Taste Me

by Tamara Hogan

  “On the house,” Lukas added. Hell, they could drink the place dry if it kept Tia Quinn from asking questions he couldn’t answer.

  “Thank you,” she replied, shooting Lukas a look that clearly said, “Don’t think for a minute that I’m dropping this.” “I didn’t expect to see you playing tonight,” she said to Tomas. “Where the hell is Stephen?”

  Your guess is as good as mine, lady, Lukas thought grimly. The man had been missing for over four hours. Even for an incubus, it was a marathon session worthy of a Viagra endorsement.

  “Ms. Quinn? Tomas? I think the after party is getting started upstairs,” Lukas said. “Why don’t you go on up? We really need to clear this area.”

  “And you haven’t told me why yet.”

  His only response was a bland stare.

  “Okay, okay. No need to break out the cuffs.” She looked his big body up and down, and raised a brow. “Unless you want to? No? Too bad.” With a final look at Scarlett’s dressing room door, she allowed Tomas to lead her down the hall.

  Leaving him free to check in on Scarlett. Dripping wet, singing in the shower not twenty feet away.

  ***

  It took two groaning tries for Stephen to lift his head off the floor. Around him, speakers popped. He smelled hot wires and melted plastic, and his own semen. The computer monitor nearest him displayed white letters and numbers across a cheerful blue background, and the other monitor had winked out completely.

  What the hell happened?

  He couldn’t hear music pulsing from the floors below any longer; the show must be over. Damn, how long had he been out? They really had to get downstairs. Or upstairs, to the after party. Where he would probably be fired. “Annika. Babe.” He nudged Annika’s leg, setting it swinging. Her French-manicured toenails glowed in the dim light. “The show’s over. We’re going to have some serious explaining to do. I’ll be lucky if I…”

  No response. Had she actually fallen asleep with those knobs digging into her back? “Annika.” Again, no answer. His heart beat faster.

  Please be sleeping. Please be sleeping.

  He pushed himself up, staggering to a stand between her limp legs. She lay slack and unmoving on the soundboard, her mouth stretched open in a soundless “O,” staring at him with dry green eyes—expressionless, but accusing him nonetheless.

  His heart beat a fast tattoo.

  Shards of broken light bulbs glittered like rhinestones on her face and body, and he gently brushed them away from her cheekbones with his thumbs. There was no recoil, no tinkling giggle. Whatever universal energy had made her uniquely Annika was unmistakably gone.

  The enormity of the situation, of what he’d done, hit him like a freight train. Pulling up his pants with a yank, he sank onto the couch to think. The speakers snapped, crackled, and popped accusingly.

  I need one hell of an alibi. He was very stupidly—and very publicly—not at work tonight. His text message asking her to meet him in the recording studio was on her PDA. His fingerprints were all over the studio, and his DNA all over her body.

  He’d killed the Siren Second. He’d killed Scarlett’s sister.

  His mind raced, erasing a few lines and re-sketching reality to align with the aspects of the story he couldn’t change: he’d texted Annika. They’d hooked up. While they were in the act, someone… knocked on the door. Thinking it was Garrett, coming to drag him back downstairs for work, he’d opened it. A man—two men? Yeah, two men—had pushed into the room, attacked him. Knocked him out. He had no idea how long he’d lain there, unconscious—or what had happened while he was out.

  But when he woke up? Oh my god. Look at what they’d done to poor Annika.

  He nodded slowly, refining the picture, building and layering the story with increasing confidence. Annika had told him earlier that there were no security cameras on this floor. It wasn’t perfect, not at all, but… scary how easily it could work. He looked at the room through the eyes of what he and Annika had consensually done, and what had happened to her after—while—he’d fugued out. The large strokes of the scenario were there.

  Those damned light bulbs worried him. The same thing had happened when he was with Andi Woolf at Subterranean, and he couldn’t afford to have the investigators draw any more parallels between the two crimes than absolutely necessary. Even if he swept up all the glass shards—even if he discovered a way to get rid of them—there was nothing he could do to replace them in the light fixtures themselves. The men must have smashed them after he blacked out. No—after they knocked him out. Yeah. They’d gone nuts, smashed the place up. Why? He had no idea.

