Joy’s hands reached behind her to grip his, digging her nails into his hands as she fought to get enough of his thick cock. It drove her to madness as she teetered on the brink of falling.
Her back bowed, arching, straining to get as much of him into her as she could. Thrashing beneath him, she reveled in the hard chest that pressed into hers as their rhythm increased and Larkin’s harsh gasps for breath crashed in her ears.
Clenching her muscles around his thick shaft, Joy couldn’t hold on anymore. The newly familiar, white hot thread of electricity spiraled into a ball of fire as she came.
Her orgasm was almost painful but for the sweet release it offered, flooding her nerve endings and ripping another scream from her throat. Larkin felt it too as he let go, jerking in her as he came in hot, thick spurts.
Their bodies were slick with a fine sheen of sweat, gliding against one another until their breathing took on a normal pattern and they settled.
God, this man…
Larkin brushed damp tendrils of her hair from her face and kissed her forehead. “You are one incredible woman.”
“Or one incredible lay.”
“Well, there is that, but you’re a good person too, Joy. I saw that again tonight with Adelaide.”
Joy squirmed a bit. She hated to be complimented on something so basically humane. “She’s suffering, it’s the least I can do. I don’t want accolades for it.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what makes it so damn good. So now you say, ‘Thank you, Detective’.”
Joy laughed, hiding her face in his neck, solid and hard against her nose. “Thank you, Detective.”
“Do vampires have anything like chips or something? I’m starving.”
Joy chuckled from beneath him. “What’s the matter, Detective? Don’t you want to do blood shots with me?”
“That would be a negative. Can we order a pizza?”
“We can. I think the phone book is in the kitchen, somewhere.”
Larkin slid off of her and wandered over to his jeans in a heap on the floor. Joy noted they’d never even gotten their shirts off. “I think I’d miss pizza if I were a vampire.”
“You can still eat it. I hear it just doesn’t taste the same.”
“That sucks.”
“There are other cooler things you get in trade for a slice with pepperoni.” Joy walked past him and headed for the bathroom to clean up. Larkin followed right after her and stood behind her in the mirror. His eyebrows rose. “You can see your reflection?”
Joy smiled. “Yes, silly. We’re debunking too many of your vampire myths for one night, huh?”
“For sure. It’s kinda blowin’ me away.”
Joy handed him a washcloth and grabbed her bathrobe. “Consider yourself blown.” She giggled as she left him to clean up and went to find the phone book. Her hands shook a bit -- aftershocks of their lovemaking no doubt. Biting her lip, Joy focused on not thinking about anything. She’d be damned if she would let him know how he affected her.
Keep your mind free -- think airy… don’t think of this as anything more than a big, old two-night stand. Period. No hard feelings. No broken heart when the nice detective goes home.
Her doorbell rang, interrupting her supposed non-Larkin thoughts. Joy frowned. Who the hell could be here at this hour? It was almost two in the morning.
When she opened the door Joy almost gasped. A very pale, very fabulous-haired Liam stood at her door with a cool, unruffled smile. Joy’s eyes narrowed as she assessed him. “Liam. What are you doing here?”
“Hello, Joy,” he said without a hint of emotion in his tone. “I thought maybe we could spend some time together. Maybe grab a drink or something?”
“I don’t fucking think so,” Larkin barked from behind her.
Joy backed up and put her hand on Larkin’s bare chest. “As you can see, I’m busy.”
Liam rocked back on his heels and clucked his tongue in that annoying way that made Joy want to snatch it from his head. “I see that. Enjoying the brawny, foul-mouthed detective’s company, Joy? Or would you prefer some refinement in your life?”
“Hey, Lester. Don’t you have a date with some O positive somewhere?”
Liam bristled, but recovered quickly. “Are you O positive, Detective?”
“Yeah. Could you smell that or can you only smell your lifemates?” Larkin said between clenched teeth and the crack of his knuckles.
Hookay. The Thrilla in Manilla would have to wait. Joy stepped between them and looked up at Liam’s pale face. “I have company, Liam. Next time call before you just pop over. I’ll be at the parlor tomorrow night if you want to drop by. You,” she turned and pointed to Larkin, “go to your corner and behave.”
