Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by Jennifer Ashley

  The bass player, an old guy, held the neck of his upright, the knuckles of his hands enlarged. The drummer was college-young, with black bolts in his earlobes. A guitar cord snaked from the amplifier to the center and got tangled around the leg of a stool. Custo lifted the seat and planted it front and center of the stage. He switched the amp to “stand-by” to avoid a screech, then flipped it back to “on” after he was plugged in and ready to go.

  He settled himself on the stool, glanced out over the group, and came to rest on his livid Annabella. “For you,” he said.

  ***

  Annabella gripped the seat of her chair as Custo put pick to guitar. Her insides ached, straining to control and compartmentalize the emotions that churned and surged within her. The toxic air of this hole in the wall of a jazz club was making her nauseated, too. She wanted to get out of there, but had no choice but to stay put.

  They were tempting fate, dangling her like bait into the shadows. The wolf could, would, come any moment now. Why didn’t he attack again? She was vulnerable.

  A sip of wine burned her throat. She’d had enough of Custo Santovari. Enough. She couldn’t think straight, feel straight, with him around. Angel? Demon? She barely even knew herself anymore.

  Of course the song he chose would be depressing. The melody was one of those bluesy dirges in a minor key. She never really cared for free-form jazz anyway. Must be an acquired taste. The drum’s soft rap counted the final grains of time at the end of a life. The bass’s doo-dow-dow-doo was like a heart about to beat its last. And Custo had dedicated it to her. Well, thank you very much.

  She clenched her hands on the wood under her thighs to stop her shakes.

  Not that he could help the whole wolf thing. But still…Forcing her to go to that stupid reception, then bailing. Hypocrite. And she didn’t need anyone tooling around in her head, picking apart her private thoughts. It wasn’t like she could stop thinking to shut him out. Oh God, what awful things he must have learned about her. She was no angel.

  And then to take her to that miserable loft.

  What possible purpose could it serve to show her the very bullet holes that ripped through his body? And how was it that those scars of violence still had the power to penetrate and wound? Because she was frickin’ bleeding inside, and any second it was going to come pouring out her eyes in tears. Tears for someone already dead.

  For someone she couldn’t have.

  He played the guitar in weeping notes, a lament of heartache for which she had no defenses.

  How dare he mess her up like this? She bored her gaze into him. How dare you do this to me?

  No response. Not even a flicker of his eyes as he picked the strings with one hand, while the other worked the frets.

  Custo! Get me out of here!

  She’d been shouting at him in her head since his big revelation at the loft. Why they were in the jazz club, she had no idea. Something about a room for the night. If they couldn’t go back to Segue, she’d much rather sacrifice her credit card for the predictable double queens and bath in a hotel room. Something, anything, normal.

  I’m tired. I want to leave.

  Nothing. Just the wail of a note as he pushed a string high on a fret to tug at the melody. The guitar was a voice calling out into the club for attention, the last note crying, Please!

  She didn’t have to listen. She looked away, clenching her teeth so hard her jaw ached.

  The song followed her, breaking away from the melody into a solo. The notes stayed low, quarrelsome, building to an angry, violent accusation, but laced with pain.

  And then she knew Custo was speaking to his father.

  All the things he couldn’t say were translated into a medium where, like her dance, communication was visceral, pure. The music formed a foreign language, but like a gift of tongues, she understood.

  With each pick of the strings Custo’s story tumbled out, the specifics rounded by notes, but the layers of feeling pronounced in sheets of sound. Aggression predominated, but the intensity was strung together by hurt. The refrain passed away, and the song broke into a doubled melody, two lines of music in conversation with each other. One was regular, masculine, predictable, Adam. The other, its brother, was all improvisation, running headlong into a catastrophic explosion of notes, death.

  If Custo’s life hadn’t been co-opted by the wraith war, she knew what he would have become. The raw honesty of his music, coupled with obvious mastery over an instrument, revealed him. He couldn’t keep his secrets while he played. This was his truth.

