Out of the Light, Into the Shadows

by Lori Foster

  He didn’t sleep at night, but Nick was content to lie there for the next two hours, stroking her hair, her back, her hip, enjoying the feel of her warmth, the sound of her breathing.

  It had been too long since he had shared these intimacies, and he was ready to invite them back into his life with the most beautiful detective he had ever seen.

  JORDAN woke up to Nick gently shaking her shoulder and saying, “Jordan, your phone just rang.”

  “Hmm?” she mumbled, her mouth thick, body warm and satisfied. She scooted a little closer to Nick’s bulk under the covers and started to drift back to sleep.

  “Jordan … it said it was Shawn on your cell phone screen. If your partner is calling you at two in the morning, maybe you should answer it.”

  Damn it. Jordan pried her eyes open. Nick, sitting up in bed, his back on the headboard, was holding her cell phone up in the dark. The backlight illuminated the missed call from Shawn. Her phone chimed, indicating Shawn had left a voice mail.

  Sighing, she sat up and took the phone from Nick. “Thank you. How did you even hear that? I have it on low.”

  He just shrugged. “Light sleeper.”

  And phenomenal lover. Jordan smiled at him, running her fingers over his chest with her free hand while she pressed the appropriate buttons to listen to her message.

  Shawn’s voice was clipped. “Where the fuck are you? We’ve got another body down by Caesar’s. This one is only a couple of hours old. Meet me down there.”

  All the warm and fuzzy aftermath of sex dissipated. “Shit.” Jordan deleted the message. “I have to go, Nick.”

  “What’s wrong?” He tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “Another murder.”

  The shock on his face gave way to understanding. “Oh, no. I’m sorry. Here, I’ll walk you out.” He threw the covers back on the bed.

  “Oh, you don’t have to get up,” Jordan protested as she crawled out of bed and searched the floor for her clothes.

  “It’s just rude to lie in bed and watch you leave. I’ll walk you out,” he repeated, leaving no room for discussion.

  Jordan had to admit there was something pleasing about that. A lot of men would see nothing wrong with staying in bed, and truthfully, she didn’t either, but she liked the inherent gentleman in Nick.

  He had his clothes on faster than she did and, scooping the broken cuffs off the nightstand, he dangled them in front of her, the corner of his mouth turning up. “You might want these back.”

  Jordan gave a small laugh. “Thanks.”

  Despite the fact that her mind was already leaping ahead to the addition of a fourth victim to her case, Jordan appreciated that it was comfortable leaving Nick’s suite, his hand on the small of her back in the dark.

  “I’ll talk to you soon,” she said at the door.

  His eyebrow shot up. “I’m walking you to your car.”

  “Oh.” Jordan was so used to being independent that it had never even occurred to her. She was about to protest, then decided she liked the concept, and his company. “Thanks.”

  They were quiet on the way down, but Nick always found a way to touch her—a hand on her back, brushing her waist, touching her hair, kissing the top of her head.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he told her when she was sitting in the driver’s seat of her car, engine on. He gave her a soft kiss. “Be safe.”

  “Thanks,” Jordan said, staring at his face, puzzled.

  This felt natural, normal, right.

  And that was confusing, to say the least.

  But she shoved those thoughts aside as she pulled out of the garage.

  Murder called, and that always trumped romance.

  NICK stood next to his bed and tenderly kissed the bruise on Jordan’s shoulder after he pulled her shirt off. “I should stop doing this to you,” he said, feeling guilty. It wasn’t the only bruise she had from his bites.

  He had made love to Jordan almost every day for two weeks, and he’d bitten her repeatedly. It was such an intense and pleasurable joining, and the blood heightened it for him, and he had to say it seemed to have the same effect on Jordan. But that didn’t make it right. The bruises were evidence that even though they both enjoyed the sensations it created, he was hurting her.

  Which was a horrible metaphor for what he was going to do eventually anyway. Nick knew this relationship couldn’t last long-term, not when he was a vampire with a laundry list of secrets, and Jordan was mortal.

