Lucas wrapped his palm around her nape, yanked her into his arms, and crushed his mouth to hers. When he pulled back, she was stunned speechless for the second time that night.
He rested his forehead against hers, his breathing labored. “Harper, I’m only gonna say this once, so listen very carefully: I like you. And when this is all over, I want to take you out and get to know you better. A lot better. Doing that would be real awkward if you’re pining for Riddick. Get it?”
Words still eluded her, so she nodded.
He pushed away from her. “Good. Just think about it.”
Great. Because what she really needed these days was more to think about.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Late the next afternoon, Harper was sitting at her table frowning and thinking way too much an hour later when a knock on the door mercifully distracted her.
Thank God for pizza, she thought gratefully as she made her way to the door. Distraction food of champions.
The bad news was that the pizza delivery guy was not at her door. It was Mischa. The good news was that Mischa had her pizza.
“I ran into the delivery guy downstairs,” Mischa said as she brushed past Harper and set the box down on the table. “I heard about the woman Phoenix killed and had a pretty good idea this was for you.”
“Good guess.” She frowned. “How did you hear about Phoenix? I just heard about it last night.”
“I bought a police scanner.”
Harper raised a brow and Mischa rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask,” she said. “Talk to me.”
Harper gave Mischa the abbreviated version of the story, but did manage to include details about kissing both Riddick and Lucas.
She swallowed a mouthful of cheese, pepperoni, and black olives and shook her head. “I’m telling you, Misch, when he told me he was obsessed with me…wow, it was terrifying and sexy-as- hell all at the same time. I hadn’t even recovered from that when Lucas kissed me.”
“Harper,” Mischa began, taking a deep breath, “tell me that if given the choice, you’d choose Lucas over Riddick.”
“I’d like to,” Harper answered weakly. “I know that would be the smart choice, but…I don’t know. Riddick just does something to me, you know? I feel like we have this weird connection that goes beyond the physical attraction. And let me tell you, the physical attraction is smokin’.”
Without emotion, Mischa said, “You really are falling for him, aren’t you?”
Harper couldn’t hold back a dopey smile. “Yeah, I think I am. I mean, after everything he’s been through, he could’ve become a monster, you know? But he’s not. He’s the kind of guy who risks his life for others without getting a single thing out of it. The kind of guy who gives up everything he’s ever wanted to keep the people he cares about safe.” She shook her head. “How could I not fall for him?”
Mischa’s expression bordered on sympathetic. “What are you going to do?”
Harper swallowed hard. “Catch a killer, get the guy.”
What else could she do? The alternatives were just unthinkable.
The next night, Harper dropped her purse on her counter and kicked her shoes off with a disgruntled sigh. She’d schlepped herself all over town and talked to dozens of vampires, all with her full entourage of cops lurking in the distance, and her efforts hadn’t earned anything, save a lewd proposition from a sleazy-looking putz who’d mistaken her for a whore (that’s the last time she’d wear that skirt).
And while she hadn’t seen Phoenix, she had spotted Riddick. When she’d stumbled coming down the steps in front of her building, he’d moved out of the shadows with his usual effortless grace, concern clear in his eyes.
Her gaze met and held his for what felt like an eternity. The connection was broken when Lucas stepped forward and took her elbow. Riddick melted back into the shadows without anyone else seeing him, making her wonder if her overactive imagination had conjured the whole moment.
All in the course of two days, she’d lost potential multiple orgasms, failed to entice a sociopath into a trap, wasted taxpayer dollars by having half the police force follow her around town for nothing, lost what remained of her dignity—along with the ability to wear her favorite skirt—and pushed away the man she quite probably loved.
Semi-charmed, my ass.
Lucas rubbed a hand over her back and she jumped.
“We’ll get him,” he said gently.
Harper glanced over her shoulder at him, and in that moment, looking into his sincere brown eyes, she wished more than anything that she could return his feelings. Falling for him instead of a relationship-challenged natural-born slayer would make her life considerably less difficult.