  Annabella’s heart was in her throat as she tried to keep the darkness of the club from shifting to Shadow while she resonated soul to soul with the weave of the song. Magic flickered at the edges of her vision, but she kept her attention fixed on Custo’s bowed head. She stayed grounded in the club, breathing its smoke in lieu of the intoxicating air of Faerie.

  Custo’s playing reduced, and with a tilt of his head, he threw the song to the others for solos. The old man played as if he knew Custo’s story, dribbling on the bass like a rapid heartbeat. The drums came up after with a snap and burr of a flight from danger.

  When Custo rejoined them, his notes were higher, lilting, slightly eerie, and…threaded with the dominant melody of Giselle. Annabella flushed with the realization that he was playing her into his story. His improvisation wove the two songs together into one composition: soaring, mournful, full of impossible hopes. A love song.

  She’d known him only two days of hell on Earth. And he was an angel, utterly beyond her.

  But with his soul filling the smoky club, what could she do but love him back?

  CHAPTER 17

  Gripping the guitar by the neck, Custo stood to a smattering of applause. Not that he needed it. God, it had just felt so good to play. To channel his maddening restlessness into a medium that satisfied like a back-alley fight, but without the broken nose or bloody knuckles.

  His hands had been itching for murder since the attack at Abigail’s. The trip down memory lane hadn’t helped either. Fucked-up life, fucked-up world. Now that the sensation had receded, he could think. He could be. That dark, angry part of him had finally gone quiet. Like absolution.

  The darkness of the club had remained undisturbed while he played. Nothing had moved out of place. No wolf. Just peace. There had been so many opportunities for the wolf to attack, yet none were taken. The wait at Segue, his “outpatient” surgery, the party, the loft, now Jack’s place. To what they owed this reprieve, he had no idea.

  Maybe it wasn’t a reprieve at all.

  Custo had kept an eye on Annabella in his peripheral vision while he played. Ready to drop Jack’s $20,000 guitar should she twitch in fear. Now he dared to look directly at her.

  Annabella sat like a queen in her deep blue gown, always straight, never slumped and easy. She didn’t look so angry anymore. Her eyes were shimmery with tears, which was never a good sign in a woman. But she didn’t seem sad or scared either. He didn’t like it.

  He was glad he had already decided not to read her mind. At the moment, he was nervous about what he’d find there. He had wanted her to hear him play, but now he felt exposed. Uncomfortable in his own skin.

  He discarded the feeling. It wouldn’t take much to tick her off again. It was what he did best.

  The bass player and drummer gave Custo a nod of recognition and Custo thanked them for backing him on the spur of the moment. He got a couple of sincere anytimes.

  Then Jack was there. “At least you were playing these past two years, even if you weren’t playing for me.”

  Custo hadn’t touched a guitar for years. Somehow in all that time his fingers never forgot the intricate patterns of the song, and the music had obeyed. He probably owed the peak looseness and dexterity of his hands to his altered status, though he was still loath to own the title. Angel.

  Jack held up keys and traded for the guitar. “Same room. I’ll send out for dinner. Any preferences?”

  A s
imple question would be a good way to gauge Annabella’s real mood. “What do you want for dinner?”

  She shrugged, expression transforming from shimmery tears to smug. “I don’t care.”

  Also not a good sign. She wasn’t that easygoing. Not remotely. She was the most difficult woman he’d ever known. And what was she so smug about?

  “The usual, then,” Jack said, “times two.”

  A sax player jockeyed for space on the stage. “Man, that was scary good. I almost don’t want to follow you. Figure I better go up-tempo or out the door.”

  Custo thanked him and yielded the stage. He took Annabella’s hand to lead her through the club. She held the skirt of her dress off Jack’s dirty club floor with her other. She still hadn’t said anything, still had a happy sparkle to her eyes. What did she have to be happy about?

