Everlasting Bad Boys (18 page)

He blinked. OK, so his witch was ready to kick ass, too.

She’d changed her clothes before they left. Slipped on a long blouse that covered her arms and that stomach he loved to see. She was wearing jeans—jeans that hugged the rounded curves of her hips and thighs. Her small feet were encased in snug, black leather boots.

Serena had even managed to find him a shirt, a fact that pissed him off. Why the hell would his witch have men’s clothes handy? And she hadn’t conjured them—they’d been hanging in the back of her closet. She’d muttered something about her ex leaving the items behind.

The bastard had better not be coming back to claim the clothes—or Serena.

Luis climbed from the car and glanced around to make certain no human was nearby. The last thing he needed was a nosy mortal catching sight of his battle.

Or of him.

Satisfied that the humans hadn’t yet come to play, his hand lifted, and he pointed toward
HIDDEN TREASURES
. The shop’s windows were dark, and a
CLOSED
sign hung haphazardly against the front door.

His nostrils twitched as he caught a darker, pungent smell on the wind.

Hell.

“Luis?” Serena called his name softly.

“Death’s waiting, sweetheart.” No mistaking that dank scent. “Stay on your guard.”

She gave a grim nod.

And he led the way toward the scent he knew too well.

T
he door was locked, but one quick jerk of his hand made the cheap lock shatter. He yanked open the door and heard the squeal of an alarm. His gaze darted around the room, locked on the small black box with the blinking red dot.

Luis grabbed a nearby candlestick, one that was a perfect polished silver to his eyes, and threw it, sending the candlestick hurtling end over end toward the alarm.

When it smashed into the box, blessed silence filled the air.

So much for going in quietly, but, then, he’d never really been the quiet type.

Besides, for one of the bastards he was chasing, the noise wouldn’t matter. Not much could wake the dead.

“The cops will be coming,” Serena said, her voice carrying just to his ears. Cautious witch. “The alarm will have been connected, the security service will alert them—”

“Then we’d better move, fast.”

A
hiss
sounded from the back of the store. An all too familiar sound.

Damn cat.

He hurried forward, saw the small beast pacing in front of an old, scarred door.

The cat arched his back at Luis’s approach and bared his teeth.

“Out of the way, pussy.” Not in the mood to deal with the feline, Luis flashed his own teeth.

The cat turned and ran back toward the entrance of the shop.

“Luis…”

Serena stood behind him. So close he could feel the warmth of her body.

He lifted his hand, touched the door. Then sent the wood crashing to the ground with one hard punch.

Sometimes enhanced strength could be a real bonus.

His gaze fell on the body. The still man with bright red hair. The fellow whose neck was twisted and whose eyes were wide open.

Never saw death coming.

Because he’d trusted his killer.

Serena sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, goddess, is he a human?”

“No.” A quick scan showed that no one else was in the small room. Luis crouched beside the body, reached out his hand—

“
Meow.”
The black cat ran back into the room and pressed against the dead man’s side.

Luis exhaled. “It’s the charmer.” The asshole who’d been working with the warlock. Dammit.
The kill should have been mine.

“I don’t understand.” He glanced up at her. Serena’s face had gone pale and her eyes were staring fixedly at the body. No, at the bastard’s twisted neck. “W-why is he dead? If he was working with the warlock—”

The cat’s head prodded the charmer’s side as he tried to get his master to wake.

“Not gonna happen,” Luis muttered to the small creature and rose to his feet. “The warlock knew I could trace the cat back to his master.”

Her gaze jerked away from the body. Understanding dawned on her face. “Then, once you had the charmer, you could have tracked the warlock.”

As easy as connecting the dots.

Or, it should have been.

But the warlock had decided to cover his ass and throw a dead body in their path.

Serena swallowed and lifted her hand to her throat.

Ah, hell. “Is this your first body, witch?” How many corpses had he seen in his time? Hundreds? Thousands? The sight of the dead no longer fazed him.

But Serena was another matter. “Not my first.” Her brows pulled low. “My aunt—I found what was left of her.”

The urge to go to her, to hold her, rocked through him—and what the hell was up with that?

He was
not
the comforting type. The killing type. The fucking type.

Not
comforting.

The witch was screwing with his head.

Luis found himself taking a step forward, blocking the dead body. “Nothing can be done for the bastard now.”

In the distance, a siren wailed.

