The Purest of the Breed (The Community) (12 page)

“Also, hated. Please don’t call me that.”

“Ah, okay.” She let a teasing glint enter her gaze. “Only if I need to scold you.”

One of his black brows climbed lazily. “Now what makes you think you’d ever need to scold me, sweetheart?”

“Oh,” she murmured, stepping close to him and tilting her face up to give him a deep look. “Because the devil dances in your eyes, Dev Nichita.”

His nostrils quivered. He took a step back from her, his jaw flexing once. “A Dewar’s on the rocks, Ivard, if you wouldn’t mind.” His voice sounded strained. He cleared his throat. “They say you’re staying on to open a restaurant in Ţărână. Glad to hear it.”

She glanced slantwise at him. “For reasons of the restaurant or because I’m staying?”

He laughed. “Both. I mean, I definitely like to eat.”

“Yes, I can tell,” she dead-panned. “You weigh a ton.” She fought to keep her lips from twitching as Dev’s cheeks went up in flames.

“Hey, I…in the van…” He threw out his hands. “Totally uncalled for. I have no excuse.”

She chuckled throatily. If only he knew how eager she was for a repeat performance.

A diminutive blonde sidled up to the bar. “A gin and tonic please, Bombay Sapphire again. Hi, Marissa,” she sang out, then her gaze landed on Dev, and one side of her mouth lifted. “My,
goodness
. Dr. Parthen wasn’t kidding when she said one of the perks of living here is that all the single men are gorgeous.” She giggled.

How true
. “Dev Nichita,” Marissa introduced, gesturing between the two, “this is Chelsea Bryant, the new cinema manager.”

“Hi ho!” Chelsea swept her refreshed drink off the bar. “Nice to meet you.”

Marissa caught back a frown as she watched the doll-like blonde rock unsteadily on her high heels. “How many gin and tonics have you had, Chelsea?”

“What…? This is only my third.”

Uh, oh
. The woman couldn’t weigh more than ninety-five pounds.

Dev cast an amused glance at Marissa as he claimed his own drink from the bar, simultaneously reaching out to shake Chelsea’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too,” he said, smiling broadly.

“Hey, are you one of the security guys who— My Lord!” Chelsea squeaked. “Look how big your teeth are!”

“Oh, um, no…” Dev straightened, his lips melting closed over his teeth. “Not really.”

“No,
really
.” Chelsea waved over Beverly, the new jewelry designer, and Hadley, who Marissa had found out was an event planner. “You have to see this guy’s teeth. They’re like fangs, I swear.”

Chapter Eleven

Marissa cast a discreet look around the garden parlor as a strange stirring passed through the crowd, people shifting, conversations quieting.

“Aw, man, don’t say that,” Dev came back, his light tone sounding a little forced. “The kids at school used to call me a vampire.”

“Oh, oh, oh, God, you know what?” Chelsea’s voice was high-pitched, her face flushed. “I was a psych major in college and we used to joke about vampires all the time, like…like, according to Freudian theory those long fangs compensated for a small weenie.” She hooted. “Or a serious case of impotence.”

Dev smiled, close-lipped, a tic of muscle shivering along his bruised cheek. “You don’t say.”

“Chelsea,” Marissa intervened quietly. “I think you’re embarrassing him.”

“What? Nuh-uh.” Chelsea gestured at Dev with her drink, nearly sloshing it. “Come on, it’s not like you’re a real vampire. But if you were”—she giggled—“you wouldn’t be able to get it up, no way.”

The room had gone deathly quiet. Dev’s hand was tight around his cocktail glass.

Marissa swallowed uneasily. Jesus, could the tension get any thicker? “Well, I think your teeth are sexy,” she came to the rescue. “Nothing beats a man who can give a good hickie, right?” She elbowed Hadley. “
Right
?”

“Actually…not so much for me. I have a needle phobia, so the idea of being bitten is…” Hadley shuddered. “Ick.”

Question answered: yes, the tension could get thicker. Way thicker. It now sat in the room like a big, spotted hippo, while, oddly, one-by-one heads began to turn and stare at Tonĩ Parthen.

