The Witch's Desire (7 page)

Her thighs closed around his shoulders and squeezed him with each attack he waged on her most sensitive point until her fingers dragged at his hair, urging him upward.

“I want you inside me,” she gasped. “Now.”

Cal rose to his feet, swung her legs up onto the bed and dove for his pants, ripping his wallet from the back pocket to unearth a condom. Thank goodness he'd packed more in his duffle. If all went well, they'd be rid of Ursula tomorrow and free to enjoy the rest of their mini-vacation in bed.

He tore the edge of the packet with his teeth and slid the rubber over his swollen cock. Then he crawled into the king-sized bed and lay down between her legs.

She curled her hand around his neck and brought him close enough to kiss. “Make love to me, human.”

Cal claimed her lips, thrusting into her at the same time. Her channel was so wet, he slid in easily, her walls pulsing, tightening.

Demi wrapped her legs around him, her heels digging into his buttocks, urging him deeper. She was so warm, wet and enticing he had to focus to make it last longer. In and out, he moved, his tongue thrusting between her teeth to the same, carnal rhythm. Her body stiffened and her feet eased to the mattress, lifting her hips to meet each of his thrusts with her own until she stopped, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her fingernails digging into his back.

Every muscle in his body tensed, his movements becoming more forceful as he powered into her, over and over. Then he shot over the top, every nerve screaming, his member pulsing within her sheath.

When he finally came back to earth, he eased down on her and rolled over, taking her with him.

Demi snuggled into the crook of his arm. “I count that as a prequel to our little vacation.” A yawn stretched her lips and she covered her mouth. “Sorry. Not a reflection on your lovemaking. I'm just really sleepy.”

“I should have let you sleep.”

“Uh-uh. That was worth losing sleep over.”

Cal cupped her face, brushing his thumb over her eyelid. “Close your eyes, sweetheart. We only have a couple hours before we take the next shift.”

She turned her face into his palm and kissed him. “If you insist, although I feel like I should be out there, keeping an eye on our charge.”

“Katya and Blaise can handle it.”

“I'm sure.” She yawned again. “But it's our duty….”

“To be ready for anything. And we can't be ready if we're too tired to fight.”

“Point taken,” she whispered. Her eyes closed and her breathing deepened.

Cal lay for a few minutes staring at her face and the way her long red hair dried in feathery curls against his arm. His heart swelled until his chest hurt. He loved this woman more than he'd ever imagined and if anything ever happened to her…

The events of the past couple of days caught up with him, exhaustion claiming him in sleep.

As he drifted away, he pictured Demi standing in a dark alley, naked, her hair flying out around her, her body backlit by a streetlight. He wanted to go to her, but he couldn't. The shadows shifted and congealed into forms that burst into the open with a loud
boom
.

Cal sat up straight. His cell phone rang somewhere on the floor and the scent of smoke wafted toward him from beneath the door.

Demi jerked awake, her eyes wide. “What was that?”

He leaped from the bed and grabbed his pants, yanking them up his legs, digging his phone out of the front pocket.

Before he could answer, someone was pounding at the door. “We've got trouble!”

Chapter Five

Her heart pounding against her ribs, Demi dove for her suitcase and quickly dressed as Cal flung open the bedroom door.

There was a gaping hole where the entrance door to the suite had been, the door lying in splinters on the floor a few feet inside the room.

Katya and Blaise were nowhere to be seen, but Demi could hear shouts and thumping against floors and walls in the hallway.

“Check on our witness,” Cal called out as he raced through the damaged doorway.

Demi ducked into the other bedroom. It was empty and a quick perusal of the bathroom revealed the same.

Pulse racing, Demi ran into the hall. “She's gone!”

Blaise and Katya struggled against two attackers.

From the end of the hall, Cal yelled. “She went down the stairs!” Then he disappeared through the doorway of the stairwell.

If Ursula was hell-bent on ditching them, running down twenty-seven flights of stairs wouldn't get her far enough fast. Demi ran for the bank of elevators, praying they would be working even after the explosion.