  The world was at war. She was being stalked by a wolf. Her life was at risk. And here she was about to tippy-toe through the club into which she had to be dragged in the first place.

  Who got happy after hearing a blues? She should be miserable.

  They climbed a concealed flight of stairs to an upper level. The key unlocked the door to the apartment directly above the club. Jack’s pad was another flight up. They’d have to sleep to the vibration of the music until two a.m., when the club closed. Not a hardship for Custo; Annabella would just have to deal.

  He unlocked the apartment and held the door while she entered.

  “Nice,” Annabella said, appreciation in her voice. “Why is the club such a dive?”

  Custo took a look around. Mismatched pieces of leather furniture were grouped in a small sitting area in front of an inset gas fireplace. The bedroom was visible through another door. Colorful art, mostly impressionistic renderings of jazz clubs and artists, brightened up the walls. The far side of the room had a brag wall, where Jack had hung black-and-white photographs of himself with music legends. None of the pieces really went together. No decorators. Stuff Jack saw, he bought. And his taste was usually expensive.

  Custo threw his tux jacket over the back of the sofa and got rid of the damn cummerbund around his waist. “Club’s the same way it was when Jack bought it. He’s a little superstitious and doesn’t want to mess with his luck—which has been very good since he took over the place. Dive or not, he has no problem bringing people in to hear music.”

  “He likes you,” she said, peering into one of the photographs. Her skin glowed against the deep dip of blue, her spine curving deliciously toward her ass as she leaned forward.

  “What’s not to like?” Custo loosened his bow tie, and then left it hanging under his collar so it wouldn’t get lost.

  Annabella laughed. Not twenty minutes ago she was all nerves, now she didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Custo didn’t understand. The wolf was still a problem. Could be here, in the apartment, right now. What was up with her?

  The floor pulsed suddenly with the start of the next song, the rhythm driven by bass and drums.

  She turned back around. The dress clung to the curves of her waist and hips before settling. “What were you playing?”

  “Civil rights tune called ‘Alabama.’” The guitar felt so right, the song coming out exactly the same as he heard it in his head. He hated himself, but he had to ask, “Did you like it?”

  Annabella’s eyes filled with feeling. “I loved it.”

  The expression on her face made him take a step back, denying what he saw there, hating her choice of words.

  A brow lifted. “Custo?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?” Her lips curved into a smile, so she had to know what he meant.

  “Like that.” He undid the top button on his shirt so he could breathe better, but still couldn’t draw one good lungful of air.

  “Whatever you want.” But the happiness didn’t fade. She brought her hands up to her coil of hair, and the mass tumbled down into curls on her shoulders. Again that smug satisfaction.

  He wanted to kiss it off her face. Wipe away the knowledge in her smile.

  She knew.

  It had to have been the music that changed her. He’d gone too far, revealed too much. But that was the way with music; it demanded everything. No holding back. Denying what he’d played now was like trying to stop something that had already happened. Futile, wasted effort. And a lie.

  He couldn’t lie to her again. Wouldn’t.

  Fine, then. She knew. He loved her. He’d loved her since he first saw her dance in the Shadowlands.

  It wasn’t as if pride had held him back from telling her, or the stupid macho shtick played up on TV and in the movies. He didn’t have the time or patience for any of that shit.

  She had to understand.

  He said, “I. Ruin. Everything.”

  The smile faltered, a dark glimmer of sadness far away in her eyes.

  So she did understand. No matter how he felt, he was no good for her. He could play well and fight better, but that was about it. He was a thieving, murderous opportunist. Not too long ago he’d taken all he could get from her, and he would again tonight.

  He dropped his gaze to get rid of Adam’s cuff links. Everything borrowed, nothing his. Never his. He threw them on an end table, rolled his cuffs, and forced himself to look up again.

  Her gaze was waiting.

  “You’ll have to tell me what you’re thinking,” he said. She was smart; by now she had to have guessed that he’d quit trespassing in her head.

