Don’t Bite the Messenger (6 page)

“Fucking what?” I jumped to my feet. “I was leaving! Lucille knew I was going. I’d been planning it, working toward it for
years
before I delivered that package. I had nothing to do with that takeover. Nothing.”

“Lucille was taken from us early,” he said. All the air left me. The way she smiled when she clicked out to greet me. The gift she’d given me, which I’d had to live off for three days while hitching and driving through Canada. Her stupid infatuation with Doughboy McHenry. I rubbed at my eyes.

“You know what you’re accusing me of.” My voice shook, betraying weakness. I didn’t even try to hide it. Unlike drinking vampire blood, being bitten had an almost hundred percent chance of enthralling a human. If I’d succumbed to a bite, I wouldn’t have had any original ideas or feelings of my own. I’d have been a mindless drone, a slave, a nobody.

Malcolm just looked at me, eerily expressionless.

“You know what,” I said. “I don’t think I like you anymore.”

“Regardless, I have to check.”

I rolled my shoulders back, reached up and pulled the towel free. It dropped to the floor in a damp heap. I glared past his shoulder, anger making my eyes hot and dry. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down, comforting myself with the notion that he’d feel terrible when he discovered that, of all the scars I carried, I had no teeth marks to condemn me.

“I owed you a look anyway,” I said breezily.

He didn’t only look. Bites would fade if the vampire made them with care, but they would always leave marks. Malcolm stalked up on me and raised both hands to slide my hair away from my face, brushing his fingers across my temples, behind my ears and along the nape of my neck. He was so close that if I looked up, my forehead would have brushed his jaw.

His news had chilled me, and his hands were hot. I shivered as he slid his palm over my throat, a light, even pressure that continued across my collarbone and the length of my arms. His fingers threaded through mine for an instant and I turned away when my face heated. I really wanted to hate him for what he was doing, but I had wished for his touch for so long…

He moved behind me, so close I could feel the warmth of his body. He traced the underside of my arms, pausing on a jagged scar on my left forearm before catching my elbows and pressing upward until I stretched my arms over my head. His hands ran down my sides, fingers gentle over my ribs and tickling light against my stomach. I opened my mouth to take in air and tasted the tropical night. I knew for a fact that it tasted nothing like him. It was raw where he was smooth, sweet where he was smoky.

His hands moved to my stomach, drifted slowly upward. I bit my lower lip as my breasts filled his hands, and resisted the urge to lean back against him. Fingers brushed around my nipples, thorough and businesslike. He wasn’t even breathing hard, the bastard. I smashed my eyelids closed, tried to think of anything but the sensation of him touching me. His hands left me and I swallowed a whimper. Jesus, what was wrong with me that I was enjoying this?

“You can lower your arms,” he murmured near my ear. I caught my breath, tried to disguise it by shaking my arms out, making a show of clenching and unclenching my fists even though they hadn’t really gone to sleep, and he certainly wasn’t hurting me. His hand slipped around the back of my neck and I snapped my head to the side, trying to see him, but he shifted away from my gaze. He was so strong he could break my neck without even exerting himself. What if he
thought
he found a bite? What if Bronson wanted to know if I’d been bitten, but had ordered him to kill me after the inspection for inconveniencing him?

Malcolm’s palms moved across my back in harmony, back and forth. He paused again to investigate a series of small, round scars over my right shoulder blade, and his energy came back online in a flash, hitting my hypersensitive skin like an etheric bed of nails. I yelped and jumped away from him.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

The feeling disappeared as soon as he spoke. I rubbed my arms, now covered in goose bumps, and glared at him.

“You’ll need to warm up before I can finish,” he said.

“I need to
what
?”

“I can’t feel correctly when you’re like that.”

“Well, maybe you should turn your goddamn electrical shocks off, Malcolm. Christ. That shit hurts!” It didn’t actually, but it wasn’t comfortable, and anyway screw him. He winced when I spoke. Poker face, indeed. He wasn’t nearly as unfeeling as he was acting. Good. He should feel guilty.

“I apologize,” he ground out. “Now, please, will you cover up?”

I stomped into the bedroom, a series of dark, heavy curtains hung in a square around the bed in the middle of the house. I pulled the quilt off the bed and wrapped myself in it, then stomped into the kitchen. “Take your clothes off, cover up, blah blah blah.” I opened the freezer and extracted a bottle of vodka and a tray of ice.

