Slayer's Kiss: Shadow Slayer, Book 1 (2 page)

“That’s all right. No problem.” For whatever reason, the man sounded appeased by her panic.

She glanced at the phone again as she went out the front door and made her way to the elevator. “Who are you?”

“Gavin. Gavin Cross.” He sighed into the phone. “Your new tenant. We had an appointment at eight for me to pick up the keys to my apartment.”

Kara blew out an incredulous breath, realizing this was the man who’d been on a waiting list for a tenth-floor apartment with a view. Three days ago, newspapers had starting arriving on the doorstep of the vacant unit next to hers—and she was enjoying reading them. “Yes, Mr. Cross—eight this morning. And you never showed. Who does business at eight o’clock at night?”

Kara lived on the top floor of her building, and the stairs didn’t bother her, but even witches didn’t enjoy hiking ten flights in high-heeled boots. She jammed her finger impatiently against the elevator’s button and jumped in before the doors fully opened.

“I thought it was scheduled for tonight,” he protested. “I told you I work during the day.”

The floors wouldn’t count down fast enough. She was already late, and now some bonehead thought he could convince her she had the time wrong. She tried to keep firm boundaries with the tenants or they walked all over her. And even so, she still got the occasional call in the middle of the night because someone’s window was sticking or a strange smell was coming from a drain.

“Yes you did, but I didn’t agree to meet in the evening.”
Even apartment managers have lives, buddy.
“I’m sorry, but I’m busy tonight. I thought you’d decided to take an hour off work this morning.”

When the doors opened, she shot off the elevator and ran smack into a man’s brawny chest. Her phone slid from her grip and clattered to her feet.

“Sorry!” With a phone in one hand, the man reached out to steady her with the other. “Are you okay?”

Kara sucked in a breath, staring straight into the heart-stopping eyes of the towering man before her. He was stunning. Dark blond hair, hazel-green eyes framed by thick, dark lashes and an incredibly large, muscular frame wrapped in a slick charcoal suit and tie.

“Gavin Cross?” she confirmed, her palms pressing against his chest as a tremor ran through her body. She’d never met a man who could make her salivate at first glance, but he looked like he’d taste better than a slice of cherry cheesecake after a month of tofu.

“Miss Reed?” His eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened as he took in her attire. “You really were in a hurry, weren’t you? Going clubbing, I see.”

“Not exactly. I mean, yes. The Hoolecha Inn. It’s a club, but I work there.”

“And I’m making you late for work?”

“Late for being early.” She scanned him up and down and bit her lip. “It’s fine. Really. It’s just down the block on the corner of 6th and F.”

Gavin shook his head. “I’m such an ass. Sorry about the misunderstanding. You must think I’m an idiot.” He glanced at her hands on his jacket but made no move to back away. She might have been imagining it, but it felt as if he actually leaned closer.

“Gavin…” she began. “Can I call you Gavin?” Kara trailed her hand from his chest and placed it on his arm. He smelled like musk and soap. She wanted to slather herself in him. “It’s completely my fault. I’ll grab the keys and show you to your apartment. It’s the one next to mine.”

When Gavin placed his own phone in his jacket pocket, then knelt to pick up hers, Kara’s breath hitched. His head was only inches away from the juncture of her thighs. What was wrong with her damn libido lately? His scent made her want to bend over and offer her backside to him like a bitch in heat.

Balanced on the balls of his feet with her phone in hand, he stopped and looked into Kara’s eyes. His head angled slightly toward Kara’s short skirt, and his nostrils flared. She could have sworn she heard a low rumble rise in his chest. Her body responded with a flood of moisture and a pounding throb between her legs.

She knew logically she couldn’t screw him right here in the lobby. She wasn’t even that type of girl, regardless of what it looked like when she and Abbey went hunting.

“Your phone.” He placed it in Kara’s palm, grazing his hand along hers.

“Thanks.” She was so breathless she could barely get the word out.

When Gavin stood, Kara didn’t have the sense to stifle her surprised gasp. His slacks were stretched to bursting with an impossibly huge erection straining against his zipper. He followed her eyes to his groin. “I guess I owe you another apology.”

“Don’t worry, I get that a lot,” she joked, trying to hide her fierce reaction to him behind a smile.

