Downbeat (Biting Love) (8 page)

The ding of the elevator startled me. It gave me barely enough warning to leap back from him. Of course I landed wrong and he had to catch me as I stumbled, and I was smashed against him in his arms as the doors opened.

A tank rolled in on thick-soled white Mary Janes. Her nametag read Nurse Krankenstein, and she glared like I wasn’t going to sit down for a week. I’m sure my lips were swollen and if my hot face was any indication, I was red. I cleared my throat and straightened.

Zajicek simply looked amused. “This is our floor.” He released me to guide me with a gentle hand around Nurse Stinkeye and off the elevator.

“Darn.” I stopped. “I have to go back to the gift shop. I forgot flowers for Hugo.”

“Hugo prefers live plants. I had three delivered, one from me, one from the orchestra and one from you.”

“Oh. Thanks. I didn’t know that, about the plants.”

“Why should you?”

Nonchalantly said, but it struck me. “Why should
you
?”

He quirked a smile, as if congratulating me for the hit. “I have been friends with Hugo for a long time. Most of his life.”

“Don’t you mean most of your life?”

“Yes, of course that’s what I meant.” He said it gently, making me think that wasn’t what he meant at all.

Hugo’s room was hushed except for the soft intermittent beep of a monitor. It was dark with the curtains drawn. We made our way into the cool room, me a bit timidly. I wasn’t sure how bad off he was and didn’t want to stress him.

I needn’t have worried; he was asleep. We stood there for a moment. Hesitantly, I whispered, “Maybe we should come back later.”

“Why don’t you check to see if our plants have been delivered to the nurses’ station? I shall sit with him for a moment.”

“All right, Maestro Zajicek.”

“Raquel,” he said so sternly it stopped me mid-turn. “Call me Dragan. Or I will kiss and lick your luscious pink cheeks until you do.”

Kiss and lick my luscious
what
? The way he was looking at me, I’d have a stroke and Hugo’d have a roommate unless I surrendered, so I said, “Yeah, okay. Dragan.” My pink cheeks on fire, I left.

By the time I returned with the plants, I’d regained some of my composure. Hugo was awake and we had a nice chat. He honestly didn’t look that sick and several times referred to the hospital stay as a vacation. I wondered about that. As Zajicek was an “information broker”, Hugo’s stroke might have been staged to facilitate Zajicek’s being in Chicago. It was out of the ordinary, but everything about Zajicek was so far out of the ordinary orbit he could have been a comet.

I mentally dumped it next to vampires in my Not-Very-Probable-But-What-The-Hell-Else-Can-It-Be category, and moved on.

About six thirty Nurse Krankenstein came in to take Hugo’s vitals and shooed us out. Zajicek started for the elevator but I remembered how he’d turned a ten-second ride into a kiss that would have had me on my back if it had lasted one more second, and spun for the stairs. “I need the exercise.”

He caught my wrist. “As do I.” His lips were curved in the slightest of smiles. I didn’t know what that smile meant but my legs did and when he tugged, they trotted along after him. Or maybe even then I was starting to catch on.

We entered the elevator. A hospital technician with his nose in a chart started to come in after us, but Zajicek barred the door with one arm. “This car is full.” His voice rang softly.

The technician’s head snapped up. His pupils were fully dilated. “Yes, sir.” He turned and strode for the stairs.

The doors slid shut. I blinked. “What was that?”

Zajicek only smiled and pressed “G”. The elevator started moving. Three went out. Two lit up. Two went out.

He pushed the old-fashioned stop button.

And turned to me, hot intention written on his face so large even I could read it.

“I can’t.” I backed slowly away. “I’ve got to get home.”

He followed. “So you said. But you never told me why.”

“It’s complicated.” I hit the handrail.

“Let’s uncomplicate it.” He leaned his forearm on the wall above my head and bent toward me, black gaze zeroed in on my mouth.

“Wait!” I ducked under his arm and leaped for the other side of the elevator. “Why are you doing this? You could have anyone. Why me? I’m nobody.”

