chapter Seven
Normally, Nate knew how to take a hint.
But he wasn't feeling particularly normal.
He stood in the lobby at the Ava, feeling exhausted, gritty, stubborn. The lingering taste of bad coffee was in his mouth, and his shoulder muscles were screaming from being taut with stress all day.
So Gwenna Carrick had slipped out on him. He should leave it at that. Let it go.
But he didn't want to. He wasn't in the mood to put up with a disappearing act. If she didn't want to see him again, fine, whatever, but she should have said it to his face. There should have been a good-bye. What was so fucking hard about that?
And he had some questions for her regarding the dead guy in the train station. Some interesting little facts had popped up during the course of the day and he was curious as to what her reaction would be to the news.
Nate went up to the front desk. "I need to speak to Gwenna Carrick. What room is she in?"
"I'm sorry." The desk clerk gave him a generic smile, her blond hair sliding over her boxy uniform jacket. "I can't give out that kind of information."
Extracting his badge from his pocket and holding it up in front of her, Nate said, "I'm Detective Thomas with the Las Vegas Metro Police. I need to speak to Ms. Carrick about an ongoing murder investigation."
The girl blanched. "Oh, um. Hold on. Let me get my supervisor." She turned and ran off.
Nate was tempted to just reach over the counter and type Gwenna's name into the computer, but he restrained himself. Five minutes later he had the information he needed and he was in the elevator heading to the twenty-first floor.
He had questions and he was going to get answers.
Gwenna scanned through her e-mail, checking both her private account and the slayers' loop for signs of Slash.
There were posts from him the night before, but that was unreliable as far as she was concerned. Sometimes e-mails hit the loop immediately, sometimes there were random and unpredictable delays. It didn't prove that Slash wasn't the guy now lying in the morgue.
The possibility of his death made her shiver. Not that she had any reason to feel guilty. He had suggested the meeting location, and in his many posts, Slash hadn't come off as a particularly nice guy, but still. It wasn't like being a bit of a shit in e-mail justified popping someone off.
But she actually discovered a personal e-mail from Slash to her that appeared to have been sent that morning, given the time listed in the header. That was promising and she went to click on it when the doorbell rang.
"Damn." She really wanted to see what Slash had to say. Scanning it quickly as she stood up, she read a quick apology from him for missing their scheduled meeting. He'd had to work, he said, and couldn't get away in time.
The doorbell rang again and Gwenna jogged over, vampire speed, her mind processing Slash's e-mail. If he was at work the night before, surely he couldn't have been killed and stuffed behind a ticket dispenser then. That meant it was all a coincidence. The murder victim had nothing to do with Slash or the slayers' loop. And she'd just been stood up.
It was a total relief.
She opened the door without checking the peephole, expecting to see Alexis or Kelsey, early for their concert outing. Kelsey had threatened to bring a big giant bag of makeup to play with on Gwenna. Already intent on protesting, she yanked the door open and opened her mouth, an adage about "less is more" on her lips.
The words died when she realized it was Nate at her door. Looking tired, angry, and impatient, if his raised hand was any indication. He was going for a third knock with a taut fist.
"Hi!" she said inanely, wishing like hell she wasn't wearing yoga pants. But she'd just thrown them on after a shower, knowing Kelsey would insist on going through her closet and picking out an outfit anyway. Kelsey was just that type, and Gwenna was actually lousy at dressing herself, so she was willing to give it a go. As long as it didn't involve anything see-through or so short that sitting wasn't an option.
But now she was in stretchy, second-skin gray pants that screamed Friday Night Without a Date, and Nate was staring at her without saying a word. Feeling that annoying and telltale burn creeping up her cheeks, Gwenna forced a bright smile. "What brings you by?"
"Can I come in?" he asked, gesturing to her suite. Not smiling.
"Oh! Of course." She had spent too much time in York. She's forgotten how to deal with other human beings on a day-to-day basis. The bulk of her contact with people was online, which wasn't exactly social skill building. "I'm sorry… come in. Please."
He followed her into her apartment and she gave a quick glance around, making sure nothing inappropriate was lying around like a basket of dirty knickers or bags of blood. Of course, he'd seen her knickers when he'd ripped them off the night before, so it was not like a little personal laundry would distress him, but still. And bags of blood would just be bad. Bad blood. Bad, bad, bad. She'd have to mess with his memory, do a little erasing, if he saw anything vampiric, and that just felt wrong. Violating, really, after what they had shared.
"Have a seat," she said, gesturing to her sofa. Ethan's design staff had done a respectable job of ensuring the suites were more apartment than hotel room, and they were done in rich textures and quality furnishings. It was tasteful, yet Gwenna realized she'd never quite bothered to make it her own. It was still just a hotel suite in her brother's casino. Not home. No more than Roberto's Italian villa had been her home. She'd always known his staff had little respect for her, and Roberto himself had never given her any authority over decorating or their living arrangements.
