Afterward, they flopped back onto the mattress, side by side, out of breath, connected by a strange, new intimacy that she couldn’t define. Neha could safely say this was the closest she’d been to any man in the borough of her birth. All the other sex she’d had in her life had occurred in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
“That’s right…” Joe turned onto his side, brows furrowing as she repeated this thought aloud. “You said you were a Queens girl, didn’t you?”
“Woodside born and bred, baby.” She laughed. “Does that surprise you?” Her parents had moved across the Hudson a few years ago, only after Papa retired from driving city cabs. He was a Lyft driver now, mostly for fun. At seventy-two, he’d had no desire to revisit the civil engineering he’d studied in India. And who could blame him?
“All we’ve got left are surprises,” Joe pointed out, echoing her laugh with a rueful chuckle. “I don’t even know what your favorite color is. You ain’t got a clue that my first concert was the Boss.”
He was right. Between the prison visits, the going on the lam and the marathon sex, they hadn’t left a lot of room for small talk. They’d skipped the getting-to-know-you steps and gone straight to the serious part of a relationship, where counting on each other was a matter of life and death. Like they were in an action movie with a compressed timeline. Two days in their world was like two years.
“Think we passed each other on the 7 train and didn’t know it?” he wondered.
“Probably.” According to her quick mental calculations, Joe would have been in his twenties while she was in high school. Home between deployments. “I bet you manspread across three seats and little teenage me had to stand.”
“Doc, I’d always have a seat for you,” Joe said with an exaggerated leer, gesturing to his crotch.
Neha rolled her eyes at him. She’d had enough of that particular express train for one day, thank you very much. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How New York’s such a giant small town. You cross paths with the same people over and over and don’t even realize it.”
“You ever grab a burger at Donovan’s?” It spoke to Joe’s level of cultural awareness that he followed that up with “I’m sorry, I don’t even know if you eat meat.”
Neha couldn’t help herself. She echoed the same lewd gesture he’d made just seconds before. “Do I eat meat? What do you think?” Both Joe and his, er, meat reacted to the innuendo—the former with a barked laugh and the latter with a hopeful swell. Since she was temporarily vegetarian, at least until she regained her strength, she focused on his actual question. “You bet I’ve been to Donovan’s. It’s a requirement. Most famous burgers in the borough! Nothing beats the food in Queens. Thai, Chinese, Indian…but my friends and I mostly hung out at a pub on Skillman. Killer happy-hour martinis.”
It was kind of absurd to be lying here talking about neighborhood hangouts. This wasn’t normal. They weren’t on a first date. Somewhere outside were a ton of people who wanted them dead. And in here…in here, Joe wasn’t just a guy she could’ve run into at her local. He was a military operative, a genetically altered shape-shifter who’d absolutely killed more than just the six men she knew about.
And as if Joe realized it, too, he went quiet. “I still don’t get it,” he said after a while. “Why you’re taking up for me. Why you’re here. Why you even looked at me in the first place.”
“Why do you need an explanation? We’re both here. Mostly because someone took a shot at you. And you started this thing between us,” she reminded. “I don’t generally pick up men in lockup.”
A tinge of red flushed his cheeks. “I don’t usually pick up women in lockup,” he assured her. “I know better than that. If there’s one thing I learned from my nonna, it’s how to mind women, how to treat them nice. Thanks to all the shit I got for running with the boys as a kid, I basically went the other way and only hung around girls until I left for boot camp.”
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Joe Peluso became the ‘Pussy-Eating Champion of Aviation High.’” She cracked up. She couldn’t fault his skills. He’d certainly picked the right vocation in vocational school.
Joe reached across the few inches between them and threaded his fingers through hers. “I’ll be any kind of champion you need,” he whispered. “I got you into this. I’ll be damned if I don’t get you out.”
Huddled in the dark, cocooned away from the rest of the world, Neha could almost believe him.
