You don’t need the vampire, her practical brain insisted. Forget about him. Once and for all.
Yeah, and cure cancer and convince the Kardashians to retire from reality TV while you’re at it, her lady parts retorted. That’s probably more likely.
Her brain was silent.
She blinked. Had she just lost an argument with her vagina? That didn’t exactly scream “mental stability,” now did it?
Who cares about your mental health when you haven’t gotten laid in…shit, has it really been nine years?
Damn, her vagina made a sound argument.
Yep, it had really been nine years, she realized after doing a little quick mental math. It had been a desperation lay back in her Sentry days. He’d been a watcher like her, and they ran into each other at Clary’s Pub by chance. He was handsome and she was a little drunk, not to mention incredibly lonely, and hadn’t yet purchased Antonio.
He’d driven her home and she’d dragged him to her bed. In the end, the drive to her apartment had lasted longer than the sex, and while he achieved his happy ending, she was denied hers. Needless to say, the experience did little to satisfy her hunger for physical contact or loneliness.
Now that she thought about it, could something that one- sided really count as the last time she’d had sex?
Since then, she’d mostly been able to keep the loneliness at bay, and generally, she’d rather spend her free time with a warm bath, a good book, and a quality romp with Antonio here and there.
Except for that one time last year when she’d thrown caution to the wind, and in a fit of reckless self-pity, almost did something colossally stupid.
Only it hadn’t felt stupid at the time.
Memories of smooth, taut, sun-browned skin sliding against her own assailed her. His strong hands cupping her jaw, gliding down over her shoulders, thumbs brushing her nipples. Long, silky ebony hair tangling around her fingers as their tongues mated, breath mingling, her heart beating a frenzied rhythm against her chest.
His heart…not beating at all.
She wished she could say it was Hunter’s lack of heartbeat that had slapped her back to reality and made her run from him that day. But it wasn’t.
The truth was much more pathetic than that. The truth was, she didn’t deserve a happy ending. Especially not with him.
And the sooner her lonely lady parts—and her heart—realized it, the better.
Chapter Six
A week later, Harper and Riddick joined the mile-high club in an airplane bathroom on their way to Vegas, which always looked easy in the movies, but in actuality, was very tricky. Harper still had a kink in her back to prove it. Not her best—or classiest—idea, to be sure.
The shower in their hotel room was very good to them, though.
Hot water + naked, soapy Riddick = an incredibly satisfied (and clean) Harper.
After that, they wandered into one of the restaurants on the hotel’s main floor, where Harper proceeded to eat her body weight in surf and turf. Good thing they weren’t having a traditional ceremony, because too many meals like that would ensure she’d never fit into a wedding dress. But here in Vegas, she could get married in her yoga pants (i.e., her Thanksgiving pants) and no one would care.
Following dinner, much to Riddick’s chagrin, Harper dragged him into the casino, where she parked herself in front of a nickel slot next to a scary old lady with purplish hair who smelled like boiled cabbage, and whose bloodshot eyes suggested she hadn’t left her machine in days. Harper had been sitting there for over an hour, feeding her machine with Riddick hovering protectively behind her.
Harper wobbled on her stool a little, and she giggled as Riddick’s hand shot out to steady her.
“Whoopsie,” she said, clinging to the front of his t-shirt.
He smirked down at her. “Had a few too many?”
She nodded, then rested her forehead on his chest when the room started to spin. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Note to self: just because the tequila is free, you don’t have to keep drinking it.
Riddick signaled a waitress who practically tripped over her high heels in an attempt to get to him quickly. Harper barely resisted the urge to hiss and snarl at the little hussy, who’d been eyeing her man all night.
“Can I get a bottle of water for her, please?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” she answered, a little too enthusiastically for Harper’s liking. “Right away.”
Harper lifted her head off Riddick’s shirt and pointed a finger at the girl, who looked all of twenty years old. “He’s marrying me, you know, so there’s no point flirting with him.” She smacked herself in the chest with an open palm. Ow. “I’m his sunshine.”
In the silence that followed her pronouncement, Harper blinked. God, that had sounded so much better in her head.
Riddick chuckled, and the waitress eventually said, “Um, okay,” before scurrying off.
“I have to pee,” Harper announced, probably too loudly, and jumped off the stool.
Riddick caught her as her legs gave out. “I’ll take you.”
“No, no, no,” Harper said, pushing away from him, straightening her shirt. “You have to watch my machine. It’s hot right now, and this one’s been eyeing it all night.” She jerked her thumb toward the purple-haired old lady.
Riddick frowned. “Are you sure? You’re a little wobbly.”
“’S all good,” she slurred. “I got this.”
He looked skeptical, but he crossed his arms over his chest and sat down on her stool, watching her.
She turned back to the old lady, pointed at her own eyes with two fingers, then at the old lady’s eyes with the same two fingers. “I’m watching you, sister,” she said, putting as much menace into her tone as she could muster.
The old lady blinked owlishly back at her over the tops of her Sophia Loren glasses.
Satisfied that her message had been received, Harper weaved her way to the ladies’ room.
