It wasn’t her smell.
He’d almost forgotten by then what she was.
It was something else.
Not knowing what that something was irritated the shit out of him.
He knew a lot of pretty women. Hell, he’d fucked a pretty woman, less than two days ago. Not to mention Charlie, that cop out of his precinct. Charlie was definitely prettier than this Ms. Wynter Ciara James—objectively-speaking, that is.
Whatever he was reacting to, it eluded him.
“How did they not know?” he growled, staring back at the table. “Those agents. The vampires who came last night. How come they didn’t I.D. you as a hybrid?”
She frowned.
Then, after a bare pause, her eyes cleared.
“Ah,” she said. “You mean my smell?”
“Yes.”
She nodded, refolding her arms.
“Unlike with you, I got some prior warning they were coming. I also have some experience with the I.S.F., given that we receive some federal funding here. I knew they’d bring vampires. I have… workarounds for that kind of thing. Rather expensive workarounds, if you want the truth, but effective ones, so long as no one bites me.”
“Something like a pheromone spray?”
“Exactly like that, yes. I’m told it makes me smell very human.” She paused. “Do you want to smell it, Naoko? I have a vial of it, back at my office.”
Nick shook his head, grimacing.
“No,” he said.
There was another silence where the two of them just sat there.
Nick continued to stare at the table, refusing to look at her.
Despite his pretending to ignore her, he didn’t feel any impatience off her.
He didn’t sense any restlessness on her either, like she might be getting bored of this. Nothing about her indicated that she might be thinking about leaving him here, going back to her world as principal of Kellerman Prep so he could get back to his world of New York City homicide detective.
She just felt like she was waiting.
Whether she was waiting him out to see what he’d do, or waiting for something in particular from him, he honestly didn’t know.
He was pretty sure he didn’t want to know.
“Can’t you just go?” he said. Rubbing his face with a hand, he still avoided looking at her as he went on, his jaw halfway clenched. “Fuck. Just go. Let me do this. Find something else to entertain yourself with. Go bug Jordan. Help him with the interviews.”
There was another silence.
Then she unfolded her arms, using her hands to push herself off the table.
He thought at first she was going to leave, as he’d asked.
A ripple of frustrated disappointment ran through him as he thought it, strong enough that he bit his lip, fighting to keep from apologizing, then from asking her to stay—even promising to talk to her. He sat there, wound up like a bound cat, waiting for her to walk past him and towards the door to the two-story, bookshelf-filled room.
Instead, she slid into the chair right next to his.
He flinched, then turned, looking at her in spite of himself.
“Gaos,” he said, using the seer word without thought. “What do you want from me?”
She smiled at him. “So you have known seers. Is that your problem? Did one break your heart, Detective Naoko Tanaka Midnight?”
He gave her a hard stare. “Fuck off.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, pursing her lips.
Exhaling human-fashion—if without any real breath—he started to get up from his chair. He didn’t know where he was going. Just away from her, if only long enough to clear his head, to fucking think.
He didn’t get very far.
Her hand fell on his thigh. It gripped him tighter when he started to get up a second time, and he turned, glaring at her.
Still, he didn’t remove her hand.
He didn’t even jerk away from her fingers.
He obeyed them instead, resting his weight back in the chair.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he told her, glaring into her face. “Jesus, lady. Haven’t you read about my kind? What we do to people like you?”
She didn’t flinch.
Despite his anger, her eyes remained calm.
Something about that calmness was almost fucking hypnotizing, but he couldn’t figure that out, either. He ended up staring into those light-filled eyes, feeling like a deer caught in headlights, even as he continued to scowl at her.
“You think I’d get addicted to your venom?” she said, studying his eyes. “Is that it? You don’t date hybrids for their own good?”
“Date?” He let out a disbelieving snort. “We’re fucking dating now?”
“What else could you have possibly meant?” she said, frowning back at him faintly. “You alluded to the danger you pose to me. As far as I know, the only way in which that’s true—specifically in relation to hybrids and vampires—relates to the addictive properties of vampire venom. Unless you plan on killing me for sport.”
She quirked an eyebrow at him, her eyes studying his openly.
“You don’t plan on killing me for sport, do you, Detective Tanaka?”
He gave her a hard look, not answering.
She returned it without reaction, still staring at him frankly.
There was something disturbingly open in that stare. Not innocent, not exactly—or even inexperienced. Rather, her expression was guileless somehow, like she was letting him see her, the real her, and she didn’t even care.
“Look,” she said, prodding him with her voice. “Can we just discuss this? You believe vampires are a problem for hybrids. You believe all of us get addicted to being fed on… just because some of us do.”
Nick felt his throat tighten, the longer she talked.
“Are you hungry now?” she said, her voice still calm, almost lulling. “Is that why you want me to go?”
He frowned, shaking his head. “No. I’m not hungry.”
Thinking about that, he realized it was true.
