by Mary Hughes
Blackthorne flicked out a long knife. Whipped it at one bloodsucker. It embedded in the vampire’s neck with a meaty chuck.
I blinked.
Blackthorne slid in, grabbed the handle and spun. The blade came free—shearing off the bloodsucker’s head. It started falling.
I blinked.
Blackthorne swirled into the second bloodsucker. Another slice flashed, another head separated. The shadow man dealt casual death as gracefully as a Chinese ribbon dancer.
I blinked. The vampire’s head rolled down his chest as his body collapsed. Blood fountained from the severed neck. The spatter of blood was like gelatinous rain, punctuated by heads hitting pavement with the dull crack-thuds of smashed pumpkins.
Bracing against the building, I shoved to my feet. Bile rose from my belly, backwashed into my throat.
Cut off abruptly when Skullface grabbed my neck. “Leave me alone.” His voice shook. “Or the cunt gets it.”
Lips compressed, Blackthorne stepped toward me.
I flinched.
But it was Skullface who got the brisk kick to the gut. I felt the hiss of wind go by. It lifted the vampire into the air, tearing his claws from my throat.
My legs wouldn’t hold me. My knees buckled and I collapsed to the ground.
As Skullface’s body rose, Blackthorne swung his sword and shooped off the vampire’s head midair, like batting a baseball off a tee.
The assassin turned away. Behind him, vampire body and head fell with separate wet thuds.
I swallowed hard and managed to keep my belly contents where they belonged by staying still.
Blackthorne knelt smoothly next to one of the human muggers pumping his lifeblood onto the concrete. The shadow man spat on his hand and wiped the mugger’s neck…and the blood flow slowed then stopped. He repeated his strange ministrations with the other muggers while I struggled to sit.
He took special care with Jonesy. My partner woke, blinked at Blackthorne and smiled. Relief washed through me.
Blackthorne passed a hand over my partner’s face. “Sleep.” His voice was rich, dark. “Wake in ten minutes. Remember only the mugging.” Jonesy slumped, eyes closed, the smile still on his face.
Blackthorne rose and stood, fists on hips, surveying the area. I stilled abruptly, not wanting to attract his dangerous attention.
Briefly, his gaze crossed mine. His eyes…my breath chilled. His eyes held the bleakness of a man who has seen too much. Done too much.
Dead eyes.
He shook his head and turned toward the mouth of the causeway—to melt away forever into the night.
Chapter Two
“Wait!” I scrambled to my feet.
Blackthorne stopped, his dead black eyes flicking to me. Something kindled in his gaze, maybe compassion. “Ah, yes. Forget the horror.”
He turned again to leave.
“Blackthorne, I said stop.” I reached for my gun but my holster was empty. Fried damn. I must’ve dropped it when Skullface first grabbed me. Now what did I have to make Blackthorne stop? It wasn’t like five-foot-three of me was all that intimidating to six-three of him.
My backup piece. I bent for my ankle holster. Nearly took a header when my legs trembled and my brain whirled. I straightened slowly and carefully, resigned to losing him. After seeing how he’d handled those three vampires, my little revolver wouldn’t have made a difference.
But to my surprise he still stood there, his broad-shouldered back to me.
Four seconds went by, measured by my heart’s eight rat-a-tats. Still without turning, he said, “What do you want?”
“I…I need a statement.”
He pivoted slowly, another half-dozen pounding beats of my poor heart. He moved with a deadly grace that made me doubt my sanity for stopping him.
His glittering eyes appeared last, nailing me. I stopped breathing. He said, “And you are…?”
“R-ruffles.” I clamped down on my stuttering tongue and forced myself to reply coherently. “Officer Ruffles, Sun-Hee, Redfox Village Police.”
One black brow slowly raised. “And you want…?”
Him, naked. I startled at the thought, shook it from my head, pumped steel into my spine and stood straighter. “I need more information, sir, before you can go.” I was relieved to sound so official. “Your full name?” I pulled out my notebook, spoiled it by fumbling the pencil.