“Good night, Liam.” Joy wiggled her fingers and shut the door.
She put a quick finger to her mouth as Larkin erupted from the corner of the room, fury clearly lining his face. “Liam is a vampire. We have hearing even the six million dollar man would be envious of. Shut up!” she hissed in a whisper. She pressed her ear to the door and waited until she heard the lingering Liam take his leave.
“Okay, knock yourself out. Yell.”
Larkin yanked his shirt closed and stabbed at the buttons. His voice was tight as he spoke. “I’m not going to yell. If you wanna hang around that freak -- invite him to the parlor -- go right ahead.”
Joy felt the snap in her anger management and decided to forgo all her hard work in taming it. “Wait a minute, Tarzan! I never said I wanted to hang around Liam,” Joy sneered. “There’s a courtesy that has to be adhered to between vampire families when courtship is clearly the intent. He won’t go away until I allow him to do that. So he does it and then I tell him to go away, okay? Now stop knuckle dragging and relax.”
Larkin’s face was red with fury and his hands balled into tight fists at his sides. “What is this, the friggin’ Dark Ages?”
Joy tightened her belt at her waist and grinned. “Look, there are certain things that remain. You forget, Detective, we were around in the Dark Ages, at least some of us. It’s no big deal. It’s like Christmas for humans -- it’s tradition and it’s been around a long time. So shut up and take it like a man while I ditch the asshole.”
Larkin’s face slackened and his expression grew amused. “Ditch him?”
Joy sauntered toward him and kissed his jaw. “Yeah, ditch him.”
Sometimes men were such stupid heads.
“I am not.”
Ugh. “Are so.”
“Am not.”
“I can’t heeaar you,” Joy taunted as she strolled out into the kitchen to order a pizza for Larkin and figure this mess out.
Chapter Nine
Joy yawned and stretched as she finished up the paperwork on a client. After pizza she and Larkin decided to try and figure out who the woman was that Alan had supposedly been involved with. After she ditched Liam, that is.
Freak. He sent chills of distaste up her spine and she just couldn’t put her finger on what it was about him that she didn’t like. Except his television commercial hair and cool, smug attitude. Gross, he was just gross and even if he was her lifemate -- she didn’t give a rat’s fuzzy ass -- he wasn’t signing on for the lifetime plan in Joy’s world. Not ever.
And then there was Larkin. Tough, hot-headed, brash and a consummate lover. He made her ache just with the mere thought of him and she’d known him less than a week. She’d boinked him in less than a week. Did that make her a trampy vamp?
Joy giggled to herself. Larkin was everything she shouldn’t become involved with and maybe that was part of his appeal. He was also human.
Human, human, human. That alone should have been her first big neon sign. But nooo, why not take your first dip into the lake known as sexual without so much as testing it. Hell, she’d done a half gainer off the back wall right into the deep end, but she couldn’t summon up any good reason why she shouldn’t. So he was human… and a cop… a cop who had suspicions about her family’s invo
lvement in Alan’s death.
Joy hoped to assuage those assumptions on Larkin’s part. But what would happen when he was done investigating Alan’s death? Joy figured he’d go home, wherever that was.
Note to self -- ask Larkin about warm, fuzzy shit.
So probably this was just a fling. Okay. She was a big girl. She could deal with that. Joy tapped the pen in her hand against her desk and ignored the butterflies in her stomach.
“Hey, gorgeous. How’s smellin’?”
Joy’s head snapped up at the sound of her brother’s voice and she flew around her desk, throwing her arms around his neck. “Ethan! You smart-ass! Leave my damn nose alone, will you? How are you?”
Ethan hugged her tightly and swung her around. “I’m good.”
Joy looked into his dark, handsome eyes. When he’d gone away a month ago, he wouldn’t talk about what was troubling him. He just said he needed time to figure some things out and left. Her parents had given him their full support, because they were nothing if not supportive, loving parents, but Ethan’s departure left Joy unsettled and it was obvious he still wasn’t ready to talk about what was going on. “Really? I mean, you can talk to me, Ethan. You know that, right?”