  “I like it when you bite me,” Jordan said, her soft lips tickling his ear as she whispered. “I like you, you know. More than I can say.”

  Breathing in her vanilla scent, his mouth now on the peak of her breast, Nick knew that he had no ability whatsoever to step away, to protect Jordan’s feelings, or even his own. He wanted her, this relationship, too much. He had fallen in love with her, and even if they had to crash and burn at some point when the truth became too difficult to hide, Nick wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.

  “I like you, too. So, so much.” He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he didn’t want to overwhelm her. And truthfully, if she answered in kind, he would be overwhelmed.

  But they both felt it, he knew that. They had fallen in love over long talks and passionate nights, and for two people used to being alone they seemed to be in agreement not to really discuss it, but to just enjoy it.

  A door slammed down the hall. Peter.

  A nice reminder of reality.

  “I feel funny staying here with Peter home,” Jordan said again, like she did every night.

  “He’s just going to the bathroom,” Nick said, lifting his head and brushing her hair off her cheek. “He has no idea you’re here.”

  “Yeah, but …”

  Nick undid the zipper on her jeans. “But what?”

  “Maybe.” Her eyes fluttered closed as he slid a finger down inside her briefly. “Shit, that feels good. Maybe we should try to introduce Peter to the idea of us as a couple. Maybe we should take him out on activities. I know you do that when I’m at work, but I’d like to be a part of that, to get to know him.”

  No, he didn’t. Nick didn’t take Peter on any excursions during the day. He and Peter were usually asleep, but he let Jordan believe that he was a superdad who was taking his kid to museums, and that made him feel guilty.

  Which he didn’t want to dwell on at the moment. He just wanted to enjoy being in love. “We can do that.”

  “I don’t want to insert myself into your life if you don’t want me to …” she said, sudden doubt in her voice.

  Nick cupped her cheeks. “I want you in my life. I’m in love with you, Jordan.” It was crazy and stupid and bound to give him no small amount of pain, but it was the truth.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “I’m in love with you, too. How is this possible so fast?”

  Jordan willingly lay back down on his bed when he gave her a little nudge of encouragement.

  He shook his head. “I have no idea, but I’m so glad I met you.”

  And although there were many lies between them, those were his two truths—he was glad he had met her and he loved her most desperately.

  The smile she gave him as she opened her legs to accommodate him lit his body and his soul on fire. “Likewise, I’m sure,” she said.

  Then they both forgot to talk.

  SEVEN

  JORDAN couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep in Nick’s bed again. It had been a bad idea to spend the night making love to him when Jordan had to be at work at eight for a meeting with the powers that be to discuss their serial killer. Given that she’d passed out for hours after sex, she was clearly behind on her sleep, and it would have been smarter to stay home and get a good night’s sleep. But it had been Nick’s night off from work, and it had been impossible to resist those brown eyes staring at her like she was the most beautiful woman on the planet, or to stay away from those giant hands that did magical things to her insides.

  Yet she needed to go home
and shower before work, so she reluctantly slid out of bed as quietly as she could. Nick was sound asleep and she didn’t want to disturb him, so she got dressed and moved softly into the hallway.

  She was moving through the dark living room toward the door when the voice came out of nowhere, causing her to jump.

  “It’s about time you left.”

  Jordan swiveled and saw Peter sitting on the couch, still dressed, a portable movie player in his lap. “Oh, you scared me.”

  “Good,” he said sullenly.

  Embarrassed to have been caught sneaking out of Nick’s bed by his son, Jordan gave a nervous laugh. “Sorry to disturb you. Are you watching a movie?”

  “Yes.” He hit a button repeatedly, turning up the volume so that she could hear the sound of explosions. “I’ve been watching a movie while you have sex.”

