Sex and the Single Vamp (4 page)

“I think…” She licked her lips, the wetness triggering a response in him that made his knees buckle slightly. “I think you might be exaggerating this attraction between us.”

“Oh really?” He let his fangs descend, the tension in his body screaming for some release—screaming for her blood. But he never engaged in blood play. It was too intimate for him, a connection with another person that he had no interest in making. Sex was fun. Sex was hot and dirty and very over once the sweat cooled on your skin. But Cici made him want to sink fang and cock into her so deep they were one body. He wouldn’t allow it, but the need was distractingly powerful.

“Happy.” He murmured his nickname for her against the warm column of her neck, his fangs grazing lightly as he blazed a trail of kisses up to her ear. She shivered, her small hands clutching at his shirt and dragging him closer, her legs parting slightly, skirt riding higher, to allow him to insert his thigh between hers and wedge their bodies together. His dick, hard and aching, pressed against her core as they humped slowly in an ancient rhythm that felt new with her. He whispered in her ear. “You are a woman who has pretended to be other people for your country. You have stolen, betrayed, and killed to protect others. You are brave, smart, and proud.”

He pulled back slightly to look into her eyes, the flash of blue resembling the purest part of flame.

“You’re not a coward or a liar.”

Deacon kissed her then, his mouth coaxing the truth from her that her pride would not let her admit. She opened to him immediately and he took what she offered. His tongue swept inside her mouth, tangling with hers before he retreated to run a fang along the tender skin on the inside of her lower lip. Cici gasped, her hands traveling from his shirt to tangle in his hair, her tug not so gentle as she dragged his mouth back to hers. This time she led the possession, taking him with a rough need that contradicted her earlier words.

He palmed her ass, the skirt riding up high enough for him to feel smooth skin and give him the fantasy-inducing knowledge that she wore a thong. Cici rode his thigh, the kiss becoming messier and more carnal with each passing second. Deacon wanted to reach down, unzip his cargo pants, and free his heavy length from its current place of strangling torture. It would take no time to push aside her flimsy excuse for underwear and slide inside until she covered him with her warmth.

Now was not the time.

His entire crew was just outside of her shitty excuse for a security door and he would not be caught with his pants around his ankles by one of his men. He pulled back reluctantly, breaking the physical connection, but unable to do anything to sever the tether of emotion that tied them together.

Cici stumbled backward on her high heels, catching herself on the small conference table behind her. She looked dazed, aroused, and delicious.

“You. Wet and willing. In my bed.” He licked his lips, tasting her as he willed his fangs to recede. “Anything less than that and I will go mad. You get me?”

She nodded. “Yes. I get you.”

“No more lies about how we don’t have to do this, that we don’t
want
to do this.” He could hear Andy walking toward the office down the hallway, but this needed to be said once and for all. “No lies between us as long as your life is in danger. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Cici looked as if she’d just signed away her soul to the devil. He knew what that felt like; he’d done just that two hundred and thirty-nine years ago.

Andy’s knock on the door was harsh in the silence of her space. The door swung open and he poked his head inside. “Good time, boss?”

“Yes.” Both he and Cici answered at the same time.

Andy looked startled and then sheepish. “I meant Deacon.”

“Of course,” Cici answered primly, a blush pinkening her cheeks. He ached to touch her skin to see if it had warmed as well.

“Andy, always remember”—he winked at Cici, taking the moment to lighten the mood between them—“when Cici’s around, she’s the boss.”

“And when I’m not around?” Cici asked.

“I get to pretend I’m the boss.”

She laughed and he motioned for Andy to fully enter the room.

“I’ve got the comms connected to her network. Everything you need is accessible here and at the office and remotely.” Andy handed over the iPad in his hands, and Deacon tapped on the icons until her wall-mounted monitor came to life.

“Cici.” He opened up files, documents, and photographs filling the screen space. She winced, physically shrinking backward when the photographs of the first crime scene flashed up in gory HD. He minimized those pictures, unwilling to cause her unnecessary pain. “As we were discussing a few moments ago, I’ve looked into your e-mail and servers to try to track where the threats are coming from.”

“The phone calls were tracked to burner phones. No names. Paid for in cash and the clerks all say a woman bought them. Pretty much a dead end,” Andy said.

