Dead After Dark (32 page)

He stopped barely a half-inch short of Sasha’s lithe neck.

“What are
you
doing here?” Her blue-black painted mouth pursed with irritation and all he could think about was testing her lipstick to determine if it would smear.

“How ya doin’, Sasha?” He pulled his hands away and straightened to his full height. From what he could see, she was doing exceptionally well in the black vest split open ten inches wide down the center of her front and laced with leather. A link of chain swung from the tip of one breast to the other.

Trey forced his tongue to remain inside his mouth and not slide along his lips.

“I’m fine. Now, what are you doing here?”

“Checking out the Black Fairy.” He flipped his palms up in a “what else” motion. “What a surprise finding you here. Thought you hung up your spikes years ago.”

Her eyebrows flinched in a self-conscious frown.

Oops. That might have sounded like a reference to her turning thirty in a few months, but she had nothing to worry about based on that bunch of hardtails inside the nightclub giving her the once-over. Trey should have sent an air slap across a few heads, but the petulant act would have caused a disturbance confirming his presence.

“Thought what I did was of
no
interest to you. And there was a time you wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like this, so why the sudden curiosity?” Egyptian-shaped
hazel eyes boldly outlined with an artist’s touch sparked with challenge.

“To tell you the truth, I was looking for someone.” He hoped the coy answer would keep her talking and buy him time to find out who sent her to hunt for Ekkbar.

“So was I until
you
spooked him.”

“Me?” There was no way Ekkbar could have detected him, but Trey couldn’t very well admit that. “Who you looking for?”

“No one you’d know.”

“So how could I have spooked him?”

“You look clean cut for this place. The glasses are new, but they won’t camouflage what you are. You stand out like you’re a cop. Or a Fed.” She snapped her fingers. One of her perfect eyebrows lifted in a sarcastic arch. “Oh, but that’s right. You
do
work for the FBI or CIA or do something for national defense you couldn’t explain or then you’d have to kill me, right?”

Not a conversation he wanted to be sucked into right now. The glasses were made of an optic material not found in standard eyeglass outlets. Rather than improve his vision, they protected his power that was directly related to his eyesight.

“You were searching for a felon?” Trey asked.

Sasha’s brow puckered with a look that said she should have kept her mouth shut.

He held a mask of blank emotions in place rather than grin at her slip. “What are you doing down here this late at night hunting for someone afraid of law enforcement, huh?”

“I’m working, so how about not interfering.”

Now he was getting close. “What sort of work?”

She drew a deep breath that brought her leather outfit to life, then exhaled an aggravated huff. “What makes you think you’re entitled to know anything about me or my life?”

“Look, I’m just worried about you.”

She laughed, deep and scoffing. “That’s good.” Sasha shook her head with a flip of disbelief. Hair the color of sin washed over her shoulder and brushed the smooth body Trey had spent many a night dreaming of freeing from clothes . . . again.

“It’s true, Sasha.”

She stilled, her eyes slanting up at him, all business. “You lost the chance to worry about me a long time ago, so don’t start now. You have your life just the way you want it and I have mine, which doesn’t allow room for past mistakes.”

He had a life, not necessarily the way he wanted it, but that was his fault, not hers.

Trey felt several predators draw close. He spun to stand in front of Sasha and cursed his carelessness. A trio of twenty-somethings with matching jackets, matching dagger-and-blood tattoos, and matching cocky attitudes. Gangbangers. He should have been paying attention to more than Sasha.

“Why don’t you boys move on down the road, huh?” Trey assessed the one holding a gun, the leader. Stringy blond hair raked his thick shoulders and heavy rings on each finger of one hand like a modified brass knuckle—a big question mark.

“Start walking into the cemetery, quietly,” the leader ordered, his acne-riddled face devoid of any emotion.

Trey entered the leader’s mind and heard,
I’m going to enjoy making you watch me hump yo’ bitch
.

This night only got better by the minute. Trey growled under his breath. He couldn’t use his supernatural powers to hurt these guys. The Belador code required he only use force equal to what he was dealt.

