Slayer's Kiss: Shadow Slayer, Book 1

by Cassi Carver

  “Don’t worry, I get that a lot,” she joked, trying to hide her fierce reaction to him behind a smile.

  His gaze swept slowly from her head to the tips of her boots, lingering on her large breasts and rounded hips. “I’m sure you do.”

  “Come on, I’ll show you up.” Kara turned and gestured for him to follow her into the elevator. Just being in the enclosed space with him made every nerve ending in her body tingle. The night air under her skirt had never felt so sensuous…teasing her, tickling her thighs, suggesting she hike her skirt up even farther and bare herself to this man.

  Damn it, this wasn’t like her.

  Even so, as she stopped at her apartment and unlocked the door, she heard herself asking, “Do you want to come in?” The breathy sigh in her voice offered more than her simple words.

  “Come in?” he echoed. “Would your roommate mind?”

  She could barely pull her eyes away from his groin. “It’s only me. I live alone.” But I don’t want to be alone tonight. “Will you come inside, Gavin?”

  It seemed for a moment as if he stopped breathing, but then his lungs finally expanded again. “Thank you, but no.”

  She wasn’t sure how those four little words of rejection could cut so deep coming from a man she’d met only minutes before, but something about him felt so right. His essence was like golden sunsets and French kisses on the beach. She swallowed hard as her cheeks warmed. “Sure. Just let me grab the keys.”

  She opened the door and reached a hand to the key organizer by the entryway. Only one set was ready and waiting, so it wasn’t hard to find. She would have willed the earth to open up and swallow her whole if not for a quick, final glance at Gavin’s burgeoning interest. His mouth might say no, but his body disagreed.

  Kara swallowed her pride and took one last chance. Curving her mortified lips into a small smile, she dropped the keys in his hand. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  Chapter Two

  There were three things Kara liked best about The Hoolecha Inn. Number one, it was always busy and a bartender could make good tips on a Saturday—even in the measly two-hour shift she was working tonight.

  Number two, it was a block away from her place in the Gaslamp Quarter, which helped when one didn’t have a car.

  And number three, she could wear her sexy boots to work—the ones she didn’t dare wear when she and Abbey went hunting. She didn’t even want to think about what a sharp kick to the head in these pointy-toed high-rises would do to her glittery toenails.

  She put her purse under the bar and glanced over at Dave. At twenty-eight, just two years older than Kara, he still had his football physique and quarterback good looks from college. With his spiky brown hair and exotic eyes, some nights, he got as many phone numbers slipped to him as twenty-dollar bills.

  “Hey, Kara.” He finished wiping down a small spill on the bar and flashed her his sexiest grin. “Thanks for doing this, sugar. I wish you were coming with me to the concert.”

  Kara smiled back. Dave was nice, but she’d never felt more for him than gratitude. “I need the hours. Thanks for calling me to cover for you.”

  “I always think of you first, you know that.”

  A pretty blond server named Celeste approached the bar. “Two pints of Guinness, please.”

  Kara took the towel from Dave and filled two mugs with beer, then pushed them across the bar to Celeste. She glanced briefly at Kara, seemingly disappointed to be losing Dave for the night, and stalked away to deliver the beer. Kara was probably the only one who didn’t have a crush on their best bartender. “Hey, Dave…”

  He grabbed his keys from under the bar and turned to her expectantly. “Yeah?”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “Sure.” His expression went from eager to surprised when Kara stepped up to him and leaned in to his neck, drawing in his masculine essence and sifting through the bar’s bitter odors of spilled whiskey and sweaty bodies. “What’s this, sugar?” His hands came to her hips. “Changing your mind?”

  She backed away, too lost in her own thoughts to care if he considered her a tease or just plain crazy. “Just checking on something. Thanks.”

  Sure, Dave wasn’t built like Gavin, but he was technically every bit as handsome as her new neighbor, and yet his scent did nothing for her. Since when did a man’s smell matter anyway?

