Lost Angeles (46 page)

Well, before two dead doppelgangers bled on them, anyway.

When the waitress turns up, I stay quiet, swallowing the urge to order one of everything just because that’s the fastest way of getting rid of someone. I catch Lore flicking a glance at me, like she’s waiting for it to happen, but I keep my mouth shut.

Standing by for the appetizers, Lonan and Lore sit side-by-side like strangers on a bus, each one feeling out the other, wondering what the other person is thinking. Well, Lonan, maybe. Lore’s pensive expression doesn’t have anything to do with him. The girl takes a stroll inside her own subconscious, gets beaten half to hell, has road rash for days, and walks it off like it’s nothing. But Benicio coming back from the dead has hit her right in the family jewels, so to speak, and every minute she spends
not talking
is proof she’s sinking another inch deeper into her own mind.

Reaching out, I deliberately turn over the three glasses that arrived at the table with the liquor. “You two need to loosen up. I’ll take two shots to every one of yours. Last person conscious gets the big bed.”

“I didn’t know you could drink something that wasn’t blood.” A few short weeks ago, Lore wouldn’t have been able to finish that sentence without flushing pink to the roots, but now she only gives me a very quiet, very deliberate look.

“Oh, I am a bottomless well of secrets.” I flash the fang-grin, hooking both my elbows up on the booth. I’m not touching her anywhere right now, not even a knee under the table, and I wonder if she feels the loss as keenly as I do. But if I learned anything from Roman Scipio, it was strategy. I might not have his patience or Cas’s ruthlessness, but all of us… every last member of his motley family… knows how to play the game. “So what’s it going to be, love?”

“I’m not sure this is a very good idea,” she says, still eying me skeptically.

“You chicken?”

For an answer, Lore picks up the bottle and pours out three shots, one of them a double. Actually, the one she pours for me is closer to a triple, but the smile she gives me tries for innocent when she hands it over. “Bottoms up?”

“That’s the plan.” I take it from her.

“I can’t drink on the job.” Lonan tries to ward off the glass Lore pushes at him. “It wouldn’t be safe, and Asher would have my ass.”

“Your ass, huh?” I repeat with a finger snap. “I knew he played for the other team. You the top or the bottom?”

Lonan gives me a considering look and says “both” without missing another beat. There’s a challenge there, one I let fly right by me because frankly I don’t care if he stuffs his dick in someone’s ear as long as he can shoot straight.

“I should have guessed. You kids today, with your technology and your internet porn and your bisexuality and never knowing if you want to spank or be spanked.”

“One drink,” he fires back, “if that will shut you the hell up.”

“Done.” I hold my glass aloft to make a toast. “Here’s to our friend Benny. May hell be full of boring brunettes.”

I clink the glass against Lore’s and toss the shot back. It
burns
, worse than Roman’s Scotch. It’s more like lighter fluid, but I’m already reaching for the bottle and refilling our glasses. The second shot hurts more than the first, and Lore winces, putting her glass down with a gasp that reminds me of all the noises she makes in bed. And in the shower.

And on the carpet.

I pour us a third, but the appetizers arrive and that puts the game on pause. All the eats are teased, wrapped, stacked, and tortured until they barely resemble food, and I would be hard-pressed to identify a single damn thing on the plates. Lore is into it, but she would eat cardboard if it was wrapped with pastry dough. Smart girl, tucking away some carbohydrates to soak up the liquor snaking through her system. I can tell the alcohol is working its magic because she’s already pink and cute and flustered in a way that’s wholly different from her regular pink and cute and flustered.

I put another drink in her hand between mouthfuls, and she tosses it back like a pro, right up to the point where she misses the last sip at the bottom and it sprays across her face. Lore gets her eyes shut, at least. Makeup ends up smudged at the corner. Wiping at it with my thumb cleans up the worst of it and leaves her cat-eyed. I lick my finger and smear the other side to match as I take my third double-down.

“Come on, switch-hitter. You’re lagging.”

Lonan takes the shot right about the time the waitress hits the table with yet more food: a steak for him and some stupid bed of greens for Lore. Rabbit food.
Beverly Hills Housewives
kind of food. I swear to god, if she starts doing Pilates, I’m locking her in the bedroom and force-feeding her pie.

