She gasped, tension winding like a fire-edged watch spring along her spine.
He chuckled, the sound vibrating through her skin and deep into her bones, sending shockwaves from her womb to her heart.
She moaned on exactly the same frequency.
He settled down to eat her with the skill and wicked finesse of a master, clearly willing to take any amount of time at it. He slid first one finger, then another into her, stroking her, probing her. She heaved herself against them, tightened herself around them, howled her fury at his delay. She needed him inside and around her—him!
Orgasm after orgasm rattled her objections, especially when he began to slowly finger fuck her.
“Ethan, ohmygawd, Ethan! Please, Ethan, I want, oh, I want . . . Ethan!”
She lay panting from yet another orgasm, three of his fingers buried inside her, one broad fingertip lightly drumming on her most sensitive spot. Her eyes met his through a cloud of tangled hair. “Ethan, please. I just want you. Please?”
His features were edged in pure granite—or sexual desperation. “Are you begging?”
Beg? She tried to think but only instinct answered. “Yes, I’ll beg. Please, Ethan?”
His eyes gleamed brilliantly green and his mouth curved in triumph. She smiled faintly, recognizing the signals.
An instant later, he’d shucked his jeans and was kneeling over her. “Steve,” he said fiercely, and lifted her hips.
A single lunge brought him into her—and she was almost virgin tight around his big cock. Fire, which she’d thought banked down to a comfortable flame, reignited into blazing fury. Desire’s eager quest flared back into full, throbbing demand.
He froze, gritting his teeth. “Steve.” His voice was barely recognizable.
“Please, Ethan, now!” She clawed his shoulders, instinctively drawing blood.
He snarled, baring his fangs, sending joy and lust swirling through her veins.
His control snapped completely. He took her fast and deep, slamming into her with the implacable fury of a summer thunderstorm.
He bit her, his fangs tapping deep into her jugular. Blood flowed, fiery, rich, intoxicating, kicking her passion into overdrive. And orgasm slammed into her, knocking her into a world of spinning stars and black worlds where Ethan was the only shred of reality. Familiar and priceless, yet not completely hers.
He poured his come into her, filling her core with its heat. Higher she went, still higher, consciousness spilling into and over Ethan until there was nothing left of either of them except pleasure shared.
A cell phone’s all-too-realistic impersonation of The Who jolted Steve from her doze. She groped blindly, coming up with a handful of sheet falling away from Ethan’s strong hip.
“Templeton.”
She rolled to listen in on the conversation. He was rapidly pulling on his clothes, silhouetted against the light from the living room.
He froze, his belt halfway through his jeans’ loops. “How long ago? Do we know if there was anybody with him?”
Her skin prickled at his tone and she sat up, pushing her hair off her face. Her gun was in the other room, dammit. But why would she want to go into battle beside him? He might be a reliable confidential informant but that didn’t make him one of the good guys.
“Yes, start searching immediately. I’ll be there right away.”
He hung up, holstering the fragment of plastic and electronics with the absentminded efficiency of someone completely at home with multiple weapons strung from a belt. His eyes met hers, remote and shadowed from more than the room’s darkness. “I’m sorry but work calls. I have to go.”
Steve nodded and came to her feet, wondering yet again about his world. She knew he wouldn’t harm her. But he’d also helped her more than once in a criminal investigation, displaying an appalling familiarity with the completely illegal. He always brushed off any questions about his friends, his business dealings, or how he’d gained such expertise.
How many vampiros like him were there, anyway? And how trustworthy were they?
“If there’s anything a Ranger understands, it’s duty. I’ll just head back to my room and get some sleep.” She wrapped a polite mask over her face, the same one she used when she didn’t want to answer questions from the public, and smiled. Drat it, she’d fallen into his grasp far too easily, yet again. “It’s been great seeing you again.”
He caught her chin in his hand, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t say good-bye too fast, Steve. You’ll be the one calling me for a date.”