  She pinned him with dangerous intent. “Fine then. You ruin everything? Ruin me.”

  Heat and shock burned away his bitterness. If ever there were an invitation…

  “You told me this evening, who knows what will happen tomorrow,” she said.

  He hated when people quoted him.

  “For some reason, the wolf has left us alone tonight. I don’t know why. Maybe you hurt him badly, or maybe he’s plotting something more horrible than we can imagine.”

  Custo could guess where she was going with this. He should have kept his distance, kept his hands off her. There was no white picket fence in their future. Ever.

  “I think we should dispense with any and all crap and tell the truth for once,” she continued. “That way, neither of us needs to read minds.”

  No house in the burbs. No happily-ever-after. But some offers were just too good to turn down. He pulled his shirttails out of his pants and started removing the studs in his shirt.

  “Now,” she said, her voice waving after her speech. “I think you should start.”

  Little coward. Custo caught himself from smiling. She wanted truth; she was going to get it.

  “I hate your dress.” There.

  Her faced flushed, hands going to her flat, little waist. “Well, I—”

  Custo flicked the last stud away as he strode over to her. Her scent, sweet and subtly flowery, filled him. He circled to her back and stroked a knuckle down the exposed skin. “It’s been bothering me all night. It really should come off.”

  He lifted his hands to her shoulders and brushed away the straps. The blue fabric slid down her body and puddled on the floor. “Much better.”

  She turned her head to the side. “I saved for three months to buy that dress.”

  “This is much better, trust me.” He skated over her waist to her flat belly to pull her back against his open shirt, skin to skin, then stopped at her breasts. He’d been certain a second ago that she was braless. He turned her to investigate.

  Sure enough, a nude bra of sorts covered her breasts. Having no straps, the molded cups were held up by magic. He hated it, too.

  “It’s a stick-on,” she explained, a shy version of her smile tugging at her mouth. She stepped out of her gown, stooped to pick it up, then laid it on a wing-back chair. He didn’t stop her so he could watch her move in her high heels with her endless legs in thigh-high stockings and her itty-bitty g-string.

  But his attention came back
to the bra. “You’re telling me that you have a sticker for a bra?”

  Innovative. Brilliant. Somebody must be making millions.

  Annabella laughed now. “A self-adhesive, yes. So my bra wouldn’t show with my dress. You can’t just yank it off either.”

  She began to apply herself to the task of slowly peeling the silicone from her skin.

  “No, no,” he said. “Let me. I thought I had mastered all women’s underwear, but I seem to have missed this one. As always, Bella, you challenge me.”

  Her hands dropped to accommodate him, her weight shifting to sit in her delectable hip to let him know how exasperating he was being and how patient she was in return.

  “Now let me know if this hurts, and I will kiss it all better.” He tugged a little at the cup, gently, and kissed the bare spot anyway. The skin beneath was warm, dewy, and pinked. Salty. Her fingers threaded into his hair to keep him close.

  Her touch had electricity charging his blood, beating in time with the pulse of the music below. Heat pooled in his groin, pulsing and insistent. The task required a tenderness that he didn’t have. Never had. He wanted the thing off. He wanted her pinned beneath him. Pierced by him. So she would know, for certain, that no matter what happened tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, he was hers and she was his, and that’s the way it was going to be forever.

  The first breast sprang free, and he sucked hard on the nipple. She arched against him, yanking at his shirt, while he made short work of the cup on the other side. He had to touch and taste all of her. To learn her, memorize every lash and freckle. To know her. Not just for sex—they’d done that already—but for possession. So that every inch of her body responded to his, so that every nerve recognized him. Only him. No wolf.

  He was sorry when she kicked off her sexy heels, but he shucked his shoes, too. His mouth grazed her shoulder, thumb sliding the g-string from her hip. She did a little shake of her perfect ass, which jiggled slightly in his hand, and the bit of fabric fell to the floor.

  “Bed,” she said. Demanded more like.