I twined my fingers in his hair, pressing his head against my neck harder, as he loosened the front of my robe and began to trail his mouth down the collar.
“God, you’re naked under this thing,” he groaned, his mouth sliding to my breast.