  Peter wasn’t even looking at her, but the matter-of-fact way he said the words, and what he said, caused Jordan to frown. A flush spread over her face. It was the truth, that’s what she had been doing, but to hear it come from the mouth of a thirteen-year-old made her uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think your dad realized you were awake.” Jordan didn’t know what else to say, and she glanced back at the bedroom, wondering if she should wake Nick up. “Most kids your age are asleep at five in the morning.”

  “So you mean if you had known I was awake, you wouldn’t have fucked my dad? You only do it when I’m asleep? Is that a rule that makes you feel better about coming over here to get fucked every night?”

  Jordan had seen a lot as a cop, had heard all sorts of language and encountered kids way too young to be acting the way they were. But those were punks, lost kids from nasty environments, not the child of the man she was very possibly falling in love with. Hell, had already fallen in love with. She had meant that when she’d said the words to Nick.

  Now Peter’s words temporarily robbed her of her speech as she stared at him in shock.

  He was calling her a slut. He was a child and he was calling her a slut.

  “Your dad and I are dating,” she managed to say. “What happens between us is our business.”

  Peter hit a button on his video player, then turned it around so she could see the screen. The sound of heavy breathing and moaning filled the dark room as a couple moving aggressively in sex appeared on the screen. Oh, shit. Jordan gripped her purse tighter and swallowed hard. She was in over her head here, and it wasn’t her place to say anything to this kid. She was going to have to tell Nick, though, and then Peter would hate her more than he clearly did already.

  “I’m leaving,” she told him, feeling mildly nauseous as her eyes fell back on the tangled limbs. “Have a good night.”

  “Wait. Don’t you want to see him come on her face?”

  What thirteen-year-old said things like that? How did he even know what that meant? Profoundly disturbed, Jordan didn’t say anything. She just walked out of the suite and closed the door behind her. Leaning against it, she took a shaky breath and swallowed hard.

  She had just asked Nick to let her become more involved in his life, more involved with his child, because she wanted a real, long-term relationship with him.

  But she didn’t know how to deal with Peter, and she suddenly doubted her own maternal abilities.

  None of this was any good, and she felt a little sick to her stomach.

  IT didn’t get any better when she was sitting across the desk from her boss and Shawn.

  “You know what this looks like,” Shawn told her, his expression grave. “We have a witness ID-ing Kelsey Columbia at the scene of Angie Martin’s murder.”

  Jordan rubbed her forehead. “So what does that mean, Shawn, really? You know as well as I do that Kelsey is not capable of carrying out these crimes. She’s not physically strong enough. And you know that very rarely are serial killers women.”

  “So why was she there? On that night? In that parking lot?”

  “Because she’s weird. Who the hell knows? She was probably going to gamble.”

  “Maybe she did it with someone else. Maybe she’s part of a serial-killing team.”

  Jordan wasn’t going to touch that. If Shawn was going to guide this discussion around to Nick, which was ludicrous, she wasn’t going to lead him there. He’d had to go there himself.

  Their boss, Jim Shapiro, had been sitting there silently behind his desk, his fingers steepled in front of his face. An average-sized man, he had a quiet, steely intelligence. “Did you know that Nick Stolin’s former boss, the man he came to the United States with, was killed?”

  “Yes, he mentioned it.” Squeezing her fingers tightly together in her lap, Jordan wondered what that had to do with anything. She studied Jim’s face, but his expression was closed.

  “The boss, a Russian named Chechikov, was found dead outside the Ava casino and hotel with all his blood drained from his body. The fourth and final victim of last summer’s spate of murders.”

  Uh-oh. “Really?” Jordan said, keeping her voice even, despite the sweat that kicked up between her breasts and the jump in her heart rate.

  “Yes. You didn’t know that?”

  “No, I had no idea. Nick has never mentioned his name, though I’m not sure I would have recognized it anyway.”

  “Nick’s a big guy,” Jim said. “He could easily overpower those women.”

  It was the logical direction to take. If Jordan were sitting on the other side of the desk, she would say the same thing. But she knew it wasn’t Nick. She knew that it wasn’t possible that he could fool her like that, that underneath his gentle and tender demeanor could lie a cruel, calculating monster.

