Chicagoland Vampires - Some Girls Bite Part 25

I had to clench my fingers to keep from lashing out in sheer frustration. "He asked me to find him," I explained, "to talk about business?"

She delicately lifted a shoulder. "I'm really not interested. But if you're so keen to see him, then by all means . . . go see him. It'd probably do you some good. He's in his apartments."

"Thanks." She waited at the doorway until I left the office; then she closed the door behind us. I started back for the main staircase and heard her chuckle evilly as I moved down the hallway.

I took the stairs to the second floor, rounded the landing, and headed up toward the third. Tucked here and there into nooks that bore sofas and chairs, vampires were reading books or magazines or chatting together. The house quieted as I moved upward, the third floor nearly silent. I followed the long hallway back to Ethan's apartments, stopped outside the closed double doors.

I knocked and, when I got no response, put an ear to the door. I heard nothing, so I slipped the doork.n.o.b on the right-side door and pushed it slowly open.

It was a sitting room. Well-appointed, tastefully decorated. Oak paneling rose to chair rail height, and an onyx fireplace dominated one wall. The room housed a couple of conversation areas, the furniture tailored and undoubtedly expensive. Side tables bore vases of flowers, and a Bach cello sonata rang softly through the air. On the opposite wall, just beside a small desk, was another set of double doors. One was closed; the second was slightly ajar.

"Ethan?" I called his name, but the word was a whisper, completely incapable of rousing attention. I walked to the doors, put the flat of my palm on the closed one, and peeked inside the gap.

I realized, then, why Gabrielle had so deliberately pointed out that he was inside.

Ethan was inside-inside the House. Inside his apartments.

And inside Amber.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

YOU CAN'T TRUST A MAN WHO.

EATS A HOT DOG WITH A FORK.

I clasped a hand over my mouth, stifling the gasp that rose in my throat.

But after glancing surrept.i.tiously around the sitting room, I leaned in again and took another peek.

I saw him in profile. He was completely naked, blond hair tucked behind his ears. Amber was in front of him, crouched on her knees on his giant four-poster bed, her back to his front. Even in profile, it was easy to see that she was ecstatic-the part of her lips, her half-closed lids, the clench of her fingers told the story. Her hands were fisted in the khaki bedclothes, and but for the joggle of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she was otherwise still, apparently content to let Ethan do the work.

And work, he did. His legs were braced slightly more than shoulder length apart, the dimpled hollows at the sides of his b.u.t.tocks clenching as he swiveled and pumped his hips against her body. His skin was golden, his body long, lean, and sculpted. I noted a script tattoo on the back of his right calf, but the rest of his form was pristine, his smooth golden skin gleaming with perspiration.

One of his hands was at her right hip, the other splayed across her damp lower back, his gaze-intense, carnal, needy-on the rhythmic union of their bodies. He smoothed a hand along the valley at the small of her back, his tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip as he moved.

I stared at the pair of them, completely enthralled by the sight. I felt the wisp of arousal spark in my abdomen, a sensation as unwelcome as it was familiar.

He was magnificent.

Absently, I raised fingers to my lips, then froze at the realization that I was hiding in his sitting room, peeking through an open door, watching a man that a week ago I'd decided was my mortal enemy have s.e.x. I was completely disturbed.

And I would have left, would have walked away with nothing more than a little mortification, had Ethan not chosen that moment to lean forward, to lower his body to hers, and to bite.

His teeth grazed the spot between her neck and shoulder, then pierced. His throat began to move convulsively, his hips still pumping-more fiercely, if that was possible-now that he'd breached her throat. Two lines of red, of her blood, traced down the pale column of her neck.

Instinctively, I lifted a hand, touching the spot where I'd been bitten, the place where scars should have marred my throat. I'd experienced the bite, the self-interested violence of it, but this was different. This was vampire, being vampire. Truly vampire. The s.e.x notwithstanding, this was feeding the way it was meant to be. Him and her, sharing the act, not just sipping from the plastic of a medical bag. I knew that, understood it on a genetic level. And that knowledge, witnessing the act of it, scenting it, so close-even when I wasn't hungry, certainly not for Amber's blood-woke the vampire. I quickly drew in breath, tried to force her down again, to keep myself calm.

