He drove into her again and again, fast and hard until she screamed his name again, her entire body clenching. He followed a moment later, letting the pulse of her orgasm milk him dry.
It took several moments for their breathing to slow to a somewhat normal rhythm. Riddick shifted so that she sprawled across him.
“I can’t feel my legs,” Harper said into his chest.
He let his hand drift down. “I can. They feel great.”
She lifted her head to stare down at him. “Still think we don’t make a great team?”
He brushed her hair off her forehead. “I love you,” he whispered.
Her answering smile was blinding. “I know.”
Later, with Harper asleep in his arms, Riddick did something he couldn’t remember ever doing. He prayed.
“Please, God,” he murmured into Harper’s hair. “Don’t let me fuck this up.”
Chapter Forty
Three nights later, Riddick took a seat next to Mischa at Clary’s and glanced at Harper as she set a tray of empty glasses on the bar.
Apparently, she’d managed to talk herself into a gig as a weekend waitress. The job didn’t require her to wear spandex and a two-sizes-too-small tank top. Pity that.
Mischa nodded a greeting at him and handed him a beer.
She was one of the few people on earth who understood him well enough to know he’d rather sit in silence then make pointless small talk, so neither of them bothered speaking for a long time.
“Is she off soon?” he finally asked.
“In a few minutes.”
Riddick glanced at Hunter as he pulled a stool up next to Mischa, who ignored him while she blushed so hard he thought she might pass out.
Hunter nodded to him and he nodded back, which, in guy-speak, was the equivalent of a full conversation. That suited Riddick just fine.
As Hunter leaned over and murmured something to Mischa that Riddick didn’t care about, he let his attention stray to where Harper stood at the bar, loading her last tray of drinks for the evening. She smiled at the bartender as she walked away and he grinned at her retreating back as if she’d made his day. The guys she delivered the drinks to offered her similar smiles.
There was something about Harper that made people happy, a warmth…an indefinable something that set her apart from everyone else in the bar…everyone else Riddick had ever met.
“How’s she doing?” he asked Mischa without taking his eyes off Harper.
“Fine, considering everything she’s been through.” She shot him a speculative look. “She’s missed you the past few days. Where have you been?”
“I had a few things to take care of out of town.”
“She certainly has a way with people,” Hunter said, thoughtfully.
Riddick glanced over at Mischa and Hunter, who had followed his gaze to Harper.
Mischa sighed. “If I didn’t love her so much, I’d hate her. It’s almost as if she’s…”
“Semi-charmed,” Riddick said.
Mischa looked confused, but Hunter smiled, no doubt having read his thoughts. When no one offered an explanation, Mischa shrugged and said, “You know I’ll have you killed if you hurt her, right?”
Riddick hoped she was serious and still had the contacts to get the job done. “Fair enough.”
“What if she hurts him?” Hunter asked.
She snorted. “He’s on his own.” She tipped her bottle in his direction. “God’s speed, slayer. God’s speed.”
Harper dropped into Riddick’s lap after her shift ended at a table in the back of the bar and was welcomed with roaming hands and a kiss hot and urgent enough to draw catcalls from neighboring tables.
About a minute before they could start ripping each other’s clothes off and risk an indecent exposure arrest, she broke the kiss and glanced toward the dance floor, stunned to see Mischa with Hunter. He held her intimately against his broad chest, but their body language spoke more of battle than dancing. Apparently, Mischa was still having some trouble following her heart.
“What’s happening over there?” Harper asked.
Riddick’s hand moved over her back restlessly, heating her skin to a slow boil. “He dared her to dance with him. Called her a coward when she said no.”
Harper laughed. Apparently Hunter knew precisely how to push Mischa’s buttons. They’d make a great couple if her friend could quit overthinking everything.
She shifted on Riddick’s lap, drawing a groan from him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Harper rested her forehead against his. God, he felt so good. So right.
“You disappeared on me,” she said, poking him in the chest. “The way I figure it, you owe me three days’ worth of orgasms. That’s about thirty, by my calculations.”
One of his hands moved into her hair, cupping her nape. “Thirty?” he said against her mouth. “I can do that.”
Her whole body tingled in anticipation. She had no doubt he could do that. They’d had sex on every surface in her apartment and on every surface in his, and it got better every time.
He tugged playfully on the hem of her Clary’s T-shirt. “This is an interesting career choice for a paranormal PI. What are you doing here?”
“Well, I needed some quick cash to get the agency back on its feet, and given my limited job skills, I could either do this or wear the wiener costume outside the Dog-N-Suds.”
He smiled, obviously envisioning her dressed as a giant hot dog. “Good choice.”
She glanced at Mischa and Hunter, then back at Riddick. “What brought you here tonight?”
He looked down his nose at her. “What do you think?”
Heat spread through her veins. “I didn’t tell you about this job. How did you know?”
His smile was lazy. “I have my sources.”
If anyone else said that to her, she might feel a little creeped out. But because this was Riddick, knowing that he was keeping tabs on her only made her feel…warm. But then again, the warmth might have something to do with the impressive erection currently pressed against her bottom.
