LOVE BITES, LOVE BLEEDS
DRAKE hesitated just slightly before he opened the door. He wasn’t scared about the alligator for himself. Shit, he was a vampire. He could take his knocks, even from a wannabe dinosaur. But Josie Lynn was another story. Being human, one bite could be fatal. And that scared him. A lot.
More than he really understood, actually. Sure, he wouldn’t want to see anyone maimed and killed by an alligator, but the idea of Cupcake getting hurt. That really bothered him.
Or so he would tell himself.
Slowly he opened the door, and there Waldo lay, his back to them, looking more like a stuffed gator than the real McCoy. Unfortunately he was dead center in the hallway, making it hard to stay to one side of him. They were going to have to get pretty damn close to him to make it past.
So that meant one thing; he was going to have to go first. That way if Waldo decided to go all prehistoric, he’d hopefully attack Drake first, while Josie Lynn fled to safety.
“Follow me,” he said, whispering, though he wasn’t sure why. Did alligators even have ears?
“Maybe I should go first,” Josie Lynn suggested, and Drake shot her an astonished look. Was she crazy? That would be like sending old Waldo an appetizer.
“No way.” He stepped out the door, staying to the left of the hallway, since that seemed to be the side with the most space between the wall and the animal. He walked carefully, being as quiet as he could. Which was very quiet. That whole vampire thing.
Behind him Josie Lynn was being quiet, too, although he could hear the soft pats of her feet on the bare wood. He just hoped his vampire hearing was more acute than the alligator’s.
Once he reached the beast, he debated where the best place to step was. It was like a bizarre game of Twister, except in this game if you didn’t pick the right spot, you didn’t collapse into a tangled pile of limbs and laughter. In this game, you just lost a limb.
He carefully took a step over the curve of the gator’s tail. Then another over his back leg. So far, so good. Waldo hadn’t even twitched. He took another small step, bringing him up to Waldo’s front leg. At this point the best bet seemed to be to quickly step over that front leg, then run as fast as possible past his head and the long snout.
He looked over his shoulder to tell Josie Lynn his strategy, and that was the exact moment he heard the swish of Waldo’s scaly skin on the floor and a noise that was somewhere between a snarl and a hiss.
Then Drake was on the floor right beside the beast. Shit, the damn thing had swung its head and knocked him down. Now he was right near that huge mouth, stuck between the animal’s side and the wall.
He lay still for a second, debating at this angle if he could shove himself backward fast enough to avoid those teeth. His vampire abilities made him very fast, but this was a weird position.
But before he could do anything, Josie Lynn was on top of the gator, her bare legs straddling its back. She lay down on the beast, pressing both her forearms down as hard as she could on the alligator’s snout.
“What the hell are you doing?” he cried.
“Shut up,” she yelled back. “Take this cord and wrap it around his snout.”
Drake didn’t argue, taking the bungee cord from her and circling it quickly around the alligator’s long nose and mouth.
“Higher up,” she said, still using all her strength to keep his huge jaws shut. “That’s it.”
When it was secured, Josie Lynn sat up, still straddling the beast, her legs bare and her coffee-colored hair tangled around her face. Her chest rose and fell as she struggled to catch her breath.
Holy shit, she was sexy.
His dick shot straight up against his stomach, painfully hard and swollen, but fortunately she didn’t seem to notice.
“How—how the hell did you learn to do that?” he asked, struggling to catch his own breath.
She smiled then, the first time he’d seen her genuinely smile.
“I’m Cajun. This is what we do.”
Damn, he was in love.
JOHNNY WAS PUSHING his luck, and he knew it. But Lizette looked so disheveled and sexy that he couldn’t resist. Besides, the fact that she had said she wasn’t wearing panties had him hard in two seconds. All he could think was that his dick was currently so close to her pantyless deliciousness, and all it would take was a little tug of her skirt and he’d give her something she wouldn’t forget this time. He could take her wrist that was attached to his, raise it above her head on the hot pink wall behind her, and make her sore all over again in the best way possible.
Before he could do something that would get him slapped though, there was a knock on the door, causing Lizette to jerk away. “Yeah?” he called out.
Drake opened the door. “I thought I’d see if I could borrow some pants from Zelda.”
“Please do.” There was just far too much of Drake hanging around lately. “Where is the alligator? Is it watching TV or something?”
“Josie Lynn tied off his snout. She’s Cajun,” he said, like that explained everything. “She made it look easy, and basically made you look like a pussy.”
Great. “I was trying not to show off.” He turned back to Lizette. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Is Zelda awake yet?”
“No, but she’s definitely breathing. And just so you know, I don’t think Katie and Stella came bearing metal cutters.”
Johnny hadn’t really thought they would. They were undead musicians; they had stuff like guitar picks and guitar strings, drumsticks and plasma bags lying around, not tools designed to slice through metal. Although it might not be a bad idea to get some, given how this evening was going.
“Still no word from Saxon?” Drake asked
“Nope. Keep in touch, man. Somebody let me know how Zelda is doing and I’ll let you know if I find Saxon.” Normally Johnny would have clapped Drake on the back or something as he passed, but he’d just as soon keep his hands to himself at the moment.
Heading into the hallway, he glanced back toward the dungeon and was amazed to see that the alligator was on a leash hooked to the bathroom doorknob, his snout tied shut with the bungee cord from the sex swing. Josie Lynn was tossing her hair back and tugging Drake’s pirate shirt down toward her knees.
Wow. Impressive. He waved and continued in the opposite direction. He had to say, he was done with the freak factor for the night. He just wanted to find Saxon, make sure the little idiot was okay, and go home to his apartment that he wasn’t allowed to go home to. Damn it. This was going to be a long night, and he was really starting to be confused about his feelings toward Lizette. He alternated between extreme irritation and total horniness. Maybe the night before would work in his favor though. She had seemed really embarrassed by what happened, so maybe she wouldn’t argue if he said he wanted to go home. After they separated their cuffs, that is.
When they stepped out the front door of Zelda’s and paused on her front stoop, he realized Lizette was very quiet again, her lips pursed, bag clutched tightly against her chest.
“What’s wrong?”
