by Mary Hughes
The eyes blinked. Approached. As they neared, they cooled to a soft brown. Raised hands emerged from the darkness. Steve.
His pleasant face was arranged in a carefully neutral expression. “What’s wrong, Elena?”
I didn’t say another word. If tonight was what I thought, Steve’s uncanceled death certificate made a whole lot more sense.
Because he wasn’t really alive.
A world lurked beneath my nice safe one. A shadow world, an underdark. Bo was a denizen, and Steve. Thor, and Mancuso…hell, maybe even Dracula.
Nah, probably not him.
But certainly Boris was one. It was why Bo cut off his head.
Creatures out of legends and nightmares were real. I stared into Steve’s seemingly friendly eyes. What would he do to me if he realized I knew his secret, their secret? What would Bo do if I told?
I wanted to scream it to the universe. I even had evidence, but who would believe me? Blatzky? Ruffles? Tight-ass? Evidence, hell. Even Charlie Ignatek would laugh if I told him what the evidence meant.
My sister needed to know, though. I had to tell Gretchen and somehow make her believe. Only knowing about this darkness would keep her safe.
And then I had to find a way to destroy it.
“Elena, calm down.” Gretchen spoke slowly and carefully from behind me.
Except…what if she already knew? What if she was already in too deep? If she did know, was somehow connected…fuck, of course. It was the only explanation that made sense. It was why she’d lied to me, made up that whopper story about Steve.
“It’s okay, Elena,” Gretchen said.
I reminded myself she’d been devastated when she lost her husband, her soul-mate. Emotionally shattered. Now he was back and she was deliriously happy. Stella had a daddy again who loved her. Who was I to interfere? How could I justify wrecking their little family?
How could I not? My job was to keep law and order in Meiers Corners. That included cleaning up whatever grimy shadows lurked beneath. And though Steve had been the other half of Gretch’s soul, I had no idea who—or what—he was now.
No idea, except what I saw in front of me. Red-eyed Steve, frowning at me. Dead Steve, reanimated and starring in the Hallway Version of Dracula. I backed slowly away.
Steve’s eyes lifted over my head. My spine tingled. Damn, now what?
“Detective.” A black satin voice, right behind me.
I spun.
Bo stood there, axe-sized fists planted on hips, muscles pumped. My back was open to Steve but I couldn’t turn back. I couldn’t move, arrested by the sight of Bo in the center of Gretchen’s small living room, dominating it.
His eyes were the blue of a stormy sea, his beautiful lips were set with grim determination. Because he was going to kill me? Despite being a kick-ass cop I had the ghastly realization that, preternaturally strong as he was, it would be pathetically easy for him.
Two inhumanly fast strides brought him to me. He grabbed the back of my neck with one hand. Immobilized my head.
Kissed me, hard.
All fear of being killed fled. Hell, all thought fled, period.
Hot, questing lips. A thrusting, conquering tongue. A powerful, masterful hand. My lust, simmering all night, boiled.
Gretchen gasped. Steve made a primitive sound in the back of his throat. Bo ignored them. He wrapped his arm around my waist and yanked me hard against his ripped torso.
“I’m done fighting it, Elena. This attraction…this raw need… If you learn everything, so be it. But I’m not holding back anymore.”
Fuck me. He’d been holding back?
I could practically smell the adrenalin shooting through his system, recognized it because it was the twin to mine. The attack must have fired him up too. Fired him up until something had to burn.
I wanted it to be me.
Insane. I had to be. Bo Strongwell was a vampire. The red eyes, the plated face…the orgasmic biting…and all I wanted was to lie under him and have him turn me into a pincushion. So unregulated, so out of the box, so not me.
And yet exactly me. Something deep inside needed Bo, craved him. Something profound. I didn’t recognize it, but, like Bo, I was tired of fighting it. I made a decision. Not forever, but for now. “Take me somewhere private.”
“You read my mind,” he growled, and swept me up.
He moved so fast the wind tangled my hair. In the time it took him to lay another potent kiss on my mouth, we were in his bed. Cool sheets were beneath me, heavy warmth on top of me. A scalding mouth sealed mine.