But not fast enough.

Ethan suddenly raised his eyes, our gazes locking through the three-inch gap in the doors. His breath caught, his eyes flashing silver.

He must have seen the look of mortification that crossed my face, and his irises faded to green fast enough. But he didn't look away. Instead, he steadied himself with a hand at her hip and drank, his eyes on me.

I jumped away, put my back to the wall, but the move was pointless. He'd already seen me, and in that second before the silver faded, I'd seen the look in his eyes. There was a kind of hope there, that I'd had a different reason for appearing at his door, that I'd come to offer myself to him the way Amber had. But he hadn't seen offering in my eyes. And he hadn't planned on my embarra.s.sment.

That was when his eyes had turned back to green, his hope replaced by something far, far colder. Tempered humiliation maybe, because I'd said no to him two days ago, because I hadn't sought him out tonight. Because I'd rejected a four-hundred-year-old Master vampire to whom most bowed, cowed, acquiesced. If he was disgruntled about wanting me in the first place, he was downright p.i.s.sed about being rejected. That was what had flattened his eyes, pulled his pupils into tiny angry p.r.i.c.ks of black. Who was I to say no to Ethan Sullivan?

Before I could comprise an answer to my own question, my head began to spin, and I was swamped with the sensation of being hurled down a tunnel. Then he was in my head.

To have rejected me so handily, you seem oddly curious now.

I cringed, and opted for acquiescence. Now was not the time to fight. I was coming by to talk to you, as you asked. I knocked.

I didn't mean to intrude.

The room quieted, and Amber suddenly cried out, made a pouty moue of disappointment, maybe that he'd stopped thrusting.

Downstairs. An obvious order. When he said it, when that single word echoed through my head, I'd swear I heard it again, that tiny twinge of disappointment.

And suddenly I wanted to fix that. I wanted to heal that disappointment, to ease it. To comfort. That thought was as dangerous as any other I'd had, so I pushed away from the wall and crept back through the room. As I neared the door to the hallway, the rhythmic creak of the bed began again. I left Ethan's apartments and closed the door behind me.

I was in the foyer when he arrived. I'd taken a seat next to the fireplace-a larger version of the one in his apartments-and curled up with the copy of the Canon I'd stowed in my messenger bag. I flipped absently through its pages, working to wipe the images of him, the sound of him, from my mind.

At least, that was what I was trying to do.

He was back in black, skipping the suit coat for trousers and a white b.u.t.ton-up, the top b.u.t.ton undone to reveal the Cadogan medal around his neck. The front of his hair was pulled back in a tight band, the rest just hitting the top of his shoulders.

I dropped my gaze back to my book.

"Found something . . . productive to do?" His tone was unmistakably haughty.

"As you might have noticed," I said lightly, turning a page in the Canon despite the fact that I hadn't read the one before it, "my plans to talk to the boss didn't quite pan out."

I forced myself to look up at him, to offer him a smile, to play off what could easily become a profoundly embarra.s.sing moment.

Ethan didn't return the smile, but he seemed to incrementally relax. Maybe he'd expected a spectacle, a jealous rant. And maybe that wasn't so far-fetched as I might want to admit.

Beneath hooded lashes, he offered, "I believe I'm sated for the day, if you'd care to chat now."

I nodded.

"Good. Shall we discuss this upstairs?"

My head snapped up.

He smiled tightly. "A joke, Merit. I do have a sense of humor." But it hadn't sounded like a joke, still didn't sound like he was kidding.

Ethan offered his office, so I unfolded my legs and stood. We made it as far as the stairs, but stopped short when Catcher and Mallory walked through the front door. He held paper bags and what looked like a newspaper under one arm; she held a foam tray of paper cups.

I sniffed the air. Food. Meat, if my vampire instincts were correct.

"If you think that's true," Catcher was telling her, "then I've been giving you more credit than you deserve."

"Magic or no magic, you're a dillhole."

The handful of Cadogan vamps in the foyer, to a one, stopped to stare at the blue-haired woman who was swearing in their House.

Catcher put his free hand at the small of her back.

"She's adjusting to her magic, folks. Just ignore her."

