in a lot of ways. Who would have the hubris to use a supernatural tool like that to do something as mundanely criminal as take over Sacramento’s marijuana trade? That set off another idea.
“We need to have someone take this to the Council,” I said.
Alex cocked his head and regarded me with those dark, dark eyes. “I’m pretty sure you were standing next to me when we had our little chat with Aldo. No one’s taking this to the Council. No one cares.”
I stared at him. “Some group of criminals is using supernatural beings for nefarious purposes and the Council doesn’t care?”
“Looks that way,” Alex said pleasantly.
I leaned toward him. “They used supernatural beings to threaten a Messenger.” Which, to be sure, truly rankled me.
Alex thought for a moment. “You might be able to get some traction there. Talk to Mae about it.”
“Will you talk to Aldo?” I pressed.
Alex stood up. “Nope. I did my bit. I’ve done all that’s required of me. I’m pretty much done.”
“Except for trying to stitch up the bits and pieces of the young men they bring in here. Except for trying to get a baby to breathe again.”
Alex’s expression turned serious. “Yeah, except that part and stitching you up, too. Other than that, I’m done with this, and you should try to be done with it, too, Melina.”
I waved him away with my good hand. He grabbed it.
“Listen to me, Melina. Listen carefully. I have not lived this long without learning a few things. There are fights that you cannot win. This feels like one of them. I’m not crazy about the parade of broken boys that comes through this emergency room during times like these. I think they should all be home studying for their SATs, but they are not my problem. When you come in here . . .”
He paused and gritted his teeth again.
“When you com in here, wounded and poisoned, it’s a whole different thing. Think this through, Melina. It takes a serious amount of evil in a human soul to use something like a
kiang shi
for monetary gain. These are not people you want to play with.”
As if I hadn’t already figured that out all by myself.
TED SHOWED UP WITH THE STICKY RICE. HE CALLED MY CELL, and I told him where to find us in the hospital. “Hey,” he said, coming in and brushing the hair off my forehead. “How’s it going?”
“I’ve been better,” I said, but I still couldn’t stop myself from smiling up at him. His hand was soft and warm.
He frowned back, his hand still on my forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“Yeah, she is. We need to get this going.” Alex stood up from his chair and held out his hand.
Ted handed over the take-out bag. He didn’t say a word to Alex, but his appraising look was plenty loud.
Alex opened the bag, took out the container of rice and then started taking the bandage off my arm.
“What the hell happened to you?” The alarm on Ted’s face was easy to read.
“I got bitten.” It was the best explanation I had, and the truth seemed the easiest course of action. My brain was in way too much of a whirl to lie well. My Zen lying place was totally unreachable.
“By what? You need to report things like this, Melina. Animal control should be taking this animal into custody.”
There was a thought. Animal control. Maybe they would deal with the
kiang shi
. Alex snorted as he packed the wound with sticky rice.
“Is that stuff sterile?” Ted asked, staring at Alex.
“They boil it, don’t they?” Alex said, not looking up from what he was doing.
Ted’s frown deepened. “That doesn’t seem like enough.”
“Trust me.” Alex looked up now and smiled a little. His voice altered just a little bit, not enough to be a full command voice, but enough to be way more persuasive than any normal person’s voice. “It’s an old wives’ tale, but it works every time. What she really needs now is to go home and rest. Can you take care of that part?”
Ted nodded.
“Are you armed?” he asked.
Ted nodded again.
Alex turned to me now. “You need to lie low for a while, Melina. I mean it. I can’t protect you.” He jerked his head in Ted’s direction. “Neither can he. Not really.”
“I’d love to. But I don’t think it’s an option.”
He shook his head. “Change that dressing every four hours and call me if it’s not getting better. You kids scoot along now.”