And it wasn’t that she didn’t find Lucas attractive. A fair amount of zing had always existed between them. Theirs would be a comfortable, safe, emotionally and physically satisfying relationship.
But for some reason, her heart just couldn’t get onboard with her head on the Lucas versus Riddick issue.
Leave it to her heart to want the most impossible, confusing, and potentially devastating relationship it could get its hands on. If given the choice, she knew she’d take a moment of the passionate, crazy rush of intense emotion she’d felt in Riddick’s arms over a lifetime of comfortable and safe.
God, she was dumb.
She wanted a man who claimed to be obsessed with her. A man she’d let lay her out like a buffet on her couch.
A man who said that even knowing her was a mistake.
Harper offered Lucas a half-smile, but kept her thoughts to herself. It was too late and she was too tired to break any hearts tonight.
“I’m gonna go change.” She gestured to the couch. “That’s a pull-out. I’ll bring you back a blanket and pillow.”
Lucas looked like he desperately wanted to say something to her, but didn’t. He merely nodded and muttered his thanks.
Harper wandered into her dark bedroom, biting back a curse when she stubbed her toe on the nightstand.
She was so caught up in her love life soap opera and throbbing toe that she didn’t hear the intruder climb through her window. Didn’t hear a footfall until it was too late.
A pair of large hands clamped around her throat from behind, choking off her air supply and ability to scream with painful efficiency.
Harper struggled wildly, clawing at the hands around her neck and trying to kick backward with all her strength. But the more she fought, the tighter he held her.
He yanked her back against a hard, unyielding chest.
“Hello, darling,” a deep voice whispered in her ear.
In that moment, Harper knew Riddick had been one hundred percent correct. The cops couldn’t keep her safe. Hell, having a cop in the next room couldn’t keep her safe.
Now, if only she could stay alive long enough to hear Riddick say I told you so.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Riddick paced the ER like a caged tiger, anger rolling off him in waves, every nerve ending on edge. “Explain it to me again.”
Lucas glared at him from underneath the arm of a nervous-looking young nurse who was dabbing at a cut on his forehead with an alcohol-coated swab.
“I’ve already told you ten times.”
Riddick wasn’t sure if it was the threat he hurled at Cooper or the tone of his voice that made the nurse jerk and jab her patient with the swab, and he didn’t care. If the cop didn’t tell him again how he’d managed to lose Harper, a little cut on his forehead would be the least of Cooper’s concerns.
Cooper sighed wearily. “Okay. For the eleventh time, a little after three, since we hadn’t seen Phoenix or any of his boys, we decided to call it a night. We got back to her place around four. Around four-thirty, she went into the bedroom to change her clothes. A couple of seconds later, someone hit me with a stun gun and I passed out, apparently whacking my head on Harper’s coffee table in the process.”
He winced and smacked the nurse’s hand away. “Jesus, Nurse Ratchet, g
ive it a rest, will ya? I’ve been beaten up enough tonight.”
She frowned at him, then gathered up her supplies and with one last nervous glance in Riddick’s direction, scurried from the room.
Riddick struggled to get his breathing under control, while barely stifling the urge to plow his fist into Cooper’s face.
His pacing earned him a few more uneasy glances from the nurses’ station as he replayed the night’s events in his head.
He’d trailed her and the hapless cops on their fools’ errand until Cooper walked Harper back to her apartment. And since he hadn’t seen Phoenix, he’d stupidly assumed he could go hunting for a few hours.
And after he’d canvassed every known vamp hangout in the city, he still hadn’t learned anything new or even useful about Phoenix.
Around four, he’d gotten anxious. Riddick never got anxious. That’s how he’d known something was seriously wrong.
He went back to Harper’s place and found two dead cops outside and one unconscious cop inside, but no Harper.
