Dead Sexy (8 page)

I bobbed forward fast, keeping my hands up to protect my face. My knife was clenched solidly in my hand. I’d have preferred a stun gun—or a hand grenade—but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Hair was streaming down my face, making it hard to see. My dress would never be the same. The pale fabric was stained with blood, sweat, and brain matter. 

He struck first. Shimmying forward. A few quick steps and he hit me with a sharp jab that feinted to my left and left me open to an uppercut from the right. The Biter hit hard, connecting solidly with my face.

I was boxing out of my weight class, and it didn’t feel good.
At all
. I licked my lip, tasting blood.

No more playing games. I lunged forward. The knife went up. I delivered a left hook that would have made the guys at the gym proud and brought my knife into play. Blood coated my hand as I slashed at his body. Not that he seemed to care. Biters didn’t feel pain. No, I corrected myself. He’d given up the right to polite names when he’d attacked me with a horde of other dead men at his back.

The thing was a zombie. A monster. The kind of terror that went bump in the night.

Freak. I got him solidly in the face, slicing open his cheek, but he just kept coming. The monster hit hard.

Like a California earthquake only without the delightful aftershocks.

It was just one solid slam after another. His fists connected with my shoulders. My gut. My face. I got a few good slashes in, but mostly I was being beaten. Soundly.

My body faltered, and I stumbled back against D.S.

“Hell,” the federally issued Biter growled. There was a solid thwacking sound. I couldn’t tell whether it was a foot from the crowd connecting with my bruised and broken body or something D.S. had done, but then he turned and stepped carefully over my prone body. He gave my attacker a long, hard look. “You’re pretty good—picking on a bantam-weight girl with a pulse—want to try me on for size?”

The fighting zombie grinned. “Hell, yeah.” He gave D.S. a nod. “Bring it on. I’ve been itching for a real fight.”

“Good.” D.S. drew his gun and shot in one-smooth motion.

Bang. The gunshot echoed through the brick alley, so loud it made my head ring. The world was spinning. I struggled to flip myself over onto my belly, doubling over to clutch my battered body.

Nausea slammed through me in waves. I felt like vomiting.

I felt like dying.

“Gemma!” D.S.’s hand was cool against my shoulder. “Damn it, Gemma! Talk to me. Tell me… did he bite you?” He was shaking me now, like a dog with a favorite toy. His hands were rough against my skin. His face was so damn pretty; all cheekbones and golden skin.

He was so pretty.

Had he really kissed me? I laughed at the thought. The man was dead. Really, truly dead. Like a doorknob. Or a doornail. I couldn’t remember.

I felt light headed from loss of blood and internal bruising.

Maybe I really was dying.

“Answer me, damn it!” D.S. growled. “Are you going to turn?”

“It’s not possible.”

The world flickered and went dark.

11.

Bright flickering lights battered against me. I could hear singing in the background. The man’s voice sounded out over the otherworldly hum. The notes were beautiful strung together like a pearl necklace of sound. The words were all Greek to me… or Italian… or Yiddish… I’m not exactly a whiz at foreign languages.

It had finally happened. I’d died and gone to Heaven. Why not? I might be a foul-mouthed troublemaker with a tendency to violence, but I treat my mother nice—most of the time—and I’m a virgin. Throw on some fluffy white robes and I’m a freaking angel.

My eyes popped open, and I stared up at the mortuary’s familiar vaulted ceiling with its intricate golden molding. I was laid out flat on one of the cold metal tables that we use to prepare dead bodies before a viewing. It wasn’t exactly reassuring.

I levered myself into an upright position. My body was sore all over. My head was pounding.

I wasn’t dead.

I couldn’t be dead.

I hurt too much to be dead.

“I was going to take you back to my hotel room, but why risk getting blood on the sheets when I could just bring you here?” D.S. asked. “Your Biter let me in. Donny. He wasn’t happy.” The federal agent was lying on a metal table next to mine. His jacket was folded under his head. His arms were crossed over his chest. “I’m not happy. No more fighting, Gemma. The next time you scare me like that, I’ll turn you over my knee and beat your ass until you scream.”

Not only was I alive, but I was getting a lecture.

From someone who wasn’t my mother.

“Fuck. You,” I rasped.

