2 Death Rejoices (14 page)

I felt an immediate rush of lust as my body responded with a big
hell yes
even as my brain squalled
hell no
. My privates twitched happily into a state of enthrallment and I had to work hard to ignore the quivering of my thighs.

“I gave up cookies,” I said sadly. The admission helped tamp down my inflamed lust. I missed cookies almost as much as I missed him.
Crap
. Batten was mercifully oblivious to my inner turmoil. “Seriously, you want this OSRA ass-monkey to knock me out of a career just so you can bone me whenever you want?” I made motions to get to my feet and he pulled my elbow. “You've got some nerve.”

“Settle down there, Snickerdoodle.”

“Oh, that's right,” I drawled, “I'll just hang out in the woods all naked and lubed-up until it's convenient for you to come around. Screw you, Kill-Notch.”

“That's all I'm saying,” he appealed.

“Which is exactly your problem.”

“It's better you
don't
have a job.”

“I'm useful. Chapel wants me, and he's got me. I'm not quitting.”
Wait, could I not-quit a job I didn't even officially have yet?

Batten grimaced.

“I'm sorry, does that put a crimp in your lurid little plans?” I'm pretty sure I had just crotch-blocked myself, too, but I was too irritated with Batten to spare any for my big mouth.

“Chapel seems to want you both. If you don't quit, you might have to work with someone
and
be civil.”

“I've been civil, people skills galore, just ask anyone, ask Elian, he'll tell you,” I said. “And what do you mean, Chapel wants us both?”

“Irish will be your assistant to start. Chapel's going to get you to train him in PCU procedures.” He gave a from-the-belly laugh. “It'll be a disaster. Let me take in your resignation and save you the drive.”

I sighed. “You've been back one day, you want me out of there?” I'd never been able to feel Batten's emotions with my Talents, but I diagnosed a bit of regret in the turned-down corners of his lips.

“We don't work well together.”

That was certainly true, and possibly the biggest understatement I'd ever heard in my life; all we knew how to do was fuck and fight and frustrate the hell out of each other.

“For your information,” I said, getting to my feet, “I'm keeping my non-job.”

Batten started after me as I made for the back door. “You never wanted this job,” he accused, tromping through grasses that needed to be mowed. “You avoided it for months.”

“What can I say, Batten?” I ignored him as he pulled up alongside me and tried to take my elbow. “I might be slow to start, but once I get going, there's no stopping me.”

“I know.” When I pulled open the screen door, he put his hand on it and shut it firmly in my face, preventing me from going inside, putting his body in my way. There was a wave of unspoken heat in his expression.
Oh, boy, did he know how I could get going.
The sun went behind dark clouds, spilling cool shade over us, as if the heavens were warning us, and we craned up in unison.

“If we work together …” he started, his voice thick.

I tossed back my head and laughed, surprised at his gall. “We won't be allowed to hump like a couple of horny rabbits hopped-up on E? I think we'll survive.”

“Marnie.” He dropped his voice to little more than a gruff scratch. “I can't work with you every damn day and…” Either he didn't know how to finish, or he didn't want to say what he was thinking.

“That's your problem.”

“
Our
problem. You don't hide it as well as you think.”

I told myself the sultry warmth curling slowly through my nether regions was anything else, that a good cup of espresso and a brownie would fix everything, but I had a sinking feeling the only thing that could fix me was tucked to the left in Batten's pants. My traitorous mouth started to water, and it wasn't for Juan Valdez or Betty Crocker.

I tipped my chin up at him; when our eyes met, a shot of heat lit up my insides, melting everything south of my neck into a tingling
mess. My knees threatened to buckle under high-test passion, fueled by the fact that it was expressly forbidden.
Well
, technically
it isn't, until Chapel hires me
, my libido whispered. I really hated it when my baser nature had the facts on its side.

I hadn't had him since last October, shouldn't have him now. My body had not forgotten his; it remembered with vigorous clarity and I gave in to it, just for a moment, letting the ghosts of our passion rise from their shallow grave to howl madly through the limited corridors of my romantic history. Mark Batten was not a welcome guest there. He was a goddamned wrecking ball.

