Midnight Shadows, page 3
Katie blushed. “I hope you don’t think—”
She smiled. “It’s all right. Even before your warning, I had...reservations about one of them. Hell, I have reservations about them both. Neither one of them is someone the family will embrace.”
“Do you love them?”
She sighed. “I’m not sure what I feel for either of them. But I’ll keep you informed.”
“So? Are they...well endowed?”
“I’ve had men with bigger dicks, but none sweeter.”
“That’s what counts. A big cock is useless if it doesn’t belong to a man who makes your pussy melt. I’ll take an average-sized Mark any day over a well-hung man who doesn’t turn me on.”
Tatiana nodded. “As would I.”
Katie licked her lips suggestively. “So? When can I meet them?”
“Meet them or fuck them?”
Katie grinned. “Both.”
Tatiana laughed. “We’ll see, little hussy. Now, can I buy you lunch?”
Katie nodded. “Yes.”
As they left the park, Tatiana smiled. “Have you ever considered modeling?”
“Who, me? No! Why?”
“Yes, you. Why? Because you’re absolutely gorgeous, little sister. I have yet to meet a supermodel who has anything on you.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe it runs in the family.”
“You mean Mother?” Tatiana nodded. “She is stunning.”
Katie stopped and placed a hand on her arm. “Yes, she is, but I meant you. You are the most beautiful female I’ve ever seen.”
Tatiana smiled and slipped her arm through Katie’s. “Let’s talk. I’d like to get to know you better.”
Chapter Two
FEELING WEARY AND FRUSTRATED at his inability to locate the vampire fem for whom he’d spent weeks searching, Jace Makefield resisted the urge to return to his newly acquired condo at the Jersey Shore. He turned his SUV homeward instead. Homeward? He sighed. He supposed home would always be where his mentor and father figure Wilfredo Miguel Santiago resided. Presently, that was in a big, two-story stone mansion in the Philadelphia suburbs.
While normally happy to see Wilfredo and the other hunters who had become his family over the last half century, Jace found himself reluctant to face the other male. For the last fifty years or so, if things were haywire in his life, he always had the comfort of knowing Wilfredo was there—ready, willing and eager to listen. Hell, sometimes he even listened without offering unwanted advice.
When he had lost Carollina, along with his will to live, Wilfredo and the others he had come to view as his siblings had been there—pushing, prodding and encouraging him until he overcame the urge to slaughter every vampire in sight. Back then, Jace had actually believed he could tell Wilfredo anything.
Now he knew better. How the hell could he tell a centuries-old full-blood vampire—whose sole purpose in life was ridding the world of rogue vampires—that he no longer shared that goal because he was so deep in lust with a vampire fem, it felt like bloodlust? While Jace was no longer fully human, he was not a vampire. How could he experience emotions or passions that even approached the magnitude of bloodlust, which had been known to drive more than one vampire to the brink of insanity? It didn’t seem possible, and yet he longed for that fem who had called herself Ana with all the hunger and desperation of a vampire lost in the grip of bloodlust. For the first time in his life, Jace felt an overpowering need for sex and, more disturbingly, a need for blood from a woman—from Ana.
A need for blood? Before he’d met Ana, Jace wouldn’t have thought he had any means of consummating such a hunger. He ran the tip of his tongue over his teeth. Encountering the pointy edges, he shuddered. At first he’d thought he was imagining things. But now there was no denying he had sharpened incisors. What the hell was happening to him?
He had thought his need for Carollina was all-consuming, but that seemed so much less urgent since his sexual encounter with Ana, which had made everything else in his life seem trivial. At the same time, he no longer embraced or welcomed thoughts of his lost love. That knowledge left him feeling guilty.
While thoughts of Carollina had never been buried deep within his subconscious, lately he felt almost as if her memory stalked him. At night, she invaded his dreams. Dreams? Nightmares were more like it. With each successive nightmare, he felt less able to cope. Had he developed incisors before or after the nightmares? He was no longer certain.
