Skye's Trail (7 page)

Rico forced his mind away from the vivid fantasies. He was on the job. He had to know that she wasn’t here hunting Brittany Armstrong’s killers.

“This doesn’t seem like your kind of place,” he said.

“It doesn’t seem like yours either.”

“Just checking something out for a case.”

She took a swallow of beer, watching him closely as she asked, “So how does this place link to Brittany Armstrong?”

He was good, there was just the briefest hesitation, but she knew she’d guessed correctly. Rico tried to change the subject. “Caldwell said you didn’t call her back.”

Skye laughed, but didn’t bother to deny knowing about the detective’s call. Rico frowned at her. “Cia’s a good cop. Rivera wants her to tie up the loose ends with you. Don’t give her a hard time.”

“I’m not on the police payroll,” Skye reminded him. “But I’ll make you a deal. Tell me what you’ve got that ties Brittany to this club and I’ll go quietly to the police station and help your detective with her paperwork.”

He gritted his teeth as frustrated lust shifted to anger. She always played it the way she wanted. Screw the rules. Screw the law or duty or anything else.

“It’s an open police investigation,” he reminded her.

“Yes, I think Caldwell told me that.” Skye looked down at her watch and noticed that it was well after midnight. “Yesterday, I believe.”

“Why do you want to know about Brittany Armstrong?”

Skye shrugged as though none of it really mattered. “Curiosity, Rico. You’re here, I’m here. Why not ask?”

He watched her sip the beer and idly look around the club. His earlier suspicions seemed like paranoia. She was the best at what she did, had found kids when there was no hope of finding them. A hunter, a tracker. But not a killer. There was no hard evidence to prove she was a killer. The information she wanted wasn’t sensitive, she’d guessed the most important thing anyway. “You’ll go to the station?”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “Anything to help the police.”

Rico ignored the comment and said, “Brittany’s parents came up with the name of this place. She’d printed out a posting from some site on the internet about a cool place in Vegas.” He shrugged. “There’s no real tie but I figured it’d be worth checking out. The kid was nuts, living in a fantasy world. The local police pulled in the computer. All they’ve got so far is that Brittany spent a lot of time online visiting vampire sites and hanging out in chat rooms with other kids just as crazy.”

“Like these kids?” Skye suggested with a slight smile. From where they stood next to the bar, Skye could see at least four kids sporting filed, fang-like teeth.

“Yeah.” His tone said he’d already made a judgment about the kids at Fangs. “Do you have Brittany’s picture with you?”

Skye thought about the picture zipped in her Harley jacket. She knew she shouldn’t play with him this way, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Want to frisk me and see, Rico.” Her voice was low, soft, purposefully seductive. It stroked him like a lover’s caress.

His eyes dilated. Fantasies merged and burned through him. He knew that he shouldn’t touch her. He did anyway as a slow song began playing.

She went willingly into his arms as he guided her onto the dance floor. Their bodies rubbed, pressed, melded. He unbraided her hair and ran his fingers through it. He stopped thinking about being a cop and just let himself feel. He was rock-hard, a constant state when he was around her.

His hands skimmed down her back, pulling the tank top out of her jeans so he could run his palms over the warm skin of her sides. “God,” he groaned, burying his face into her hair.

She pressed against his hardness, enjoying the friction of the slow dance. Her nipples were tight and hard. Her sex already swollen and wet, prepared for him. She could smell her own arousal—and his. He smelled right. The primitive part of her recognized him for what he could be—what he was. A mate.

Skye hadn’t been with anyone for so long. Hadn’t wanted to be, though there was always a hint of need tingling through her.

Now, as she took his scent into her lungs, a shiver of fear raced along her spine. If she slept with him, there might not be an escape for either of them.

Self-preservation warred with urges unfamiliar in their intensity but Skye couldn’t stop herself from playing in the fire of lust. She nuzzled into his chest and used her teeth to take a small playful hold on his shirt-covered nipple.

Rico groaned and pulled her more tightly against his body. Waves of lust shot from his nipple to his already engorged cock.

He was desperate for her. So desperate that he was tempted to forget that he was on the job, that Caldwell—his newly assigned partner and guard dog—was going to be here any minute. He was so desperate that he wanted to pull Skye out to his car and fuck her there. He couldn’t stand the thought of another day spent like today, so horny that he couldn’t get to sleep, jerking off only to be hard again and again. Shit, it was worse than when he was a teenager.

Skye wound her arms around his neck and brushed her fingers against the hair where it touched his collar. She let herself sink into the heat of him.

She wanted to trail kisses up his neck, along his jaw, cover his lips with hers and absorb him like a sensual feast while their tongues slid against each other and mated in the dark wet heat of their mouths.

She wanted to, but she didn’t.

