Sucker for Love (3 page)

“Yeah.”

“Stranger things
have
happened.”

“Name one.”

“I’ll name three. The mighty T-Rex has gone the way of crocheted ponchos, the Olsen twins have turned from sitcom sweethearts to drug-addicted divas and my orgy-loving brother, Jack, has given up his womanizing ways to marry a human. All seemed impossible at one time, then bam, it happened. Instant miracle.”

He gave me a strange look and shook his head.

“What? Vampires can’t be optimistic?” He opened his mouth to answer a big, fat
No
and I cut him off, “So what do you think happened to Esther?”

He shrugged. “There are several possibilities. You say this guy wasn’t a vampire, right?”

BVs gave off a sweet, succulent unique scent that only other BVs could smell. “The only thing tickling my nose was Giorgio.”

“A made vamp?”

“Maybe.” I couldn’t actually smell an MV, which was why Ty and I had hit it off so well. He didn’t reek of crème brûlé or bread pudding or chocolate ganache, and so he didn’t clash with my eau de cotton candy.

“Maybe he was something else. A were. A demon.” Ash’s gaze locked with mine. “What did his profile say?”

“He didn’t actually fill one out. He just showed up tonight with lots of cash and this.” I handed over the business card with
Justin Barrett Findlay
in black script and an address. “And a Visa Gold card.”

“We’ll run a trace on the Visa number and see if it matches the name and address on the business card. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. If something bad did go down here, I’d be willing to bet this guy didn’t use his real name.” He examined the couch for a few seconds before leaning in and taking a huge whiff. “It doesn’t smell like vamp blood.”

“Meaning?”

“The most likely scenario is that you’re overreacting.
She probably bit him and he turned out to be a bleeder.”

I shook my head. “She didn’t bite him.”

“How do you know?”

“Esther is extremely weight conscious. She would never pig out in front of—or on—a potential eternity mate.”

He shrugged. “We’ll gather some info and see what we can find out about this guy.” He walked to the open ballroom door and signaled two of his men who stood near the buffet table. I figured they were both werewolves, on account of they were practically drooling over the roast beef tray. “Get this scene processed and analyzed,” he told them when they reached us. “Then we’ll know what we’re really dealing with.” He turned to me. “I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

“An hour, right?” I asked hopefully.

“More like twenty-four. We’ll have to bag and tag all the samples, do some testing. That takes time.”

“What do I do in the meantime?”

“You don’t do anything. I’ll handle it from here.”

“You’re going to find her, right?”

He nodded. “If she’s even missing. I’m betting the two of them snuck off somewhere and are having a good time as we speak.” He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and his voice softened. “You should stop worrying and head home. It’ll be daylight soon.”

“If?” My brain was still stuck on the first word. “What do you mean
if?”

“There are a ton of possibilities as to what happened here.”

Sneaking off. Humping like bunnies. Sucking like leeches. I could so relate to that. But this was different. It felt different.

It felt …
wrong.

“She wouldn’t just up and leave without saying good-bye. She’s too nice for that.”

“Maybe she wasn’t thinking too clearly. Desperate women do desperate things.”

Amen.

My mind went blank, giving way to a very vivid image of me minus my clothes. Ash was there, touching and stroking and …

My breasts grew heavy and my tummy tingled.

Bad tummy.

“When’s the last time you had a date?” I blurted, desperate to ignore the lewd and lascivious thoughts that suddenly rushed through my head. “Because if you need one, I would be more than happy to help.” He grinned and reality zapped me. “That is, I could find you someone,” I rushed on. “A nice female demon. Someone you could take home to Papa.”

“I seriously doubt he’d go for that.” His cell phone chose that moment to beep and he shifted his attention to the display. “I’ve got to go. Mo and I are working a case in the Bronx and he just spotted our subject.” His gaze collided with mine and his eyes smoldered again for a split second. “Will you be all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I shrugged. “You said yourself, it’s probably nothing.”

“I could drop you off at home on my way out.”

And I’d sit next to him in the backseat of a cab? As it was, I had the crazy urge to strip naked and haul him into the nearest storage closet. A dark, cramped backseat would surely send me over the edge into nympho-land.

My legs shook and I felt the wetness between my thighs. I stiffened at the realization. I knew why I was having such an intense physical reaction to him (he was a sexual demon, after all), but it didn’t make it any less startling.

Get thee behind me, slut.

I licked my lips and gathered my strength. “Thanks, but no thanks.” I couldn’t help lusting after him, but I could keep from acting on that lust.

Think Ty.

Think monogamy.

Think happily ever after.

Think.

“You go on,” I told him. “I still need to pack up a few things here.”

He stared at me long and hard, his eyes dark and hot and oh, so dreamy, but I held my ground.

“Suit yourself,” he finally said.

I watched him disappear (thankyouthankyouthankyou) into the elevator. The doors whooshed shut, and just like that the strange sensations subsided.

I spent the next hour watching Ash’s men bag and tag. Finally, they gave the go-ahead for Nina to have the sofa moved to a storage closet to await disposal. They spent a few more minutes questioning the waitstaff and then they left. Nina had a new sofa brought up from storage and soon the sitting area looked as picture perfect as when I’d first walked in that evening.

There wasn’t a trace of Esther left behind.

The realization made my eyes water and I blinked frantically.

Ash was probably right. It was probably nothing. Just a great big misunderstanding.

That’s what I told myself as I grabbed the last of my things and loaded them into a box.

The problem was, deep in my heart I didn’t actually believe it.

I
was not going to cry.

