What Happens in Vegas...After Dark (3 page)

“That your latest woman?”

“She’s my new housemate.”

“I didn’t know you found one.” I nodded, and he frowned. “So what’s the problem?”

“She’s a firefighter. Actually, she’s the newest member of Ladder 19.”

“Sounds pretty perfect to me.”

“She is. Too perfect. I can’t stop thinking about her.” Even as I said the words, Deitre’s sultry smile appeared in my mind. Followed by those vibrant red lips diving down and sucking hard on my bare, stiff cock.

I shook my head against the vision. I’d been having them every few hours or so since I got off work yesterday and each one felt less like a hallucination and more like she really was doing me. Just that quick glimpse had my pulse speeding and my cock pressing semihard against the fly of my nylon shorts.

Jack sent a glare at my hand. “You’re cleaning it, not working a hole in it.”

Realizing my hand had gone from gentle rubbing to furious scrubbing, I murmured an apology and slowed my pace.

His glare turned to a shit-eating grin. “Baby brother’s falling for a girl. About damned time.”

“It’s nothing like that,” I quickly assured him before he bolted inside the B and B and shared the news with Carinna. “I just can’t be in the same room with Deitre without wanting to screw her. I mean, she’s hot, yeah. But this is ridiculous. I swear all she has to do is look my way and I’m rock-hard and taking her up against the wall. Seriously, Viagra has nothing on this chick.”

“Is she not reciprocating?”

“Nah, she is. Whenever I want it and sometimes when I swear I don’t.”

“Somehow I never thought you’d see sex as a problem.”

“It’s not a huge deal. Just I’ve been dragging ass lately. Last night I would have liked to have gone to bed, but then I get there and I hear her voice calling good-night, and next thing I know we were screwing like we hadn’t seen each other in months.”

Amusement fil ed Jack’s eyes. In a moderately sober tone, he suggested, “Maybe you should get a different housemate.”

“I don’t want to do that. She is pretty perfect.” Frankly, the thought of not sleeping with her had my guts feeling just as pukey as they’d felt after she did me on the stairs that first morning. “Maybe I should tell her I’m not quite on par with the guys she’s obviously been with in the past.”

Bafflement took over Jack’s expression as his hand stilled on the bumper. “You—Cock Dempsey—are actually going to say that to a woman?”

In the months before Deitre came along, I hadn’t been living up to my nickname so much. But neither my brother nor the guys at the firehouse knew that. I didn’t want them knowing it, either. Didn’t want to come close to them learning how badly I felt like I’d fucked up at that apartment fire a year before and the lasting repercussions it was having on me.

“You’re right, bro. I’ll just make it a point to pick up some vitamins on the way back to the house.” Standing, I tossed the rag back at him. “In the meantime, can I snag one of your spare bedrooms for a few hours?”

“Sure. But let Carinna know you’re there. Otherwise she might walk in and think you’re me after some morning loving. Then you won’t only have more sex to deal with, you’ll have a brother with a shotgun aimed at your balls.”

Deitre

Wet with anticipation, I hoisted myself up on the firehouse’s kitchen counter and untied the sash of my green, nkle-length robe. Then I yelled for Ryan. Mixing business with pleasure wasn’t a risk I should take, but I was having too much fun with him to keep the toying confined to the house. Besides, if I really thought we were in danger of getting caught by anyone who mattered, I could transport myself to another room.

He shouted back from the dining room just outside the kitchen door. At last look, a half-dozen guys sat around the long, narrow table, shooting the breeze while tossing back pizzas dropped off courtesy of the Italian restaurant across the street.

“I need your help,” I called again. “The knob’s stuck on the…hot thing.”

Male laughter roared through the door. Most of it was good humor. Some of it was derisive. I could guess the owners of the scornful laughs and vowed to pay them back later. After I finished paying Ryan back.

The door pushed in a half foot and he stuck his head inside, a suspicious look on his face. His gaze fastened on my position on the counter, then quickly slid to the bare portion of my legs and feet sticking out from beneath my robe. Warily, he asked, “Which knob on what hot thing?”

Smiling, I parted the sides of my robe to reveal my nude body. His eyes darted to my breasts, and I took a nipple between my fingers and twisted. “This one.”