He did his clothes-melting thing again. Mine he simply slashed. With what, I didn’t know and didn’t care. Because his hands were on my breasts and his mouth was on mine. His hard prow rocked against my pubic bone with a delicious pressure.
I ran my palms over the sleek muscles of his back. Stroked the roped power of taut hips and buttocks. Delighted in the rippling strength.
He pressed me into the bed with his nude, pumped body. His tongue invaded my mouth. Something big and smooth slid between my damp thighs, nudged my pussy lips. Three straight days of foreplay insured I was dripping wet and ready.
Oh boy. This was it.
I squirmed under Bo, trying to seat him. Big and smooth rubbed me in all sorts of luscious ways. But not the one way I needed—in.
He reached down. I shifted so he could guide himself home.
He only pressed open my cleft with his fingers and rubbed. I arched at the lovely cascading pleasure. He purred at my response and rubbed harder. The harder he rubbed the more I arched and moaned. The more I responded the harder he rubbed, until he was abrading my clitoral hood like a match to a strike strip.
And the more aroused I got, the bigger his erection pumped. I felt every hot, teasing twitch, its head caught in the vestibule of my pussy. Every pulse stroked my tender inner flesh. It was the most exciting, erotic torture ever.
“Bo, please!” Five years, three months and who the hell knew was eating me alive. “In!” I wrenched my hips up, splitting my labia on his prodding erection.
The head sank deeper.
And that was all. Just the glans, pulsing gently. Stretching me with engorged expectancy.
His eyes squeezed shut. “You’re so hot, Elena.”
Definitely hot. I was burning up, on fire with anticipation. “Inside!”
“Not…not yet.” A deep purr rumbled from his chest. Bo rotated his hips, his cock slipping in my entry like a ball-in-socket. “I want you…hungry.”
I felt every swivel like a hammer. I jerked my pelvis, trying to drive him deeper. Getting not one millimeter. Pleasure pulsed in shallow waves. “I’m beyond hungry. I’m so beyond hungry my vagina’s eating my brain. In, damn you!”
“Not…yet.” His mouth clamped on my nipple. Hot tugs shot me like electric arrows.
I howled. “You’re evil. I knew it, but this proves it.”
His only reply was to grab my clit hood between two fingers and pump.
I shrieked. Fisted my hands and beat on his heavily muscled back. Solid thuds sounded good but did little damage. He was just too blasted strong. “Dammit, Bo! If you don’t finish this fucking now, I’m going to pull my gun and shoot you.”
He raised his head, panting through distended nostrils. His eyes blazed down on me. He looked ready to rupture. “That’s…hungry.”
I was barely breathing, fertile with need. He began to push forward. Finally. I could feel my body begin to stretch to fit him. And then…and then…
My cell phone rang.
I shrieked. “Not now!”
Bo roared. He vaulted off the bed. Snatched my jeans from the floor. Tore the phone out.
Hurled it into the wall with such force that it shattered.
Silence fell, punctuated only by my rasping breath. Bo turned to me, nostrils flared, eyes liquid fire. He breathed deep, his massive chest inflating.
“Elena. Are you…ready?” As he spoke, his rippling abs bunched. His fists clenched and
released. His Viking prow stood out, thick and proud, straining for me.
I knew why he was asking. He wanted more than sex. If I said yes, he’d invade my body. He’d penetrate my sex with his luscious cock. He’d pierce my neck with his elegant fangs.
And would he invade my heart?
I’d worry about that later. I opened my arms to him.
Bo leaped back onto the bed. He split my legs with a muscled thigh. Seized my butt with one hand. Thrust the other into my hair.
Pulling my head ferociously to the side, he exposed my neck. I pressed my mons wantonly into him, too far gone with need to care.
His hips reared back. His cock stroked down my labia. Slipped between. Locked into place.
Every single muscle in my body clenched. I was a mass of constricted need, a black hole of desire.
My glazed eyes found Bo. Pleading. Now. Take me now.
“Mine,” he growled, and slammed home.
He impaled my tight vagina with shocking power. Filled me. He slammed hard and deep enough to kiss my cervix.
I arched against him with a long moan.