Deacon picked up the thread. “The e-mails were sent from Internet cafés and libraries. Pretty standard stuff for someone who wants to avoid being traced.” He tapped on a photograph and it zoomed out and the screen filled with the ugly dude with the big black tattoo on his neck. “This guy got sloppy and sent one from home. His name is Boz Lynch, a known meth addict who will do dirty work for a few bucks to feed his habit.”

He turned to look at Cici; he was hitting the topics that might be painful for her. “He’s also a known supporter and member of the Fellowship of Adam’s Race.”

“I’ve heard of them. They’ve picketed quite a few of my public appearances,” Cici said.

“They think Others of any kind should be killed, but they’ll settle for internment camps,” Andy said.

“When the law does not agree with them they satisfy themselves by resorting to all types of hate crimes, including murder,” Deacon said.

“Our kind act like they’re the bogeyman. Some believe and some do not. How do you know they exist?” Cici asked.

“Because they tried to kill me and…” Deacon knew this was going to be hard for her to hear, but she needed to know the truth. He reached out and grasped her shoulder. “They killed your family.”

Cici paled so quickly he scooped her close to keep her from falling over, pulled out a chair, and put her in it. Shock for a vampire wasn’t that different from a human, and he chafed her hands to warm them. Andy appeared over his shoulder with a glass full of whiskey by the smell of it.

“Here, drink.” Deacon lifted the glass to her lips, satisfied when she took a couple of sips and some color returned to her face. “Sorry. There was no easy way to break that to you.”

She waved off his offering of another drink, sitting up a little higher in the chair. Defiance coated every word. “That can’t be true. FAR only killed people who helped Others.” She pushed hair back from her face, the slight tremble in her hands betraying her inner turmoil as she worked through these emotions. Understanding took over her confusion; she began to believe. “That’s why you and my father were such good friends.”

“He was a good man. One of the best friends I ever had,” Deacon said. He still missed talking with him late at night. Well-read and funny, Josiah Trent had made his solitary existence bearable and had coaxed him back into society. And he’d brought Cici into his life. “He was one of a few supporters in Williamsburg, and he didn’t want you to know.”

“You never told me. All these years and you never told me.”

“After a while I didn’t see the point.”

“Why?” Cici asked, her eyes begging him to make sense of the violence that took her family from her.

“Josiah was a ringleader and FAR knew our kind was on the side of the Revolutionaries. It was a first strike of the impending war, to make America’s cause weaker.” He placed the glass on the table, making sure she was listening to the next part. “It is my belief that they are gaining power again and targeting you because of your visible campaign for a full blending of humans and Others. I don’t think this is related to your father’s involvement.”

“I had no idea they were organized enough to do something like this. I thought they were small-time picketers and the occasional crank call,” she said.

“Guys like Boz are the ones who get the attention these days,” Andy said with a meaningful glance at Deacon. “We think the real Oz behind the curtain is unknown and someone smart enough to pull this off.”

“And you think they’re after me?”

“Yes. This business is like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”

“Don’t start,” she said. They locked eyes, the same old argument wedged between them. He decided to let it go for now.

“I’m going to need to access all of your client files. Talk to them, investigate them. Any one of them could be planted by FAR.”

“What?” Cici sat up straighter in her chair, the armrests groaning under the strain of her vampire-strength white-knuckle grip. “Are you trying to put me out of business? People come to me and expect discretion. I’m already bleeding clients and this will kill me.”

“Cici, I’m not here to save your business. I don’t care if it closes tomorrow. My only concern is your life.” He pointed at the images on the screen. “Those fuckers will kill you in a moment and then throw a party to celebrate.”

Just the thought of someone targeting Cici made Deacon want to chew through a box of nails. The urge to haul her into his arms and protect her from anyone else drew him to his feet with abruptness that startled both Andy and Cici. “I won’t let them hurt you or any more of your clients. I gave your father my word I’d protect you.”

She stared up at him, her blue eyes wide with the impact of his words. He realized too late that he had revealed more than he intended and she would be compelled to ask questions he wasn’t ready to answer.

“When?”

He knew what she was asking. He could give her this. “Before and after our…situation. Your father was my friend, even if he never became family.”

“I see.” But she didn’t. He wasn’t ready to tell her the entirety of the story, and when she broke eye contact it signaled she wasn’t ready to hear it.

“So what’s next?” she asked, standing and facing the screen. “How do we find the great and powerful Oz?”

“A little B&E, I think.”

“What?” she asked.