She bristled. She might be newly divorced and alone in town, without even a relative handy to make introductions. But she sure as hell wasn’t desperate enough to crawl. “Like hell!”
His eyes narrowed. “Because I’m the best sex you’ve ever had, Steve—and the best partner on the job.”
An instant later, his mouth came down on hers, all hard, assured persuasion.
Why was he doing this? Why was he acting almost as if he wanted to stake a claim on her? He’d always been the love-’em-and-leave-’em type before.
Worse, why was she just standing here, even though her body was rejoicing in every contact with him, even the rub over his jeans’ rough denim? She shouldn’t do this, not if she wanted to have a future with anybody else.
Her hands came up to his shoulders to push him away.
He slanted his head, catching her mouth at just the right angle. His hand slipped over her shoulders, stroking the small of her back.
Dammit, she’d never been able to resist his kiss.
Helplessly, she sighed and yielded, enjoying the heated dance of their tongues, of shared breath, of exploring the tastes and textures of each other’s mouths.
And the arrogant prediction that they’d meet again. The first time he’d ever offered that affirmation.
She was still lightly patting her bruised lips like a dazed high school girl when she wandered back to her room, his business card in her other hand.
SIX
SAN LEANDRO, THE NEXT NIGHT
Lightning sparked halfheartedly in the east, hurling a few shards of light against the black clouds. Green lurked near the edges, as if anyone who looked long enough would see a doorway into hell—or a tornado, which was often the same thing. As it had been this evening for too many people in the surrounding counties.
The small town had been scoured clean by torrential rains, as though Mother Nature had decided to blast every grain of dirt away in a single hour. The World War II soldier glistened high atop his granite plinth in the middle of courthouse square, his bayonet poised to charge. Every business was freshly washed, their creamy limestone walls glowing as if alive under the street-lights. The twenty-four-hour drugstore’s neon lights blazed, flashing a multitude of cures for the world’s ills.
But not for everything. Not for what lay behind endless strands of yellow and black tape beside the ice cream parlor, under spats of harsh white camera flashes.
The ice cream parlor had always been one of the most popular gathering places in town. Now its small tables and tiny chairs carefully separated anxious townsfolk, while they waited to give their statements to the cops in the corner booth. Right under all the photos celebrating San Leandro High’s football victories and the flavors named for San Leandro’s most popular beauties.
Roger Bresnahan’s car’s siren whined irritably but no cars moved. A few people glanced at him but only shuffled their feet.
“When was the last time you had an unexpected death here?” Steve asked Roger softly.
“About fifty years ago.” The local sheriff—her former partner—slammed his car into park, grinding the gears slightly. He still smelled of crawfish, onions, and spices, the rich scents of his wife’s famous jambalaya which they’d been eating when the call had come in. They were good friends, who’d even tried to teach her how to dance once so she’d look graceful in a bridesmaid’s dress. “But don’t worry; we’ll figure out what happened here.”
He jumped out
without looking at her, slamming his baton into his belt. “You’re welcome to look around, of course.”
An instant later, he’d shoved his way into the crowd, heading for the vortex of activity in the center.
She shook her head slightly, not envying him. San Leandro was famous for its First Saturday concerts, when half of Texas sometimes seemed to descend on it. The rest of the month, it was a very sleepy little town. Having a crowd gather for something like this must seem like hell incarnate.
Steve settled her white hat onto her head and followed him. She stopped at the alley’s entrance, unwilling to taint a potential crime scene. Still, she could see everything from here, not that there was much to observe.
Rookie cops had gone whistling past this spot for decades during daylight, certain the numerous trash cans hid only empty milk cartons. But tonight somebody had borrowed spotlights, normally used for First Saturday concerts, and mounted them on the rooftops. Glaring white lights taunted the narrow slot between buildings, chasing out every once-friendly corner. The ancient asphalt was cracked and dry under their remorseless beams, although a few corners and deeper crevices still gleamed darkly with the heavy rain’s last traces.
