by Evie Byrne
The cab slowed down and pulled over about twenty feet away. She ran for it, juggling her bag and her dinner, dodging bodies. Even a short run was proving too much for her any more. She put one hand to her chest, feeling the disturbing, lurching rhythm of her heart. Nitrates are the least of your problems, Maddy girl.
As distracted as she was, she ran straight into someone—someone trying to steal her cab.
“Oh no, buddy. This one is mine.” He was so close, and so tall, that his chest blocked her whole field of vision. Black tie, black shirt, black suit, black overcoat. Color me morbid.
“Madelena?” the wall gasped.
She craned her neck upward to see Gregor Faustin gaping at her like he’d seen his own death.
“What is your problem?” She meant it all sorts of ways. “Let go of my cab.”
Faustin recovered enough to return to his usual unpleasant self. “It’s not ‘your cab’. I hailed it.”
“You lie like a rug.” Her mind boggled trying to figure out how he could be there. How they could possibly meet again. It had to mean he was stalking her.
“What—you think I’m stalking you?” His incredulous expression, she realized, was less than flattering to her as would-be stalkee. And did he just read her mind?
“You’re right,” she snapped. “Why would you go through the trouble of stalking me when you can just break into my apartment and suck my toes whenever you like?”
Faustin folded his arms and glared at her down his crooked nose. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Nothing was more hateful than a bald-faced lie, with the possible exception of an arrogant bald-faced lie. “Look, I don’t know what you intended that night, but if you meant to do some kind of memory wipe, you failed. At the very least you could have taken away my coat and pants. The damning evidence, you know? Sloppy work, Faustin, very sloppy.”
He arched a brow. “Tell me, did you ever get checked for head injuries, Madelena?”
“Bite me.” She smacked his hand off the door handle and claimed the cab.
As quick as a blink, Faustin jumped in on the other side. “Oh no,” he said, “You’re not stealing my cab.”
Maddy met him halfway across the seat and gave him a hard shove toward the door. “Get bent, Faustin. It’s mine.”
Faustin’s eyes narrowed at her in the most evil way, and she suspected he wanted to kill her. With a growl he forced his way in and closed the door with a decisive slam.
“I do as I please.” His tone was soft and even, but chilly, and she knew what he said was the truth. But it didn’t scare her. Maddy wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t afraid of anything much—except suffering more at the hands of doctors. Twice she’d died on the operating table, and twice she’d seen the tunnel and the light. Death was no bad thing. Her will was written and she didn’t have pets.
Not that she expected this cab ride to go that wrong—though who knew with Faustin?—but it was a perspective thing. Nothing was worth getting worked up about. So all she said to his icy threat was, “Nice grumpy face you got, Faustin.”
As soon as she said that the driver, who seemed pretty pissed off himself by this time, chimed in. “Tell me please if maybe somebody is going somewhere tonight? Or do you use my cab as a social club?”
“Chelsea” said Maddy, while at the same time Faustin said, “Columbus Circle.”
“I’m late,” she hissed at him.
He shot her another black look, and then said to the driver, “Go to Chelsea first.”
Maddy resigned herself to sharing; he was too big to bludgeon. The cab began to roll. Maddy took off her beret and unwound her scarf, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. She admired how well Faustin played the injured party when she was the one who had been run over and sucked on. He was without doubt the reigning Dark Lord of Sulk. What else he was, she was not sure.
With nothing more to fight over, they both sat back against the seat, arms folded, facing forward.
Maddy entertained herself thinking about what she could say that would annoy him most, because no way was he going to enjoy this cab ride in peace. It took her an embarrassingly long time to remember she had the solution in hand.
“Like my lunchbox?” She balanced it on her knees for him to see. Buffy the Vampire Slayer the logo said in bloody red letters. It was the rare one with David Boreanaz on it, her prize of prizes, evidence that she was the reigning queen of eBay.
Faustin turned his head incrementally to glance at it, then resumed staring out the front window. “I don’t know how a guy named Buffy is going to kill a vampire.”
