by Jory Strong
It was far more upscale than Kadence’s. Two stories instead of one, monstrous in comparison to the lot it sat on, though the same size as its neighbors.
“Not impossible to believe the clothes are Chloe’s cast-offs,” Israel said, and she had to agree.
A Botoxed blonde opened the door. “Let me guess, you’re a cop.”
The scent of alcohol blasted into Cia’s face. The woman’s attention shifted to Israel and remained there. A slinky change in body position thrust her breasts out. Her voice dipped into a purr. “And you’re not a cop.”
Israel’s slow, seductive smile had Cia’s jaw clamping. She caught herself glancing downward, but not quickly enough to stop from checking out the front of his jeans.
His smile widened and she knew it was for her. Heat crept into her cheeks, but at least the blonde hadn’t given him a raging hard-on.
“Invite us in?” he asked, the vampire-ish phrasing enough to send irritation crawling through her shoulders.
The woman stepped out of the doorway. “I’m Sonya, by the way. Can I offer you a drink?”
“I’d love one,” he said.
“No thanks,” Cia answered, as if the offer had included her.
Sonya snorted, the sound of it dismissive.
The skin on the back of Cia’s neck sizzled then went cold when thin streaks of green outlined Sonya. She blinked, shook her head slightly, heartbeat pounding harder and harder when the color lingered.
For no reason that she could discern, it disappeared when they reached a TV room with a bar along one wall.
Sonya lifted a glass containing ice cubes and an inch of amber liquid from the coffee table. Eyes never leaving Israel’s face, she waved toward the bar. “Help yourself to anything I have.”
Really? Why not just strip and pounce on him?
But at least the hazy color didn’t return.
Israel went to the bar, going around it, exploring, putting several bottles on the polished wood along with a tumbler. He fixed himself a drink, his movements smooth, confident. The lighting in that area caressed long waves of black hair, catching on the onyx studs in his ears so her eyes dipped to his nipples.
Her mind stripped him out of the tank and sprawled him across Terach’s bed. Lifted his hand so masculine fingers tugged on the nipple bar in invitation.
Her mouth watered. She wanted him.
There, she’d admitted it to herself. Not that she’d been able to pull off denial very well.
“Sure you don’t want a drink, Cia?” he asked.
Was that a hint of triumph in his voice?
Her lips thinned. His smile spread at having gotten under her skin.
Last time it’s happening.
He directed his attention at Sonya. “Refresh you?”
“Definitely.” She handed him the empty glass, her fingers brushing his.
He made the drink.
Either he recognized what she was having or she was willing to take whatever he gave her. Cia was betting on the second.
He offered Sonya the glass rather than set it on the bar, not pulling away when she extended the contact well beyond what was necessary.
“We’re helping a private detective friend,” he said.
“Let me guess, you’re looking for Kadence.”
Sour expression. Sour voice.
Israel lounged against the bar, the epitome of sexy bartender to Terach’s gorgeous bouncer. “Do you know where Kadence might be?”
“No, and frankly I don’t care. Donna blew things all out of proportion. Did you know she went to the school and talked to the principal and guidance counselors? She told them that the girls had been caught drinking in my house. Like I need more grief piled on.”
“No. I didn’t know.” Sympathy oozed from his voice. Cia envisioned a tip jar filling up.
“Well she did.” Sonya took a big swallow of her drink. “I didn’t appreciate the implication that somehow I’m responsible for Kadence, or that my daughter is. Kids experiment.”
Israel’s laugh was the husky promise of sex and bad-boy mischief. “They certainly do.”
Sonya leaned in, probably regretting the top didn’t allow for more cleavage or the peek-a-boo of nipples.
“So you knew they got into the booze?” he asked.
“It didn’t amount to much. And if once in a while it tipped into overdoing, I blame my soon-to-be ex. He walked out to shack up with a girl who’s not much older than his daughter.”
“What’s the girlfriend’s name?”
“Mindy.” Her voice went catty on the name.
The haze of color returned, bitter green like an unripe apple.
Cia clenched her fists, willing it away, wanting to turn away, but that went against her police training.
Israel moved closer, inviting further confession. “Are they a couple, your daughter and Kadence?”
Sonya laughed. “Why would you think that?”
“Kadence has a lot of new, pretty things, including dresser drawers full of Victoria’s Secret. Donna said they’d come from Chloe.”
“Donna is mistaken. My daughter is as materialistic as they come, thanks to her father.”
Israel took a sip from his drink, leaving his lips wet and tempting. “I don’t think I’ll like him. Does your daughter have a computer?”
“What kid doesn’t? And before you ask, I don’t know what she and Kadence get up to online.”
Black eradicated the haze of bitter green for a split second. Spilling across it like an inky tide only to retreat, leaving Cia’s skin coated in clammy chill and her heart fluttering like a wild, trapped thing.
“Where’s your daughter right now?” she asked, startling Chloe’s mother and earning a glare for the interruption and the reminder that Sonya wasn’t alone with Israel.
“At work. And I’m not telling you where that is so you can screw things over for her by showing up.”