Feeling a trickle of sweat rolling down his back, he shook his head, forcing thoughts of Carollina from his conscious mind. He turned his thoughts back to another fem...Ana.
Another fem? He sucked in a deep, cleansing breath. When she had died, Carollina had been a latent, not a fem. Damn if he would let these inexplicable nightmares ruin his sweet memories of the only woman he’d ever loved.
Gulping in another deep breath, he sighed. Carollina was lost to him forever. But Ana was not. He had to find Ana or, God help him, he would lose his mind.
Jace tightened his grip on the steering wheel and allowed his thoughts to drift. Several weeks earlier, while returning from an encounter with the full-blood vampire, Aleksei Madison, battered and dazed, he had encountered a tall, dark, sultry vampire fem. As a hunter of rogue vamps, he should have been her natural enemy. Instead, the breathtaking fem had stopped to assist him.
In the brief time they had spent together, they’d made love and he’d lost what was left of his heart to her. She had fled from him, leaving him obsessed with the need to find and reclaim her. He knew it was madness to think they could ever enjoy a meaningful relationship, but for the chance to be her lover, he would march through the fires of hell and happily sell what was left of his human soul.
He ran his tongue over his incisors again, uncertain how much humanity he had left to lose. But however much remained, he would willingly surrender, to find and possess Ana again. No matter how long it took or what he had to do, he would find her. God help anyone who tried to come between them.
He sighed. Before he could expect to fully enjoy her once he found her, he would need to rid himself of his nightmares. For that, he would need Wilfredo’s help...and his understanding. He didn’t doubt Wilfredo’s willingness to help him, but he dreaded the painful memories the discussion would generate for both him and the vamp who now stood in place of the father he had never really known.
With thoughts of Carollina and Ana warring for dominance in his heart and mind, he pressed his foot down on the accelerator, sending his vehicle speeding down the road.
“READY TO MEET YOUR new boss?”
Seated in the driver’s seat of his late-model luxury car on the bottom level of a municipal parking garage, Jordan Guidry-Sonnier turned to look at the woman occupying the passenger seat. Shaniqua Malone, thirty-four, tall, slender, with smooth skin the color of heavily creamed coffee, smiled at him, her gray eyes alight with mischief.
He frowned. “Mornings like this make me wonder why the hell I keep working for a living.” He pushed open his door and got out of the car. She alighted as well and they met in front of the car.
Dressed in a dark trouser suit that hugged her slender curves, she looked as if she should have been gracing the cover of an upscale business magazine instead of getting ready to spend the day gathering evidence for the district attorney’s office. She arched a brow. “How many times have I told you if I’d inherited several million dollars, I’d be lying on some sun-soaked South Pacific Island while an Antonio Banderas look-alike tickled my toes, instead of working the mean streets of Philly?”
Jordan’s love of investigating kept him between a rock and a hard place. If he didn’t love police work, he would have retired from the department several years earlier when he’d inherited seven million dollars from a great-uncle. At the very least, he’d take more promotional tests to improve his rank—except that if he was promoted beyond detective sergeant, he would have to give up investigating in favor of supervising the officers who did the actual investigating.
He shrugged. “Some days you can’t win.” He glanced toward the trunk where she’d tossed her garment bag and overnight case when they’d left his apartment nearly an hour earlier.
She followed his gaze. “I’ll stop by sometime tonight or tomorrow to pick up my bags.” She glanced at her watch. “Right now we’d better get going. Especially you. You don’t want to make a bad impression on your new boss by showing up late on your first day, do you?”
She turned toward the exit and he fell into step beside her. “What do you know about this Matt Savoy? What kind of guy is he? Will he make a nuisance of himself or allow me to do my job?”
As he held open the door to the stairs leading toward the street level, she grinned at him. “Him? I think you’ll like Matt Savoy just fine.”
After eight years of friendship, eighteen months of which they had spent as lovers, he knew when Shaniqua was having fun at his expense.