  He was a victim here too.

  Yeah, he could sell it.

  Stephen’s gaze flitted around the studio. Ah. There. Now they were talking. A golf club leaned in the corner by the coffee station. Stephen wrapped the tail of his shirt around the handle. Grasping the club solidly in his hands, he bashed at the computers. Brought the club down hard against the soundboard, on both sides of Annika’s body. Her weight shifted a little with the second blow, but her lashed hands kept her from slipping off the soundboard’s tilted surface. He smashed the club against the popping speakers, and at the framed art on the walls for good measure. Glass shattered. The head of the putter dug a dozen divots into the drywall. He turned in circles, knocking over mike stands, drums, chairs, music stands, and guitars. He kicked a few amps over, and for the finale, swept the club through the chunky mugs and carafes near the coffee pot, knocking it all to the floor. Dragging a straight-backed chair underneath the one surviving light bulb, he smashed it.

  Breath whooshed in and out of his burning lungs as he admired his handiwork. He stared at Annika for long, long seconds, until he heard muffled footsteps and laughter from the nearby stairwell. The after party hosted by Elliott Sebastiani and Claudette Fontaine at the president’s penthouse apartment had probably started. Guests using the stairs would pass within ten feet of the studio door. Frankly, he was surprised some incubus or succubus hadn’t already been drawn to the floor and discovered them.

  He couldn’t put it off any longer.

  After one final bittersweet glance at Annika, he walked over to the maple coffee table. Eyed the sharp corners.

  He threw himself down. There was a flash of white-hot pain, and then… nothing.

  ***

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Go ahead, I’ll be right here,” Lukas assured Jesse. Apparently Scarlett’s favorite body lotion was nestled away in one of the unpacked suitcases upstairs, and Jesse wanted her to have it when she was done bathing. “She’s in the shower.” With water coursing over her naked body. “She won’t even know you’re gone.”

  “Okay. Be right back.”

  After Jesse left, Lukas turned off his outgoing audio and slipped into Scarlett’s dressing room. The shower was running full blast, and Scarlett’s whipsaw emotions misted the air. Lukas inhaled deeply, her essence washing away the ashy aftertaste lingering in his mouth.

  He moved like a sleepwalker toward the brightly lit bathroom. When he reached the door, he didn’t bother to hide. He just stood there and watched as she sat in an exhausted huddle on the floor of the shower, her head tipped backward to loll against the wall. The stall’s chest-high, glass block wall turned her silhouette into wavy undulations, but he could see her hand move gently between her thighs. Her pleasure shivered into him and back out again, and a breathy groan escaped.

  Her hand stopped as she sensed his presence. She slowly rose from the floor to face him, meeting his gaze through the billowing steam, her body hidden by the glass block from the chest down. Her luscious mandarin essence bathed his taste buds. He swirled his tongue to gather as much as he possibly could.

  A vicarious taste wasn’t nearly enough.

  He moved closer—one step, two, three—until his face was so close to hers, he could feel her every breath. A fine spray of water splashed his face, hair, and sweater, but he didn’t care.

 
They stared at each other. Finally, she whispered, “Kiss me. Please.”

  He didn’t have the strength to deny them both. He’d be gentle if it killed him.

  He’d barely dipped his head when she grabbed his hair and yanked, crashing their lips together. Gentleness? Scarlett clearly had other plans. Her soft, wet tongue delved hungrily into the cavern of his mouth.

  Her taste. He’d never forgotten it, and god knew he’d tried. Not trusting himself to touch her with his hands, he clenched his fists against his thighs, drinking her like ambrosia, glorying in the gasps and moans he produced using only his mouth. If only he could—

  “Lukas, come in.” Jack’s voice crackled through his earpiece.

  It nearly killed him to back away from her clinging lips. “It’s Jack,” he murmured, finally stepping back. “I’m sorry, I have to take this.”

  He turned his outgoing audio back on. “Yeah, Jack. I’m here.” He gulped as Scarlett turned off the water, squeezed her hair, and casually stepped out of the shower. Rivulets of water flowed over her pale body, over her champagne goblet breasts—

  “Is Scarlett secure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tense silence. “Are you absolutely certain? Please verify.”

