Angel: Private Eye Book One (23 page)

Silence and stillness, apart from my
shaking, convulsing body.

So much blood and sweat slipped down my
cheeks and brow it felt as if I would drown.

Though I'd broken the grips of the magical
ropes that tied me to the chair, I could barely move. It felt as if
my body had just discharged lightning. And hey, maybe it had.

It was meant to be almost impossible to kill
a glass demon. Only the strongest practitioners of magic could do
it, and yet somehow I'd done it.

My blood… my blood had shattered it.

My thoughts spun harder and harder, faster
and faster, until it felt as if my head had turned into a spinning
atom.

Just when I thought I'd lose consciousness,
I began to hear angry voices from on top of the stairs. Though they
were barely more than a rumble, I knew – God I knew – it was
Theodore and his cronies. This time he was coming to get me and he
wasn't going to let me go.

Just when I heard footsteps echo closer,
something rang. My phone, to be exact. It was still in my pocket,
and fortunately hadn’t been crushed by my fall. Though the almost
belligerent sound of it ringing was enough to shock me, I couldn't
find the strength to wriggle an arm around and answer it.

Maybe it was help. Maybe it was a
telemarketer. And maybe it wouldn't make any difference. I heard a
golem’s stone feet finally reaching the bottom of the stairs.

“Help me, somebody help me,” I shrieked.

The phone stopped ringing.

It was so dark in this basement that I could
see any illumination however small, and from behind me, I suddenly
saw a single spark as if somebody was lighting up a cigarette or
playing around with a half lit candle.

Somehow, somehow I felt a presence behind me
and I heard the creak of fabric and the shifting of shoes as a hand
was placed tenderly on my shoulder.

I screamed, realizing it must be Theodore,
realizing he must have somehow used another entrance.

“God no, please, let me go, let me go,” I
begged. “I don't know anything. I don't know anything. I don't know
why Benson wants me. Just let me go.”

“I assure you, Miss Luck, Benson only wants
to help you,” somebody said.

It wasn't Theodore; it was William Benson
III himself.

I found the strength to snap my head around
and stare up into his face. Though he looked easy, there was a
certain tension about him. A tension that was magnified as his gaze
darted over my cut, bedraggled form.

Before I knew it, he was leaning down,
locking his arms around my back and pulling me easily up into his
arms.

The sleeves of his expensive shirt were
rolled up and bunched under my back. I could even feel the dent of
his watch pushing hard into my side. And that wasn't to mention –
oh God – that wasn't to mention his arms.

I could pick up every single detail of them,
every bulge of muscle, every smooth line of ligament, and every
blessed trace of warmth.

“What– what’s happening?” I
managed.

“What is happening, Miss Luck, is that you
asked for help. Now I suggest we get out of this basement and into
the light.”

With that, he took a swift step backwards
and there was another tiny, almost insignificant speck of
light.

Before I knew it, I was standing in his
office.

Instantly my head began to swim, but that
was nothing to be said of my stomach. It lurched hard, and I
pitched to the left.

Before I could throw up the empty contents
of my stomach, I felt Benson latch two fingers into my cheek.

It was a strange, distracting sensation,
granted, but shouldn't have been enough to stop me from throwing up
all over his expensive loafers and carpet.

Yet it was.

“Do understand, I just had this office
cleaned,” he said importantly.

Then he walked me over to the couch in the
center of the room and placed me down gently.

I stared up at him as he looked down at
me.

I felt like utter trash. I’d never felt so
sick in all my life.

I clamped a hand on my stomach, drew my head
forward, and squeezed my eyes so closed it would have taken a
crowbar to part them.

Then reality struck me like a brick between
the eyes.

Benson had saved me.

I hesitantly opened one eye.

There he was, right in front of me, one hand
rested easily in his pocket as he considered me, one eyebrow
raised. “Miss Luck, though I can appreciate you would like to sleep
after your ordeal, I think it would be common courtesy to explain
to me – your savior – exactly what happened.”

