The smoky sound of her laughter made him smile. She relaxed beneath him, boneless, and sighed. “That…was…awesome.”
“Mmm-hmm.” It was the most coherent response he could come up with. The breath filtered out of his lungs, he closed his eyes and let himself drift for another few moments.
Reality returned by degrees. The sweetness of her feminine scent, the softness of her body, the discomfort of the hard wooden floor under his knees. He winced and sat back on his haunches, both of them groaning as his cock slid free of her pussy.
An imperious mew sounded from above them, and they both turned to see Balthasar perched on the back of the couch, appearing peeved. Luca knew that look. The cat was hungry and he expected to be fed. Now. Then again, the cat was always hungry. Though Balthasar was an enormous cat, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and Luca was fairly certain he didn’t want to know what his familiar did to burn off the calories.
Erin’s eyebrows drew together. “Did he come inside with us? I didn’t see him.”
“Neither did I.” He shrugged.
She waved a hand to encompass the room. “How does he get in? I have security systems. Expensive ones—my family insisted. He shouldn’t have gotten into the bistro either, but there he was.”
“From my experience, familiars do what they want, when they want and there’s very little that stops them. Spells, cages, laws of gravity.” He shrugged again. Balthasar had decided that Luca was his person whether Luca liked it or not, and that was that. Even as a kitten, there’d been no way to shake the furball, and by now Luca didn’t really want to. He loved the damn beast, no matter how much of a demanding pain in the ass he liked to be. “I think he wants food.”
“I know he does. I promised him treats earlier.” She startled when her cell phone rang, and she wrinkled her nose, stretching against the floor.
“You’re not going to get that?” Not that he really cared. Luca sat back, braced himself on his hands and enjoyed the unencumbered view of her body.
Slowly working her way into a sitting position, she shook her head. “Nope, that’s my general ring tone, so it’s not someone I know well or they’d have their own ring.”
“Do I have a special ring tone?” He narrowed his eyes at her.
The cell finally went silent and she arched her brows at him. “Of course.”
“Do I want to know what it is?”
Wickedness gleamed in her gaze. “If you didn’t want to know, you wouldn’t have bothered asking.”
True enough, though he wasn’t sure he liked that she knew him well enough to understand that. Or maybe he liked it too much. He scowled. “Tell me.”
“Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def Leppard.”
It took him a moment to recall the song, but then he snorted. “Nice.”
Her landline started ringing and she sighed, heaving herself off the floor to get it. “Hello?”
She paused for a moment, frowning. Even his enhanced hearing didn’t pick up a word of what the other person was saying. Unusual.
“They hung up.” She shrugged and set the phone back in the cradle. “Weird.”
He gave her an incredulous look. “So you don’t pick up your cell, but you do pick up your landline?”
“Almost no one has my landline number, so it’s usually just family or close friends who call it.” She tossed her hands up. “I go back and forth between the bistro and the bakery during the week, so my cell number is also my work number. I’m off the clock right now, so unless you’re someone with a personalized ring tone, I don’t want to talk to you.”
Her mobile phone rang again, the general tone, and she stuck her tongue out at it. A few button pushes and she silenced it. “Nope, no one in my contacts list has this number. They can just leave a message.”
“Was it the same number?”
She carried the cell over to her cordless and pushed a couple of buttons. “No. Just a coincidence.”
“Ah.” The hardwood floor was easier to sit on than kneel on, but hardly met his idea of comfortable. He rose to his feet, stretched the kinks out of his muscles, and let the mellow afterburn of orgasm loosen him up.
Setting both phones down, she glanced over at him. “Want some dessert? Since your familiar is sending me into the kitchen anyway.”
“I didn’t have dinner.” He grinned. “Unless you count the taste I had of you just now.”
An expression of exaggerated horror crossed her face. “I am not dinner.”
Waving that away, he gave her a coolly superior look. “My ancestors would disagree, little Normal.”