“Fuck, Elena. You’re tight as a virgin.” He actually swelled bigger inside me. “I can’t stand it, sweetheart. I’m losing it.” He held himself over me, chest muscles clenched hard as boulders. His head was bowed, and he was breathing like a locomotive.
I rolled my hips under him. His thick manhood grew even fatter. I purred. “Then lose it.”
“Elena, sweetheart, stop. You’re killing me.” He shuddered, trying to get his breathing under control.
I grabbed his tight ass and pulled.
With a hoarse cry he fell on me. A tremendous surge of hips drove him into me, to the hilt.
My eyes flew open. He was thrust so deep I thought he was screwing my throat.
Whatever I’d done finally broke his control. He beat into me, hard and fast. My entire body tightened, wound up like a spring. I arched against him, clutching his brawny biceps.
“Elena.” His voice was a pain-filled rasp. “I want… I need…” His mouth opened on my neck. His breath burned the tender flesh of my throat.
“Yes, Bo. Oh, yes.”
He bit me. My blood ignited, became a flaming river. I screamed. Bo pummeled me with his huge cock, a pounding force that fanned the flames even hotter. His tongue swirled where he bit, licking like an animal, rough on my sensitive skin. I trembled helplessly between the two assaults, his driving cock and burning tongue.
I started to come.
His thrusts slowed, deepened. I teetered on the edge, his cock ripening inside me. He stroked, one last time, thickening and lengthening until it was almost too much to bear.
Then he roared and erupted into me in a great oceanic tide. Fierce contractions blasted wave after wave, powerfully deep. His intense climax rushed around me, where I clung to a last tattered shred of sanity.
The heat, the force, pushed me over. I sailed off the precipice and burst.
I ruptured like a blown volcano. Like a tree hit by lightning, exploding into splinters. I was the Big Bang, catapulting plasma through the universe.
And then I was fairy dust, floating down onto the huge bed. I cooled, gradually forming back into Elena.
Bo lay heavy on me, his mouth open on my neck. His lips suckled now and then like a sleeping baby.
I felt sleepy and sore and wonderful. With Bo, five-plus years had been more than worth it.
Until I thought to wonder who had phoned me.
–—
“Captain Titus, I can explain.” I adjusted my borrowed shirt, wishing Bo weren’t quite so large, wishing it weren’t quite so obvious the shirt wasn’t mine. Wishing Tight-ass weren’t between me and the safety of my desk.
It was five thirty and I was back at the station, attempting to come out of this with my skin whole. Bo may not have left me bloody. But Tight-ass certainly would.
“I don’t want to hear a single word other than the name.” A vein pumped angrily in Tight-ass’s temple. His pumpkin head looked about to explode. The smashed pumpkin image distracted me for a moment.
I opened my mouth to admit it. To admit I’d had sex during duty hours. To name Bo Strongwell as co-conspirator. “B—”
“No buts!” Titus shouted. “I want the name of the person who killed Napoleon Schrimpf!”
He could have knocked me over with a donut. I was thinking about Viking sex. He was thinking about the job. Which only proved how far in over my head I was with Bo.
“Well…” I gathered my thoughts. “Cause of death is loss of blood. The mechanism is uncertain.”
Tight-ass started chafing his arm. “Come on, O’Rourke. The wounds were pretty distinctive. Some sort of knife.”
He was calling the stabs to Schrimpf’s ’nads “distinctive” wounds. Was Tight-ass hinting he knew how “distinctive”? Maybe he wouldn’t think I was a complete nutcase if I told him what I was really thinking.
Well, not exactly what I was thinking, because that was too unbelievable. But maybe I could get close. “Yes, sir. I think they may be, um, bite wounds.”
He stopped chafing. “Bite wounds? From what?”
The incredulity in his voice should have warned me. I was being cautious but not cautious enough. Maybe I was high—too little sleep and too much great sex. “From the prostitute Drusilla, sir. I think she bit Schrimpf during sex and he bled—”
“Are you insane?” Tight-ass’s face mottled. His voice went castrato-high. “What are you implying, O’Rourke? That this hooker is some sort of monster? A bloodsucking v-v-v—”
“A vampire? No! Well, not exactly.” I shrugged, hunching a bit.