Making a home of her own was yet again another thing she had never got around to. Or maybe she just hadn't known how.
"Thanks." Nate sat down and gave a sigh, like his body and bones were weary.
He still hadn't given a reason for his appearance, nor did he look like he was in a loving, touching, squeezing mood. Gwenna was absolutely unsure how to proceed. She had no previous one-night stand experience and hadn't been given any illicit sex etiquette tips at the girls' school she had attended in her youth.
Of course, here she was stupidly worried about how to handle a postorgasm encounter, and he had probably spent the day contacting family and the funeral home. She was an insensitive cad, thinking of sex when he was grieving.
"Are you doing okay? Did you have a chance to speak to your parents today?" she asked, taking the chair across from him. She wanted to touch him, to just reassure him, offer a bit of comfort, but he looked very hard, very closed off.
"Yes. They got stuck in L.A., but they should be here by morning." His fingers drummed across his knees, over and over, and he was sitting forward, stiff. "I wanted to let you know that the victim wasn't your pal Slash."
Gwenna was surprised at how relieved she truly was. And yet how sorry that someone else's life had ended in such a vulgar fashion. "Oh, good. Thanks for telling me. I thought it couldn't be him, because I got an e-mail from him saying he had to miss our meeting because he was working late, but it's good to hear it officially, because you know how e-mail can be… it's totally unreliable in terms of time, etc."
Nate just shook his head. "It wasn't him."
"I'm so sorry for whoever it was. Were you able to identify him?"
"Yes. His name is Andrew Fletcher. Twenty-one years old. Does that ring any bells for you?"
"No. Should it?" Why was Nate looking at her like that?
"Andrew Fletcher spent a lot of time online, including a vampire slayers' loop that also has a member named Slash87. You can confirm this for us, but I'm going on the assumption this is the same loop you're on and we've been discussing. Andrew's online name was Buzzdrew."
"Bloody hell." Gwenna recognized the name immediately. Buzz was constantly posting to the loop. He had a sharp sense of humor and an impressive vocabulary. And he made her extremely happy by always using capitalization and punctuation. "You can't be serious."
"Oh, I'm afraid I'm very serious. So how much of a coincidence do you think it is, Gwenna, that one loop member suggests you meet at the very location where another one has just been brutally murdered? Drained of all his blood, in fact. Like a vampire."
Gwenna had suspected that had been the case. She had seen the victim's pallor, and normally she could smell blood, all the time. While she had heightened smell and could decipher shampoo, skin lotions, toothpaste, and various other scents on mortals, blood was always the easiest to pick out. It hovered around mortals, their blood scent like an aura. It had been absent in Andrew's body. But she hadn't really put it together, had been so shocked, and very aware of a strong fleshy odor. She'd just attributed the lack of blood scent to his death. Now she was appalled to realize that Nate was right. This couldn't be a coincidence. It was too odd. Too planned. Yet it made no sense against the backdrop of knowledge she had—that the slayers were planning a large-scale attack on vampires in Vegas. So how would murdering one of their own fit into that?
"That's awful. Absolutely horrible."
"Yes, it is. And there are over four hundred members on that slayers' loop. We have to go through every single one, matching online name to real name, and we don't have the staff or the computer expertise to do this kind of crap. But you can save us a few minutes by telling me which cutsie little fake name is yours."
It was a bit mortifying, but Gwenna cleared her throat and went out with it. "QueenieG." No more apologizing to men.
That actually brought the closest thing to a smile on Nate's face since he'd walked in the door. "QueenieG? Okay, then, thanks."
Gwenna realized she could help him save a bundle of time and labor. "I know who about half the loop members are, and I can give that to you for the investigation. I've been playing around a little and seeing who is who. The ones who registered with real names are in a spreadsheet I created, and the ones who used fake names or registered anonymously are in a separate spreadsheet. In my spare time I've been picking through those, searching for their real identities. I've found about a fourth of those."
She was trying to be helpful, but he gave her an odd look. "Why were you collecting that kind of information?"
The truth was incomprehensible, so she just shrugged. "I was curious. I get bored easily and I like to do online searches. It's like a puzzle to find someone's real identity."
"But you don't know Slash's real name?"
"No, I haven't found his yet." Much to her annoyance.
Nate just looked at her, clearly thinking. He had this way of staring right into her, immovable, just like he had in the elevator. Like he had during sex. He could simply look at her, and it was like he was seeing everything—the real her, the inner thoughts, the secrets, the true Gwenna no one else understood.
"What do you do for a living?"
