by Sonya Clark
Underneath that grin, she could see a real fear that she would reject him. He wanted her, badly, but he didn’t know how to verbalize it, or maybe he wasn’t comfortable putting it into words, so he tried to joke and tease instead. Calla knew a little something about what that was like, having plenty of experience of her own at hiding her feelings. Goddess knew she’d been doing enough of that her entire life, for one reason or another. Hiding her feelings, hiding her heart, hiding her magic. Letting go, falling into a place of abandon and freedom, those were luxuries she’d never had. She couldn’t have them with Nate, either, not for long. But maybe just for a little while she could pretend this was hers to keep and let herself fall.
She stroked his face. “Yes, I would.”
He stood and carried her with him to the bed.
* * *
Heart beating wildly, Nate tossed Calla onto her bed. She looked up at him with an expression of pure desire. Her smile held the same blinding joy that had drawn his attention the first time he saw her. Between that and his own desire, his blood felt close to boiling. He shrugged out of his jacket and tie, leaving them in a pile on the floor.
She stripped down to a tank top, adding her blouse to the pile. “Sure you’re up for this, Officer? You’ve been doing an awful lot of bragging.” She came up to her knees. “Be a real shame if you can’t live up to what you’ve been promising.”
The teasing challenge in her tone poked at his control. She liked to push, he knew that from dancing with her. Hell, from just talking to her. Could she take a little pushing back? He grabbed her hands and pulled her to his chest. “That’s Detective to you, mouthy little brat.” He kissed her hard, wanting to leave her breathless, panting, as needy as he felt.
Wiggling out of his arms, she left the bed, her face flushed. “Oh, you think you’re going to play the badass cop with me, huh? Don’t forget I’m a witch, Detective. No telling what I might have hidden on me.” Lips curved in blatant invitation, she backed up against the wall.
Every dirty fantasy that had kept him awake at night since meeting her flashed through his brain. “Guess I’ll have to check and find out.” Placing his hands on her hips, he turned her around none too gently. “Hands against the wall, Miss Vesper.”
She complied with a laugh. For a single stupid second he considered sticking to training, and then the thought disintegrated as she rubbed her ass against the cradle of his hips. He molded his body to hers, one hand in her hair as he reached the other around to her waistband. It took a little work, but he got the buttons undone, and then she wiggled out of her pants, letting them drop to the floor. Over her shoulder she gave him a look that went straight to his cock.
Nate tugged on her hair to pull her head to one side, inexplicably happy it was still in its natural blond shade and not glamoured. He kissed a line from the bottom of her hair to the top of her tank, then bit his way back up. Groaning, she leaned her forehead against the wall. He placed his hands over hers and dragged them slowly down her arms, letting his fingertips skate lightly over her skin. She pressed herself into him again, rubbing up and down against his straining erection.
Swearing, he leaned his head against the back of her neck, fighting for control. She took one hand off the wall and reached for him over her shoulder, fingers biting into his scalp. He found the hem of her tank and pulled it up roughly, tangling it in her arms for a moment as he took it off. He covered her breasts with his hands, the hard nipples sending little shocks to his nervous system. He wanted to taste them, but he wasn’t done with her back yet.
Starting at her nape, he kissed a slow deliberate line down her spine, hands moving from her breasts to her hips. His cock twitched at the little whimpering noises she made. Reaching the waistband of her panties, he took it in his teeth and gave them a hard jerk downward. She cried out, laughing a bit as they worked to add her underwear to the scattered clothes on the floor. He kissed the base of her spine, then licked a return path upward. Calla shuddered, a deep, guttural sound issuing from her throat.
“Nate, please,” she whispered.
His name falling from her lips in that moment nearly broke him. Knees bent to make up for the height difference, he pushed her closer to the wall with his body. Not too close though. He left room for his hand to snake around her hip, hesitating a moment when he found the soft curls covering her mons. She raised up on her toes, giving him all the permission he needed.
Her breath turned ragged as he explored the slick folds of her flesh. He sought out the sensitive places, teasing her clit as he alternated between kisses and bites on her neck. He slid one finger inside her warmth, eliciting a moan that made him smile. Keeping a lock on his own need, he concentrated on her, on every sound she made, every shiver of her body in his arms. Stroking her clit with his thumb, he worked a second finger into her silky, wet heat, then slid both in and out in a torturous rhythm.
Calla wasn’t shy in her response. Crying out in a matching rhythm, she threw her head back to his shoulder, one hand slapping the wall. “Feels so good,” she said. “But I need more than that.”
That was all his control could handle. He let her go, getting out of his shirt as fast as he could. She turned to face him, hands going for his fly. Once she had him unzipped, she dipped inside his pants and boxers, wrapping her hand around his throbbing cock. “That’s what I need.” She smiled as she stroked him up and down, twisting her hand on the down stroke and pushing the cloth out of her way.
Nate tried to form a response but for some reason the language center of his brain shorted out. Instinct had him reaching for the condom he’d hopefully stashed in his pocket before leaving home. Tearing the wrapper, he let her take it from him and slide it on. He picked her up, bringing her legs around his waist and keeping one hand under her bottom to support her. She pulled him into an open-mouthed kiss, the feel of her tongue against his exploding light behind his eyes and feeding his urgency.