“What are you doing?” he asked from close behind me.

“I think this occasion calls for a drink. Want one?” Maybe if he relaxed, he could take the stick out of his ass. I considered telling him that.

“Please.” He sounded relieved.

I rolled my eyes, hitched the blanket up under one arm and dropped the bottle onto the counter. I took two plastic juice glasses decorated with colorful fish out of the cupboard, cracked and upended the ice tray over the glasses. Most of the cubes bounced out and skittered onto the floor. Neither of us made a move to pick them up. I tore the cap off the vodka and poured generous drinks before fishing a carton of passion-orange juice out of the fridge and capping them off. I didn’t have to see well to know that his was barely tinted orange. I handed the cup to him without looking and downed half of mine in a series of gulps. He sipped and I saw him grimace in the light from the refrigerator as I put the juice away.

“What are these?” he asked.

“Mine’s a screwdriver. Yours is more of a screw-you.” I tipped my glass toward him. “Cheers.” I finished my drink, dropping the cup on the counter as the vodka ran in a hot line straight to my stomach.

“With the amount of time you spend in bars, I would think you’d have learned how to mix a decent drink.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

I froze, pressing both palms against the counter. How dare he? What, we were all friends now that we were taking a time-out from him considering me some vampire’s pet? I sloshed vodka into my glass and chugged it down. A drop escaped from the corner of my mouth. I wiped it daintily.

“I don’t know,” I said, bitter and breathless. “Tastes fine to me.”

“Sydney.”

I threw the glass at the sink, irritated when it bounced instead of breaking.

“Don’t you dare sound disappointed with me.” I can only stay mad for so long before I snap, and nobody had ever made me quite as angry as he had managed. “You know damn well that I didn’t run away on the eve of destruction because I knew it was coming. I ran because every time I turned around, something or somebody was being blown up. Because that life was a dead end. If I’d stayed, I’d have been caught up in this shit or the next attack, or killed by a damn drunk driver while out delivering your little love notes to each other. I worked hard and made a plan to get away. Enthralled humans don’t plan, Malcolm. Everyone knows that.”

“You could have been under orders to,” he said, his voice flat again.

I slapped him, then pulled my arm back and made a fist, ready to punch him. He turned his head toward me and opened his eyes, and the full force of that luminescent glow lit up the kitchenette. I stilled, my arm dropping to my side like a hastily abandoned plan. The blanket slipped down my chest. He blinked, looked away, and I was left breathing hard and seeing tiny stars. What was wrong with me? He was a vampire. Rule number three: don’t give a vampire a reason to hurt you, ever.

He reached for me and I flinched, backing hard against the counter. But he merely tugged the blanket back up to cover me. The backs of his fingers brushed over my breasts and I stiffened.

“You’re warmer. Let’s get this over with.” He pulled me away from the counter and then steered me firmly through the curtains to the bed. “It would be best if you were not standing.”

I dropped the blanket on the floor and lay on my back, knees bent and pressed together. I didn’t think I was strong enough to keep from reacting, and I really didn’t want him to know what he was doing to me, not when he didn’t even want to be touching me.

“This is not what I would have chosen,” he said.

“And you say I’m the one fucking people over because I’m under orders to? I’d offer you a mirror, but you wouldn’t be able to see your damn reflection anyway.”

“I would think you, of all people, would understand.”

I sat up, sputtering, until he pressed a hand against my shoulder, easing me back down.

“I meant only that you’ve delivered good and bad news to hundreds of people. You should know better than to blame the messenger.”

“Forgive me if I’m not sympathetic,” I muttered.

The bed dipped when he sat on the edge, his hip brushing my calf. He picked up the blanket I’d dropped and laid it over my upper body. I closed my eyes, unable to handle the small kindness. He touched my ankle and my heart began to pound.

He ran his hands around my shin and calf, brushing the sensitive skin at the back of my knee. I tried to think about surfing, the anticipation of an incoming wave, stretching out on the board, balancing as I paddled hard, the beginning of the swell catching the tail of the board, popping up. He tickled the bottom of my foot and I kicked him. Hard. He grunted and leapt off the bed.

