Cado (3 page)

“Am I to assume that every time I appear to you I will be associated with drugs?” The golden god’s crystal blue eyes sparkled with mirth. “Although I’m already aware how addicting I am.”

“If you’re not a drug induced hallucination, then explain the rest.” I was suddenly aware of the not so subtle pulsing between my thighs. Even if he was a figment of my imagination, the next session with my battery operated boyfriend would thank me for inventing him.

“You may call me Lucian.” He strode towards me slowly, almost seductively, but not quite since he was too predatory somehow. “The reason for the rest—” His full perfect mouth tipped up in an arrogant smile. “—I saved you, and then I healed you.”

I rolled my eyes. Now I definitely knew he was a drug-induced hallucination. But before I could make my declarations out loud he spoke again. “I’m not human, nor have I ever been human. I have the power to do many, many amazing things.”

I flopped back on my bed and let my eyes slide shut. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Lucian’s hot breath fanned across my cheek as he was suddenly close enough to whisper in my ear. “From the very first moment I laid eyes on you I’ve been intrigued by you.” I inhaled sharply when he nipped at my ear lobe. “You and I…” His large warm hand skimmed over my hardened nipples and I moaned softly. “We see humanity for what it really is. You seek to punish in the way I do. I will see you again…very soon.” Then his touch was gone and when I sat up, my eyes fluttering open, he was gone as well.

Whatever kind of drugs the hospital gave me, when I woke up…
I definitely need to get some more.

Someone was incessantly pounding on my head, and I wanted to kill them for it. Or at least that’s what I balefully thought as I was swept away from my ocean paradise dream where Lucian was worshipping me with his tongue on our own private beach. In actuality, someone was knocking on my front door. Or trying to beat it down. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure which one by the way the sound was reverberating within my skull.

“Okay, okay—I’m coming!” I shouted as I stumbled from my bed, my top sheet catching my foot and nearly causing me to face plant. I peered through the peephole and grimaced. It was a cop. The curvature of the image made the badge on his shirt protrude in a very cartoonish way, as if it was the most prominent thing about him. Steeling myself, I swung the door open and grinned amiably. “Yes?”

The tall, broad-shouldered Pittsburgh Police officer’s gaze slid down over me and he cleared his throat. “Ummm…ma’am… you’re naked.”

“What?” I glanced down at my…yes, very naked body. “Shit.” I pushed the door shut, which he caught with his foot. “I-I’ll be right back.” I dashed to my bedroom and pulled on the first items I came across, a black pair of jeans and black t-shirt. I forewent the bra, but it didn’t really matter, I was just trying to cover myself up. It wasn’t like I was embarrassed to be naked in front of a strange man, after all I did it for a living, but I didn’t want to get arrested for public indecency or something.

When I exited my room and headed back to speak with the cop, I noticed he’d moved into my foyer, if the small dingy area could be considered that, and was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. As I approached him I allowed myself to appreciate the uniformed yumminess that I previously hadn’t. He was tall, about 6’3” or 6’4” if I had to guess. His square jaw was clean-shaven but stubble was already showing because of his dark coloring. His hair was short but it looked good on him, it served to highlight his strong features and deep chocolate eyes. 
Yep…definitely yummy
.

“Sooo…” I drawled out, my voice definitely huskier than I wanted it to sound. “What can I do for you, officer?”

He pushed off the wall and stood up straight, dropping his arms to his sides. “Do you always answer the door naked?” His features were a mask of indifference but his eyes danced with amusement.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “No. But I was sleeping and didn’t really take stock of my clothing or lack there of. I just wanted whoever was pounding on my door to stop.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared up at him. “Can we get to the point of your visit? I really would like to go back to sleep ASAP.”

He cleared his throat and seemed to shift into business mode. “Right. Your employer, Bert…called the precinct to come check on you. With some of the stuff that’s happened around the club lately…he was concerned.”

I idly wondered if Officer Hotty was from Pittsburgh. He didn’t have the
Yinzer
accent I’d been hearing a lot around town. I quirked an eyebrow. “Do the Pittsburgh Police usually run off to check on people like that? I mean, I was at work last night and—”

“No one’s heard from you in two days,” Officer Hotty interjected. “And no, usually with your…profession and situation I wouldn’t have been sent here. But in light of the murders…” His voice trailed off as if he was uncomfortable saying anymore.

“I—well—I—” My mind was reeling.
Two days?
What the hell happened to me?
A wave of nausea washed over me and I clutched my stomach. I was really beginning to think someone had drugged me. It would explain…well everything. “I don’t know what happened.” And that thought was literally making me ill. “I mean, I was at the club, and well—” I couldn’t exactly tell him the rest… That I thought I’d had the shit beaten out of me, and then someone healed me. Not that I really believed any of that had actually happened but— “I think someone must have drugged me. I just don’t know what happened and I have no other reasonable explanation.”

My knees buckled and Officer Hotty scooped me up in his arms. If I weren’t on the verge of a panic attack I probably would have taken advantage of the situation. It’d been quite some time since I’d gotten intimate with anything non-battery operated. “I’ve got you,” he rasped, turning for the door. “I’m going to take you to the hospital.”

I sniggered, my mind had stalled on his ‘I’ve got you’ line. “You’ve got me? Who’s got you?” I mumbled.

Officer Hotty snorted. “Did you really just quote the seventies version of the Superman movie to me?”