His eyes slammed closed as the door shut behind him. Opening them, he vowed,

“You’re going to be the death of me, woman.”

If he only knew how right he was…. “Does that mean you aren’t going to help me fix it?”

The want to do precisely that flared as dark green desire in his eyes. “You realize if the chief catches us, we could both get canned? Maybe you don’t care, but I’ve been here for almost a decade and this place was in my blood long before that.”

Pushing out my lower lip, I pulled my robe back together. “You’re right. We shouldn’t play.”

“Christ, don’t pout.”

“I’m not trying. You’re just so sexy and I can’t think about you without wanting you.”

That much was true. For all that I was making Ryan want me, with both my actions and the visions I planted in his head when I knew they wouldn’t interfere with his ability to do his job, he had my mind pretty well taken over in return. It wasn’t the first time a male intended as my victim had made me desire him. But it was the first time in fifty or sixty years. “Don’t worry about it. As wet as I am, I probably won’t even notice if it’s your cock or a vibrator inside me.”

A pained sort of lust flashed over his face as he eyed my thinly-covered crotch. “How did you get so wet?”

“Like this.” Sliding the lower half of the robe apart again by spreading my thighs, I slipped a finger inside my pussy and pumped.

On a low growl, Ryan strode across the room. He jerked the fly of his jeans down and yanked out his solid cock with a speed and grace even a succubus had to appreciate. “You seriously are going to be the death of me.”

Grabbing my butt, he jerked me to the edge of the counter and right onto his waiting cock. I nearly cried out as pleasure, raw and intense, whipped through my body. Then I remembered where we were and that I wasn’t yet ready for either of us to lose our jobs.

“How the hell do you stay so tight?” he demanded as he shoved to the hilt, again and again.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and thrust my tongue into his mouth, licking at his tongue and teeth and stealing a bit of his energy in the meantime. I lifted my lips away, feeling revived and eager for orgasm. Truthfully, I said, “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Ryan’s chest slammed against my breasts as his breath jerked out like he couldn’t get enough air. He didn’t attempt a reply, but fixed glassy eyes on my face and pounded inside my dripping sheath like a man possessed. He wasn’t. Not at the moment. To know how badly he wanted me, even when I wasn’t influencing his thoughts, made me wetter for him yet.

“Cock?” a man’s deep voice shouted from somewhere on the other side of the kitchen door.

“God, yeah, it is,” Ryan got out in a thin voice.

I stilled the rocking of my hips. I could teleport out of here, but I’d prefer not to leave him with a memory loss of the last few minutes if avoidable. “That wasn’t me.”

“No?” he asked in a dazed voice.

“No.” Grabbing hold of the counter ledge, I pul ed off from his erection and moved back on the counter. He stood immobile, and I stage whispered, “Ryan, I think someone’s about to come into the kitchen.”

Shaking his head, he emerged from whatever trance he’d fallen under. “Shit.”

“Cock?” the deep voice shouted again, sounding closer this time.

“I’m coming,” Ryan yelled back. He pulled my robe around me and secured the sash in a tight knot before tucking his glistening shaft into his briefs and pulling up his pants.

“You almost were,” I tossed out flippantly as a funny sensation passed through me over his consideration to see me dressed first.

I diagnosed that sensation then. Not gratitude for his selflessness. Rather, the mind and body knowledge that he was a fraud attempting to make himself look good for the sake of ensuring I’d continue to sleep with him.

As if in testament to my thought, he sent an arrogant grin in the direction of my breasts. “We’ll be out of here in six hours. Keep working the knob til then.”

A lot of demons felt mortals were good only for feeding. I felt that way about a lot of them, too, but not all. Jada had been truly kick-ass. Karen—a friend I’d met through Jada a few years back—was becoming that way, more and more. In fact, I’d given some serious consideration to letting her in on what I was and seeing if she was interested in being turned into one herself.

Or I had been until I walked up to the bakery-style café she operated in the first floor of the Liege casino and saw her through the nearly floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall windows. Two weeks ago, she’d been spewing that men were pigs good for nothing but sex. Now, she was sucking face with some rangy guy whose hair was the same shade of white-blond and as closely cropped as Karen’s own. It wasn’t just a random face sucking, either. But the kind that involved her arms tenderly embracing his neck in a way that hinted she was seriously into him.

