“Please. I have nowhere else to turn.” The quiver in my voice wasn’t faked.
He straightened up, clearly pleased with my appeal. The way to this man’s drugs was through his ego. He rummaged around in his backpack and came up with a vial of clear liquid.
“I’ve been clean these past few months,” I said. “How much do I start with again?”
“One drop under your tongue.”
“It’ll last for…”
“A day, give or take. Don’t you remember?”
I shook my head. “I was hitting it pretty hard back then. Now I only want enough to get through the day and still function.”
“Follow my instructions and you won’t nod off or anything on Blank. You’ll live your life, just in the quiet.”
Blank. How apt.
“Thanks.” I paid him and took the vial, heading straight out of the bar and trusting Levi to follow.
Levi dropped our illusions as soon as we stepped onto the street. “Trading alcoholism for drugs, are we?”
“Come with me.” I jaywalked across the street to Moriarty.
“Remember the part where I was at work?” he said, pulling out his phone and swiping through the texts from Veronica.
“Please. I’d like someone there in case things go wrong.”
“Here we go. Why ever would anything go wrong, Ashira?”
I held up the vial. If the chemist’s cryptic comment about the “song in Gavriella’s head being too loud” did refer to her cravings, then this drug could be my salvation. And without her around to ask, there was only one way to find out. “Because I’m about to take an unknown drug and if I drop dead, you get the honor of dealing with my body. You in?”
Chapter 16
While Levi issued instructions to Veronica on speakerphone, I studied him covertly as I fiddled with the heater vent in my car. She was seriously displeased about him rescheduling his meeting with Accounting about next year’s budget, especially since his only explanation was that something came up, but Levi insisted with a calm authority, and not a single snarky comment my way about how valuable his time was.
My life was pretty damn valuable, yet I kept trusting him to have my back. And he kept being there. All this time I’d emphatically stated that I didn’t trust him, and look at me. My “trust as an absolute” ideology was malleable enough for me to trust Levi situationally, too. So where did that leave us? I turned up the radio once his call with Veronica was finished, not wanting to make small talk. Or worse, meaningful conversation.
Despite my protests, Levi directed me to his house since he had the backyard space to bury my body if need be.
I was quiet as I drove us over. Even in my wayward youth, I’d never done anything more than smoke pot a couple of times. I didn’t like the loss of control. Despite what the clandestine chemist had promised, I had no hard proof that Blank would work on me as promised. Or if it did, how bad the ride would be.
Levi didn’t push me to share, which I appreciated.
When we pulled up to his gate, he beeped a key fob to open it, and I drove up to his front door.
I shucked off my motorcycle boots inside his foyer and hung up my leather jacket in the closet which was located next to a gorgeous painting of a boy seeming to come directly out of the frame, as if it was a trapdoor. Levi and his illusions. “No biscotti this time, huh?”
“Convince me this is a wise idea and I’ll make you some,” he said.
Setting the vial on the coffee table, I sat down on his sofa, my eyes drifting out to the bluish-gray water of Burrard Inlet outside his floor-to-ceiling windows.
The leather cushions depressed as Levi sat beside me. He draped his suit jacket and tie over the back of a chair and rolled up his shirt sleeves, exposing olive skin over flexed muscle.
“I appreciate you watching over me,” I said. “I couldn’t ask Pri. She’s got zero tolerance for drugs.” Her ex-fiancé had gone through an addiction to amphetamines during his medical residency, and it had sent their relationship careening out of control.
“Why do you want to do this?”
I explained about my theory that this Blank was how Gavriella had quieted the cravings. “The urge to chase the high I get from snuffing out magic is like a song on repeat in my brain. How am I supposed to live with that?”
“It’s only a hypothesis that this drug will work the way you hope,” he said. “If you’re wrong about this, it could cost you your life. People are dropping dead every day on the streets of Vancouver.”
