“How noble. My detective. My vampire detective….” Sully kissed the soft spot on Chaz’s neck, sucking the skin harder and harder. Sully’s mouth formed a bruise on his skin, one that would turn bright red and purple and then brown as it healed in a matter of hours. Sully sucked on Chaz as if he was going to break the skin and savor him, taste him, like they were one and the same creature.
Chaz groaned under Sully’s embrace. He didn’t want to do things this way—not because of the phone. The phone wasn’t his payment for sex. It was his job. There was an honor in that he wanted to preserve.
“You, you, you,” Chaz stuttered before he managed to get out his sentence. “You don’t have to.”
“I know. I don’t have to do anything. I want to.”
“But I want to pay you.”
Sully pulled away, furrowing his brow. “Because that’s all I’m good for?”
“No, no. Because you’re a person who lives in this city and I’m a detective. I really did get you the phone because I wanted you—and anyone else—to be safe.”
Sully considered this for a long time. He broke the sustained silence with a sigh. “Fine. You’re right. Probably silly of me to offer a freebie anyway, especially since that’s what our good tax dollars are for. And before you even question it, yes, Artie and everyone here pays taxes. Some of the witches are good with numbers and everyone does their laundry or buys them herbs in April to get them to file for them.”
Chaz laughed, completely baffled by this side of the business. “Really?”
“Oh yeah. Taxes are serious business. Not paying them is how Al Capone got busted. Artie can’t have that.”
“You amaze me. You know that, right?” Chaz caught some of Sully’s hair in his finger and curled it behind his ear.
“Ah well, I aim to please. You can pay me for tonight. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
Sully sank lower on Chaz’s torso, lifting up the shirt even farther and peppering Chaz’s skin with kisses. Once he undid Chaz’s pants, he kissed around the hipbone and shot a seductive glance up at Chaz.
“What do you want, Chip? I’ll do anything you want.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” Sully said, his breath throaty. “I can suck you without a condom. So I can taste you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I know you’re good. We fuck with condoms, but a taste now? Oh, a taste….”
Chaz swore he melted into the bed as Sully slipped his dick out of his pants. Sully’s hot breath warmed his skin, teasing and coaxing precome out of him. He ran his thumb up his shaft, beading the precome there so he could lick it off. He tasted Chaz as carefully as he said he would, licking and bathing Chaz’s dick with warmth and attention. When Sully finally put his mouth around him and sucked, Chaz was already close. So, so close. As Sully’s head bobbed, Chaz tried to focus on the moment. On the right now. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw the arrows from the crime scene. Cupid’s arrows. They struck him in his body, over and over again like tendrils of desire, and went through his heart. I am falling for him. Falling so, so hard.
“Yeah, Chip, yeah.” Sully broke the contact between their bodies so he could remove Chaz’s pants completely. He took off his own shirt and pants as well. Sully licked up Chaz’s thighs, nipped the skin, and sank back into place, now completely naked. “Oh, Chip, I’m going to make you come so hard.”
“Fuck.” Chaz groaned. Sully spread his fingers over Chaz’s balls, then farther back. He licked a stripe down until his tongue was near his hole. Chaz groaned again and again while Sully moaned his name—Chip—simultaneously. Sully’s hands felt so good on him, along with his mouth and tongue, but the name—the name jarred him. Sully touched him so easily, so effortlessly, it was as if Sully could read him like Braille. But hearing Chip and not Chaz, the name his mother had picked out for him, nearly ruined the moment.
“Fuck. I want you so badly, Chip.” Sully moaned as he moved to bring their dicks together. He arched his back and ground his hips into him. Sully nearly glowed with a sheen of sweat. It made his black hair even darker over his forehead. When their mouths met, Chaz tried to keep Sully silent. He wanted him, like this, unraveling in his arms. He wanted to hear his breath and moans. Not the wrong name. Not anymore.
