by Michele Hauf
“That was the best sex I’ve had. Ever,” he said, sitting and reaching for his pants. “Thanks.”
She closed her eyes. Men were not supposed to thank a woman for having sex. That was wrong on every imaginable level. So much for bad-boy fantasies. He’d used her.
But she had used him, too.
The best ever? Poor guy, didn’t get around much, did he? On the other hand, it had been so freakin’ good. Her best ever? She wouldn’t admit it to herself.
“I suppose if I take a shower, you’ll dodge out the window.”
“You know it,” she answered.
“I need to go home, shower, and change my clothes. After lying on this bed, I feel…crusty. Which means you’ll be coming with me, sweetie.”
“I’m not your sweetie.”
“No, you’re not.” He exhaled and stood.
Lyric gazed at his bare back and ass. The hard muscles that flexed with his movement defined the dimples at the top of his buttocks. Nice. Without warrant, she imagined him inside her again, pumping hard, filling her, his jaw clenched, and bringing her to climax. A shiver traced through her system.
“Yeah, it was as good as you remember,” he commented over his shoulder.
Lyric leaned up on an elbow. “You know you just had sex with a vampire.”
“I know.”
“You ever do that before?”
“Nope.”
Wow. Most vamps socialized with one another, and a lot dated vampires exclusively and used mortals for sex only when biting them.
“Any regrets?” she asked.
Shimmying up his pants and carefully tucking away his semihard penis as he zipped, Vail shrugged. “Actually, no, no regrets.”
“You seem surprised.”
He picked up her dress and tossed it over her breasts, then leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, slow, delving, most definitely not a regretful kiss.
“I am,” he said. Another quick kiss. “You’ve only just met me, but I’m sure you’ve determined a vampire would not be my first choice to bed.”
“Faeries first?”
He shrugged. “Anything but vampires.”
Way to make her feel sexy and appreciated. Not.
“We were just using each other,” she felt the need to say. It was an ingrained response.
No man had ever looked at her and seen Lyric, the girl who wanted to live in a faery-tale castle. The girl who wanted to travel the world, and live on a tropical island where the houses had no walls and the sand was white. The girl who spent her free time tucked away in a quiet gym in the second arrondissement, suspended upside down from silken fabric because joining the circus was also a real dream.
No, suitors had always seen the advantages to aligning themselves to the Santiago clan. Lyric expected others to use her.
“Don’t sweat it,” she offered by rote.
Vail grabbed her hands as she inspected the torn dress. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
His dark eyes were still smudged with black liner this morning and it drew her focus to the gorgeous blue irises. “What we did last night started out as a means to get what I wanted from you,” he said. “But do you seriously believe fucking a woman is the wisest way to conduct an investigation?”
The kiss touched her at the corner of her mouth, sweet yet lingering, as if wanting to imprint his mark for the world to see every time her smile curled.
She’d been imprinted once already. Lyric twisted her head away from Vail’s touch. She didn’t want another imprint, and needed one like a bullet through her brain right now.
“It was good, Lyric. But I don’t think either of us should beat ourselves up trying to figure the whys and hows of it. It happened. We enjoyed it. Now we step back into our roles.”
“You bad guy, me fleeing you?”
“Something like that. Let’s go.”
“Where?” The dress was a loss. She scanned the floor for her shoes. “Oh right, your place. Why do I have to go along?”
“You think your place is so swanky?” he teased. “The bed was…fragrant.”
She slid off the thing, stunned she’d made love on it, and had snuggled next to the man for a good part of the morning. Yuck. Well, it had been a means to hide out. It wasn’t that she’d intended to live here.
“Fine. I’ll go along for the ride. But you’re not going to trick me and drive me home to Mommy, are you?”
“Can’t. You’re staying with me until I can figure out what deal Charish Santiago made with Zett. Unless you want to make it easy and just tell me?”
“Can’t tell you what I don’t know. Why is knowing the deal important?”
“Because I know Zett,” he said, walking into the bathroom to retrieve her duffel. He dug out the shirt and black pants she’d worn last night and tossed them to her. “The Lord of Midsummer Dark has no interest in vampires. Vampires are the lowest of the low to faeries.”
Lyric tugged the shirt on, then bowed her head. Lowest of the low? Tell her about it.
“Which makes me wonder what mommy dearest was supposed to get in return for the dress. I can’t imagine Zett would have been too generous, even for such a valuable dress.”
“Gown.”
“Whatever.”
Lyric was about to explain that her mother had gotten the immunity to step into Faery and take as she pleased, but then she stopped herself. As Vail had mentioned, faery items were of little value in the mortal realm. Why did the Santiagos need to steal from Faery? True, they were nearly bankrupt, but it wasn’t as though any item taken from the Faery realm could be fenced to any but the sidhe. And sidhe currency had no value among the mortals.
“What’s going on in that pretty skull of yours?” Vail asked.
Lyric turned a discerning gaze to him. “I’m not sure anymore. I think you’re right. My mother is up to more than I can imagine.”
CHAPTER SIX
IT ALL HINGED on Vail gaining Lyric’s trust so she would eventually give him the gown. He knew she had it. An item so valuable as the gown would definitely stir up talk if it should surface with a fence or in the hands of a buyer.
