His hand moved, drifting down her neck until his fingers rested lightly over the pounding pulse in her throat. She tried to answer him as honestly as she could, saying, “My pheromones, my scent, they’re designed to lure…”
“You mean the way you smell like sex and paradise? Yeah, baby, that’s a damn big lure.”
“I don’t release the full scent with you. I mean, I have, when we were making love, there was no way to stop it then, but now, and before, I’ve tried to control it.” Okay, she’d let it slip in the interrogation room—but he’d pushed her too far. And he’d certainly caught the scent plenty of other times—but not the full onslaught.
“Just the scent of you arouses men.” His voice was thick with tension.
“It can.”
“You said you weren’t using your magic on me.”
“Not to hypnotize you.” She hadn’t.
Damn, but she wanted the man to kiss her. That mouth of his was so close—
“What about the dreams, Cara? Those sweet, wild-as-hell dreams I had?” His fingers eased over her collarbone. Slid down the vee at the top of her shirt and paused in the valley between her breasts.
“I-I didn’t mean to—”
He brushed open the edges of her shirt. Slid his fingertips under the lace of her black bra. Her flesh was so sensitive that when he found her nipple, she gasped with the pleasure that arched through her.
Even as she realized that the seductress was being seduced.
“Didn’t mean to what?” he whispered, then his mouth finally took hers. Lips touched. Pressed. His tongue thrust deep. Tangled with hers.
Only to withdraw too soon.
He gazed down at her, and there was no mistaking his need. Or her own.
“What didn’t you mean to do?” His voice was gravel rough.
She could still taste him on her tongue. “Come to you, that way. I-I…in the past, I’ve had to focus my power. Project.” Hunt.
“When I closed my eyes, I just went to you.” And it had been wonderful.
“It was all real then?” His fingers strummed her tight nipple.
“Yes, in a-a sense.” She licked her lips. “The pleasure was real, but it was just a dream.” She hadn’t actually been in his room.
Hadn’t felt the warm, naked contours of his body.
Well, until last night, anyway.
His fingers stilled on her breast. “How many other men have dreamed of you?” He growled the question at her.
Anger was in his tone. But so was…hurt? Cara lifted her hands. Curled her fingers over the hard muscles in his arms. “They don’t matter. The only one that matters now is you.” She meant that.
Dreams, fantasies, they were like wisps of smoke. Being with Todd, it was real, he was real, and the way he made her feel—
Like a real woman.
Not just a demon.
It was her turn to stroke his jaw. The faint sting of stubble rasped along her palm. “I want to be with you. Not the cop and the demon.” She was tired of the allegations. Suspicions. “Just the man and the woman.” Maybe it wasn’t possible, but, damn it, something was between them.
And she wanted to find out just what it was.
Could be hard, hot lust. A lust that would burn out with the pounding mating of their bodies.
But maybe it would be more than lust. That elusive something more she’d searched for so long.
Cara rose just a bit on her tiptoes. Wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and urged his face closer to her. Their lips met, mouths open. Need burning. She kissed him with all the raging passion in her, and he met her, kissing back, full force.
When the elevator lurched, she didn’t pay it any attention. She ignored the soft ding of a bell and enjoyed the slow thrust of his tongue and the skilled play of his fingers on her nipple.
There was a soft swish, and Todd hurriedly stepped back from her, pulling his hand and mouth away with a muffled curse.
Cara realized then that they’d made it to the basement. The elevator had started moving on its own. Damn it.
Todd glanced out of the elevator. His back was ramrod straight. “No one’s here.”
She didn’t particularly care.
But when he stepped from the elevator, her eyes narrowed and she followed him. “Todd—”
His eyes burned down at her. “I’m always a cop.”
The intensity in his voice made her stomach knot.
“The cop and the man, they aren’t separate for me. I do my job, twenty-four-seven. I live this job—and I want to trust you, but—
”
But. She felt the word hit her like a slap. “I thought we were past this. You said you didn’t think I was a killer.”
“I want to trust you.” The words seemed to be ripped from him. “But you didn’t tell me the truth about yourself until just hours ago—and even then, you didn’t tell me everything. I had to get the details from Gyth.”
Because she’d been afraid he’d turn away from her. “You don’t understand.” She had to swallow to ease the dryness in her throat.
“You don’t know what it’s like—”
“You’re damned right I don’t—and you haven’t told me.” A door opened near the end of the hallway, and from the corner of her eye, Cara saw Gyth exit what she figured was a stairwell. The words snapped out fast as Todd demanded, “Tell me this, baby, are the demon and the woman really separate for you?”
No.
Her expression must have answered for her because he nodded. “I didn’t think so.” Todd wasn’t touching her now. Not at all.
“We are who we are, Cara. No changing it.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to change.” She’d never longed to be human.
Not really.
“Take me as I am, and that’s the way I’ll take you.”
The grated words had her blinking in surprise. Was he saying—
He kissed her, hard. “And stay the hell out of anyone else’s dreams, baby.”
Before she could respond, Gyth was there. Glaring at her and Todd, with his nostrils flaring. A moment later, another door opened, one that brought her the scent of death and decay, mixed with bleach and the harsh stench of chemicals.
A tall, thin woman with coffee cream skin—a woman so beautiful Cara doubted she was human—stepped into the hallway. She frowned when she saw them.
“Smith, just the woman we wanted to see,” Todd called out.
The woman wore light green scrubs. Behind her, Cara heard the sound of jazz music drifting from the open door.“I’m takin’ a break, Brooks.”
He sighed. “We need to look at the bodies.”
A stare that was as dark as night locked on Cara. “Who is she?”
Todd raised a brow. “She’s the expert you need.”
“What?”