“So, where the hell have you been while you should have been giving me orgasms?” she asked.
“I had some errands to run. Why didn’t you tell me you needed more money to keep the agency going?”
She blinked at the sudden subject change. “I thought I could handle it.” She shrugged. “I guess I was wrong, because I haven’t been able to come up with half of what I need.”
He traced a fingertip along her jaw. “I agreed to be your partner, Harper. That means that just when you think you can’t handle it, I’ll be there.”
She fought back tears. It was maybe the sweetest thing she’d ever heard. As Harper struggled for words, Riddick stood up, deposited her on a stool opposite him and slid a fat envelope toward her.
She almost blacked out when she realized the envelope was full of cash. Holy crap…there must be…
“Forty thousand,” Riddick answered her unspoken question. “It should be enough to cover Romeo’s debts, plus the power and phone service for the building for the next few months.”
“How did you…just…how?” she choked out.
“I didn’t. Romeo did. He’s doing well in Vegas. Says ‘hi’.”
He’d probably also said a lot of things along the lines of “ouch, ouch, not my face”, if she hadn’t missed her guess. Riddick had gone to Vegas and beaten money out of Romeo. For her.
Harper jumped back into his arms, clinging for dear life. “Thank you.”
He nodded into her hair. “Now give me your keys, because I’m pulling the car around. We need to get out of here.”
“Why?”
“I’m paying you back what I owe you. Now.”
The tension in his voice had her laughing out loud even as her body wept in agreement. “I’ll grab my coat, say goodbye to Misch and Hunter, then I’ll meet you out front.”
He paused. “You know, I haven’t ever thanked you for everything you’ve done for me, ha
ve I?”
So he had been listening to her. “No, you haven’t,” she said, still grinning like a fool.
He grinned back at her and tapped the end of her nose with his index finger, then handed her a second envelope and left the bar without another word.
Mischa and Hunter rejoined her at the table. “What’s in the envelope?”
Not sure what could possibly top a fat envelope full of Romeo’s cash, Harper anxiously slid her fingernail through the seal.
What she pulled out of the envelope was so much more beautiful than cash, she was rendered speechless. Tears shimmering in her eyes for the second time that evening, she handed the contents of the envelope to Mischa.
“Oh my God,” Mischa said, scanning the document. “This is the deed to your building, marked paid. And it’s in your name, not Romeo’s.”
“And…” Harper said, gesturing toward the envelope with one hand and dabbing at her eyes with a cocktail napkin with the other.
Hunter reached across Mischa and snatched the envelope out of her hand. Peeking inside, he said, “It’s a name plate. The kind you hang on a door.”
“Harper Hall Investigations,” Mischa read off the plate. “I guess that means he’ll be a silent partner.”
Harper let out a watery chuckle. Of course he planned to be a silent partner. The man hardly ever spoke. What touched her most about the gesture was not that he planned to let her take all the glory for their hard work, but that he trusted her to be in charge. Without being told, he’d just given her her heart’s fondest desire: the opportunity to use her “gifts” to their full potential. The chance to truly help people again.
And of course, because she knew Riddick wasn’t much with the words and all, she realized what he was trying to say with this latest gesture.
“You’re welcome, Noah,” she whispered.
Semi-Human
Book 2: Harper Hall Investigations Series
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, thanks to my husband, who tolerated a full year of my Yosemite-Sam-like muttering around the house while I struggled to figure out what to do with these characters. It couldn’t have been easy. And your knowledge of social media (you know, the interwebs, the twerking, the hash browns, and such) has been invaluable. Sleedleshoo!
Thanks to my son, because he’s awesome and inspires me just by being around. And he doesn’t find it at all weird that I refer to my office as The Fortress of Solitude. Gotta love him for that.
I also want to thank my parents, who have always offered unconditional support. The babysitting, dog care, and lawn maintenance is also pretty fabulous, and definitely made it so that I’d have plenty of writing time.
Special thanks to my primary BETA, L.E. Wilson, for her feedback on a really, really, really rough draft. (Did I say it was REALLY rough?) I’m so glad you loved the elevator scene (and the exploding ovaries comment you made? So graphic, yet so perfectly…writerly. Best compliment a romance writer could’ve ever received).
Thanks to Scott Boucher for the fan-freakin’-tastic cover art, and for introducing me to all of my binge-watching TV favorites. It’s always a pleasure to work with someone who gets—and shares—my juvenile sense of humor.
Thanks to Renee Wright, editor extraordinaire. Without your mad skills, Harper would’ve had a sea squirt on her arm. I really owe you for that one.
And last but certainly not least, thanks to everyone who took a chance on an unknown indie author and read Semi-Charmed. You all made my dreams come true! “Thanks” doesn’t seem like a big enough word to convey how much you all mean to me.
Chapter One
Whispering Hope, New York
Harper Hall never thought she’d receive a marriage proposal while straddling a vampire stripper on the floor of the Kitty Kat Palace.
The stripper in question was named Candy Kane, which, unfortunately for her, was her real name. She’d been arrested a few weeks ago for illegal use of vampire mind control and was released on a twenty-thousand dollar bond. She failed to show for her court appearance. That’s when she became Harper’s problem.
