chapter Nine
Gwenna about laid an egg. That was Kelsey's preferred method of hitting on guys?
Of course, her rather private and very inappropriate question got a reaction from all the men, who actually weren't of the tattooed variety, but looked like they had gone from the fraternity house to the golf course and had somehow landed in the wrong concert hall. All four insisted they had the biggest dick ever known to man, bragging to such an extent that Gwenna would have thought they were carrying an anaconda around in their pants from their descriptions.
"I'm serious," the one said when Kelsey told him he had to be lying. "It's just a fact. I'm huge."
"Show us," Kelsey challenged.
Oh, no. Gwenna wanted out of the us in that statement. She said, "No, really, don't show us. We believe you."
"I don't. I bet you've got nothing." Kelsey waved her hand in the air and started to turn.
Big Dick grabbed her arm and said, "If you want to see it, I'll show you."
Kelsey gave him an incredibly sweet smile. Gwenna was astonished at how manipulative Kelsey was behind that ditzy grin. "Cool. All of you, bring them out on the count of three."
Which was how Gwenna found herself staring at four penises simultaneously, doubling her lifetime exposure to male members in a matter of five seconds.
It was astonishing how they could all look essentially the same, yet so very different. Big Dick had a right to his brag. He definitely looked like super-sized next to his companions. Beyond that, Gwenna was just really starting to get a good look when a club bouncer yelled, "Hey! Put that shit away. This ain't no strip club."
She confessed to be slightly disappointed when they all immediately complied, tucking and zipping and looking around as if they'd just recalled where exactly they were. Not because she had any interest in actually interacting with any of their penises, but out of pure curiosity. It was the anatomical part that drove so much of male action she found herself wondering what was the big deal exactly. But that brief exposure didn't answer her weighty question in the least.
"That was hot," Kelsey told them. "Thanks." She took Gwenna's arm and led her away, whispering, "Never overstay the welcome or they'll start to get pervy ideas."
While Gwenna didn't think it was the lingering that would give them pervy ideas, but you know, perhaps the request to see their penises, she wasn't going to object to leaving.
"What were you doing?" Alexis demanded, standing where they had been when she'd left them, glaring while juggling three drinks.
Kelsey giggled and took a martini glass from Alexis. "Nothing."
"We just saw those guys' penises," Gwenna confessed.
"Oh, Lord." Alexis rolled her eyes and swallowed half her drink, handing the remaining one over to Gwenna. "Oh, look, I think the band is coming on to play."
The noisemakers had left and there was some movement onstage. Gwenna couldn't see very well because she was short and it was a standing-room-only concert in a nightclub. There were some tables on the balcony to the side, but the majority of the room was just a vast crowd of heads blocking her view. She could see the drum set and a guy with dark hair behind it messing around adjusting things. The rest of the stage just looked crowded with instruments, mics, and amplifiers. Absently, she took a large sip of her drink and stood on her tiptoes.
Bloody hell, the martini Alexis had got her was strong. Her eyes were watering, which could be dangerous, given her predilection for blood tears. She swiped at her eyes and gave a little cough.
Someone jostled her elbow. "Hi."
It was a guy. Another version of the jeans, black't-shirt, skull-and-crossbones-necklace-wearing, shaved-head guy.
"Hey. Is your name Slash?" she asked, deciding to hell with subtle.
"No." He raised an eyebrow. "But it could be if you want it to."
"No, I don't. I hate that name. I despise it. If you were named Slash I was going to spit on you."
"Ooookay." He turned and left, practically running.
Gwenna couldn't believe she'd just done that. She burst out laughing. "I'm losing my mind," she told Alexis.
"No, you're just coming into your own, sister. Go with it."
Maybe that was it. She was coming into her own. It was a liberating feeling. She'd had sex on a massage table with a hot-tie cop, and now she was getting sloshed on a martini at a rock concert wearing a napkin for a dress. This beat the hell out of sitting by herself in York sewing fuzzy scarves.