A detective methodically worked over the ground, looking for any traces of a crime. Only her shoulders’ slight relaxation revealed that she acted more from routine than outrage. A handful of cops echoed her movements more clumsily, occasionally silhouetted against the spotlights like gargoyles. San Leandro was so small and peaceful, it usually sent all its evidence to Austin for processing rather than having criminalists on hand as specialists to search crime scenes. A photographer methodically quartered the area, his closeness to the square suggesting either a long time since he’d started or a lack of items to be recorded.
Steve didn’t envy those who’d have to search the trash cans. But the ice cream parlor itself used a locked, modern Dumpster, which meant there was nothing close by accessible to strangers.
Damn, this felt like the worst of bad dreams.
Still more cops, their colorful uniforms telling of other jurisdictions come to help, stood watch over the onlookers in the square, their voices crooning reassurance about what a terrible shame this was.
In the middle, like an ancient sacrifice, lay the shrouded center of their attention. She was still in the same posture and location in which she’d been found, sprawled beside the ice cream parlor.
Maribeth Rogers, age twenty-two, her family’s darling. The star of the state synchronized-swimming team and poised to succeed in the national, even the international arenas, according to the dispatcher.
There had to be a simple explanation.
“But I don’t understand!” wailed a woman. “She’d just had her physical, by the Olympic team doctors, and they said she was perfect!”
Steve frowned. Doctors had been wrong before—but Olympic-quality physicians?
She straightened up and started pacing back and forth along the alley’s entrance, watching the shadows cross the shroud. Even for a corpse, it was remarkably ungainly.
Roger stopped beside her, looking years older than he had at dinner. He looked a question at her.
She shrugged. “Could be natural.”
“Drugs maybe.”
Was he hoping for a comfortable explanation? If so, they’d been partners for too long to let her give him the easy out.
“Maybe.” She kept her voice deliberately noncommittal.
He grunted, unhappiness settling deeper into his face.
A deputy came up, talking fast and soft. “Sheriff? We’re finished here. Can we move Miss Rogers now? The crowd’s growing and her mother would like some privacy.”
“Are you certain?” Steve asked sharply. This was damn soon to move a corpse.
“You know tonight’s storm was a gully washer, Steve.” Roger spun to face her, his tone sharp. “How much evidence do you think is likely to still be here, even if there was a crime?”
She made a sharp gesture, unable to disagree. But her nerves jangled every time she saw the light spill over that silent body.
Don’t worry, Maribeth. I’ll keep an eye on your autopsy and the investigation for you, she promised silently.
She studied every instant of the corpse’s transfer and journey. By the time the slight figure had almost reached her, her previous doubts had crystallized into something more solid. “May I take a quick look, when she goes past?”
“Of course, Steve.” Roger stiffened. A moment passed before he spoke again, painfully casual. “Looking for anything specific?”
She didn’t answer him directly. Texas Rangers had jurisdiction over any crime committed in the State of Texas. Usually that meant crimes occurring across multiple jurisdictions, like racketeering conspiracies. But it often meant helping out small towns with nastiness they didn’t see very often—such as murder.
She gently lifted the cloth up just high enough to see the girl’s head and neck. Her torso and legs were stretched out smooth and straight, as befitted someone who’d soon be going into a coffin. But her neck was canted awkwardly to one side, the tendons achingly taut and her T-shirt’s shoulder was so badly wrinkled it looked pleated.
“Odd position for her head and neck, since she was found lying on her back,” Roger commented. “Well, maybe she’d been using her cell phone, even though there was a storm coming. After all, she was just a kid.”
“Hmm.” Unfortunately for that theory, Steve had seen the crime scene tech pick up the girl’s cell phone from a few feet away. Plus, none of the wrinkles showed any impressions of a phone.
More important, what the hell had put that look of sheer horror on the girl’s face?