She looked back with a how-is-this-my-fault? expression. “Um, Hadley,” Tonĩ asked. “Didn’t you just give blood this past weekend?”

“Well, yes, but that was because I lost a bet and had to give to a colleague’s charity of choice. Ugh, it was awful. I had to be sedated to the point of near unconsciousness.” Hadley took a quick gulp of her pinot grigio. “Just thinking about it makes me ill.”

Thomal shoved his face into his hand, strangely enough, and moaned.

Marissa glanced around at the other faces. Something very funky was going on.

Beverly coughed softly. Her turn to come to the rescue with a subject change. “So, Tonĩ, there’s a pool going around up on the third floor about who your husband is. You gotta spill his name so someone can cash in.”

“It
has
to be that that cutie-patootie, I’m telling you.” Aerobics Abby pointed at the too-dreamy-to-be-true Arc across the room. “They make a perfect couple.”

A nasty snort came out of the head of security, Jaċken Brun, who looked like a dangerous animal someone had tried to stuff into a suit. The fancy outerwear did nothing to tame a set of ominous black eyes, a rock-hard jaw, and a body of barely contained violence. He reminded her too much of the neo-Nazis from last night’s attempted kidnapping, and after a brief handshake, she’d steered clear.

“Arc? Good God.” Tonĩ scoffed. “I’d marry a demon before I’d get together with him.”

Arc shot her a narrow look, while others around the room smothered smiles.

Marissa didn’t understand the joke, but at least the mood was lightening.

“So he’s single?” Susan asked hopefully.

“Oh, no, sorry, girls.” Beth Costache, owner of the TradeMark Clothing Store, where Marissa and Hadley had made a party out of choosing tonight’s cocktail ensembles, hooked her arm through Arc’s.

That made sense. Beth had ravishing beauty queen looks and the kind of sweet personality that most men, and women, for that matter, found totally engaging.

Hadley pointed to a blond fellow with glasses who was standing next to Tonĩ, a fist still pressed to his mouth to cover a smile. “Him?”

Tonĩ laughed. “God, no. I agree that Alex is a great choice, but he’s my brother.”

Marissa heard Dev laugh softly. It was a no-way-they’ll-ever-guess-it laugh that had her whipping her head toward him and narrowing her eyes. “It’s not
you
, is it?”

The accusation startled him. “Jesus, absolutely not,” he protested, his eyes widening. “I mean, Tonĩ and I had dinner together once, but that was all.”

“Well, not completely
all
,” Alex piped in. “Didn’t you get naked in your bedroom with my sister once?”

The head of security snapped to attention. “What?”

Dev put a hand over his eyes. “Oh, shit.”

“Alex, you big dope,” Tonĩ said. “I told you that in confidence.”

Alex pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Did you?”

“Un-be-freaking-lievable.” Kasson, the shy warrior with a cowlick at the front of his light brown hair, aimed a disgruntled look at Thomal. “Dev tried to snake Tonĩ right out from under us.”

Dev pointed an accusing finger at the hot blond on crutches. “Thomal made out with her.”

“Hell if I did,” Thomal countered. “I got kneed in the balls before any lip action could—”

Chelsea’s giggle rang out again. “So, so, Tonĩ, you have to tell us girls how Dev stacks up, you know, in case any of us want to go for him.”

Hadley cut a look at the small blonde. “Cripes, Chelsea, can you think of nothing else to talk about tonight but penises?”

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to
say
. Just…” Chelsea’s giggle was half a hiccup this time. “Paw the ground with your foot for one answer or take a sip of your drink with your pinky out”—she demonstrated—“for another.”

The head of security shot a warning glare at Tonĩ. “Don’t. Move.”

Tonĩ spread her hands innocently, a martini glass held in one, amusement crinkling her eyes. “I’m just standing here, Jaċken.”

“But, if she
were
going to move, it’d definitely be to paw the ground.” Dev tossed a wink at Marissa that sent a lightning bolt straight to her womb. “Of course, that means—whoa!” Dev scooted behind a dainty sofa as the head of security took a menacing step forward, although the man was brought up short by Tonĩ’s quietly spoken, “Jaċken.”