Serena shook her head, and some of the color seemed to return to her cheeks. Her gaze darted around the room. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she muttered. “We’ve got to—” She broke off. Her eyes widened and then she was nearly running across the small room, her hip thumping against the side of a desk as she skidded to a halt.

“Serena?”

“This is Vanessa’s.” She lifted a long, blue hair ribbon. “She had it in her hair last week.” Her fingers reached for a swatch of fabric. “And Susan was working on a quilt just like this—
dammit!”
She dropped the fabric. “The bastard has us all right here!”

Actually, he had to have even more of their belongings stashed somewhere else. In order to continue the spell, he had to hold one personal article from each witch. No way would the guy have left all his treasures behind.

The wails of the sirens were getting closer.

Serena swore, then started to frantically grab all the witches’ possessions.

“What are you doing? We don’t have time—”

“And if the cops connect any of this stuff to the coven? We’ll be screwed!”

She was right. So he started helping her, fast. Their hands were overflowing when they ran from the store.

Fate was on his side, for once, because the street was still deserted. Good. He wouldn’t have to waste any magic on the humans.

They hurried to the waiting car, tossed the materials inside and—

A police cruiser hurtled around the corner. Brakes screeched and the lights above the vehicle flashed in a blur. Two officers jumped out, guns drawn. “Freeze!” The command came in unison.

Serena stilled near the driver’s side door of her car. “Shit,” she muttered and glared at the cops. “This isn’t what you think—”

“We’re not here,” Luis said, walking toward them, pitching his voice low and calling on the powers he’d been given by his father.

A level ten, the strongest of the demons—and those who could most easily control the minds of humans.

The guns lifted higher. The cops’ hands shook. “D-don’t m-move.” The shaky order came from the guy on the right, the one who looked like he was barely twenty-one.

“
Luis
.” Serena’s horrified voice.

Horrified—because she was used to living in her safe coven world, a world where the good rules said not to hurt humans.

Well, he wasn’t going to hurt these two, unless that option became absolutely necessary.

He really did try to spare the innocents when he could.

It was those who deserved his fury that he unleashed his power upon. And let the fire rage.

But he would make the humans forget, with a quick compulsion sure to drive the memory of him and Serena forever from their minds.

“You didn’t see us,” Luis told the men softly, as Serena swore behind him. “When you arrived on the scene, there were no other cars in the vicinity.”

The young kid’s eyes bulged. He swallowed, once, twice, then his gaze shot to Serena, and the gun moved to aim straight at her chest.

“Drop the weapons!”
Luis snarled, heart lurching as something he’d not felt in centuries reared its head.

Fear.

Fuck.

The weapons hit the ground with a clatter.

Luis turned his head and glared at Serena.

She blinked. “What?” Then she looked over her shoulder, as if expecting to see some kind of threat.

She
was the threat, to him.

Dammit. The danger his mother had warned him of.

A weakness.

He ground his back teeth together. This wouldn’t do. Not at damn all.

With an effort, Luis turned his attention back to the cops. “You didn’t see us,” he repeated, forcing the compulsion deeper. The kid was stronger than the slightly balding guy behind him. Could be the rookie even had a touch of psychic power.

But there was no way either of the humans were strong enough to resist him.

Another paranormal, yeah, because the
Other
could resist his compulsion. Serena would be able to because of her witch blood.

But the humans before him didn’t stand a chance of fighting him.

“Get in the car,” he told Serena, not wanting to push his luck. He didn’t want to risk a shifter or charmer cop pulling up on the scene.

She didn’t move.

By the grave of—

“The cat,” she said, and bit her lip. “We can’t just…leave him alone with that dead body.”

His eyes closed for a moment. Witches and their damn soft spots for animals. Had to be a leftover trait from the heavy familiar days. “Fine!”

Luis jabbed his index finger in the rookie’s direction. “There’s a cat inside. A furry, skinny-as-hell stray.”

The officer waited.

“
He’s yours now.
”

A nod.

“Satisfied?” He threw the question at Serena as he ran around the car. More sirens were sounding, probably because he’d heard someone from the station trying to contact the officers on their radio during his compulsion, and the men hadn’t responded as requested.

“For now,” Serena agreed as she climbed into the car. She revved the engine. Then Serena threw the car into reverse, shot backward, narrowly avoiding a hard slam into the side of the cruiser. She shifted gears, twisted the car into a tight turn, and floored the gas as she roared down the road.