His gaze swept slowly from her head to the tips of her boots, lingering on her large breasts and rounded hips. “I’m sure you do.”

“Come on, I’ll show you up.” Kara turned and gestured for him to follow her into the elevator. Just being in the enclosed space with him made every nerve ending in her body tingle. The night air under her skirt had never felt so sensuous…teasing her, tickling her thighs, suggesting she hike her skirt up even farther and bare herself to this man.

Damn it, this wasn’t like her.

Even so, as she stopped at her apartment and unlocked the door, she heard herself asking, “Do you want to come in?” The breathy sigh in her voice offered more than her simple words.

“Come in?” he echoed. “Would your roommate mind?”

She could barely pull her eyes away from his groin. “It’s only me. I live alone.”
But I don’t want to be alone tonight.
“Will you come inside, Gavin?”

It seemed for a moment as if he stopped breathing, but then his lungs finally expanded again. “Thank you, but no.”

She wasn’t sure how those four little words of rejection could cut so deep coming from a man she’d met only minutes before, but something about him felt so right. His essence was like golden sunsets and French kisses on the beach. She swallowed hard as her cheeks warmed. “Sure. Just let me grab the keys.”

She opened the door and reached a hand to the key organizer by the entryway. Only one set was ready and waiting, so it wasn’t hard to find. She would have willed the earth to open up and swallow her whole if not for a quick, final glance at Gavin’s burgeoning interest. His mouth might say no, but his body disagreed.

Kara swallowed her pride and took one last chance. Curving her mortified lips into a small smile, she dropped the keys in his hand. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Chapter Two

There were three things Kara liked best about The Hoolecha Inn. Number one, it was always busy and a bartender could make good tips on a Saturday—even in the measly two-hour shift she was working tonight.

Number two, it was a block away from her place in the Gaslamp Quarter, which helped when one didn’t have a car.

And number three, she could wear her sexy boots to work—the ones she didn’t dare wear when she and Abbey went hunting. She didn’t even want to think about what a sharp kick to the head in these pointy-toed high-rises would do to her glittery toenails.

She put her purse under the bar and glanced over at Dave. At twenty-eight, just two years older than Kara, he still had his football physique and quarterback good looks from college. With his spiky brown hair and exotic eyes, some nights, he got as many phone numbers slipped to him as twenty-dollar bills.

“Hey, Kara.” He finished wiping down a small spill on the bar and flashed her his sexiest grin. “Thanks for doing this, sugar. I wish you were coming with me to the concert.”

Kara smiled back. Dave was nice, but she’d never felt more for him than gratitude. “I need the hours. Thanks for calling me to cover for you.”

“I always think of you first, you know that.”

A pretty blond server named Celeste approached the bar. “Two pints of Guinness, please.”

Kara took the towel from Dave and filled two mugs with beer, then pushed them across the bar to Celeste. She glanced briefly at Kara, seemingly disappointed to be losing Dave for the night, and stalked away to deliver the beer. Kara was probably the only one who didn’t have a crush on their best bartender. “Hey, Dave…”

He grabbed his keys from under the bar and turned to her expectantly. “Yeah?”

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure.” His expression went from eager to surprised when Kara stepped up to him and leaned in to his neck, drawing in his masculine essence and sifting through the bar’s bitter odors of spilled whiskey and sweaty bodies. “What’s this, sugar?” His hands came to her hips. “Changing your mind?”

She backed away, too lost in her own thoughts to care if he considered her a tease or just plain crazy. “Just checking on something. Thanks.”

Sure, Dave wasn’t built like Gavin, but he was technically every bit as handsome as her new neighbor, and yet his scent did nothing for her. Since when did a man’s smell matter anyway?

“Should I be concerned with my choice of deodorant—or did I pass the Kara Reed sniff test?”

She twirled her damp towel in a spiral, eyeing him like a predator. “You passed, QB. Now go and have fun.”

He laughed and dodged but wasn’t quick enough to avoid the snap of the towel against the back of his jeans. “I have an extra ticket…”

“I already told you, I need the hours here.”

“I could give you my full shift tomorrow.” He met her eyes and turned on his high-beam charm. “Come on, Kara. Aaron wouldn’t mind taking your hours tonight. You know you want to.” He waggled his brows.