"Hey." She grabbed the arm of a guy in his young twenties walking past her. "Are you Slash?"
"No," he answered directly to her cleavage, which she actually had, thanks to Kelsey's plunging dress.
"Oh, then you can keep walking."
"What if I don't want to keep walking?"
"You have to."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
"Oh." He left with a disappointed look.
Gwenna was either drunk with power, or the martini that was essentially pure alcohol with a dash of apple flavoring had gone straight to her head. The room was getting quite warm and her fingertips felt slightly numb. By the time the band had taken the stage and performed their first set, Gwenna had plowed through two more martinis, had spoken to at least fifty guys, got propositioned multiple times, and was shown another three penises—confirming for her that all men were not created equal. She also had her ass fondled with no idea who the culprit was, and still had yet to find the infamous and ever elusive Slash.
He was starting to tick her off.
And she was definitely drunk. She was as drunk as her Uncle William when he'd fallen into the ale barrel and had drunk it down so he wouldn't drown without an adequate air supply.
"Who is Slash?" Alexis yelled into her ear, The Impalers blasting out a song that Gwenna thought she might recognize. Or maybe it was just that so many songs had the word baby in them.
"I don't know who Slash is." Which was the damn frustrating part of the whole thing.
"What? Then why the hell are you asking all these guys if they're Slash?"
It seemed obvious to her. "So I know if they're Slash or not."
Alexis frowned. "You've totally lost me. And you're drunk, by the way."
"I know. It's kind of nice." Fuzzy. Warm. Making her horny.
"Your brother is going to shoot me."
"So?" Gwenna drained her fourth martini, damn proud of herself for going to the bar and ordering it without help. "It's not like a bullet would kill you. And Ethan needs to stop treating me like a child. I'm a grown woman and I can make my own decisions."
Her s in decisions did a monstrous slur. Okay, so she couldn't manage to say decisions right at the moment, but she was still capable of making them.
"I totally applaud making your own decisions. If they're good ones."
"Don't be so critical, Alexis, that really makes me sad."
"I'm sorry, but please, can you just lay off the martinis and stop talking to strange men?"
That sounded boring, but she nodded, not wanting to argue.
"Hey, let's try to run up onstage," Kelsey said, her hips jiggling to the music.
"Okay." Gwenna handed her martini to Alexis. If she was up onstage, she could scan the crowd for Slash. Even though she had no clue what he looked like, somehow the logic made sense to her martini-soaked brain.
Her sister-in-law sputtered. "No! Bad decision. Bad, bad, bad. You're going to get thrown out!"
"Nah. I know half the guys in the band," Kelsey said. "And I had sex with the bass player back in the sixties. It's cool."
"See?" That sounded highly encouraging to Gwenna. "Kelsey knows the band."
And she proceeded to follow Kelsey through the crowd, weaving and smiling and dancing with concertgoers as they made their way to the front. Getting past the bouncers was a snap, since they were mortal. She and Kelsey just fast-walked, vampire speed, between two of them on the side, and then leaped onstage.
Wow. It was hot and bright up there. And loud.
Pulling Gwenna behind the guitar player and turning sideways, Kelsey swayed to the music and made a few "oh, yeah, oh, whoo, ooh" sounds at appropriate times in the music.
Backup singers in a rock band. Brilliant.
Gwenna turned and did the same. This was kind of fun. The guitar player glanced back and looked them up and down, amusement on his face.
The bouncers didn't have the same loving feeling toward them. Gwenna felt a meaty arm encircle her stomach and she was contemplating using her strength to break free when she glanced to the side and saw a very familiar face.
"Nate!" She waved as the bouncer lifted her completely off her feet. "What brings you by?" Not that he could hear her, but she was delighted to see him, and his very handsome face.
He looked a bit off put, though.
She wondered why that was.
Nate had been pretty damn sure he wasn't going to enjoy his little stroll into The Impalers concert, and that he was going to hate Slash on sight just for the simple fact that he was spending time with Gwenna. Nate wanted to spend time with Gwenna. Nate wanted Gwenna. He didn't want her trolling around town with other guys. It was that simple.
