Something in her face told him this was her first vampire chase. She looked terrified of her own actions. He’d seen that look before, on Cora. Shit, and here came his part. Soothe her, contain her, help her, guide her, point her to the vampire, hold him for her, keep him from phazing, keep her safe while she took him out.
Had he pissed her off with the endearment? She was still frozen, staring at him, had not pulled her hand back from his. Her lips were parted slightly as she stared at him.
His eyes dropped to her feet as if drawn there. Light blue socks. With pumpkins on them. And cartoon mice. He must have seen them as he approached her and thought pumpkin, and out it slipped. Oh Bear, he was an idiot. He was going to lose her before he even had a chance to tell her what she was.
But she still didn’t run. She just stared at him with quiet dismay on her face.
Flint threw another look over her shoulder at the limo pulling away on the dark street. They could still catch it, but it probably wasn’t smart. She did not look like she was happy about standing in the middle of the road with him, so chasing vampires with him was probably out of the question right at that moment.
The curve of her waist, the slender strength of her legs, the oceans-deep blue of her bright, open-book eyes all called to him. He was suddenly, painfully aware that her gaze had sharpened and was locked hungrily on his lips, while she licked hers deliberately, her intent perfectly clear. She wanted to taste him. She might even have liked being called Pumpkin. Oh Bear.
He swallowed. Her lips looked sweet like honey and she would taste so good. His hand twitched, applying the slightest pressure to her wrist, pulling her to him. What she wanted was seeming like a really good idea all of a sudden.
The street was empty. The limo gone, a bus blocks away, the tick tick tick of the crossing sign counting down seconds the only noise he could hear over the pounding of his own blood in his ears. The switch whose name he didn’t even know drifted straight into his arms, her eyes never straying from his mouth.
Her response threw Flint off balance. His head told him this was normal switch/shifter behavior, normal man/woman behavior, normal for someone, dammit, and perfectly fucking right and he could kiss her. She hadn’t spoken a word to him. But she was about to jump him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it but at the same time he felt pretty fucking good about it. Use me, pumpkin. I want to be used. Rough and ready for you.
Her scent reached inside his brain and twisted the images there, until all he could see was her perfect little pocket-rocket body on top of his, holding her up while she climbed him and used his ‘equipment’ like a jungle gym. The fingers of one of her hands pulled free and went to his shirt, twisting at it, wringing it with an urgency that was reflected in her eyes. A perfect storm of passion, it seemed to him, and he couldn’t breathe again just standing on the street, in the evening air, surrounded by quiet town and empty sidewalks.
She leaned in. Kissed him. His cock hardened to granite in his pants in a second flat. He kissed her back and his emotions toppled, senses gone, desire the only thing left to him. He pulled her in closer, right there in the middle of the street, crushing her to him.
She climbed him, her legs wrapping around him, pressing up against him. He moved his fingers to cradle her ass, holding her up so she could kiss him and kiss him and wiggle her heat against him. It felt so good, so perfect.
His cock gave a throb she must have felt, the way she gasped into his mouth. Flint tilted his head and slipped his tongue farther inside, groaning when she sucked it deeper and spread her thighs further, getting closer to him. Her breasts brushed his chest, her pebbled nipples rubbing against him through too many layers of clothing.
A cough from nearby brought Flint screeching back to reality even as the buzz continued to circulate through his body. They were on a city street, and she was… they were... Flint wrestled his greedy lust down and put his hands over the smaller ones that roamed his shoulders, feeling his muscles, as she practically purred at him. Shit.
The switch pushed back as she came to her senses only a second or two after him. She dropped her gaze from his, eyes narrowed, then softening. The anger and lust leaked out of her face, from the set of her back. She dropped the nail file and stared at him, touching her lip softly, her expression mostly full of hot, horrified shame.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said softly, and turned to run, but the opposite way than she’d wanted to run just a moment ago. She spoke to the ground as she moved. “I don’t know why… I’ve never done anything like this before.”