I COULD ACTUALLY FEEL THE TOXINS BEING SUCKED BACK OUT of my system. By the time we got to Ted’s truck, the fiery pain was down from a four-alarm to a three-alarm. I still had that weird spinning feeling in my head, the one I usually associate with tequila shots. Ted helped me into the car and buckled me into my seat. I took a good, deep whiff of him as he leaned across me.
He smiled. “Are you sniffing me?”
“Yep.”
“You are a very strange girl.” He shook his head and started to back out of the car, but I reached up with my good arm and pulled him toward me for a kiss. He tasted every bit as good as he smelled.
“Is that the fever? Or you?” he asked, pulling away to look down into my eyes.
“I think it’s me, but it’s a little tough to be sure. Does it really matter?” What kind of guy passed on making time with a girl because of a little fever?
He shut my door, went around and got in on his side. “I’m not sure what the rules are about this.” He turned the key and the pickup growled to life. I love the sound of a solid old truck. I wriggled in my seat.
“There are rules?”
“Sure there are. There are always rules.” He glanced over at me with what looked like real concern creasing his brow. “If you were drunk, you’d be totally off-limits right now. I’m not sure about feverish, though.”
“First of all, I’m getting less feverish by the second.” It was true. That Alex, he sure knew how to treat an otherworldly bite. “Second, I don’t have such good luck with rules. I pretty much ignore them these days.”
“I’ve noticed.” He stopped smiling.
“Hey, it’s not my fault. It’s not that I don’t want to follow them. It’s just that circumstances seem to force me in other directions.” That was a hell of an understatement.
He glanced back at me again, his head cocked to one side, his expression way too intelligent for someone who was also that cute. “It’s a choice, Melina.”
“I wish.” Like anyone had ever given me a choice about any of this.
He went back to focusing on his driving. “You can’t just wish. You have to do it.”
“You have no idea,” I said and leaned my head back against the seat rest.
He reached over and took my hand as he drove. “No,” he said. “I don’t. I wish that you would explain some of it so that I would. I think I could help.”
I didn’t have a snappy comeback for that one. It wasn’t anything that anyone had ever offered me before.
17
WHEN WE GOT TO MY DOOR, THIS TIME I WAS ACTUALLY READY for his kiss. I knew it was coming because he kept looking at my mouth and then snapping his attention back to my eyes. I knew it was going to shake me again, too. I couldn’t afford to have something sneak up on me again. It might not be as benevolent as a kleptomaniac imp this time. As we got to the door, I closed my eyes and opened my senses. Nope. Nothing weird in the apartment this time. No imps were going to tug at my pant leg in the middle of our lip-lock.
My back was pressed against the wall, just the way I like it. There aren’t many things that can sneak up on you with a nice solid expanse of plaster at your back. I looked up at Ted and he looked down at me. I didn’t even realize that I’d started biting my lower lip until he brushed his thumb over it and said, “Nervous?”
“A little,” I admitted in an uncharacteristic show of candor.
He lowered his head and rested his forehead against mine. “Me, too. This feels like a big deal.”
“We don’t have to . . .” I started to say.
He lifted his head and cupped my chin with his hand. “Do you really think you’re getting out of this that easy?”
Then I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t entirely sure I could say anything. My throat felt constricted. Maybe it was because my heart was beating so very fast. The air between us seemed to heat to a nearly scorching level. For a moment, nobody moved.
But it was only a moment. I’m not sure who started kissing who first, but suddenly our lips were touching and our tongues were tangling and our bodies were pressed together, except our clothes were in the way. I needed his body against mine without anything in between us.
I opened the door to the apartment and we stumbled through, our lips still pressed together.
“Well, hello, there,” Norah said from the living room.
What was she doing home? Surely she was out on a date or something. She was always out on a date or something.
We broke apart like high school kids caught necking in the afternoon on the living room couch.
“Uh, hey,” I said, trying to tuck my shirt back in.
Ted’s arm snaked around my waist and pulled me back against him. At first I thought it was a gesture of solidarity, but then I realized he was probably trying to hide what felt like a Kokopelli-worthy bulge in the front of his jeans. “Hi,” he said from behind me, his voice a little rough.