Chapter 16
Two days ago, he’d been in the midst of a courthouse shooting. Now, today, Nate was fairly certain he was party to some elaborate spy game. What were the odds? To his credit, it didn’t take long for him to realize he was being played. He couldn’t say he minded. It was an impressive attempt. The man was stunning, like an actor or a model. Dark hair. Blue eyes. A pouty mouth that looked like it told dirty lies and fulfilled even filthier wishes. He was dressed head to toe in basic New Yorker black but somehow managed to make it look like a designer original from Planet Fuck Me. The whole presentation was masterful, but Nate couldn’t quite figure out the man’s angle. He wasn’t media. Reporters were obvious in a different way. Predictable. People with a professional grudge… Well, they tended to be outright hostile. And while Nate was definitely being cruised, he was fairly sure that sex wasn’t the priority. A priority—one he was receptive to—but not the main event.
“So.” He took another sip from his G&T. “What is it that you want from me, Mr.…?”
“I didn’t say.” The man was Irish, and the lilt in just three little words of deflection were charming as hell. He would be absurdly hard to crack on the witness stand. And, Nate imagined, a total firecracker in bed.
Too bad he didn’t have time for this dance. Not with his most high-profile client still AWOL with his favorite associate, and a dozen state and federal agencies breathing down his neck. There was so much shit on the fan that the other partners at the firm wanted to nuke the house said fan was in and move on. But Nate Feinberg didn’t abandon people. That was not how he worked. Not how he lived. Neha was going to need him, and Joe Peluso still deserved a defense.
That had to be it. This meet-cute at the corner of the bar was about them. Stranger things had happened than being shaken down by a mob henchman in the middle of a trendy Fort Greene wine bar. Hell, this was an average Tuesday in his world. “Whose payroll are you on?” he demanded. “The Russians? Ukrainians?”
The stranger laughed. Nate had been on the hookup scene for more years than he cared to count and didn’t consider himself easy prey, but his boxer briefs felt distinctly singed by the sex of that sound. “I’ve been in bed with a few Russians in my time, but no. Not at the moment,” the man assured him. He hadn’t even touched the fancy cocktail the mixologist had placed before him ten minutes ago. “Let’s just say I represent certain interested parties. And we’ve no issue with your client.”
That was a new one. Even Nate had issues with his client. And he suddenly wished Dustin were there instead of nailing down the brass tacks on a bitter WASP divorce. It was amazing how much he missed his better half when they were working on separate projects. His better half. His wingman. His Wonder Twin. Though the legal community had far less complimentary terms. Ebony and Ivory. Black & White Cookie—sometimes just “Cookie” hissed across the aisle of a courtroom. There were worse things they got called, of course. Dustin took the obvious hits. For Nate, it took them a minute, but then they were ready with the slurs. Racism and anti-Semitism all shaken up in one disgusting cocktail of hate. It paired poorly with the apples and honey he’d had for Rosh Hashanah last month.
People also thought Nate was the brains and Dustin the brawn, but they were wrong. D was the tactician, carefully measuring every option and plotting out every strategy. Nate was the performer, the showman, and he did all the talking. The carnival barker prepping everyone for the show. He employed that skill now, toying with the swizzle
stick in his drink and then pointing it like a conductor’s baton. “If you have no issues, why are you here? I know I’m something of a local celebrity, but you must need something besides my admittedly wonderful company.”
His new friend nodded before grinning in a way that needed to be illegal in all fifty states and U.S. territories. “Your company’s the bonus,” he practically purred. “But, yes, my associates and I simply want a bit of information. Have you heard from that wandering friend of yours? How’s her vacation going?”
Danger, Will Robinson. It was in that moment that several things fell into place. The play. The players. The untouched drink. Vampire. It would explain the off-the-charts charisma. And the lack of issues with Peluso’s actions. Nate settled back in his barstool, infinitely glad it provided back support, and gestured to the bearded barkeep for another gin and tonic. If he was dealing with a supernatural, he was going to need more fortification. “Who says she’s sending me postcards?”