Sasha stepped up beside Trey and he shoved her back.

“You need my help,” she whispered sharply.

“No, I don’t,” Trey answered softly. “If you get in the way, you’ll get someone killed.”

“Do I have a choice in
who
gets killed?” she muttered.

“You gonna make me use this?” the stringy blond asked, waving the gun. Pretty confident pointing a weapon at someone unarmed.

“If your plan was to piss them off, it worked beautifully,” Sasha grumbled. “Either give them money or let me help.”

“No.” Trey rolled his eyes. Didn’t she realize he had enough to deal with without her jumping into the fray? He loved her tomboy side that thankfully kept her from freaking out in a crisis, but now wasn’t the time to play tough girl. Trey couldn’t explain that money was not their ultimate goal—she was. He had no way to know for sure what this fool might do, so he turned to a limited power he rarely used. Willing his energy toward the shooter’s gun hand, Trey paralyzed the trigger finger then forced the assailant’s wrist to quiver, but he wouldn’t be able to hold the connection long.

Speed and agility were stronger gifts than his kinetic ability.

The leader stared at his vibrating hand, his fingers in an obvious struggle to fight the sudden involuntary shaking. Both his sidekicks backed away with worried looks. His hand shook harder.

“Screw this.” The blond grabbed the wrist of his gun hand, trying to steady it as he backtracked, beady eyes locked on Trey. His two cohorts hustled in reverse with him. When they got a good fifty feet away, the trio turned and ran down the street, disappearing into woods bordering the cemetery.

Trey released his breath and turned to Sasha.

She stood with a hand on her hip. “Would have been smarter to give them the money. Since when did your wallet matter that much to you?”

He wouldn’t have batted an eye over the cash or the credit cards, but he’d mangle bodies to keep her safe.

Trey shrugged. “Just punks. Had a gun, but no nerve.”

“Is that what they taught you at Quantico?”

Quantico didn’t train agents like him. Trey said nothing rather than lie to her yet again.

She shook her head, fanning a black curtain of hair over skin now pebbled with a chill. “Been interesting catching up, but I’ve got to run.”

“Are you driving home?”

“No. I still live in the family house here in midtown. See you.” She stepped away.

Slipping off his leather jacket, Trey fell into step alongside her. “I’ll walk you home.” He started to drape the coat over her shoulders when Sasha ground out an unladylike noise of discontent then stopped and wheeled to face him.

“Look, Trey. I’m a big girl, all grown up and capable of taking care of myself.”

He wanted to go back to when she hadn’t been so grown up and make things right with her, take the sting of hurt from her voice when she spoke to him. Instead he leveled her with a stare he used on new Belador trainees when called to do his time as an instructor.

“I am walking you home, Sasha. So we can stand here until you’re ready or keep moving in that direction. Your choice.”

She held his stare for ten seconds and then made a
pfft
sound of annoyance. She stalked off, contradicting her dismissal by asking, “Why are you back in Atlanta?”

Trey dropped the jacket over her shoulders and ignored the evil glare she tossed his way.

“Taking a break.” He wished he had more time to hang around. If his last op hadn’t run so long, he’d have been back here in September like normal. Until tonight, he’d thought the sporadic trips home each year to check up on her were torture.

Not even. Standing this close to Sasha again and not being able to touch her was shredding his insides.

The familiar dainty smell of her perfume spun away the years and the lost time. He wanted to hold her close once more and feel that connection he’d never had with another woman.

“How long are you here, Trey?”

Had that been interest in her voice?

“Two weeks . . . well, one more week.”

“So you’ve been here for a week
already?
” Her question had been more statement, rife with disillusionment.

Trey would like to tell her how he’d seen her every time he visited even though she never saw him, but refrained from digging a hole he could drive a truck into. He gave another shot at finding out what she was up to. “Why are you hunting for people? You start working with the police department?”

“Hardly.” She walked in silence for a few minutes. “I’m a private investigator.”

“Hm. So who did I scare off? A husband playing around?”

