Must Love Fangs (Midnight Liaisons) (6 page)

I covered my eyes again. “You said you were getting decent!”

“Give me a minute to get excited, and I’ll be plenty decent.” He gave me a sultry look. “You could always take your top off and help things along.”

“That is not what I meant! You are a pig, Joshua Russell.”

“And you’re too shy, Marie Bellavance.” He said my name with the flat drawl of a Southerner. “It’s good for you to look at a man every now and then. Get that stick out of your ass.”

I did not have a stick up my ass. “If you’re not helping me, then I am leaving now,” I announced again.

“I’ll change,” he said. “Give me two minutes, and I’ll finish scouting the area and grab my clothes. Then I’ll follow you back to the agency to make sure no one takes advantage of you.”

“Good idea,” I said, a bite to my voice. “It would be terrible if I was accosted in a dark alley by a naked man.”

He chuckled. “It’s only accosting if you don’t enjoy it. And you enjoyed it.”

“I did not.” Even if I had, I would never, ever tell him that.

“I’m changing now,” he announced.

I could have turned and walked away. He would have let me, I knew. Josh came on strong, but that
was because he assumed that everyone found him utterly irresistable.

But for some reason, I stayed. Partially because I did want to find out exactly what he thought of the vampires avoiding me, and partially because this would give me a good chance to look at his naked body undistracted. I peeked, watching him. Just a little. His buttocks had the most amazing dimple that flexed when he changed, and my pulse sped up in response. But then he sprouted fur and began to contort, and I covered my eyes again.

Not the glamorous side of being a shifter. I winced when I heard bones crack, and I kept my eyes covered, waiting. Long moments passed, and when I was just about to open my eyes and ask what was going on, something furry rubbed up against my leg. I opened my eyes to see a massive dun cougar stalking away from me, his tail lashing slowly back and forth. He sniffed the alleyway carefully and moved forward, then glanced back at me.

I relaxed a little. “I like you much better like this. Quiet and not naked.”

He made a chuffing noise that might have been a laugh. And then he began to sniff around again. I paced a few steps behind him as he followed a scent trail, moving along the back alley and turning down another, before doubling back and rechecking the area he’d already gone over.

The back door to Konstantine’s opened, letting out a waft of delicious scents. I stopped just as a man in a dirty apron emerged and headed for the Dumpster.
He paused at the sight of me, and then Josh, his eyes widening in alarm.

Shit! I’d just been caught with a shifter in cat-form. The Alliance was going to kill me. I was—

Josh meowed, a sad, pathetic, house-cat meow.

“Bad kitty,” I said automatically, figuring out his plan. Genius! I smiled at the man standing frozen in the alley. “Silly cat refuses to go potty on the grass.”

“
That’s
your cat?” He took a step backward, uncertain.

“All mine,” I said, and snapped my fingers at my side. Josh immediately came to my hand, rubbing up against my fingers and purring wildly. I scratched at his face, his whiskers, and he began to lick my fingers, and then my palm.

It . . . tickled. And made me a little squirmy, knowing that there was a human brain behind all that licking. What was going through his mind right now?

The man in the apron chatted with me as he tossed bags into the Dumpster, giving side glances at Josh as he made out with my hand while I stood making small talk. The man told me about his pet dog, and how he’d once seen a big cat at the zoo, and asked me where I’d gotten mine. I told him that my cougar was a gift. And Josh was great at obeying. Harmless. Declawed, I added. All this time, Josh kept licking and nuzzling at my hand.

As soon as the man disappeared back into the restaurant, I jerked my hand away from Josh. “Is this the shifter version of first base?”

He chuffed at me again, then turned, batting at my leg with his tail, indicating that I should follow once more. I did, and he took me down a set of alleys, leading me through the backstreets of downtown Fort Worth, before we came to a neatly stashed pile of clothing and shoes.

He paused, staring at me expectantly.

“Time to change?” I asked.

He reached out and licked my hand again.

“I’m going to take that as a yes. Go on, then.” I turned around, picked up his cell phone, and clicked on it, payback for his snatching my phone.

Locked. Darn. So much for my chance to snoop. I waited until Josh finished changing, listening to the sound of clothing rustling as he dressed. Then he leaned over my shoulder and neatly plucked his phone out of my hands. “That’s mine.”

