Fangs for Nothing

“I just looked in my purse.”

“Yeah?” Johnny couldn’t even imagine what would put that look on her face. Actually, he could think of a lot of things, each more bizarre than the last, starting with dildos and ending with sherbet vomit.

She opened it up for him to see and he to admit, he was a little surprised. There was a thick stack of dollar bills. “I take it you didn’t have those before last night?”

“No! There must be several hundred dollars in small bills in here. Where did I get those from?”

He couldn’t even begin to guess. “I have no idea.” It was then he realized that the back of her shirt was darker than the front. “Hey, turn a little bit for me.” He studied the spot and realized that was why he was feeling so thirsty. Lizette had dried blood on her shirt.

“What, what is it?”

Crap. She wasn’t going to like this. “You have blood on the back of your shirt. A lot of it.”

“That’s why I keep smelling blood. I thought it was just Josie Lynn.”

“Huh.” Because really, what else could he say? “It’s only a couple of blocks to Saxon’s. Hopefully he just got cold feet last night or forgot where Zelda lived or something.”

“How could he forget where his fiancee lives?”

“Trust me, Saxon could.”

She bit her lip. “I’m going to call Dieter. Maybe he knows what happened last night.”

“Who is Dieter?” Johnny asked, even though he knew exactly who her beefcake assistant was. He just wanted to hear her say yet again that her relationship with him was strictly platonic.

“My assistant.”

“He has a thing for you,” Johnny told her, just to hear her protest, and because he was suddenly feeling particularly ornery.

“He does not!” Lizette actually starting walking faster than him, like she could walk ahead of his questions, even though she had no idea which direction they were going in.

A sudden thought occurred to Johnny, one he had to say he didn’t like at all. “How do you know it’s me you had sex with? I mean, we don’t know how long we’ve been handcuffed together.” Maybe he hadn’t had sex at all. Maybe that’s why he felt such an urgent need to hump Lizette. Maybe he’d been blue-balled. No. He couldn’t believe it. He’d made her come three times. That was the only story he was willing to believe.

Apparently Lizette agreed with him on that because she stopped walking, turned around, and slapped him.

Holy crap. His head snapped back and he stared at her, stunned, cheekbone aching. She had some force behind those little hands. “What the hell was that for?” He could honestly say he’d never been slapped before in his whole life. Not even by Bambi, and she had been hot tempered. He had assumed slapping was reserved for eighties soap operas and Tom and Jerry episodes.

It was kind of hot, he had to admit.

“For calling me a slut!” she said hotly, eyes flashing, mouth trembling with rage.

Whoa now. “I did not call you . . . that. I was just saying that maybe we were making an assumption, that we don’t know for sure what happened.”

“Why, are you horrified at the mere thought of having slept with me?”

Ninety-some years alive and he still couldn’t figure out women. Why would she get a stupid idea like that? “Of course not! I’m fascinated at the idea that we might have had sex. It just seems like the last way things would have turned out last night. You know, since we get along so well. But the very idea of seeing you naked and kissing your cherry lips has me totally hard.” And just to prove his point, he brought her hand with his and ground it onto his cock, which was starting to feel like a rattling pressure cooker.

“Oh! Mon dieu!”

“He’s got nothing to do with it,” Johnny assured her.

Lizette made a sound of exasperation, yanked her hand away, then whirled back around and started walking, muttering in French and dragging Johnny along with her.

He had no idea what she was saying, but he could guess it was filled with name-calling and her affronted dignity. “You’re going the wrong way,” he pointed out. “We need to turn left here.”

She practically hissed at him, then followed it up with more rapid-fire French. But she did turn left.

“It’s not my fault I don’t remember,” he told her, because he was feeling a little bitter about that. “I wish I did, trust me. And just for the record, I would be jealous if you slept with someone else.” It was true, and he figured it would win him points. Women liked jealous guys, didn’t they? They did in movies, anyways.

Johnny walked down Dumaine and pondered how it was that he’d never really understood women. His relationships such as they were had been like origami, full of little folds, then when he tugged one piece the whole thing collapsed. Here it was happening already with Lizette and he wasn’t even sure he actually liked her. He was pretty damn sure she didn’t like him.

He really hadn’t been passing judgment, but he knew he was right; they had no way of knowing if they’d really had sex. If she had banged someone else, well, she had been out of her mind. Hell, if she had banged him she had clearly been out of her mind. Not drugged, he was 100 percent positive she would not have come near him. He wouldn’t have hit on her sober either. Because he would have gotten slapped.

Johnny worked his jaw and fought the urge to grin. Yeah, she was hot, there was no doubt about it. The uptight paper-pusher had a fiery side, and he couldn’t help but want to explore that side of her.

Lizette had dug her phone out and was speaking into it in French, which made Johnny wonder if it was Dieter, because he could have sworn her assistant was German, but then again, what did he know? Besides, Germans probably spoke French. He was starting to feel like a real potato farmer next to her, which was stupid. He was a musician and chicks everywhere dug that. He wasn’t a loser. Even if he was walking behind her, attached to her like a disobedient dog.

The submissive lifestyle wasn’t for him, he had to say. He was happy for Saxon if that was his thing, but Johnny didn’t like to take orders. He liked to coax and tease and charm his way to get what he wanted. What he wanted right now was Lizette, naked, below him, quivering, her plump lips parted.

“Hey, brother, what’s up?” A man on the corner of St. Philip and Bourbon Street outside of Lafitte’s gave him a wave and a friendly smile. “Where’s your bucket tonight? My wife loved the picture of her with you guys.”

Okay. What picture might that be? And why the hell would he have a bucket? Johnny figured this was a good opportunity to gather some information. He touched Lizette’s arm so she would stop marching down the street. “That’s awesome. I’d love to see it if you have it on your phone.”

“Sure, sure, no problem.” The guy was wearing a golf shirt with large sweat stains in both pits, and he wiped his forehead with a hankie. “I’ll tell you, it’s hot out here. Okay, let me pull it up on my phone. The wife is inside having a hurricane. Little hair of the dog, if you know what I mean.”

Johnny smiled back at him. “That sounds about right for a Saturday night in New Orleans. Hope you’re having a good trip.”

“Oh, the best, absolutely the best.” He glanced at Lizette, who had turned her head and was still on her cell phone. “I’ll tell ya, you’re a lucky son of a gun. Your girlfriend is beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Johnny felt a ridiculous sense of pride, even though Lizette didn’t belong to him in any way.

“Here it is.” The man turned his camera and showed Johnny the image on the screen. “It was so real. My wife loved it!”

Holy fuck. Lizette was going to birth a cow. Johnny tried not to react, but it was hard not to at least go a little buggy-eyed as he stared at the picture of him biting Lizette’s neck, her eyes rolled back in ecstasy, blood trailing down the back of her shirt. The tourist’s wife was standing next to them grinning and pointing. Lizette was perched on a bucket, and in front of them was a pile of money on the street. Oh God, they had been charging tourists cash to watch him suck her blood.

“That is a great shot,” he told the man with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

“How do you get the blood so realistic? I could swear it even smelled like blood.”

Johnny gave him a shaky smile and a wink. “Trade secret, buddy. Can’t give that away or we’ll be out of business.”

The tourist laughed. “Sure, sure, I understand. You want me to send you a copy of this picture? I can shoot it to you in an email.”