Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(15)

I stood in the doorway of the bridal shop watching and happy to be ignored in tactical pants, an oversized zippered sweatshirt, and cross-trainers. The sweatshirt hid all my weapons easily, the Springfield EMP at my waist with my badge tucked beside it, and a Sig Sauer P238 on the other side for a cross draw along with two ammo carriers on the other side of my belt. Behind the ammo carriers was a fixed-blade Spyderco. I’d skipped the big knife in its spine sheath that I usually wore so I could slump in all the chairs like a teenage boy, or that was what my stepmother had told me when I did it. I had put on the two wrist sheaths with their matching knives. I’d worn them so many years that the feel of them around my forearms was reassuring. In most dressier women’s clothes, I could never have conceal-carried all of it, or at least not easily. I was beginning to remember why I’d dressed like this for years, besides having no fashion sense. Luckily Jean-Claude had enough fashion sense for both of us.

I was debating on rescuing Damian from his fans, or just waving as I went for my car and the crime scene, when they finally moved on, giggling again. I’d never been the kind of woman who giggled much, and it was usually done in private if it had to be done at all.

I started walking toward Damian but spotted another group of women dressed for the club heading this way. I didn’t have time for him to pose with a group that large, or the two couples just behind them. Damian grabbed my arm and pulled me into the alley out of sight from the sidewalk.

I was laughing by the time he had us tucked back into a well of deeper shadows. It was not a giggle, but the laugh was a little higher than normal. I wrapped my arms around his waist, my fingers caressing the silk and the body underneath as I hugged him. He put his arms higher up my back to avoid my weapons. We ended up pressed against each other as close as we could get.

He smiled down at me. “I really appreciate you carrying your guns farther back so I can hug you without risking injury.”

I snuggled harder against the front of him, so that I could feel that his body wasn’t happy to see me yet. “You haven’t fed yet, or you’d be happier to see me.”

He stroked his fingertips down the side of my face. “I’m always happy to see you,” he said.

“I’ve got a crime scene to go to,” I said.

His grip loosened around me. “Are people in danger?”

“No, the victim is already dead. I’m just giving my expertise.”

He tightened his hug again, smiling. “How much time do you have?”

“Not that much, and in the alley, really?” I laughed again, and this one was definitely not a giggle, but the kind of laugh that makes men turn their heads in bars to locate the woman who made it. Boy, would they be disappointed to see me dressed like this.

“I did not mean intercourse,” he said, laughing, “and it’s your date night with Jean-Claude. I was thinking a kiss.”

“A kiss I can do.”

He leaned down and I went up on tiptoe to meet him, sliding my body up the length of his as I did it, which would have been a lot more exciting if he’d taken blood tonight. Until he did that his body couldn’t react to anything.

We kissed with his body quiet against mine, at least below the waist. Above the waist his hands slid over my body, and he moved me back just enough so he could touch my breasts. It made me wish I’d worn a lower-necked T-shirt, or an untucked one. My hands roamed the silk of his shirt and searched for an opening.

He kissed his way down my throat until his lips rested just over the big pulse in my neck. He hesitated and I felt his need roll through me like it was my own. He was my vampire servant as I was Jean-Claude’s human servant, but I didn’t have hundreds of years of experience controlling the metaphysics. So sometimes who was in control of whom got a little fuzzy.

I spoke low and carefully, afraid if I lost control of my voice we’d lose control of more. “Why haven’t you fed?”

“I’d planned to feed at the club tonight.” And just the feel of his words against my throat sped my pulse.

“Like usual,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said, and then licked across my pulse, just a flick of his tongue, but it drew a small involuntary sound from me.

“The police are waiting for me.” I said it out loud like a competent adult who had a badge that said U.S. Marshal on it, but I stayed pressed to his body.

Damian drew back from my neck enough to speak without his lips brushing against my skin. “I’m supposed to be inside trying on wedding clothes,” he said. His eyes were solid green; his power had spread and swallowed his pupils so his eyes glowed. If I hadn’t been his master he could have bespelled me with those eyes. I could have dropped my control and let him roll me, let him take blood, let us have sex, let us . . . I pushed away from him, so I was standing rather than clinging to him.

“You need to try on clothes and get to work at Danse Macabre,” I said, but I dropped my gaze so I wasn’t staring into those eyes. It wasn’t his magic but mine that made us want each other.

“And you need to go do police things,” he said.

“We need to be grown-ups,” I said.

“Yes, we do, but I love that you want me as much as I want you.”

That made me look up; his eyes had faded back to as ordinary as they got, which wasn’t very ordinary. He still had the greenest eyes of any person I’d ever met. True green like a cat’s eyes can be, not the gray-green, or blue-green, or the hazel that most people call green. It wasn’t vampire powers that made his eyes beautiful; they’d always been this color even before he died.