“Afraid I’ll get all the numbers of your girlfriends and tell them about how you’ve been harassing me in an alley?”

“What, and give away all my smooth moves?” he teased. “Let’s get back to the agency. I imagine Ryder’s waiting. I assume she’s in on this scheme of yours?”

She was, and she was going to kill me if I showed up at the agency with Josh.

We walked back to the small strip mall off a service road. Midnight Liaisons had an unassuming storefront, since the last thing we wanted was to draw attention to our business. The lights were on inside, as they were twenty-four hours a day, but the blinds
were pulled shut. When I entered the small waiting room, I frowned to see that all four desks in the main office were empty. I glanced over at Ryder’s desk. Her purse was still hanging off the back of her chair.

Not good.

I turned to Josh. “Can you wait here for a minute?”

He shrugged. “Or I could sit down and we can talk for a bit and explore this vampire fetish—”

That was the last thing I wanted right now. “Just . . . stay . . . here,” I said, placing my hands on his chest and giving him a nudge backward.

He put his hand over mine, as if to hold it. “I know you want your hands on me, Marie, but think of how jealous poor Ryder will be.”

I shoved him harder, ignoring the boyish grin on his face. “I’m going to talk to Ryder, and then we’re going to head out for a bit.”

“We are?” He seemed surprised. “Shouldn’t you be ‘working’ at your ‘job’?” He made air quotes, teasing me.

“Shouldn’t you?” I hissed back at him. “You’re being paid to track something, right? So go track.” When he didn’t move, I sighed. “Give me two minutes and I’ll tell Ryder where we’re going. Just wait here.” I didn’t want him following me in.

I half expected him to follow me in, but he did as I asked. I hitched my purse closer on my shoulder, braced myself, and headed to the back conference room, where I knew I’d find Ryder.

I cracked the door open just enough to see scaly
flesh and curled wings. One misshapen arm shot out, clearly re-forming. The creature turned to me, eyes wild, and I recognized Ryder’s bright blue gaze in that awful face.

“Hey,” I said softly, forcing myself to ignore the fact that she was turning into a monster right before my eyes. “I’m taking Josh and we’re going to go get something to eat. Call me if you need me, okay?”

The hand wavered, shuddered, and clenched. Then she slowly raised it into the air and jabbed a thumbs-up.

I gave her the thumbs-up sign back and shut the door, leaving her to her business.

After all, I knew all about secrets. There were some things you just didn’t want other people to know. I swept through the office and brushed past Josh to the front door. “Come on. There’s bound to be something open this late.”

T
here was a time when I’d have been excited about going out to a late-night dinner with a gorgeous man. A time when, if he’d put his hand on the small of my back to guide me down the sidewalk, I’d have shivered with delight. Tonight I had a handsome, gorgeous man with his hand on my back, walking at my side, and it just bothered me. I was filled with annoyance. What did Josh so arrogantly think he could teach me about dating a male vampire? I was the one who worked at a dating agency, after all.

I strode down the sidewalk and tried not to think about Ryder, who was having a bad night. Instead, I focused on my situation, since it was a worse night for me. Josh easily kept up with my angry strides, his big form staying protectively next to me.

He gestured at a nearby restaurant. “How about that?”

I eyed the yellow sign with a frown. “A diner?”

He grinned down at me and I was distracted by how close he was, by his touch on my lower back. “Why not? Open all night.”

“It just seems so . . . ”

“Casual? It’s not a date.” His hand nudged my lower back, directing me toward the restaurant’s lit parking lot.

My mouth tightened. Of course it wasn’t a date. “You don’t need to remind me. And since you picked, you’re paying.”

“Why? It’s not a date.”

I gritted my teeth. “Fine.”

When we got inside, the elderly waitress lit up at the sight of Josh. “There’s my boy,” she crowed in a voice that sounded as if she’d smoked too many cigarettes. “How are you, Josh darlin’?”

He gave the small, stout woman a bear hug. “I’m pining away with love for you, Carol.”

She gave a raspy chuckle and swatted his bottom. “You want your usual?”

“You know I do.” He glanced over at me. “I brought a friend. She’ll probably want a menu.”

The waitress glanced over at me, her nest of overly bleached curls tilting as she studied me, then she squeezed him in a half hug. “You go pick a table and sit anywhere. I’ll get your food started.”

“You’re an angel,” he said with a grin.