Unless the vampiress had faery contacts? Hmm…he doubted it. Lyric and Zett as allies didn’t jive. And yet, what if they had previously met?
Why she was so tight-lipped about it was not hard to figure. She must view the gown as a bargaining chip or a means to a new start. Hell, from what he knew of the Santiago family, it wasn’t a place for anyone to grow up, let alone survive.
He could relate.
Which meant Vail had an idea how to win Lyric’s trust. Because sex was just that, a means to let off aggression and steam. To get off. It wasn’t going to enamor him to her. And anyone who believed trust was gained by sharing a bed and a few throaty gasps of pleasure was fooling himself.
Though he wouldn’t mind another round—in a clean bed. That woman’s skin…yippi-i-oo!
He opened the car’s passenger door and Lyric got in. Swinging around to the driver’s side, Vail hopped inside, slid on a pair of Ray-Bans and switched on the engine. The Maserati purred, and he wanted to pat the dashboard and tell her how sweet she was, but the sexy leg distracted him.
Lyric kicked off her high heels and put one bare foot up on the dashboard. He wished the clingy black slacks were a skirt, but he could still recall those legs wrapped around his hips. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, making herself at home with a contented hum.
Vail slid a palm along her leg and the vampiress purred as sweetly as the car. She didn’t open her eyes, and he suspected she’d let him touch her as long as he wanted to. Maybe even higher…
He shifted into gear and rolled the Maserati into traffic, before returning his hand to her thigh. He teased a fold in the thin fabric with his smallest finger.
“So you want to know what’s up with my mom and the Unseelie lord?” she asked, eyes still closed. The windows had been shaded and treated against UV rays before Hawkes had given it to him, but he fi
gured she was tired after last night’s adventures. “Why? I thought you wanted to find the ugly gown and drop me off on Mommy’s doorstep?”
“To gain your trust,” he said. No reason to sugarcoat things.
“Learning what secrets lurk in my family will gain my trust?”
“I’m giving you a bone, Lyric. I haven’t taken you to Mommy’s doorstep, which should gain me some points.” Turning at a light, he headed toward the tenth arrondissement, where he lived. He didn’t signal, and a passing Smart Car laid on the horn. Vail nodded at the driver, but ignored the nasty hand gesture. “And because I’m a curious guy when it comes to anyone from Faery making deals with a vampire. You have no clue what the deal was?”
“Nada.”
“How is that possible when you agreed to do the exchange with the guy? You had to have expected something in return.”
She grabbed his hand, stopping his constant strokes, but didn’t move him away from her thigh. “I’ve already told you I had ulterior motives. When Charish told me she’d made a deal with Zett to trade the gown for services—”
“Services?”
She shrugged. “That’s all I know.”
Ch’yeah—no. She was lying, but if he let her talk, sooner or later she’d get trapped in her lies and reveal the truth. Because, apparently, torture worked for neither of them.
“Anyway, after they’d made the deal, the faery lord insisted I deliver the gown.”
“And his reason was…?”
“Mother assumed he wanted to keep us on our toes and add the element of danger. Send a helpless woman instead of some capable demon thugs. And it also provided the added threat of locating the exchange site next to a faery portal.”
“And you had no problem with that?”
“Like any sane vampire, I freaked. I refused.”
“And yet…?”
She toyed with the rings on his fingers, and he liked the soft tickle of it, and that she hadn’t moved his hand from her thigh.
“I thought about it a few days,” she finally said, “and realized this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I planned the kidnapping to take myself out of the equation.”
“Why didn’t you just refuse?”
“Zett was adamant. And my mother really needed this.”
Curious. “Yet your plans, beyond getting out of the house with the gown, seem to have stopped right there.”
Lyric sighed and turned to face him. He smoothed his palm along her leg, reassuring—yet she tugged him right back to the sweet spot high on her thigh where he didn’t mind being at all.
“I had the apartment,” she said, “and had intended to decide on a country or state where I could go hide out for a few years. Leo, my brother, was going to help me. It’s not so easy to disappear when your mother runs a network of thieves that stretch across Europe and the United States. I was thinking either Russia or the Arctic.”
He twisted to gape at her.
Lyric laughed. “I know! I couldn’t be happy in either place. I need to be around people who are modern and, well, I’m still working that part of the plan out. Joining the circus was another option. You ever see the Demon Arts troupe? They are fantastic.”
“Really? You? The circus?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Actually, a tropical island would be my number-one choice, but I don’t think there are too many available for sale.”
“You’d be surprised. I bet you could buy your own little island, if you wanted to.”
“What a dream. One needs cash to buy freedom. The Santiago family is broke. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got my mother. And, hell, I should have stayed to help her out, but she can’t see beyond her fiancé Connor’s influence. I hate to see her lose her freedom….”
Her sigh entered his pores and scurried about inside his chest. She wanted to get lost on a deserted island? Didn’t sound like such a good life if she was alone, without anyone to please her.
“So why did you feel the need to get away from Mommy? I mean, it seems like the faery lord should have been your only worry.”