Against all odds, she managed to make it to the bathroom and pee without hurting herself or falling in the toilet. But as she was washing her hands, her luck ran out.
A strong arm snaked around her shoulders and a large hand clamped over her mouth.
No good ever came from free tequila, was her last thought before the world went black.
***
Few things woke a girl up faster than realizing she was tied to a chair.
Sadly, Harper knew this from experience. She wouldn’t say that in her line of work this kind of thing was common…but, let’s just say this wasn’t Harper’s first rodeo.
Lifting her head gingerly—ugh, damn tequila—she took stock of her situation.
She was sitting on a metal folding chair, hands zip-tied behind her back, in the middle of what looked like an abandoned mechanic’s garage. The smell of old sweat and motor oil and dust was thick in the air. A poster of a Cindy Crawford from at least two decades ago was hanging onto the concrete block wall by nothing more than a sliver of duct tape and memories. The only light in the place was coming from a bare bulb, screwed into the ceiling above her head.
The ties around her hands were secure, but not tight enough to hurt her. And her legs weren’t bound. Either her kidnapper was an amateur, or he didn’t really want to harm her. Either way, she could use it to her advantage.
She was pretty sure something had crawled into her mouth and died, and she could practically feel her hair frizzing, but hey, at least she wasn’t chained to the floor this time around. And even better, there wasn’t a single psychotic vampire in sight. (Yeah, that’d happened, sadly.)
“Oh, there’s my girl. Glad you’re finally awake, darlin’,” an all-too-familiar Southern drawl intoned from behind her.
Harper groaned and closed her eyes. It couldn’t be.
As the owner of the deceptively charming Southern drawl moved and knelt in front of her, Harper realized she’d almost rather face a psychotic vampire.
“Romeo Jones,” she
muttered through clenched teeth.
He shoved a hand through his dark blond, shoulder-length hair and grinned at her. “Aw, you remember. I’m touched.”
Time seemed to stand still. This was one of those moments, Harper realized, that could define her as a person. Could she forgive Romeo for screwing her over, allowing them both to move on with their lives without bitterness and anger?
A good person would.
With that in mind, Harper did what she knew was right in her heart.
She smiled at him warmly. He leaned in to tuck a loose curl behind her ear.
Then she head butted the bastard.
After all, being a good person was totally overrated.
Chapter Seven
Riddick couldn’t breathe.
If he didn’t find Harper soon, he was going to completely lose his shit and start tearing the casino apart brick by brick.
It was all his fault, damn it. Why the hell had he let her go to the bathroom alone in her condition? She could be hurt. Scared. Anyone—or anything—could have taken her.
“Riddick! Are you even listening to me?”
He stopped pacing the sidewalk outside the casino and loosened his grip on his phone to avoid shattering it. “What?” he snapped.
“I traced her, using her phone, which is still on,” Mischa said way too calmly for Riddick’s liking. “You were right to call me. This would’ve taken the police too long and there would’ve been too many questions.”
He was fucking panicking here, and she was tooting her own horn. Great. “Do you have an address for me, or not?”
“Of course,” she scoffed. “It’s about ten miles from where you are now, off the strip.”
When she didn’t say anything else, he growled, “Well, what is it, goddammit?”
She paused and he wanted to reach through the phone and shake her. After an eternity, she said, “I have something for you to see before I give you the address.”
“Mischa, I swear to God, I will burn this entire God- forsaken shithole to the ground to find her if you don’t fucking—”
“Chill out,” Mischa ordered, sounding surprisingly tough for someone who was all of five-two, one-ten. “She’s not hurt.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” he shouted, startling several people into crossing the street to avoid walking past him too closely.
“I hacked the casino’s security footage.”
That sounded kind of complicated and maybe a little…illegal. “How did you—”
“Don’t ask,” she said, dryly. “But I saw who carried her out of the bathroom. He’s an idiot, but he wouldn’t hurt her. I’m sending you the footage right now.”
It took a hundred years or so, but the footage finally came through to his phone. He watched in stunned silence, heart pounding, as a large man carried a limp, but very much alive, Harper out of the ladies’ bathroom. Riddick breathed a sigh of relief. A very small sigh for a very small bit of relief, but at this point, it was better than nothing.
As the man moved toward the kitchen, most likely planning to sneak out through the employees’ entrance, he made the mistake of glancing up at the security camera.
Riddick’s fear and concern morphed into blind, murderous rage. He let out a half growl, half roar and punched a hole in the casino’s stone façade.
“I’m going to rip that motherfucker’s balls off and cram them down his fucking throat,” he said through clenched teeth, meaning every single word.
Every. Single. Word.
“Yep, that’s what I thought you’d say,” Mischa said. “I’m sending you the address now. Say ‘hi’ to Romeo for me.”
Romeo pressed a wad of tissues to his nose, and Harper was gratified to see his blood quickly saturate them.
“Damn, Harpy,” he moaned. “What’d you have to do that for?”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “And untie me right-the-fuck now!”