Grabbing her fork, Lore starts pushing the lettuce around without really eating it. “So how did you end up working with Asher?” It sounds like she actually wants to hear the answer and gives me a dirty look when I don’t bother to stifle my long-suffering sigh.

“Military referral,” Lonan says around a mouthful of French fries as he digs into his side of bloody cow. “I was in the Air Force, but Uncle Sam decided I’d be more useful in the private sector.” When I feign a snore, he actually turns a shade redder before adding, “I don’t mean to butt in on your date, or whatever this is. I don’t
have
to sit here. Rebel’s probably shitting kittens as it is.”

“Ignore him.” Lore reaches across the table and snakes a bite of his meat right off his plate. She follows that up with a handful of his fries, and Lonan lets her. Because she’s adorable. Because it’s all blue-eyed sympathetic looks and sneaky fingers. I get it then, and can’t help the smile that creeps up on me as I realize that all her niceties and polite questioning is mostly a ruse to get closer to what she really wants: Lonan’s food. Then she pops off with, “It’s nice to have someone to eat with, even if my rock star vampire friend over there is giving you the stink eye.”

Lonan, that shithead, just grins back at her like she’s a puppy he wants to squeeze while Lore helps herself to another mouthful of rare meat. Me? I’m stuck on four words that instantly wipe the smile right off my face:

Rock star vampire friend.

It’s not like I can be pissed about it, either, because what else would Lore call me? I’m not her boyfriend. I’m not her husband. I don’t own her, haven’t marked her,
can’t
mark her. So basically she’s a free agent, and what does that make me?

An asshole.

And her lover. At the very least, I’m her lover.

Maybe it’s not a word Lore’s comfortable using at dinner over a retarded upscale salad, but she’s still holding out. Holding back. Not wanting to admit what this is because she expects to have it yanked away from her.

So I lean in and snag the bottle. Upend it so that the last of the liquor goes straight down my gullet. Set it down hard enough that the plates dance against the tablecloth.

“We’re outta booze. And outta here. Come on, babe.” I haul Lore out of the booth and toward the exit, leaving Lonan and Rebel to catch up if they can.

She clutches my hand, her mouth trying to keep up with her feet. “Where’re we going?”
Hic.
“I didn’t even have a chance to finish my dinner.”
Hic.
“Or Lonan’s… Xaine, slow down, these heels are really tall!”

“I’m tired of sitting still,” I tell her as we head down the hall toward the telltale
thump thump thump
that’s the heartbeat of every nightclub everywhere. “Say the word, sweetheart, and I’ll carry you.”

Lore laughs. It’s a giddy noise, cut with booze and adrenaline… and me. Lore is giddy on me. Doesn’t matter what label she slaps me with, she’s always going to look at me through the goggles of a young kid listening to her first angsty ballad. Some teenager slow dancing at her prom. The young woman who agreed to marry some hayseed hick wannabe musician.

Oh yeah, she was all good with marrying
him
. Guess he ranked higher than “friend” on the Lore-Shag totem pole. That’s okay, that’s fucking fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine with the bright pink state of our fucking world today. She wants a Rock Star Vampire
Friend
, well, she’s going to goddamn well get one.

On the dance floor, A- and B-list celebrities are getting down and dirty. There are photographers at the four corners of the room, but they’re being discreet about their snaps. I count at least two Oscar winners in a booth off to the side, a couple of Grammy winners, more nominees, and at least one next-gen party-girl Hilton. I plow through all of them, taking the pats on the back, the greetings, the half-hugs, the proffered hands. By the time we hit the bar, the staff has seen us coming. They’re not prepared for the body shot request, though.

Lore’s ass hits the bar two seconds later. “What’m I doing up here?!”

“Lying down.”

She snickers, her nose all wrinkled up at me. “Alrighty, then.” And she stretches completely out, arms over her head, toes pointed, an explosive little “hic” tossed in for good measure.

I can’t say that I have ever actually licked 200 proof anything off someone before, but there’s a first time for everything. I reach over her and grab a bottle off the lit-up wall. The glass is cold, even to my touch, and Lore shrieks when the frozen booze hits her bellybutton. My tongue immediately follows it, sliding over her flesh and seeking out her navel like a dent in a pot of cream. She squirms and goes to slide a hand over her middle, but I catch her by the wrists, because she tastes like everything I like. Woman and salt and sunshine. Warm flesh. Willing flesh.