Israel deftly jiggled his glass, the subtle clink of ice music to calm and draw Sonya back to him. “Are you sure you can’t tell us anything that might help us find Kadence? Sadly, I can’t enjoy the pleasures to be found in Ventura until she’s located.”
He drained the glass, setting it on the bar in preparation for leaving. Sonya licked her lips. The colors became less transparent. Deep red slid into green, lust suppressing bitterness.
Cia fought against turning and fleeing, though inwardly she trembled with the need to.
Sonya put her glass on the bar next to Israel’s and used her fingertips to push it so the two glasses touched, lipstick marked edge against clear. “If you come back tomorrow, I’ll let you talk to Chloe. Do you have my number?”
“Why don’t you give it to me? Along with your ex’s address.”
A surge of green obliterated most of the red. Cia’s stomach churned.
“I’ll wait for you in the car,” she said, escaping, though even behind the steering wheel the sense of being in control completely deserted her.
Memory rushed in and she was ten years old again, during one of those stretches when she and her mother were living in the car. She knew she was supposed to stay put while Mom was at work but she was restless, and besides, it was broad daylight.
She left the car. The coins she’d collected during the week from checking vending machines for forgotten change jingled in her pocket as she sprinted to the gas station convenience store.
She could practically taste the candy bar she was going to buy. But when she got there…
Turn around! Run!
It screamed through her at seeing the man coming out of the store. There was something seriously wrong with him.
The colors around him were monstrous. And when he looked at her, it was like something had eaten his soul and was now pouring out of his eyeballs.
She shoved her hands in her pockets and felt the coins there. Saliva flooded her mouth and she ignored the shouts in her head.
He was gone when she came out of the convenience store, candy bar cl
utched in her hand. But a glance over her shoulder after she started back toward the car and she saw him.
When she started running, so did he. Terror turned her feet into wings. She flew, dodging and weaving, smart enough to change directions repeatedly until finally diving into the car and hiding on the floor beneath a blanket. Shivering. Alone with her fear. Unable to share it with her mother because she’d broken the rule. Unable to ask about the colors or admit to seeing them because it must have something to do with witchcraft, and the whole reason her mother had left home at sixteen and never gone back was because her family practiced it.
Israel’s door opened, dislodging Cia from the past. He dropped into his seat, grin disappearing. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Everything. “You laid on the charm in there,” she said, deflecting.
“Jealous?” His voice teased but his eyes probed.
“Hardly.” She forced it out.
He programmed Sonya’s soon-to-be ex’s address into the GPS.
It was a pricey apartment complex. Tennis court. Swimming pool.
No lights on at their destination. No answer when she rang the bell.
Cia wrestled with whether or not to leave one of her Las Vegas Police Department cards since she wasn’t on official business. Finally she pulled one out, adding and circling her cell number with a request for a call. She anchored the card in the crack between door and jam without noting the visit’s purpose.
“Pragmatism,” Israel said. “I like that. All’s fair in love and war.”
His arm brushed against hers, transferring body heat in a nipple-tightening rush.
In the car he asked, “Where next? Tessa’s place?”
Cia wasn’t absolutely convinced she could trust herself to be alone with him there while she waited for night to descend and the answer he’d promised her. “What about the beach?”
“And there’s proof we’re meant to be together. I’d love it.”
His smile was like the arrival of summer. For a shimmering instant, sunshine yellow surrounded him, the color of happiness, of truth. And it was beautiful, the opposite of the black that had obliterated Sonya’s bitter green when she said she didn’t know what her daughter and Kadence got up to online.
What if I could use this? Not just in locating Kadence, but on the job?
Cia’s heart fluttered. No! She didn’t want this.
But what if using it meant saving lives? Finding justice for victims and their families? Was it worse than using lies in the interrogation room to trip up a suspect?
Her mouth went dry with thoughts of the man at the gas station, the monstrous colors surrounding him, the soul-sucking ooze of evil in his eyes and the terrifying race back to her mother’s car.
No. She didn’t want that in her life.
But what if it’s here to stay?
She shivered and the question dug in, becoming unshakable on the drive to the beach.
Israel was out of the car the instant it stopped. He peeled off his tank top and tossed it onto the seat.
Lifting his face to the sun, he flung his arms outward to embrace ocean and beach and salt-laden breeze. The kiss of sunlight and wind against his bare chest was a sensual caress tightening his nipples and fueling an ache to be touched and to touch, to make love on warm sand and in swelling surf.
Heaven. The only thing that would make this better would be Terach’s presence.
The sound of seagulls was like a call from home. He’d missed this. Needed it for the restoration of his soul and hadn’t even been aware of it.
Estelle didn’t let her slaves out to play during the day. How quickly love had moved toward hate when he’d been forced to sleep while the sun ruled the sky. But hate wasn’t a safe emotion when dealing with Estelle. He’d suppressed it. And over time, he’d suppressed more and more of who he was rather than risk the ultimate punishment, the withholding of blood.
Would Cia view him as a pathetic junkie when she learned the truth? Hell, in his darkest moments, that’s how he viewed himself.