Maddy sighed. “I take it you never watched the show. This is Angel. Angel is a vampire.”
All Faustin did was snort at the idea.
All week she’d played with the possibility that Faustin was an honest to God vampire. It was unlikely, admittedly. Well, actually, it was impossible if she wanted to keep her speculation within the bounds of reality, but when did she ever do that? And besides, the idea was so much more appealing than him being a foot fetishist with a skeleton key.
“You got opinions on vampires, Faustin?” Nettling him so directly made her a little breathless. “Theories, maybe?”
Faustin wheeled in his seat and leaned into her space, his big hand spread on the seat, way too close to her thigh. There were rules about personal space, and he was breaking them all to breathe down her neck. “You seem to have all the theories, Madelena. Why don’t you tell me what they are?”
Goddamn he was a sexy jerk. His voice reminded her of suede. Maddy met his eyes square on. Something dangerous lurked there, and her poor heart fluttered at the sight of it. She shrugged and put aside the lunchbox. “Just making conversation. Excuse me for trying.”
Faustin went back to his corner without a word, and she remembered that her dinner was going cold.
The driver had to have ears like a fox to hear the soft rustle of the foil. Or maybe it was the relish smell. At any rate, he caught on just as she was about to take her long-delayed first bite. “No food in my cab! No garbage in my cab! Thank you!”
“Relax Mr…Mr. Patel,” she said, reading his ID. She gave him her best smile in the rear view. “I promise I won’t leave a trace of evidence.”
To whit, a dangerous blob of ketchup and relish was sliding off the dog. She caught the blob with her tongue, and then sucked the end clean. As she did, she happened to catch Faustin’s expression. His face was shining with naked hunger.
“What the—?” For a second she thought he wanted the dog. Then his mouth was over hers.
“Hey, I was…” Even in protest, her lips moved against his, and he turned that protest into a kiss.
Oh. My. God.
Who in the world kissed like this? His mouth was sweet and hard at the same time, his hands coiling around her, drawing her in, drawing her under. All of the frustrated desire of that strange night came flooding back and she found herself kissing him back, even if she hated him, because…damn.
There was no sparring in the kiss, despite all their bickering. That didn’t feel right. What felt right was softening under him, opening to him. Her lips yielded, her neck wilted, her whole body relaxed in his arms, and strange as it was, she felt safe.
Very yin and yang, she thought. Whatever she had, he could take. Whatever he gave, she wanted, though it made her heart slam as sure as running.
The force of his kiss drove her back against the door, and as his weight bore down on her, she slid lower and lower onto the seat, one hand on the back of his neck, the other just managing to hold her hot dog aloft.
As they neared horizontal, their legs tangled. Like a complete slut, Maddy hooked one leg around his hips and pinned him to her. Now there wasn’t a bit of air between them. She needed the full body contact. She needed to feel his hard-on. And he obliged, grinding slowly in the saddle of her hips as his tongue swept her mouth.
Maddy answered him by circling her own hips, finding her rhythm and holdin
g strong. Slow and steady. Hot as lava. Heat flashed and gathered in her toes, and ran up the insides of her thighs like summer lightning. She held him tighter. Miércoles! I am dry humping Gregor Faustin in the back of a cab.
His mouth left her bruised lips, and fastened ruthlessly on her neck instead, delivering a line of deep, sucking kisses under her jaw. Maddy arched under him, her nipples stiff and sore against his chest. “Jesus!”
“You drive me fucking crazy,” he whispered against her skin.
Maddy sought and found his mouth. Their tongues twirled hot and desperate, and they moaned in unison. Just like that night he visited her room, she was sopping wet, open and ready. She wanted to take him deep inside and ride him until they both dropped with exhaustion, and she begged for it now, mewling and writhing, far past coherent speech.
“What do you want, Madelena?” he asked. “This?”
His teeth, sharp as razors, scraped her throat.
“Or this?” His hand slid between her legs, his strong fingers rubbing her engorged clit through her pants.
“That!” The moment he touched her, she started to come, fiercely and quietly, twitching beneath him while he stroked it all out of her.