“The human and Other divisions of the police are squabbling over this case, like every one that involves a human and our kind. They’re so busy fighting over the juicy bone that they’ll miss something.”

“We hacked into their computer systems so we have all the data, forensics, you name it,” Andy said.

“There are some things you can glean only from a crime scene.” Deacon tapped on the tablet screen, closing out the file. “So we’ll conduct a little breaking and entering to check it out.”

“Can I come with you?” Cici asked.

“Sure. It will be like Berlin.” He smiled when her eyes lit up with shared memories of times spent saving the world from itself. He leaned in and whispered, “Or Vienna.”

“Oh.” Her one word answer told him that she also remembered just how exciting that mission had been together. “I’m in.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Chapter Four

Cici hated waiting.

That had been the hardest part of her missions for the government, the waiting for the right time or for something to happen. She’d stumbled into the spy gig—actually Deacon had asked her to help him with something, and she’d jumped at the chance. He’d shown up out of the blue and needed a woman to play a role so he could get crucial information. She’d agreed immediately. For an immortal woman who was stronger and faster than most men, it had been hard for her to sit on the sidelines and knit, cook, and mend as the women of the time were allowed to do.

“Stop thinking so hard. I can’t hear what’s going on in the house,” Deacon mumbled beside her in his black Suburban. They were parked across the street from the second set of victim’s home in the affluent area of Mount Vernon waiting for the cops to leave the scene. The minute they’d pulled in, he’d eased his seat back, closed his eyes, and homed in on the activities in the building.

“I hate waiting.”

“No shit.” He shifted in his seat, his large body seeming to take up way more than his allotted space. Or maybe it was the fact that his spicy, winter-heat scent was all over the truck and surrounding her. She fought the urge to sink farther down in the seat and drink it in. “They’re wrapping up so we should be able to go inside soon.”

“Kiss my ass,” she grumbled. “You know I’ve never been good with this part.”

He chuckled; the deep sound made her clench her hands in tight fists to keep from reaching out to touch him. Her body, awakened by that earlier kiss, was screaming to pick up where they left off and succeed in losing the clothes this time. Vampire lust for sex was much like the lust for blood—controllable—but the blue balls syndrome sucked.

Deacon popped his eyes open and turned his head to look at her. His smile was slow, sexy, and very wicked. “Let’s do something to distract you.”

“Like what?” Oh, sweet baby Jesus, she knew how she wanted to be distracted and so did he if the tiny flare of bronze heat in his eyes was any indication.

He rose up, leaning over the console into her space and within kissing distance. Really close kissing distance. She swayed toward him like a magnet to its perfect match and dug her heels into the floorboard. Cici was not going to give it up to Deacon in his car like a horny teenager, no matter how big and inviting his backseat looked.

He leaned in closer, his eyes flickering down to watch her lick her lips and then slowly easing back up to her eyes. “So why the matchmaking business?

“Why not?” Her voice was barely above a whisper in the close confines of the truck. “I spent a lot of time fighting hate and making war—”

“We fought the good fight.” He paused, his thoughts curling his lower lip into a small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smile. “When we weren’t fighting each other.”

“Yes, we did. I wanted something else I could believe in. I believe in love for everyone. In my experience, true love has been the only thing that is universal. It doesn’t matter where or in what language, people fight to the death for love.”

“You don’t have someone in your life?”

“I did once, but he wanted me to change him.”

“And he wasn’t compatible?” Deacon jumped to the logical conclusion. Genetic research discovered that being an Other was genetic and that only some humans had the gene to be changed.

“Aaron was compatible. I just wasn’t sure. Being a Maker is a huge decision.” She swallowed down the painful memories of that time. “Since I don’t know my Maker, I’ve never been sure about whether I would be a good one or not.”

Long moments passed, Deacon finally sighing heavily when the silence stretched to its breaking point. “You would have been fine.”

“Maybe.”

“Is he still alive? Your human?”

“He passed away a few years ago at the age of ninety-two. I wept when I heard the news.”

“With regret?”

“No.” And that was the killer; she hadn’t regretted her decision, even at the end. “I wept for what I’d lost and because I’m afraid I might never get what I’m looking for.”

“What are you looking for exactly?”

“A soul mate.” She glared at him when a soft grunt of derision passed his lips. They were back to same old argument. “Laugh all you want. I want that real connection. Someone who would give it all for me and I would do the same for him.”

“Ah, Happy. My little romantic.”

