chapter Nine
VOULEZ-VOUS COUCHER AVEC MOI?
“SO how do you think we wound up wearing handcuffs?” Lizette asked Johnny as they sat outside of Saxon’s apartment on two rickety iron chairs on the narrow balcony. The drink he had handed her was resting in her grip, and she had her legs crossed, giving her appearance a sense of propriety she didn’t feel. But it was actually pleasant to finally stop tromping around and just sit in the warm air and try to calm down. The courtyard was completely empty, only two apartments having access to it, and it felt safe to Lizette.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Not normally prone to hysterics, she had been quite close to having a complete breakdown when she had seen the picture of Johnny biting her neck. It had looked so . . . sexy. So . . . public. “Were we wearing handcuffs in the photo?”
“No. So I guess we can still assume that it happened at Zelda’s later in the night.”
“Perhaps you meant it as a flirtation.”
“Hey!” He smiled at her. “How do you know it was my idea? Maybe it was your way of keeping me close at hand until you could get all your questions about ‘The List’ answered.”
It was clear what he thought of her job. It should have bothered her more than it actually did. But he sounded more teasing than anything else, and she had to admit that was something she appreciated about Johnny. He didn’t seem prone to hysterics either, and he definitely took the approach that life was meant for laughing. Lizette found that a refreshing change from the ancient and dusty vampires in the VA who clung to brooding traditions. To them, shopping for a new coffin was a hot night on the town. Johnny didn’t even have a coffin. She knew because it wasn’t on the list.
“I highly doubt that I would resort to handcuffs. Then again, I can’t say I behaved the way I normally would have last night.” She stared down into her glass. “I have compromised this case, you know. I will have to return to Paris and have it reassigned. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to be the one investigating your identity when I have . . . when we . . .” Lizette forced herself to say it. “When we have been sexually intimate.”
“At least you can verify my penis size. I’m sure the VA knows that, too.”
She wanted to be offended, but it was probably true. Lizette laughed. “I would if I could remember.”
“Want to check now?” Johnny put his hand on the button of his jeans, clearly joking.
“No!” She said the first thing that came to mind, a joke she normally would have kept to herself. But she let it out. “I don’t have a ruler on me, so what good would that do? Though I suppose I could gauge it with my mouth.”
Johnny choked on his blood, actually spraying some across the banisters of the balcony. “Holy crap. I cannot believe you just said that.”
She had her moments. “I can have a sense of humor as well, Johnny. If your name is really Johnny.”
He gave her an eye roll. “Well, how else can we verify that I’m Johnny Malone? There has to be a way. I don’t want you to get in trouble because my friends throw weddings with seriously spiked punch. I can answer any question you have, because I am me, you know.”
She did believe him actually. He was too well-known by the other vampires, too aware of everything in the apartment, too casually comfortable. Unless he was an astonishing con artist, he was in fact, Johnny Malone. “What is your birthday?”
“That’s easy. Born April 17, 1899 in Cork to Mary and John Malone. My sister Stella was born two years later, followed by three girls, one born each year. Molly, Maggie, and Maeve. My mom had an M thing going there for some reason. She and my three little sisters all died in the influenza outbreak of 1918, and my father buried his grief in the bottle. A few years later Stella and I came to America, and fell in with the mob in Chicago after I proved a dab hand with me fists.” He turned up his slight accent until it was thickly Irish, his fists in front of him. He gave her a mock jab with a grin. “It kept us from starving. Until it also got us caught in the line of a machine gun. Woke up a vampire, thank God. I wasn’t ready to go out yet, you know what I mean?”
She nodded. “I do.” She had seen an extraordinary amount of death. It had made her even more fearful of dying.
“When were you born?”
It wasn’t relevant to his case, of course, and she never shared her personal details with anyone outside of the inner council, but he had been so open, and she was feeling oddly melancholy, so she told him the truth. “I was born in 1770 in Lyons, France, though my family spent most of the year outside of Paris at the court of Versailles with the royal family. My parents were murdered during the Terror and I was a witness to it. I myself was scheduled for decapitation at the guillotine, but the blade was dull and did not complete the execution. However, I was tossed in the pile of bodies and well on my way to death, though I have no memory of it. But I awoke as I am today, a vampire by the name of Jean-Baptiste having saved me.”
“Jesus. That’s horrible.”
“Yes.” Lizette drained her glass. “But no more horrible than your history. You lost your family as well.”
“I did.” Johnny leaned forward, his palm on his knee, the hand connected to hers dangling by her side. “Stella and I never knew who turned us. We just woke up frightened and undead. Was Jean-Baptiste a good mentor?”