“I think I know what you want,” Sully said, after breaking the kiss to whisper in Chaz’s ear. “You want inside me? Or should I go inside you?”
“Fuck.” Chaz shuddered. Both. He wanted both at once but could only choose one.
“Let me guess?” Sully said with a laugh. “You want everything? We may be able to do that. Since I don’t have any other clients tonight, we can keep going and going. You like that?”
“Uh-huh.” Chaz placed his hands on the small of Sully’s back, over his ass. He brought him closer, harder and faster, into him. He wanted Sully to ride him until he came against his chest, and then he wanted Sully to rim him until he was a mess on the bed and fuck him too. He was about to open his mouth and tell Sully every last filthy thought that came to mind when an alarming cell phone ring cut through their groans and panting.
“Fuck,” Chaz said. “That’s my work cell.”
“Shhh. You’re not on the clock. You’re with me, Chip. I need you.”
Sully straddled Chaz again and wrapped his legs tightly around his body. He reached behind him and grabbed a bottle of lube and added the gel to Chaz’s cock. He stroked their dicks together, almost in time to the sound of the phone going off. Chaz tried to focus, but he was going soft in Sully’s hand. Why did he not leave his phone in the car? Why did he not put it in airplane mode? And why, at nearly midnight after hours of fucking paperwork, was Jack or Declan calling him? God, that could only mean there was another body and—
“Chip. Chip.” Sully clasped Chaz’s dick, squeezing hard and trying to bring it back to life. “Come on. You’re so hot and I want you right here. Chip…. focus…,” Sully whispered in Chaz’s ear, dragging his tongue and hand along his skin. From the way Sully’s body twisted, Chaz knew his ass was visible in the mirror again. The thought of Sully preening for him, and then begging to be fucked, nearly sent Chaz into a tailspin. He would have come if not for the damn phone ringing and the wrong name from Sully’s mouth.
“I should just hang up the phone,” Sully said. “Chip, let me shut it off—”
“Chaz,” he said, almost panting. He grasped Sully by his waist to prevent him from crawling off the bed, then took his face in his hands. “My name is Chaz.”
“Chaz,” Sully repeated as if this was normal. He bit his lip and turned to grasp one of Chaz’s fingers in his mouth. He sucked it like he’d sucked Chaz’s cock. “Come on, baby. Chaz. I want you. Get hard for me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Chaz’s stomach tightened. Hearing his name—a name he hadn’t heard or dared to say out loud in years—made him shudder. Then it made him want to cry. When Sully noticed the lip tremble, he stopped sucking his fingers and pressed his mouth to Chaz’s instead. He kissed him, slow and soft, and moved his hands to grasp Chaz’s in his own.
“You okay?” Sully asked. “Chaz?”
“I am. I just…. The phone.”
It still rang in the background, when all logic said it should have gone to voice mail by now. The sound was coming from the bottom of Sully’s hamper, the phone wedged in his wet pants’ pocket. “God, I want you so much, but I have to answer that.”
“It’s okay. I’ll still be here.” Sully shifted off Chaz’s body and folded his knees close to his chest. He made no effort to cover himself, only picked up one of the books to look at while Chaz retrieved the phone. When Chaz sat on the edge of the bed to answer, Sully slipped a hand around his back. Still sticky with lube but fine.
“Hello?” Chaz asked. When the other line disconnected right away, he realized he’d been too late. “Shit. Now it fucking stops when I’m here to answer. Fuck, I need to call back.”
“Wait two minutes. Maybe they’re leaving you a messa
ge. If it’s important, they will.”
“Gah. You’re probably right.” Chaz turned to Sully to thank him and was met with another comforting kiss. They were both naked, but no longer hard. It was as if they’d already had sex and they lingered close in the afterglow. Chaz sighed, realizing that the afterglow between them—not to mention the sex—would probably have to wait for some time now.
When Chaz’s phone buzzed in his hand, one message waited for him. “Good call,” he told Sully before dialing in his code. Jack’s clipped voice came on the line.