His stance eased. If he was going to kill me it wasn’t going to be in the next few seconds. “Aiden Blackthorne.” His head tilted and his expression lifted ever so slightly; in another man it would have been amusement.
Even that almost-smile kicked me straight in the diaphragm. My breath froze for a different reason. Honed jaw, straight nose, notched deltoids I wanted to sink my teeth into… When he wasn’t stabbing a gal in the skull with those deadly eyes, he was lick-dribble-dribble handsome.
“Blackthorne. Aiden.” My voice rasped, husky, and as I wrote, my hand was shaking so badly the pencil-scratchings looked like strewn dog hairs. Good thing the name was branded on my brain. “Occupation—assassin?” I peeked up from my notes.
The brow rose again. “Trucker.”
“Trucker? Then why did those vampires—”
“Not vampires.” He took a deliberate, dangerous step toward me.
I fell back, instinct older than thumbs pushing me to spin and skedaddle.
Elena wouldn’t run. Even from vampires. My hero, Detective Elena O’Rourke Strongwell, was the reason I was a cop, saving me from bullies when I was six. I’d been her fangirl ever since, complete with <3 and squee. She wouldn’t run from a scary-strong guy so by golly, though I might fill my clunky cop shoes with the contents of my bladder, neither would I. “Bloodsuckers. Big-assed fangs. What would you call them?”
Blackthorne’s lips compressed, annoyance flashing across his face. “Not vampires.” His voice darkened even more, echoing in my skull.
While I stood there, head buzzing, he turned away, leaving again.
I shook myself. “Fangs,” I repeated. “Sucking necks. Don’t know what else that could be but vampires.”
He spun back, his eyes narrowed black knives cutting into my brain. “Say that again?” It wasn’t a question; it was a dare.
Trembling in my heavy uniform, I pointed at Skullface. “Fangs. Sucking.” I glanced where I pointed.
The headless body had moved.
I frowned. The base of the head now lined up with the spine. The head shuddered. My frown deepened. The head started sliding toward the body. A wet sucking sound was followed by a pop! and the head snapped into place.
Skullface sat up, his neck still actively fusing.
All the hair on my body shrieked and tried to stampede off my skin. I gasped, “Supern-n-natural healing.”
“What?” Blackthorne cut an irritated glance at Skullface. “Oh.” With a thwip, his sword-knife appeared from nowhere. Shoop, shoop and he casually lopped off Skullface’s head again. The head rolled away with a little whop-whop of nose striking concrete as blood leaked out the neck.
I spun and dry-heaved into the wall. The notepaper crinkled in my fist.
Long fingers clasped my shoulder. Reassuring. Warm. My stomach settled.
“Sorry.” Blackthorne’s rich voice caressed my ear. The heat of his breath sent little shivers of pleasure along my skin. It smelled like espresso, dark and exciting. “I’d have spared you that if I could, Officer Sun-Hee.”
“Sunny.” For some reason I gave him the name my mother used. I turned my head and looked up into his face. “Or Officer Ruffles, but my family calls me Sunny.”
“Nice to meet you, Sunny.” The barest crinkle of a smile lit his eyes. “For as long as you’ll remember me.”
“What?” I pressed my back into the brick. “No. I need your statement—”
“You
remember a mugging. You have arrested the muggers. You will take them and go away.”
He turned and strode from the causeway.
Damn it, he was leaving again.
The sane thing to do at that point would’ve been to wake Jonesy for an assist. Or radio again for backup. Or find my gun. Or even run hollering the other way. Anything but what I did—which was pursue the suspect. What can I say? My hero Elena would have pursued him. Although with her long legs, she’d have cut a determined stride. Me, I more scurried—there’s no height or weight requirement to be an RVPD cop but I had to pass rigorous physical tests which would have been easier with another six inches of muscle.
For the record, I followed him because he was acting suspiciously. And because he was a witness. And because of the strange fact that three vampire or vampire-like assailants had not only known him, they’d called him an assassin.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the stubble on his sharp jaw or the strength in his muscular shoulders or the fact that his thin lips were as sexy as hell. I certainly did not follow him because I wanted to jump his bones. At least, not for the record.