There was something so exquisitely
irritating about his tone and that sanctimonious smirk crumpling
his perfect lips that I somehow managed to find the energy to shift
up and glare at him. “You aren't my savior.”

Slowly, so goddamn slowly, his lips crumpled
into a smile. Christ, it was like a lesson in anatomy. I saw every
twitch of the muscles along his lips, chin, and jaw.

And what was worse – what was infinitely
worse – is he saw how keenly I watched him.

He let out a soft chuckle and shifted his
shoulders as if he were trying to get more comfortable.

It only attracted my greedy gaze to his arms
and back. I could still remember in unnervingly perfect detail how
it felt to be lifted up by those arms.

I brought a hand up and crumpled it over my
eyes, trying to grind them closed.

What the hell was I thinking? This jerk was
William Benson. Why the hell was my stupid brain swinging from
hating him one moment to being rather pleasantly distracted by his
perfect body the next?

“It's natural for there to be some confusion
after a run in with a glass demon,” he told me as he shifted
forward and walked over to a polished walnut drinks cabinet on the
far side of the room. He fixed himself a whiskey, then grabbed the
shadiest looking black bottle from the back of the cabinet. I'd
snooped through enough of Mr Marvelous stuff to have seem some
seriously peculiar looking bottles of potion, but what Benson
uncorked and poured into a glass took the biscuit.

I could smell the stuff from over here, and
it smelt like concentrated death.

He walked over to me and handed me the
glass.

I frowned at it. “You don't seriously expect
me to drink that, do you?”

“Of course I do. If you don't, you won't be
holding up your end of the bargain. And if you fail to hold up our
contract, miss—” he began.

“Don't call me Miss Luck again,” I snarled
as I reluctantly grabbed the glass off him. “And don't remind me
about that frigging contract.”

He chuckled as he took several polite steps
back, placed his hand back in his pocket, and took several slow,
appreciative sips of his whiskey. “Why do I get the feeling you
aren't like this around other people?” he suddenly asked.

Thrown by the question, it distracted me
sufficiently that I sat up without once realizing how painful my
side was.

I glared at him from over the top of the
black, bubbling, seething liquid. It looked like angry tar.

Benson held my gaze with that infuriating
steady stare of his. The one that told you he could lock his eyes
on you for the rest of eternity and not once be tempted to look
away.

He dipped his head down, never blinking
once. “Please drink, Miss Luck. I assure you it isn't poison. You
are far too interesting to poison at this stage.” He smiled as he
took another sip of his whiskey.

I spluttered.

He laughed.

Why did so many of our interactions end up
like this?

Experimentally, I tried to get to my
feet.

Big mistake. Oh boy, was it a big
mistake.

I was suddenly violently reminded of how
hurt I was.

I let out a pathetic little whine and almost
crumpled.

Before I could let go of the glass and slosh
the fiendish contents all over my torn sweatshirt, Benson was
there. Right in front of me.

The guy had the apparent ability to divide
space and travel over half the room in a split second.

He was down on one knee, right before me,
one hand locked on the glass, holding it upright.

I jerked back, shoulders banging into the
expensive leather of his antique sofa.

“Drink this, it will make you feel better.
Go some way to healing your injuries.” With that statement, his
eyes locked on my cheeks.

They were cut, smears of blood covering
them, a few flecks staining my collar, too.

Benson was a composed vampire with a top
financial firm, sure – but he was still a vampire.

There was a reason no vampires worked at the
blood bank.

Though they could keep themselves
restrained, theoretically, you never knew when they'd snap.

Before I knew what he was doing, Benson
reached a hand up and almost placed it along my cheek.

I trembled at his expected touch.

But it didn't come. As a flare of something
– possibly reason – flashed through his eyes, he switched his hand
to his pocket.

He withdrew a perfectly pressed, perfectly
white handkerchief.

He pressed it against my cheek with a
delicate, supremely careful touch.

Then he went right back to staring at me.
“Drink,” he commanded.