“Let’s get one thing straight.” He stalked me until I backed into the wall with a thud. He slapped palms beside my head and stared deep into my eyes. “You are not nobody. You are a beautiful, talented, intelligent young woman. You are
desirable
, Raquel Hrbek. I desire you.” He bent, slowly, so that I could have stopped him.

“You desire everyone,” I breathed onto his lips. “You’re a playboy. You’re so full of desire it spills over onto everyone in the room, making them yours to command.”

“Not everyone.” His lips brushed mine as he spoke. His lids were low, his voice dark and heavy with intent. “I don’t want everyone. Just you.” Something flickered briefly in his dark, slumberous gaze, as if he had surprised himself with the words, but it was quickly replaced by liquid fire. “Just you,” he repeated firmly.

Just you
. It resonated deep inside me. He could have any woman for his pleasure. But he wanted me.

I wanted that. Him wanting me: I craved it, needed it with a fierceness that shocked me.

As his mouth opened on mine, that shocking hot need urged me to meet him halfway, with my lips parted to take his big tongue.

He groaned his pleasure. His hand dropped from the wall to run along my collarbone, down my breastbone, to shape my breast. I arched into his hand, my nipple rubbing his palm like a butting cat. His fingers squeezed gently. My nipple tightened and my breast throbbed, heavy and full. I moaned and arched harder. He shifted his grip to brush his thumb over the sensitized tip, repeatedly, a light feather touch over and over until I went insane, aching for more.

But his big body pressed me tightly against the wall, so the ache translated into wriggling and undulating against him. At my wiggling, a growl rumbled up from his chest. I turned my head from his plunging tongue to whisper, “Did I do something wrong?”

He gave a pained laugh. “Not at all. Can’t you tell?” He took my hand…and placed it on his zipper.

Something was wrong with his pants. “What’s that?”

He pulled back abruptly. His black eyes were intense but one brow was cocked in disbelief. “You can’t be that innocent.”

I was, and I wasn’t. I excelled in the solo version of sex, and had even participated in a couple of quick duets. But they’d been all about plunging parts, never kissing and touching. No one seemed interested in dueting with me—at least, nobody sent out signals that I could read. Until Zajicek.

By this time I’d figured out what was probably wrong with his pants, and that it was really something incredibly right. I smiled into his eyes. “I’d love to—”

Bringgg
. I jumped. The elevator call trilled again.

Bam-bam
. “Open up! It’s an emergency.”

Chapter Five

“
Sakra
.” It sounded like a swear, and Zajicek’s face was certainly dark as he glanced at the elevator doors. He briskly twitched my blouse into neatness, then strode to the floor selection plate and pulled the stop button. The elevator bounced once hitting bottom. Instantly he hit door open.

A hospital crew muscled in a gurney, raised at the feet. A mounded blanket covered some poor soul.

Zajicek’s black brows snapped together in a frown. “Mr. Hutt?”

The face above the blanket was Kevin’s. But it was no longer rosy and his eyes were closed. I grabbed his hand. It was cold. I was about to freak when I realized the mound of his stomach was moving—he was breathing.

Zajicek seized one of the attendants’ heads and looked deep, and I mean stabbing-out-the-other-side deep, into his eyes. “What happened?”

“Heart attack,” the man said.

I squeezed Kevin’s cold hand. “I can’t believe it.” I never thought he’d really have a coronary, not as young as he was. “How?”

“Where?” Zajicek overrode me.

“EMTs responded to a 911 from Redfox Village. Faith Presbyterian Church.”

I met Zajicek’s eyes. That was where CSUCS rehearsed.

The man continued, “Church personnel heard a scream. He’d wedged himself under the altar like he was hiding. Poor guy was nearly scared to death.”

The elevator came to a stop. The doors opened and I saw the sign “Emergency” above a nurses’ station. The attendants wheeled the gurney out and disappeared through a pair of automatic doors.

