Secrets in the Shadows

by Jenna Black

  That was unquestionably true. And yet, if Drake left town now, not only would he have to deal with his conscience, he’d also have to go back to Philadelphia and deal with Eli, He wasn’t sure he could do that right now.

  “I’ll find them. And I’ll do what I can to help them. But don’t get your hopes up—I don’t see Jules coming to terms with what he’s learned about you.”

  “I don’t either,” Eli admitted. “But people are still capable of surprising me once in a while. Perhaps Jules will too.”

  Drake hung up without another word.

  JULES COULDN’T STAY IN Baltimore—at least, not indefinitely—and he couldn’t go back to Philadelphia. Honestly, he didn’t know where that left him. Where did he want to spend the rest of his long, long life? And how could he be sure his chosen residence wasn’t already “taken” by a master vampire?

  One thing he did know—he wasn’t making that decision in the middle of the night while his head was spinning and his heart aching. The best he could do was find a relatively safe place to lay low until he figured out what to do.

  The Harborside Inn was not exactly the sort of establishment Jules was used to patronizing. Despite the name, it was nowhere near the harbor or the scenic, historic streets lined with brick row houses. Instead, it was tucked into the shadow of a seedy alley, across the street from a strip club and an X-rated video store. The man at the desk hadn’t batted an eyelash when Jules had paid in cash, hadn’t even asked for a credit card or ID of any kind. And the place rented by the hour!

  The elevator was out of order, so he and Hannah trudged up a flight of grimy stairs to the second floor. The hall was dimly lit, but not dimly enough that he couldn’t see the walls had needed a new paint job about ten years ago. And no carpet cleaner in the world would get the stains out of the worn floor coverings. A faint disinfectant smell wafted in the air. He was beginning to think he’d rather sleep out in the street!

  Hannah opened the door to their new home sweet home and gestured him in. He maneuvered the suitcases through the narrow doorway, then stood rooted in place as he inspected the room.

  There was only one queen-sized bed, covered in a faded floral bedspread with frayed edges. The center of the bed sagged visibly. The walls and carpet were as dingy as those in the hallway, and the disinfectant smell was stronger. He hated to think what the place would smell like without it.

  “Okay, so it’s not the Ritz,” Hannah said. “But you’ve got to admit, Drake would never think to look for you in a place like this.”

  Her voice was bright and chipper as always, but he thought even she was affected by the squalor of this place. Reluctantly, he put his bags down. They’d stay here for a night or two at most. Just until he figured out where to go from here. Tonight’s only agenda had been to avoid being dragged back to Philly by Drake, and Hannah was right—Drake wouldn’t look for them here!

  Hannah yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth. It was after four in the morning, so she must be exhausted. Jules wasn’t feeling too alert himself.

  “Dibs on the bathroom,” she said, and he wasn’t about to fight her for the honors.

  He continued to examine his distasteful surroundings as Hannah prepared for bed. A gentle push on the edge of the bed showed that the mattress was as soft as cement and the springs squeaked. There was no couch he could sleep on. Perhaps the floor would be more comfortable, but this not being the Ritz, as Hannah pointed out, there didn’t appear to be any extra blankets or pillows. If he slept on the floor, he’d have to have all the blankets to himself to keep himself protected from the sunlight.

  Perhaps Hannah wouldn’t mind sharing the bed. It wasn’t like he was capable of staying awake for much longer anyway. Shortly after dawn, the lure of sleep would be too strong for him, and she wouldn’t—

  A shrill scream from the bathroom cut off his line of thought. Jules leapt toward the bathroom door, heart in his throat. Halfway there, he collided with Hannah, who’d flung herself through the door as if fleeing for her life. He wrapped his arms around her and swung her around so that he was between her and whatever had frightened her in the bathroom. She trembled in his arms, and he held her tighter.

  “What is it?” he gasped. Anything that actually frightened Hannah must be terrible indeed. He had visions of dead bodies or dismembered body parts.

  “R-roach,” she panted between frantic gulps of air. She was clinging to him now, her fingers digging painfully into his arms.