“Yes.” Her throat felt a little tight, as it always did when she thought of him. “We spent a century together.”
“As friends or as something more?”
“More. Much more.” He had not been the most affectionate of men, but he had been loyal, steady. He had taken care of her. Which seemed ironic now that she had become so independent in the hundred years since his death. She no longer needed that from a man. But she did miss the companionship.
“I can tell by the look on your face you either broke up or he died. I’m sorry.” His fingers enclosed around hers on their mutually dangling hands.
“Thank you. Yes, he died.” Though she wasn’t going to talk about it. Lizette looked over at Johnny, studying the straight line of his jaw. There was something that bothered her if he was telling the truth and he was Johnny. “Why did you fake your death?”
The look he gave her was sheepish and uncomfortable, but she just waited and he finally spoke. “Well, this girl I was dating, she got pregnant.”
“And you were clearly not the father.”
“Exactly. And the thing was, it was like I’ve known for a long time I couldn’t have children, but in that moment it hit me like a ton of bricks. I will never be a father. I’ll never pass any of myself on down to a miniature human. I’ll never get to hold a baby or teach a son how to play ball or grow old while my kids and grandkids sit around a huge dinner table. It all hit me, hard, in a way it hasn’t in decades, that this is it, you know. Just me, and everyone except my few vampire friends will all die, and I won’t. I guess I wanted to see what it would feel like to die.” He finished his drink. “That sounds really damn stupid now.”
But Lizette understood. It had taken her years to accept the fact that she would never be a mother. She squeezed his hand. “Mortality is a strange paradox for vampires. Sometimes we crave death, yet we fear it even more than mortals because it is not inevitable. Vampire death shocks us in a way human death does not any longer.”
“Exactly.” He smiled at her. “How did you get to be so smart?”
When he smiled like that, it was easy to see how she could have been persuaded to have sex with him, especially under the influence of a drug. “I am not smart enough to pass on drugged punch.”
“That’s the thing with drugged punch though. It looks innocent but it has a real kick. Like you, I would imagine.” His thumb was stroking her palm again, not a touch of comfort, but one of intimacy and sexual suggestion.
“You think I have a kick? That I bite?” Lizette set her glass down on the wooden floorboards. “I don’t believe that’s true. I think I have become quite dull.” Actually, she knew she had. Normally it didn’t bother her, but tonight it felt wearisome. There was something to what Johnny had said: If life was eternal, shouldn’t it be enjoyable?
“Then obviously last night was good for you. You needed to come out of your shell a little.”
“Perhaps. Though it would be better if I remembered it.” Then the image of her head thrown back popped into her head. Yes, she would definitely like to remember that. She wasn’t sure she wanted any memory of how she’d wound up in a sex dungeon with four other people though. That went a bit beyond loosening up.
“Not remembering last night is one of my true regrets in life,” he told her, in a way that was so sincere she actually believed him. “But I’m happy to repeat certain parts of it if you’d like.”
It was on her lips to say no automatically. To protest and demure, because that was the appropriate thing to do. But then she thought about it. If she already had compromised the case and would need to reassign another agent to the investigation, what difference did it make if she slept with Johnny again? The cat was already out of the bag, so to speak. So she told him, “I just might like that before the evening has concluded.”
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“We’ll see.” It would take a huge dose of courage on her part, but the idea seriously intrigued her. “That is, if you’re truly interested, and not just jesting.”
“I don’t even know how to jest about sex. I most definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent want you with every fiber of my immortal being.” His eyes had darkened to black and he shifted in his chair. “It was that picture that clinched it, you know. You look so damn sexy with my fangs in your flesh.”
Lizette fought the urge to squirm. She wanted to see the picture again because it had been sexy. They had looked so intimate. So into each other. It was a passionate side of herself she had never seen captured. Yet, it was something that shouldn’t exist, and she knew it.
“You should delete that picture.”
“Fuck that. The dude on the street still has it, so even if I deleted it, it still exists. So why shouldn’t I enjoy it? I may even frame it, put it on the mantel.”
Lizette rolled her eyes, which made him laugh.
“Hey, I’m going to try Saxon again. If I can’t get a hold of him, I think we should go to my place. It’s closer to Zelda’s. Maybe he was wandering around drunk and went to my place by accident.”
It didn’t seem plausible, but she wasn’t going to argue. She didn’t have a better solution and she didn’t know Saxon or what he might do. “Sure. I’m going to call, now as well.”
Not that she knew what to say to him without sounding completely unprofessional. While Johnny dialed on his phone, she dialed on hers, reflecting that it was strange that it no longer seemed to be bothering her as dramatically that she and Johnny had to sit next to each other at all times. She was getting used to their hands hanging in tandem.