“Sydney,” he ground out.

I raised both hands defensively. “It was a reflex! You tickled me.”

He rubbed at his side and I knew he was exaggerating. He hadn’t complained after his back had been shredded and he’d spent hours sitting in the snow during the daytime. There was no way I’d hurt him.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had it out for me.”

“I told you five minutes ago that I didn’t like you,” I said. “What’s a girl gotta do to convince you?” He sat and roughly, but not too roughly, pulled my leg straight. He moved faster now, finishing my foot and sweeping up around the knee. At least I was toned from surfing and jogs on the beach. His hands slowed, his thumb sliding up and down the outside of my knee.

“What is this from?”

“Surgery,” I said. “Tore a ligament when I fell skydiving.” His hands continued up my thigh.

“You fell out of an airplane?”

“No. I jumped out of the airplane. Landed on a steep bank and the chute dragged me down. Quick fix. I was able to drive within a week.” An automatic, but whatever.

“The scar on your arm?”

“Broken glass.” A rum bottle that a boyfriend had thrown at me. I’d ducked, but he’d thrown it hard enough that a ricocheting shard had gone deep. The douche bag hadn’t let me go to the hospital, and the scar was far uglier than it could have been.

“And the shoulder?” Cigarette burns from dear old dad. I shrugged.

“Don’t remember. Had them since I was a kid.” My memory didn’t supply the usual queasiness I got from thinking about those marks, mostly because my here-and-now senses were focused wholeheartedly on his hand skimming the junction of my thigh and pelvis. Exactly how diligent was he going to be in his search?

He turned, switching to my other leg and starting at the foot. His touch was firmer this time. I smiled.

“Once McHenry gave us your name, we were able to find records.”

My mouth went dry. I sat up, grabbing his arm. “You didn’t hurt him, did you?”

“No. He also believed you were dead. He gave your name up willingly, hoping, I think, to clear it.”

I slumped back, relief washing through me and leaving me limp. Good old McHenry, protecting my secrets until the last. I should send him a fruit basket.

“Good to know that at least one person believes in me,” I said primly. Malcolm’s hands stilled again.

“Many of the records we found, once we had your name, were in police databases and at medical clinics.”

“What do you want me to say?” I looked away. Malcolm’s fingers absently drew circles against the outside of my thigh. I glanced down, wondering if he’d notice if I moved myself lower and to the right. “I got my ass handed to me for years. Dropped those people like the pieces of shit they were and picked up hobbies that frequently landed me in urgent care. End of story.”

He was quiet for a few minutes, kneading the back of my thigh. I bit back a groan.

“I didn’t believe you’d been enthralled.” Energy poured out of his hand, stinging my flesh slightly before it settled in, languid and smooth. I squirmed as my entire body heated in response.

“Then why are you doing this?” The intensity of the current picked up, radiating up my leg.

“As you said, I am not my own man right now.” He let go of my leg and took one of my hands between his, his thumb stroking the inside of my wrist. He was so large, a solid shadow filling the room, but his touch was as light as a breath. I had seen him in the midst of a fight, had seen what he was capable of, but with me he was utterly gentle. “It is torture to have to touch you like this.”

“Little FYI, Mal,” I said without any heat, “when you’re trying to tell a girl you’re sorry, don’t tell her it’s torture to touch her.” I licked my lips, trying to gather my courage.

He made a frustrated sound and ran his hand back through his hair. I could almost see his energy crackling around him. Fortune favored the bold. I sat up. His eyes tracked the falling blanket before he turned his gaze to the floor.

“Bronson ordered you to check me for bites?” I asked. He nodded. “And to do that you have to be very thorough?” He looked back at me. I raised an eyebrow. “Did he order you to be clinical about it?”

“Twice now you’ve told me you hate me.”

“I said ‘dislike,’ and didn’t you tell me that you’d never believe me when I said things like that?”

He stared at me, expressionless. But he wasn’t closing himself off from me again. Oh no. I heard his energy
snap
an instant before it hit me, coating me like warm oil. And then he was on top of me, slamming me against the bed, his mouth against mine. He kissed me like he’d really missed me, like he truly wanted me. It was better than that first night. His mouth slanted over mine, his fingers threaded through my hair, and I moaned when I tasted him.