The Nightlife San Antonio: (Urban Fantasy Romance) (The Nightlife Series) (10 page)

“Adrian … I’m. I’m okay. I’m just tired. Let me sleep.”

* * * *

She felt like such a whore, a mercenary using her body as leverage to get what she wanted, and worse, she needed more from Adrian than a simple roof over her head. She had already claimed him. This last feeding went a little too far, but he would recover.

The man was hers now
. He just didn’t understand that yet.
Bloodslave
was the word that came to mind. She had no idea where she knew this, yet she felt certain he was already her bloodslave.

W
ould that be enough? She needed him to care enough to risk his life for her, no matter what happened. An unwilling bloodslave was a liability, and would only slow her down.

T
his man was so very strange, so distant and cold at times. Was he even capable of giving her what she wanted? Surely he was strong enough to handle her. Plenty strong. But could he really ever care for her, like she needed him to care, to take a bullet if necessary?

Guilt wrapped around her chest and sunk in deep. She had no idea what kind of lif
e she must have lived to attract this police attention. Her uncertain future left her totally dependent on Adrian for food, lodging, and protection. If what the police said was true, that she was being hunted by drug lords, then her selfish claims on Adrian might put him in harm’s way. She may very well ruin his life. She gritted her teeth and steeled her resolve. If it all went wrong, she’d have to live with this decision, with the consequences.

She cuddled up close to Adrian, slipping the covers over him, savor
ing the scents of their love, his musky smell from all that exertion. She found him fascinating, a study in contradictions. Spooned up against his back, with her arms around him, she wished there was some way she could just start over with this man and leave behind whatever shit-storm she might have created in her previous life.

Wishful thinking?

* * * *

Adrian woke to his cell phone going off on the floor next to his bed. He checked the time on the clock. Barely noon. “Who the hell is calling me so early?”

He accidentally answered the call when he snatched the phone off the floor. Mom? She knows better.

She had that same worried tone of voice she always had. “Adrian, are you there? Is that you? Honey, answer the phone, it’s your mother!”

He hung up. She’
d call back in a few minutes, just like a snooze button.

Buzz, buzz, buzz
, his phone went off again.

He snatched it up and clicked the
green button, “What do you want?”

Silence … “Bro, sorry to wake you up
, man–”
Jose?

Bang, bang, b
ang
. Someone smacked on the front door.

Adrian groaned. “Dammit!”

“Adrian, are you there?”

“Yeah,
hold on.” He took the phone from his ear.

He pushed
her cool limbs off him, glanced briefly at the pale woman in his bed and then slipped on his boxer shorts and headed for the door.

Bang, bang, bang
.

He flung the door open and cocked back, a fistful of
cell phone, ready to smash somebody. Detective Coronado backpedaled to the railing. Again.

Adrian growled in his face.
“What the hell are you doing?”

The cop slipped one hand to the back of his pants, as if he was
about to draw. If that hand moved even an inch, Coronado was going over the railing with a broken nose. “Calm down, Adrian. I don’t know what your problem is, but you got a messed up way of answering your door.”

His hand didn’t move, but Adrian could see it in his eyes, the man wanted to pull. Adrian dropped his cocked fist and relaxed his stance, waiting for the detective’s next move. “I guess you didn’t listen when I told you that I work the night shift. This is when I sleep. Right now.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be here if you had showed up as promised.”

“There’s nothing to report. You and the feds are wasting my time.”

“The feds were here too? Damn!” He didn’t look too happy about that one.

“What do you want?”

“I just got off the phone with your partner, the driver, Jose Ruiz. You know what he told me?”

“You’
re an irritating asshole?”

“That’s real funny. I bet you sti
ll think you’re the shit, eh? Big-shot soccer player, tough guy in the military. In the real world, I’m the big-shot. I put assholes like you behind bars all the time. We’re not in high school any more, Adrian.”

Then it clicked where he recognized Coronado
from.
Chango
.
Monkey.
Coronado was once a sweaty little creep who had an unfortunate nickname given early on, and it stuck, all the way through his teens. Adrian remembered Coronado as a teenager, vaguely. The kid was a loser, and a whiny puke. Guys like that gravitate towards jobs of authority so they can finally prove to the world they actually have a pair of balls between their legs. They spend their entire careers trying to prove it.

Chango
kept on rolling with his little
I-am-the-law
speech, “Unlike you, Jose has respect for officers of the law who can put your ass away. He told me you spoke to the woman, and she said something to you.”

Whoa. Shit
. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember if she had said something.” He closed his eyes for a second and then stared straight at the detective. “Nope, no recollection of that. Looks like you already have my report. Guess I don’t need to come see you.”

H
e turned to slam the door in Coronado’s face, but the creep grabbed his arm.

“
Not quite, Adrian. I’m not so sure I believe you. I remember how you cheated off Linda in Spanish class. I sat right behind you, South San Antonio High School. I know you. You’re a liar, and I am starting to think maybe you got something to hide. Maybe you know this girl from somewhere, and that’s why you don’t want to tell the truth.”

Coronado
peeked around Adrian’s shoulder into the apartment.
Oh shit
. He moved up into the detective’s face to block his view.

“Sounds like you g
ot a theory. Too bad it’s based on crap. Good luck with that, Chango.”