  “Confirmed, I have a current visual.” And what a visual it was. Scarlett didn’t seem to be in any hurry to grab a towel. “What’s up?”

  “Code Red, fourth floor recording studio. It’s… Annika’s…” Jack’s voice faded out, but Lukas tasted aching grief.

  “What? Repeat last message.”

  “Annika’s dead, and we found Stephen. He’s seriously injured.”

  Scarlett was supposed to be the target, not her sister. He took a shaky breath before responding. “Okay. Um, okay. I’ll secure Scarlett and get up there as fast as I can. Call Gideon.”

  “Already have. He’s on his way. Get… up here. Hurry.”

  Scarlett wrapped her arms over her towel-covered breasts. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Failure clawed. I can’t tell her. I… can’t. “I have to go.” He saw Scarlett’s purple bathrobe hanging on a hook on the back of the bathroom door and bundled her into it before speaking into his headset again. “Garrett, Jesse, Chico. Scarlett’s dressing room, please.”

  When she put her hand on his forearm, it was all he could do not to flinch away. “Lukas. What’s wrong?”

  He opened his mouth to respond, to say something. Anything. But words were beyond useless.

  Garrett and Jesse hurried in.

  “Someone, tell me what’s wrong,” Scarlett repeated. Lukas nearly choked on her rising hysteria.

  Garrett and Jesse each took an arm, sitting down with Scarlett on the couch. As they spoke softly and intently, Lukas headed for the door. Before he could make his escape, Scarlett’s polyharmonic wail slammed into his back.

  He broke into a run.

  Chapter 12

  Hours later, Lukas sat alone in Sasha’s cheerful kitchen. Gideon had just left for the hospital, and Sasha and Jack had gone downstairs to verify that Underbelly was locked up tight, leaving him with only the kitschy black cat clock for company. Its black tail twitched off the seconds with annoying consistency.

  “Damn.” Shoving to his feet, he washed the mugs and coffee pot, and put away the snacks. After wiping the table and counter tops with a Holstein-spotted dishrag, he walked like a zombie to Scarlett’s room.

  Even asleep, her grief sliced him like a thousand tiny razor blades.

  He opened the bedroom door. Antonia slept sprawled across the foot of Scarlett’s decadent bed, and Calamity sat sentinel, curled into the crook of Scarlett’s bent knees, his head up and alert. Scooping up his gangly sister, Lukas carried her into the hallway, past Annika’s police-sealed bedroom door to Sasha’s room at the end of the hall. In her smudged makeup and Hello Kitty socks, Antonia looked more like his little sister again—but if tonight had taught him anything, it was that his little sister wasn’t so little anymore. Nope, she’d been steady as a rock.

  Maybe she was ready to take her place in the so-called family business after all.

  Scarlett whimpered, the chasm of her grief yawning endless and dark. He quickly bundled Antonia under Sasha’s blankets fully clothed, kissed her forehead, and went back to Scarlett.

  To do what? What the hell am I doing?

  Scarlett whimpered again, reaching out with her hand. When he clasped it in his own, she settled nearly immediately.

  The unoccupied side of the king-sized bed, with its soft mound of pillows, beckoned. Ten minutes. Just long enough to make sure she stays asleep.

  It was the least he could do.

  ***

  As Scarlett emerged from sleep, her first sensation was of heat radiating into her from behind. She snuggled back, against a man who had his big arm wrapped securely around her, his hand draped over her heart.

  She descended back into the twilight world of textures: the delicate scrape of chest hair, the delicious weight of his arm, the scratch of denim against her ass. If Lukas Sebastiani was back in her bed, why on earth was he still wearing pants?

  She tensed as her butt shifted against an impressive morning erection. This was no memory, no fevered dream. Why was Lukas in her bed?

  Her breath caught. Annika. It hadn’t been a nightmare after all.

  Behind her, Lukas took a deep, shuddering breath, and then drew her against him, so gently that her chest hurt.

  And she let the tears come.