He put a hand on her arm. “What do you know about him that you’re not telling me?”
She continued up the stairs, pausing at the top when he joined her. “Trust me on this, Jordan, you’ll like—no, love Matt Savoy.”
He pushed opened the street door and followed her out. As they walked down Arch Street toward the Philadelphia DA’s office, he decided not to give her the satisfaction of asking any more questions for which she clearly did not intend to provide answers.
Fifteen minutes later, when he was shown into Assistant District Attorney Savoy’s office, he understood the source of Shaniqua’s amusement. Dressed in a dark, tailored skirt and matching three-quarter-length jacket, a tall, full-figured woman with skin the color of warm, sweet honey, deep brown eyes, full lips and short, natural hair rose to meet him.
With a quick glance, he noted her large breasts, big legs and bootylicious butt. Aware of his penchant for full-figured black women who didn’t hide their natural beauty under layers of makeup and chemically treated hair, Shaniqua had rightly assumed this woman would pique his interest.
“Detective Sergeant Guidry-Sonnier?” She extended her hand. “I’m Madison Savoy.”
Her voice, vibrant with a husky quality, danced along his nerve endings. Although not conventionally pretty, when she smiled, her eyes sparkled with an inviting warmth that captured his attention. As he engulfed her soft, warm hand in his, he knew he would need to keep a tight rein on his emotions.
He nodded. “Please call me Jordan.”
She removed her hand from his and studied him in silence for several moments. He wondered what she thought of him. He had first become aware of his sexual preferences when he turned seventeen and had two eighteen-year-old women offer him sex as a birthday present. One had been a stunning strawberry-blonde with pale skin, green eyes and a slender body. The other had been a woman with skin the color of cocoa, big breasts, a bigger butt and short locks, and was what his best friend Raja called “cute at best.”
He had immediately chosen the latter. Heart full of lust for her dark, sexy body, he had plunged his aching cock into her moist pussy and had his first taste of brown sugar. Holding him tight in her arms and whispering encouragement, she licked and bit at his ear and then found his mouth and kissed him until he couldn’t breathe. She had allowed him to come inside her several times that night and he had felt certain he’d died and gone to heaven.
Afterwards, she had told him she had a thing for tall, well-built, drop-dead-gorgeous white guys with curly dark hair and sky-blue eyes. He had never lacked a lover after that first night. Although he did not consider himself handsome, let alone drop-dead gorgeous, he knew some women did. Did Madison Savoy find him attractive?
“Jordan it is.” A quick smile touched her full, sensuous lips. “As you’ve probably heard, a number of people insist on calling me Matt.”
He cast a quick glance at her bare left hand. “And you prefer?”
“Madison, but under duress, I answer to Matt.” She indicated one of the two chairs in front of her desk. “Please.” She moved back to her desk and sat down.
He took the indicated seat. Keeping his voice neutral, he asked the question uppermost in his mind. “Why did you have me reassigned?”
“I’m sorry about that. I usually request volunteers rather than commandeering them.”
“Then why was my squad commandeered?”
She considered him in silence for several moments before speaking. “Actually, I didn’t ask for your squad—just you.”
“Why?”
“As a child you spent time in New Orleans and Louisiana.”
“And that’s relevant how?”
Her brown gaze locked with his. “Although I was born and raised here, my parents were born in Louisiana.”
He remained silent, waiting for her to make her point.
She sat forward in her seat. “You were raised by Kathleen Sonnier.”
“What has my mother got to do with my reassignment?”
“Having been raised by a foster mother—”
“I have no memories of my birth mother. Kathleen Sonnier raised me as her son from the time I was two years old. She’s my mother.”
She inclined her head, a smile briefly touching her mouth. “I stand corrected. Having a mother who is a Creole ritual priestess, you must believe in the supernatural.”
He shrugged. “What bearing do my beliefs have on my job?”
She sighed. “I know these questions seem prying, but I’m from a similar background. You and I will be working closely together. If our partnership is going to work, I’m going to need you to trust me as I plan to trust you.”