  Having spent nearly every night with him for two weeks, she was convinced she would know if he was something other than what he seemed. Nick was a great guy. He couldn’t be a killer. He wasn’t a killer.

  Besides, she had an ace in the hole. “Nick was with me the night of Angie’s murder.”

  “He was with you?” Jim asked, eyes narrowing, hands shifting ever so slightly. “What time?”

  “All night. From just before eight P.M. until I got the voice mail from Shawn just after two saying the victim had been found.” It was a rock-solid alibi and she knew it. The coroner had placed time of death between ten and midnight.

  Jim stared at her. Shawn shook his head and sighed.

  Then her boss said, “Alright. We need to pay a little visit to Kelsey Columbia for some questioning.” His cell phone buzzed and he glanced at it. “Hang here for a minute, I’m going to take this in the hallway. I’ll be right back.”

  Jordan let out a breath when Jim walked past her and out the door. Sweating profusely, she unbuttoned and peeled off her blazer. To hell with how unprofessional it might be sitting in the office in a cotton cami, she felt sick to her stomach, and her hair was growing damp. She didn’t know what any of this meant, but none of it sounded good. What was the connection between the first round of male victims drained of their blood and this second round of murders of women?

  “Jordan,” Shawn said, his voice appalled.

  “Hmm?” Distracted, Jordan glanced up.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Shawn’s hand ran down the length of her arm and then he pointed to her chest above her bra.

  “What?” Jordan glanced down and realized he was seeing her bruises. The marks from where Nick bit her during sex. Her cheeks went hot. “Oh, that’s nothing. I fell down the stairs and you know I bruise easily.”

  Shawn had gone pale, and now his voice was grave, concerned. “Jordan, come on. That’s a classic battered woman’s line. You’ve only been seeing this guy a few weeks.”

  “It’s not like that.” She didn’t want him thinking that she was a victim or that Nick was capable of violence. She also didn’t want to demean what true battered women endured, but neither did she want to tell Shawn the truth. It was private, something just between her and Nick that made sense in the heat of passion but in the harsh daylight prob
ably would seem strange to someone else.

  Now Shawn got angry. “For Chrissake, if he’s hurting you, dump him. Don’t protect him.”

  Noting that Shawn’s hand had involuntarily reached under his jacket and was stroking his gun, Jordan sighed. “Shawn, I appreciate your concern. But seriously, lay off, okay? He’s not hurting me, at least not the way you think. It’s a sex thing.”

  Her partner’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

  Jordan stared him down defiantly. “He likes to bite me during sex and I like when he does it. It’s very erotic. Like an animal claiming his mate.”

  There was an extended silence where they just stared at each other, and then Shawn made a sound of disgust. “That’s the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Then you need to get out of the house more. As far as kink goes, this is pretty mild. Or better yet, mind your own business.”

  Though she was still sweating moisture by the gallon, Jordan picked up her blazer and slipped back into it. She didn’t want to answer similar questions from Jim. Not when she had enough to explain already.

  WHEN Nick woke up it was the following night. He had pushed it, staying up all night making love to Jordan, then falling asleep at about five, so he hadn’t heard her leave. Still groggy, he shuffled in his bare feet and boxer briefs to the mini-refrigerator in his kitchenette for a bag of blood.

  Peter was already awake and drinking a bag out of a juice tumbler.

  “Good morning,” Nick said.

  “Good morning, fuck face,” Peter said, giving him a sneer.

  “You continue to be charming as usual.” Rubbing his hand through his hair, Nick frowned at Peter. “What’s your problem?”

  “I just hate your girlfriend, that’s all. I don’t know why she has to be here every single night. Oh, wait. I know why. Because she’s blowing you, that’s why she has to be here.”

  Nice. Nick chose to ignore the sexual slurs. “She’s not bothering you.”

  “Yeah, but how long before she decides she wants to be involved in your ‘son’s’ life? How long before we have to start going to museums and the shows together as a happy little family? I’m not doing it.”