Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two (33 page)

Trust Nik to use those words against me, less than two weeks later.

A pulse of warmth pressed into the center of my chest.

“I do worry about you,”
he said, softer.
“I am touched that you worry about me, Dakota.”

“Of course I do!”
I snapped at him through the link.
“Jesus, Nik. What were you thinking, going in there? You’re still new here...do you have to take so many damned risks? All the time? Hell, you couldn’t have even
asked
me, first?”

The warmth in my chest only increased. It radiated out over my ribcage and belly from the lock, holding heat, but also a more gentle affection.

“Go,”
he repeated, softer.
“I am thinking about sex again. It’s distracting.”

I shook my head, but only a little.
 

I didn’t raise my head from where I had it slumped over the bar, hoping no one would notice from my facial expressions that I was having a conversation with someone in my head.

“Unbelievable.”
Still shaking my head, I muttered,
“You are one smooth operator, Nikhil Jamri. I’m starting to realize just how smooth...and just how often it works on me.”

“I mean it,”
he said. His thoughts turned less cajoling, holding a blunter edge.
“I’m not playing you,”
he clarified, again borrowing words from me.
“I want to fuck. I can’t work while I’m thinking about that. I can’t transform, either...not quickly enough. You need to go, Dakota. I am already here. Let me do this. It will help both of us. It may help you find those girls.”

I felt my fingers clench on my thighs through the jeans I wore.

Frustration swam over me as I tried to decide if he was using the lock to manipulate me, like he’d once accused me of doing to him.

“Please.”
His voice turned softer, back into a caress.
“Please, Dakota. I’m not trying to manipulate you. You can tell me how I’m saying all of this wrong later...and we can talk about sex then, too, if you want. You can try and talk me into it again.”
That heated feeling returned to my chest.
“You should know, unless my feelings change by then, I’ll probably let you...”

Snorting lightly, I shook my head again at that. I couldn’t help it.

Still, humor wasn’t my only reaction, and both of us knew it.
 

“Please,”
he said.
“I need you to go. Now, Dakota.”

Thinking about his words, I conceded defeat.
 

For real that time.

I wanted to know what they were talking about, too.
 

More than that, if Nik didn’t learn something about what Razmun was doing here, we had nothing. I had nothing...and the clock was running down on those girls. I understood Nik’s urgency too, even if it annoyed me, given how many risks he was taking. We still didn’t know for sure where Razmun and the other morph were holed up.

I felt a pulse of relief off Nik as I mulled over his words, enough to know that he must have followed at least the bare progression of my thoughts. I still felt those more heated glimmers behind that relief, but yeah, Nik wanted to know what Razmun, Evers and the well-dressed Slavs were up to, as well, maybe even more than I did.

He wanted to know what Razmun was up to especially, I suspected.
 

I knew he felt responsible for bringing Razmun to Earth. I knew that brought conflicts, that none of it was uncomplicated for him...but I also knew Nik loved me, even if he’d never said as much to me directly. I knew Nik felt guilty about what had happened to me since he’d entered my life. He also worried Razmun posed a threat to me...more than any of the humans who currently wanted me dead. Even Evers, I suspected.

Nik was also pretty serious about getting me out of there so he could work...and, more likely, so I wouldn’t know just how damned risky whatever he was doing truly was.

“Fine,”
I said, exhaling again.

I slid off the stool as I thought it at him, landing in my rubber-soled boots on the sticky, tile floor. Yanking my jacket off the seat, I shouldered it back on. Then, glancing around quickly before I did it, I leaned down and scooped up Nik’s shirt, pants, belt and even the rings, which I shoved in my own jean pockets. Gripping his boots in my free hand, I gave one more quick glance around, then headed for the back door.

“I’ll let you know where your clothes are once I find a place to hide them,”
I informed him.
“Then I’m out of here. I’m leaving now.”

“Where?”
he said at once.

“Where?”
I said, snorting.
“Didn’t you just tell me to get out of here, Nik?”

“I mean, where will you be?”

I thought about his words, but not for long.

“The modeling agency,”
I said, making up my mind even as I said it.
“I have a few new questions for Ms. Constance Culare...”

Luckily, the back door popped open on a brick alley.

Within a few minutes, I found a cardboard box filled with old, dried-out newspaper that was perfect for hiding Nik’s clothes and his boots. Someone might still find them, of course, but unless Nik was in there a lot longer than I hoped he would be, I doubted it.

Anyway, if that happened, Nik could probably transform into a bird or something, and get home that way.