She blew a raspberry at him. “I feel like I’m talking to the shark in Finding Nemo. ‘Fish are friends, not food.’ Only about Normals.”
He just laughed at her, holding up his hands in surrender. He could never predict what might come out of her mouth, and he liked that about her. “I won’t have you for dinner, then. Feed me something else.”
Snorting, she turned to walk toward her kitchen. “Seriously, I worry about people who skip meals on a regular basis. They’re just not right.”
“Thanks a lot.” He realized he was standing on his Armani, which didn’t look like it had survived the sex. It was worth the cost of a new suit. He shrugged and followed Erin.
He liked her place—it was as interesting and unexpected as the woman herself. She lived in a condo that made up one entire floor of an old, converted warehouse. There was one floor above her and one below, then the basement had been turned into underground parking and storage closets for each of the condo owners.
The outside walls of the place were exposed brick and mostly made up of windows. The venting and ducts that ran along the ceiling were also exposed, along with the support beams and pillars that held up the building. Everything here was open—the kitchen, living room, and dining area making up one large space. Only the office and a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms were partitioned off by walls. Colorful paintings, furniture and throw rugs made statements that drew the eye, and a long granite-topped island separated the kitchen from the rest of the space. He scooted around it and propped an elbow on the cool surface as he watched her.
A loud yowl pierced the air and he flinched, looking back at his familiar, still poised on the couch, his tail whipping through the air. “Well, get in here if you want to be fed. I’m not carrying you.”
Erin shook her head as she opened her fridge to rummage around. “The two of you, I swear.”
A variety of ingredients were unloaded onto the counter, and he had no idea which were for him and which were for his cat. Erin straightened, let the refrigerator swing closed and reached into the pantry for a few containers and an apron.
She looked down as she was tying the string behind her neck and grunted. “Well, that’ll rule out low-cut tops for a few days.”
“What’s that?” Though he had a good idea what she was talking about.
She swung the apron out of the way and he saw a clear bite mark on her chest. He had to admit he liked the sight, but doubted she’d appreciate that thought. “It could be worse. I could have gone for your neck, then it’d be turtlenecks only.”
She crossed her arms and cocked a hip, the picture of feminine annoyance. “If you didn’t bite so deeply, it would heal within an hour.”
True, but he liked to bite deep. Licking the mark would seal it, but unless it was shallow, it could take a day or three to disappear completely. A vampire bite would never leave a scar, but biting a Normal who didn’t have extra healing abilities meant he needed to make sure to sink his fangs where the mark wouldn’t be seen. Not biting wasn’t an option he’d willingly put on the table, so he kept his mouth shut.
She huffed out a breath. “I can’t complain too much, since I enjoyed it at the time, but still.”
Pirouetting toward the stove, she tied the apron in a bow above her waist. Other than that, she was naked, so he got a delicious shot of her heart-shaped ass.
“Mmm…I’ve missed that view.”
She laughed, not even bothering to pretend she didn’t know what he was referring to. “This view hasn’t changed. You just haven’t been around to see it.”
“It was a long week.” More than that. Ten days and nights spent hunting down a serial rapist. Even with his many years of experience, this had been a bad one. He swallowed convulsively when he remembered what the werewolf had done to his victims. Those images would haunt his dreams for a long time to come. His stomach roiled with nausea as the smell of cooking food hit his nostrils. He blew out a breath. It had been a few days since he’d been able to make himself eat a real meal. Mostly, he’d been running on adrenaline, nerves and anger at what had happened to those women.
He startled when Erin cupped her palms around his jaw, yanking him back to the present. Her gaze searched his face. “This case was rough.”
“Yeah.” He resisted the urge to jerk away from her, to shut her out, to hide what he dealt with in his work. Most of his women preferred he keep it to himself, but Erin’s cousin, Jack, was one of his agents. She had a good idea what went on, and she’d never shrunk from it. Still, talking to her about it felt too…intimate. That wasn’t part of their arrangement. He ignored the fact that the first place he’d gone the moment he got back, as shitty as he’d felt, was to her, knowing that he’d feel better.
