by Eve Langlais
“I am not your dog,” he rumbled even as he moved to fulfill my request.
“And I am not your bitch,” I retorted. “Glad we got that clarified.”
Having shut him up, I mulled the news as I waited for my bagel. “So, there was another killing. Not sure why you need me. I’m not a detective. I never met these people who died and I am most certainly not a witch.”
“I don’t know about the witch part, you’ve certainly cast a spell over me.” Anthony, more than five hundred years old Anthony, used the corniest line ever.
I still giggled. “That was so bad it was cute.”
Frowning, Pete handed me a plate with a freshly toasted bagel.
Mmm. Bagel… I might have sounded a bit like Homer Simpson and drooled a little.
Pete’s turn to smirk.
Look at me, the bone of contention between two men.
It was seriously as annoying as it was hot.
Anthony adjusted his cravat. From perfect to, still perfect. It totally gave me an urge to run my fingers through his hair and ruffle it.
So I did. Standing from the couch, dropping the pillow, plate in hand, I made sure to walk past him, even if it made my path to the kitchen longer. My hands slid through his blond strands, making it lose its pristine perfection.
His eyes widened. He sucked in a breath he probably didn’t need.
I walked past, realizing I was the object they stared at.
They. Stared. At. Me.
And it feels so good.
Sure they saw the naked Chloe, the hot siren version of Chloe, but that was only part of why they kept coming around.
They wanted me.
Dropping the plate, I snagged the cold bacon he hid from me.
I wagged it in the air. “I can’t believe you were offering me bagels when there was some salty protein for me to eat.”
Too late.
I only realized my mistake once the words escaped my lips.
I’d just tossed down the dirty innuendo challenge in front of a pair of alpha men.
They took up that dirty glove and spanked me with it.
“I’ve got some fresh meat with a salty finish if you’re really in the mood for something to eat,” purred Pete.
“Why would you expect her to do the work for you? I’d prefer to give her any kind of protein she needs. Give while she receives.”
They both seemed to think their offers were more appealing than the bacon.
In that moment, the bacon won. I sashayed back to the couch with my salty offerings. Plopping down, a fresh pillow covered my lap. Best to not overwhelm them with my attributes.
They’d see them soon enough again at this rate.
“So people are dead. Witches. Cops are baffled.”
In between bites and chewing, I mused the situation they placed in front of me. “I still don’t get what you expect me to do.”
Anthony finger combed his hair. Naughty boy. Did he seriously try and tempt me to rise again to muss it.
He held my gaze as he explained. “We need you to do what you usually do. Dissect the evidence. Find the trail to the real criminal.”
Actually, I usually preferred to find evidence convicting other people. Usually, though, it didn’t bode well for my client. Even worse, I couldn’t exactly hide what I found from the prosecution.
But in this case, Pete was already innocent. I wasn’t defending anyone. Still, though, I was the one who lost in court. Against Anthony at any rate. Would he want me. “Why are you investigating the evidence? You’ll probably be the one trying to put them away,” I asked.
“This isn’t about putting them away after they’re caught, though, but finding them in the first place.”
Pete interrupted. “The problem is, we can’t smell what it is killing them.”
“You’ve been to the crime scenes?” I asked.
“After the fact. Any scent trail that might have existed is too compromised to easily follow.”
The idea of smelling someone out reminded her of what Pete was.
A wolfman.
Can he smell me now?
It made a girl yearn for a shower, especially to wash off the damned crumbs sticking to her skin between her boobs. Rubbing or flicking them off would draw attention to her stellar eating skills..
“You’re asking me to get involved in an active investigation, without permission from my office. I am a girl who follows the laws.” At Pete’s snicker, I amended. “Most of them.”
“I won’t deny this might compromise you from being involved in the case if it goes to trial.”
“Why won’t you?” she asked.
“Because it would be seen as initiative. Being prepared to put away the bogeyman killing citizens.”
A rude noise escaped Pete. “Now he’s stylizing himself a super hero.”
“Just don’t wear a cape.” I’d seen The Incredibles.
“If we’re done joking, perhaps we should concentrate on the task at hand. We need to find out what’s targeting—“
“Don’t you mean who?” We were dealing with person. Right?
Right?!
“We can’t be sure what’s dong this,” Anthony replied, confirming my fear. “Could be a demon, or something else, targeting these magic users. Doesn’t really matter what it is, though, we need to stop it before it starts going after others.”
“You mean others as in humans?”
“Yes. Can you imagine the panic if the population got wind of these attacks, and what was behind them? They’d make the Salem witch trials seem like a walk in the park.”
In today’s electronic age, vigilantes were quick to blame, and once things hit the Twitter-verse, they lasted forever. Out would come the twitchforks, and no one with a supernatural gene or a funny-looking mole or a third nipple would survive.
“This isn’t going to put me in danger, is it?” Always best to look out for number one. I never aspired to being a heroine—unless it was in cartoon form, and I had the most kickass bodysuit ever, with bitching boots.