  “Should I be concerned with my choice of deodorant—or did I pass the Kara Reed sniff test?”

  She twirled her damp towel in a spiral, eyeing him like a predator. “You passed, QB. Now go and have fun.”

  He laughed and dodged but wasn’t quick enough to avoid the snap of the towel against the back of his jeans. “I have an extra ticket…”

  “I already told you, I need the hours here.”

  “I could give you my full shift tomorrow.” He met her eyes and turned on his high-beam charm. “Come on, Kara. Aaron wouldn’t mind taking your hours tonight. You know you want to.” He waggled his brows.

  “Stop tempting me.” Kara laughed. “Get the hell out of here before I grab that extra ticket and hand it to Celeste. She looks like she wants to gouge my eyes out for stalking her prey.”

  Celeste was a buxom blond who knew exactly how to move her hips for maximum effect. She’d had a crush on Dave since she’d started working there three months before.

  “Celeste? Really?”

  Kara nodded solemnly. “Oh, yeah.”

  Ha. That would divert his attention from Kara for a while. It wasn’t that Dave lacked prospects, but Kara was feeling sisterly solidarity for Celeste. Maybe the good deed would circle back as good karma and a higher percentage of the servers’ tips. Besides, somebody should get lucky tonight, and judging from her humiliating strike-out with her new tenant, it certainly wasn’t going to be Kara.

  Dave shrugged. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t want it, I’d hate to let it go to waste.”

  Kara watched as he approached Celeste, and she couldn’t help but smile when Celeste grinned ear to ear and put her hand on his arm. Kara couldn’t hear what they said in the loud clash of voices, music and mugs, but it looked promising.

  Dave and Celeste weren’t five steps out the door on their way to Petco Park before the skin on Kara’s arms prickled. At first, she wondered if something bad was going to happen to them, like a premonition of things to come, but premonitions had never been her gift. In fact, she was a pathetic witch who had to use her fists when her magic fell short.

  But still, she kept her gaze trained on the door, even while mixing two martinis and a rum and Coke, otherwise she never would have glimpsed Gavin Cross appear on the other side of the glass, head bowed, talking through something serious with a striking man with shiny black hair and a body almost as massive as Gavin’s.

  After a quick handshake, just a fleeting grasp of one wrist to another, Gavin broke away from the other man and came through the door. His gaze arrowed through the crush of bodies and landed squarely on Kara.

  Her mouth went dry. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Her heart throttled from zero to sixty in one glance, hammering as if she’d run a hundred miles through the desert.

  But he was the oasis she’d been waiting for.

  Gavin reached the bar, pulled out a stool and settled himself on the brown vinyl perch.

  “Miss Reed.” He tipped his chin in greeting. His suit jacket was draped across one knee, leaving him in slacks and a white-collared shirt with the first button undone. With the way the fabric stretched around his biceps, he didn’t look like any businessman she’d ever met.

  Her mind raced. Maybe he’d thought through her unspoken offer. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who’d felt the connection. Her body flushed, but not in embarrassment this time—this was simply blood rushing to all her important parts.

  She nodded back and smiled, trying not to look as smug as she felt. “You found me.”

  “I did. It must be nice working so close to home.”

  “Yeah. I
t’s not a bad gig.” She wanted to laugh. It was clear he had something to say, and she already knew what it was going to be. Mutual attraction this strong couldn’t be denied. She wasn’t going to play hard to get just to get even with him. He might deserve it, but that wasn’t her style. She rarely wanted a man, but when she did, she let him know flat-out. “I’m glad you rethought my offer.”

  He clasped his hands on the bar before him. “It’s the key.”

  She put down the bottle in her hand and cocked her head. “What’s the key?”

  “The reason I’m here.”

  “Huh? I’m confused.” Confused and sinking like that rock in the pit of her stomach.

  Gavin looked like he’d swallowed a bug. “The key doesn’t work.”

  The blood drained from Kara’s face. “Oh…you’re not here to see…me.” She was the world’s biggest jackass. Such an ass, in fact, she was surprised she hadn’t brayed the soft, mortified words from between big blocky teeth.