“Hello?” Dieter said, voice slightly muffled.
“It is Lizette. Do you have a minute?” she asked, suddenly feeling nervous. What did Dieter know of her behavior?
“Sure.”
“Yes, well, I believe that tomorrow I am going to return to Paris and send a replacement. You will need to stay here to keep an eye on things.”
“Does this have something to do with the drunk text you sent me last night?”
Her face heated. “I sent you a drunk text?”
“Well, I can only assume you were drunk as you don’t usually ask me why I’ve never wanted to fuck you.”
Lizette almost dropped her phone. “What? I did not.”
“You did. And I wasn’t even aware that my fuck factor mattered to you.” He sounded amused, damn him. She was not amused.
“Oh, dear.” She wasn’t sure she could be any more embarrassed. “I can’t imagine why I would say such a thing.”
“Maybe because you were worried that no one would ever fuck you again. That’s the way you put it—that no man ever wants you.”
She had been wrong. She could be more embarrassed. She was going to throw herself off the balcony and run away and start a new life in Mongolia.
“Just kill me now,” she told him. “I am surely not so pathetic as that.” Her celibacy had been a choice, so she couldn’t even imagine why she’d been so weirdly desperate for male approval.
“Lizette, I don’t think that your attractiveness has ever been in question. But you have the Great Wall of China in front of your emotions, and most men don’t have the tools to climb it. So maybe throw a rope down to Johnny and you can get yourself a little bit of cuddle time.”
“Why would you suggest him?” she asked, not about to admit that she already had indulged in cuddle time. Big time. Panty-free time. Probably. She wasn’t entirely sure. As to Dieter’s wall theory, she could not argue with it. It was true, no question about it.
“Anyone could see the sexual tension between you two.”
Ignoring that, she asked, “So did I happen to say anything else? Perhaps detailing my whereabouts or my plans? My memory is a bit hazy.” As in gone. Completely. A glance over at Johnny showed that he had heard her. He shot her a wink.
“Something about sitting at a bar while you shopped on the Internet.”
“I was shopping on the Internet?” What things were showing up at her apartment in Paris as they spoke? She lived in 700 square feet, so whatever it was, hopefully it was small. “Zut alors.” She really wanted to say fuckity fuck fuck, but she had already ruined her reputation with Dieter. No reason to cause his doubt in her when she was sober as well.
“Are you sure you need to turn this case over? I won’t say anything about last night and I don’t think any harm was done.”
Lizette closed her eyes. “Trust me. Harm was done.”
When she hung up the phone, she scrolled through her email and found that she had been quite the busy shopper. “Oh dear.” She had purchased twelve-hundred-dollar Christian Louboutin shoes, probably in a drunken attempt to replace the shoes that had been lost somewhere along the way.
She had purchased several new blouses, a Chanel lipstick in Rich Red, and an excessively large amount of sexy underwear. A lot of underwear, all in lace and sheer materials, in soft shades of pink and ivory. Then there was a red number that was one piece, and when she clicked on the image to expand it, she read the description. It was a crotchless teddy. Apparently she had been much more than drunk the night before. She had been horny. Which was confirmed by the next email, which showed she had purchased a substantial vibrator with remote-control operation.
Clearing her throat, she closed the email quickly and glanced over at Johnny, worried that he was watching her. He was. He raised his eyebrows. “Everything okay?”
“I may have overspent with some online shopping last night.” She picked her phone back up. “Around four a.m. We must have been apart at that time as I can’t imagine you were interested in helping me online shoe shop.” Though he might have been all or partially responsible for the other purchases. A sudden thought occurred to her. Those had been American sales sites written in English. Clicking on the lingerie email, she groaned out loud.
“Damn it! Not only did I spend nearly two thousand dollars in sexy high heels and lingerie, I entered the shipping address as your apartment!”
“What? Let me see.”
While she was still recovering from the knowledge that she was a slutty shopaholic who clearly didn’t even remember her own address when intoxicated, Johnny looked at her emails. Belatedly she realized that meant he would see what she . . .
“You ordered a vibrator?” Johnny yelled much louder than she appreciated. “I don’t know whether to be turned on or offended.”
“It was probably your idea!” she said, suddenly wanting to laugh. This was all so ridiculous. “Same for the lingerie.”
His eyes had widened and he pinched the screen on her phone to expand the picture of the red scrap of lace. “Yeah, this might have been my idea. I could totally picture you wearing this and honestly, it’s making my pants hurt.”
“I can’t picture me wearing that.” She couldn’t. That wasn’t her style. She was more of a turn-off-the-lights-and-never-look kind of woman.