But with his longer legs he outdistanced me in a moment. He was getting away so I called after him. “Blackthorne! If you’re a trucker, what are you doing here? There’s a vehicle size limit inside the city.”
He spun, both eyebrows raised. I’d surprised him; I got the distinct feeling that didn’t happen often. He recovered almost instantly, nodding down the block at the redbrick face of the library. “I drove my pup here to return a book.” He must have seen my confusion because he added, “A pup is a city-size delivery vehicle.”
Which wasn’t parked in front of the library. “Where is it?”
“There.” He pointed the other way, up the street, past our double-parked patrol car. A small moving van was in the next block, DAWN TRUCK LINES emblazoned on the side.
“I would have pegged you for more of an eighteen-wheeler sort of guy.”
His lips curved like a big bad Mona Lisa. I nearly dropped dead from a heart attack. He said, “Big rigs move cartage between depots. Tonight I’m handling final destinations.”
The way he said it had me picturing him handling my final destination. Damn it.
“So if that’s all…?” He stood across from me with that stunning ease, seemingly patiently explaining. But a lifetime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time zeroed me in on the nuances. His flared nostrils, his eyes flickering toward the library said he was impatient to get going.
Eager to return a book to a closed library? Not to mention, where under that skimpy tee or skin-hugging jeans was he hiding the book?
He was lying. That made me more determined to dig. It certainly had nothing to do with my skin itching for his hands. “That’s not all. You drive for Dawn? Why does that sound familiar?”
“Unless you’re from Meiers Corners, I have no idea.” He cut an actual glance at the library’s clock tower, a blatant giveaway for such a self-contained man. Immediately his jaw clenched, as if he realized he’d revealed himself. He had the kind of starkly honed jaw that made the jumping muscle the sexiest thing I’d seen. I wanted to lick it.
Then his words seeped through my hormone-hazed head. “Meiers Corners is my hometown.” And now I remembered reading the announcement in our local papers. About six months ago, our little German-settled community had gotten Dawn as its second truck line, bringing in a couple dozen new jobs. I wished one of them had been with the MCPD, where my hero Elena was lead detective. I wanted to work for her in the worst way.
Almost as much as I wanted to lick that jumping muscle in his cheek.
“Mystery solved. So I’ll head out—”
“You will not. Stop trying to run off. There’s a helluva lot more I have to ask you.” Whatever the reason—besides wanting to plaster myself to his ripped abs—he was not slipping away. “Starting with how you cut off those vampire heads in one stroke. Thick muscle around a bone pole? It would take a couple hacks at least.”
“Do you have a concussion?” He caught my face in his artistic hands and gazed into my eyes, his own narrowed in concern. “Your pupils are normal. Still, you should go to the hospital. Immediately.”
The warmth of his skin made me giddy. “I don’t need to—”
“Better safe, etcetera.” He hooked my elbow and hauled me in the direction of the police cruiser.
I tripped along at his side. “But your statement—”
“After my deliveries. I’ll come to the station. First thing in the morning.” He released me. We were at the car. The toes of his soft shoes were already turning subtly toward the library.
Damn, I wished I had my gun. Or more cuffs. I’d cuff him and then slam him into the side of the car and lean into him and question him…I wiped my now-sweating hands against my wool trousers. “Why the hell are you in such a hurry? Are you illegally parked?”
“I’m in no hurry.” Yet he took a half-step away, another sign of flight. Police officers are taught body language but my sensitivity was honed long ago by incidents like accidentally knocking into my almost-fiancé as he knelt to propose. Hey, I tried to catch him. Yes, maybe I unintentionally stepped on the trailing end of his shoelace and he tripped and fell, but was it my fault we were on the embankment of a raging river and gravity took over and he rolled in and swept toward a waterfall? I managed to save him by bending a young tree into the river with almost superhuman strength. He grabbed it and I cheered—and released the tree which kerwanged and dragged him bodily onto the rocky bank. I bent over him to express my relief and concern but he flinched, stammered something as he stumbled to his feet, cut and ran.