  “Technically, I am here to see you. The key doesn’t fit. I can’t move in my things until you open the door.”

  She turned her back on him under the pretense of getting another bottle of tequila from the low storage cupboard, but she needed a minute to get herself under control. She rummaged around, shifting bottles, until she thought she could speak without her lips quivering.

  “Take this for your trouble.” She handed him a shot of their best tequila. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what could have happened—they’re all numbered. But don’t worry. I have a set of master keys. As soon as I get off, I can let you in.” She swabbed the counter near him with shaking hands.

  “Kara.” He reached out and covered her hand with his. “It’s all right. I waited weeks for that apartment. A couple more hours aren’t going to kill me.”

  She froze, glancing at his hand as a small current ran between them. She desperately wanted to say something cool, flippant even, but she’d never met anyone like Gavin. Having him touch her like this… She couldn’t form words.

  When the silence stretched too long, she pulled away. The other bartender at the far end of the bar was filling twice as many orders as Kara, and if she didn’t step it up, he’d be taking home twice the money. “Don’t you drink?” She pointed to Gavin’s untouched tequila.

  “Sometimes.” He smiled and leaned forward on his stool. “Why, are you trying to get me drunk?”

  Kara snickered, flushing from her cheeks to the roots of her hair. “Is that what it takes to loosen you up?” Just to taunt him, she put another shot next to the first.

  “I can’t afford to be too loose. I’m on call tonight.” He met her eyes and threw back one shot followed by the other.

  Kara took a written order from a server and got to work mixing the drinks. She raised her voice over the sound of ice sloshing against the side of the cocktail shaker. “You’re on call tonight? What do you do?”

  He picked up his shot glass and rolled it in his fingers, watching as one drop trailed around the bottom of the glass. “I have a private security company.”

  “Why do you have to go in tonight?”

  “I can’t discuss my clients,” he said, then he grinned. “You’ll have to give me a lot more tequila if you want to know my secrets.”

  A couple sat in the two remaining stools at Kara’s end of the bar. She took their orders, but her eyes never left Gavin as he rested his chin in his hand. “Hmm. This stuff isn’t cheap.” She slapped a third drink down and cleared away his empty glasses. “Are your secrets worth it?”

  He gulped the third shot and chuckled. “I bet I have stories you’d like to hear, princess. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  She smiled, leaning her elbows on the dark wood surface across from him. “Princess, huh? Are you sure you aren’t feeling those drinks yet, big guy?”

  He reached out and cupped her elbows in his thick hands. “I’m feeling something, but I think it has less to do with the alcohol and more to do with you.” He wasn’t slurring, but the tension had melted from his shoulders and he looked quite content just to stare into her eyes.

  Her pulse beat in all the wrong places. “Is that right?”

  “I didn’t expect you to be so disarming.”

  The sounds of the bar swallowed up her burst of laughter. “You don’t have high expectations of apartment managers in general, or are you talking about me, specifically?”

  “You, specifically, are a beautiful woman, Kara Reed.”

  She rolled her eyes at the irony and shook her head. “Thanks. I’ve been told I get prettier with every shot.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He released her elbows to rub his fingers over his eyes. “I don’t seem to be holding my liquor as well as I used to. Your turn to talk now, princess. How long have you worked here?”

  She snorted at his change in subject and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Not long enough to get regular hours, but I’m working on it. And that’s all you’re getting out of me.”

  “You owe me a secret.” He narrowed his eyes, but they still sparkled in the dim light. “What does it take to make you talk? Name your poison.”

  She bent over to put the grenadine in the fridge, giving him a nice shot of her ass, then turned back to him. “Nothing you can find in a bottle. But I have my weaknesses.” Like tall blonds whose bodies deserve small countries named after them.

  With a groan, Gavin tugged at his collar and unfastened another button. His cheeks were flushed from the tequila. “I need some fresh air.”