“From fentanyl. This guy was too invested in his art. Also, this is a liquid. I doubt he cut Blank with it.” I bit my lip. “Best case scenario, I’m right and it works as advertised, I’m dependent on a street drug for the rest of my life.”
“As opposed to the worst case scenario of being dead or addicted to a really awful drug?”
I fiddled with the vial’s stopper.
“Are the cravings that bad?” he said.
“I can withstand them on my own, for now, but my magic exists to destroy other magic and certain interactions amp them up. I don’t want to crave magic. I despised myself for what I did to Sharp.”
Levi covered my hand with his. “Sharp was doomed whether you took his magic or not. You were trying to save those abducted kids.”
“Good reason, right? What about when the line gets a bit blurrier? I had a run-in with a Medusa yesterday–”
“Of course you did,” he muttered.
“My magic wasn’t strong enough to counteract the effects. I needed a boost, so I worked my mojo on another person, but it still wasn’t enough. The poor Medusa was bleeding out, but all I felt was satisfaction that he was already weakened and it would be easier to take his magic.”
“Did you?” There was no judgment in his voice.
“No. I spared them both. That time.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “How long until my justifications get flimsier and flimsier and I’m out there hurting innocent people like some kind of magic-sucking vampire? Years? Months? I agree that there has to be a way to curb the urges otherwise we’d have heard about Jezebel powers.” I rolled the vial between my thumb and forefinger. “What if it’s this? Or some version of it? I know so little about being a Jezebel. Taking this isn’t my first choice, but Gavriella used it for a reason, and this is as safe a circumstance as I can ingest it in.”
“You could wait until you meet the rest of your team. Ask them.”
Did I have the luxury of finding them, or would I buckle the next time I interacted with the feather? I wasn’t ready to share how bad those encounters were yet.
“What if this team wants me to have the cravings because it provides an edge in dealing with Chariot?” I said. “Some kind of bloodlust for taking them down? I idolized a man who, thanks to his Charmer magic, took from people without their consent, even if it was something as small as a smile. After I’d experienced firsthand what it meant to be a mark, to be the one burned and left picking up the pieces, I swore never to find myself in that position again, and certainly never to be the one causing it.”
“You’re not your father.”
“I’m the one who has to face myself in the mirror.”
He sighed. “Okay, Gargoyle Girl. Take it and I’ll make sure of your continued existence.”
I glared at him. “Gargoyle Girl?”
He grinned. “You were the one turning to stone.”
“Call me that and I’ll replace that Photoshopped bio pic on the House website with the photo I have of you after you stepped in poison ivy when you were fourteen.”
He waved a hand around his face. “No need to Photoshop perfection. Also, that’s insulting. I have illusion magic. What the hell do I need software for?”
“Ah. You do admit to enhancing yourself.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.
“No, Ash. You’ve just never had a man of my caliber before.”
I rolled my eyes, then uncorked the vial. “One drop under my tongue.”
I
couldn’t make myself move. I closed my eyes, my stomach knotting up.
“Want me to do it for you?”
Eyes still closed, I handed him the vial, and opened my mouth.
A single tasteless drop hit under my tongue and I opened my eyes. “I didn’t ask how long it takes to kick in. Got any board games?”
Levi stilled my jittering leg and shot me a lascivious wink. “No, but I’ve got fifteen minutes. Excuse me, ten.”
Priya had once talked me into taking a yoga class. I’d had to stand in one-legged mountain pose with my eyes closed, and I’d been certain the world was sliding sideways, because why else would it be so hard to stay connected to the earth? I had the same feeling now, except with my eyes wide open.
I wet my lips and forced a jovial note into my voice. “Sounds good. I’ll flap around on you like a fish out of water. That’s how you do the sex, right?”
“Something like that.” We both laughed, but my stomach was knotted up because I wanted to make him forget his alibi woman and realize that I wasn’t so easy to discard.
Our gazes snagged, the tension around the Blank turning to a lush promise of something else on offer.
