Mysteria Nights

Age hunter and she as an inexperienced demon who thought she could live as a human. With deadly consequences.

Then why was she heading down this same road again, knowing where it ended? This time, you won’t let it get that far.

Laredo tipped his hat. “Good day, ma’am.” Swinging his rifle from his hand, he walked away, his long legs carrying him swiftly out of sight.

Sipping a scotch, Quel waited for Shay the next day in Knight Caps. The bar was filling up. The music was loud. The fairy-goths were stirring up the usual trouble, and a trio of witches near the back were having themselves quite the party with a sullen-looking vampire. Quel had saved the stool next to him. It had taken some work keeping it empty of the shapely asses of the women he didn’t want sitting there, which was every other female in this bar.

He glanced at his watch. It was almost seven, an hour past the time Shay said she’d meet him. What had he been thinking, giving her the cross? It was his mother’s cross. Shay was a stranger. No, she’s more than that. He damn well couldn’t figure out what, though.

Frowning into his drink, he pushed his thumbs impatiently around the rim of his glass. Then he downed the drink he’d been nursing for an hour. He’d wanted to be sober when she got here. Guess it didn’t matter anymore. He flicked a finger at the empty glass. The bartender, Falon, poured another scotch—straight up, no ice, no water.

Then a woman’s voice: “Nothing gets in the way of you and your scotch, I see.”

She came. He slid around on the stool to face her. Shay wore a black tank top cut low enough to show off the rounded tops of those amazing tits, a pair of faded jeans, and stilettos with heels high enough to give someone a nosebleed. Her tanned skin sparkled like the cross she wore around her neck. She’d glazed her skin with some kind of lotion. Everywhere? He couldn’t help wondering. This wasn’t the timid schoolteacher-nanny; this was the crazy girl who’d driven that Porsche. “I like my scotch the way I like a woman,” he drawled. “Real, undiluted, nothing in between me and her.”

There it was: that flash of heat again. He wanted to press his lips to her neck where those hoop earrings glittered in her soft halo of curls. He wanted to grab her thighs and haul her legs over his hips, right here in the bar. No, he wanted her in private, hard and up against the wall in his small room. Then, when he’d slaked the fire burning in him all damn week, he’d take her nice and slow.

Shit. He hadn’t moved, and he’d already worked up a sweat, not to mention one helluva hard-on. He motioned to the bartender. “Give me a couple of cubes.” Ice splashed into his drink.

“What happened to undiluted?”

“You showed up, Miss d’Mon.” He turned the stool to face her. They sat, jeans to jeans, knees almost touching. “Woman, you got a way of looking at me that . . .” He let his words trail off, shifting his focus to the drink. He wasn’t used to this kind of frank talk. Revealing talk. Telling people his feelings.

“That . . . what?”

He shook his head. “Who do you think of when you look at me?”

This time she glanced away. “Wine,” she told the bartender.

“Red or white?”

“Roman.”

The bartender glanced at Quel for enlightenment.

“Italian,” Shay corrected.

“We’ve got Californian.” The wall behind the bar was filled with wine bottles.

Shay pursed her lips and pointed to one, seemingly at random. “I’ll have the red.”

Her first sip was a hearty one. Shay d’Mon definitely attacked life with gusto. He liked that. Careful women bored him. “You never answered my question,” he said, low in her ear. “Who are you thinking of when you—?”

She sealed her mouth over his. He almost fell off the stool. Two heartbeats: that’s all his surprise lasted. Then he took hold of her soft hair and kissed her back. The soft little sound of pleasure she made drove him crazy. His hand fell to the side of her throat, resting on her throbbing pulse. The scent of her skin and her perfume filled his nostrils along with another scent that threatened to make him drunker than the scotch: he couldn’t make sense of it; he only reacted to it, as he had the night she’d driven down the mountain. It seemed like a scent that he already knew—deep down, a memory he’d always carried without realizing it, just like he felt he’d kissed her before. It was impossible. No way would Shay have entered his life and sneaked out of it without him noticing. And she definitely wasn’t sneaking out now. No damn way. He suckled her tongue, devouring her lips like she was the best damn bite of candy he’d ever tasted in a life of savoring every last piece thrown his way.

He became aware of a roar. Not the one in his head. The crowd in the bar was cheering.

Shay pulled back. “You,” she said. “I think of you.”

“Liar.”

She blushed. “You can tell?”

“Yeah, I can tell.” He reached for her, needing to touch her again. His fingers trailed up and down her back, following the bumps of her spine. He liked the goose bumps his caress raised on her bare arms. “That will come in very useful, too, angel, knowing how bad of a liar you are.”

She shot him a panicked glance. “Because,” he brought his lips to her ear, “when I kiss you again, I’m going to ask that same question. You’re going to tell the truth this time, and the answer had better be me.”

He saw her throat move before she glanced away. The song that had been playing ended, and a slower tune came on. “I’m thinking you dance as good as you kiss,” he said.

“Maybe . . .”

“Let’s get out there, and you can show me.” What was with him? He never wanted to dance.

She sent a look of longing to the dance floor. “I used to like dancing.”

“With so-and-so?”

Lifting one reddish brow, she shot him a confused look.

“The guy you think of when you look at me.”

She shook her head. “We never danced.”

It had Quel wondering what they did do that had been so memorable. He took her hand. “It’s been a while,” she warned.

“We can fix that.”

He sensed only a moment’s resistance before she let him lead her to the dance floor. He found a place in the middle of the swaying couples before sliding his hands over the body he’d been aching to touch all damn week. She melted against him, threading her fingers in his hair. It was like coming home. She fit him; he fit her. Déjà vu. He could almost believe he’d done this before and knew just how to hold her. Call it schmaltzy, but there it was.

Shay’s body was toned and firm in all the right places, and soft where it counted. He, on the other hand, was hard where it counted, almost to the point of pain. Even harder was his ability to remain a gentleman, but he did, keeping his hips from pressing too hard against hers and giving away just how eager he was to have her.

The music stopped. They stayed there, holding each other, his lips resting on her hair. Her shirt was so thin he could feel the heat of her skin burning his palms. He didn’t know what possessed him, and he kept thinking she’d chicken out, but he took her hand, steering her out of the bar. He led her around to the back alley and up the dark, narrow staircase to his room, shoving the door closed with his boot.

Seven

Shay still hadn’t come to terms with the fact that she’d showed up at the bar at all, and here she was, in his room. They were kissing before the door slammed shut, the kind of deep, thorough, wet kisses she’d always loved and that too few men knew how to do right—and as skillfully as Quel Laredo. You desire me. You can’t get enough of me. Shay instinctively sent the thoughts. Then she remembered there were no powers of persuasion to back them up. She was on her own. Nothing but chemistry fueled this seduction. She knew little of