As if sensing a shift in my mood, he moved a breath closer, less than a step, closing the distance between us to a fraction of an inch. When the sun cut through the clouds above, his substantial shoulders layered me in generous shadow. They still looked delicious. I'd left bite marks on them before; I wondered if I'd be able to strike the same places twice. My mouth fell open helplessly. I could practically taste him again.

If he'd been a revenant, he could have taken me without further discussion; I've been around enough of them to know that the immortal lay claim to what they want, with charm and cunning, perhaps, but without concern for consequences, as they consider themselves, for the most part, above both the laws of mankind and conventional social
politesse
. As a warm-blooded man, chest rising and falling heavily with arousal, Batten stood clasped in the grips of his morals, obedient to law and conscience, his honest heart both a compass and a shackle. For a split second, I wished he wasn't bound by rules at all, but what would freedom from law and conscience do to a vampire hunter?

If I just dragged him to my bedroom and ravished him until we were both breathless and boneless, no one would have to know; I saw the same idea skinny dipping in the bottomless pools of Batten's eyes. It seemed an inescapable destiny that we'd end up nakedly entwined again and again, that fighting it was a fool's game, but nonetheless I took a calming breath and shook my head.

“Agent Batten, thank you for your concern, but I'll be fine. I have people skills now,” I assured him, “and I can be very professional.”

“Professional,” he repeated, as if to clarify.

“Very.” I nodded coolly, which was at odds with the heat I heard in my own voice. At that moment, I would have very professionally stripped him naked and jumped his bones.

He barked a laugh and strode off, shaking his head as he went.
How does he walk that fast with a crippling hard-on?
my brain demanded indignantly. He stopped in the grass with a warning point of one thick forefinger. “Hope you've got one helluva resilient dildo, woman. You're gonna need it.”

I saluted. “I could kill a thousand rabid wolverines with that thing, trust me.” I grimaced at the admission (
See? People skills!
) and followed him around the side of the house in a huff. “Don't flatter yourself, Kill-Notch. I can work with you every minute of the day and it won't bother me one fucking bit.”

He turned on me. “Who's Elian?”

“What?” I threw my arms up again. “Who cares? Elian doesn't matter. It's not like I have no self-control. My middle name isn't Wonderslut.”
That doesn't even start with a J, duh
.

Just then, Hood popped out the front door at a healthy half-jog, leaving the front door open to bass-driven suggestions from Bob Marley in a song I didn't immediately recognize; Hood's arrival snapped my mouth shut like a trap door. With his bag slung over his shoulder, still drying his hair on my monogrammed hand towel, Hood jerked his chin in casual greeting at Batten.

“Hey Batten, what's up? Didn't hear you were back.”

Batten, ever master of the obvious, said, “Sheriff Hood,” and craned stiffly to examine the side of my face. “Look, Marnie, it's Sheriff Hood.”

Hood gave the towel a sniff. “Your body wash smells like peaches and ice cream. It's going to be distracting me all day.”

My mouth opened again and I floundered, left with nothing in my arsenal of witty retorts.

Hood frowned at my inability to speak and continued, “We got mud all up the back of your yoga pants, and ripped them open at the seam.” He indicated with a slashing hand motion that looked like an air-spank.

“Oh. Wow,” I said.
This isn't happening.
“We did, huh? Gosh.”

“Rolling around in a ditch in spandex is a recipe for disaster,” Hood told Batten.

“Anything involving Marnie Baranuik has potential for disaster. Someone should have warned you, Sheriff.” Batten scratched the back of his neck. “Funny, could have sworn I did.”

“Well, we sure found out this morning, didn't we?” Hood made a playful swat at my hair and I dodged it. He tossed the hand towel at me; I swiped it out of the air. “Anyway, I don't know if your pants are salvageable, Mars.”

Mars? When did I become Mars?

“I threw them in the sink in some cold water,” Hood went on. “Hey, did you know your bedroom blinds were up?”

I expelled a soft noise of acknowledgment that came out part whimper part breathy laugh.
Is he messing with me on purpose?
My cheeks began a slow broil.

“You must have opened them just before I came,” Hood said.

Sweet Jesus!
“To my house!” I choked on my tongue, which seemed far too clumsy. “In the morning, yeah I did. You betcha.”

“I'm surprised you opened them. Don't want ol’ Harry going up in a puff of smoke. Or is that a myth?”