She shut her eyes at the nickname he’d given years ago, during a time when such intimacy between an unmarried girl and a man was forbidden.

“Why do you call me that?”

“Well, your name, Felicity, means happiness. And you made everyone around you happy, from what I recall.”

“Even you?” It was a foolish, girlish thing to ask but she needed to know. Her memories of that time were tied up with her heartbreak and then her families’ death. She didn’t remember being the girl he described.

“For a time I was happy,” he said softly, his eyes softening with a tenderness she remembered from long ago. And just like that, her anger was dissolving, replaced by something just as hot but far less antagonistic. Deacon leaned closer, his lips grazing across her own. She pressed forward, exerting the slightest pressure against his flesh but enough to encourage him to take the kiss deeper. This wasn’t anything like earlier. This ached with longing so acute it felt like a physical cut. She ended the torture, unable to bear it right now.

“I was happy, too…” Cici faltered, breaking eye contact like a coward, knowing she couldn’t continue if she had to look at him. “But then you changed your mind.”

“I changed
my
mind?’ Deacon sat up, his voice sharp, cutting through the haze of seductive tenderness that had wrapped them into their own little cocoon of oblivion. He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“Yes.” Her voice became stronger with her conviction as her old hurt and anger fueled her words with ire. “I heard you with my father. You talked about obligation and your regret at bringing me into all of it. News flash Deacon, nobody wants to be an obligation.”

“Jesus.” Deacon scrubbed a hand over his face, the scratch of two-day-old beard against his palm. “You can’t be serious.”

His tone was equal parts mad-as-hell and what-the-fuck, which only served to confuse her even more.

“Of course I’m serious.”

“You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know what I heard.” The sound of a group of people exiting the house and securing the door with a cipher lock and crime scene tape ripped them both from 1775 and back into the present, a dangerous present with a killer taking out her clients and destroying her business. This was not the time for this discussion. Deacon agreed.

“We
are
talking about this later.” He emphasized his point by cupping her head with his hand and dragging her forward into a brutal kiss that ended with a gravelly “fuck” and the slam of his truck door as he exited the vehicle at vampire speed.

Cici shook her head, not really understanding what the hell had just happened, but pushing it to the back of her mind for now. If Deacon thought he was the only one who had questions, he was sadly mistaken. She got out of the car and followed him to the house.

They fell back into their old routine: Deacon taking the lead and Cici covering his six. Deacon was tactically trained, a soldier since his youth, so he was always in charge. Not that she hadn’t gained some serious skills over the years and saved his bacon a couple of times, but he was definitely the head of any op.

He handed her a set of latex gloves and she slipped them on as she looked around them. The street was quiet;
a murder next door typically made people stay inside. So there weren’t any visible watchers to see Deacon break into the cipher lock.

“You’ve been here before?” Deacon asked, following up when she nodded a yes. “Can you take us to the bedroom?”

“This way.” She tried to ignore the pang that shot through her as she passed artwork, photographs, and furniture all lovingly placed by her client Maria, when she and Strauss had moved in. She’d glowed with happiness as she showed Cici around the house, so excited to build a home with her new husband. She forced down the lump in her throat, but couldn’t hold back the tear that slipped out and slid down her cheek.

“You okay?” Deacon asked as he climbed the staircase next to her. She nodded, but he saw her pitiful attempt to surreptitiously wipe the blood-tinged tears away. He grabbed her arm, stopping her on the landing. “Hey, let it out. They were your friends.”

“There’s no crying in baseball,” she said, attempting a joke with a line from one of her favorite movies.

“This isn’t a game and you get to mourn your loss.” Deacon leaned in and kissed her cheek, and when he pulled back she could see the faint stain of blood on his lips. In this place at this time it was completely inappropriate for her to want him, to need his arms around her, but she did. She let him pull her close, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding on tight.

“Deacon, you need to stop being sweet to me,” she mumbled against his shoulder.

“Why?”

“You just do.”

“Yeah, like I understood that.”

She smiled when his shoulder shook with muted laughter. His hand came up to stroke her hair and suddenly she knew she’d made the right call. Deacon would solve this problem and then…well, what more he could fix was wide open. “I know this is hard, but the best way to honor your friends is to catch who did this. You can do it.”

“Yeah. I can, with your help.” She nodded and wiped away the remnants of her emotion. It wouldn’t be the last time she grieved her friends, but it would have to be the last for a while. She had to get them justice first.