Levi searched my face, until I nodded the go ahead, then he cradled my face in his hands and kissed me.
It was broad daylight, but this kiss was moonlight edged with shadow. I fell into it, my breathing quickening and my hands tightening on his ribcage, pulling him closer. I curled my toes under, lust licking at them, swallowing my feet and rising like a flood.
His tongue tangled with mine and a shiver ricocheted up my spine.
“What are we doing?” I whispered.
He ran suggestive eyes over me, darkened to the mysterious blue of the ocean depths. “Distracting you. Is it working?”
All too well, but he was still firmly in control whereas the mere touch of his lips sent me into dizzy freefall. I didn’t want flowery promises or commitment, but I did want to shred his precious control with a vengeance that was so physical that I flexed my fingers as if I could literally tear it apart.
His lips slid down my throat, his fingers unbuttoning my shirt, lowering my guard one button at a time. “Say the word and I stop. Any time.”
My shirt fell open. “Levi.”
He immediately stopped what he was doing.
I lay my hand on his cheek and he nuzzled into it. “Take off your shirt.”
He undid the first couple of buttons and then pulled it over his head in a smooth motion that caused his rock-hard abs to ripple. Broad shoulders and sculpted pecs narrowed to a flat waist, faintly dusted with dark hair.
Straddling him, I inhaled the scent of his magic and ran my hands over his torso, slowing when I traced the slight ridges of the scars on his back. “You didn’t illusion them away.”
“I don’t bother with fellow members of the monster support group.”
“Yeah? How many members are in this club?” Did she qualify for membership?
“Two.” He brushed his lips against mine. “I don’t know what we’re doing either, but can we continue until it doesn’t work?”
The stripped-down need on his face sparked like static across my body, his hand cradled against the small of my back my sole anchor point tethering me to terra firma.
I draped my arms around his neck. “We can.”
His hand slid into my hair and his mouth came down on mine in a rush.
I rocked against his hard cock and with a groan, he placed his hands on my hips, standing up and taking me with him. I wrapped my legs around his waist, not breaking the kiss as he stumbled backward out of the room and down a short hallway, Levi divesting me of my top. Laughing and making out like teenagers, we crashed through a door, where I was unceremoniously tossed on my ass on his bed.
“Suave,” I said.
“Oops. Slipped.” Levi dropped onto his side next to me.
“Rude. You should make it up to me.” I claimed his mouth in a loose and sloppy kiss that crackled the air between us, blurring the lines of all that we were into something less jagged.
Levi rolled me under him, undoing my bra and pitching it into the corner. He palmed my breast, my flesh hot and heavy under his touch. I arched up and he sucked it into his mouth, one hand on my waist, pinning me down.
My hips rolled, the heavy ache to have him inside me pooling deep in my belly.
Unsnapping my jeans, I hooked my fingers into my belt loops and wriggled my pants down my hips, kicking free of them.
“You went commando,” he said in a strangled voice.
Not doing laundry would do that, but why kill the mood?
“Didn’t you?” I pressed the heel of my palm against his erection and he hissed. “I should check.” I tugged his zipper down as Levi licked across my other nipple, rasping it with his teeth. Fumbling at his belt, I yanked his trousers and underwear off, taking his cock in my hand and luxuriating in the sleek satin of his skin.
His breath gusted out in a whoosh and he gave me a smile that was half-seductive and half-evil. “Hold that thought.”
Levi slid down my body, trailing kisses that lit me up like a pinball machine. He nipped at my inner thigh, then ghosted his lips over the long, puckered scar on my right thigh.
I tensed and pulled my leg away.
“Did that hurt?” he said, eyes wide with concern.
“It’s just not a part of my body I’m used to other people touching.”
“Then they’re idiots. I’ve got you naked in my bed and I want all of you. You good with that?”
“Only one way to find out.” I stretched my leg out.
Levi licked my clit and I bucked off the mattress.
