Dead and Dateless (21 page)

Okay. Maybe I could kind of see his point.

I headed for the front door.

When I reached the street, I did a visual search for his familiar muscular bod, and came up with
nada.
It was late by human standards—well after three in the morning—and the street was empty. He was probably long gone, but I drank in the scents surrounding me anyway.

The overwhelming aroma of oregano and garlic drifted from the Italian restaurant near the corner. The sharp scent of newsprint wafted from the newsstand locked up tight across the street. The smell of coffee grounds and old tuna fish carried from a nearby Dumpster.

I scrunched up my nose and turned in the opposite direction.

A breeze wafted, bringing with it the faintest hint of leather and hunky male and something else…something sticky and sweet and…blood.

The realization should have clued me in to what was going on, but I was wound too tight. I hadn’t gotten laid in as long as I could remember (the multispeed Rabbit The Ninas had bought me didn’t count) and I hadn’t had more than a few sips of dinner at my parents. I
so
wasn’t thinking with my head.

I moved swiftly, letting the scent lure me until I found myself more than a block away, standing in front of what had once been a giant warehouse. The building had been renovated and now housed an upscale home décor shop and an art gallery that featured local artists.

But it wasn’t the jeweled Christian Dior frame surrounding the abstract featured in the front display that stopped me cold (although it
was
choice).

It was the sound.

Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk. Ka-thunk.

The pulse beat echoed in my head and drew me around the side of the massive building, toward a small alley that separated it from a sports bar and grill.

My gaze sliced through the darkness to the couple who stood at the end of the alley near a mountain of empty beer crates and several trash cans.

The woman was a tall and leggy brunette. She stood pinned to the wall by the man in front of her who was feasting on her neck.

Ty.

My stomach hollowed out and my chest hitched. Crazy, I know. I’d seen vamps drink before. Hell, I
was
a vamp and I’d certainly drank before. The sight shouldn’t freak me out.

Still. We’re talking Ty. Drinking. From someone who’s name didn’t start with
L
and end with
il.

Not that I wanted him to drink from me, mind you. I had enough problems. I’d quickly dismissed the little exchange back at his apartment as
mucho
stress syndrome. I had, after all, compromised our position. Talk about anxiety, which equaled frantic, which equaled zero common sense. No more.

At the same time, we were sort of living together. We were
connected.
Even more, he liked me. And I liked him.

Yet here he was drinking from someone else.

Cheating bastard.

The thought rushed from my mind before I could stop it and Ty’s head snapped up. Blood gushed from his mouth and splattered the woman’s white tank top. His fierce blue gaze sliced through the darkness and collided with mine.

My first instinct was to turn the other way. A lot of people might think it was because I have a weak stomach. That’s what I thought. Until Ty looked at me and I realized in a startling instant the real reason I avoided blood (other than the bottled sort) and, especially, the whole biting issue.

He was as beautiful as he was fierce. A primitive male completely at ease to take what he wanted, to overpower and consume.

My nipples tingled and my stomach growled. A hunger as old as time and just as fierce welled inside. It was as painful as it was sweet, and as all-consuming.

I’d felt it before (in my earlier, wilder, totally temporary days) and my body remembered. My nerves latched onto the sensation, welcoming it until it gripped me tightly, completely, and urged me to step forward.

To take what I so desperately wanted, with no thought to the consequence. Be it Ty. Or the sweet crimson heat. Or both.

I braced myself against the need and clung to the one and only thought I should have had at that moment—besides
cheating bastard,
that is.

Namely
yuck.

The woman gasped, the sound like an explosion in my head, disrupting the hypnotic lure of her pulse. I tore my gaze from Ty’s.

And then, because
yuck
wasn’t working and I was
this close
to giving in to my inner vampire, I turned and started walking.

I
ended up back at Ty’s loft. But not right away (I walked at least an hour) and not because I didn’t have anyplace else to go at four in the morning.

I went back because of my two suitcases, one of which held my newest acquisition—this great little Dolce & Gabbana number that had been a steal. I couldn’t skip out on my buddy Dolce.

“Lil.” Ty’s voice carried from the doorway.

“I’ll be out of here as soon as I get my stuff.” I shoved the nightshirt I’d worn the day before into the opening.

“You’re not going anywhere.” He stood directly behind me now, but I didn’t turn around.

I wasn’t going to look at him.

“Yes, I am. I’m so outta here.”

He shook his head. “Why?”

Good question. Because he’d…and I’d…and I was afraid we’d…

Are you, like, five or five hundred years old? The man’s a vampire. He bites women for sustenance. That’s what he does.

Okay, I knew that. I understood it (being that I had my own inner vampire). But knowing it and seeing it…Therein lies the monumental difference.

“She was really pretty.” The words were out before I could stop them.

“Excuse me?”

“Nice body. The hair wasn’t very impressive. A bottled job if I’ve ever seen one. But otherwise, she was sort of hot.”

“She was dinner.”

“An attractive dinner.”

“Is that what this is about? You’re mad because I bit someone?”

“No.” I kept stuffing my case to avoid looking at him.

“You are. You’re mad because—”

“I am not mad. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be here.”

“Why?”

“Because.” I ran out of my own stuff and reached for one of his discarded T-shirts. I shoved it in with my own things.

“Because why?”

“Because I like you, all right?” My hands trembled. “I like you and I shouldn’t like you. Other than being exceptionally hot, there’s really nothing remotely attractive about you. You’re bossy and overbearing and all wrong for someone like me.” I worked at the clasp of my suitcase.