“Hey, man. Sorry, I know you’re probably exhausted, but this is your job. Two more bodies found at the same fucking brothel we were just at. I don’t know how they got in, especially since that tunnel didn’t lead anywhere but out into a field and we’ve had it closed off. Cop cars have been there for days too, but someone must have slipped past the caution tape and dropped two more vamps. One of the bodies is a woman. You said you saw someone in the house, right? We’re gonna need you to get your ass over here. Come soon, or I’m going to send the rookie Ramirez to wake you up at home. Declan’s already here. With coffee. So come.”
Chaz didn’t bother to save or replay the message when prompted. He tossed the phone on the pile of clothing instead. “Fuck.”
“What happened?”
“Two more bodies. Shit. We had a scene cleared, and they somehow got in.”
“More workers?”
“I don’t know. Probably. They were found in a brothel next to a monster hospital. But they were definitely vamps. And if we had proper people to report to for this case, none of this—”
“Hey. Shh.” Sully patted Chaz’s shoulder. “There was nothing you could have done. How could you have known something would happen?”
“There was. I could have….” Each time Chaz blinked, the arrows stared back at him. Stabbed him. “I could have done so much more.”
“No, no, Atlas. You can’t carry that kind of burden.”
Chaz didn’t answer. He rose from the bed and went in search of his pants. Sully dressed in a matter of seconds. When he was done, he waited on the edge of his bed with another book in his hand, ready to go back to work.
We were so close, Chaz thought. His anger bubbled inside of him again. All he wanted to do was lie with Sully. Was that so hard?
“Why the hell would someone try to get inside the crime scene?” Chaz complained. “We already had it sectioned off. That’s so fucking risky.”
“Was… was there anything left behind? The only reason to risk being caught is to get something the cops may not have seen.”
“The papers,” Chaz said. “There were a bunch of papers in Czech.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to tell you about them. Any idea why these were left behind?”
Sully bit his lip and shrugged. It was clear he knew something more from the way he deliberately hid his eyes.
“Sully,” Chaz said, the weight of his request making him feel bruised, “I need your help with this.”
“My help?”
“Yes. You know more about this than I can even fathom.”
Sully let out a laugh. “About sex work?”
“Well, yes, but also Czech. Or Slovak. You can talk to witnesses we have there. To someone—anyone. I know it’s not fair of me to think you’d just do it. We could get a department translator. But I….”
“You already made a promise to someone, didn’t you?”
Chaz looked away and Sully sighed. Chaz figured he’d blown it entirely. Who wanted to be pulled into a vicious murder investigation? Who wanted to be part of any of this? He’d told Jack he’d get a translator, but how risky and stupid was it to bring a sex worker to a crime scene? Where they could be recognized? It was silly, and Chaz’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment.
“Never mind. I shouldn’t do this. It’s not fair.”
“No. It’s… not the way I thought I’d spend my night off, but it sounds like you need someone who can speak Czech.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. It’ll be nice to talk in another language again. I write down so much, but never really say it aloud.”
Chaz’s stomach unclenched. The knots of worry and anger—especially at Declan one-upping him by already being at the fucking scene—eased. “Thank you so much. The department will pay you. It’ll be a legit job.”
“That sounds good,” Sully said, standing to kiss Chaz on the cheek. “But you don’t have to persuade me, Chaz. I’m already a done deal.”
Part Three: Saint Sebastian
Chapter 19
“ARE YOU sure I’m dressed okay?”
“You look fine,” Chip said, squeezing Sully’s knee from the driver’s side of the car. “I promise.”
Sully glanced furtively down at his white collared shirt and black slacks. It was the closest thing he had to appropriate professional clothing. Since he knew he shouldn’t take his red leather jacket, Tom had loaned him one of his coats. It was a bit too heavy for the early fall weather, but Sully was glad for it. He could lose himself inside the fabric and imagine he wasn’t a sex worker pretending to be a translator.