She needed more.
“Fuck me. Please. Fuck me.” She begged in a raspy whisper, completely lost, unaware of anything but the solid feel of this man beneath her hands, the need in her beyond anything she’d known.
Mr. Patel’s voice sliced through her dream. “Get out! Get out, you filthy perverts, before you ruin my cab with your love juice and beef franks.”
Maddy hadn’t even realized he’d pulled the cab over until he yanked open the passenger door, and she and Gregor tumbled out onto the sidewalk. The curb was upside down. Rather, she was, and her hair was in the gutter.
Faustin clambered over her and started shouting at the cabbie. Less graceful, Maddy crawled out on her hands and knees, and stood swaying in the freezing night air, trying to remember her name, her social security number, the basics. The world became a little clearer when she found her glasses tangled in her hair and returned them to her face.
Passersby took in the argument, and no doubt thought she, and probably Faustin too, was drunk. Particularly because he had the remains of her hot dog—ketchup, relish, bits of grease and bun—smashed all over his left shoulder.
Maddy twitched and ached between her legs, but the magic moment was over. It was just as well. Fucking Gregor Faustin would have been a bad idea on so many levels. She ought to send Mr. Patel flowers for saving her from her own hormones. Distracted by these thoughts, she did not see the argument end. All of the sudden there was no cab, just Faustin standing alone on the sidewalk.
He scratched his head like a confused kid, and in that moment she wanted him all over again, good idea or not. Pivoting on his heel, he paced a short distance away and paused, his hands on his hips, his expression grim. He thought they’d made a mistake too, and that hurt her more than she should have let it.
“Look, Madelena—”
“Don’t say it, Faustin. I’m disgusted enough with myself.”
As she walked away she hoped he wouldn’t discover the hot dog on his shoulder for a long time.
Chapter Four
Gregor watched her march off. She walked with the idiotic lunch box tucked under her arm like a football. An oversized tweed sports coat belonging to some long dead, fashion-challenged old man covered her to her knees, hiding her fantastically curvy body. A body he was getting better acquainted with each time they met.
What would happen if he ran after her? Would she tell him to get lost, or would she accompany him to the nearest hotel? His eyes closed as he imagined the two of them naked in the cool anonymity of a hotel room, a place with no meaning, no promises, and most of all, no rules. She’d beg, and he’d deliver—but bit by bit and in good time—until she was soaked in sweat and screaming and dizzy with blood loss. He’d put her through her paces, and when it was over she’d never want to fuck anyone else. Ever.
Gregor’s eyes flipped open. Damn good thing he wore a knee-length coat too, or he’d be arrested for public indecency. Madelena had vanished into the crowd on the avenue, but he was downwind of her, and her scent still played in his nostrils. If he wanted to, he could find her easily. But he didn’t.
If he went after her, he’d be lost, and he had no intention of bowing to this insanity. The chemistry between them was powerful, sure, but what about the rest of it? What about the slight problem that they couldn’t stand one another? That she was an annoying geek? Buffy the Goddamn Vampire Slayer could kiss his ass. And so could all the powers of vampyr prophecy. He liked his life exactly as it was.
Gregor sniffed the air one last time, and caught a fading thin thread of her scent. That was it. He’d never see her again. The desire for her would fade, and he’d be back to himself soon enough. In the meanwhile, Mikhail was waiting for him. He began to search for another cab, contemplating the unfamiliar taste of ketchup in his mouth.
Mikhail met Gregor at his office door with a slap on the back. “You’re late. What happened to you?”
He withdrew his hand with a grimace and sniffed it. Gregor twisted, trying to see what was on his back.
“Let me guess,” Mikhail said, wiping his greasy hand down the front of Gregor’s coat. “You got in a brawl with a hot dog vendor?”
Gregor cursed and slipped his coat off to see the damage. “Something like that.”