They chuckled and returned to their business, which I a.s.sumed was looking posh and very, very busy.

Catcher and Mallory walked toward us. "Vamps," he said in greeting.

I checked my watch, noted it was nearly four in the morning, and wondered why Mallory wasn't tucked into bed, presumably with her escort. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm taking a couple weeks off work. McGettrick owes me fourteen weeks of acc.u.mulated vacation. I figured I was due."

I looked at Catcher. "And you. Don't you have work to do?"

He gave me a sardonic glance and pushed the bags of food against my chest. "I am working," he said, then looked at Ethan. "I brought food. Let's chat." Ethan looked dubiously at the paper bags. "Food?"

"Hot dogs." When Ethan didn't respond, Catcher cupped his hands together. "Frankfurters. Sausages. Meat tube, surrounded by a baked ma.s.s of carbohydrates. Stop me if this sounds familiar, Sullivan. You live in Chicago for Christ's sake."

"I'm familiar," Ethan said drily. "My office."

The bags were filled with Chicagoland's finest-foil-wrapped hot dogs in poppy seed buns, coated in relish and onions and hot peppers. I took a seat on the leather couch and bit in, closing my eyes in rapture. "If you weren't taken, I'd date you myself."

Mallory chuckled. "Which one of us were you talking to, hon?"

"I think she meant the dog," Catcher said, munching on a curly fry. "It's amazing she's as small as she is when she eats like that."

"Sick, isn't it? It's her metabolism. It has to be. She eats like a horse, and she never exercises. Well, she never used to exercise, but that was before she became Ninja Jane."

"You two are dating?" Across the room, where Ethan was pulling a plate from his bar cabinet, he froze and stared back at us, his face a little paler than usual.

I grinned down at my frank. "Don't choke on it, Sullivan. She's dating Catcher, not you."

"Yes, well . . . congratulations." He joined us on the couch, deposited a hot dog on a dinner plate of fine platinum-banded china.

Frowning, he began sawing at it with a knife and fork, then carefully ate a chunk.

"Sullivan, just pick it up."

He glanced at me, spearing a chunk of hot dog with his fork. "My way is more genteel."

I took another gigantic bite, and told him between chews, "Your way is more tight a.s.s."

"Your respect for me, Sentinel, is astounding."

I grinned at him. "I'd respect you more if you took a bite of that dog."

"You don't respect me any."

Not entirely true, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a correction. "Like I said, I'd respect you more. More than none."

I smiled and turned back to Mallory and Catcher, who, heads c.o.c.ked, stared at both of us. "What?"

"Nothing," they simultaneously said.

Ethan finally acquiesced, picking up the dog and taking a bite, managing not to spill condiments on his fancy pants. He chewed contemplatively, then took another bite, then another.

"Better?"

He grunted, which I took as a sound of hedonistic fulfillment.

Without raising his gaze from the dog in his hands, Ethan asked, "I a.s.sume you have some reason for showing up on my doorstep two hours before dawn?"

Catcher dusted crumbs from his hands, picked up the newspaper he'd laid beside him, and unfolded it. The headline of the Sun- Times read: Second Girl Dead; Vamp Killer?

Beside me, Ethan muttered a curse.

"Question of the hour, Sullivan-why haven't you called the Houses together?"

I didn't have to see Ethan's expression to know how he'd react to the less-than-subtle challenge to his strategy. But he played along. "For what purpose?"

Catcher rolled his eyes and shifted back into the couch, looping his arms over the back of it. "Information, to start."

"Isn't that your job? Investigating?"

"My job is to ease tensions, and that's what I'm talking about-calming nerves." He tapped the newspaper. "Celina in a busty suit isn't enough to get past murder. People are nervous. The Mayor's nervous. h.e.l.l, even Scott's nervous. I went by Grey House earlier. Scott's up in arms. p.i.s.sed, and you know how much it takes to get him riled up. The boy's Teflon to politics, usually. But someone comes at his people, and he's ready to battle. Mark of a good leader," he allowed.

Ethan wiped his mouth with a napkin, then crumpled it and let it fall to the table. "I'm not in a position to take steps, preventive or otherwise. I don't have the political capital."