“Well, I want to live,” he told her emphatically. “What’s the point of being here if we have to be afraid of our own shadow? I’d rather die than live forever as a pale, boring, zero-fun version of myself slinking around in the dark.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” she insisted, though she had to admit, there was something about his statement that stung. She lashed out at him, unwilling to admit he could be right. “And I was never fun!”
Wait a minute. That wasn’t what she’d meant to say.
What she meant was that she had seen horrible things done to first her parents, then Jean-Baptiste, and it had changed her forever. She wasn’t carefree, and that wasn’t a crime. There was nothing wrong with exercising caution.
So why did she suddenly feel so terrible?
Lizette lifted her right hand and eyed the handcuffs. “We should try to get these off now.”
“You want me to yank? There’s going to be blood. And then we’ll still both have a handcuff ring around our wrists. Is that really what you want?” He eyed her. “Cause I’ll do it. If that’s what you want.”
Why did he sound so belligerent? She was the one being put in an impossibly awkward position of jeopardizing her job at the VA. Speaking of which, she needed to call Dieter and see if he had any idea what had happened the evening before. She was torn between wanting answers and not wanting Dieter to know anything out of the ordinary had happened.
“Yes, that’s what I want.” Blood would wash off, and unattached to Johnny she could at least go back to her hotel and shower off the remnants of the tawdry whore that seemed to be clinging to her. Every time she shifted, she smelled a man’s cologne wafting off her blouse and other areas.
Johnny lifted his hand and then dropped it again. “Shit. I can’t do it.”
“Why not?” Once again, Lizette found herself among the many women who were mystified by men.
“I can’t hurt you. I just can’t.”
“I’m asking you to.” Yes, it would hurt, but she was an aging vampire, and would heal fairly rapidly. She wasn’t looking forward to the pain, but of course, she would live. “It will be easier to move around.”
“Sorry.” Johnny bit his fingernail, a habit she found both disgusting and endearing. “I don’t want to see you bleed. It’s not right. We’ll find another way.”
Suddenly aware of how close they were standing, Lizette averted her gaze. It was far too easy to stare at him, far too easy to imagine the power he would have in his thighs as he rose over a woman. Over her. These weren’t things she thought about particularly often, but now that she was almost positive she had slept with him, she couldn’t keep her mind from straying in that direction. It was embarrassing, yes, to think that she had done whatever it was she had done, when she didn’t know him at all, and was supposed to be in New Orleans in an official capacity, but at the same time, it was even more upsetting to think that if she had done such things, she couldn’t even remember them. Shouldn’t she at least be afforded the right to have her curiosity appeased? It had been nearly fifty years since she had taken a lover, and that had been something of a letdown.
Her body seemed pleased to have been reawakened the night before, and she found herself wanting to touch his arm, his chest, wanting to slide her tongue across his bottom lip. It was disconcerting.
“That’s very gentlemanly of you,” she told him, because it was. There was something pleasing about his discomfit with causing her pain.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of that before, but I suppose you might actually be right. Maybe I’m improving.” He grinned. “Now let’s find a shoe that fits, shall we? Or at least something that isn’t going to fall off of you.”
What they settled on were little stretchy slippers that women were supposed to put on when their feet hurt from wearing high heels. Because of their stretchy nature, they weren’t as huge as other options would have been, and they were black, which was a relief to Lizette. It was not a relief that Johnny had to help her put them on, lifting her leg up with his hand, his flesh cool and smooth on her calf as he helped guide the slipper. Lizette held on to his shoulders and tried not to think about her body or his body or any bodies, just on getting her foot into the fabric. Except that she was acutely aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing panties, and that vampires had excellent powers of scent. If she could smell his cologne on her, what else could he smell? Besides, it was not her imagination that his hand was lingering.
He glanced up at her, his black eyes intense. “Do you think something happened between us last night?” he asked her.
So to the point. Lizette would have blushed if she had been able to, and reminded herself that Johnny had lived in America for a long time. He wasn’t going to dance around a topic for ages with flowery expressions like European men. Clearing the air was definitely advisable. “Well,” she told him, lowering her newly slippered foot to the floor. “I would say that there are indications that something of a sexual nature occurred.”
“Really? Are you sure?” He stood, slowly, and his male presence overwhelmed her as he rose, occupying her space and dominating her thoughts, unnerving her.
“Yes. I’m fairly sure.”
“How do you know?”
She was regretting that he wasn’t beating around the bush with charm and obscure entendres. “I just know.”
“How?”
He was going to make her say it. Irritated with his persistence, she told him, “I seem to have lost my panties. And I seem to be experiencing a certain soreness that is not from sleeping on the floor.”
Understanding finally seemed to dawn on him. “Ooohh. I see. Sucks we don’t remember, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not sure if it does or not,” she told him truthfully.
Johnny laughed. But his thumb traced across her palm teasingly. “I think it’s a damn shame, actually.”
“THAT’S ZELDA.”
Drake glanced back, surprised to see that Cupcake—or rather, Josie Lynn—was following him. Until this moment, she’d seemed like she wanted nothing more than to be far away from him, both last night and tonight. Yet, here she was. Maybe the allure of his bare ass had finally swayed her. Of course.
“You’re right, that is.”
She stopped and wrapped her arms around herself. She worried her full, pretty lower lip. “This is awful.”
He frowned. Yeah, it was definitely awful. Not remembering what happened to you for hours was not a good feeling. But he wasn’t sure why she was particularly worried about Zelda. Personally, he was far more upset that he’d very likely gotten a little taste of Cupcake and had not a single memory about it. He glanced over at the Amazon still sprawled on the floor.
If there had been any Zelda action, he was glad he’d blacked that out.
Josie Lynn stared at the unconscious dominatrix, looking almost—forlorn. Which struck Drake as an odd reaction.
“Listen,” he said, returning to her side, “I know all of this is overwhelming, but it’s really not that bad.”
Josie Lynn spun toward him, that strangely hopeless look in her blue eyes replaced by a flash of anger.
“Not that bad! This is so far beyond bad, I—I,” she threw up her hands. “I don’t even know what to say. You are acting like this is just another wild weekend in the Big Easy. Well, this may be normal for you, but it sure as hell isn’t normal for me.”
Drake looked down at himself. “And you think this is normal for me? I woke up in a sex swing in a dominatrix’s dungeon. I might have had sex with a woman that I just met last night. And now I’m arguing with that very same woman with my schlong hanging out. Believe me, this is not normal.”
She glanced downward, and to Drake’s dismay his dick reacted instantly, bobbing outward.
“Well I think we both know the part about sleeping with a woman you just met is probably a pretty normal occurrence for you.”
Something about the disgust on her face bothered him, even though he couldn’t really deny that fact. Hell, he was a single vampire in a band on Bourbon Street. Women just happened. But somehow her expression made him feel—bad. Sleazy, even. But why the hell should it?
Okay, the current outfit really didn’t help.