She stroked her fingertips over his cheekbones. “I’m no help, but…”
Letting the sentence trail off, she shrugged. A quick brush of her lips over his and she stepped back, returning to the stove. She moved with the grace of someone with long experience in the kitchen, humming softly to herself as she worked, her demeanor quiet and relaxed. It made his tension ease a bit, and he couldn’t help a grin as he watched her bare body move.
It didn’t take her long to have something spectacular whipped together, and he noted that she’d somehow guessed his stomach wasn’t up to anything exotic or spicy. The omelet was simple, comfortable and smelled incredible. Exactly what he needed right now.
He sighed. “You’re wrong, you know.”
“About what?” She grabbed silverware out of a drawer for him.
“This does help,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”
She stilled for a moment, not looking at him, as if she weren’t sure how to respond. Then she glanced over and offered him a quick wink. “Well, I need you to keep your strength up so I can wring you out on the mattress again.”
Following her lighter lead, he arched one eyebrow. “Again? When was the first time?”
A sassy smile answered that. She waved him into one of the stools that surrounded the island and set his plate in front of him. “Dinner is served.”
She went to dish something into a small bowl, and then hunkered down to put it on the floor. She stroked Balthasar’s back while he dug in. Luca felt oddly jealous of his cat. Snorting at that stupidity, he plied himself to his own meal.
It was even more delicious than it smelled. The cheese was gooey, the mushrooms flavorful, the eggs fluffy. Every few bites, he got a bit of ham. A low hum of satisfaction worked its way up his throat. “This is outstanding, Chef Bates.”
“Why, thank you, Agent Cavalli.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “The secret is the gruyere. Best cheese for omelets.”
“What kind of mushrooms are these?”
“Portobello.” She rose and went back to the kitchen to clean up. “When you’re done, I have some pineapple strawberry sorbet I was experimenting with yesterday and it should be ready to test now.”
“So you want to experiment on me, huh?”
She widened her eyes. “Since when have you ever complained about me using your body for all my creative processes?”
“Never.” He leaned back in his chair, his body revving up at the thought of the many, many inventive things they’d done to each other in the last year. “Let’s take the sorbet with us to bed.”
Chapter Two
When Erin arrived at work the next afternoon, there was a long white box sitting on the desk in the office she shared with her cousin. The box’s top was stamped with the name of a local florist. She arched her eyebrows, hanging up her sweater before she approached the box. Was it for her or Holly?
“That arrived for you an hour ago.” Her cousin’s voice came from behind her, and Erin glanced back to see Holly lounging against the doorjamb. The werewolf’s silent and speedy approach was unsurprising after five years of dealing with it. Holly gestured with her chin. “Come on, open it up. I want to see what you got.”
Erin lifted the lid, parted the crinkly layers of tissue paper and sighed over the dozen peach-colored roses nestled inside. Their peppery sweet scent filled her nostrils and she couldn’t keep a silly grin from curling her lips. Fishing around in the box, she found a card.
Thank you for the amazing omelet. And everything else. Delicious. -L
A blush burned its way up her neck and cheeks because she knew the delicious was not referring to her omelet. She tucked the card in her pocket before Holly could read it. After lifting the long-stemmed blooms out of their tissue nest so she could bury her nose in them, she took a deep breath. She loved roses. It took her a moment of rooting around their office before she found a vase, but she soon had them in water.
Holly crossed her arms. “Are you sure the two of you aren’t dating? I’ve never had a booty-call send me flowers.”
“We’re not dating, he’s just a gentleman.” Erin hid a grin by sniffing the roses again. “Sometimes.”
Her cousin grunted. “You’d better not let Uncle Darren or Aunt Angela know you’re banging another vamp, that’s all I know. You will never hear the end of it. Ev-er.”
Shooting the petite blonde a narrow-eyed glance, Erin felt her buzz fizzle out a bit. “Well, if I don’t tell them and you don’t tell them, they won’t find out, will they?”