Lore. Just Lore
.

And I don’t question it. To be honest, I never question it, but I’m questioning this less than I probably should. I never stop to think, but I’m thinking less than normal
.
I always enjoy myself, but right now, I’m enjoying myself so much that I take a second shot with a slurp that leaves me coughing. It’s been a long damn time since I tied one on like this.

But what happens in Vegas…

By then, Rebel’s caught up to the bar, if not to me. “What the fuck do you think you're doing? A known killer is back from the dead, on the loose, after the two of you, and you think it’s smart to slip your security detail?”

Lonan’s right behind him. “What did I miss?”

“Not much, by the looks of it
.
” And Rebel has a point, because Lonan’s face is sporting three shades of lipstick.

I heave Lore into a sitting position and then, because I can’t help myself, I kiss her. It was supposed to be one of those passing things, but she wraps those mile-long legs around my waist and moans into my mouth. Then it’s on, with my tongue sliding past her lips and delving deep. Deep enough to taste her again. Deep enough to want that and more and everything. I don’t think to pull away until her hands spasm against my shoulders, and when I do, she comes up for air with another gasp.

I hold up my finger for another round, and the bartender leans over to shout, “What do you want this time?”

“No more drinks!” Rebel yells the same time that Lore screams, “Sex on the Beach!”

He glares at her, but her head is tilted back, all that hair rioting over her shoulder like sunshine. The diamond spray is slipping south, and I can’t say that I blame it.

Lore pulls it off and stuffs it into my pants like she’s tipping a stripper. “Sex on a park bench!”
Hic.
“Or…”

“Sex on a bar!” I suggest, digging my fingers into her thighs because I can smell her, the core of her. I think about ducking my head between her legs, dipping my tongue into the honey pooling in the crux between her thighs, wanting her to arch into my mouth like I’m the only thing that exists in her entire universe.

“How about some Porn Stars?” the bartender counters, cutting off the vivid mental image of eating out my Human Singer Friend in public and in full view of a lot of photographers.

The next thing I know, we’ve each got a shot glass of some bright blue liquor, Rebel and Lonan included. I don’t care if they drink theirs, so long as Lore slugs hers back.

“Keep ’em coming!” I yell at the bartender as I drag her out to the dance floor.

Lore backs her ass up to my crotch and grinds me like she wants me to knock her up through god knows how many pairs of Spanx. “You good?”

“It’s
all
good!” I yell back, beyond delighted that she turned out to be a horny drunk. She rubs up against me, shaking her hair in my face like she’s in a rap video, getting down and dirty to the point that a circle clears around us. Everything’s going fuzzy, a camera out of focus, a paparazzi shot from a thousand feet, to the point that it’s hard to put names with faces anymore.

But when Charlie Sheen gives you the big thumbs up, you know some seriously crazy shit is going down.

I spare a half-second glance at Rebel, who leaning against the bar looking disgusted and muttering orders into a radio. My gaze skips over to Lonan, entertaining two women and the shirtless stud who was working one of the dance platforms when we walked in. Honestly, I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to do with that much T&A, much less the dong, but that’s his business, not mine. I don’t have the bandwidth to spare him even if it was, because Lore’s got her arms around my neck and she’s murmuring something against my cheek. Her breath is sweet and boozy and warm, and I swear I’m hard as a rock, almost-but-not-quite-fucking her in front of God and Charlie.

I have to duck my head, and it’s tempting to bite her ear instead of shouting into it. “How about we get the hell out of here and hit the Strip?”

“We should go to the Crazy Horse!” she yells back, falling against me so that it’s easier to start hauling her toward the door than it would be to help her find her feet. “The paparazzi would go
nuts
!”

Generally I’d be amenable to an evening filled with strippers and good company, but tonight I’ve got far different plans than hitting up the local cabaret. One way or another, I’m putting my mark on Lore, and if I can’t do it in the popular contemporary fashion, well then, things are going to have to get a little more traditional
.

Biblical, even.

“Sounds like a ‘yes’ to me! Come on, Lonan!” I yell in passing. “There’s a jewelry store in the lobby, and I need to make a pit-stop on the way out.”