  He frowned. “Roach? You mean as in a bug?”

  He felt her head nodding against his chest. She was still shaking. Her skin was clammy with fear-sweat and her pulse drummed a palpable rhythm against his fingers. If she weren’t so terrified, he’d have laughed himself sick over this. As it was, he still had to struggle against amusement.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You have no qualms about antagonizing powerful Killers, but a bug can send you screaming from a room?”

  Her fingers dug in a little harder. “I can’t help it! It’s a phobia. I hate roaches. Hate ’em!”

  This was twice in one night he’d seen a chink in Hannah’s impressive armor. There was some satisfaction in knowing she had weaknesses too. He gave her another squeeze, then gently extracted himself from her grip. Her face was pale, and she was biting her lip hard.

  “Relax, Hannah,” he said, dropping his voice to a soothing croon. “I’ll take care of it for you.”

  She nodded, but didn’t look much more relaxed. He briefly considered using a touch of glamour to calm her but decided against it. She would not have appreciated the thought.

  He slipped into the bathroom, looking for the offending creature. He found it soon enough, skulking in the shadow of the toilet. His lip curled in distaste, though this was just the kind of place where he’d expect to find roaches in the bathroom. At least it wasn’t a rat, though it practically rivaled a rat in sheer size. One quick stomp sent it to its maker, and he flushed the remains. He hoped there weren’t too many more scuttling about in the walls.

  When he returned to the bedroom, he found Hannah huddled in the middle of the bed, her arms wrapped around her knees. She glanced up at him briefly, but her eyes slid away almost immediately.

  “Your nemesis is no more, milady,” he told her, trying not to grin. “Verily I have vanquished the creature with my trusty shoe.”

  She lowered her head to her knees and groaned. “Oh, God. I’ll never live this down.”

  He instantly regretted teasing her and joined her on the bed, the mattress sagging enough to tilt her body toward his. He rubbed his hand up and down her back, noting that her blouse was damp from the remains of her fear.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Like you said, it’s a phobia.”

  She shuddered. “Yeah, the ultimate girlie-girl phobia.” She sounded positively disgusted with herself.

  “Maybe your mother was attacked by a giant cockroach while you were in the womb,” he suggested, grinning at her. She raised her head to give him one of her fierce glowers. Now, he couldn’t help laughing. Her glower grew darker.

  “It’s so easy to push your buttons,” he teased. “You’re almost as easy as Gray.”

  She snorted. “Oh, now you’re going to add insult to injury.” She tried to sound as if she’d completely gotten over her discomfort, but he heard the lingering traces of disgust under her light words.

  “It’s really not a big deal, Hannah. Lots of people are scared of roaches. They certainly aren’t the most attractive of God’s creatures.”

  She sighed heavily. “Yeah, but they’re completely and utterly harmless. If I had to be afraid of something, couldn’t it be something more ominous? I mean, take spiders. At least some of them bite, so it’s not completely ridiculous to be afraid of them.”

  He shrugged. “If it were something you’re supposed to be afraid of—like, say, vampires—then it wouldn’t be a phobia, now would it?”

  She inclined her head in a shadow of a nod,
but still something unhappy hovered behind her eyes. Jules frowned and cocked his head at her.

  “Why does this bother you so much?” he asked. “So you have a phobia. So what?”

  “Try living in a household with three older brothers when you’ve got a phobia.”

  Jules himself was an only child, but one of his childhood friends had had older brothers. He well remembered the cruelties of older siblings. “Ouch,” he said with genuine sympathy.

  “Yeah. To this day, they give me hell about it. Doesn’t matter how tough I am, doesn’t matter that I can kick their butts in a fight—well, sometimes anyway—they still fixate on that one little thing, and they stick me right back in my place. The helpless little girl, the damsel in distress.” She looked like the words tasted sour in her mouth.

  He cleared his throat. At last, an insight into what made Hannah tick. “I’ve made the mistake of calling you a helpless mortal in the past. You’ve made me eat my words. You’re not a damsel in distress.”