His caginess won him points. “You don’t trust me yet. Good.” Blue eyes darker than his own twinkled. “I was prepared to be underwhelmed, but what they say about you is true. You’re good-looking and smart.” The compliments were nice, but Nate still wasn’t giving up any details on Neha’s whereabouts…not that he had any as of yet. So, he just bided his time, waiting for his new drink and any incentive to keep engaging. It came in the form of a conspiratorial whisper. “How about a little round of ‘I’ll show you mine and you show me yours,’ then?”
Nate knew better than to look down as the vampire rifled through a pocket. Moments later, a small white business card slid across the wood grain of the bar. Finian Conlan declared the tight black script. Third Shift Security. There was a stylized 3S in the upper-right corner and a 718 phone number across the bottom. Local. If Conlan was a PI, Nate would eat his nonexistent hat. And that name was probably an alias. But he pocketed the card anyway just in case.
Conlan took that as a good sign. His smile was radiant. Lethal. “You can ring that number any time,” he assured Nate. “With any little bit of intel that strikes your fancy.”
It was a very, very good thing that Nate had no bits of intel to deliver. Because at that particular moment, he was certain he’d willingly tell Finian everything he knew.
“Is this”—he waved his hand in a wide circle to indicate everything Conlan had going on—“a supernatural thing, or just you?”
If the smile had been radiant, the laugh that followed it was positively incandescent. “A little from Column A, a little from Column B, I’d wager.”
Nate had no plans to wager anything. But he couldn’t help but feel like he—and Dustin and Neha—still had everything to lose.
* * *
The back of the club is dark. Then again, so is the front. Nobody here gives a shit about ambiance. And he’s glad. It lets him move through like a ghost, listening to the soft chatter, the deals being made and the threats, too. He’s just another guy in black. Just another guy with the bulge of a piece under his jacket. Seen one, seen ’em all. They’re so fucking blasé about all the bullies and beasts passing through that he stashed his sniper rifle out by the dumpsters with no problem whatsoever. He can’t wrap his head around that kind of arrogance. He wraps his hand around his gun instead. Easing up on the back room, folding into the thick velvet curtain and peering out through a gap so he can assess the situation.
His Russian’s not great. Slovak’s even worse. But he can make out snippets, voices. Something about an important shipment. Enough to know they’re distracted and won’t know what hit ’em when he bursts out of the curtains. He has his piece out and trained before anyone clustered around the six-top can reach for their own weapons…but they do start to shift. Fuck. Who needs guns when you have teeth, right? Big bear motherfuckers, instinctively hulking out in their dinner jackets and coming for him in a blink. So he squeezes off four head shots in quick precision. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Four guys down just like that. He vaults across the table just as one goon rushes in from the front and starts to return fire, hitting the floor on the other side on a roll. The inhibitor chip may be doing its thing, but his reflexes ain’t suffered a bit. His speed’s optimal, too.
Fuckers don’t even care about cover on the back door. It’s clear for egress. For him to hightail it through and into the back parking lot. With a few seconds to himself, he pulls his serrated KA-BAR from its ankle sheath. Damn fine auxiliary weapon. Not so long ago, his auxiliaries would’ve been his teeth. His claws. He doesn’t even need ’em with these assholes.
Fucking amateurs. No wonder Kenny and those girls died. Fury and disgust and adrenaline propel him toward the short fire escape up to the roof. From there, it’s a fifteen-foot jump to the next building. He can make it with no problem and get the fuck out of here the same way he came in.
But then two more targets spill out from the club into the lot. Their guns are drawn. They’re shouting. One sprouting feathers, the other conjuring some sort of energy ball. They’re not going to let him go so easy.
Fuckers, he thinks again, before he springs into action.
Joe bolted upright still tasting the kickback. Still seeing the blood spatter from the bird shifter’s slit throat. Shit. It’d been a while since he’d dreamed about that night—not since Neha had provided a whole new reel for his eyelids—but it hadn’t quite gone away. It would never really go away. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it…or to claim he didn’t regret it. And, fuck, he wasn’t going to think about that. He wasn’t. Because if those deaths weren’t justified, then what right did he have to even be here, lying next to Neha, breathing in the sweet clean smell of her skin instead of gun oil and blood?