“Hey, Lizette?”
“Yes?”
Johnny handed her the phone back. “I know you were saying a little while ago that you were planning to return to Paris soon, but um, it looks like you canceled your return flight.” He pointed to an email from the airline.
“What?” She scanned the email. She had canceled her return flight and had shipped a bunch of panties to Johnny’s apartment. In her drunken mind, had she been planning to stay longer? That was either one compelling drug she had taken or he was impressive in bed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter at this point, since the damage is done, but what on earth was I thinking?”
“I don’t think we were. Though I have to say, your choice of vibrator intrigues me. That is no baby carrot.”
Her cheeks burned. “You are incorrigible.”
He laughed. “I’m just speaking the truth.”
Unfortunately, he had a point. “I imagine if I act quickly, I can cancel some of these purchase orders.”
“Now where would the fun be in that? I say we get the party started.” Johnny winked at her.
Lizette rolled her eyes. “Are you ready to leave? By the way, I am assuming you were unable to reach Saxon?”
“No, he didn’t pick up. I called Stella and Zelda is fine. She was dehydrated, so they gave her fluids.”
“I’m glad she is well, though I find being drugged more than a little unnerving.”
“You’re an investigator, right? How would you approach finding out what happened?”
“I would start with the guest list and question the caterer as to who she saw in the kitchen before the punch was brought out. But honestly, it could have been anyone. It was just sitting on that table for hours, yes?”
“I would think so.” Johnny picked up their empty glasses. “You ready?”
“Yes.” They stood in tandem.
“We need to cover your shirt,” Johnny said. “The blood is a little too realistic looking. Let’s see if Saxon has a jacket or something.”
He had a point. Lizette imagined she looked like a secretary who had been stabbed. It was not conducive to blending in.
“This will work.” Johnny pulled an olive-colored button-up sweater off the couch. Trying not to wrinkle her nose, she let him drape it over her shoulders, effectively covering her back and shielding her handcuffed hand from view.
It smelled like patchouli and didn’t match her outfit, but she supposed she had no right to be picky. Johnny smiled at her. “You look adorable. Like Mister Rogers.”
She had no idea who that was, but she suspected it wasn’t a comparison she was going to like. Nor did she have it in her to suggest they stop at the drugstore so she could purchase a pack of panties, which was what she really wanted to do.
* * *
THERE WAS NO way Lizette looked like Mister Rogers, but it was amusing to Johnny to see the old-man sweater draped over her. She looked exactly like what she was—an elegant, classy woman who had taken her hair out of her bun and had some fun. Johnny just wished he could remember it.
As they left Saxon’s, he said, “Does all this architecture here in the Quarter remind you of home? I’ve never been to Paris.”
“Actually, the majority of this is Spanish architecture. Most of the French buildings burned down in the late eighteenth century. It does feel very European though.”
Of course she knew the history of New Orleans better than he did, because she was that kind of woman. Intelligent and well-read, and in desperate need of someone to shove her slightly off balance so she didn’t end up shitting diamonds. He was just the man to do it.
“Is that so?” he asked her mildly. “It looks as French as a poodle to me.”
“Poodles originated in Germany.”
Johnny laughed. “Thanks, Miss Encyclopedia Britannica. This is why I like hanging out with older women.”
“Older women? Pardon!”
She looked severely put out by the idea, which was ludicrous, given they were immortal and she would never physically age, so Johnny knew he had hit on a fun way to rib her. “Turn left here. And yes, you are older than me. Substantially older. I’ve always wanted to make it with a wise woman. I’ll be the student, you can be the teacher.” He gave her a wink.
“Is that a sexual reference?”
“Absolutely.”
Glancing at him from under her dark, luscious eyelashes, Lizette said with an honesty that he had come to realize characterized her, “Then I don’t imagine I can be much of an instructor to you. My sexual experience is rather limited.”
Now why was that suddenly so arousing to him? Johnny stopped walking and nudged Lizette until she was back up against a wooden door.
“What are you doing?” she asked, sounding suddenly breathless. “This is inappropriate.”
“I’m going to kiss you. Something I’ve been wanting to do for an hour.”
“I don’t think that is wise. We’re on the street.”
“Haven’t you noticed that sex and alcohol cling to all the dark corners of New Orleans? Everywhere you turn someone is making out or flirting or drinking. Normally I don’t act like a tourist, but I do like the freedom it gives me. No one is going to look at us if I kiss you.” Johnny studied Lizette, marveling at how delicate and sensual she was, and she seemed to have no idea. Her rich brown hair was thick and came down over the hills of her breasts in chocolate waves. He touched it, stroking his fingers back into it to get a sense of its weight, its soft silken texture.