“I’m not hungry,” he repeated. “But you’re barking up the wrong tree, lady. I’m not interested. I’m one hundred percent not interested—”
“Okay.”
He met her gaze.
Staring at those stunning, blue-green eyes, he found himself getting angry again.
He had no idea why.
Except bullshit, his mind murmured. You do know why, Nick. You know exactly why you want to wrap your hands around that dark hair of hers right now.
His anger worsened at the thought.
Despite that anger, he didn’t move.
Neither of them moved. Her hand remained on his thigh, and every part of him grew increasingly aware of it, like her fingers and palm were burning a hole through his pants and into his skin, branding him.
When she started massaging his thigh, he closed his eyes.
He didn’t tell her to stop.
He didn’t even think it.
In fact, if he thought anything at all, it was pretty much the opposite of wanting her to stop, but he didn’t voice that aloud, either.
He didn’t say anything.
He also didn’t move.
When she slid closer to him, pulling her chair closer with her feet, he found himself leaning closer to her as well.
“In answer to your question, I’ve never met a vampire,” she admitted, her voice low, a little breathless. “I mean… I’ve met them,” she amended, her mouth seemingly right by his ear, her breath lightly brushing his skin. “Like those I.S.F. vamps last night. I met them. I worked with them. But I didn’t talk to them apart from that. I’ve never even thought about talking to one before, not for that reason. I’ve never really gotten that whole thing… fetishizing, I mean. About vamps or seers or anything else. I never cared.”
Nick’s jaw hardened.
He found himself listening to every word she said.
Worse, he found himself th
inking about each one, turning it over in his mind, as if tasting everything she was trying to convey to him.
He opened his eyes with an effort, meeting her gaze.
“This is a bad idea,” he told her.
She nodded. “You said that.”
He frowned. He found himself looking at the contours of her face, her lips, her eyes, the height and shape of her cheekbones.
He realized he was jealous of those I.S.F. vampires.
He couldn’t even come close to explaining that to himself.
He wondered if they’d stared at her, too, wishing she’d put her hand on their thighs, wanting to grip her hair until she gasped, to pull her head sideways so they could sink their fangs into her throat. He imagined how soft that skin would be, how incredibly fucking soft.
He was still lost somewhere in that fantasy, imagining them surrounding her, sniffing around her like a pack of wolves… when she spoke again.
“What are your cocks like?” she said, her voice still calm, strangely mesmerizing. Her fingers massaged his thigh with more muscular strokes. “Vampires, I mean. Do they have any extra, you know… parts?”
Nick grunted at that, almost outside of his control.
After a pause, he found himself answering her.
“No,” he said, gruff. “That’s seers. Vampire cocks are like a human’s.”
“So it didn’t change at all when you turned?” she pressed, her hand rubbing closer to that part of his body. “Not even a little bit?”
He felt an element of asking permission in how she did it, but some part of him was in denial of all of it—her hand, this conversation, whatever the fuck she seemed to want from him, whatever he could feel himself wanting from her.
“Maybe a little—” he began, his words catching when her hand slid closer to the front of his pants, nearing the edges of an erection he hadn’t even noticed he had.
“How?” she said, her voice still calm, curious. “How did it change?”
“I don’t know—”
“You do know,” she corrected. “Is it bigger?”
Nick winced, but after a pause, he nodded, shrugging.
“Maybe a little.”
“A little?”
“Maybe.”
“Is it okay if I check?” she said.
Nick felt his chest tighten.
He’d gone back to not looking at her, but he found his eyes dropping to where her hand still rubbed his leg, edging towards his lap without going all the way there.
Closing his eyes, longer than a blink, he fought to think.
He didn’t get very far before he found himself answering her, speaking before he’d wrapped his mind around why he should probably say no.
“Yes,” he said, gruff.
She didn’t wait.
Once he gave her permission, she slid her hand, arm and body even closer.
Every muscle he owned tensed as she started exploring him openly through his pants. He sat there, staring at the surface of the table without seeing it, wincing occasionally and seemingly outside his control as she found the outline of his cock through the fabric.
When he didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t stop her, she slid even closer, leaning her shoulder against his as she continued to explore him. Her hand and fingers grew more precise the longer she did it… until he fell into a kind of trance.
Her fingers found things he liked. They started stroking him more deliberately.
Her fingers got stronger, more practiced… then more openly experimental.
When she didn’t stop, he had to fight to remain silent.
His fangs extended when she kept going.
After a few more minutes, he didn’t even try to hold it back.
He didn’t breathe, didn’t lose his breath the way he used to as a human, but everything in him went utterly still, his muscles clenching until they hurt, his arms tensing where they rested on the wooden table.
He started gradually relaxing.
She leaned into him more, her other hand massaging the outside of his thigh.
He was building then, enough that he couldn’t look at her.
