“Ah, well, you walked through this club. We have a huge number of folks in here every night.”
“True enough. This is one of the most successful clubs in town.” De la Cruz put his hands in his hip pockets, his coat falling back, his suit jacket pouching out around his chest. “One of the junkies who lives under the bridge saw an oldish Ford along with a black Mercedes and a chromed-out Lexus leaving the area a little after those two got popped.”
“Drug dealers can afford nice cars. Not sure what to make of the Ford.”
“What does your boss drive? A Bentley, isn’t it? Or did he get a new ride.”
“No, he’s still got the B.”
“Expensive car.”
“Very.”
“You know anyone with a black Mercedes? ’Cuz witnesses also saw one hanging around the apartment Grady’s eagle jacket was found in.”
“Can’t say as I know any Merc owners.”
There was a knock on the door, and Trez and iAm came in, the two Moors making the detective look like a Honda parked between a pair of Hummers.
“Well, I’ll leave you all to talk,” Xhex said with absolute faith in Rehv’s besties. “See you at the funeral, Detective.”
“If not before then. Hey, you ever think of getting a plant for in here? Could make a difference.”
“No, I’m too good at killing things.” She smiled tightly. “You know where to find me. Later.”
As she shut the door behind her, she stopped fronting and frowned. Turf wars were not good for business, and if Martinez and Rush got done, it was a sure sign that in spite of the December weather, Caldwell’s underbelly was developing another heat rash.
Shit, that was the last thing they needed.
Vibrations coming from her pocket told her someone was reaching out to touch her, and she answered the call the instant she saw who it was.
“You find Grady yet,” she asked softly.
Big Rob’s deep voice was full of frustration. “Fucker must be in hiding. Silent Tom and me, we been to all the clubs. Been to his place and also a couple of his buddies’.”
“Keep looking, but be careful. His jacket was just found at another murder scene. The cops are on him hard.”
“We aren’t giving up till we have a bead on him for you.”
“Good man. Now get off this phone and get back on the trail.”
“No problem, boss.”
THIRTY-ONE
Inside his pitch-dark bathroom, Rehvenge banged into one of the marble walls, tripped across the marble floor, and ricocheted off the marble counter. His body was alive, sensation tingling through him, the pain of nailing his hip registering, the sawing breath in his lungs causing a burn, his heart thumping against his sternum.
He dropped the satin duvet, willed the lights on, and looked down.
His cock was stiff and thick, the tip glossy and ready to penetrate.
Holy…shit.
He glanced around. His vision was normal, the bathroom’s colors black and steel and white, with the edge of the Jacuzzi rising up from the floor, its depth obvious. And yet even though nothing was flat or ruby red, his senses were utterly alive, his blood heated and thundering in his veins, his skin ready to be touched, the orgasm in the shaft of his erection screaming to get free.
He’d totally bonded with Ehlena.
And that meant-at least in this moment, when he was so desperate to have sex with her-his vampire side was winning out over the symphath part of him.
His need for her triumphed over the darkness in him.
It had to be the bonding hormones, he thought. Bonding hormones that had shifted his internal chemistry.
In recognizing his new reality, there was no soaring joy, no sense of triumph, no impulse to throw himself on top of her and pump away hard. All he could do was stare down at his cock and think of where it had been last. What he’d done with it…and with the rest of his body.
Rehvenge wanted to snap the fucking thing off.
No way in hell was he sharing that with Ehlena. Except…he couldn’t go back out there like this.
Rehv grabbed his arousal in his broad hand and stroked himself. Oh…fuck…that was good…
He thought of going down on Ehlena, of having her warmth in his mouth and down the back of his throat. He saw her spread thighs and her glistening softness and his fingers slipping in and out as she moaned and rocked her-
His balls tightened up hard as fists, and the small of his back rippled in a wave, and that disgusting barb of his triggered even though it had nothing to grab onto. A roar threatened to come up out of his throat, but he held it in by biting his lip until he tasted blood.
Rehv came all over his hand and kept working his sex anyway, propping himself on the counter. He orgasmed again and again, messing up the mirror and the sinks, and still needing more-as if his body hadn’t released in, like, five hundred years.
When the storm finally passed, he realized…shit, he was draped against the wall, face shoved in hard to the marble, shoulders sagging, thighs twitching like there were jumper cables hooked up to his toes.
With shaky hands, he cleaned things up using one of the towels that was folded neatly on a rack, wiping off the counter and the glass and the sink. Then he flipped free another one and washed his hands and his cock and his stomach and his legs, because he’d gotten himself as dirty as the fucking bathroom.
When he finally reached for the doorknob, after what must have been nearly an hour, he half expected Ehlena to be gone, and he wouldn’t blame her: A female whom he had essentially made love to offers him her vein and he runs like a pussy into the bathroom and locks himself in.
Because he gets a hard-on.
Jesus Christ. This evening, which hadn’t even started out so well, had turned into a sixteen-car pileup on the road to relationshipville.
Rehv braced himself and opened the door.
As light spilled into the bedroom, Ehlena sat up in the sheets, her face worried…and completely nonjudgmental. There was no condemnation, no calculation as if she were looking for what would make him feel even worse. Just honest-to-God concern.
“Are you okay?”
Well, wasn’t that the question.
Rehvenge dropped his head and for the first time wanted to unburden everything to another person. Even with Xhex, who had been through more than he had, he had no interest in doing the sharing shit. But with Ehlena’s toffee-colored eyes so wide and warm in her lovely, perfect face, he wanted to confess every single dirty, shitty, scheming, mean, nasty thing he’d ever done.
Just to be honest.
Yeah, but if he dumped his life out on the table, where would that leave her? In a position of having to report him as a symphath and likely fearing for her very life. Great outcome. Perfect.
“I wish I were different,” he said, which was as close as he could get to speaking the truth that would separate them forever. “I wish I were a different male.”
“I don’t.”
That was because she didn’t know him. Not truly. And yet he couldn’t handle the idea of never seeing her after this night they’d had together.
Or that she would be terrified of him.
“If I asked you to come here again,” he said, “and let me be with you, would you?”