Norah’s eyes narrowed as she looked hard at him. “Hey, aren’t you that cop that was here the other morning?”
“That would be me,” he said. “Here to serve and protect.”
I fought a giggle.
Norah shifted her focus to me. “Really, Melina, a cop?” She heaved a great sigh, shook her head, snapped off the TV set and marched off to her room.
Ted let out his breath. “I take it she’s not a fan of the police.” He turned me toward him and pulled me up close to him again, and I found I didn’t really care what my roommate thought.
“She has issues with authority figures,” I said, sounding breathy since he had started kissing his way down the side of my neck. Amazing. Norah would let a vampire in, serve him red wine while he stared with naked hunger at the pulse beat in her alabaster neck, but she was off in a huff over me inviting in a cop. My roommate was nuts.
He lifted me up and set me on the kitchen counter. As his hands slid underneath the loose bottom of my top, the question of my roommate’s sanity left my mind entirely.
In fact, any question I ever had probably left my mind. My worries over my arm, the
kiang shi
, what to buy my mother for her birthday . . . all gone.
His lips trailed across my chest. He looked up at me now, eyes steady and gaze open. I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer. His head fell back. I leaned down and nipped at his exposed throat. He growled. “Do you have a room?” he asked. “Preferably one with a door and possibly soundproofing?”
“Yes on the door. No on the soundproofing.”
“Could we go there now?”
I slid off the counter, my body rubbing against his as my feet came to the floor. “Right this way,” I said.
We kissed our way down the hallway, unbuttoning buttons as we went. We made it inside my room and he kicked the door shut behind us, lifting my shirt off as he did it. I slid his shirt off his shoulders and ran my hands over the smooth muscles of his chest. He made that growling sound again. No wonder he’d weighed a ton when he’d pinned me down in Frank Liu’s garden. The man was pure muscle.
He undid my jeans and I wriggled them off and kicked them away, thanking every intuition that had led me to shave my legs and wear a pair of panties that matched my bra that morning. For once in my life, I felt I was dressed appropriately. Who cared that it only happened when I was half-undressed?
He ran his hands down my waist to my hips, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind him. Then his arms encircled me and pulled me against him.
The shock of feeling his overheated skin against my own made me gasp. His mouth found mine again and I lost myself in that sensation as well. I felt like I was floating, then realized that he was laying me down on my bed. Oh, what miracles, I’d actually made the damn thing today so it wasn’t its usual cyclone of sheets and blankets, but a smooth, inviting surface.
He followed me onto the bed. I reached between us, undid his belt and started to work on the buttons of his jeans, my fingers clumsy with urgency. Oh, 501s, how can you be so damn sexy and so nearly impossible to deal with when I want to have sex? Are the denim gods laughing at me as we speak?
He laughed and stood back up to shuck them away. He stood there for a moment, beautiful and naked, looking down on me with an expression on his face that made me feel more beautiful than I’d ever felt in my life. I wanted him to stay there so I could continue to feel like that, and I wanted him back with his skin on my skin, too. He looked just as torn.
Apparently, skin won out. He covered my body with his, settling his erection so it rubbed in just the right place. His fingers trailed over the tops of my breasts, tracing the edges of my bra, then reached lower to circle my nipples. He snapped open the front clasp of my bra, exposing me to the air, to his gaze, to his seeking and searching tongue. The heat at my core rose a few more degrees. Much more, and the sheets were going to burst into flames.
His fingers trailed lower, across my belly, to trace along the top of my panties. I think I stopped breathing for a moment.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, wordless and breathless. Then my panties were gone, skimmed down my legs and tossed to the floor. His fingers explored me, gentle and teasing, thick and strong. I gave myself over to the sensations rushing through me, losing myself in the pleasure. Tension coiled inside me, my back arched. I whispered his name.