“I wonder why was he there?” Zajicek watched them go. “Checking into something for tomorrow night’s rehearsal?”

It was the only thing that made sense, yet it made no sense. We musicians never went into the sanctuary.

I clamped my cold hands under my arms and searched Zajicek’s eyes. “Our music director has a stroke. You take his place, and a day later Kevin has a heart attack in the sanctuary. Coincidence?”

“I don’t know yet.” Zajicek gently peeled my hands away from my body and cupped them in his, strong and warm. “But I have my suspicions. I’ll find out.”

Something glittered in his eyes. Something dangerous that made me pull my hands from his. “I need to get back to Meiers Corners. To talk to Nixie.”

“First I must arrange protection for Hugo and Mr. Hutt.”

“You do know something.”

“Not here. It’s too public. In the car.”

He guided me to the parking structure, scanning the area like a raptor the whole way. At his car he seated me and shut my door. I managed my seat belt as he slid into the driver’s side and scissored the door closed.

He didn’t start the engine. His face was grim and his jaw muscles jumped like he was gritting his teeth—or was trying to keep some of them from getting fangy. “You may be in danger.”

“Me? Oh, you mean the orchestra. Because you took the CSUCS podium to spy on someone dangerous, and he’s spying back at you.”

A brief, pained smile flashed across his austere features. “You are quite smart, aren’t you?”

“Even I can put two and two together.”

“Yes, Hugo stepped aside so that I might be in this area without attracting undue attention. But while I am investigating someone potentially dangerous, I have no reason to believe he’s ‘spying back’ as you say. However, I do have enemies.”

“I thought attacking innocent bystanders wasn’t allowed.”

He looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time. Before he could ask the question I could see in his eyes,
Do you know about vampires?
I added, “In the spy game, I mean.”

His gaze narrowed; I wasn’t fooling him. “There’s an unspoken covenant that noncombatants are left alone. But after what’s happened to Kevin? I don’t want to take any chances. I’m responsible for the orchestra and I take that responsibility seriously. Which means you will come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Steel’s household.”

“Oh. Ohhhh.” Actually, this was good news. Logan Steel, Luke’s twin, was on the good-guy vampire side. Better yet, I was friends with his wife, Liese. I could tell her about Triana’s bigger-than-big and badder-than-bad vampire rumor. “I won’t need to talk to Nixie then.”

“Excellent,” Zajicek said with a relish I didn’t get, until he added, “Afterward, you can go to dinner with me.”

Logan was Luke’s identical twin, complete with blond hair, golden eyes and stunning bod. The only difference was the length of Logan’s hair, shoulder instead of butt, and the twinkle in his eyes, a sparkle that had gotten noticeably brighter since he’d married Liese Schmetterling last spring. Inexplicably, Logan and Liese loved each others’ awful puns.

The Steels lived and worked in Redfox Village, in a large building that housed both their business and their home. Logan had bought out half the block and razed the old structures, then put up new construction that was stylish, had a useful floor plan and was energy efficient besides.

I’d gotten the tour at the housewarming. Steel Security took up the first two floors, several apartments took up the next two, and the Steel penthouse was on five. The rooftop had both garden and helipad. There was a swimming pool and gym in the basement.

Zajicek dropped me off in front of the building, waited while I rang the doorbell and was admitted, then went to find a space on the street to park his car. Logan had parking on a subbasement level, but the place was super-secure and while my fingerprints and retinas were in the system, the keycard to unlock the alarm was in my car. So it was the front door for us.

Steel Security’s chirpy PA, Zinnia, answered the door. Blonde and toned, she was so energetic she could have been the bastard child of pink erasers and superballs. “Ms. Hrbek! Come in, come in. Are you here to see Mr. or Ms. Steel? Business or social? Can I offer coffee, tea or an assortment of soft drinks? Well, what are you waiting for? Come in, come in!”

PA—which stands for personal assistant but also covers Zinnia’s loudspeaker voice and her attitude toward life—grabbed me by the arm and dragged me inside.