“Stop tempting me.” Kara laughed. “Get the hell out of here before I grab that extra ticket and hand it to Celeste. She looks like she wants to gouge my eyes out for stalking her prey.”

Celeste was a buxom blond who knew exactly how to move her hips for maximum effect. She’d had a crush on Dave since she’d started working there three months before.

“Celeste? Really?”

Kara nodded solemnly. “Oh, yeah.”

Ha. That would divert his attention from Kara for a while. It wasn’t that Dave lacked prospects, but Kara was feeling sisterly solidarity for Celeste. Maybe the good deed would circle back as good karma and a higher percentage of the servers’ tips. Besides, somebody should get lucky tonight, and judging from her humiliating strike-out with her new tenant, it certainly wasn’t going to be Kara.

Dave shrugged. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t want it, I’d hate to let it go to waste.”

Kara watched as he approached Celeste, and she couldn’t help but smile when Celeste grinned ear to ear and put her hand on his arm. Kara couldn’t hear what they said in the loud clash of voices, music and mugs, but it looked promising.

Dave and Celeste weren’t five steps out the door on their way to Petco Park before the skin on Kara’s arms prickled. At first, she wondered if something bad was going to happen to them, like a premonition of things to come, but premonitions had never been her gift. In fact, she was a pathetic witch who had to use her fists when her magic fell short.

But still, she kept her gaze trained on the door, even while mixing two martinis and a rum and Coke, otherwise she never would have glimpsed Gavin Cross appear on the other side of the glass, head bowed, talking through something serious with a striking man with shiny black hair and a body almost as massive as Gavin’s.

After a quick handshake, just a fleeting grasp of one wrist to another, Gavin broke away from the other man and came through the door. His gaze arrowed through the crush of bodies and landed squarely on Kara.

Her mouth went dry.
Tha-thump. Tha-thump.
Her heart throttled from zero to sixty in one glance, hammering as if she’d run a hundred miles through the desert.

But he was the oasis she’d been waiting for.

Gavin reached the bar, pulled out a stool and settled himself on the brown vinyl perch.

“Miss Reed.” He tipped his chin in greeting. His suit jacket was draped across one knee, leaving him in slacks and a white-collared shirt with the first button undone. With the way the fabric stretched around his biceps, he didn’t look like any businessman she’d ever met.

Her mind raced. Maybe he’d thought through her unspoken offer. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who’d felt the connection. Her body flushed, but not in embarrassment this time—this was simply blood rushing to all her important parts.

She nodded back and smiled, trying not to look as smug as she felt. “You found me.”

“I did. It must be nice working so close to home.”

“Yeah. It’s not a bad gig.” She wanted to laugh. It was clear he had something to say, and she already knew what it was going to be. Mutual attraction this strong couldn’t be denied. She wasn’t going to play hard to get just to get even with him. He might deserve it, but that wasn’t her style. She rarely wanted a man, but when she did, she let him know flat-out. “I’m glad you rethought my offer.”

He clasped his hands on the bar before him. “It’s the key.”

She put down the bottle in her hand and cocked her head. “What’s the key?”

“The reason I’m here.”

“Huh? I’m confused.” Confused and sinking like that rock in the pit of her stomach.

Gavin looked like he’d swallowed a bug. “The key doesn’t work.”

The blood drained from Kara’s face. “Oh…you’re not here to see…
me
.” She was the world’s biggest jackass. Such an ass, in fact, she was surprised she hadn’t brayed the soft, mortified words from between big blocky teeth.

“Technically, I am here to see you. The key doesn’t fit. I can’t move in my things until you open the door.”

She turned her back on him under the pretense of getting another bottle of tequila from the low storage cupboard, but she needed a minute to get herself under control. She rummaged around, shifting bottles, until she thought she could speak without her lips quivering.

“Take this for your trouble.” She handed him a shot of their best tequila. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what could have happened—they’re all numbered. But don’t worry. I have a set of master keys. As soon as I get off, I can let you in.” She swabbed the counter near him with shaking hands.

“Kara.” He reached out and covered her hand with his. “It’s all right. I waited weeks for that apartment. A couple more hours aren’t going to kill me.”