“So we hope.” Holly stepped forward and bent to smell the flowers. “On the other hand, are you sure you don’t want to date him? If a man sends you flowers for a shagfest, what might he do for a legitimate girlfriend?”
“Yeah, I’m not even going to go there.” Erin shrugged that idea off, the memory of the one vamp she’d actually dated looming large in her mind. Asher Kondan. One of the biggest mistakes of her life. Maybe the biggest. “Remember Mr. Shagfest is a vampire? Remember how well a bloodsucking relationship went last time?”
Her cousin waggled her eyebrows. “Apparently, you’re a really good lay.”
“I am, thank you.” False modesty dripped from the words. “Also, keep in mind that Mr. Shagfest and I hooked up in the first place because we wanted no strings attached. I’d just shook loose a jackass ex and Luca was—and is—in love with Tess.”
“Well, he had a shot with Tess when she was Normal, but she’s a wolf now. Wolves and vamps do not mix. Also, she hates his ass. Like with the fire of a thousand suns kind of hate.” Holly flapped a dismissive hand. “Everyone in the pack knows that.”
“Yeah, but not being able to have someone doesn’t mean you don’t want them or love them.” Erin traced a finger around the top of a rose petal. “Besides, I still don’t want any strings attached, so there. I like my sex life just the way it is, thanks.”
“All right,” her cousin relented. “Since he’s a bloodsucker, it’s probably for the best anyway.”
Sad but true. Her werewolf family would not approve.
Holly held up her cell phone. “Oh, before I forget, my calendar reminded me of something. I have a doctor appointment tomorrow, so you’ll be on your own.”
“No problem. This is the new doctor, right?” Erin asked. “Over at Harborview?”
“Yeah, she’s a Fae who just got hired at the Magickal ward. My last guy retired, and she’s replacing him. I hope she’s nice.”
Like every other public service, from law enforcement to education, major hospitals had special branches for Magickals. “I hate going to the doctor.” Erin made a sympathetic noise while she fussed over her roses a little mor
e. “Good luck.”
Holly’s head popped up, her nostrils flaring. Her eyes went wolfish for a moment, and then her voice went telepathic. “You’d better hide the flowers. Aunt Angela just walked in the restaurant.”
Speaking telepathically was a gift of only the vampire and werewolf races, and it was pretty convenient when her cousin had something to say that she needed kept private. Unfortunately, wolves and vamps couldn’t read minds, so the conversation was one-sided. Some other Magickal races could read minds, but couldn’t send thoughts. It was like they were universal receivers while the fanged races were universal transmitters. But you couldn’t have both gifts at the same time. Magic was weird like that.
“How about we just lock my souvenirs in here?” Crowding her cousin out of the office, Erin was again amazed by how she towered over the pixie-sized werewolf. Appearances were deceiving, though. Holly could pick Erin up with one hand and throw her.
Pirouetting, the blonde darted ahead of her, slowing to mere human speed when she hit the dining room full of Normals. And a couple of Magickals, including Angela. The older woman was already seated, but she stood, a beatific smile creasing her cheeks. She held her arms out. “Ah, look. It’s my two favorite nieces.”
“Aren’t we her only nieces?” Holly projected a stage whisper as she strode across the room.
“Well, we’re the only children of Angela and Darren’s only siblings,” Erin replied. “You’re the business whiz, you do the math.”
Angela had been married before Darren, when she was still a Normal, and her son, Jack, was from her first husband. As far as Erin knew, Jack’s father had been an only child too, so Angela wouldn’t even have any leftover nieces or nephews from that marriage.
“Where’s Uncle Darren?” Holly enveloped their aunt in a tight hug.
“Busy with the usual stuff.” Meaning werewolf pack business. Darren was making a bid to be the next pack Alpha. “But I’m meeting Jack and my grandbaby here. My day will be more fun than my hubby’s, I’m sure.”
Edge of Night Page 2