“I’m not helping you because of the bounty.” His words drew my attention and I glanced up. Our gazes collided. “I’ve collected more bounties than I know what to do with. I’m helping you because—”

The words died on his lips and his head swiveled toward the street. Red and blue lights lit up the darkness. Tires screeched. Engines sputtered. Doors slammed.

“Shit.”
In the blink of an eye, Ty stood at the windows and peered down at the street below. “They’re here.”

My heart thundered. “They can’t be here.” My gaze darted from the windows to the door and back. “They don’t know where
here
is.”

He turned toward me. “They do now.”

Hinges creaked. Wood splintered. Footsteps clamored up the back stairs. The freight elevator kicked into gear, creaking toward Ty’s loft.

“I don’t suppose you have a trap door?”

“Under the bed.” He moved at the speed of light and gripped one of the bedposts. A flick of his wrist and the thick wood slid across the floor like a hockey puck gliding across ice. Flipping back a rug, he revealed a square hatch.

“I was joking.”

“I wasn’t.” He eased his fingers into the two small holes cut into the wood and lifted. Metal groaned and popped as the hinges twisted. “This place used to be an old slaughterhouse around the turn of the century.”

They didn’t call it the meatpacking district for nothing.

“We’re standing in the kill area. The carcasses were then tossed down a chute that led to the first floor where they were stored for disposal.” He motioned me over. “The people who renovated the place put in a staircase to connect the bottom levels and make the building one huge living space. The folks who bought
them
out wanted more bang for their buck so they converted one massive apartment into three and got rid of the staircase. They were too cheap to redo the flooring. They locked the hatch and tossed a rug over it. It wasn’t a deal breaker when I was looking for a place, but it did help sell me.”

“You do a lot of running from the cops?”

He shook his head. “He’s not a cop.”

He?

Before I could voice the question, he grabbed me by the arm.

“I can’t just leave my stuff.”

“You’ve got five seconds to get basic necessities.”

In a flash, I reached for my cosmetics bag, purse, and cell phone. I was just about to grab a suitcase when Ty’s voice exploded in my head.

“Move!”

His hand closed over my arm, and I found myself pulled toward the trap door. He shoved me through the opening.

I landed on a tapestry rug (I know, right? nobody does tapestry anymore) that covered the floor in the apartment below Ty’s.

The floor plan was basically the same except that Ty’s neighbor had set up the living room where Ty had put his bedroom, and the bedroom in the living room spot. Luckily, or we would have pounced on some poor schmoe and his girlfriend during their early morning quickie.

They stopped humping and their heads swiveled in our direction.

“Don’t mind us,” I mumbled as Ty flung back the rug and yanked at the next hatch. “Just passing through.” Hinges creaked and groaned. We dropped through the opening to the first floor.

The loudest snore I’d ever heard bounced off the walls and surrounded us. I gazed toward the man who slept in the full-size bed just a few feet away. He wore an eye mask and a facial mask (I’m guessing Clinique Cucumber Madness). His nostrils flapped. His chest lifted. A loud “Ugggggggg” filled the room.

I started for the door while Ty kicked aside yet another rug.

“We’re on the first floor, dumbass.”
I sent him the silent message as I reached for the doorknob.

“I know, dipstick.”
His gaze met mine.
“This place was owned by a large company that held title to the whole block. There’s an underground level where the meat was cured and stored. It connects all four buildings on this street. I don’t think it’s been used for quite a while, but I know it’s still there.”

I knew it, too. I could hear the scurry of a rat somewhere below. The scent of old cedar mingled with smoke made me wrinkle up my nose.

I abandoned the front door and joined Ty at the en trance to the pitch-black tunnel. My gaze sliced into the darkness and I saw said rat scurry toward a cluster of his buddies.

“Go.”

I hooked the strap of my cosmetics bag over my head, my clutch purse under my arm, and dropped into the darkness. The smell swallowed me up. Ty followed and we fled through a narrow tunnel that soon opened up into a larger area surrounded by several cold, lifeless fire pits.

“This is where they smoked some of the meat.”

“Ya think?” My nose was burning now and I grimaced.

A few seconds later, we cracked open the hatch that led into a nearby building—now the production headquarters for a fledgling sportswear designer. The place wasn’t very impressive (hey, the guy was just starting out) with its unfinished ceilings and concrete floors, but what it lacked in style, it made up in size. We’re talking
big,
with dozens of cutting tables and sewing machines. Air conditioning ducts crisscrossed above us. Fluorescent lights dangled from fifty-foot chains. Another huge plus—it didn’t smell like cedar or smoke.

We wound our way through a maze of headless mannequins and I paused to eye a silk tank dusted with rhinestones. “This guy’s pretty good.” I glanced toward a nearby rack. “I wonder if he has this in my size.”

“Come on!” He tugged me forward, only to bring us to a staggering halt.

I didn’t have to ask why. My ears picked up everything from the rustle of rats digging through the garbage out back, to the footfalls that rounded the rear of the building and the frantic, “Signal when you’re in position.” The walls seemed to tremble. The chains that held the light fixtures swayed ever so slightly.

“Surrounded.”
Ty’s voice echoed in my head as he gripped my hand and tugged me toward the one spot that wasn’t about to be crawling with cops—the ceiling.

My feet left the ground and suddenly I was weightless. Just as my back met the ceiling, I heard a frantic “Now!”

Both the front and back doors crashed open. I caught my bottom lip and stared down as cops rushed into the building, guns in one hand, flashlights in the other. Several crawled up through the open hatch we’d just come through. Lights sliced through the darkness as dozens of men combed through the warehouse, searching…