She jammed her finger on the down button and counted the seconds, knowing the longer it took, the more chance Ursula had of getting away.

As Demi waited, Blaise hit the ground at her feet.

A vampire flew toward him, teeth bared.

Demi threw a sidekick, landing it square on the vampire's face. His momentum sent Demi sailing backward, landing hard on her ass, pain shooting up from her tailbone. But she'd stopped the vampire from landing on Blaise.

Blaise rolled to his feet, swept his leg out, tripping the vampire, slamming him into the wall.

The vampire slid to the ground.

Before he could rise, Blaise landed on top of him and yanked off his head. As quickly as he killed one, another threw himself onto Blaise's back.

Demi staggered to her feet and would have helped, but Blaise stopped her.

“Go! Get to Ursula. Katya and I will clean up this mess.”

“Yeah, we got it.” At that moment, Katya was flung into the suite, her little body flying like a rag doll through the air. A loud thump was followed almost immediately by the small agent bouncing back into the hallway, brandishing a long splinter from the broken door.

The vampire who'd been tormenting her backed away.

Blaise cornered his vampire, flipped him onto his side and dispatched him.

Demi held onto her stomach as it threatened to rebel at the sight of all the gore. Just when she didn't think she could stand more, the elevator dinged.

Blaise shoved the other vampire from behind, ramming his chest into the makeshift stake in Katya's hands.

The two vampires disappeared in a puff of dust.

The elevator doors slid open. Demi stepped in. Blaise grabbed Katya's hand and dragged her into the car as the doors closed.

“What happened?” Demi asked.

“The vampires set off an explosion, breaching the door,” Blaise said.

Katya, her face flushed and her breathing labored, brushed vampire dust from her clothes. “There were four. We only got three of them.”

“While we were handling them, Ursula slipped out.” Blaise glanced at the display that indicated which floor they were on. “The fourth vamp followed Ursula into the stairwell. I hope Cal caught up to them.”

“It's a big hotel. She could have gone to another floor and taken the elevator to the lobby.”

“For her sake, Cal better have caught up. Those vampires have to be Alexei's doing and they're out to kill.”

Every time the elevator stopped on a floor, Katya flashed her badge. “Police business. Catch the next one.”

It stopped at five floors on the way down.

By the time they reached the lobby, Demi had ground the enamel off her back teeth. When the elevator opened, the three burst out into a lobby filled with emergency personnel dressed in fire-retardant clothing. A paramedic swooped in on Katya whose neat ponytail now flopped at an angle, hair slipping from the elastic. Her clothing was torn and there was a cut on her cheek from her rumble with the vampires.

Before he could say a word, Katya raised her hand to halt him. “I'm fine. Damage is on the twenty-seventh floor. No fire yet. Move on.” She stood on her toes, searching the sea of faces in the lobby.

A foot taller than Katya, Demi had no more luck locating Ursula or Cal.

Blaise led the way through the crowd of rescue workers and reporters, pushing toward the exit.

Outside the hotel wasn't much better. The streets were filled with people in taxis and buses, carrying what they could, making a last-ditch effort to evacuate under pouring rain and flooding gutters. Tempers flared and the big fire truck pushing down the middle of the street wasn't making anyone any happier.

“Can you see them?” Demi yelled over the cacophony of honking horns, shouting people and pummeling rain.

“No.” Blaise shielded his eyes from the downpour and peered over the crowd.

A hand on Demi's shoulder made her jump and spin around, dropping into a ready stance.

“Hey, it's me.” Cal held up his hands. “I couldn't catch her. She got away.”

Demi threw her arms around him. “At least you're safe.”

He gathered her close and held her, both of them being soaked to the skin.

“What about the vampire following her?” Katya joined Demi and Cal.

Cal's mouth turned upward in a tight smile. “The demon had a splinter stake, I suppose she collected on her way out of the suite. I was a couple flights above them when the vampire struck. She was ready and dusted him without batting an eye.”

“If we didn't need her to testify in the morning, I'd say let her fight her own battles,” Blaise commented. “Unfortunately, the council is split on sentencing Alexei. Some are afraid of what he might do to them if they vote to have him terminated if the majority votes to let him live. They need solid evidence to convict and destroy him or no one will be safe.”

