ENTANGLED (51 page)

Nearly an hour later, Grant stepped out of the hospital’s emergency room to where Rafe and Moira waited outside, under an awning to keep dry. Rafe had given Moira his trench coat, and now she needed it. But she wasn’t going to leave before they knew if Carter was going to be all right.

Moira said, “How is he?”

“They don’t know,” Grant said. “It would help if we knew what he was poisoned with.”

“No one will believe magic,” Moira said.

“If they pumped his stomach, he should be okay,” Rafe said. “It was either foxglove or bloodroot. Possibly belladonna, but either way, getting it out of his system and monitoring him should do it.”

“I told the doctor food poisoning, and they’re going to shut down the club until they can get the health department in, but dammit! This wasn’t supposed to happen!” Grant glared at them. “What happened? I want the truth.”

“The owner of the club is Rex,” Moira said. “I don’t know his last name. His girlfriend or whoever she was, is in the photograph from the camp. Where is it?”

Grant reached into a thin file and pulled it out.

Moira picked her out immediately. “Her.”

“Tessa Standler? She’s seventeen.”

“No. She’s at least ten years older.”

“Maybe she’s her sister.”

“It was
her
. I’m certain.”

Grant was skeptical, but said, “I need physical proof.” He turned to Rafe. “You promised this wouldn’t happen—you were supposed to watch out for Carter.”

“I was, but Moira was in trouble.”

Moira didn’t know what exactly had happened. “It was a draw,” she said. “I couldn’t get away, she couldn’t get at me.”

Rafe disagreed. “She was draining you, Moira, and you didn’t see it. She’s a psychic vampire. She doesn’t need your blood, she feeds on your energy.”

Maybe Rafe was right. Whatever had happened, Moira hadn’t experienced it before.

“What now?” she asked.

“I’m taking you both back to your hotel. Do not leave until you hear from me.”

As soon as they walked into the hotel room, Moira began checking their protections against black magic and demons. Rafe closed the door and grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him.

“I’m—”

“Nothing’s been disturbed.”

She wanted to ask him how he knew, but there was a dark cloud over Rafe’s face and then he was kissing her. His fingers pressed firmly into her bare shoulders, just short of hurting, and his lips where fierce, devouring her mouth with a desire she didn’t expect.

Who was she kidding? All night, from the minute Grant picked them up at the hotel until they left the hospital several hours later, Rafe had been watching her with his bottomless blue eyes—watching her closer than necessary.

His hands moved down her back, kneading her muscles, bringing her closer to him. His fingers didn’t stop moving, skimming every inch of her skin, burning in their urgency. Lust and love joined in a heated passion Moira couldn’t stop, didn’t want to even try to control.

Rafe’s hands moved down to her corset, unhooking each button one by one down her back. Rushed, unable to get it off fast enough for either of them. When the last hook was released, it fell to the floor, her breasts freed from the restraint. Rafe pushed her back until her thighs hit the bed, then she was on her back and Rafe’s mouth was on first one breast then the other, his hands kneading and rubbing, creating an erotic friction that was just shy of being painful. His hair was still damp from the rain that continued to steadily fall outside. She breathed in his raw smell, sweat and soap and a hint of aftershave so subtle she couldn’t discern what it was.

She pushed at his shoulders, wanting his shirt off, his skin against hers, but he didn’t yield. Rafe’s mouth moved from her breasts, up her throat, his breath coming fast, his hands touching her everywhere he could reach. The sounds from her chest were unfamiliar as he touched places she had no idea were erogenous. His hands held her head firmly, and she thought he was going to kiss her, then he turned her head and kissed her behind her ear, his tongue taunting the sensitive skin, until Moira gasped.

She pulled his shirt out of his pants. His skin was hot, almost burning, but she was used to the heat he generated. She broke into a sweat, the intensity of Rafe’s embrace turning her into a furnace.

“Off,” she commanded, pulling at his shirt. She heard a button pop. Then another.

He sat up and pulled both the button-down and the T-shirt over his head. She stared at his face, his expression a mix of passion and deep need. Then he laid back on top of her, his mouth on hers. She almost couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t want him to stop. Never had Rafe been so demanding of her, giving her his full self, claiming her full self.

Their struggle with his pants and her skirt was short. He unhooked her garters, and her panties fell off. His fingers touched her between the legs and she cried out, a sudden tornado inside her, spinning out of control. She didn’t need to guide Rafe into her, he was already there, replacing his fingers with his penis and sinking into her with one deep stroke.

Rafe held himself in check a moment, on the verge of explosion. But he didn’t want slow and easy. As soon as Moira reached down and grabbed his ass, he gave and took what they both wanted, what they both needed, at that moment.

He wrapped his arms around her body, both holding her close while pinning her with his weight to the bed. He planted his feet on the floor for support. He buried his face into her neck, her thick hair smelling wonderfully like lavender and soap and rain.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear. He didn’t know if she heard him, didn’t care. His body was filled with intensity for this woman, a love and passion so profound, so deep, it made him near-crazy. “I love you,” he repeated.

Her legs wrapped around his waist while her hands were around his neck. She had put herself in a vulnerable position, all for him. Moira was hardly helpless, her steel shields making her rough around the edges. But right here, right now, her complete trust in him, in
them
was the strongest aphrodisiac.

“Rafe,” she gasped. “Rafe.”

Her muscles clenched around him and he lost himself in her.

Moira finished brushing her hair, damp from their shared shower, then slid into the bed Rafe had warmed for her. She thought for a moment he was asleep, then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her warmly. She sighed, a blissful moment of happiness in her crazy and dangerous life.