He was also worried about her and her lack of concern for her personal safety. She was knee deep in a murder investigation and didn't even seem to realize that. It was obvious she had been telling the truth when she'd said she lived a sheltered life.
That particular fact was a little difficult to remember, though, when he stared up at the stage watching Gwenna gyrate and sing along to the music wearing a scrap-of-nothing blue dress.
For a brief second, he thought she was a legitimate backup singer because that was the only explanation his brain could conjure up. Until the bouncer grabbed on to her and hauled her lily-white ass off the stage. Gwenna Carrick had apparently charged the stage. Jesus, what the hell was she thinking?
She spotted him, giving him a big smile and a perky wave. "Nate!"
He thought she might have also said something else, but it got lost in the black T-shirt the beefy bouncer was wearing as he made fast work of flipping her over his shoulder and hopping off the stage. It was clear he was going to keep walking and toss her rear out of the club, so Nate stepped up.
"Hey, sorry about that, she's with me."
The guy stared him down, obviously trying to decide if he gave a shit or not. "Keep her drunk ass off the fucking stage," he said, dropping Gwenna to the floor without warning and giving a little nudge on her shoulder to send her in Nate's direction.
She stumbled backward and would have totally gone down except that Nate grabbed her arm and steadied her. She still tripped out of her shoe, though, giving a cry of pain, and that pissed him off.
"You got a problem?" he asked the bouncer, any patience he might have hauled out of reserve just used up. "You may be a badass bouncer, but I'm a fucking cop, and you're shoving around my girlfriend."
"Hey, I'm just doing my job, man. She went up onstage and I took her off. No big deal." The bouncer held out his hands. "Tell her to stay the fuck out of restricted areas and I won't have to touch her."
It wasn't exactly an apology but the guy didn't give him the fight he seemed to be looking for, so Nate took a deep breath and nodded. "Fine." Then he took Gwenna's hand, since she seemed to be struggling fruitlessly to bend over and put her shoe back on without toppling onto the floor. "Come on, babe, forget the goddamn shoe. You can put it on in the car."
"What about Kelsey?" Gwenna asked, turning around and pointing to her friend he'd met earlier in the evening, as she was likewise carted offstage by bad-ass bouncer number two.
"Oh, Jesus. What the hell were you two doing up there?" And he wasn't sure why it shocked him, but Gwenna clearly was drunk. Her eyes looked glassy and she was wobbling precariously.
"Kelsey knows the band," she said, like that explained a damn thing.
"Don't move." He shifted closer to the stage and went through the same routine with the second guy, flashing his badge so he wouldn't throw Kelsey out of the building either.
In two minutes he was standing in front of Gwenna and Kelsey, frowning at the party pair. "Don't do that again," he told them, then immediately felt like a jackass. He sounded like their father, and truthfully neither one of them looked the least bit repentant or grateful for his assistance.
"It wasn't a big deal," Gwenna said, her mouth opening very widely when she spoke, her words all rushing together like her tongue was out of commission.
"Are you drunk?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Shit-faced," she confirmed.
Alexis appeared next to him. "Hey, look, it's two thirds of the Supremes. You guys were pretty good up there."
"You encouraged them to do this?" he asked, feeling a little outraged.
She just shrugged. "I didn't encourage, but I couldn't stop them either. They're grown women."
"Where's Slash?" Nate asked Gwenna, yelling to be heard over the pounding music.
"He stood me up again," Gwenna said. "The bloody rat bastard."
She looked pissed off, but Nate was actually relieved. There was no reason to assume Slash was guilty of murder, but there was no reason to believe he was innocent either. And Nate didn't like the guy's little habit of making plans to meet Gwenna.
"I need to talk to you. Let's go somewhere quieter."
"Can we shag once we're there?"