So Ruffles.
Far better to be a cop than a fiancée—cops have guns. Although, while the threat of a gun was enough for criminals to respect most cops, that hadn’t worked with me and the muggers, and it certainly hadn’t worked with the vampires, so why did I think it would work with this shadow man assassin?
I unleashed the only weapon I had handy—my mouth. “You’re not telling me something, Blackthorne. I mean, there’s something that you’re not telling me, not that you’re not saying anything because there’s nothing to say. Because there’s definitely something to say, only you’re not saying it. I mean…”
He stood staring at me. Well, yay. Apparently I could Rufflesize him into a coma. I cleared my throat and widened my stance and thought tough cop thoughts. “What aren’t you telling me? Exactly how do you know Mace and his vampires—?”
“You didn’t see vampires.”
Already irritated with myself, that echoey voice rubbed me into sharp annoyance. I stomped into his personal space, slapped fists to my hips and glared up at him. “Do not tell me what I did or did not see.”
“Not vampires—”
“Shut. Up.”
He reared back with a frown. “You can’t tell me to shut up.”
“Who’s the cop here?” I scowled up.
He scowled down. “Who’s the midget here?”
“Why you…” I grabbed his ears to bring his head to my level and stun him speechless with my cop glare, a cross between Medusa and an ocular fist that I’d seen Elena do and practiced daily in the mirror until I knocked myself out with it.
But somehow when his face got within reach of my mouth I leaned up and he leaned down—and we fused lips. My tongue pried and he opened, and I was plunging as deep as I could get into hot male heaven. He tasted of espresso edged with cinnamon and danger; his scent enveloping me was just as spicy.
He groaned. His arms came around me, pulling me flush to him. I clutched his biceps, warm satin-covered rocks, and moaned into his mouth. As if it was a cue he crushed me to him, his embrace hot as a woodburner and his torso as hard as his biceps. Even through the thick wool of my cop carapace I felt every ridge of him.
I twined arms around
his neck and pressed into him in return. I was shivery hot and melding with him instinctively, writhing and rubbing against him with primal need.
My undulating must have been another signal, because he began to take the lead. His tongue thrust powerfully into my mouth. I groaned and a ripple of sheer need ran the length of my body. I opened wider for him; his tongue filled me again and again.
That driving power was how he’d make love. At the thought, my sex drenched.
“Mmm. Your scent drives me wild.” He cupped the back of my head, holding me in position for deeper, more exotic tonguing and biting and licking. I whimpered. His passion was a direct wire from my mouth to my sex—one he lit like a fuse. Every flick of his tongue was a hot lick to my rising clit. Every thrust inside my mouth was a powerful surge into me. Every bite shivered along my skin and every suck was as if he had me on my back with my thighs clenching his head.
He slid a hand between us. It rubbed my uniform jacket against the tips of my breasts. The jacket was new, wool and too small, and I felt it even through shirt and bra. My nipples, already awake, sang out like they were joining the choir eternal.
I gasped, grabbed his ears and tried to tongue his tonsils. My leg lifted, instinctively trying to assume the position. I was small but forceful and usually ended up on top, but he was so tall I couldn’t rub my tortured bits against his unless he helped or I climbed him like a tree. If he would just slip his hands under my derriere and lift…
He had other things in mind. He undid every brass button on my jacket then shoved it aggressively off my shoulders. My arms fell from his neck and the jacket hit the pavement with a whump-clang. I barely cared, because he kept kissing and sucking as he worked at my blouse, flipping open buttons so fast one or two went plink onto the pavement.
The instant the shirt was open, he palmed both breasts through my lacy bra, with a sound like a hungry beast coming home to a hot plentiful dinner. I thrilled. My breasts surged into his hands with nearly the same sound. I dug fingernails into his scalp and rubbed my tits into his palms, his skin so hot, his hands so big and rough and exciting.