The Nightlife San Antonio: (Urban Fantasy Romance) (The Nightlife Series) (24 page)

Adrian hadn’t really listened to the last part of Julie’s words. He thought to protest
I’m not in love
, but the lie died on his tongue. The truth of it sat in his stomach like a tight ball of twisted pain. Julie had recognized it right away, and she was right.

I’m in love with a vampire mafia queen who owns my ass for life.
A sobering thought.

Julie tugged on his shirt when he didn’t respond.

He leaned down into her face. “Ya know what? All this …” He twirled his finger at the surrounding hospital ward. “This sucks, right now. But that woman.” He shook his finger at the door to Sam’s room. “She won’t be lying there much longer. No matter what legal bullshit is going down, you better pray you’re not in the way when she wakes up. That goes for me too. This side of death, there ain’t much that will keep us apart for very long.”

Julie stepped away f
rom him, a wary look in her eyes. “Adrian, I thought you were … I guess I never really knew you, did I?”

Nope, no one does. No one but Sam
antha.
Adrian left Julie standing there with suspicion etched into her face. He needed to calm down and now. He pulled into the Dollar General parking lot at precisely 8:58 p.m., two minutes before closing. The last two bottles of cheap red wine hit the cashier’s countertop at 9:00 p.m.

Red in hand, Adrian drove back to his crappy apartment to wash away his crappy headache. It had been three nights since she’d last bitten him, and he was seriously hating life. Sweats, c
hills, hammering migraine, backaches, muscle cramps, that woman had him all fucked up.

He realized that it wasn’t the withdrawals that would kill him. Nope. Anyone who had to live like this night after night would eventually kill themselves. The only thing keeping him sane was the fact that Samantha was still here on this earth, and he must wait for her.

He didn’t know if he’d be able to deal with her being awake and withheld from him for any length of time. That might be even worse. Sitting on his patio with the bottle in hand, watching people live their meaningless lives in the pool below, he felt like taking a couple of semi-auto’s and going postal.

What the hell was the point to life?
He took another slug of red. It didn’t help.

Maybe Crenshaw was right, this place was just too overcrowded, and getting worse every day. Ch
ildren screamed in joy, playing below his balcony, and he knew he’d never understand why people wanted to raise hordes of kids, only to send them out into the world penniless and uneducated, so they could continue spawning and spreading their ignorance across the planet like a virus with no cure.

How long
would it be before humanity consumed all the resources of Earth? Fifty years, a hundred fifty? He’d probably never live to see it. He felt like putting a gun in his mouth right now, end it all.

So
meone smooched at him, a female on the balcony to the right. “Hey stranger, been a while. How y’all doing? I hear you’re the big hero in town.” Candice leaned over the edge of the partition between her balcony and his, her bathrobe open just enough to let a little brown pebble of nipple peak out to wink at him. Adrian thought about yanking her across the divider and bending her over the balcony so the whole apartment complex could watch him give it to her in the ass.

Damn
. He’d better mellow out before he actually did go postal. He looked at Candice and recalled all the times he’d banged her when her roommate April was out of town for sales meetings. Sizing her up, he realized that no matter how many times he put his cock in her she’d never be Samantha, and it would be the most meaningless act in the world.

“Did your batteries run out or what? Where’s
April?”

“You’re such a fucker, Adrian. I pity the
poor woman who marries you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

She covered up her nipple and stuck her tongue out at him. He thought she might finally leave him be in his misery, but she stopped just before heading back in through her slider door. “Hey, where’s Crenshaw? I haven’t seen him in a few days, and the cops were all over his apartment. Do you know what happened to him?”

Adrian sucked down a swig off his bottle and grinned. “
Crenshaw is unavailable. He’s dead.”

He
r eyes grew wide and she returned to lean against the partition. Her robe slid open again, one last shot at seduction. “Oh my god, what happened? Was it part of the shooting thing y’all were involved in?”

“No. He had his throat ripped out by a vampire.”
Adrian winked at her.

Her face scrunched up in disgust and her exposed breast jiggled as she scoffed. “How can you joke about something like that?”

He stood up fast and got in her face, nose to nose. “I was there, and I saw him die. It was not pretty. So take your nipples back inside and leave me the fuck alone.” He twisted hard on her pert brown bud and she squeaked.

“
Ow! Adrian, that hurts.”

For the first time this evening he actually felt a little better. Either it was the wine, or watching her massage her sore tit,
but he smiled genuinely at her. “Go away before I show you real pain.”

Her eyes darkened with desire for a second, and she looked around the apartment complex, suddenly realizing there were people everywhere. He felt certain she’d probably enjoy letting him hurt her, maybe even right here, on the porch
. She’d been leaving her slider door cracked open for months, making sure the whole world could hear her adventures with April. The girl was an exhibitionist.

All Adrian wanted was to b
e left alone with his cheap red wine and shitty attitude. He sat back down in his plastic patio chair and reclined it back farther. Candice stood there, rubbing her breast, staring at him with another scowl, like a stray dog that’s been kicked and still won’t go away.

Eventually, she decided her neighbors had enough titty show, and retreated into her apartment. “Asshole. April will be here in a couple hours, so leave me alone.” She left the door strategically cracked open.

Adrian finished off the first bottle and luxuriated in the wine buzz. Finally, his headache had subsided to a dull thrum, drowned in alcohol. But his need for Samantha remained strong, ever present. She was his compass, his true north, and no matter what direction he turned, the line to her was always clear.

*.*.*.*

A crashing sound woke Adrian from his wine-induced sleep on the back patio. He thought maybe Candice and April were arguing again. The girls liked to break stuff when they went at it, only to buy a replacement at the mall the next week. It had become a ritual for them.