  She quirked a grin at him. “Well, good thing, because you’re not exactly a knight in shining armor.”

  He met her grin with one of his own. The grin faded as he met her eyes and desire kicked him in the gut. He remembered suddenly how her body had felt beneath his earlier this evening, the soft, warm curves of her that camouflaged the woman warrior beneath. He remembered the scent of her skin, the taste of her lips. He’d been dead wrong to go after her like that, but that didn’t stop him from lusting after her right now.

  Hannah licked her lips, making him harden to an almost painful extent.

  “May I ask you a personal question?” she asked, her voice husky. “One I have no right to ask and shouldn’t even be thinking about at the moment.”

  He couldn’t help but be intrigued. “You can ask. I may or may not choose to answer.”

  She dropped her gaze down to her lap. “Why do you have condoms in your toiletries bag? I mean, if vamps can’t have kids, then …”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “When you said a personal question, you really meant it.”

  “Never mind. You don’t have to answer. I’m just being too nosy for my own good.”

  Of course, she was right, and he didn’t have to answer. But he found himself answering anyway. “I found it easier to use condoms than to explain to women why I didn’t need them.”

  She nodded sagely. “Women in general, or is there someone special?”

  He raised an eyebrow, amused and curious about her sudden interest in his love life. “Trying to find out if the coast is clear?”

  She grunted. “You wish! I’m just trying to understand you.”

  Usually, Jules was quite confident in his ability to fathom the female mind. But with Hannah, he wasn’t so sure. Perhaps there really had been no ulterior motive to her question. Was that a good thing, or a bad thing? He wished he knew.

  “I try to avoid having ‘someone special’ as a general rule,” he said. “Relationships get awkward when you’re immortal.”

  “But you had a girlfriend last year, right? A girl the Banger killed?”

  Remembered pain stabbed through him. “Yes. Courtney was special.” He hadn’t loved her, but he’d been very fond of her. He’d never met another woman who so closely matched his ideal—pretty, sweet, devoted, and not too bright. The last being a requirement because it would be hard to hide the truth about himself from an overly bright woman.

  “So over this last year, you’ve lost a special girl, and a son, and now you’ve lost your respect for your mentor. You might want to consider that you aren’t in the right state of mind to make radical decisions about your future.”

  He glared at her, wishing he’d been able to figure out how to get her to go with Drake. “If I needed a shrink, I’d go to one who actually had a degree in psychology.”

  “Just wanted to plant that thought in your brain. Now, I’m over my fit of hysterics, so you can use the bathroom and then we can both get some rest.”

  Glad for any chance to escape Hannah’s probing questions, he hurried to the bathroom.

  11

  HANNAH WOKE UP WHEN the couple in the room next door started going at it.

  She’d started off the night … day … whatever, sharing the bed with Jules. His chivalrous sensibilities hadn’t allowed her to sleep on the floor, nor had he been willing to sleep on the floor himself when it meant having to hog all the covers. She’d been tired enough to give in to him, but as soon as he’d fallen asleep, she’d gotten out of bed. After all, she didn’t want to toss in her sleep and suddenly drag the covers off of him. The drapes in this flea-bag barely kept out any light at all, and he’d burn to a crisp if he didn’t keep entirely covered.

  She’d made a relatively comfortable nest for herself, stealing one of Jules’s cashmere sweaters for a pillow and trying not to wonder how many more roaches were lurking around. When the rhythmic knocking sound woke her, she guessed she might have had two or three hours of sleep.

  At first, she tried to tune the sound out and go back to sleep, but the walls were paper thin, and the lovers next door were growing steadily more enthusiastic, banging the headboard against the wall. Hannah could actually feel the vibrations in the floor.

  Groaning, she sat up, wondering if it would be rude to knock on the wall to let them know they had an audience.

  Pleasured moans soon joined the drum beat of the headboard against the wall, and the woman started encouraging her lover with such pithy sayings as “oh, yes,” and “fuck me, baby.” The walls were so damn thin, Hannah could hear the guy’s heavy breathing.