Because I’m, of course, a badass vampire and BAVs did
not
cry unless a) they were on the sharp, pointy end of a stake, b) they were being burned alive by overzealous villagers or c) they ruined a pair of high dollar Zac Posen booties while chasing an extra from
The Exorcist
(hey, confession is good for the soul, right?).

A missing client/friend didn’t score waterworks.

Unless it was the client/friend who’d stuck with me through not one but twenty-nine failed dates (thirty if you count tonight’s bloodbath). Despite Esther’s long list of losers, she’d kept trying. Hoping. Believing.

In me and in her sucky social life.

I wiped at a big fat tear that squeezed past my
eyelashes, picked up my box and headed down the elevator. The concierge helped me outside and flagged down a cab. I loaded my stuff into the backseat and climbed in.

I know, I know. I was Super Vamp. I could leap tall buildings in a single bound. Listen in on every conversation for a three block radius. Sniff out a one-of-a-kind Donna Karan bag from a mile away. I should just do the pink fuzzy bat gig and save a few bucks, right?

Unfortunately, I had a bad habit of losing things during the metamorphosis and I was decked out in all my faves tonight. Besides, a bat toting a box of name tags and a credit card machine? How inconspicuous was that?

“Where to?” The female cabbie eyed me in the mirror. Her name was Evelyn and she lived in Brooklyn. She had four kids, ten dogs and twenty-two hamsters. She’d had twenty-three but just last night she’d had to flush one because one of her labs had tried to use it for a chew toy.

A mental picture hit me and my stomach pitched.

Sometimes being a highly sensitive Super V wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“Take a left at the corner and head east.” I gave her my address before settling back into the seat and pulling out my cell phone.

I had three texts and two voice mails. I punched in my mailbox code and waited for Ty’s frantic
Are you all right?

Instead, my mother’s exasperated, “What’s the point of having a cell phone if you don’t answer it?” blared in my ear.

Before I could hit the
DELETE
button, she rushed on, “Then again, what’s the point of having a premium fertility rating if you’re just going to waste it on a human woman who has no hope in the universe of giving birth to an heir to carry on the sacred Marchette name.”

O-kay.

“Obviously, said human has discovered that she can still give birth thanks to your brother’s premium born vampire sperm, which can fertilize
any
egg. But without two vampire chromosomes to make it a pure blood, the child is obviously doomed to be inferior.”

In layman’s terms?
Human.

“I swear,” she added, “I would slit both my wrists if I thought it would put me out of my misery. But the last time I did that, your father thought I was trying to seduce him with a snack. We ended up having sex on my imported Belgian rug.”

I
so
didn’t need to know that.

“Needless to say, I couldn’t find a dry cleaner in Connecticut who would touch it. I ended up shipping it to a filthy expensive preservatory.” She heaved a sigh.
“Never
again. If your brother thinks I’m ruining another rug just because he has this crazy idea that he’s going to give me a human grandchild, then he’s sorely mistaken. I’m not going to stand by and let
him sully our family’s name. I mean, really. What will everyone say?”

Everyone
meaning the card-carrying members of the Connecticut Huntress Club. Also known as the local 101 for snotty, pretentious, born female vampires.

My mother had been the refreshments chairwoman for the past three de cades. She passed out glasses of AB—and O+ along with a primo sales pitch to hook me up with available sons, nephews, grandsons, great nephews, great grandsons, uncles, cousins, friends of cousins, friends of friends of cousins—namely any born male vamp with a penis, a fertility rating and a bank account.

Gee, thanks Ma.

“I simply won’t let it happen,” she declared. “We’ve never ever had an actual human in our family tree until now.”

Three words—Great-uncle Peter.

“Oh, wait. There is Peter. Last I heard, he was still shacking up with that cocktail waitress from Vegas. But we all know he hasn’t been right in the head since he bit that priest back during the Crusades. And as crazy as he is, he still hasn’t gone so far as to marry the woman. Last I’d heard they were barely sharing an email account. It’s that Mandy, I tell you. She’s bewitching your poor brother until he can’t even think for himself …”
Beep.

The message timed out and my mom’s tirade ended. I sent up a silent
Thank you
to the CEV (Chief
Executive Vampire) of Upstairs, Inc., for sparing me more misery.

I checked the phone number on the second message—so much for mercy—and hit the
DELETE
key before moving on to the texts.

The first was from Nina Two about five minutes before I’d discovered the bloody couch.
Knock em dead 2nite.

My chest tightened and I blinked frantically. If only she knew.

I pulled up the second message, which had come through thirty seconds later.

OMG.

What can I say? Good news travels fast with my BFFs.

Number three?
Miss u. Want to lick u all ovr.

Uh, yeah. She’d obviously mistaken me for Wilson, her significant other. At least I was hoping as much. While some BVs buttered their bread on both sides, I’d never been one of them. I’d take Brad over Ang any day.

My hands flew over the keypad.
No lickng 2-night. How bout shopping 2-mrow?

I hit
SEND
and stashed my phone just as the cab pulled up in front of my place.

The renovated duplex that housed my apartment wasn’t anywhere close to the plush high-rise near Central Park that my parents kept for those last-minute city trips. No marbled foyer. No private elevator. No blood-slave/doorman named Maurice. Not
even a porch light. Rather, my building had three concrete steps leading to a very narrow stoop and a single glow-in-the-dark door buzzer.

I handed the driver a ten, a DED card and a mental
You’re desperately lonely and should call for a date ASAP.
What can I say? She was female and, therefore, unsusceptible to my BV charm, but I gave it a shot anyway. Sexual preference was such a gray area these days and I hated to miss a prime advertising op.

“Thanks,” she murmured. Her gaze caught and held mine in the rearview mirror. Sure enough, I saw an image of the two of us playing a game of strip poker.