“This is unbelievable!” He was beyond jet-engine and heading for a range only dogs could hear.
I winced. “Captain Titus, please. I’m not saying it was a vampire.”
He must only have heard “vampire”. His voice revved like a turbo. “Do you think this is the National Exploiter? ‘Police Reveal Killer is Vampire Vamp.’ Fuck, O’Rourke! What do you think this would do to our department’s reputation? To my reputation?”
“Sir, once again. I’m not saying Drusilla is a vampire—”
“You’re off the case! And if I have anything to say about it, off the force!”
Tight-ass whirled and stalked out.
Shocked, I could only stare after him. Off the case. And off the force?
I made my way slowly to the desk, slumped behind it. My father stared out of my family photo in condemnation, and Chief Dirkson’s painted eyes were very disappointed. “That could have gone better.” My eyes stung. I fisted them, was chagrined to feel hot trickles thread down my cheeks.
All my life, I wanted to be a cop. A detective, yes. But even more basic, to right wrongs, to protect the innocent, to serve the public. To fight for justice.
A fighter for justice. Alice was right, much as I hated to admit it. It was who I was. I knew that now. Because if that were taken away…I’d be nobody.
The wall clock said five fifty-five when the scrape of feet brought me out of it. “Ma’am?” A muddy rasp. “Detective Ma’am?”
As if my night couldn’t get any better. I wiped my eyes. “What is it, Ruffles?”
“I saw Captain Titus. He was pretty angry.”
“Yes, Ruffles.” My voice sounded as listless as I felt.
“He says you’re off the Schrimpf case.”
Hearing it from Ruffles made it real. “Yes.”
“Isn’t this kinda sudden?” He sidled up to the desk, his muddy eyes tinged with compassion.
Compassion, coming from the Dirkenator. Somehow that made it even more awful. “Yes, Ruffles.” I couldn’t seem to say anything else. Now how would I get to be a full detective?
“But why?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. “You find out anything about Josephine Schrimpf? Where she was the night of the murder?”
“Well, yes. But I don’t know…if you’re off the case…maybe I shouldn’t tell you.
”
“Oh, for pity’s sake.” I clasped my head with both hands. “Well, make sure you do tell whoever takes over.” My big chance. Gone.
There was no response from Dirkenstein. The silence was so unusual that I found the energy to look up. His face was a study in sheepish pride.
“Oh, no. Who’d Titus assign? Who took over the Schrimpf case?”
Dirk thumped his skinny chest. “That would be me.”
–—
So what did I do now? With all that had happened, maybe I should stop and think. Reflect. Try to make sense of my life.
Or maybe I should stuff myself with chocolate.
As if that was really a decision.
I went to the Caffeine Café, where I ordered a double mocha latte with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Carting the mug to my favorite back corner table, I sat and dipped my spoon into the whipped cream. Licking the soft sugary goodness was an awful lot like licking Bo’s smooth goodness.
I tossed the spoon. Not thinking about Bo. Or the Case of the Poked Penis. Not Bo, not v-creatures, and especially not the Case of the Bit Balls. I drank chocolate coffee. Let it soothe me. I was not thinking about Bo, or Ruffles, or Tight-ass, or Gnawed Gonads.
It wasn’t working. Pricked Privates. Even drowning my confusion and sorrow in chocolate wasn’t working. Punctured Prick.
Yeesh. I needed to talk to someone. Preferably someone a) human and b) who wouldn’t shriek when I said the v-word. Someone who could walk with me through all the weird.
At that point I was not entirely surprised to see my sister Gretchen come in. When you’d been through that much alien landscape, even impossible coincidence began to look normal.
“Hey,” I said as Gretch sat.
“Hey, yourself.” My sister waved at the Princess. Ha. Gretch might as well have been waving to a wall. The owner—a regal blonde who looked like an older version of Princess Diana, had she lived—sat behind the bar like her stool was a throne. The Princess never waited on tables.
Her Highness called, “Your usual, Gretchen?”
Well, shit. Alien coincidence was one thing. Then there was plain impossible.