D.S. sat up and turned to face me. His legs swung off the side of the metal table. Emerald eyes gleamed across the narrow space. An arm unfolded and he reached out to run a finger across my leg. The sensation was sharp and sizzling. He grinned. “I never said why you’d be screaming.”

Oh, damn. Lust hit me like a lightning bolt. Heat sizzled down my spine and rolled all the way down to my toes. 

Living or dead, I didn’t give a damn. A girl can only take so much, and after more than twenty-four hours in close proximity with the sexiest dead man alive—a man who listened to what I had to say and was willing to shoot zombies to keep me alive—I was ready to go.

My body thrummed anxiously as I swung my legs over the side of the table. My body was wobbly. I reached out to grab for him, wrapping my arms around his neck. My lips brushed against his mouth, fluttering softly.

“Damn,” D.S. swore quietly. “You kiss like a school girl.”

“Hick didn’t seem to mind.”

“I’m going to make you forget about him.” His hand dropped my wrist and lifted to cup my chin. His head dipped once, twice, returning my soft kisses with gentle touches of his mouth against mine. Then he leaned into me. His body tensed as his mouth pressed against my lips. He tasted like whiskey and meat. His lips were cool to the touch, but after a moment they warmed against mine. His hand flickered against my cheek.

It felt like there was a direct line of electricity moving connecting our two bodies.

My hands dug into his flesh. My hips bucked wildly. I needed to feel him against me. To run my hands over his strong muscular body, touching every single inch of him.

I felt like I was flying.

“You’re so damn alive,” D.S. spoke quietly against my mouth. “I can’t believe I almost lost you.” His fingers curled around my waist. His body was so big, so strong, solid and reassuring. His lips drifted away from my mouth, moving down to nuzzle at the soft curve where my neck met my collarbone. “I—.”

His body went rigid. He took a step back, yanking himself away from me. Fast. His foot banged against the metal table. His jaw was tight. His eyes glittered with cold fire. “You’ve been bitten.”

.

12.

“No. It’s impossible.” My hands balled up into fists. D.S. was lying. He had to be lying. There was no freaking way I’d been bitten. No way. Not even when the second zombie had snapped at me. His mouth so close I could hear the ‘clack’ of his jaw closing. Feel the pressure of his teeth against my skin.

The pain.

Shit. He had bitten me.

My body was shaking. Hard. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. My mouth was open, but all the air in the room seemed to have vanished. I swallowed, hard. “It’s not possible,” I forced each word out through clenched teeth. “It’s been at least twenty minutes—.”

“Closer to an hour,” D.S. said.

“Almost an hour.” I raised a hand to my head, trying to figure out if I had a fever. My hand felt hot, but then the room was kept a couple of degrees lower than normal. It kept dead bodies from rotting. Dead bodies like me? “I should have a fever. I should be doubled over. Puking my brains out.” If it had really been close to an hour than the bite should have taken effect. I should be dead… or very, very, very sick.

I needed to see my reflection. Were my pupils dilated? What about the rest of my body? I dragged at the hem of my borrowed dress, pulling the hem up over my head. “Am I sweating? What about rigor mortis?”

If rigor mortis was beginning to set in then, I was definitely dead. I’d start losing fine motor control, and then I’d lose my mind.

I wouldn’t remember my name, my family, or my job. In a few hours, I’d turn into a meat-seeking missile and try to stuff any old Tom, Dick, or Harry into my mouth.

The bloodier the better.

The dress came off over my head and drifted to the floor. I was wearing a strawberry bra and a pair of combed cotton panties in mint green. Nothing else. A few hours earlier I would have laughed at the idea of being half-naked in front of any man—let alone Tall, Dead, and Sexy—but for the moment I didn’t care.

I checked my reflection in the shining metal door of the nearest crypt. The bite marks on my shoulder were unmistakable; dark bruises and fresh blood in the shape of a formerly human mouth.

“It’s just a scratch,” I said. “He bit me through the dress. I’ll be fine. It has to be a real bite: penetration, saliva, the whole nine yards. Biting through a dress doesn’t count.”

Denial was one of the five stages of grief, according to my mother’s yearly sensitivity training. My body shivered.

Was I about to take my last breath as a living woman?

Or, was I just reacting to the cold?