Batten's jaw snapped shut, started doing its clench-unclench dance, even as he clearly calculated the best explanation for this situation. He said finally, “Definitely not a myth; older the vamp, bigger the puff.”

“I should have closed the blinds before I stripped down; if you've got neighbors, I sure gave them an eyeful.” Hood smiled at me, bright and innocent, but I caught the distinct whiff of mischief riding on a subtle psi wave from his direction. “They're shut now.”

I stammered something that might have been a thank you, added stupidly “for everything,” which I could tell by the further narrowing of Batten's eyes was instantly misinterpreted.

Hood gave me a stern look down the line of his pointing finger. “Tomorrow morning, six A.M. Practice what I taught you, all day, if necessary. Muscle memory, right?” When I didn't object, he winked. “Good girl.”

Holy crapbaskets.
If I blushed any hotter, I'd probably start piping steam from my ears. Bob Marley started wailing across the front yard about how he wanted to share the shelter of his single bed, and in stunned unison, my eyes and Batten's swung up the driveway to watch Hood's well-toned ass leap into his personally-owned Ford F-150 for a quick getaway.

When the truck was gone, Batten's gaze crept down sidelong to search my face with a frankly businesslike expression. If he was looking for evidence of anything but stupefied embarrassment, he'd have to be a hell of a sleuth.

I opened my mouth, dithered and struggled, and finally ended with a dumbfounded laugh. “Do-over!” I said. “I want a do-over!”

“I bet you do.”

“That was all bad, every minute of it.” Quickly, I opened my mouth to change which foot I had in it.

“Rolling around in the mud?”

“Would you believe I tripped over my own feet and flew headlong into a ditch?”

“I would,” he said easily. “Interesting that you're so twitchy about it, though.”

My molars clacked together and I did a not-at-all intentional Daffy Duck sputter.

Finished with his scrutiny, Batten gave his verdict, “No vulnerability,” then marched to the Bugatti, shaking his head.

Another man who found the possibility of my getting laid implausible. It was an insult I wasn't about to swallow.

“A smoking hot cop steps out of my shower at barely eight A.M. and you think nothing of it?” I shouted at the back of his head. “I could have been blowing him all fucking morning, shitdick!”

“No endorphins, either, Snickerdoodle. See ya.” The Bugatti roared to life and drove off in a quietly impressive controlled fury. The distinctive rumble of the engine faded behind rows of trees.

Now I had images of Batten's body
and
a prolonged fellatio scenario with Sherriff Hood to contend with. I trudged back inside, where it was just me, Bob Marley, and a thousand rabid wolverines.

C
HAPTER
10

I'M A RECOVERING AVOIDAHOLIC,
which is something like an alcoholic, only with more swearing and fewer meetings. When troubles scrunch in the front of my skull, my first impulse has always been to lock myself in the bathroom and soak or crawl under my bed with a bag of Doritos. I'm supposed to be rehabilitated now, so hiding would not do; no shirking my bizarre job, no dodging Batten the mintylicious uber-douche, no concealing myself behind a big palm frond from Hood's earlybirditude.

Harry was right. I had to break Chapel's
dhaugir
bond. It was long overdue. Also, if I were going to continue to work full-time, now that Harry was home, I was going to need help watching over him and Wes during the day. This wasn't as simple as calling a house sitter, or hiring a nanny; one look at the casket downstairs or the blood in the fridge and any rational nanny would bolt. I needed a reliable fix, and knowing Harry, he wasn't about to collaborate on a solution. My place was by his side, and there wasn't any way he'd volunteer a suggestion as to how I could more easily shirk my duties.

I tromped to the boathouse, thinking to fetch my bolline to cut some lemon mint for tea, ruminating on my dilemmas. In the shade by the door, my phone vibrated in my back pocket, setting off a wave of discomfort in my right butt cheek. I dug it out, bracing for more crap from Batten, but the voice was mangled and foreign. I tapped on my emoti-translator and slapped my pockets until I found my Moleskine and golf pencil.

“
Je veux sentir ta varicelle
,” the stranger snarled. The phone showed me a tiny picture of a roast turkey and translated,
I want to sniff your chickenpox
.

I bristled as I transcribed his words into my notebook. “That sounds like a threat, sir. Maybe you ought to find the balls to say it to my face? My place …”
I need Harry for this.
“After dusk?”