  She frowned. “Are you okay, Gavin? If you’re really not used to drinking, I shouldn’t have given you that third shot.” She didn’t figure he’d feel it so fast.

  Burying his face in his hands, he laughed, deep in his belly, then scrubbed his palms across his cheeks. “You’re right. It must be the tequila.” But the way his gaze raked over her body said otherwise.

  He threw a fifty-dollar bill on the counter then rose from the stool, the jacket in the crook of his elbow covering his middle. “I’ll see you when you get off, princess. I may still wring some secrets from you yet.”

  It was hard to get through even a short shift knowing she would see Gavin again soon. She’d simply never felt so instantly attracted to a man as she did to Gavin Cross. It wasn’t just his height or the thick muscles flexing under his suit, it was more than that. She’d even say it was his essence itself, if that didn’t sound so cheesy.

  She walked out of Hoolecha Inn and onto the street, scanning the sidewalks, her gaze flitting past the couples out for a night on the town. She couldn’t miss Gavin leaning against the wall of the boutique across the street with his jacket draped across his shoulder. He lifted a hand in greeting. Kara waved back, then made a quick check for cars and crazy pedi-cabs before crossing the street.

  The boutique was closed, but Gavin was so handsome standing there with his blond hair making a soft halo around his head and his easy smile, he looked as if he belonged in the window with the elegantly dressed mannequins. Kara’s heart squirmed like a worm in a raven’s beak. “Did you wait here the whole time?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Gavin. It’s not much of a first night in the Gaslamp for you.”

  He cocked a brow. “Beautiful weather. Beautiful woman. How can I complain?”

  “Oh great. I see you’re still under the effects of the tequila I shoved down your throat.”

  He laughed softly. “That is the assessment of a completely sober man.”

  “Huh,” she grunted. He melted her. His essence, like morning on the shore when the sun burst over the horizon, filled Kara’s body with an ache she’d never known. Her bones felt disjointed, like maybe she should just lie down and rest on the sidewalk—and pull Gavin down with her. What the hell was wrong with her? “We’d better get going.”

  They walked in silence the short way to the apartment. Kara would never admit how good it felt when he opened the lobby door for her like a gentlema
n.

  “Thanks,” she muttered.

  They passed the offices on the bottom floor that were closed for the night and headed for the elevator. She punched the button and the doors opened. Gavin waited for her to go in first.

  She’d thought riding up with him earlier tonight had been interesting, but when the doors closed this time, they weren’t two seconds in the enclosed space before his masculine energy swamped her senses with an almost tangible weight. Her nipples tightened painfully, and her skin flushed. Gavin’s breathing was shallow, but he didn’t say a word as the elevator door opened onto the tenth floor.

  He followed her to her door, and she knew she had to risk it again. She didn’t want to seem desperate, but that was how he made her feel—desperate to touch him and explore what made him so different. “I’m sure I have a drink in the fridge that won’t make your head spin. It’s the least I can do.”

  He shrugged, as though her entire world didn’t hang on his answer. “You must be exhausted after working all day. Maybe I’ll take a rain check.”

  “Gavin, I won’t be able to sleep tonight if you don’t let me make this up to you.”

  He peered at her from behind his green-flecked irises. “I wouldn’t want to be the cause of your sleepless night.”

  “It’s settled then.” She pushed open the door. He ducked his head as he stepped through her doorway. “How tall are you?” she asked, amused and aroused. There wasn’t a small thing about him.

  He cringed. “Six-seven. I probably don’t have to duck, it’s just a habit in these old buildings.”

  Kara closed the door behind him and flipped on a light. “I would too if I were your height.”

  Her tallest boots only brought her eye-level with Gavin’s lips. She’d always had a sturdy build with full hips, softly rounded thighs and heavy breasts, but she’d discovered once she started showing her body off instead of hiding it under loose-fitting clothing, men didn’t seem to mind that she was no waif. It seemed to foster their inner fantasies of healthy, fertile women, whether they realized they were yielding to their inner caveman or not.