Hell. He had no right to be here at all. Especially when every second he stayed was putting her in more danger. He couldn’t afford to keep dragging this out, to trust that lying low and waiting were going to take the heat off him. Maybe…just maybe…he needed to put the heat on and turn it up all the way. And there were a few things he had to do to make that trash fire happen.
Neha was still asleep—fucked into oblivion—when he slipped from the bed and grabbed a burner phone from her go bag. It took him three tries to key in the right number from memory, and he watched her the whole time. A mound under the sheets. Only her mass of dark hair visible. She was curled up tight. So vulnerable and small. The total opposite of the take-no-shit Amazon she was when she was awake. It made him hurt inside, and he rubbed the hollow spot beneath his sternum as the line connected and started to ring.
It was amazing that the number was even in service after all this time. The male voice on the other end didn’t bother with a greeting or an ID. Just a “Yes?” Good thing Joe hadn’t expected pleasantries. Hell, he hadn’t expected much at all. He could still hear Drake, though. So confident as he passed him the slip of paper with the usual warning to memorize the intel and then flush it or eat it. “You ever get into a jam or need an off-book gig, these are your guys. Mostly supes. Like us. They’ll unfuck shit. No questions asked.”
“I hear you help unfuck things” was all he said to the mystery supe’s single, terse word.
“We offer many services. Unfucking falls under the very large umbrella.” The guy’s tone didn’t change, but Joe could tell he wanted to laugh. It was weirdly reassuring. He had a pulse. He was more than a random voice in the void.
They barely exchanged ten sentences after that, but they were significant ones. The bare bones of the situation. A pickup spot. Another phone number. When Joe was done, he deleted the call from the log and put the phone back where he found it. Instinct, he told himself. Not a deliberate decision to keep Neha out of the loop for now.
But if it was deliberate, so what? This gorgeous woman had put herself in enough danger for him already. Didn’t he owe it to her to keep her safe and shielded from whatever he could? Fuck. He was such a fucking piece of trash. He didn’t deserve to slide back into bed with h
er, didn’t deserve to pull her back against his chest, but he did it anyway. Because he’d already accepted that he was just that selfish.
He’d always looked after his own needs first. As a kid, with his nonna, it was a matter of survival. But after that…? Maybe if he’d been any kind of a good man, Kenny would’ve followed in his footsteps and enlisted instead of tending bar at some shitty mob-backed dive a whole-ass borough away from where they grew up. This was all on him. Every last bit of it. Every drop of blood spilled. Every tear Neha would stubbornly blink back after he was dead and gone. Joe had done this. Maybe the people on the other end of the call could fix it. Maybe they couldn’t. But they were insurance. For her. To get his girl out of this alive.
His girl. Now that was a real joke. Like he was writing home to a sweetheart while deployed. Except he never had written to Mishelle, had he? She’d broken it off when he was in Kandahar and married some Irish kid who could give her more than fast hard fucks while on leave. Neha would find someone like that, too. She’d put this whole mess behind her, go back to her nice little family and her Sikh temple and her battles for the underdog.
It was a nice story. Neat. A happy ending. Joe hated it. And he muffled a groan against her hair. There was no part of him that wanted to give her up. Especially not his dick, which was hard as steel against the curve of her ass.
“Joe…?” She drowsily nestled into him, into his cock. “Is everything okay…?”
“Shhh…it’s fine, babe,” he said. “It’s all okay for now.”
“That’s not what your penis is telling me.” Her laugh was a more woken-up one. And the way her hips moved was its own message.
“My penis needs to shut up,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of her neck. “’Cause we could both use the rest.”
She was always so hot for him. So in tune with him. Like some higher being had made them perfect for each other. But even just holding her like this, splaying his palm across her belly as he played big spoon to her little one…it was more than he ever thought he could have. It was the closest he’d ever felt to a religion, to any god. It didn’t make sense to be falling for her so hard and so fast, but he couldn’t stop. Like he was destined to from the minute they met.
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