Nate froze in the act of reaching for her hand. She was drunk. Jesus. Alexis snorted behind him. Nate studied Gwenna. Her hair was looking a little wild, blond fluffy curls falling in all directions, and her lipstick was wandering off her bottom lip. That blue dress that showed her entire freakin' navel was hiked up on her thigh, and falling off her right shoulder. Pink cheeked, glassy eyed, dead drunk, looking like a poster child for the morning after already, she wasn't exactly at her best. But Nate thought she was fucking gorgeous, and she was blinking up at him, her blue eyes wide, her lips parted and wet, her breathing a little faster than normal, and the flush of desire over her cheeks and neck.
She wanted him. He could see that.
And oh yeah, he wanted her, too.
No matter that his whole body felt like it could just drop to the ground in exhaustion, there was one part of him that had no problem staying up for her.
"After we have a little chat, I'm absolutely positive you can talk me into a shag," he told her. "Then when we're done being British and shagging, we can fuck like Americans."
Her little pink lips formed a perfect "O" as her eyes went wide in shock.
Nate didn't wait for an answer, nor did he wait to get reamed by Alexis, who looked disgusted and ready to go feminist on him.
He just hauled Gwenna by the hand until they were across the room, out the door of the club, and halfway down the block. He paused in front of a clothing store that was closed for the night, intent on lecturing her on the dangers of meeting anyone from the vampire slayers' loop until they had more concrete answers, when she shoved him backward against the glass window.
"What the…"
Gwenna snuggled up against him, her hand finding his dick on the first grab. "I can't wait another split second to do this," she said, and pulled his head down for a hot, wet kiss.
He had things to say. Important things. Shit that mattered. But hell if he could remember what a single one of those was. She had scattered his thoughts with the first warm taste of her mouth. The way she felt pressed against him, her fingers cupping his erection firmly and possessively while their tongues tangled, had him breathing hard and aching with the need to fill her body.
When she broke the kiss and started nibbling on his bottom lip, he moaned, "Gwenna. We need to go somewhere more private. Your place. My apartment is too…" He broke off when she bit his lip hard, then sucked on it. He felt that pull, felt that tug, all the way to his groin, and he slapped his hand onto her shoulder for support.
"Fuck, what are you doing?"
"I bit you," she said in a sweet, pretty little voice. "You taste good, Nate."
"Come on, babe, the hotel…" It was down the street. They just needed to walk. To get there. But instead of moving, Gwenna was yanking down his zipper and pulling his cock out. Right there on the street.
Nate glanced around. They were in a shadowy alcove, and while there were people milling around like always in Vegas, no one was paying attention to them. Yet. He tried to hang on to his resolve. But damn, it was hard when she was working over his cock like a pro. She had him by the balls, literally, and was stroking up and down his shaft, then around the tip with tight, confident motions, and it felt amazing.
But he still forced her to stop. And moved her a few feet over, and behind a scaffolding and tarp rigged up to paint the building's second floor. It wasn't a hotel room, but it was some form of cover, and should keep them out of jail for public exposure. The April night was cool, but Nate didn't even notice. He was on fire, and Gwenna didn't have a single goose bump, despite her skimpy outfit.
"Oh, goody, privacy," she said with a naughty smile.
It was in the back of his mind that this was taking advantage of her drunken state, and he almost pulled the plug, except that she prevented him from stopping, from any movement, speech, or rational thought of any kind, by gathering up the front of her dress and exposing her inner thighs to him. Where she was wearing no panties. Then taking his cock and sliding it over her clitoris, dipping it into her wetness, then back up again to rub her swollen clit.
Holy crap, that was hot. He leaned against the wall for support and concentrated on breathing and not ejaculating prematurely. Both of which seemed like monumental tasks at the moment.
Gwenna's knees bent as she began to move her own body in tandem with the up-and-down motion she created with her wrist on his cock. With her dress around her waist, he had one hell of a view, and when she used her free hand, and spread her blond curls apart, he about swallowed his tongue.