“Wait. What about my scar?”
“If you have some freaky scar fetish, keep it to yourself.”
I huffed a laugh and pushed his head between my legs. “Stop talking smack and put that purdy mouth of yours to good use.”
I propped myself up on my elbows to watch him, a head of tousled dark hair between my legs, his eyes focused on me with single-minded determination, and his tongue playing my clit like a virtuoso.
My head fell back, desire tightening deep in my core and lashing out like tongues of flame inside me, but I didn’t want to come like this. I pulled him up until his body covered mine.
“Get a condom,” I said, stroking him slowly.
“Keep touching yourself.” He slid off me and I felt colder for the lack of contact.
I played with myself, my breathing growing raspy, watching him find a condom in his nightstand and put it on.
Levi lay me on my back. “Wrap your legs around me.”
I did as commanded, so aroused that I balanced between pleasure and pain. My clit was throbbing and I bucked my hips to let that thin edge cut me more sharply, pushing me closer to the brink.
He pulled me to him, his hands feverishly roaming my body, and his lips devouring mine in exquisite torture, while he fucked me into the mattress.
Our motions grew to a frenzy, sweat beading our skin.
Levi trained a drugged-out gaze on me. The curve of his mouth grew wider, his grin as filthy as the murmured words that fell from his devil lips about how I felt on his cock. His thickening Italian accent drove me higher and hotter, my nipples tightening, until my entire body clenched and I came so hard that I had to grip his shoulders for balance.
Levi sucked on my bottom lip, then shuddered. “Fuck, bella.”
The endearment rolled over me, and I quivered in orgasmic aftershock, holding him tight.
Levi pulled out of me. I splayed out on his bed while he disposed of the condom. “Distraction achieved?” he said
“Gold star you,” I said when he came back.
He laughed and waved his hand, sending a cascade of gold stars showering down on us. Smiling, I caught one in my hand, and blew it back at him like a kiss.
“This is good,” he said softly.
Gold star levels of good in a casual relationship which was complicated by situa
tional trust, conflicting loyalties, and Levi’s mystery alibi woman.
“Yeah,” I said, more wistfully than I’d intended.
“Bella–”
“How about that biscotti?” I said brightly, rolling in toward him to inhale the delicious scent of his scotch and chocolate magic. All I smelled was his lemongrass shampoo and a faint touch of sweat. I jackknifed up into a sitting position, icy tentacles spinning through my veins.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t smell your magic.” I reached for my power but got nothing except a terrifying flatness.
Levi took my hands in his. “What do you mean?”
“The good news is the drug worked. My head is quiet and the cravings are gone.” I swallowed. “But so’s my magic.”
We double-and triple-checked. Levi had me try to manifest a coin and make my blood armor appear, but I couldn’t do either, and even when I made a small incision, hoping the blood would call my magic to the surface, all I got for my effort was a Band-Aid.
Numb, I sat on the sofa, wearing one of Levi’s sweatshirts that fell mid-thigh, wrapped in a blanket that he’d draped around me with a mug of tea in my hands. Not my first choice, but he refused to mix alcohol with the Blank.
Levi wore jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, his arms cradling me. “The chemist said a day. It should wear off by morning.”
“I’m not worried about losing my magic for a day.” Though it was scary how quickly I’d accepted its presence in my life. How quickly I’d reframed my identity–and my dreams–around being Nefesh. Even so, it was better than the Mundane alternative. “If I take the drug, no one gets hurt.”
“No going after Chariot or getting sucked into a destiny you don’t want.” Levi massaged the base of my skull in steady, soothing circles.
“Like Gavriella did? If she was on Blank, then she’d turned her back on being a Jezebel.” I wrapped the blanket tighter around me to force some warmth into the empty hollowness in my chest. “Hell of a choice. No cravings or no dreams.”
“You can still be a private investigator without your magic.”
Death & Desire: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 2) Page 18