“Remember, Smith? You said you were out of your ‘element’—well, trust me, for Cara—this is definitely her area of expertise.”
Smith’s gaze darted to Gyth. “One of yours, huh?”
“She sure as hell isn’t!” Todd snapped, just as Cara asked blankly, “One of his what?”
Gyth marched to the doctor’s side. Whispered to her. Cara caught the familiar “succubus” and the equally familiar “dangerous.”
“No need for whispers,” Todd said, grabbing her hand and pulling Cara toward the door. “Okay. I know what’s going on, I’ve been a blind idiot, but I get it now. I get it. ”
Smith’s stare was solemn. “You’re not an idiot. You’re just human, and I’m beginning to think that we’re pretty damn rare.”
Oh, but the doctor was very much mistaken. “Actually,” Cara murmured, “at the last count,” unofficial though it had been, “humans outnumber supernaturals two hundred and fifty-four thousand to one.” Give or take a bit.
Smith didn’t look particularly pleased or impressed by this bit of news. But after a moment, she turned around and marched back into the slightly chilled room.
Back to where the bodies waited.
Cara pulled in a deep gulp of air, tasted death, and knew this wasn’t about to be pretty.
Cara’s skin still seemed too pale when she crossed the threshold of the Crypt.
The impulse to comfort her, to wrap his hands around her delicate shoulders and pull her close, was strong. As strong as the impulse to kiss her had been in the elevator.
His shoulder brushed against hers, a subtle gesture to let her know that he was there.
She wasn’t facing this alone.
Smith kept glancing at Cara. Then at Colin. Then Cara. The woman looked nervous and…angry.
Colin had told him the full truth about Smith’s abduction earlier. He knew that one of the Other had kidnapped her and tortured her. Before that horrible experience, Smith had no idea that any creatures like shifters or demons really existed.
It had been a brutal introduction for her. One that she had apparently not recovered from yet.
Of course, he couldn’t really blame the woman. If he’d been held captive by a sadistic psychopath who also happened to be a damn powerful supernatural being, well, he would have freaked, too.
Not that Smith had freaked, per se. The lady was far too controlled for that. But she’d changed. No denying it. Shut down.
Blocked herself off.
She wouldn’t be able to live that way.
No one could. Not and stay sane. He knew. He’d tried once—after his mother’s shooting. He hadn’t wanted to feel again after that. The pain had been too much for him.
Over the years, Todd had learned a hard truth, though. If you weren’t feeling, you weren’t living, and life was too damn short to sit on the sidelines.
Smith used to know that.
The screech of a wheel caught his attention. His head turned, and Todd watched as Smith pushed a sheet-covered body toward them.
“Just finished some more work on him. Was about to transfer him out…”
Then they’d arrived just in time.
Smith’s gloved fingers pulled back the sheet. Todd heard Cara’s sharply indrawn breath. When he glanced at her face, he saw a faint quiver shake her lower lip.
Maybe demons weren’t so different from humans, after all.
She’d deceived him, yeah, no fucking denying that, but his Cara wasn’t a killer.
And he didn’t need his “psychic edge” to tell him that.
“Lower the sheet more.” Her voice was soft but steady.
Smith pulled down the sheet, exposing the surgical marks on Michael House’s chest and the dark handprint.
Cara’s fingers lifted over him. Hovered above that perfect impression. Her hand was smaller than the print, by at least a few inches.
Cara’s fine-boned fingers were nowhere near close to being a match. He hadn’t thought they would be, though. He hadn’t brought her down there to match hands—he’d brought her there to show her the print— and to find out what the hell it was.
“Cover him.” A tight order as her hand fisted. Smith jerked the sheet back up. Cara’s breath came faster now. Her gaze lifted, shot to his. “You were right, Todd. Damn it, you were right. ”
He noticed that Smith and Colin craned just a bit closer. “You’ve seen that mark before.”
“I’ve seen a mark like that before.”
“How was the impression made?” Smith immediately wanted to know. “The bruising isn’t like—”
“It’s not bruising.” She cleared her throat. “And it was made with a simple touch.”
“I don’t understand.” Smith frowned at her.
Me, either, Todd thought.
Gyth said nothing, but his attention was completely focused on Cara.
“We like to feel the beat of the heart when we take power from someone.”
He remembered the soft press of her hand against his chest.
“In ancient Egypt,” her voice was strangely calm, almost dispassionate as her gaze stayed on the sheet-covered body, “they believed that the true essence of a man was kept in his heart. His spirit. His soul. All in the heart. Not the brain.”
“That’s why they used a stick to yank out the brains,” Smith sniffed. “Didn’t really care about preserving that part.”
Todd wondered where the history lesson was going.
“When the brain stops functioning, a person’s body is still alive.” Cara’s gaze dropped to House’s covered chest. “As long as that wonderful heart keeps beating, the person is alive.”
She wet her lips, continued, “To my kind, the heart is life. We want to feel that precious beat. To share the pleasure, the thrill.
Sometimes that release of pleasure is so intense,” her voice dropped, “so powerful that the urge to keep taking is too strong.” Cara swallowed. “If you drain a human while you’re feeling the wild beat of a heart, when the human dies, the stain of the touch will remain.”
“Then you’ve seen this before?” He repeated. She seemed absolutely certain, but Todd had to know.
“Something like this. Yeah, once.” Shadows cloaked her eyes. “But I’ve heard stories. Before the killings stopped—”
Yeah, well, if she was telling him the truth, the succubus killings hadn’t exactly stopped.
“—brands like this were found all over France. England. Humans didn’t understand what they were seeing back then.” A quick glance at a silent Smith. “Now the doctors know it’s not just a bruise.”
It was a brand. A fucking calling card left by a killer who’d wanted to mark his victims.