God, why had he even bothered to consider this? He wasn’t a translator. Not for this language. Even the small bits of poetry he attempted to write for himself or the runaround he was doing to find the first edition of The Night Walkers were pitiful attempts using the Slovak language. Nothing scholarly or anything like that. Chip had assured Sully repeatedly that it wasn’t like he’d be translating all of War and Peace into Czech. At most they’d want him to read some documents that appeared to be medical forms and maybe talk to some witnesses. That was it.
But there was also the fact that Chip wasn’t Chip—but Chaz—that was throwing another wrench into this half-cocked plan. The name isn’t something you can worry about right now, Sully thought. Along with the Flame being alive and this house possibly being associated with Artie. Don’t even think about any of that right now. It’s not the damn time.
So he didn’t. Even though he still felt Chip’s new name on the back of his neck in a heated breath, Sully repeatedly referred to him as Chip in his mind and out loud. It was the only way he was going to survive being this close to police—and to a crime scene so intimately linked to his past.
Chip squeezed Sully’s knee again, but he seemed to realize he overstepped a boundary and recoiled back. His hands went to ten and two over the car’s steering wheel, formal and stiff. Sully really didn’t mind the touch—but if they were about to go to Chip’s coworkers, they needed to pretend like half an hour ago, they weren’t both naked and Sully wasn’t begging to be fucked on his night off, even though he’d been taking painkillers all day because of his last client.
“Have you ever been here before?” Chip asked. “The brothel on Hunter Street?”
“No,” Sully said, voice thin. “I don’t think so.”
“But you’ve been to places other than Artie’s, yeah?”
“Yes.” Sully stiffened in his seat now. “How much of this are you planning on mentioning to your colleagues? Should I say how we met?”
“No, sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind helping. But if we go into that building together, we have to get some kind of story straight, right? I can’t know you’re a vamp. You can’t know I’m a worker. These things stay inside Artie’s.”
“Right.” Chip nodded, his smile weak. “I’m Chip MacDonald, the lead detective in the 297 unit. I passed the sergeant exam with flying colors. And I’m a normal.”
“And I’m… hah. Michael Sullivan? Czech translator? God, I have no credentials. And I hate that name.”
“Sullivan?”
“No, Michael. Whatever happens, make sure no one calls me Mikey.”
“Okay, that’s fine. But you have credentials. You translate stuff—so where did you learn that?”
“Long story.”
“Give me the short version
, then. Do you have any kind of schooling?”
“I have a bachelor of arts from the University of Waterloo.”
Chip tilted his head, appearing utterly shocked. It was lucky they were at a red light, or else Chip would have driven off the road, Sully was sure.
“What? A sex worker can’t be smart?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know you didn’t, but it’s what people think. How can he have a degree and still lie on his back? As if that isn’t actual work.” Sully huffed and scrubbed his hands over his face, skin flushed. “Just because I got my degree doesn’t mean anything, not like being a sex worker does to people. But at least with an arts degree, it seems as if my Czech was taught to me rather than picked up through what I know of Slovak and the snippets of phone conversations I had with men overseas. Okay. I can make up this lie now. I think I got it.”
Chip nodded as he pulled up to a house that had half a dozen police cruisers and an ambulance outside of it. Sully thought the ambulance seemed a bit late considering they were going to a body site. Two bodies. When he saw a couple of working women under large blankets and talking to cops, the ambulance started to make more sense.
“Is the body inside the house? Both of them? Did those women find it?” Sully bit his lip. “Sorry, I’m going too fast. I think my heart is in my throat.”
“Hey.” Chip went to reach for Sully’s knee but pulled back again. “Both bodies are inside, yes. Officer Ramirez was doing a foot patrol in the area since it was flagged, and he caught two women running out of the house screaming. They found the two bodies, Ramirez confirmed it, and then it was called in. You won’t have to see the bodies.”
“I want to.”
“Why?”
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