“It’s going to be okay,” D.S. promised. His hand reached out to rest on my shoulder. “I’ll take good care of you,” he promised. “You’ll come out. Of. This. Fine—” Emotion made his speech stilted. Infirm.

For the first time since I’d met him, the man sounded like a Biter. A zombie. A monster.

Oh, god! Was I going to sound like that? I looked down at my body. The soft skin and familiar curves seemed suddenly foreign. I’d wandered into uncharted territory.

“Few. Years,” D.S. said. “You. Won’t. Even. Remember.”

Like Donny.

“I don’t want to forget.”

All the people I’d known. All the people I loved. Cindy. Donny. My mother. I swallowed hard. Martina Matthews-Sinclair drove me crazy. I didn’t want to live with her, but I didn’t want to forget her either. Not this way.

I’d only just met D.S. The man made my bones melt and my panties go wet just looking at him. Would that be enough for me to remember him? Even just the way he made me feel?

It hadn’t been a real bite. There was still a chance that I could come out of this thing alive.

Still, I didn’t want to die a virgin.

I kissed D.S. Hard. My lips pressed against his mouth. My fingers tugged at his button down shirt—no longer white after being splattered in blood and gore during the fight—I clawed at his skin and teased his lips with my tongue.

I was only twenty-one years old, damn it! I needed to touch him, to feel him, to really live before I died.

Then D.S. was kissing me back, and I forgot all about other motives.

I wanted him hot and heavy, here on the mortuary table.

I tore at the tiny buttons holding his shirt in place. One hand stretched out across his bare chest—no need for an undershirt when dead people don’t sweat—while the other moved down to tangle with the waistband of his jeans.

“Damn it, Gemma.” His mouth was cool against my lips. He clung to me like a drowning man reaching out for his salvation.

Lust and life mingled like electricity in my veins. The sensation of flying was back, urged on by his long limbs draped effortlessly across my body. One hand cupped my chin while the other dipped to cup my behind and massage my ass. His calloused fingers were rough through the thin fabric of my green panties.

He reached between my legs and cupped my mound. Making me moan out against him. I’d never been touched like that by another person. I’d touched myself—late at night on my narrow single bed or the red draped couch in my office—bringing myself to shuddering completion while music pounded away in the background.

This was something else entirely. It was uncontrollable. Unpredictable.

I whimpered eagerly, desperate to draw him closer and feel him stroke me. Hard. He refused to move. Instead, I found my hips bucking wildly, trying to press myself against his fingers. “Please,” I begged. “Please, more—.”

The hand on my neck tightened, making it hard to breathe. I sucked in a deep gust of air. It didn’t help. Not when he was cutting off my windpipe. “D.S.,” I said.

Nothing happened.

I started to wiggle uncontrollably. Only, this time it wasn’t from lust. Forget becoming a Biter—a slow, desperate stumble into death followed by a quick transformation into a blood thirsty monster—I was going to die now. Strangled to death by a man with the strength to break my back in a single quick move.

“Thomas,” I managed to choke out his name. “Stop.” I slammed my hands into his chest, beating my fists against so much dead flesh. “Please, stop!”

There was a moment’s pause, and his hand relaxed around my neck.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. His expression was hard, stony. A dead man’s heart doesn’t beat… a dead man doesn’t need to breathe. Still, his green eyes were wide with emotion. Sorrow and regret. “I forget sometimes. Humans are so… fragile.”

It was a terrifying thought.

I took a deep breath, forcing air down into my gasping lungs. The gun safety people were wrong. It didn’t matter whether Biters were armed or not. They were all deadly. A bite. A snack. Or just a tight squeeze around the middle. That was all it would take to kill someone.

D.S. was right. Humans were fragile.

In a few hours, it wouldn’t matter. He could squeeze as tight as he wanted. I lifted my hand slowly to my neck. “I—.”

His shirt was open. Torn open. Heat flooded my cheeks at the memory, burning even brighter as I took in his muscular chest. The man looked like he’d been carved out of rock and stone. Not marble—not with his coffee and cream complexion—but something else. Something wild. A new David rough-hewn from wild granite.

I sucked in a deep breath. Oh, damn. This was a mistake. I reached out to run a finger across his hard chest, tugging at his small chocolate nipples and tracing a long line of black chest hair down to his pelvis.