Steve carefully covered Maribeth Rogers’s face again. She was willing to bet a month’s pay natural death hadn’t contributed to her expression.
COMPOSTELA RANCH, JUNE 9
Ethan prowled in front of the bookshelves, the two revolvers in his shoulder holsters thin comfort. He’d expected bad news when he was summoned during full daylight. But this?
Don Rafael was leaning on the stone fireplace behind his desk, next to his centuries-old knightly sword. He could instantly snatch up the still-deadly blade and behead any intruder in an instant, from that pose.
Luis was pacing like a lost soul in front of the heavy steel shutters on the window. Jean-Marie was at the big conference table, searching out more information on his stealthy little PC.
Caleb sat on the leather sofa, with Gray Wolf only inches away. They didn’t often openly indulge in physical displays of affection, relying instead on their conyugal bond to link them together. Born of complete trust and confidence in each other, the rare bond allowed them to share each other’s thoughts and sensations, a union that would last for the rest of their lives.
Ethan cast another fulminating glance at them and spun on his heel, heading toward the desk and the fireplace. Contentment in a relationship—especially security that the loved one was safe!—wasn’t something he wanted to see right now.
“How many such rapes have been reported?” Don Rafael snapped out.
“Two so far, both in Waco,” Luis gritted out, as he strode restlessly, his white shirt brilliant against the steel shutters that protected them from daylight.
Thank God Steve was in Austin, a hundred miles away. With her safe, he could start thinking about other women, the nameless ones he was sworn to protect.
“But there’s been a half-dozen attempted suicides by healthy young women for no apparent cause. Or at least, no prior signs a mental health professional noticed,” Jean-Marie amended, double-checking the messages on his PC. “And one successful suicide.”
“Coño,” Don Rafael cursed.
“The rapes fit Devol’s pattern: respectable women, badly beaten,” Ethan commented. It was so damn easy to recognize the brute’s handiwork. “But the suicides?”
“Beau’s doing,” Don Rafael said flatly, looking up from Jean-Marie’s computer.
Ethan snarled, h
is fingers twitching. Beau was Madame Celeste’s blond escort—and a legendary assassin? The fellow they’d thrown out of Compostela but hadn’t been able to kill because he’d arrived protected by the hospitality laws.
Crap, he should be wiped off this earth. Killing him would be ten times harder now that he was a vampiro mayor, the hardest kind of vampiro to find.
“He feeds on fear, then wipes the memory, but he’s never been the best at controlling minds.” Don Rafael’s mouth worked for a moment as if trying not to spit. “Many times, the women remember something, even if it drives them insane.”
Christ, they’d better keep this quiet. If prosaicos heard about these attacks, they’d come hunting for the rapist, no matter who he was.
“Jean-Marie, have your men watch all the mental health databases very closely. We must be alerted immediately when young women commit suicide or suffer unexplained depressions.”
Jean-Marie nodded, his fingers flying over the keys. “Certainement, mon père. We should also probably scale back San Leandro’s Fourth of July picnic. It’s a First Saturday, so there’ll be large crowds coming in for the music. We don’t want our prosaicos wandering about when Beau and Devol are nearby.”
“Agreed,” Ethan seconded immediately. “It’s the only public event at which you, Don Rafael, are scheduled to appear next month. All Madame Celeste’s rabid wolves will certainly be lying in wait.”
“Then you will simply have to chase them off,” Don Rafael retorted. “I will not break my promise to appear, especially since I am an American and this is my national holiday.”
What the fuck? Ethan slammed his fist into the fireplace. If Don Rafael died, everything would be lost.
“You cannot risk yourself so foolishly!” Gray Wolf erupted. Jean-Marie and Caleb, both normally relaxed, came to their feet yelling. Luis cursed Don Rafael in a steady stream of Galego, their mother tongue.
Their master allowed them to vent for a minute before putting his foot down. “¡Silencio!” he roared at the top of his lungs.
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