Lucas leaned forward on his hospital bed and let his head drop to his hands. “Why did he kill Gomez and Reynolds but not me?”
“Because Phoenix took care of Gomez and Reynolds himself. One of his toadies—probably Benny Scarpelli—took care of you. Benny is a halfer. He probably didn’t want to kill an alpha shifter.”
Cooper lifted his head and in his eyes Riddick saw the same panic, guilt, and desperation he was feeling. He felt a little less like breaking every bone in Cooper’s body. But only a little.
“The guy can’t kill two cops and disappear for long. Every uniform in the city is looking for the bastard—”
“God damn it,” Riddick burst out, smashing his fist into the wall above Cooper’s head. “You still don’t get it. The cops don’t stand a chance of finding him.”
Cooper didn’t even flinch as bits of plaster and paint fell into his hair. “I can help,” he said. “I can track her.”
“You can shift and be strong enough to be of use to me even after an injury like this?”
His crestfallen look was answer enough. With a wordless growl of frustration, Riddick turned and strode out the door.
“What are you going to do, Riddick?”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t make himself say the words out loud. Because Riddick was about to tread on untried ground, do something he hadn’t done in his thirty-two years of life.
He was going to ask for help.
***
The first feeling Harper slowly became aware of as she clawed her way back into consciousness was a throbbing ache in her skull. It felt like someone had tried to rip her brain out through her ears.
Other aches and pains were slower to assert themselves, but were no less trivial. Her hands were numb. Probably from being stretched over her head for too long. She tried and failed to lower them.
Cracking one eye open and tilting her head, she saw that her hands were bound with iron cuffs to a pipe jutting from the floor.
Just like Dylan.
That’s when she came crashing unceremoniously back to reality. She remembered Phoenix, choking her until white dots danced before her eyes.
And he’d bitten her. She remembered the brush of his fangs across her neck as he’d leaned over her from behind, holding her off the ground with nothing more than his grip on her throat. His teeth were so sharp the bite itself hadn’t hurt. But ultimately, the combination of blood loss and Phoenix’s chokehold had knocked her unconscious.
Harper rolled to her side to ease the ache in her back, but the shift of positions did her little good. The bare concrete beneath her was so cold it sapped every bit of warmth from her body, leaving her bones feeling brittle.
Through slitted lashes, she tried to get a better sense of her surroundings. Not even one stubborn ray of sunlight pierced the gloom, and a musty smell permeated the space, telling her she was most likely in a basement or cellar.
Chained up in a basement. How cliché. Somehow, she’d expected more from a notorious, serial-killing vampire.
“Time to wake up, darling.”
His voice was surprisingly melodious and soft with just a hint of a cultured British accent. It wasn’t the voice of a killer. But then again, Ted Bundy’s victims had probably thought the same thing.
Still, despite his order, she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. She was afraid that seeing him standing above her might make her puke. Or cry. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.
“I said wake up.”
And with that, he gave her a swift kick to the ribs. Even though it was probably backed off to a fourth of what it could have been, it was still enough to crack her ribs. Pain exploded in her side and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out.
Harper opened her eyes and took her first look at what was quite possibly the last person she’d see on this earth.
Phoenix stood over her, booted feet slightly apart. Without moving her head, her gaze eased up over long, muscular, denim-clad legs and corded arms crossed over a broad chest.
Taking as deep a breath as her ribs would allow, she looked into his face. Military-short brown hair framed his sharp, angular features. Black, dead eyes stared back at her and a cold smile twisted his thin-lipped mouth.
He was decent-looking, if a bit chinless, she decided with no small amount of disgust. She would have felt much better if he’d been a fat little troll with pockmarked skin and a comb-over.
“You’re a lot shorter than I thought you’d be,” she said, her voice sounding more like a croak. Bastard probably damaged her vocal chords when he choked her.