So I stuffed the clothes and boots in under the newspaper and left the box near a dumpster, thinking most people who saw it would assume it was trash.

The sky had changed since I’d last been outside. It hung heavy and low now, covered in a gray blanket of clouds that left a lot of glare but no visible sun.

Realizing I was just standing there, despite what I’d promised Nik, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket, aiming my steps reluctantly for the street at the end of the alley. I really didn’t want to leave him there, but I knew he was right, that it would be needlessly risky for me to stay. Moreover, if they saw me around, they might look for Nik. In the process, Razmun might think to question the presence of a black cat in the bar’s back room.

So yeah, after tugging it back and forth in my head for a few minutes longer, I left.

I only accessed the link long enough to tell Nik where I’d left his clothes. At that point, I really didn’t want to distract him, but yeah, I was worried.

I told myself again that he’d be all right. That it was a risk worth taking.
 

Nik was smart. He wouldn’t take any unnecessary chances. I hoped.

Like Gantry always said about this line of work, I had to be practical. That meant being practical about Nik, too.

I still didn’t like it. I also couldn’t help wondering if that very thing––meaning how easily Nik could get killed down here, given who he was and the forces aligned against both of us these days––might be part of the reason I was still keeping him at arm’s length. A part of me just couldn’t see how things would end well with the two of us. Not just in terms of any kind of romantic relationship, but with Nik and Razmun and the other morph being on Earth at all.

Shoving that from my mind, I decided I’d think about it later.

I had other things I needed to deal with first.

Right or wrong, I was still on the job.

Once I hit the main street, I held up an arm to hail a cab. A yellow cab slowed down as it approached my section of curb, right around the time I made up my mind to focus back on the immediate thing, meaning the job I’d actually been hired to do.

The rest of it could wait. Well, at least until I heard back from Nik.

For now, I was going to do what I’d told Nik I would do, and make another visit to the modeling agency.
 

This time, I needed to have a little chat with Madam Culare, herself.

14

A Tip and a Tumble

Luckily, Ms. Constance Culare happened to be in.

I didn’t have to wait long for her, either, but got ushered into her corner office only a few minutes after I told her assistant, Clarice, (who still wore the Jessica Rabbit outfit), that I really needed a word with the big boss.

Still giving me looks that came off as more than half-flirtatious, Clarice asked me over her bare shoulder where my beautiful “friend” had gone. She grinned like a big kid when I told her Nik was running down a lead for me. I’d already figured out that it was my job that intrigued her, more than my winning personality, but Jessica Rabbit’s sheer delight that I had people “running down leads” almost made me laugh out loud.

I managed to contain myself, however.

“Come right in,” Jessica Rabbit sing-songed a few seconds later, poking her head out of Ms. Culare’s office door after she’d slipped inside to check her availability.

Clarice continued to clutch the wooden door, beaming at me as I approached.

She didn’t move out of the way as I walked up to her, either, and I found myself having to push gently past her partly-bare body to get through the door, which struck me as a little bit invasive. I pretended not to notice any of that, though, focusing instead on Ms. Culare herself, who sat behind the same old fashioned desk I remembered from our first meeting.

I didn’t want to waste her time or mine, so I got right to the point.

“Who gave you the tip about me?” I said, blunt.

Ms. Culare’s perfectly penciled eyebrow rose.
 

“Excuse me?” she said. “And how are you, Ms. Reyes? Would you like some coffee?”

Behind me, Jessica Rabbit giggled.

I ignored her. I also ignored Ms. Culare’s implied rebuke about my social graces.

“The tip on me,” I repeated. “Where did you get it?”

Ms. Culare looked behind me, barely seeming to hear my words.

“You can go now, Clarice,” she said, her voice calm, but significantly less subtle in its rebuke. “Apparently our meeting has formally begun.”

I didn’t react to the implied wrist-slap that time, either. I also didn’t turn to watch the assistant go...although I did wait until I heard the door close behind me.

“Not trying to be rude, but it’s urgent...I need to know where you got the tip,” I said, once I heard the click. Remembering that not everyone spoke in me and Gantry-speak, I clarified, “My name, Ms. Culare. Who gave it to you? Who told you about me and what I do for a living...how to find me?” Flushing a little when I realized I was still coming off as overly aggressive, I shrugged. “...I’ve been out of the country for awhile,” I explained, subduing my voice. “Most people don’t know I’m back in Seattle at all, Ms. Culare. Now I also have reason to believe someone might have been setting me up, putting me on this job.”