She rested her head on his bare shoulder and said, “I love you.”

He kissed the top of her head and held her, his right hand caressing her arm. They didn’t speak for several minutes, but sleep wasn’t quickly coming. Then he said, “I was scared tonight. Something was happening to you on the dance floor. I don’t know what it was, but you were in danger.”

“We’re always in danger.”

“This was different.”

Moira didn’t discount Rafe’s concerns, but she’d faced witches more deadly than Rex and Tessa. So had he. And after battling two corporeal demons, they hadn’t terrified her. She didn’t enjoy the bloody visions she had while Tessa touched her, but she was blocking the worst.

“It wasn’t fun, but I was handling their battle magic.”

“I think they were trying to distract you and weaken you. I heard something—that Baphomet was coming.”

Moira raised her head. “Heard?”

“A voice.”

“A ghost?”

“I don’t know.”

She lowered her head. She didn’t know if he was telling the complete truth. “I think,” she began slowly, “that both of us are becoming more...
sensitive
to the supernatural energy around us. I don’t like it, but it is what it is. As long as we don’t use magic, we’ll be okay.” She hoped. She didn’t understand it anymore than Rafe did. Magic had been a part of her life from the very beginning, until seven years ago she’d turned her back on that world after so many people were hurt or killed.

“Maybe.”

“Do you think Carter is going to make it?”

“I don’t know that, either. I’m more worried about the curse they put on him than the poison.”

“We should have known he was in danger.” It had been bothering Moira ever since they took him to the hospital. “He didn’t know what to expect. We shouldn’t bring outsiders into our war.”

Rafe didn’t say anything. He stared at the ceiling.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I knew Carter was in trouble. I told him not to drink anything, but I should have gotten him out right then. Except I knew you were in danger. More danger than you thought.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You
were
!”

She flinched from his sudden rage. He wrapped his arms around her tight; she put her palm over his pounding heart.

Maybe she was threatened. She had certainly been in pain, but they hadn’t gotten in.

“You can take care of yourself, I know that,” he said. “But sometimes you push it. You don’t care what happens to you as long as you stop
them
. But I care.”

“I had a death wish for a long time after Peter was killed,” Moira admitted. “But not anymore.” She rolled on top of him and kissed him firmly. “I have too much to live for.” She kissed him again, then settled back down. “I have a responsibility to send the Seven Deadly Sins back to Hell. We face evil that most people don’t even believe exists. I hate it, but I can’t turn my back on it. But I promise not to be reckless. Not when I have you to live for.”

“You have more than me.” Rafe stroked her back, giving her more love and comfort in the easy caress than she had before she’d met him.

“But you’re the most important. Before you, I really didn’t care about anyone or anything except finding my mother and stopping her. But now? I dare to see a future. Because of you, I have hope I never believed in.”

As Moira drifted off to sleep, one leg and one arm draped over his body, Rafe considered his true motives in choosing to help Moira first, over Carter. At the time he’d been so irritated—
angry
—at the cop for how he treated Moira, how he looked at her, how he touched her. Jealousy, plain and simple. A feeling completely foreign to Rafe he didn’t know how to deal with it. It didn’t help that Moira was striking. She’d never flaunted her sex appeal—he doubted she even gave it any thought—until tonight. But when she needed to, she used everything at her disposal. And tonight, that meant her body and her beauty.

He mentally ran through what happened when he saw Moira on the dance floor with the blonde, Tessa Standler. He’d then realized it wasn’t Rex who was the greatest danger to Moira, it was Tessa. Every cell in his body had pushed him to get Moira away from her. He acted without conscious thought. Pure, primal instinct.

Because he knew what Tessa was. A vampire. Not the Hollywood immortal sleep in a coffin vampire, but a devout follower of Baphomet, the Blood Demon. She had power that was not simple magic. The negative energy that Moira had felt was Tessa and her sphere of influence. The evil oozed out of her, surrounded her, and she could draw it in at any time and use it against anyone she chose.

Rafe not only knew what Tess was, he knew her endgame. She was preparing herself to become a vessel for Baphomet. She was seeking immortality, and would have it as long as Baphomet was satiated.

This wasn’t the first time Rafe had known something he shouldn’t know. And the more it happened, the more he feared what he was becoming.

Pounding on the hotel door had both Rafe and Moira jump out of bed from a dead sleep, each reaching for their knives. Rafe checked the peephole as Moira slipped on jeans.

“It’s Grant.” Rafe put down his knife and opened the door.

“Neither of you answered your phone,” the cop grumbled as he walked in.

“You look like shit,” Moira said.

Unshaven with bloodshot eyes, Grant was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before. Rafe said, “Carter?”

“Same as last night.”

Meaning, still unconscious and the doctors didn’t know what was wrong. But to Rafe, that was a good sign. If he wasn’t worse than the night before, they had gotten to him in time.

“Tori Schaffer is missing,” Grant said.

Tori was one of the girls from Amy and Beth’s cabin at the nature camp.

“Tori? Didn’t you stake out Tessa Standler’s house?”

“I did. She was home all night.”

“That’s impossible. Unless she had someone else snatch Tori,” Moira said.

“She’s not the girl in the picture. I showed it to her this morning after I found out Tori was missing. Both Tessa and her mother looked at the picture. Not only was it
not
Tessa, she hadn’t been at the camp that week. She’d been the year before. As soon as I looked at the photo next to Tess, I realized that while there’s a passing resemblance, it’s not the same girl.”