Ah, the glamorous life of a paranormal PI.
Skip tracing, or tracking down bail jumpers, was Harper’s least favorite kind of case. Bounty hunters and other PIs didn’t want to go after vampires because they always resisted being brought in, resulting in all kinds of fucked-up, fang-y asshattery.
Hence her current position straddling Candy’s face-down, prone body, which she’d pinned to the sticky strip club floor—eeewww—with her weight.
Sadly, skip tracing paid twice as much as any case she’d ever had, so she found herself doing it with disturbing regularity of late. Riddick seemed to enjoy it, though, given the semi-feral gleam in his eyes at the moment.
Her partner, Noah Riddick, had just slammed Candy’s boyfriend face-first into the wall and wrenched his arms behind his back with enough force to break a normal human’s bones. Fortunately, Candy’s boyfriend, a real charmer by the name of Big Willy, was also a vampire.
And having had the, uh, pleasure of seeing the all-vampire male review he put on at the brand new show club—Vamp Me—in downtown Whispering Hope, Harper could truly say he did the Big Willy moniker proud.
Apparently, Candy and Willy planned to rob patrons at the Kitty Kat Palace by way of Candy’s mind control. By the time she was done with the hapless losers who requested lap dances, they’d think it was their idea to hand their wallets and phones and car keys over to Willy.
What they hadn’t counted on was the bar’s owner, Carlos Mendoza, calling Harper the second Willy hit the door.
Carlos would tell everyone he ratted out Willy and Candy out of concern for his patrons, but Harper knew he was probably just pissed off that the Bonnie and Clyde wannabes hadn’t offered him a cut of their earnings.
“Get off me, you whore!”
Harper pressed her knee down harder against Candy’s spine and wrenched the vamp’s arms up higher behind her back to still her wild squirming. “Those who live in glass whorehouses shouldn’t throw stones, sister,” she said. “And I’m not the one pinned to the floor of a strip club wearing nothing but a set of heart-shaped pasties and a bedazzled G-string.”
She glanced over at Riddick just in time to see Big Willy throw his head back toward Riddick’s face in an attempt to break his nose. Riddick neatly avoided the head-butt, grabbed a fistful of Willy’s shoulder-length, dishwater-dull blond hair and slammed the vamp’s face into the wall.
Willy groaned. “You broke my fucking nose, asshole!”
Only it sounded like, “Ew boke my fuckin’ bose, ash hoe,” which made Harper giggle.
Riddick shrugged and recaptured Big Willy’s arms, binding his wrists behind his back with a zip tie. “I told you to stand still or I’d start breaking your bones.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, man.”
Harper rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Did you forget I’m psychic, Willy?” She tapped her temple with her index finger. “Past, present, and future, all up here. And as soon as I touched your girl here I saw everything.”
And when she said “everything,” she meant everything. Not only had Candy and Big Willy robbed patrons at every strip club within a hundred-mile radius of Whispering Hope, they also had a very…active sex life. She’d seen things she was pretty sure weren’t legal in most states. And some that seemed to defy physics.
“You can’t prove anything,” Willy said petulantly.
“No, but I’m pretty sure there’s a reward for anyone who has information on the strip club robberies, which, I now do.”
“Fucking bitch,” he muttered.
The words had barely left Willy’s mouth before Riddick kicked him in the back of the knee hard enough that bone and cartilage snapped and cracked. Willy screeched like a little girl and fell to the ground, clutching his temporarily ruined knee. It would take a young vampire like Willy at least a week to heal an injury like that.
Harper frowned at
Riddick. “Was that necessary?”
He nodded. “I feel pretty good about it.”
“You could’ve given him a warning.”
“That was my warning.”
She sighed. Riddick’s protectiveness occasionally bordered on obsessive. She’d told him repeatedly that she could take care of herself, and breaking someone’s bones over a little name-calling wasn’t necessary. But he just couldn’t seem to help himself.
She supposed it was romantic…in a psychotic sort of way.
Then he smiled at her, and her consternation vanished. Her heart kicked into an irregular, giddy rhythm that might’ve worried her if it didn’t happen every time he flashed that sexy grin at her.
And the way he looked at the moment didn’t exactly help slow her heart rate, either.
His thick black hair fell to his collar in careless disarray, giving him a just-fucked look that made her thoughts lean toward dirty, dirty things. He had the kind of lean, toned body that screamed badass instead of gym rat. And his face…
Fallen angels wished they had a face like Riddick’s.
And he was all hers.
Suck it, other women everywhere!
“Let me go,” Candy commanded, her normal Betty-Boop voice an octave lower than usual.
Harper tightened her hold on Candy’s arms. “Don’t embarrass yourself. Mind control doesn’t work on me. Strong with the force am I,” she added in her best Yoda voice, which was really kind of awful, now that she thought about it.
Note to self: no more Yoda voice.
“Don’t bother trying it on him, either.” She tipped her head in Riddick’s direction. “He’s immune, too.”
Riddick gave her a mock bow as Willy continued to writhe on the ground at his feet.
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