Jaċken swept his dark eyes over the partygoers, muttered something under his breath, then slitted his eyelids at Dev. The promise of revenge at a later date was clear.

“C’mon, Jaċken.” Dev’s silver eyes were bright with veiled laughter. “The naked incident happened way before you and Tonĩ were even remotely together.”

Marissa frowned over those words, then inhaled sharply. “Wait.” She gaped at Tonĩ. “You’re married to
Jaċken
?”

The residents of Ţărână laughed, while the new hires exchanged surprised glances, murmuring and chuckling. Impossible: beautiful and classy Tonĩ was married to a man who looked like he could mack down a bowl of pliers, no problem.

“Well,” Hadley offered generously, “I’m sure he’s the type of guy whose bark is worse than his bite.”

Jaċken dipped his chin, peering up through his eyebrows, while a laugh exploded out of Alex.

Tonĩ shot her brother a quelling frown.

“Oh, gimme a break.” Alex flung up his hands. “You can’t honestly expect me to keep a straight face through
that
?”

Marissa glanced curiously at Hadley. Another private joke they were missing?

Hadley shrugged.

Jaċken’s cell phone rang. He reached for it…just as a high-pitched alarm shrieked.

Marissa slapped her hands over her ears. “Ow!”

Jaċken blasted for the door, the other men on the institute’s security unit running after him. “No one leaves this building!” Jaċken yelled back at them.

Chapter Twelve

Marissa’s jaw hung loose. Considering all of the bizarre crap she’d been going through, lately, she probably didn’t have any right whatsoever to be doing the fish-out-of-water thing. But…the man standing on an outcropping of cave that jutted over Ţărână’s movie theatre was… Impossible to describe. How could a person put into words someone who was both striking in appearance and blood-icingly terrifying at the same time? Wearing tall black boots, tight black leather pants that barely contained the broad, arching muscles of his legs, and…nothing else, he was like a conglomeration of a cover model for The Homicidal Maniac About Town, a huge mythological creature, and every kid’s worst monster-under-the bed.

His nipples were pierced with thick steel rings, his navel the same, and a bulky metal chain swung from one ring to the other, then down to his belly, forming a T. Cuts, scrapes, and bruises were spread across the vast landscape of his body, blending with the scars of previous fights: the trophies of a very hard life, and evidence of this man’s ability to take as good as he gave. Jeez, it sucked to be a warrior in this town.

His features were strong-boned, with a wide jaw and broad brow, and his eyes were that same ruthless black as the not-so-nice men she’d been running into recently…with the exception of Jaċken, perhaps, but the jury was still out on him. A lion’s mane of brilliant red hair flowed all the way down to the man’s butt, and if
that
wasn’t arresting enough, then his body was a fricking showstopper. Overwhelmingly powerful, granite-like with muscles, big, frightening, brutal…it was a body designed to kill. He looked like he could break bones in his sleep. And although it was difficult to tell for certain from where she stood on Berlin’s bedroom balcony, with Beth wringing her hands at Marissa’s side, Homicidal Maniac appeared to be over seven feet tall.

One of the scariest things about the man was that he currently had his fist wrapped around the throat of a guy with white-blond hair, who had his own hand locked around the maniac’s wrist, hanging on for—quite literally—dear life. His legs cycled the empty air as Homicidal Manic dangled him over the jut of cave.

Two other flame-haired men, black-eyed and revoltingly dirty, stood just behind Homicidal Maniac, laughing at the blond man’s struggles.

On the ground below, Jaċken was glaring up at the maniac. He’d removed his blazer in favor of a bandolier belt of knives, which actually suited him better. He was flanked by Arc and Dev, whose eyes had lost all evidence of mischievousness.

“Let my man go,” Jaċken barked the order at Homicidal Maniac, his black brows arrowing into a fierce vee.

A huge dark-haired man appeared behind Homicidal Maniac, and Marissa gasped. The newcomer had the same black interlocking teeth tattoos as the neo-Nazis: on his forearms
and
circling his thick neck.

Homicidal Maniac’s eyes flickered sideways in acknowledgement of the new arrival. The man hanging from his fist made louder choking noises.

The huge neo-Nazi with the neck tattoos stopped moving.