Ethan gave her another squeeze. “I do know that, Joy, and we will, I promise you. Lemme get settled in and then we’ll talk. So what’s new with you? Anything exciting in the embalming business?”
Lost virginity, death, mayhem, mind reading, possibly murder… nah, nuthin’ new. “Well, we did have a sort of exciting moment or two with a recent customer.” Joy figured it would be all right to tell Ethan. He wasn’t just her brother, he was her friend, yet another reason she’d felt so slighted when he’d left with hardly a word.
“No shit? What happened?”
Joy patted him on the shoulder to put her down and they sat together in her office chairs. “Well, we had a guy in here and after I’d already embalmed him the freakin’ coroner’s office decided he was possibly murdered and they took him back. Which of course you know means they’ll hack him all up. It’s pissing me off too.”
Ethan guffawed. “The coroner couldn’t tell he was murdered? What the hell is that about?”
Joy shook her head, her blonde hair falling in her eyes. “They thought he committed suicide, but it turns out maybe not. I felt like shit for poor Alan.”
Ethan’s face grew more pale than normal. “Alan,” he said through tight lips.
“Yeah, Alan Perkins. His mom was a wreck and there’s this cop, Larkin McBride -- he’s investigating this mess. He’s a long story, but he’s a friend of Alan’s and he couldn’t figure out why Alan would kill himself. Apparently Alan’s life was pretty peachy. Anyway rumor has it, and you have to keep your big mouth shut about this, there was a suicide note. Seems Alan was distraught over his girlfriend and he killed himself.”
Ethan’s face grew still. “Girlfriend?”
Joy noted the alarm in his voice and cocked her head. “Yeah, his girlfriend. What’s wrong, Ethan?” She gripped his hand, and fingers shook in her grasp. “Ethan! You’re scaring the shit out of me. What’s wrong?”
Ethan took a deep breath. “I thought I could wait until later to talk to you, because I do need to talk. But -- Alan --” He said Alan’s name on a sigh. “Alan Perkins, the Alan Perkins I know -- knew, didn’t have a girlfriend.”
Joy’s eyes were wide and her stomach was in knots. Her instincts told her something really fucked up was about to happen. Oh, God… “You knew Alan Perkins? Thirty-four, lived on Applegate Lane?” The disbelief and alarm in her voice was evident.
A silence fell between them as she watched Ethan struggle to answer. It was thick and heavy, thudding in Joy’s ears.
When Ethan finally answered, Joy sat in stunned silence. “I knew him. We were lovers.”
* * *
Joy blinked. Well, holy fucking not so heterosexual.
Joy swallowed because any words she might have hoped to say were stuck in her throat like peanut butter. She didn’t give a flip that Ethan was gay. The statement didn’t sting at all. What she did give a flip about was that he’d never shared that with her and she’d never had a clue.
Now that stung.
Her brother sat before her sharing a personal, intimate detail of his life and she’d been so fucking wrapped up in herself she’d never known. She’d never once even suspected it. “I -- I -- don’t…” Her words were thick and slow.
“You don’t what, Joy? Know what to say because your brother is a fag?”
Joy slapped him hard, with all of her might right across his cheek with uncontrolled fury -- that he would ever even consider saying that to her made her insane with anger. His head snapped back, but he looked her dead in the eye. Joy exploded like a cherry bomb. “You fucking, selfish bastard! Don’t you ever say something like that to me! Not ever, do you hear me? I had no clue you were gay or otherwise and you didn’t think that I was important enough to share that with. Don’t you go throwing names around at me like daggers, you shit! I didn’t know what was wrong when you left, Ethan, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have cared if it was because you were gay. How dare you come back here and say something like this to me without giving me a chance to even fucking understand what was going on. We’ve always told each other everything and this -- this very important facet of your life has been a secret that you didn’t think I’d be understanding about -- sensitive to? Fuck -- you!” she roared at him.
She jumped up out of her chair and headed for the door, but Ethan grabbed her and held her tight. “I’m sorry, Joy, that was crappy of me.”
Joy’s body shook with rage as she struggled against his hold. “You’re Goddamn right it was. How dare you judge me!”