He found her entrance, pausing for just a moment to savor the look in her eyes. A moment was all he could stand before the need to thrust into her became too great. The joining made them both cry out. He stilled, fighting for control again, not wanting this to end too soon. Withdrawing to the tip, he thrust again until her body sheathed him completely. The slow, sweet friction left them both gasping over and over, until he couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel. Her cries grew progressively louder, wilder. Her flesh gripped his tighter. The sensation of the first shimmers of her orgasm filled him with a white-hot, blinding need. Finally giving up control, he tipped over the edge into a long fall down as she screamed her own release.
Somehow he made it to the bed rather than collapsing on the floor. She trembled in his arms from aftershocks.
Closing his eyes, he held her close and refused to think about tomorrow.
Chapter Nineteen
Sinsuality during the day was just an echo of its nighttime glory, and a pale one at that. Calla’s footsteps rang on the metal gangplank as she made her way to Vadim’s office. Pausing in front of the door to yawn, she ran her hands over her hair to recast the purple and fuchsia glamour. She went over what she wanted to tell Vadim, as well as what he didn’t need to know. Last night was hers—hers and Nate’s. As far as she was concerned, once she found out what Vadim needed to know, then she and Nate were only for each other.
Exactly what they were to each other, she had no idea. She tried to clear her thoughts of him and focus on what she’d come to do. She knocked and waited for Vadim to answer before entering the office.
He stood at a side table currently covered with the components of a miniature still. Well, his version of a still anyway. A pot of pale green liquid simmered on a hot plate. Next to that was a handblown glass beaker with incense in the bottom and a thin tube curving out of the top to deliver the smoke right into the pot. He must have been done chanting or he wouldn’t have let her in
the office. That was a shame; she rarely got to see him access that part of himself anymore. He was far more businessman these days than witch. Businessman and outlaw.
“You know that stuff’s gonna rot your brain,” she said. “Or make you go crazy.”
Vadim grinned. “There’s a difference?”
She dipped her finger in the pot for a taste. “Not sweet enough. How are things in the tunnels?”
He sorted through a handful of small brown bottles, reading the labels until he found the one he wanted. “People are antsy as fuck and ready to move on. Tell me you’ve got some news that’ll make that possible.”
She smiled. “Yep. The police lab tech who ran the first test got put in time-out for screwing it up. DMS ran it again and that’s how they came up with Santo’s DNA.”
“They think it was a mistake? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“They don’t want it getting out because they’re afraid it’ll make the department look bad.”
Vadim sat on the edge of the table, tapping the bottle against his knee. “You trust him on this?”
She’d anticipated the question and given it a lot of thought this morning. “Yeah, I do. When I first met him I thought it was weird Beckwith was sending one guy to investigate his so-called friend’s murder instead of a task force. Still do. But I don’t think Nate was chosen because he’d cover up anything that needed to be covered up. I think he was chosen in case they needed a fall guy. If you’re gonna put a noose around somebody’s neck, you don’t give them a commendation first, do you?”
“So you and Nate think this is over? The Forbes case is closed, the first DNA test chalked up to a mistake, that’s the end of it?”
Ignoring the little twist he put on Nate’s name, Calla nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t think they gave him time to get to the whole truth. I don’t think Beckwith wants to know the whole truth, whatever it is. Case closed, Forbes gets eulogized as a great citizen, the end.”
“What do nightshade and Nelson Santo have to do with it? Because I don’t buy that kid as a killer.”
That was the part she didn’t like. “I have no idea. And I don’t buy it either but there’s no fighting that DNA, you know that.”
Vadim opened the bottle and poured a teaspoon’s worth of the contents into the pot. He made a swirling motion over the liquid with his forefinger. It immediately set about mixing itself. “So case closed then. Nate gets his commendation, which means apparently the senator got whatever he wanted out of the investigation. They’re not looking for unregistereds, which means we’re safe to keep moving people through the way station. And all those people are safe too. The only person not sitting pretty is Nelson Santo, who will shortly be sitting on death row.” Vadim looked at Calla. “Does that about sum it up?”
She’d come to the same conclusion, and had added a shot of whiskey to her morning coffee to dispel the bad taste of it. “Two plus two equals suckage. But what do we do about it? No one in FreakTown, not even you, has the clout to get the investigation reopened. Even if we could, it might mean blowing the railway wide open. We can’t do that.”
“I know that,” he said, tasting the spiked absinthe. “I just wanted to make sure you did.”
“What, you afraid I might do something stupid?”
He laughed. “You’re already doing something stupid. I’d just prefer you keep it to one stupid thing at the time.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t appreciate that remark.”
“I like your Nate, for what he is. I just don’t want you forgetting what he is.”
“I won’t forget he’s a cop.”
“Don’t forget he’s a Normal. Have fun with him—I don’t care. No one important will care, and even if they do, so what? But don’t delude yourself, kiddo. A good time, a downward spiral and a weekend drowning yourself in this shit to get over him is all it’ll ever be.” He pointed at the potent booze.