“You’d better not be in danger,” Pete muttered with a sharp look at Anthony. “Fang boy over here promised you would just be looking over case files. As far as I am concerned, you are not to go near any of the crime scenes, nor will you interview anyone we deem a risk.”
“How reassuring.” My sarcastic tone was in fine form this morning.
“You will also not be alone at night,” Anthony added. “Demons, much like vampires, have an intolerance in their natural form for sunlight. Either Pete or I will spend the nights with you. We will not leave you unguarded.”
“Backing up a second.” I held up a hand. “Exactly why would I be in any danger? Do you know something I don’t?”
“Of course you’re not in danger,” Anthony said in a soothing tone.
I held up my fingers in a cross. “Don’t you be trying to spell me with your incredible eyes.”
“What are my eyes?” Pete growled.
“Don’t you start,” I snapped. “I am still trying to find out why I’d be in danger enough to need you bodyguarding me.” One on either side would work.
“Consider it a precaution.”
“We won’t do anything that risks your safety,” Pete added. Then he grinned and winked as he said, “You never have to worry when I’m around. I’ll eat anyone who even looks at you sideways, baby.”
Over-protective, kind-of-disturbing threat, but hot nonetheless. “Is this a ploy to have nookie and sleep over because I thought we’d clarified that already. I’m okay with the whole sex thing. Just don’t try and make it into something more.”
“Even without the demon running around, you wouldn’t be spending your nights alone.” The blue light in Anthony’s eyes told me, without words, what we’d do when darkness fell.
I shivered in delight. “I feel like I should throw out the fact that I am not a person who does danger.”
“And yet you do me.” Pete’s leer earned him a dirty look.
Anthony shook his head. “How you could sleep with one so crass…”
“Oh stuff it, ivory. You might have mesmerized her into thinking she likes you but—”
“I did no such thing.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
As they argued about who was the better man—something I’d yet to decide since they both appealed to me in different ways—I wrapped my dignity around me, which did nothing for my nudity, and stood from the couch. Time for a shower, which, as luck would have it, ran cold. I’d forgotten to turn it off in my mad dash to get ready for work.
The icy thirty-second sluice-off did wonders for my mood and, even better, killed my arousal. But it did nothing to quell the hurricane of questions in my mind. My thoughts whirled in circles.
What could I do to help find a killer? Despite Anthony’s confidence, I wondered what I could add to their investigation. And, more importantly, did I really want to dig deeper into this murder/mystery with an honest-to-god monster at its core?
While I mulled that over, I also wondered what I should do with my two lovers who seemed determined to crowd me. On the one hand, I found their attention flattering—another word for arousing yet, at the same time, discomfited because there was just something wrong, laws or not, about having two men casually talking about sharing me.
Did I need to devise a schedule and install a revolving door so my men didn’t hit each other coming and going from my bed?
To think, only days ago, my biggest problem was finding clean underwear because I’d forgotten to do the laundry again.
When I emerged from the shower, shivering and no closer to an answer to any of my problems, it was to find Pete lounging on my bed. I ignored his evident interest in my damp body and dressed. “I take it you pulled guard duty?”
“Anthony had to go and meet with some people. He left you a USB stick with the case files. Said to call him if you find anything. He’ll be back around dinner time to take over for me.”
“So you’re just going to sit here all day babysitting me?” I didn’t think I could handle him hovering over me all day unless he planned to do it naked with his cock buried deep. But it would make reading and concentrating on the task at hand difficult.
“Actually, I planned on napping. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Wake me if you need me.” The curve of his lips let me know what kind of need he preferred. The fact I’d thought about indulging in his innuendo didn’t mean I caved to the allure. I was still mad at him. At them both.
They’d taken it upon themselves to make executive decisions about my life. The fact that they did it for altruistic reasons didn’t make it right. I’d help, but only because I didn’t want to see anyone else die. However, if they thought they’d get any nookie after the stunt they pulled, well… They probably would, but they’d have to work for it, dammit!
Ignoring his puppy eyes, I waltzed out of the bedroom—with a swing of my hips that made him groan—and shut the door. Before I could get to work on the case, my phone rang. BFF alert, or so the ring tone of “The Lady is a Tramp” informed me.
“Where the fuck are you?” Brenda asked.
“At home,” I answered.
“Are you sick? Someone said you took two weeks off. What the hell? And why didn’t you call?”
Uh-oh, hurt feeling warning. Time to soothe some ruffled feathers. “I’m not sick, and I was going to call. I just didn’t have a chance. It was kind of sudden. Blame my stalkers. They took it upon themselves to place me on a working holiday.”
“Sex isn’t supposed to be work, Chloe.”
“Gee, Brenda, talk about a one-track mind. I meant real work.” Never mind the fact I’d assumed the same thing.
“Rewind and explain.”
I gave her the nutshell version without demons, implying I did it to help out Pete and his Lycan buddies from getting the blame. I didn’t enjoy lying; however, still coming to grips with the secrets I’d been given, I fudged the truth.
“Chloe, sex pot detective. Fighting crime alongside her lovers. I like it. It will make a great story to tell your kids one day.”
“Would you stop that? I am not in a relationship with Pete or Anthony.”