Cal set Demi away from him and took her hand. “Then we have to find Ursula.” Water poured down his face, dripping off the end of his nose and chin. “Where would she have gone in this weather?”

“I don't know but let's step back inside while we plan.” Demi ducked back into the lobby of the hotel, followed by Blaise, Katya and Cal.

Katya stepped aside to call her boss and report their missing witness.

While she was busy with her cell phone, Demi asked, “Is Ursula's boyfriend or significant other in town?”

“Her ex-lover, Alexei, is. But I doubt seriously she'd be going to see him,” Cal said. “Not when he's sent his own welcoming committee out to kill her. She did mention she had a boyfriend who lived in New York City.”

“Yeah, and conveniently refused to give me a name. We need to get ahold of someone who would know where we could find out information about the demon population in the city.” Demi turned to Blaise and Katya. “Surely they like to gather and compare notes and commiserate about the humans and other paranorms dogging their footsteps.”

“It might be a long shot, but demons like to hang out at the Blue Martini,” Blaise said. “I know the bouncer there.”

“The bar the reporter was standing in front of on the newscast?” Cal asked.

Blaise nodded. “That's the one.”

“Ursula showed interest in that newscast. Maybe she's headed there.” Demi hooked her arm through Cal's. “Let's check it out.”

Katya stuffed her cell phone back in her pocket and joined them. “Detective Thomas is issuing a BOLO on Ursula. Maybe one of the other agents will spot her and bring her in.”

“Good.” Cal glanced at Blaise. “How far is the Blue Martini?”

Blaise's lips thinned. “Twenty city blocks from here.” He stared out the glass doors and the parking lot of traffic that hadn't moved since the fire truck parked in front of the hotel. “We'll have to walk several blocks before we stand a chance of catching a moving cab.”

Pulling the collar of her leather jacket up around her ears, Demi hunched her shoulders and followed Blaise and Katya out into the waterlogged streets, the wind pushing against them as if trying to convince them to stay in the hotel where it was dry and warm.

The two hours she'd managed to sleep were a distant memory to Demi with cold rain trickling down the back of her neck, soaking her on the outside as well as the inside of her coat. No, this wasn't exactly what she'd pictured when Chief Warner suggested delivering a package to New York City and then taking a few days off. At this rate, they'd spend the entire weekend chasing the missing witness. Not only would they have failed at their job, they'd have the Paranormal Council angry at them and they would return to Chicago wet, tired and reprimanded.

Six blocks later, having waded through knee-deep runoff, dodged through standstill traffic and being soaked thoroughly, the foursome finally found a cab driver just turning off his lights. Katya flashed her badge. “You can drive or we can commandeer this vehicle. Your choice.”

Demi smiled at the kick-ass attitude of the mini-bombshell that was agent Katya Danske. The woman might look like a powder puff and maybe weighed all of a hundred pounds, but Demi bet that she could face-plant a man without breaking a sweat and she wasn't afraid of paranorms or anything else.

“What made you go into law enforcement?” Demi asked as she settled into the seat beside Katya. Cal sat beside her, and Blaise rode up front with the driver.

Katya frowned, the movement making her even prettier and more intense. “I don't like feeling helpless, and I don't want others to feel helpless either.”

Demi laughed. “You're about as helpless as a rhinoceros on a tear.”

Katya's frown cleared and her lips lifted. “I was once. When my brother was kidnapped. No matter what we did or who we contacted, we couldn't find him. My mother died of a broken heart. I didn't want to live at the mercy of others. I joined the Chicago Police Department, got my training and moved to New York City.”

Cal leaned forward. “I thought I recognized you. You came out of training onto the night shift right as I transferred into the Special Investigations Division.”

Katya's eyes narrowed. “Did I kick your ass at any time?”

“No, but weren't you the one who kicked Tate Copeland's butt for calling you ‘babe'?” Cal grinned.

“I might have.” She brushed raindrops from her shoulder, refusing to meet his gaze. “Is he a friend of yours?”