  “Oh, brother,” she grumbled in disgust as the noise went on and on. But as irritating as the noise was, the suggestive rhythm triggered some very unwelcome images in Hannah’s mind. She tried covering her ears with her hands, but the sound penetrated easily.

  It had been far longer than she wanted to admit since she’d had sex, but the sounds from next door evoked memories of skin sliding against naked skin, of tongues battling for supremacy, of hands stroking and teasing. She pressed her thighs together, trying to deny the moisture that gathered there. And trying desperately not to picture Jules, gloriously naked as he thrust into her.

  “Stop it, Hannah!” she ordered herself sternly. The last thing she wanted was to have sex with Jules! Even though he was sexy as sin. This sudden lust attack of hers was just the power of suggestion paired with abstinence. Yeah, that was it.

  Next door, the woman howled in climax, her cries so loud they just had to be fake. Didn’t seem to matter to her man, who soon roared his own release. Hannah sighed in relief, wiping a thin sheen of sweat from her forehead. Maybe now she’d be able to go back to sleep.

  But her mind had latched onto an image of naked Jules and refused to let go. She bet he’d be absolutely spectacular in bed. Most of the men she’d been with had managed to turn sex into a power struggle. At the slightest sign that she was taking control of her own pleasure—for instance, if she offered the tiniest suggestion of what she wanted—they’d set out to let her know that they were running the show. She wanted to be on top? They used their superior weight to make doubly sure she stayed on the bottom. She wanted to touch herself to help herself along? They pinned her wrists.

  Instinct told her Jules wouldn’t be like that. He was as dominant and opinionated as any alpha male she’d known, but he was far too vain to let himself be bad in bed. He’d try his best to run the show, but if that wasn’t working for her, he’d adapt.

  Hannah slapped herself on the head, telling herself to stop thinking about sex. It might even have worked if the couple next door hadn’t decided to have another go.

  She decided she was better off trying to distract herself while waiting it out, so she rose from her improvised bed, meaning to boot up her laptop and do a little surfing. The hotel didn’t have wireless access, but the phone line would do in a pinch.

  Unfortunately, she made the mistake of glancing over at the bed to make sure Jules was fully cove
red first.

  The covers had settled around him like a shroud, outlining every contour of his body. He was lying on his back, his hands clasped over his abdomen, his chest rising and falling steadily with his breaths. But that wasn’t what had caught her attention.

  There was an unmistakable tent in the covers right at groin level. Unmistakable, and mouth-wateringly impressive. Next door, the woman began talking dirty, encouraging her lover—or john, as was beginning to seem more likely—to fuck her harder.

  “It’s a freakin’ conspiracy,” Hannah muttered under her breath. Her cheeks felt like they were glowing with repressed heat, and her eyes were riveted on the super-sized tent. She swallowed hard. “Jules? You awake under there?”

  There was no answer, nor any hint of movement. Which was a damn good thing. What would she have done if he’d said yes? She had a sneaking suspicion she might have slid under those covers and impaled herself. Which would have been oh so wrong. And which she suddenly wished with all her might she could do.

  Knowing she would have no peace—and no sleep—if she didn’t find release, she lay down on the bed on top of the covers, careful that Jules remained safely under wraps. Then, staring at the evidence of his massive hard-on and listening to the couple next door, she slipped her hand into her panties.

  Climax came almost before she’d had a chance to really get started. The physical pleasure almost drew a cry from her throat, but she managed to swallow it down. But no amount of lying to herself would make her believe that the self-induced orgasm was a hundred percent satisfying. Yes, her physical desire had been quenched. But something deep inside of her wanted more than just physical release.

  Too bad she wasn’t about to get it.

  JULES AWOKE SHORTLY BEFORE sunset to find himself alone on the bed. He pushed the covers away from his face and turned to glance over the edge of the bed. As he’d suspected, Hannah was fast asleep on the floor, using one of his jackets as a blanket and a sweater as a pillow. He shook his head at her. Had she feared he would jump her in his sleep?