“I’m sorry, Joy. I’m sorry. It’s a knee jerk reaction.”
“To what, Ethan? To strangers, maybe. But not your fucking sister.”
“Then listen to me, okay? Let me tell you about this. Let me tell you about Alan.”
Joy took deep gulps of air to calm her. Alan. Oh, Jesus. Ethan had been involved with Alan. The knowledge sank like a bar of soap in water. “Okay, I’ll listen. Let me go.”
Ethan let her free of his arms and tugged her with him to the chairs. He ran a hand through his sandy, blond hair. “Alan and I were lovers.”
“Yeah, I heard that part. Get to the point.” Joy wasn’t ready to let her anger go just yet.
“We met a few months ago at a club.”
The Hole. She’d bet her fangs on it.
“At a place called the Hole,” Ethan continued. “We were pretty heavily involved, but Alan wasn’t cool with the gay thing. We were always sneaking around and I was sick of it. So I gave him an ultimatum and told him either we came clean or it was over. Alan chose over and I gotta tell ya, I didn’t think he was that much of a phobic. I really believed he loved me enough to come out of the closet.”
Joy narrowed her eyes. “The way you loved us enough, Ethan?”
Cupping Joy’s chin, he pierced her gaze with his. “I do love you all, Joy, but I can’t think of a single one of us who’s gay. Not a single vamp in the clan. Mom and Dad are always talking about lifemates and the girl of my dreams. How the hell was I supposed to tell them it was the ‘man’ of my dreams?”
Joy’s anger vanished, dissipating into the pull of emotion that was their bond as brother and sister. She pushed the hair from his eyes. “Okay. I understand, but I think you know me better than to ever believe I would judge your choice of lifestyle.”
“It’s a freaky, alone thing, Joy, and Alan didn’t make it any easier. He was always looking over his shoulder.”
“Which I’m sure perpetuated your feelings about telling us. So, you broke up?”
“Yeah and it was bad. Really bad. I felt like shit, Joy.”
Joy’s expression softened. “Because you were in love…”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t willing to hide from everyone and I left because I knew if I didn’t, Alan and I would fall back into
the same old bullshit. It was a vicious circle, so I cut it off completely and now -- he’s dead.”
Joy heard the pain in Ethan’s voice. Saw the slight tremble of his bottom lip before he bit it. Most of his sorrow over losing Alan had been spent while he was away and now he’d come back home to more. “Did Alan know about you, Ethan -- about us?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah, and what’s really fucked up is Alan wasn’t as worried about the vampire shit as he was about the gay shit. He freaked out at first, but when I told him I had no desire to bring him to the dark side and gave him a couple of days to think about it -- everything was cool. I just couldn’t live the way Alan wanted to live. I wasn’t going to sneak around for the rest of my life. Which we both know is long.”
Joy begrudgingly laughed. “Yeah, it’s long. I’m so sorry, Ethan. I don’t know what to say, but you have to tell someone Alan wasn’t involved with a woman.” Joy blew out a breath over the absolute and utter dread she felt because she knew she had to tell Larkin.
Ethan let his head hang low and his voice held a tremor. “You don’t think he killed himself over me, do you?”
Joy squeezed his hand. “Brother, I have a lot to tell you. Come feed with me and we’ll talk some more.”
* * *
“Jesus, Joy! I don’t know what to say…”
“Going all Neanderthal on me is what you shouldn’t do.”
Larkin and Joy were in her apartment, sitting at her kitchen table, trying to hash out the mess that was now a relationship between her brother and Alan. Their bare feet were intertwined under the table as they tried to put their heads together and come up with an answer. She’d told him everything Ethan had told her, including the fact that he’d told Alan he was a vampire.
Larkin pinched the bridge of his nose. “I never once suspected, and Alan sure as hell never said a word.”
Joy shook her head. “Well, I didn’t have a clue about Ethan either and the only thing I do know is Ethan was gone when Alan died.”
Larkin fought to take a sensitive approach. His tendency to pile drive his thoughts onto others needed to be curbed with Joy. “Where did he go?” he asked cautiously.
The Polanski Brothers: Home of Eternal Rest Page 8