“Eloisa takes those meetings. She, like all of those with what Francesca calls ‘shadow blood,’ is able to hear lies. Most of us have other gifts as well, but that one in particular is extremely important. That allows her to weed out any potential threat to us. She chats casually with a potential client. That establishes a pattern in breathing. Heartbeat. Inflections in their voice.”
Her gaze jumped to his face when his finger began to make circles on her inner thigh. The circle took him very close to her now throbbing mound. Her heart seemed to beat right through her clit. He wasn’t looking at her face, but at her breasts. The moment she realized where he was looking, her nipples tightened. Just that little movement sent a fresh flood of liquid to coat the walls of her sheath in anticipation.
His finger swiped across her entrance, collecting the liquid. He brought his finger to her left nipple, smeared it with her cream and leaned in to suck it off. She closed her eyes. He was so naturally sensual. Everything he did made her feel as if she was the sexiest woman in the world. He couldn’t keep his hands or his gaze off her.
“I love the way you respond to me.” He kissed his way up her throat to her mouth. He spent a good deal of time kissing her over and over. When he finally lifted his head, he gave her a mock glare. “You have to quit distracting me. I need to tell this to you.”
“I’m not taking responsibility,” she denied, but she shifted her legs, drawing them up tailor-fashion, which opened her thighs for him just in case he wanted to keep making those little circles that were driving her out of her mind.
He cleared his throat. “Eloisa is considered a ‘greeter’ now. Greeters can be anyone in the family born with the gift to hear lies. There are normally two greeters so that the petitioner can be heard by both. The greeters need to be in agreement about whether or not an investigation is warranted. Phillip, my father, is gone now, so she does it alone.”
“That’s so sad for her.”
He didn’t comment on that. “The greeter listens to the potential client. Once they get casual conversation out of the way, the greeter will ask the client why he or she came. After that, they remain silent. They don’t encourage or discourage any part of the client’s story. They don’t comment one way or the other. That way, if they do miss someone from law enforcement, no one can say they did or said anything that could be construed as illegal. Once the client has finished, the greeter simply thanks them for coming and escorts them to the door.”
“So even the client doesn’t have a clue if your family will help.” She wanted to take his hand and put it back on her thigh. Instead, she reached for the water bottle. The action had her breasts swaying. Once again, she was totally aware of every nerve ending in her body.
Her gaze dropped to his groin. He was beautiful. There was no question about it. If she could have drawn, she would have drawn him. Or sculpted him. He was that beautiful.
“That’s right, they don’t,” he continued. “The greeter makes up the report, and if he or she thinks it’s warranted, they pass the information on to the investigators. Each family has two teams of investigators. My aunt and uncle form one team, and two male cousins form the other. I have two female cousins who are hell on wheels with computers. They do all the necessary research into the crime and pass it on to the investigators.”
“Why are there two teams?”
“One team works the crime, and the other learns everything they can about the client. The investigators hear lies, but they also can compel others to talk, to open up and tell them anything they want to know. They investigate quietly and with great patience. It’s important we don’t make mistakes. We have to know everything there is to know about both the client and the criminal. We need to know routines, where they live and work, who lives with them, who works with them. Every detail of their lives. Both teams of investigators have to agree that the criminal did in fact commit the crime and the client wasn’t just trying to get back at someone they didn’t like.”
Sasha was fascinated with Giovanni’s cock. She was listening, taking in what he said, and that was fascinating, too, but just the way he was formed made her mouth water. She really thought that she could listen while she tasted him. She was that talented. She let her hand slide up his thigh while he dipped a strawberry in whipped cream and fed it to her. Her tongue slid around his finger the way it wanted to do around his cock. His cock jerked. So receptive.
“This is where we come in. My family. We’re riders. That’s what you and your brother would have been had you been born in our family. Your training would have started at two. One has to start early or the tearing at the body can be deadly.”
Okay, that distracted her. Her palm rested on his inner thigh, nestled close to his velvetlike balls. She could feel the heat on the back of her hand. “What would tear my body apart?”
“People like us are capable of riding the shadows. Essentially, we can move from one shadow to the other unseen. The shadows form tubes. You can see how your shadow throws out tubes, or connecters. It’s very different from other people’s shadows. Our shadows connect and take us inside those tubes. We can go anywhere in a city. A door can’t keep us out if the shadow moves under the door. It feels almost as if …”
“Your body is flying apart. The pull is very strong.” She said it absently, as if it came from some memory long ago. She raised her eyes to his. “When I was little, I used to feel that sensation sometimes. Sandlin told me it was the pull of the shadows. It never took me anywhere, but both of us could step into the shadows and kind of disappear. Not really, but it was very hard to see us.”
Now that he had reminded her, she remembered the sensations very vividly. “It’s hard to believe a person could really move from one shadow to the other and get across town, but …” She remembered hiding from her father once when she was little when she’d refused to eat something her mother had cooked. She knew she was in trouble, and she also knew they’d never find her if she remained very still right there in the living room with the shadow across her. When she’d first stepped into it, her body felt as if it was being pulled deep into a tunnel. If she hadn’t been afraid of getting in trouble, she would have leapt away from it, but she had held still.
“We have to slide through portals, the shadow tubes, and we need to have a photographic memory. Or a damned good one, like yours. We also should have enough energy to disrupt electrical devices if need be, or cause a power surge, to turn things on or off.”
She glanced at him again. “That’s why you don’t always worry about cameras.”
He shrugged. That little movement pressed the velvet skin against the back of her hand and she turned it over so her palm cupped him. He felt amazing. She made the mistake of looking down at him. He was fully erect again, his cock pressed tightly against his stomach. She couldn’t help stroking a caress over his sac. When she did, his cock reacted, jerking hard. Deep inside, she felt an answering pulsing.
He didn’t protest, but he did move the tray again, shoving it up near the wall. “We wear special clothing. The cloth is made up of material that will go through the rigors of the shadow tube. When we’re sent out, the investigators continue to gather evidence right up until the last minute so there is no chance of a mistake. If we’re charging money, it is at that time that the client must pay us. Usually that client is very wealthy and we take a ton of money. That money is laundered through our legitimate businesses. It also pays for those who can’t afford our services but need them.”