There was something undeniably powerful
about his tone – something undeniably compelling. Before I knew
what I was doing, I jerked the glass up to my lips and took a
sip.

…
And didn't promptly spit
it out.

In fact, it was delicious. Hot and spicy, it
sloshed down my throat, curling around my middle like a welcome
embrace.

I quickly brought the glass up and took
another much larger sip.

Just when I threatened to tip my head back
and swallow the rest of the liquid in a great big gulp, Benson
placed one strong finger on the rim of the glass and pushed it
down. “Slowly,” he said, his lips moving appropriately slowly
around the word.

I didn't want to chuck this down slowly – I
wanted to run over to the bottle in his drinks cabinet, uncork it,
and tip every last drop down my throat.

I felt great. It wasn't just pushing back
the pain that had robbed me of my strength, it was making me feel
on top of the world.

Before I knew it, I let out a very happy,
very girly, very silly giggle.

“I think that's enough for now.” Benson
grabbed the glass back and stood before me.

For a second he didn't step back, and I was
treated to an up-close view of his front.

Christ, the guy was built. Chiseled like a
Greek god under the finest tailored suit.

I, very stupidly, brought up a hand, crammed
it over my mouth, and started to guffaw like a love-struck teenager
at a boyband concert.

Benson took another polite, pointed step
back. Then he took a breath. The kind of breath that pushed out his
strong, rock-hard chest and saw his collar almost pop against his
firm neck.

All details that riveted me to the spot. Oh
god, if he didn't stop looking so fine, I'd probably start
drooling.

“Miss Luck, I need you to concentrate and
tell me exactly what happened.”

I was staring at his chest. His outline was
perfectly, beautifully, artfully lit up by the light streaming in
through his panorama windows.

“Miss Luck,” he prompted once more.

There was that same note of authority in his
tone.

It had the desired effect on me. I
straightened as if someone had just rammed a rod down my back.

My lips split open and I started telling him
the whole sorry tale. But did I once tear my gaze off his perfect
stomach, neck, and arms? Nope.

I openly gawked at him as if he were the
first real man I’d ever seen.

Benson visibly stiffened when I told him a
vampire had followed me home and delivered a message with placards
on my street corner.

“Did you leave the building? Did you go out
at any time during the night?” he demanded.

I flopped a hand at him. “Do you think I’m
stupid? I'm not stupid,” I said in the kind of droning voice that
pretty much confirmed I was a raging idiot.

“Fine,” he swallowed hard, and hello mamma
did it set off a pleasant ripple of muscles that pushed hard down
his middle. “What happened next?”

“Oh, not much. I got your message in the
morning, went to pathology, then got kidnapped by golems, tied to a
chair in a fancy restaurant, and leered at by Theodore.”

“They kidnapped you outside of the pathology
clinic? Where's your blood sample?” Benson snapped as he snapped
towards me.

I crammed a hand over my mouth and giggled
again at his presence. “You know, that shirt fits you sooo well,” I
said.

Holy. Crap. Holy crap, crap, crap, crap,
crap. The scrap of my mind that wasn't high on whatever Benson had
given me, cringed.

I would regret this in the morning.

Boy, I’d never be able to live this
down.

“Where's the blood?” Benson's direct,
piercing gaze locked on my pockets.

“Theodore has it, silly. He stole it. Then I
managed to get away from him. His golems chased me down into some
stone basement thing on the opposite side of the street…. come to
think of it, what the heck was it doing there? I mean, that's the
fanciest street in town. You'd think—”

“Focus,” Benson's tone dropped, and it would
be clear to anyone not currently whacked out on drugs, that he was
starting to lose his patience. “The basement would have been a
portal spell set up by Theodore. Just tell me what happened. Did
you tell that demon anything?”

I looked up at him. Despite the fact I could
still feel the silly effects of the drink bamboozling my mind and
turning my sense inside out, I… held his gaze as something flared
in my heart.

“You think I’m weak enough to fall for a
glass demon?” I demanded.