“Not exactly. Just a nobody,” she murmured then turned to the right down a sparsely lit street Trey could navigate blind. Scattered leaves shed during a breezy autumn covered the sidewalks he once strolled along with Sasha’s hand in his—before he’d had to make the hardest choice of his life. He’d always admired the classic homes built here in another era, most of which were in restored condition now.

At the steps to the two-story Victorian home Sasha once told him had been in her family for three generations, she stopped and turned to him, her boot heel scuffing against the concrete with finality. Porch lights dusted a subtle glow over the swing where he’d told her goodbye.

His throat tightened at the painful memory.

She lifted a hand he thought was going to touch his chest, the desire for her to do so stabbing him deep. But Sasha drew her fingers up and away instead, fingering a lock of hair she twisted just like she used to do when she was nervous. His fingers twitched, missing the feel of her soft hair.

“I do hope life has turned out well for you, Trey, and appreciate your help tonight with those guys, but please don’t come back. Okay?” Her eyes slipped away from his, then back, filled with an uneasy glimmer that said more than her words.

He would love to know what she was really thinking, but had developed migraines trying to reach into Sasha’s mind in the past. That problem alone had sealed their fate to travel different paths. He could never trust his heart to any woman he couldn’t hear the truth from. It was too unpredictable.

“Do me a favor, Sasha, and don’t go out alone again to track strange men. Like you said, money isn’t that important.”

Her dark eyebrows drew together in disbelief. “I won’t stay in business long if I’m not willing to take a few risks and go out after dark, now will I?”

“You don’t know what you’re hunting.”

“Yes, I do. A man with information.”

A man? Trey wanted to shake her. Ekkbar was not a man, nor did he possess any human qualities like compassion. He would do more than hurt Sasha for hunting him. He would steal her soul. But she wouldn’t believe Trey if he told her.

“You aren’t trained to deal with these . . . situations.”

“You have no idea what I am or am not trained for. I excelled at Tae Kwon Do, for your information.”

“I just—”

“Good night, Trey.” Sasha flipped off his coat and tossed it at him, then turned and climbed the stone steps without a look back. She stuck a key into the ornate brass lock, opened
the leaded-glass door, and disappeared inside the dark house.

He had his work cut out for him if he was going to find Ekkbar before she did and keep her safe as well.

Sasha held her breath until she got inside her home, then slumped next to the door away from the oval glass center. Cool plaster touching her back did nothing to ease the heat firing through her body and roaming across her skin.

That was close. If Trey hadn’t annoyed her at the last minute, she might have embarrassed herself by asking for a kiss . . . or just taking one. She leaned around and peeked at him walking away. His coat was slung over broad shoulders that seemed to droop.

Did he regret breaking up? Was he wishing she wanted to see him again? She did.

He paused under the streetlight on the corner, the amber beam of light outlining six-foot-three of pure sensuous male she missed seeing next to her when she woke up. Maybe he was considering coming back and pulling her into his arms to ask for a second chance and . . . he strolled off.

She swung back around.
I’m pathetic
. When was she going to truly accept that he was gone and not coming back?

Damn him for blowing her search tonight.

Damn him for questioning her ability.

And damn Trey’s lopsided smile and his searing green eyes for still sending her heart into fits. She wished he’d kept his coat on. The last thing she needed filling her head before bed was the clean male scent she remembered vividly from the days of wearing his discarded T-shirts after hours of making love. How could he just pop in tonight and start chatting like nothing had ever happened between them? Like he hadn’t spent nineteen incredible months with her, then just walked away two days before she turned twenty-one
without offering anything that would help her make sense of his actions.

Actually, he
had
suggested, “You’ll find someone better.”

She’d tried. Boy, had she tried and tried and tried to fill the gaping hole he’d left in her life and her heart. But just because she still wanted to jump his bones didn’t mean he could dance back into her life and start giving her orders.

Leave it to a man to screw up a simple plan.

Sasha straightened up and patted herself mentally for showing a strong front. Who was Trey to question her abilities and act as if she couldn’t take care of herself. As if she hadn’t been doing a damn good job for the past nine years.