I rolled my eyes and followed him to a rounded booth in the far corner of the nearly empty restaurant. When I slid in on one side, Josh slid in right next to me. I immediately scooted all the way around to the far end, putting some distance between us.

That seemed to amuse him, which only made me more irritated.

“I see why you wanted to come here. You get free food every night just because you flirt with the old ladies?”

He grinned. “Not every night, and I don’t flirt. They just love me.”

As if to prove this point, Carol showed up with two glasses of water and a coffee for Josh. She set it down in front of him, tugged his ballcap off his head in a proprietary move that surprised me, then smoothed his hair like a mother. “No hats inside, young man.”

Josh gave her a rueful smile. “Sorry.”

He looked even more boyish with his hair sticking up wildly. If it hadn’t been for the scruff on his face, he would have looked far too young.

“This one’s too charming for his own good,” Carol said affectionately, chucking Josh’s unshaved chin as if she’d been a doting mother—or grandmother.

“He only thinks he’s charming,” I pointed out. “He just expects everyone else to think it, too.”

She chuckled again, that horrible smoker’s rasp. “I like this one, Josh.”

My face colored, which made Josh grin.

“You want the same thing he’s having, honey?” she asked me.

Anything to get her away from the two of us. “Sure. Thank you.”

She put a coffee mug down in front of me and filled it, then left with another smile at Josh.

“So that’s your schtick?” I said irritably. “To be a charming freeloader?”

“First of all,” he said, lifting the coffee cup to his lips, “I pay for everything. Carol doesn’t make enough to buy me dinner on a regular basis.” He sipped it and then grimaced. “Her coffee is shit, though.”

But I noticed he still drank it. Maybe telling her would hurt her feelings.

“And second?” I prompted, opening a few sugar packets and dumping them into my cup.

“Carol works four nights a week. Her husband died three years ago and she lives in a small apartment on the bad side of town. It scares her to take the bus, so she tries to get a ride with friends. I stop in to check on her and give her a ride when she needs it.”

That was . . . unexpectedly nice of him. “So she’s a shifter, too?”

“No,” he said. “Just a lady with no one to look after her. So I do.”

I said nothing. Carol swung out of the kitchen with two massive stacks of pancakes and plopped them down in front of us, then dropped a bottle of syrup on the table. I stared at the massive stack. That was a lot of pancakes.

Josh put a hand over his heart and gave Carol a pleased look. “You make my heart melt with your delicious food.”

She chuckled again. “I’ll be back with the rest when it comes off the grill. Dig in.”

As she left, I eyed the pancake mountain, then looked over at Josh. “The . . . rest?”

He leaned in. “You ordered the same thing I get, right? Perhaps you didn’t realize that shifters eat a lot?”

I admit it hadn’t been the first thing on my mind. “So what exactly did I order?”

“Two club sandwiches, a skillet scramble, these pancakes,” he said, pointing. “And a steak.”

“A freaking steak? With all this? That’s revolting.”

“Does that mean I get to eat yours?”

“Only if you want to buy it from me,” I said, mashing my fork into the pat of butter on top of the pancake mountain. “That’s what I get for trusting a pretty face.”

“So you think I’m pretty? Marie, you flirt, you.”

“
Voyons
. It’s a figure of speech,
tabarnak
.”

“And more French. You know that’s sexy, right?”

“You know I just called you vile things, right?”

“That’s how you flirt.”

“I hate you.”

“More flirting.”

I ground my teeth and forced myself not to reply, since he’d practically consider it a declaration of love. Instead, I focused on swamping my pancakes with syrup, then taking a bite. Delicious. I’d be totally wound up from the sugar and coffee later, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like I could sleep anyhow. I ate a few more bites in companionable silence as Josh neatly cut his pancakes into perfect triangles and ate them without a bit of syrup.

Carol stopped by with the rest of the food by the time I’d eaten three pancakes and was feeling full. Josh, meanwhile, had polished off all of his pancakes and was more than ready for the next course. While I retreated to my coffee, he dug into the sandwiches,
scrambled eggs, and steak, chatting with Carol for a few minutes. He asked her how her job was going, and listened attentively when she complained about a coworker who was taking all the extra shifts. He asked about her hot water heater, which hadn’t been working properly in the last month, and volunteered to take a look at it. She turned him down with a wave of her hand. He even asked about her cat. Carol left a few minutes later, smiling.