Right there was the reason most demons loathed humans. Far too many allowed themselves to be victimized by their hearts. Today, this guy was tops. Tomorrow, he’d ring her up from some new fuck’s bed and tell her they were through.

Hel , for all I knew Ryan was in some other fuck’s bed, too. He’d said he had a standing poker date with his brother and his brother’s fiancée every other Wednesday night, but since he hadn’t invited me along to play, he could’ve been lying. I could find that out easily enough if I wanted. I didn’t want. For one thing, my gut told me that he wasn’t lying. For another thing, I was eager for a girl’s night out.

I let Karen and her man maul each other another minute, and then gave her a little mental prompting to break things off and usher him out the door. The café had closed a half hour ago. It was high time to get our butts to a club.

With my prompting as an impetus, Karen led the guy to the door. She wore a moony expression that didn’t fit with her black near-goth attire of a snug shirt, ripped-hem skirt and clunky combat boots. Though I was standing less than a yard away, she didn’t look over as she opened the door, stepped out into the relatively quiet hal way, and sealed their goodbye with another heated lip-lock.

The guy broke things off with a rough laugh and a few murmured words that got Karen laughing, as well. Then he took off toward the casino’s front entrance.

“Hey, woman, what’s going on?” I piped in, sans the feigned Southern drawl, when she leaned back against the café door and sighed like a love-struck puppy.

I’ll admit the guy had a nice set of buns from what I could tell through his jeans. But c’mon!

Karen turned to look at me. Surprise passed through her hazel eyes ringed with a generous helping of kohl, but she played it off like she’d known I was there all along. “Hi to you. I haven’t seen you around in—what—a couple weeks?”

“Almost,” I said as she opened the door and I followed her back inside the café. “I decided to finally put my training to use again and got hired on at the firehouse across town.”

“Now, there’s a tough job. Being surrounded by hot, sweaty men with hard muscles and wet hoses.” Karen laughed and then quickly sobered. “Seriously, that’s great. I’m proud of you. Aren’t you a little intimidated by the fires, though?”

Intimidated, no. Intoxicated, yes. Fire fueled me almost as effectively as feeding off blood and sex. “You just have to respect them.”

“Mmm…whatever. I still couldn’t do it.” She slid behind a midtorso-level counter with a built-in glass display case. “Hungry?”

Technically, I never got hungry. Not for food, anyway. But I could eat and I enjoyed the taste of good food the same as a mortal would. Karen’s offerings were always top-notch.

“Sure.” I sank down on one of three backless black bar stools in front of the counter.

“Whatever you have on hand.”

She bent a little and reached somewhere out of range of the display case’s glass.

Straightening, she lifted a plate sporting a huge chunk of chocolate cake laced with gooey caramel. My stomach gave an obnoxiously excited rumble as she set the plate in front of me.

Caramel and I were friends from way back.

Practically salivating, I grabbed a plastic spork from a glass jar on the counter and sporked a huge, gooey bite into my mouth. Ooh, yeah…The only way it would be better was served on Ryan’s rock-hard abs.

I took another bite, murmuring my elated gratitude before I cut to the chase. “So who’s the guy?”

Karen’s moony expression returned. “An old boyfriend. He moved back to Vegas a few weeks ago. I ran into him at a club the Saturday before last, and things clicked just like old times. Only, this time they’re a lot more serious.”

“Like multiple, mutual orgasms serious?”

Her gaze traveled to her left hand and her lips curved in a beaming grin. “Like rings and vows and, maybe, one day kids serious.”

My belly flip-flopped at the sight of the rock on her ring finger. Holy Hel , the situation was far worse than I thought.

As much as I liked the woman Karen was on her own, I’d vowed to never use my powers on her aside from in a minor way, like getting her apparent fiancé out the café door. Seeing the ring on her finger, I began to doubt that vow. It was possible the guy would turn out to be worthy, but it was a lot more possible that he wouldn’t.

I stabbed the chocolate-covered tines of my spork in the air a few inches from her face.

“Last month you swore you never wanted that stuff.”