“There are just some things I haven’t told her. I…didn’t know where to begin. And this all happened so quickly. Escape seemed the easiest option until I could work things out.”
He tapped his fingers gently over her mons, and she tilted her leg out to give him better access. Vail slid his hand between her legs where it was warm. The car swerved. He avoided missing another stoplight by pulling a sharp right turn.
“So you didn’t expect anyone to look for you?” he asked.
“I figured Charish would send out someone to find me, but I didn’t think you’d find me so fast. I’ll be at Mommy’s soon enough, thanks to you, so why bother with the dreams?”
“You’re giving up that easily?”
“Not giving up. Just…so ready for a little respect.” She sighed and dropped her foot to the floor. At the same time she brushed his hand away, and he retreated.
She didn’t say more, and Vail felt pushing wasn’t the right move at the moment. The woman wanted something everyone should have. He could relate, in a manner. But when he felt he didn’t get respect, he took it. Not the smartest way to do it, he knew. People like Lyric’s mother took things and expected others to respect them for it.
Probably Constantine de Salignac had been cut from the same cloth.
I need to find the gown if I ever want to find that bastard.
Taking a sharp corner, the Maserati nipped the concrete sidewalk pole on the corner.
“You are the worst— Do you even know how to drive?” she asked.
“I’ve been driving for three months. I think I do pretty well.”
“Three mon— Did you take lessons?”
“Ch’yeah right.”
Lyric shook her head. “That explains all the dents in this pretty baby.”
“She is my baby,” he agreed, finally comfortable with patting the dashboard. “And she doesn’t mind a little rough handling.”
“You’re not so rough as you like to think, vampire.”
His jaw tensed at that title. He was not vampire, he was…just not.
Vail pulled into the car park below his building, wondering how this vampire ice princess was able to get under his skin with such ease.
* * *
“THE BATHROOM IS DOWN THE HALL,” Vail said as they entered his loft apartment and he handed her the duffel he’d carried in. “You can shower first. I have a call to make.”
Lyric dangled her shoes on her fingers and padded about the space. “Nice. Very…industrial.”
Indeed, all the furniture was gray velvet, the floors were high-gloss black marble, and the walls and appliances were burnished steel. Vail liked the hard edges of it all. It wasn’t cozy or homey, just there. Completely the opposite of most things in Faery. A serviceable means to exist in a world he’d not yet decided if he preferred over Faery.
“What I expected from you.” She wiggled her toes and inspected her shadow dashing across the marble floor. “Especially since you like to work the goth-vampire-lord look to the hilt.”
Vail ran a hand over his hair. “Far from it.”
“Right. Because you don’t like vampires. And yet, you are one. I don’t even want to figure that out.” She sauntered down the hallway to the bathroom.
Flicking the window shade switch activated the electrochromic shades and gave a calm, gray tone to the room. Vail plopped onto the sofa and waited until he heard the water spatter the bathroom tiles before dialing up Hawkes Associates.
“Vail, you find her again?”
“Yes, I have her in hand.”
“For how long this time?”
He rubbed his forehead. The old man knew how to go right for the jugular. Damned half-breed vamp. “Until it comes time to bring her in.”
“What’s wrong with right now?”
“What’s wrong is, I still don’t have the gown. I need to gain her trust, because I know she’s got it hidden somewhere.�
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“Torture didn’t work?”
Oh, how it had worked. He’d never had a taste for torture after witnessing it a few times in Faery, but the kind he’d used last night? Hallelujah, to the mortal Christ! And that was saying a lot for someone raised with sidhe spiritual values.
“Torture proved ineffective in getting me closer to the ultimate goal. I think the key is to learn what deal Santiago made with Zett. Santiago gives Zett the gown, and Zett hands over…something. Whatever that something is, is the key.”
“Why did the daughter have to deliver the gown? I thought faeries didn’t like vampires?”
Why, indeed? That was the part where Vail sensed Lyric began to weave her lies. But knowing she’d never had any intention of going peacefully to Faery gave her a little credit.
“It baffles me,” he said simply. “I need to investigate further.”
“We’re not a detective agency, Vaillant,” Rhys cautioned Vail in a fatherly tone that irritated him. “We store valuables. If one of those valuables gets lost, we find it. Don’t get in over your head. Find the gown and bring it in, along with the girl.”
“I’ll gain the girl’s trust by learning her mother’s secret. I know it. I’m going to ask around the faery clubs later. See if there are whispers.”
“Be careful.”
“Don’t worry, old man.”
“I do worry.”
Vail closed his eyes. Rhys had a certain tone of truth that touched his core like no one had ever touched him before. As if he was trying to play the father role when he had no right. No man had that right, not even his real father.
“Don’t let the vampiress pull the wool over your eyes, Vail. Remember who her family is.”
“Won’t happen. I can see all, remember.”
“Faeries, yes. But backstabbing vampires?”
“I see their red auras when they are coming.”
“Really? Vail, I didn’t know you had the Sight.”
“What’s that?”
“Vampires can’t tell one from the other without feeling the shimmer. But if you can see their auras, that means you’ve the Sight. Usually only witches have it.”
“I’ve always seen the auras. Yeah, okay. Talk to you later.”