He stopped her with a hand, wanting to treat her like the switch she was but also like the normal woman she was. “You okay? Better now?” Shit. What would she think of that? How had Jameson managed to help Cora when she was reeling in the aftermath of vampire-hate?
The blush was back on the newly-discovered switch’s cheeks, deeper than before. She stammered, “Please, I have to go, I have to get back to… go back home.”
Flint was charmed by her, and so worried he wasn’t going to pull this off. That she would disappear into the night.
Her eyes were bouncing around as if she was about to dart away.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault. It was...” How to explain it? They needed a script. A card to hand out.
You are a switch, a savage witch who fights vampires, which makes you prone to violent outbursts. And sexual ones. But that’s okay, because I am ready for both. Yeah, that would go over well.
He changed tactics. “Do you need an ambulance?”
She stared at him while she touched her neck and chest and face. “I’m okay. Just a little sore. No ambulance.” Her eyes were on his scar, the nasty one running down his neck, from under one ear towards the center of his throat.
Her expression went a little dreamy and she smiled softly as she studied the scar, giving him pause. He’d never seen that reaction in a woman before.
What did she know about who she was? What didn’t she know? He decided to ask, waving a car that had stopped behind them through the intersection. Go around, quit honking, we know what we’re doing here. “What happened?” he asked. “Who were you chasing?” He kept the second part of that question, “Do you even know?” to himself.
She didn’t answer, only stared. Now he was getting worried. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance? You know who and where you are, right? What year it is? Your name?”
At that the switch straightened and stuck her hand out, as if they were meeting in a coffee shop. “Goldie Peletier. I am so very pleased to meet you.”
Flint took her hand again, warmth traveling up his arm. Goldie. He loved it. He cleared his throat and tried to smile as he spoke. “Flint Gibson.” Shifter. Covenbound to the same coven you are. Vampires. All that stuff. Shit, how to even start to tell her?
She frowned and began to back up. “I really have to go. I missed the bus. Sorry about… you know. Um. Sorry.”
“Wait!” he called. “Wait.” How to play it? Concerned. “I’m really worried about you. Can I at least give you a ride? There won’t be another bus along for an hour.”
The switch stared at him in the street. If she didn’t say yes, he was going to have to think of a plan B that did not include her calling the cops on him as a stalker, especially after all that kissing-her-back stuff he just did.
She stared. He stayed silent.
Wow, so awkward.
But worth it if she let him drive her home.
He waited for her answer.
Chapter 5 - Flint Fucks Up
Goldie stared at the big guy who had captured her attention so fully. Crazy night getting crazier. But she liked him. Too much. But she liked him. He made her feel safe. No way was he the tri-state killer. Hopefully.
She nodded hesitantly, thinking it was a stupid thing to do, but wait, she had an idea. She ran to the back of his SUV to snap a picture of his license plate with her phone, letting him see her do it. Insurance. Ki
nd of. Not really, since she had no data to send it, but he didn’t need to know that.
There was a decal of a bear in a canoe in the back window, and the letters BBOC underneath it. Cute. Adorable. The tri-state killer would not have a bear in a canoe on his car. She knew it. This was safe.
She climbed in his car and gave tank-guy - Flint - the address for the motel and he nodded, buckled up, and turned the key.
Intense music with a heavy drumbeat blasted from the speakers. He slapped a knob on the dashboard and it stopped. Goldie gave him a small smile, trying not to remember her tongue in his mouth and how he’d acted like it was no big deal. Not her fault, he’d even said. What could that mean? She spoke softly. “You can leave it on if you want. I like that song.”
The grin on Flint’s face pleased her way more than it should. She had an idea he didn’t grin often. The lines of his face were harsher than smile lines. Scowl lines maybe. She didn’t like scowlers, but something told her Flint had things to scowl about.
“You like heavy metal?” he asked.