  She had no idea how long she cried, or why she stopped. Why her grief shifted to urgency, why her lips blindly sought his, or why his latched on to hers. But the sun was streaming into the room, bright and clean. His bed-rumpled body pumped pheromones, and his tongue delved into the dark corners of her mouth like she was a decadent dessert and he was licking the bowl.

  He felt so solid, so warm and alive.

  His taste. Dark, damp, elemental as the sea. She shifted on top of him, prompting a groan from them both. She separated their lips momentarily and dragged the T-shirt Sasha had bundled her into over her head, throwing it… somewhere, anywhere, as long as it was off. She brought her torso back down to his, stroking her breasts lightly against his chest hair.

  The sight of his bare chest was no mystery to her. Their families had spent a lot of time together over the years, particularly at the Sebastiani lake cabin, where everyone lived in swimsuits in the summer. In the fall, the appearance of a football would result in a game of Shirts and Skins, where she could covertly ogle Sasha’s unattainable older brother. But to touch him? To run her hands over him, slowly, and in broad daylight? Luxury. The one time they’d slept together, she’d had her hands all over his body, to be sure—but not for long, and because the room had been so dark, she hadn’t seen much.

  She pushed herself up to a sitting position and swiped her hair out of her face, his abs lurching momentarily as her weight shifted over his crotch. The daylight streaming into the room lit up his masculine terrain. His musculature seemed hewn of granite, a mountain range for her to explore. She dragged her hands over his shoulders, the slabs of his pecs, his cobbled abs. No wonder no one else had ever measured up. This was the body of a man in his prime, an incubus of immense power. Top of the food chain.

  And she’d had him—once—before he’d simply walked away.

  She wanted to have him again. Now. From her position atop the ridge at his crotch, he certainly seemed up for it. His body was, anyway. Who knew about his mind?

  As he watched, waited, she threaded her fingers into the hair that draped across her girly lilac pillowcase, all tawny and wild, and lowered her head to his. He nibbled at the vulnerable curve where her neck met her shoulder, his devastating tongue tracing the tendons in her neck, up to where they connected into a bundle of sensitive nerves behind her ear. He painted her with damp lips, his hot breath puffing gently against the shell of her ear.

  Not enough.

  He finally cupped her breasts in his big hands, worried t
heir tips with his rough fingers. Pushing her mound against whatever piece of his body she could connect with, she dragged one of his hands down her body, until it rested between her legs. His fingers threaded through her soft pubic hair, streaked over her inner lips, separating her petals. The slight tug and pull of her delicate skin between his diabolical fingers, the way he teased her opening but didn’t quite breach it, was absolutely maddening. He touched her everywhere except where she ached to be touched.

  “Lukas.”

  At her shaky plea, he finally moved—lifting her and setting her down right over his mouth.

  She shattered at the first touch of his tongue. He inhaled madly, filling his lungs with her energy, feeding from her while he incinerated her with pleasure. Scarlett didn’t know how much time had passed when he finally shifted her away from his glistening mouth so she sat poised on top of his upper chest, her legs were spread wide, her quivering flesh open to his gaze. She couldn’t bring herself to care—especially when she caught him licking her wetness from his lips like a cat at a bowl of cream.

  His breath was slowing, returning to normal.

  Can’t have that.

  His eyes flew open as she dragged her wet mound down his torso, marking him with her essence. Slipping off of his body, she traced each lump and bump of his muscled abdomen with her tongue. The flushed head of his penis poked up from under the gaping waistband of his jeans. As she gave it a tiny lick, his midnight flavor burst through her head, a dark, wicked memory.

  Lukas groaned.

  She finished unzipping his pants slowly, tooth by tooth, dragging her mouth down each inch of him as it was revealed, and finally he was exposed to her view. To her touch, her taste.

  “Oh,” she breathed. He was beautiful. She’d felt him inside her once before, but their joining had been fast and frantic—and she’d been so inexperienced that she hadn’t properly appreciated the bounty before her.

  Pleasure buzzed in her head. How in the world had she survived without this? Without him? His skin was so soft, silk over steel. Cradling his heavy weight in both hands, she felt him tense and hold his breath as she traced the underside of his cock with her tongue. When she reached the plum-like head, his hips shifted minutely—but toward her mouth, not away from it.