Bang, bang, bang
. “Adrian Faulkner, open the door! This is Federal Agent Roberts. I have a warrant to search the premise! If you don’t open the door, we will enter by force.”

“Shit!” Adrian hopped up from his chair, sent his wine bottle rolling across the patio and looked about in panic. They must have decided they had enough evidence to charge him with something. He looked left, to Crenshaw’s patio, a de
ad end, then to the right. Candice’s slider was still cracked open.

He was ove
r the partition and through Candice’s sliding glass door in seconds. He shut it quietly, locked it, and closed the blinds. A noise from the bed drew his attention. Someone was waking up.
Shit
. He slinked deeper into the bedroom, towards the bathroom door. The slam of someone kicking open the front door to his apartment reverberated through the walls.

The feds didn
’t mess around.

He stood by the bathroom door, wishing that somehow God could reach down and put these women to sleep until the raid was over. The bed stirred again, and someone slipped out from under the covers. “Who’s there?”

He held his tongue, debating whether or not to punch her out, or take his chances trying to quiet her some other way.

“Adrian, is that you?” Candice walked up to him in nothing but her fishing line thin panties, not even bothering to cover herself. She looked back at the bed, at her sleeping girlfriend, and then looked at him, and her eyes flicked towa
rds the door to the living room. Her thought process was as transparent as her non-existent underwear. “Okay, just this once, as long as we’re quiet.”

She took his ha
nd, her half-lidded eyes evidence she hadn’t fully woken up, and started pulling him towards the living room. He didn’t budge. She frowned and whispered, “Not in here, we’ll wake up April.”

Adrian shook his head and clamped
his hand over her mouth as flashlights raked across the patio and the blinds. They were checking the vicinity for him, and it didn’t take any imagination to figure they might start knocking on doors. Candice stood there, a puzzled look on her face, Adrian’s hand over her mouth, silently watching police scour her porch with torchlights. He mouthed the word
quiet
and held a finger to his lips, praying that somehow this idiot woman would be smart enough to shut up.

Miracles do happen, even today. Candice didn’t move, didn’t say a word
. She stood there like a good little whore and waited with Adrian holding his hand over her mouth. Not one complaint, not one question. He could’ve taken her into the living room and screwed her senseless out of sheer gratitude.

The agents grunted and murmured to each other, and after a few more minutes they left
out the same front door they had busted through. The damn locks were probably ruined. He waited, holding onto Candice, who had decided to lean into him for a hug. For the first time ever in his life, he had a naked woman hugging him, ready for a good hard fuck, and he was not going to give it to her.

Adrian waited a
few more minutes, and when Candice’s hands started to roam, he knew it was time to go. He extracted himself from her clutches and pecked her on the forehead. “Thanks, but I can’t. I need to get out of here before they come back.”

He clicked the lock on the sliding glass door and pulled it o
pen with Candice right behind him. “Adrian, wait. What’s wrong? Why were the police here? Do you need help?”

He looked at her, wondering how much help her naked, willing body could provide in his situation. None. She had nothing he needed or wanted.

A thud sounded on his porch and he tensed for action as his head whipped around to face the intruder.

“Adrian, what the fuck are you doing?”

Samantha. Lovely, psychotic, man-slaughtering Samantha. She looked just as beautiful as ever in that paper-thin hospital gown. In a flash she was on him, his t-shirt fisted in her hands, damn near lifting him off his feet with the strength of her fury. “You better start talking.”

He looked to the naked woman at his side who had begun to register so
me alarm at the situation. Candice spoke right over the top of Adrian, stealing the words from his mouth. “It’s not what you think.”

“Oh, hell no.”
Sam snapped out to connect with Candice in a meaty sounding punch. Candice flew back into her apartment and landed flat on her back, TKO.

“Damn.”
He smiled in appreciation of Sam’s moves. His vampire mafia queen looked at him like a feral creature preparing to slice his face off. He held his hands up in surrender “I was hiding! The feds just raided me – serious.”

“Candice, what a
re you doing?” April stood in front of her girlfriend, holding her breasts, wearing nothing but a pair of white cotton panties that were half-way off her ass. Her eyes had squinted up, trying to focus, confused and still half-asleep.

Ad
rian slammed the slider door to Candice’s apartment and turned back to Sam. “How the hell did you get here? Never mind that, just bite me, now!” He bared his neck and grabbed the back of her head, pulling her face against him tightly.

She chomped hard
and he knew she wanted him to feel her wrath by force of her bite. He didn’t care. He almost collapsed on her, his knees gone weak in the wondrous joy of her venom. She held him up, hugging him tight as she sucked long and hard, both getting exactly what they needed.

The s
liding glass door opened back up and April punched Adrian in the arm. “Adrian, what did you do to Candice?”

Sam let go of her bite, slurped at
the wound once over to clean it, and lashed out to knock April sprawling atop her girlfriend. Double TKO. Samantha turned on him with fire in her eyes, fangs bared, and a closed fist in his face. “You’re mine. Don’t you ever forget it. Stay the hell away from these hoes!”

He slipped his hands up
inside her hospital gown, caught a handful off butt cheek and squeezed, pulling her up against the erection trying to fight its way out of his jeans. She growled at his roughness, a spark of desire flaring in her eyes.

He kissed her soundly, not even caring that he could taste his own blood on her lips.
He loved her wiry strength, capable of cutting through a man in one slice. He loved the crush of her cool lips beneath his assault of kisses, even though her teeth could tear a man to ribbons. He loved the fire in her soul, and the violence ever lurking beneath the surface of her beauty. He loved this vampire mafia queen, even when she was threatening him.