I met his deep chocolate gaze and interlaced my fingers around his neck. I was suddenly embarrassed. “You knew what I was referencing.” I grimaced and buried my face in his shirt, getting a bit too comfortable with a strange man. “I’m the one going to the hospital, what’s your excuse?”

He didn’t respond and merely snorted again. I decided that for the moment there was nothing left to say. I agreed with him that under the circumstances I needed to go to the hospital to get checked out. I’d been missing for two days, doing God knows what in a drug-induced haze. I shuddered at all the horrifying possibilities.

“What do you mean, I’m clean?” Oh, the irony of me being upset that my drug tests all came back negative.

The elderly nurse pursed her lips and frowned at me. “Just what I said. All the tests came back negative.”

“What about—”

She raised her hand to shut me up. “And you have no concussion or signs of head trauma. Nothing is physically wrong with you. Your problems are definitely mental.” She muttered the last part under her breath before pivoting on her clean white tennis shoes in quite a dramatic exit. Nurse Ratchet wasn’t fooling me though, I knew she meant for me to hear her insult.

A moment later a younger nurse peeked her head in the door, but didn’t enter. “We’re getting your discharge papers together. You can get dressed while you wait.”
Great.
I’m being dismissed.
And the worst part was that I still had absolutely no idea where I’d been for two days. Two whole days…just gone. I heaved a huge sigh and slipped back into my clothes hastily.

I was mumbling to myself, when the door swung open and Officer Hotty peered in almost sheepishly. “I have your discharge papers. I—”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m guessing Nurse Ratchet asked you to escort me out so I didn’t cause any trouble.”

He chuckled, I was guessing at me referring to the head of the department as Nurse Ratchet. “Something like that.”

I glanced around the hospital room and snagged a pair of those booties used to cover hospital worker’s shoes. Officer Hotty had forgotten to get me any shoes or socks before bringing me to get checked out, and my poor little tootsies were the ones suffering. Nurse Ratchet’s bedside manner sucked. She hadn’t even offered me such a minor thing to stave off my impending frostbite. Of course I would have preferred actual hospital socks, but whatever. “Are you going to drive me home too? Because I didn’t bring my purse so—”

“Yep, as long as you don’t steal anything else,” Officer Hotty retorted while eyeing by new booties.

“Seriously? Like they’re going to notice.” I pulled the second one on and wiggled my toes, enjoying the little bit of warmth they offered.

“It might not seem like much to you now but first it’s hospital socks and the next thing you know you’ll be pocketing anything you can get your hands on.” Amusement was evident in his voice as he chided me.

I bit my lip to keep from smiling and met his deep chocolate gaze head on. “Well, if that’s the case then maybe you should just arrest me now.” I crossed my wrists and stretched my arms out towards him. “I’ve been a bad, bad girl. A menace, really. I obviously need punished.” I tacked on a very porn-like sounding moan just to be obnoxious. When he didn’t respond I decided to say more. “Oh—oh please, Officer Hotty—please teach me a lesson I’ll never forget. I think I might need spanked at the very least.”

“Officer Hotty?” He choked back a laugh.

I wasn’t exactly the shy type…obviously. “Since I don’t know your name that’s what I’ve been referring to you as in my mind.” I shrugged.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here before I’m actually tempted to punish you.” He turned and started walking. I had to dash to catch up to him.

“I’m game if you are, Officer Hotty.”

“The name’s Moretti—Officer Moretti. And I don’t fuck strippers.”

I huffed. “I’m an exotic dancer. Big difference.”
Why did I say that? Everybody knows they’re the same thing.
I myself used the terms stripper and exotic dancer interchangeably.
I nibbled my lower lip and studied his profile. He really was gorgeous. I found myself comparing him to the actor Joe Manganiello. They could be brothers, not quite twins, but close enough. “Want to carry me to your car? I’m kind of tired.”

“Nope,” he grumbled.

“Ah, come on. What has your panties in a bunch all of a sudden? I’m the one who lost two days with absolutely no knowledge of how that could have possibly happened.”

Officer Hotty—I mean Moretti gave me the cold shoulder until we got into his car. He at least let me ride up front with him so I didn’t feel like some kind of criminal in the back seat. I was pretty sure that technically he could have gotten in trouble for that. Finally he spoke when we were about half way through the ride to my apartment on the North Side of town. “Why do you strip? I mean, you could do so many other things.”

“I like what I do,” I snapped.

“Why?”

I’d been asked that question so many times before and most of the time I lied. I was too emotionally exhausted to lie to him at the moment, or I maybe wanted him to know the truth for some reason. “All those men—wanting me—it makes me feel desired, special. And I have all the control. I guess really I get off on the power trip. I have power over all those men. I have something they want and I get to say that they can’t have it.” Which was all true. I was just leaving out the part about the bonus of being in contact with shady people that I tracked down and punished. I was an exotic dancer who doled out vigilante justice on the side. Of course that was kind of about control and power too. Either way, I liked my job. I was in control of my own destiny, just the way I liked it.

“They can have you if they pay enough.” Officer Moretti’s voice was low and raspy when he said the words that felt like a slap to my face.

“Not true. I can’t be bought. I—”

“You can up to a point. You—”

“Fuck you.” We were a few blocks from my apartment so I jumped out of the car just as we rolled to a stop at a light. I wasn’t ashamed of what I did but I also wasn’t going to sit there while someone who thought they were all high and mighty judged me.