“So,” she grinned. “You’re saying it’ll be just like my last relationship?”
“Goddess, I hope not. Dev was an asshole. I was so relieved when I realized you didn’t love him. You just loved the idea of being with him. But you’re going to have to be careful with Perez. Don’t let him get any further under your skin than he already is.”
“What makes you think he’s under my skin? Since you’re playing relationship counselor now, I’d be interested to hear your take.”
“Being a smartass so becomes you. Is that what first made him smitten?”
She dropped her arms and tapped the fingers of one hand on the table. “As a matter of fact, it may be.”
Grinning, he raised the bottle and wagged it. “You were right. It needed just a smidge more.”
Calla moved toward the door. “I gotta get going. I’m setting up in the bazaar this afternoon.”
“And where will you be tonight?”
She let her middle finger answer as she went out the door.
Truthfully she didn’t know. Before he’d left sometime after midnight, she and Nate had made plans to meet at the bazaar at the end of the day, but other than that neither had said much. She didn’t think he wanted the night before to be a onetime thing, but who the hell knew when it came to Normals. She certainly didn’t.
Until then she had a full day ahead of her, consisting of readying trays for the day’s sales, starting work on a few glamour charms meant for more lucrative black market business, laundry, and keeping the young, scared face of Nelson Santo out of her thoughts.
* * *
Nate left the precinct as soon as he could and took the train to the bazaar after a stop at the bank for cash. It felt strange in his pocket, like carrying around an unfamiliar antique, but he needed to get in the habit of having it if he was going to be in places like the bazaar and Sinsuality. Leaning against a pole in the middle of the aisle, he adjusted his tie compulsively as the subway crawled along. Images of Calla flickered through his mind like the sunlight that flashed through the windows as the car traveled under a series of overpasses. Calla smiling in that first moment he saw her, then later defiant, unafraid of him or his badge. Her body moving with his as they danced, moving with his as they made love. The sounds she made, her eyes half closed, the feel of her tongue on his. Her flesh surrounding his.
He jammed the heel of his hand into one eyebrow as if he could force the images out and stop his body from reacting. The best thing that could have come from last night was getting her out of his system. Instead the taste of her had entered his blood, and whether it was a disease or a cure he wasn’t sure.
Whichever it was, he wanted more.
The smothering late afternoon heat did nothing to distract him as he entered the bazaar. Neither did the cries of vendors, the conversation of shoppers, the vivid colors and scents. Blue-gray eyes and a bold smile were the only things that interested him.
He found her at the same table as last time, her usual spot. She was busy with shoppers: a woman and her young daughter. There was a rare openness to her as she spoke to the child, laughing and nodding as the little girl tried on bracelets and held earrings up to her ears to examine in a mirror. Nate hung back, not wanting to intrude. He didn’t want to cost her a sale and he liked watching her this way, seeing another side of her.
“You have a pretty lady you’d like to buy a pretty scarf for?”
He sought out the voice and found a small older woman on his left behind a table laden with colorful scarves. “Um, yeah, I do have a pretty lady. These silk?”
The woman shrugged, a half grin on her creased face. “Close enough to it. Go on.” She waved a hand over the merchandise. “See how soft.”
Nate ran a hand over them, glancing quickly down the row to check on Calla. She was still with the mother and daughter. He turned his attention back to the scarves. They were soft, thin and d
elicate. Useless for keeping warm, but beautiful and purely decorative. One in particular caught his eye—a blend of lilac and lavender and eggplant and every shade that could claim a relation to purple. It brought the vibrant glamour of Calla’s hair to his mind. His fingers lingered, brushing the material softly.
The vendor noticed. “You think your pretty lady would like that one?”
“I think I’d like to find out.”
They haggled for a moment before settling on a cash price. Cash meant Magic Born. He hadn’t been sure until then; the bazaar was a mix. For a little extra the vendor included a small gift bag almost as lovely as the scarves. As he paid the woman, he noticed the mother and daughter walking back up the row, the daughter holding up her arm to show off her new bracelet as if the mother hadn’t been standing right there when she picked it out. Nate thanked the vendor and stepped back into the stream of pedestrians.
Calla was packing up her wares when he approached. Her smile was so uncharacteristically tentative that he wondered if she was as nervous as he was. In such a public setting he didn’t know whether to keep his distance or if kissing her would be okay. He settled for a momentary touch of her bare forearm before greeting her.
“Hello,” she said, only looking up for a moment.
“How was your day?” If he’d taken another three seconds, he might have been able to come up with something lamer.
“Uh, busy. You?”
“I worked a robbery today, a smash and grab at an electronics store. Busy but boring.”
“Catch the bad guys?” She finished packing her bag and swung it over a shoulder.
“Not yet. Hey, are you gonna look at me?” Coming here was starting to feel like a mistake. Calla didn’t want a relationship with a Normal. She’d made that clear more than once. The thought that she might regret last night, that she might not want to see him again, opened up a black hole inside that terrified him.