Her eyes had widened, her shoulders stiffening, but she didn’t push him away and she didn’t tell him to stop. “I suppose I have no objections then,” she said, her French accent one of the sexiest damn things he’d ever heard, even when she was saying something as priggish as that.
“Good.” Johnny leaned forward, shifting his body in closer to hers. She smelled like a soft floral perfume, blood, and the tangy musk of desire. He briefly closed his eyes and drank in the scent. Normally, he wasn’t the least bit grateful for his heightened sense of smell, and he had long suspected it was why he’d taken up smoking. The cloying sweet cloud of cigarettes muffled the assault on his nose of everyday smells like garbage, fried foods, and the body odor of tourists sweating in the Louisiana sun.
But now he was glad for his sense of smell, because Lizette smelled beautiful, like everything feminine and delicious, a perfect aphrodisiac.
“Are you sniffing me?” she asked.
“No. I’m breathing you in.” Johnny leaned down over her neck, her breasts, hand still buried in her hair, torturing himself, dragging out the anticipation.
“This is where the student becomes the teacher then,” she said, “because while you may be substantially younger than me, you are most effectively seducing me.”
Male pride swelled, along with his cock. “That’s good to know.” He kissed the soft flesh of her neck, and moved down to rub his lips over the cleavage peeking demurely out of her blouse. “And here European men get all the credit for being romantic.”
“Aren’t you European?” she asked, her voice breathless, her lithe fingers gripping his bare arms. “You are Irish.”
“It’s not the same as being from the Continent. No one has accused Irishmen of being romantic like Italians or the French.” He lightly kissed just her bottom lip, enjoying the way she shifted restlessly, his slow brushes of flesh on flesh clearly stirring her arousal. “You know the Irish curse, don’t you?”
She shook her head.
“They say Irishmen in general are underendowed.” It was the rumor. Johnny couldn’t say with any sort of certainty whether it was true or not. Certainly in his youth, the lads had all bragged about their prowess.
“Oh dear,” she said, her head falling back as he nuzzled along her jaw to her ear. “You are not giving a glowing report for your countrymen. How do you compare then?”
“Well, you’ve said my charm is adequate. And I can assure you that you will be equally satisfied with the rest of me.” He was no porn star, but he hadn’t heard any complaints.
“So is my impending knowledge of your anatomy such a foregone conclusion then?”
“That’s entirely up to you.” Johnny finally kissed Lizette fully on the lips, tilting his head and taking her mouth with confidence, ready to taste her.
She didn’t disappoint. He’d known from staring at her all night that her lips would be soft and full beneath his, and as he kissed her, Johnny decided that he had found the perfect fit for his mouth. The connection felt amazing, like the closest a vampire was ever going to get to heaven, their bodies in sync and intimate, yet not exactly touching. It was satisfying, yet it wasn’t enough. It was a teasing taste of how far he wanted to go if she would let him.
Lizette gave a soft sigh between kisses, an acquiescence that made him feel oddly happy. If anyone had told him two nights before that he would be pleased that Lizette Chastain was giving in to his advances, he would have laughed himself sick. He still wasn’t sure even now why he wanted to so desperately, other than that he was of course attracted to her. But it was more than that. It was her sincerity, her unwavering honesty, her clear loyalty that appealed to him. Plus she was damn cute when she was quivering in indignation. It wasn’t indignation that was making her shift restlessly against the wall in front of him now though.
“So what do you think?” he asked her, spreading his hand across her waist to the small of her back, enjoying how petite she was, how big and powerful he felt standing in front of her. He kept his tone casual, but he had a deep desire to give her the most intense pleasure she’d ever known. “Want to see what I’ve got? Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”
It was about the only French he knew besides counting to ten, and he sure as hell couldn’t spell it, but it seemed if there was ever going to be a time he could bust the phrase out, it was now.
“I suppose there is no harm in it,” she responded in her usual formal speech. Yet her tone was different. It had dropped lower and carried a slight tremor in it.
She was in. It was there in her voice.
He stepped away from her. “Then let’s start walking again before I compromise you right here and now. And while having your back up against the wall never feels good, considering this is brick it really won’t.”
Their cuffs rattled as she smoothed her hair back and moistened her lips, purse firmly on her shoulder. Johnny had almost forgotten they were attached at the wrist. He was getting used to it, which made him pause for a second. Could he get used to a woman in his life, like Wyatt had with Stella? He hadn’t thought so.
He still didn’t. Did he?
Maybe he did.
That thought scared the living shit out of him.