He wanted to tell her he saw no reason to discuss his beliefs with her, but looking into the depths of her eyes, he suspected he looked upon a fellow Ritual Latent. Although he did not know why, he felt a need to confide in her.
“Mom was only eighteen when she took me in. We were poor, but she did her best to ensure I enjoyed a happy, safe childhood. Nevertheless, I managed to see a number of things most people would consider impossible or supernatural. Those things roused my curiosity. By the time I was an adolescent, Mom said I was old enough to understand that I possessed natural abilities most people did not. She told me I was something she called a Ritual Latent. She said training could augment my natural abilities. She spent several years instructing me in the ritual arts.”
She nodded, tiny lights igniting in the depths of her gaze. “Which arts were you instructed in?”
“The arts of detection and self-protection. And you?”
“Healing and second sight.”
Second sight? Damn, he hoped she had no insight into what he was thinking. “Why are we discussing ritual arts no one admits to knowing about, let alone practicing?”
“I’d like to discuss several cases I’ve been in touch with the ADA’s in Camden and Claymont about.”
“I investigate major crimes within the city limits.”
“Murder is a major crime, Jordan—even when the victims are suspected vampires.”
AFTER JORDAN GUIDRY-Sonnier left, the soft, subtle scent of his cologne lingered in Madison’s office, caressing her senses and whispering of an overwhelming sensuality she found all too enticing. Alone in her office, she sank down into the seat he’d occupied.
Pressing her cheek against the back of the chair, she drew in a slow, deep breath, allowing the minute traces of his psychic essence, which remained ingrained in the leather, to invade her mind and innermost thoughts. Something she’d allowed with few men—for good reason. She couldn’t do what she did, either professionally or spiritually, if she allowed herself to be sidetracked by primal urges best left unexplored.
But she’d never met any man, no matter how handsome or sexy, who spoke to her inner woman as Jordan Guidry-Sonnier had. For a moment, she gave in to temptation and closed her eyes, allowing her senses to burn his image into her mind. And what a powerful, sexually exciting man. Tall, extremely well-built with broad shoulders, a massive chest, narrow waist and long legs, he was the epitome of a hunk.
She wet her lips, her mind’s eye seeing again his almost too handsome face with its dimpled chin and that lecherously full, kissable bottom lip. Permitting herself a spiritual freedom she rarely tolerated, she allowed his image to crystallize in her thoughts. When it had, she ran her fingers through his short dark hair, admiring the silver at his temples. She lost herself in his magnetic, silver-blue gaze, wallowing in his I-can-fuck-you-often-and-hard sensuality that left her wet and hungry for raunchy all-her-pussy-could-handle sex. And God almighty, that voice...low, deep, sexy as hell...and so damned suggestive. She marveled that she’d allowed him to leave her office without tackling him, ripping off his expensive, tailored suit and fucking herself on his cock until she lost her mind as he filled her pussy with his seed.
She shuddered. How the hell was she supposed to keep her mind on work when she couldn’t keep her thoughts off sex in his presence? Emotions she had not felt in a very long time buffeted her, overwhelming her senses, demanding a freedom she had never allowed. Frightened at the intense feelings his brief visit had generated, she snapped open her eyes and bolted to her feet. Legs trembling, she stumbled around her desk to resume her seat.
Her heart thudded and she was aware of a pool of moisture between her trembling thighs. She picked up a folder on her desk and fanned herself. If she were going to work with Jordan Guidry-Sonnier, she was going to have to keep a tight rein on her emotions. As her much younger friend Jalai was fond of saying, lust was all well and good—as long as it was kept in its proper place.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON as Jordan went over the notes he’d made during his meeting with Madison Savoy, Shaniqua stopped by his desk. “So what did you think of Matt Savoy? Did she get you all hot and bothered?”
He gave her a cool look. “Why did you go out of your way to let me think she was male?”
She smiled. “I wanted you to be surprised. And you were, weren’t you?”