Always fond of mysteries, Mikhail stepped closer, his fine-cut nostrils flaring as he circled Gregor, probing for clues. Mikhail was disgustingly attractive, so much so that he didn’t pass for human. His skin was eerily flawless, his fair hair too bright, his eyes too predatory. Among humans he had to dull down his appearance or keep to the shadows. Whenever he walked into Tangiers he caused a stir, so he didn’t do it much. It was pretty clear who in the Faustin family got the vampyr lord genes, and who got the Russian peasant dregs.
“Who’s this woman I smell on you, what was she doing with a hot dog, and why are you so frustrated?”
“We’re here to talk about security issues, not my sex life.”
Mikhail was designing the security system for Elixir. That was his job, contrary to appearances: security consultant, not therapist, not bloodhound.
“But this is so much more interesting.” His cold eyes sharpened with interest. “You look drawn. When did you last feed?”
Gregor brushed Mikhail’s hand off his arm and threw himself in a chair to put an end to the hovering and sniffing. “I don’t know. I think I grabbed a bite yesterday.”
The truth was that somehow the bitter, stale blood in Madelena’s ankle had tainted the taste of all blood for him. He was starving, but couldn’t eat much. This queasiness crossed over into the realm of sex. Something about her had managed to put him off sex with other women, but that sure as hell wasn’t going to be a permanent state of affairs.
Mikhail lifted one exquisite eyebrow at him, questioning, amused.
“You got something to show me or not?”
“Testy, testy.” Mikhail pulled out the floor plan of Elixir, rolled it out on a worktable and secured the corners with polished onyx weights. “Is this woman I smell on you your intended?”
“Goddamn it, Misha.” Gregor ran his fingers through his hair and gave up. Mikhail had the patience to badger him until the end of time if he didn’t submit. “Yes.”
Mikhail’s lips stretched in a slow smile. “She’s human. Does she please?”
“No. She does not please. Not at all. This prophesying bullshit—it doesn’t work.”
“I’d say it is working quite well, by the looks of you. Let me guess, you’ve tasted her but not consummated?” When Gregor would not answer, he continued. “Why are you fighting it? You’re bound to her already. No other woman will ever please you again.”
“Fuck!” Gregor leapt out of his chair. “Don’t say that. What, just because I tasted her?”
Mikhail inclined his head
in acknowledgement (the bastard never said “uh-huh” like a normal person) and produced a bottle of scotch and two glasses from a drawer. The Faustin cure-all for every disaster.
“Goddamn it!” Gregor brought both hands down on the desktop, toppling a pencil cup. “Fucking nice of one of you to warn me about that little rule.”
Mikhail held out a glass of scotch, which Gregor ignored, so he put it on the desk in front of him. “I would think you’d know. It’s common knowledge. Remember the tale of Roland and Illysia?”
“No, I do not fucking remember Roland and fucking Illysia!” Gregor put his hands to his head as a sharp pain pierced him from temple to temple. He hadn’t even known her name when he first tasted her, when she lifted her hair up and showed him the scrape on her brow. He remembered how that taste shot through him. It had been an impulse to kiss her clean, nothing more. Would that impulse dictate the course of his life?
It would not.
He took a deep breath and let it out. Then he pounded back the scotch in one swallow, slammed the glass back on the desk, pointed an accusing finger at Mikhail and let fly.
“I might have skipped a lot of reading growing up, but I remember one thing for certain. We are free creatures. Pop taught us that. My free will is sacred, and it will not be bound by anything. If I marry, it will be the person of my choosing. I will not be forced by fate and I damn well won’t be tricked into it by my family.”
Mikhail narrowed his eyes at Gregor’s index finger, recognizing it as the challenge it was, but only said, “As you will.”
“Don’t fucking humor me. Say what you’re thinking.”
Mikhail sat down and contemplated the bottom of his glass for a moment. “I will not be pulled into a fight with you. You’re hungry and foul tempered. But I will answer your question. I think you have been given a gift, and that you should accept it.”
Gregor hated him as he had when they were children, hated him for being so goddamn smug and serene, hated him for being right most of the time.
“Someday soon Ma will hand you a little slip of paper with a name on it, Misha, and then you will tell me how much you appreciate the ‘gift’ of losing your free will.”