Her mind overrode what her body desired.

Rico would be a dangerous mate.

He was a cop.

And for her, the hunt and the kill were sometimes inexorably tied together.

The music changed, picking up in pace. Rico stiffened and stepped away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Detective Caldwell approaching the bar. The phone on his belt began to hum. Rico pulled it off and checked the number. “I’ve got to go.”

Their eyes met and locked. Heat simmered between them. He stepped back. “Return Caldwell’s call, okay?”

Aroused. Torn. Edgy with need, Skye nodded and watched him leave.

“Who was
he
?” Candy asked when Skye returned to the table. “I mean, he was like,
so hot
!”

“A friend,” Skye said as she pulled the picture of Jen out of her pocket. “What about this girl? Ever seen her here?”

Mike flashed his fangs. “Is it worth a round of beers?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” He scooted closer and glanced at the picture. “Yeah, she used to come here every night.”

Dawn leaned forward. “I remember her. She
always
got in. And she
never
had to wait in line. But I haven’t seen her in like, maybe a couple of months.”

“She come alone or with a friend?”

“With another girl I think. You remember, Candy?”

Candy studied the picture. “Yeah, I think she had a friend with her. They cut in line every time.” She shrugged. “They were probably friends with a vamp and that’s why they always got in.”

“You ever see them with a vamp?” The kids all shook their head “no”. “And you haven’t seen them lately?” Once again the kids all indicated they hadn’t.

“Thanks.” Skye zipped the photo into the same jacket pocket that held Brittany’s picture then pulled some bills from her jeans and began to count out the beer money.

“Oh my god,” Candy breathed, “oh my god. Vamp alert! Vamp alert!”

Dawn and Mike both twisted in their seats. Skye looked up. The gorgeous “vampire” who’d been sitting with Haley was gliding toward them.

“May I join you?” he asked as he stopped next to the table. His voice was velvet seduction, but it was his eyes that drew her as he sat down without waiting for an answer.

They were as black as a starless night. Yet deep within them a flame burned, tempted, promised ecstasy to anyone who could reach it and bathe in its heat. Skye leaned forward, let the darkness surround her as she moved toward the flame. The lust that had been riding her when she was with Rico returned with a vengeance. She wanted relief. She wanted what the deep flame offered. But the promise remained elusive, just out of reach, encouraging the seeker to move further and further into the darkness.

Without conscious thought, Skye slipped into another world. Into being
other
. And as soon as she did, she saw the flame for what it was. Understood the power of the hunter in front of her.

A jolt of surprise ripped through her. She’d never met anyone else who could hypnotize as she did.

He was very good at it. And very powerful. But her strength had been forged in hell. With a blink and a slight twist of her head she easily escaped the trap of his eyes.

His face registered shock before it changed into an emotionless mask. The midnight-colored eyes never left her face as he murmured, “I am Giovanni Banderali. Gian to my friends.”

His voice was silky-soft, tempting and beautiful. Yet he was dangerous, deadly—as she was.

Adrenaline whipped through Skye’s body along with desire. “Skye Delano,” she said, letting her voice duel with his, move over him like an erotic fantasy.

The flame in the dark centers of his eyes flared even as the look of a hungry predator flickered across his face.

Skye turned to her companions. They sat around the table in eager disbelief. Transfixed. Unable to believe their good fortune or speak. Unable to take their eyes off the man they thought was a vampire.

“Candy, Dawn, and Mike,” she introduced them.

Gian acknowledged each of them, staring briefly into their eyes as he did so. A waitress appeared at the table unsummoned. “Were you about to order something?” Gian asked.

“Beers,” Mike managed. “We were getting a round of beers.”

Without a word the waitress disappeared. She returned within moments with four beers and a wineglass full of dark red wine.

“Oh, wow,” Candy breathed. “You’re the real thing. I just know you’re the real thing.”

Skye only barely managed to contain a laugh. Gian gave a slight smile and shook his head when Skye started to hand the waitress some money. “It’s on the house.”

“This is your place?” she asked.

“Along with some partners.”

“At the private table?”

“You’re very observant.”

Skye half-smiled as she let her eyes move over his features, linger. He was unforgettable. Like no man she’d ever encountered before. He was pure sex. Life and death rolled into the same coin.

Her body recognized him, just as it did Rico.

A mate.

“You’re hard to miss,” she said without inflection and let her eyes wander from Gian over to the kids.

His eyes lingered on her for a second longer then he too shifted his focus to include the others in his comment. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

“Oh,” Dawn was finally able to speak, “we’re here every night.”

Candy added, “But mainly we’re waiting outside.”

“Your club is like so totally rad,” Mike said.

Gian gave a small smile. “I’ll tell the doorkeeper that you may come into the club any time it’s open. There’s no need to wait in line.”