He felt her notice. She fell into a rhythm with him, so easily, so effortlessly—so damned… right—he closed his eyes, fighting not to look at her.
He didn’t let himself turn towards her at all.
His hands clenched on top of the table.
He wanted to bite her.
By then, he really wanted to fucking bite her.
It wasn’t all he wanted, but it was maybe the first thing.
He could smell her all around him.
She massaged him harder, and he let out an involuntary sound.
He started thinking he might actually come—
A ping reached him through his headset.
Nick flinched so hard, he nearly speared his tongue with his fangs.
Then he froze.
Hey? You still there? You fall asleep or something?
The line of text formed behind Nick’s eyes, making him blink in confusion as it pulled his eyes off his unfocused, dreamlike view of the room—a view that had been telescoping around him as the woman half in his lap massaged his cock and leg.
Where are you? the text went on. You get any more I need to look at?
Nick fought to think.
He clenched his jaw.
Before his mind had come close to clearing, he gripped her wrist, stopping her without pulling her hand off any part of him.
For a few seconds he just sat there, fighting to level his head.
Hey, Jordan wrote. What are you doing in there? No getting blowjobs from hot teachers while we’re on duty, Tanaka…
Nick knew it was a joke. He knew it.
He felt his face flush anyway.
Sorry, he wrote back after a pause. There’s a lot of crap in these files. I got caught up trying to organize it all. Give me a few minutes… I’ll get back to going through it all now.
Organizing files, eh?
Nick could almost see the other male grin through the dark link.
Not wanting to get into another back and forth with him, Nick cut the connection.
Biting his lip, he winced when his fangs cut the inside of his mouth.
He turned slowly, reluctantly, to meet her gaze.
“I need to get back to work,” he said, gruff.
She smiled.
Her face was flushed, only a few inches from his.
Those shockingly clear, blue-green eyes stared right into his.
Before he could get his eyes off her—off her eyes, off that mouth and what he wanted to do to it—she moved.
He tensed in instinct when she did, some part of him going into shock when she removed herself from him, sliding her chair back and taking her hand off his cock and thigh, removing her shoulder from his. Before he could wrap his head around the fact that she was actually leaving, that she was no longer touching him, she was already rising to her feet.
He followed her with his eyes.
Then he stared up at her, feeling like she’d slipped him some kind of drug.
The smile on her flushed face only confused him.
“Okay,” she said cheerfully.
Leaning down, she kissed him on the cheek.
Then, without another word, she turned her back to him.
Nick sat there, his jaw clenched so tightly it hurt, watching as she walked away from him and out of the room, her steps gracefully light, like she dance-walked to where the door lived between two massive bookcases and a giant potted palm.
Nick could only sit there, silent, watching her go.
He honestly didn’t know if he wanted to curse her out, or go after her.
Either way, he knew two things without a trace of doubt.
Whatever had just happened, he wasn’t finished with Ms. Wynter Ciara James—school principal, hybrid, vampire molester, psychic, and possible dark witch.
The other thing he knew was directly related to the first.
>
He, Nick Tanaka, was royally fucked.
Chapter 19
Racist
Nick thought he’d made it.
He’d finished, and she hadn’t returned.
He would get out of there without seeing her again.
If Jordan decided he needed to check in with her before they left, back at her office on the fifth floor, Nick would wait outside. The thought didn’t thrill him, truthfully, remembering the two of them quasi-flirting before, but it was better than the alternative.
He’d packed up the files she’d given him, and was already heading for one of the two doors to the rectangular, library-like room—
—when he heard a swish of the door opening behind him, followed by footsteps on the wooden floor. Then he heard her voice.
That was worse.
That was a lot worse.
Still he turned, almost involuntarily, the instant she spoke.
“Hey.” She glanced between the two of them, focusing on Jordan, who waited by the door, before leveling a harder look on Nick. “Can I have a moment, Detective Tanaka?”
She cleared her throat.
“Privately,” she added unnecessarily, glancing again at Jordan.
Nick tensed.
Turning away from where Jordan stood by the door, waiting for him, Nick stared at her. He found himself looking at her, really looking at her, looking her over in spite of himself, even as he scowled, feeling his body already reacting.
Jordan glanced between the two of them, then let out a low snort.
“I’ll be outside,” he said.
When Nick turned towards his partner, the other man held up a hand, indicating “five minutes.” Nick nodded, not bothering to answer the smirk on the human’s face.
Still, he was tempted to tell Jordan to piss off.
He was tempted to tell her, Ms. Rich Kid School Principal, to piss off, too.
Or, better yet, to simply follow Jordan out the door, not say a word.
He did neither of those things.
He looked back at the woman.
Wynter, his mind reminded him. Her name is Wynter. And don’t pretend you forgot.
When Jordan closed the door, she unfolded her arms.
Without a word, she walked directly to him, her strides casual.
Vampire Detective Midnight Page 20