Not with Terach. It was already different with Terach. He might be there to watch over Cia, but this was freedom he hadn’t experienced in years.
The sound of the car trunk opening had him closing the door on the past and turning to look at his future. His cock hardened, though whatever had been on Cia’s mind since leaving Sonya’s house still occupied it.
Not jealousy. Sadly. Something weightier, though he didn’t think it was connected to the answer he’d have to deliver at nightfall.
The sun dipped. He was torn between a desire for its hurried descent so Terach would rise and arrive in Ventura, and wishing for an extension of daylight to spend more time alone with Cia.
He joined her at the back of the car. A shotgun rested in a rack that didn’t come standard with the car.
A go-bag was crammed against the right side of the trunk along with a handgun in a shoulder halter. But it was the neatly folded blanket that provided an opportunity to tease.
“You surprise me. I didn’t think a cop would be such a romantic.”
Her flush intrigued him. Hell, all of her was starting to. Now to get her out of some of her clothes.
“It’s for emergencies.” She plucked the blanket out and revealed an oversized first-aid kit.
Tenderness flooded him. “What about a bathing suit? Preferably a bikini? In my fantasies you’ve got one packed under the heading of emergency preparedness.”
“No.”
The answer was accompanied by the trunk coming down harder than necessary. He suppressed a laugh and took the blanket from her before she held it against her chest to hide the fact that the idea of being nearly naked in his presence turned her on.
“Let’s hit the shops. I’ll spring for the bikini when I buy my shorts.”
She didn’t argue, though he wasn’t surprised when she paid for her own suit along with a cover-up. He hid his grin. Did she really think that flimsy piece of material would keep her from giving in? Or cool his interest when it emphasized trim, athletic legs and had him imagining them locked around his waist?
Stepping onto the beach, he took her hand, squeezed a warning that if she attempted to pull away, things would get interesting for the people around them.
On cue her chin lifted, but she didn’t fight him. Good.
They walked along the surf’s edge, the stiffness leaving her, lapped away by the tide.
“I’d forgotten how much I loved this,” he said. “I used to surf just about every day when I was growing up.”
“Where was that?”
“San Diego.”
“Do you still have family there?”
“No. My mother remarried.” And thanks to a visit from Estelle, never thought about him, though maybe that was for the best. “My father was killed in the Gulf War.”
Cia’s hand tightened on his. “I’m sorry.”
“He died doing what he loved best, being a soldier. The truth is that he was mostly a stranger who showed up for weeks at a time and then disappeared again. What about you?”
They traveled several yards before she answered, “There was only my mom. I lost her right after I graduated from the police academy. Cancer. It’d already spread by the time they diagnosed it.”
“That’s a tough one.”
He returned the sympathy with a squeeze of his hand then let the ocean work its magic. They walked in silence, his lungs filling with the scent of freedom. Hope lifted him like a wave meant to be ridden. He could envision the three of them together, not vampire master with shackled slave and unwilling companion, but a family.
The car was easily a couple of miles behind them when Cia said, “You met Terach in LA. How?”
“I was tending bar and he came in.”
Her laugh had him stepping in front of her and walking backward so he could enjoy her expressions. “What’s so funny?”
“I had this image of a tip jar filling when we were with Sonya.”
&n
bsp; He halted, catching Cia off guard so the front of her body plowed into his, sending a shockwave of pleasure through him.
The small catch in her breath was more satisfying than another woman’s scream of orgasm.
“Hey, when you’re good, you’re good. And I’m very good.” He pressed his mouth to her ear, fought against a moan at having her abdomen molded to his cock. “Serving liquor isn’t my only talent.”
She shivered and he found it totally erotic. He tossed the blanket beyond the surf’s reach and used his freed hand to cup the back of her head.
Instinctively she pushed against it, seeking escape. He covered her mouth with his before she could demand it.
So soft. So feminine.
Heat surged through him. He could count on one hand the number of girls—women—he’d kissed and none of them were as captivating as Cia.
This was real, not experimentation, not vampire enthrallment, not attraction based on blood bonds, but the give and take of two people getting to know one another.
He coaxed rather than plundered, his mouth sliding wetly on hers, his tongue asking for admittance and gaining it in a sweet victory that shuddered through him.
He probed in a slow exploration. A rub and twine accompanied by the rock and grind of his pelvis to hers.
He slid his hand beneath the cover-up and pulled her more tightly against him, his palm pressed to the base of her spine.
Her hands pushed between them and his grip tightened, denying her bid for freedom. But that was a mistaken assumption.
Fingertips grazed his nipples, sending scorching need straight to his cock. It throbbed, demanding freedom.
A second pass over his nipples and he moaned, hips bucking.
He walked her backward to the blanket but didn’t release her to spread it out. He thrust his tongue against hers, fed her the sounds of his pleasure with each stroke to his nipples.
Her fingers grasped the bars and tugged rhythmically, each pull carnal torment and the promise of mind-blowing ecstasy.
He lifted his mouth only long enough to say “harder” before slamming it back down on hers. His cock pulsed, the head growing wet in anticipation of pushing into her in a discovery of tight heat and slick sheath.