She sank down on the length of him and gave a hearty sigh of appreciation. "Bugger, that feels good."
That was the understatement of his lifetime. Nate gripped Gwenna's waist and savored the moment. "Yes, it does, babe. It feels better than good. It feels amazing. You're amazing."
Then he thrust upward, filling her, and sending her into a nice, low moan. Her head snapped back, and Nate flicked his tongue out and trailed it up and down the exposed part of her chest. It was definitely an intriguing dress, showing off her flesh in a narrow ribbon from neck to navel.
Gwenna met him thrust for thrust, her hands on his shoulders, her cries growing louder with each slap of their bodies together. It was fast and frenzied, and their bodies slipped and slid together, a hot, wet joining that shoved Gwenna into a quick orgasm, her nails digging into him, her tight opening squeezing onto him as she shuddered. He gave one last power thrust, then followed her, gritting his teeth as he came inside her with a tight pulsing orgasm.
Her moans slowed and she sank against his body as the last waves of ecstasy rolled over him. Then they were clinging to each other, sweaty and breathing hard, her face plastered against his chest, his heart pounding from the adrenaline rush. Nate kissed the side of her head, and loosened his grip on her waist. She sighed and snuggled a little closer, but made no attempt to disconnect their bodies. Neither did he.
They were still standing like that a solid minute later when his phone rang in his pants pocket.
"Shit." He didn't want to answer it, but he also couldn't turn off the detective in him. Part of him was wondering if it was the call telling him the autopsy report on Andrew Fletcher was in.
Gwenna dug into his pocket and retrieved his phone. He held his hand out but she just grinned and pushed the talk button. "Nate Thomas's office," she said in a clipped, secretarial voice. "May I help you?"
That made him grin, especially given that she was drunk and still sitting on his cock.
"One moment, please." She handed him the phone. "A Jim Connors wishes to speak to you."
Nate took the phone and disengaged himself from her, pulling her dress back down over her thighs. With the phone against his shirt, he gave her a soft kiss. "It's work. It will just take a second."
"I understand." She tucked him back into his pants and snuggled up against his chest.
Wrapping his free arm around her, Nate lifted the phone to his ear. "Yeah? What's up?"
"Where the fuck are you?"
"I'm on the boulevard, about a block from Caesar's." Behind a scaffolding tarp, but Jim didn't need to know that. Nate watched the black nylon flap in the breeze and tried to focus.
"You're supposed to be at that concert looking for Gwenna Carrick and her little online buddy."
"I'm actually with Gwenna Carrick at the moment."
"But you're not at the club."
"No." What the hell was Jim getting at? "Is there some kind of problem?"
"You bet your horny ass there is." The phone rustled as Jim shifted. "Get back to that club. The manager just found a dead body backstage. Victim is a white male, twenties, folded up like an origami crane in a storage closet. Scene team and the coroner on their way."
"Shit." Nate shoved off the wall. "You're kidding me."
"No, sir. Makes you wonder about your cutsie little blonde, doesn't it? What do you think she was up to tonight before you got in her pants?"
While it pissed Nate off, he knew he'd be thinking the same thing in Jim's shoes.
"I'll be there in five." He hung up and looked down at Gwenna. She had been with her friends all night. She was drunk. She was too sweet. There was no way she could be a coldblooded killer. He'd stake his life on it.
But the facts told him that he couldn't rule Gwenna out as a suspect, no matter what his gut said. She was involved on the loop. She was at the scene both times. She could be faking her intoxication. And in a crowded concert, she could have slipped backstage and killed someone. There was no report yet on how Andrew had died, or how his blood had all been drained.
Nate knew Gwenna couldn't have done that. He could look into her eyes and know that she was a loving, compassionate person.
But he also suspected she had secrets she didn't share with him, and that she knew more than she was telling him about the slayers' loop.
"What's the matter?" she asked him now, her face showing concern, her hand reaching for his.
"We've got another body."
"Oh, no." Her face went white. "Where?"
"Backstage at The Impalers concert."