“
Oh, man.” Coronado’s face lit up in surprise, which quickly morphed to fury. “These games are going nowhere. I’ll find whatever you’re hiding. Your girlfriend in there ain’t gonna like it when you get arrested for obstructing my investigation.”

Fucker had seen her leg uncovered on the bed. This shit was getting way too close for comfort.

“Why don’t you spend your time finding drug dealers and murderers, and leave me the hell alone. I got nothing to say to you.”

Adrian spun back into his doorway and slammed it shut.
Goddamn that was close
.

“Jose and his fat
-ass mouth.”

Adrian twitched as
his cell phone buzzed again, forgotten in his hand. He spun and looked through the peephole to see the detective, once more, making his way down to his unmarked blue Ford Crown Victoria. He wasn’t fooling anyone. Everyone knows a Crown Vic with a little spotlight on the side is an undercover cop car. Five year old children knew that.

Buzz, buzz, buzz
. He looked at the phone to see Jose’s number, and answered it. “Yeah, he was just here. Thanks for trying to warn me before you sent the pig to my house.”

“Adrian
, I didn’t know he was gonna be like that. I just told him what I saw. Tell him what he wants to know, and it’s all good.”

“Yeah, sure thing. Next time you talk to police about shit like this, give me a heads-up
before
they hit my doorstep.”

“Sorry.
”

“Uh-huh. I gotta get some sleep. Later.” He disconnected the call.

Looking at the line of sight into his bedroom from the door, he realized the cop caught a little more than a flash of leg. The covers were off her all the way to the middle of her back. She lay there sprawled out. Asshole cop caught a crotch shot of the woman he was looking for and didn’t even know it.

“Ha! Fucking Chango.”

Chango had become quite the pushy detective. Something about this didn’t feel right. Why was this girl such a big deal? Why was Coronado so desperate for the slightest detail? Something didn’t make sense.

They d
idn’t even know who she was for sure. Neither did Adrian for that matter. Drawn to her miraculously flawless skin, he headed for the bedroom. He slid his hand up her calf and inner thigh, and grabbed the ass of San Antonio’s most wanted.

She was cool to the touch, and didn’
t move at all. He pulled the blanket away from her head and shoulders, and slid her tousled black hair away from her face. The slightest wisp of breath came from her nose, indicating she was still alive. So soft, pale, fragile.

He wondered if she
really was a vampire. Instinct urged him to accept all the strange evidence of what she admitted. Definitely something unique about her, otherworldly. Anyone else would be laid out on their deathbed after a shooting like that, but here she was, fit as could be. Since he brought her home, he hadn’t seen her drink a drop of water or eat anything, except from him, his blood.

She had to be a vampire, nothing else made sense. He found her utterly fascinating, a nameless, homeless
, naked vampire, sleeping away the day in his bed, wanted by state and federal police.

What the hell was he thinking messing with this
woman? He shook his head and wondered while his fingertip slipped down into her mouth to feel the edges of her teeth. Those babies packed a real punch. But all she had at the moment was a set of pointy canines, nowhere near as long as he had seen them before, when she had thrown all her cards on the table to offer herself up to him in this strange bargain.

And a virgin
, too? How the hell? He shook his head again, wishing she would wake up, wishing he could feel her tight little squirming body beneath him, wishing she’d bury those teeth in his neck again.

He smacked her gently on the cheek. “Wake up, wakey wakey.”

Nothing.

He smacked her harder. “Wake up already.
It’s two in the afternoon.”

Nothing.

He wanted to punch her awake, anything that might make her wake up and take notice. “Come on girl, lemme see those wicked teeth!”

He shook her h
ard.

Nothing.

The woman was damn near comatose, sleeping like the dead. Or undead. He sniffed her, to see if she smelled like a corpse. She smelled good, like a woman, a living breathing woman who needed a shower after a night of hard sex.

Five
more hours until sunset. If he was to believe all the rumors and propaganda, that’s when she would wake up.

Then he decided to try something, just to see what would happen.
He grabbed the curtains and pulled them back, and peeled away a little bit of the tinfoil coating his windows to block out the sun. Working the night shift, he had permanently blacked out his bedroom windows so he could sleep through the day without being blinded every time he rolled over in bed.

A single shaft of sunlight spilled into the room and hit her right hip
like a searing laser. Her skin started to smoke, almost sizzle, and a small whimper escaped her lips, but she didn’t move.

“Shit!” He quickly
covered the window, smoothed over the tin foil and replaced the curtain.

“She’s a no-sun-having, b
lood-sucking vampire. Holy shit!” He checked her hip where the sun had struck, and found a third degree burn. Two seconds of sunlight had cooked her ass.
That’s so fucked up.

Anxious, hands shaking for … something, he decided to go work off the daylight at the gym. It had been too long since he had a go
od workout, and he definitely needed something to take his mind off her naked body lying in his bed for the next five hours.

* * * *

Adrian ran the treadmill until his legs burned and sweat soaked the back of his t-shirt. No matter how long he ran, he couldn’t shake this anxiety, this need for her. He stepped off the machine, half-staggering, breathing in heaves, and turned it off. Death-by-treadmill wasn’t going to solve anything.

He toweled off his face and headed to the rowing machine. He dug into
the machine like a man crossing the Pacific in a rowboat. He worked up a rhythm and kept rolling along, pushing harder and harder to get her out of his head.