He wadded up the tissues and tossed them on the ground. “Aw, sweetheart, I can’t do that just yet. I need to make sure you’re gonna listen to me.” He gave her a reproachful look. “And I need to be sure you’re not gonna head-butt me like a damn billy goat again.”
Harper flipped her hair back and gave him what she hoped was Riddick’s feral grin. She must have done it right, because he flinched. “I make no promises.”
He shook his head, looking a little sad. “You’re different, girl. What’s happened to you? Is it that thug you’re dating?”
“You don’t get to talk about Riddick,” she said, barely able to move her mouth, her jaw was clenched so tight. “He saved my ass after you left. Without him, I’d probably be waiting tables at Kitty Kat Palace.”
No need to let him know that’s exactly what she’d done when he abandoned her.
Romeo Jones had been her partner when they both worked for Sentry. He’d been a slayer like Riddick, only less…naturally gifted.
When Sentry disbanded, Romeo had suggested they go into the PI business together. Since Romeo had been a cop back in his pre-Sentry life, it seemed like a natural progression for him. For Harper? Not so much.
But she’d worked her ass off to get her license and learned as much as she could to run the business, while Romeo generally boozed, gambled, and whored his way through their profits. Then, one day, he just disappeared, leaving only a note.
Harpy,
Just can’t do it anymore. Heading to Vegas. I’m real sorry, babe. Good luck.
Harper would’ve gotten over losing her partner and friend, but Romeo also stuck her with the business’s sizable debt. And without Romeo, folks didn’t seem as willing to hire her.
But Riddick had changed all of that. When he partnered with her, business tripled. (Which just proved how backward folks in her hometown were. Seriously, it was like she’d been living in an episode of Remington Steele until she was able to tell prospective clients that her new partner was a big, scary dude. Sad, really, that in 2015, people still didn’t totally trust a smart, capable woman to run a business without the help of a man.) And unlike her partnership with Romeo, Riddick was willing to let her call the shots for the business.
Romeo had the nerve to put a hand on her knee. “I am sorry I left like that, Harpy. You deserved better. But I was all kinds of messed up. Everything is different now.”
To say she was skeptical was an understatement. And to say he’d been “messed up” was also an understatement. His addictive personality made him susceptible to every vice known to man, and probably a few known only to the supernatural community.
But he did look better than he had in a long time, she noticed, giving him a critical once-over.
His blond hair was still long overdue for a trim and looked like a comb hadn’t touched it in weeks, but it had a healthy luster to it that it’d lacked when he was with her in Whispering Hope. His clothes were rumpled and worn, but clean-looking with no visible vomit stains, which was a bit out of the ordinary for him.
He’d lost a little weight since she’d last seen him, but it looked like he might’ve traded some fat for lean muscle. If she had to guess, she’d say he was about one-eighty, which seemed like a good weight for his six-two frame.
And as much as she hated to admit it, the bastard was still handsome, with the scruffy, blue-eyed good looks of an older Chris Hemsworth.
Which was why she’d never been able to watch either of the Thor movies. It would’ve been too weird to perv on a guy who looked so much like Romeo, the asshat.
“OK, so maybe you’re clean now,” she said, putting particular emphasis on maybe. “That still doesn’t change the fact that you kidnapped me, you stupid jackass! Do you have any idea what Riddick’s going to do to you when he finds me?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I have an idea of what he’ll want to do to me. But you’ll convince him otherwise.”
She snorted. “So, I guess my head-butt wasn’t clear enough. Move a little closer so I can express myself better.”
“Oh,
darlin’, I think your boy toy has made you bloodthirsty.”
She ignored the dig at Riddick this time. He’d pay for it when she was free. “You have no idea. Now. Untie. Me.”
“Can’t do it just yet. But I’ll make a deal with you.”
Harper narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t make deals with kidnappers.”
He let his head fall into his hands. “Christ, girl, you’re gonna make this difficult, aren’t you?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
When he lifted his head, his eyes held a kind of desperation she wasn’t used to seeing from Romeo Jones. It threw her off-balance for a moment, made her feel something dangerously close to sympathy.
But she quickly stomped down that feeling when she thought about how worried Riddick must be about her. He was probably going crazy. She had to end this quick for his sake.
She sighed. “Oh, all right. I’ll listen to what you have to say, but the second you’re done talking, you have to let me call Riddick to tell him I’m OK.”
He lifted his hand, twisting a few of his fingers together. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a Boy Scout. And that’s a gang sign you’re flashing there, dumbass.”
He looked down at his hands, a little sheepish. “Oops. Guess that explains why that scoutmaster called the cops on me that one time.”
She rolled her eyes. It also could’ve been that the scoutmaster and his troop had found Romeo naked in the park, masturbating. He’d been so stoned that he’d been sure he was at home. “Get on with it. Why am I here, Romeo?”
“Interesting story.”
Well, hell. In her experience, anytime Romeo started a conversation with interesting story, it usually ended with someone—often her—getting royally screwed.
“What do you know about the paranormal community here in Vegas?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I know there are some here, even though it seems like an unlikely place for them.”
Harper Hall Investigations Complete Series Page 26