A touch of admiration filled Luis as she got them out of the about-to-be-swarmed neighborhood in less than thirty seconds.

Nice.

His witch had secret talents.

“Are you, Luis?” Her voice floated to him.

His gaze jerked to her face, locked on her profile.

“Are you satisfied?” she asked.

The flash of fear he’d felt moments before returned.

She was too vulnerable.

And he’d just found her.

“Fuck, no,” he snapped, and her gaze flew to his.

He leaned closer to her, wrapped his fingers around the supple flesh of her thigh. Damn but she felt good.

She’d feel even better naked.

“Drive faster, Serena.”

A shiver worked over her body, then her gaze darted to the rearview mirror. “Are the cops behind—”

“No one’s behind us.” His fingers inched up her leg. Paused near the juncture of her thighs. He swore he could feel the heat from her sex burning through the fabric.

Her breath jerked in. “Then w-why?”

He pushed his fingers between her legs. Stroked the crotch of her jeans and shoved the bitter memory of fear from his mind. “Because it’s time for us both to be satisfied.” His fingers strummed against her, and a red flush brightened her cheeks.

The engine rumbled as her foot pressed down even harder on the accelerator.

She’d been too close to death. His witch had felt the icy breath of the specter when she entered the dusty storage room. She needed to fight the fear and the anger that churned in her.

And passion, lust—well, for him, they’d always been perfect weapons.

Time for him to take his witch.

When her car screeched to a stop in front of her house, Serena wasn’t thinking about dead bodies any more. She wasn’t thinking that a dead man’s eyes could hold such shock, and she wasn’t thinking that death felt cold…far too cold. She’d thought of all that before. Back in that horrible storage room.

No, as she jumped from the car and she and Luis hurried up her steps, she wasn’t thinking about death any more.

She thought of
him.

Luis’s touch. His body. The pleasure he’d give her.

The pleasure that would block the fear of the waiting cold.

The door slammed closed behind them.

His hands settled on her hips. “How fast can you get naked?”

Ah, now wasn’t that a question she’d never heard before? Excitement had her blood pumping, and Serena pulled away, turning to face him as she cocked her head and asked, “How fast can you?”

In a blink, he was naked, his clothes having vanished with but a wave of his hand.

Gotta love that magic.

Her gaze dropped to his chest. She loved his chest. So strong, with all those rippling muscles. His stomach was flat, the abs damn perfect.

His hand lifted, and his fingers grazed over his erection.

Oh,
yes.
The man was
built.
His cock bobbed up from a thatch of dark, curling hair. Long and thick.

Moisture gleamed on the broad head.

He was ready for her.

Good, because her panties were soaking wet for him and her nipples were so tight they ached.

Her magic might be limited by the binding, but she still had a few tricks of her own. She waved her hands over her body, and her clothes and shoes disappeared.

Yeah, sometimes, it was good to be a witch.

When the devil wasn’t after you.

She pushed the thought away as quickly as it rose. For just a few minutes, she wanted pleasure.

Not fear.

His eyes heated as he looked at her. The gold gleamed so brightly. His cock swelled even more.

They didn’t have to worry about birth control, a nice little
Other
perk. Witches completely controlled their cycles, and as for
cazadores
…

Immortals never caught illnesses of any sort.

He was the safest partner she’d ever had.

And the most dangerous.

He reached for her.

Shaking her head, she caught his hand in hers. “I want a bed.” She wanted cool sheets, soft mattresses, and him. Thrusting as hard and deep as he could between her thighs, until the hungry ache in her sex had been assuaged.

“What my witch wants…”

She expected more magic. Wondered just what he was truly capable of doing. Could he move them by spell alone to her room or would he—

His arms wrapped around her and he pulled her up against his warm chest. His mouth crushed down on hers, tongue thrusting deep and she tightened her lips around him, sucking lightly. She loved the man’s taste. Dark and rich and—

She was on the bed.

He sprawled over her, mouth still locked to hers, and he pushed her deep into the mattress. His legs—
the man had thick, muscled thighs that she’d love to ride
—angled between hers so that Serena was spread wide for him. Her sex was open and wet and so ready that she knew he had to catch the scent of her arousal.

He tore his mouth from hers. Lifted up to gaze at her body. “Fucking gorgeous,” he growled. Then took her breast with his mouth. Licked. Bit. Sucked.