Phoenix knelt beside her, letting his wrists dangle off his knees. “Is that sass, darling?” He cocked his head to one side. “I don’t believe a woman in this position has ever sassed me.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“On the contrary, Ms. Hall.” He brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, his touch oddly gentle. “Don’t tell me Riddick finally chose a quality whore.”
She chose to ignore the whore comment. “Oh, please call me Harper. I’m on a first name basis with all the men who chain me to their basement floors.”
He chuckled, the sound as icy as the floor beneath her. “A sense of humor as well. I’m glad I didn’t kill you right away. You and I might have some fun while we wait for Riddick to track you down.”
She wished she could spit in his face, but her mouth was too dry. “You should have killed me when you had the chance. The stake Riddick’s going to put through your heart when he gets here is going to ruin whatever little plans you’ve got for me.”
Harper bit back a yelp as he straddled her body, resting his weight on her hips. “You have that much faith in him?”
Her chin lifted of its own volition. “He’ll come for me. You can count on it.”
He leaned over and trailed his tongue slowly up over her throat, gathering blood from where he’d bitten her. She flinched and turned her head away a second before his mouth reached hers.
“I’m sure he’ll come for you too, darling,” he whispered near her ear. “But not before you’ve come for me.”
Her eyes narrowed on him, her temper overriding her fear and better judgment. “I’d rather die than fuck a man with a little dick. And from what I can feel poking into my hip right now, you might as well just go ahead and kill me.”
Obviously unaffected by her insult, he continued to smile down at her as he ran his hand up her leg. He squeezed her thigh, not letting up until he’d forced a soft cry from her throat.
“Not to worry, Harper. You will die. But not until your lover is here. Wouldn’t want him to miss the show.”
Her head hurt so much she couldn’t even roll her eyes, but she was doing it on the inside. “No one uses the word lover anymore.”
“And yet that’s exactly what he is.” He buried his nose in her hair. “I can smell him on you.”
First of all: gross. Second of all, Riddick wasn’t her lover. Sure, he’d bee
n…on her, but that didn’t make them lovers.
Phoenix laid down on top of her, crossing his arms across her chest and resting his chin on them. The feel of him touching so much of her all at once twisted her stomach into a knot. She shuddered.
He must have felt it, because he laughed. “Oh, you are going to be fun. Will you scream for me too?”
“Never.”
“Saving your screams for Riddick, darling?” He sneered with derision. “What a waste. He’s not man enough for a woman like you.”
“On your best day,” she said, enunciating each syllable as clearly as possible, “you’re not half the man Riddick is on his worst.”
Phoenix sat up and eased a wicked-looking knife out of his back pocket. He slid the tip of the blade under her blouse’s top button. “Careful, darling. You wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings. I might…” he sliced the button off, letting the blade nick her skin slightly, “…lash out.”
Harper swallowed hard, but refused to whimper as he eased the blade beneath the next button.
“H-hey, man, I thought you said you wasn’t gonna hurt her.”
She couldn’t see him, but Harper immediately recognized Benny’s tentative voice.
“Benny,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. “Riddick will be soooo glad to see you. And I won’t save your sorry ass this time.”
He gulped audibly. Good. The little bastard should be terrified. Riddick was going to crucify him.
Phoenix’s hand tightened on her hip and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to think about the knife between her breasts. “What did you do to Lucas?”
A frown line knit his brow. “Your werewolf friend?”
“Yes.”
“He’s fine,” Benny said. “I just hit him with the stun gun.”
Phoenix’s lip curled. “You’re a disgrace to villains everywhere, Benny.”
Benny cleared his throat. “Well, I thought we was just goin’ after Riddick. I mean, if I’d known you was gonna hurt Harper, I wouldn’t have…I mean, I couldn’t…well, Harper’s kinda cool, you know what I’m sayin’? And she’s right about Riddick. You ain’t never seen him go all psycho, but I have, man. It’s like the Hulk or somethin’. Maybe we should let her go before he…”
Harper Hall Investigations Complete Series Page 15