Goldie settled into the seat, moving gingerly. Her left side was sore from shoulder to hip, not thinking of what she was saying, just being truthful. “I like anything with good lyrics.”
Flint turned the music back on, but not so loud. “I was worried you’d think I was scary. You know, big guy, nasty scar, heavy music.” His voice trailed off and she studied him in the dim light of the streetlights they were passing, wondering why he had said that. He was handsome. Intense. Dark hair, dark eyes, hard face that softened when he smiled.
She shook her head quickly. “You’re not scary.”
He looked like a scary guy in some respects, but the concern in his eyes was real. His protective nature was obvious. No, he was about as terrifying as a biker in footed jammies holding a teddy bear, Goldie decided. She liked it. Contradictions. They worked for him.
And the way he’d kissed her? Goldie was still half-melted from the waist down. Never in her life had she been with a man who knew just how to hold her, move her, tip his head and take her over with only his hands and mouth. It was heady stuff. She’d be lying to herself if she said she didn’t want more, but she was just scared enough to be distracted.
Because under the zing of sexual awareness was the knowledge of what had come before, when Goldie’s vision had gone green and she’d taken off running after a man she’d never seen before. What would he think of her if he knew what she’d been about to do?
She wanted to play it cool, play it all cool, but it wasn’t coming easy. This was the second-craziest thing that had happened to her, ever.
Or third, if she counted the incident in New Orleans, exactly forty-eight hours after Tallulah had died. Goldie had been coming out of the funeral home when a woman in a white dress and headwrap, with the red sash Goldie associated with the voodoo shops down in the Quarter, had appeared. The woman had scared her, walking straight up to Goldie with her bony ebony fingers outstretched. “Da white wolf gon’ guide you to your new life, chil’. Don’ you forget, no.”
Goldie had been so frightened she’d jumped into her little green hatchback and sped all the way back to Tallulah’s house. And now, in the face of everything that had happened to her since she’d packed up her sister and left New Orleans forever, she felt certain that something strange was going on. Something… not natural. This man was a part of it. He had to be.
Flint wasn’t talking as he drove. She could tell he wanted to say something though. He kept opening his mouth to speak, then looking at her and closing it again. She wished he would spit it out, whatever it was.
But then he pulled into the parking lot of the hotel they were staying at and she saw Darby where she wasn’t supposed to be, outside in plain view. Her thoughts slipped out of her mouth. “Good grief, I can’t leave Darby alone for two minutes.”
Her sister was standing outside the room, leaning against the wall, a tall, dark, dangerous-looking man in a t-shirt and leather motorcycle pants across from her, tattoos on his neck. Just Darby’s type. The pair were locked deep in conversation, standing way too close to each other. Darby’s magenta hair shone in the glow of Flint’s headlights as she threw her head back and laughed at something the man had said. A surge of irritation rose up inside Goldie. The one job Darby had was to lay low, and of course she was doing the exact opposite.
Flint parked and made a noise and she looked at him. He was furious, but why, she didn’t know. He growled out of one side of his mouth. “What the fuck is he doing here?”
The next moment he was out of the vehicle and heading for Darby and the guy. Goldie rushed to follow, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. Scared, but not of Flint.
* * *
Flint rounded the front of his Range Rover, aimed at the shifter leaning against the motel’s wall like he owned the place. Riot spotted him and rolled his eyes in clear disgust, his lip curling in a nasty snarl.
Flint kept himself under control, barely. Don’t scare off the switch. You haven’t told Goldie anything yet and you can’t afford for her to disappear. But he’d had enough of Riot showing up at the same places he did.
The woman across from Riot looked at him. Darby, Goldie had called her. Her hair was bright pink, her nails manicured, her body curvy. Flint ignored her, his eyes on Riot.
Darby called to Goldie. “Hey, where y’at? I got bored.” She jerked her finger at the cat. “This is Riot. He’s got friends in a room down the way.”