“Whatever. Let me know if anything exciting happens. And, by exciting, I mean if you finally get naked and wild with both.”
I hung up as she started to give me pointers.
Booting up my laptop, I inserted the memory storage unit Anthony had left me of the case and perused the contents. It didn’t take long for me to get sucked in to the mystery.
The guys had summarized the scenario pretty accurately.
The newest bodies were found around the same time, one by the victim’s girlfriend as she came off her night shift, the other by a passerby who noted feet hanging out of the bushes. Their times of death were estimated to have happened within hours of each other, one around elevenish, the other about two or three a.m.
In both cases, none of the neighbors admitted to hearing anything. Odd, because I know if I was getting ripped to shreds and siphoned, I’d probably scream my face off.
I jotted a few notes.
Do demons have the power to hypnotize? Why don’t the victims call for help? Are there signs of them being gagged? And why are these murders occurring outside?
What drew these witches from the relative safety of their homes to meet with the monster in the first place?
As I read through the reports, nothing jumped out at me, so I put them aside to go through the dozens of digital images taken at the homes of each of the victims. Witches or not, they lived just like any regular person would.
Ugly mismatched furniture. Knick-knacks ranging from a collection of glass figurines to baseball caps. Definitely not rich magic practitioners, so the murders weren’t financially motivated. Unless they all had big life insurance policies going to one person, which led to me make another notation.
Motive? Why kill them? They had magic in common.
Did the victims know each other? Maybe they all belonged to the same club? Or was that a coven? Could the three of them, or more, have gotten together and summoned the demon? Did they cause their own demise by dabbling in things better left alone?
Another thought struck me. How did one get rid of a demon? Could we kill it, or would we have to use a spell to banish it?
Oh and skip the we. No way was I going anywhere near any of the danger. Or at least smart Chloe said that. Brave Chloe, however, the one who now slept with not one but two guys outside of the human realm, wondered what it would be like to swoop in and play the part of heroine.
My inner sleuth longed to put on her sexiest crime-fighting boots—thigh-high black leather of course—and hit the pavement in search of clues. What a rush it would be to find the crack that broke the case wide open. To know I’d played a part in saving lives and making the world a safer place.
A great fantasy if we were dealing with something normal. Something human. But a demon? Maybe I’d hold off on fulfilling my inner crime-fighting fantasy for a case fraught with a little less supernatural danger.
Now, if only I could convince my lovers to do the same.
Alone, I could at least admit to myself that I didn’t like the fact Anthony and Pete seemed hell bent on inserting themselves in the midst of the danger. Despite my annoyance with them and their determined involvement in my life and business, I didn’t wish them ill. Actually, the thought of them getting hurt didn’t sit well with me at all.
I preferred not to dwell on what that meant. As far as I was concerned, I cared for their safety and welfare the same as I would anyone who put themself in danger. Lying to myself sucked, especially since I was a horrible liar.
No way was I falling for them. Nope. Not me. Great sex. That’s all we had. All I wanted. Nothing more. No matter what they seemed to think, or want.
Back I went to the pictures, needing distraction from dilemmas best left alone. Panning through them, I noted food bowls and water dishes on the floor in a
ll of them. Flipping back through the reports, though, only one mentioned they’d found a cat.
Ms. Heksens’s infamous black kitty, found calmly sleeping on the front porch in a wicker chair. Odd because Pete told me he’d had it picked up by animal control. The victim must have sprung it before her demise.
The other two victims, while showing signs of owning a pet, didn’t have mention of one by the cops investigating. I shelved it under not important. No itty-bitty cat had torn these people apart.
But…
Inspiration hit. Off the couch I bounded, and I skipped into my bedroom. I’d no sooner set foot inside saying his name than Pete rolled from my mattress and sprang across the room, one hand tucking me behind him, his tense body filling the doorway as his head swung from side to side.
I tapped a shoulder, noting his rigid muscles—and is he sniffing the air? “Uh, Pete?”
“Yeah. What is it, baby? Did someone knock? Did you get a funny feeling?”
I had a feeling all right; it was anything but funny.
Call me insatiable, or fickle, I didn’t care. A man who instantly thought to protect a girl, using his own body as a shield, totally turned me on. Forget my earlier irritation. With one sexy move, he’d redeemed himself.
And fired up my libido.
I slid my arms around his muscular frame and said in a husky murmur, “No danger.”
He turned to face me, his hands coming to rest on my hips, pulling me against him, showing me without words that my proximity didn’t leave him untouched. Something appeared very happy to feel me.
“If we’re not under attack, then what has you rushing in here? Did you find something?”
Oh right. The case. Concentrating proved hard when all my thoughts involved him and me, naked, sweaty and panting.
“It’s probably nothing.” I toyed with the ends of his hair, tickling his nape. The tips of my nipples pointed as he tucked me closer to his bare chest.
“Sometimes the smallest clue can solve a case,” he murmured. His eyes fairly smoldered as he stared down at me.
“Just an idea. About why we keep finding the victims outside.”
“We wondered about that too. Most witches have magical protection around their homes preventing entry to the uninvited.”