Flint ground his teeth. Riot was an ex-con. Not fit to talk to Goldie. But he was also Breath coven. Although now that Flint knew what he knew, it wouldn’t be for long. He grabbed Riot by the elbow, trying to steer him away. “And Riot was just leaving, wasn’t he?” Riot resisted. Flint could move him by force, pick his ass right up and haul him away, but he wouldn’t in front of Goldie.
Darby got in close, outrage on her face, like she could make him back up with just her glare. She crossed her arms and looked him up and down, jutting her chin out at his chest. Goldie groaned under her breath from behind him. Darby glared harder at him. “Who do you think you are?”
Riot pushed off the wall and took two steps towards his bike.
That’s right, slink away, kitty.
Riot grabbed his helmet as he answered Darby. “That’s Yogi, thinks he’s king of the forest. See you ‘round.”
Riot fired up his ride and was gone, leaving Flint with the two women.
Darby hadn’t moved, heat in her eyes as she glared at Flint. “That right, Yogi? You think you’re king of something?”
Flint’s head snapped back like she had slapped him. Whoops. He tried to explain his position. “Name’s Flint. And that guy Riot is no good. I was trying to warn him off you.”
Darby laughed in his face and Flint got the sense it was a tactic she employed often. “You’re a peach, taking care of people who don’t need it. What are you doing with Goldie?”
Goldie stepped forward, her expression weary, and Flint felt bad about all of it. She looked like she had been through a hard week, or a hard month. And here he was bringing drama to her doorstep.
Goldie touched Darby’s arm and gestured away from him. “Leave it. Let’s go inside. I need to talk to you.”
Darby turned and followed Goldie, almost like a puppy would, or like Bryce would follow him. She said something urgently to Goldie that he didn’t catch, but it was something about him, because she pointed at him.
Flint called out to Goldie. He didn’t even have her phone number! “Goldie, wait.”
“Thanks for the ride, Flint,” she said, and her and Darby disappeared into one of the doors, just that quick. He hadn’t even had a chance to ask her if she was okay again.
He heard the locks lock and the chain slide in place, then Goldie’s and Darby’s voices, muffled by the cinderblock walls.
Flint stood there for a second, not even sure what had just happened. “Shit,” he muttered, then turned to get in his Rover. He parked under a tree in the darkes
t corner of the parking lot and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
Jameson picked up on the third ring. “Where’d you go?”
Passing a hand over his unshaven face, Flint groaned. “Would you believe me if I told you Instinct got me?”
Jameson’s voice perked up right away. “Vampire or switch?”
Flint shook his head. “Switch.”
“Where. How?”
Flint took a deep breath and started in the kitchen back at Resperanza and ended at the street with Goldie. He left off that she had climbed on top of him like he was the most popular ride at the county fair and she wasn’t getting off until she got off. J didn’t need to know that shit. But Flint would be thinking about it later. When he was alone.
Jameson summarized the evening’s recon, probably for Cora’s benefit. “You’re telling me the good news is we have another switch to bring on board, but the bad news is that vampires are strolling around enjoying the Shady Pines nightlife.”
Flint grunted. “You got it.”
“What about the roommate? She a switch?”
Flint shook his head at the memory of that woman. “I wouldn’t put stabbing someone past her, but no glow.”
Jameson hmmmed before he spoke. “You didn’t tell Goldie anything?”
Flint gripped the phone tighter. “I never got a chance. But I will. Just give me some time.”
“You gonna watch her?”
“Yeah, I’m here all night.”
“There’s a Cause meeting in the morning at Resperanza.”
“Send me relief. Or maybe I’ll tell her by then and bring her by.”
Jameson hmmmed again. “You think it’s going to be that easy?”
Flint almost laughed. “No way.”
Jameson did laugh. “Let me know if you want reinforcements. Cora could be helpful. She’s offering. Could be fun to watch.”
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