She'd given a vague response the first time he'd asked her that and he hadn't pursued it, which was amazing given how much they'd talked the night before. At least initially. Then they'd been too busy moaning to form words. But he was waiting for her answer now to his utterly loaded question, though Nate couldn't know that.
"I don't do anything."
"You don't work?" Nate didn't move or change postures, but she could sense his discontent with her answer. He had excellent control over his expressions, and he could sit as still as the dead, but she was starting to clue in to the way his thumb went up and down, up and down when he was studying her.
"No, I don't work." That wasn't a lie, though not the whole truth either. "I never did." She took a deep breath and forced the rest out. "And after my daughter died and my marriage ended, I had something of a breakdown. So I've just been sponging off my brother."
For the first time since he'd arrived, she saw a crack in his control. His fingers stopped moving, his eyes looked troubled. "Gwenna. I'm sure your brother doesn't see it that way. I'm sure he wants to help you."
"He does." She couldn't argue that Ethan had been good to her, despite his annoying tendencies, because he had. She had never lacked for money, housing, material luxuries. He gave her whatever she wanted and way more than she'd ever ask for. But lately it had begun to rub that Ethan controlled her finances. He was so generous—more than he should be really—but it meant that yet again Gwenna wasn't independent. "But I keep thinking that I really need to learn how to take care of myself. One sort of needs a job skill to do that, though."
"You didn't work before you got married?"
"No." That was simpler than explaining she had been the pampered daughter of a Norman lord, and she'd spent her days sewing and practicing the harp in the eleventh century. "I was a bit sheltered coming up."
"Well, what would you like to do? If you could do anything." Nate sank back into the sofa and waved his hand at her, like a career might pop up out of thin air.
His was a question no one had ever asked her before. Gwenna wrinkled her nose. "I don't know." She closed her mouth. Opened it. Closed it. "Well. I… don't know."
Nate raised an eyebrow. "Well, maybe you should think about it."
Maybe. But it sounded rather overwhelming. She had never considered that she could have a career. That she could be a modern woman like Alexis and Brittany. The thought was a little dizzying.
"I'm not sure I'm really good at anything." Gwenna bit her fingernail, than stared at her hand in confusion. She hadn't done that in centuries. Since those early days of her marriage to Roberto when he used to disappear for weeks at a time and she had worried incessantly. "Not really."
"What do you do every day?"
"I sleep a lot," she said, because that was true. "I tend to stay up really late at night. Last night was normal for me."
He shot her a look of irritation, not even remarking on her unintended sexual innuendo. "So what do you do at night then?"
Besides shag strange men in empty spas on massage tables. The unspoken words just hung there in the air between them, and Gwenna wanted to crawl under the table and die. Except going under the table would have her at crotch level with Nate, and she couldn't die anyway. It was hell to be wading through this with no clue how to have a normal relationship with a man.
Though obviously any sort of so-called relationship she had or might have with Nate had not exactly got off on a normal foot either. She'd had sex with him after discovering a murder victim, which possibly proved her brother's accusation to be true—she was not to be trusted when it came to men.
He was waiting for her answer. "I read. I do things… on the computer. I play the piano." Infiltrate vampire slayer loops and drink copious amounts of blood.
"What things on the computer?"
She should have known that he would call her on that one. He was still in detective mode. "I just like to explore, to read things, to do research. I'm a repeat poster on Wikipedia. Especially the section on Norman history. I do a lot of genealogy."
"And hang out in online vampire slayer groups."
"Just the one." So there.
Nate let that go. His fingers started drumming again. "So you're smart. Well read. You have extensive computer research skills. And you play the piano. It sounds like you could do a lot of things."
Gwenna shrugged noncommittally, not really wanting to discuss this with him. It made her feel inadequate. Lazy. Self-indulgent. "No one is going to pay me to play the piano."
"Why not? This is Vegas. There's a piano in every other lobby."
"But I'm not that good."
"Then why did you mention it?"
"Because you asked what I do."
"So clearly you enjoy it. No one is expecting a genius at these joints, you just have to be able to play without hitting a bad-note."
"I don't hit bad notes." She'd had nine centuries to practice the blasted thing, she'd better not hit bad notes. But that didn't mean she was capable of entertaining anyone with her playing.
"Then what's the problem? If performing in front of people makes you uncomfortable, you could record music."
She made a face without really meaning to.
He raised an eyebrow. "Okay, that's out. How about a librarian?"
Did she look like a librarian? That was startling. Though probably true. "They have degrees."
Now Nate seemed determined to forge her a career path. Like if he could just hit on the right idea, she'd get a job and get her act together. Hell, maybe there was something to that.
"So then something with your computer skills… you could start one of those services where you find people online for clients. That's huge right now and it sounds like you know exactly how to do that."
Now that idea actually intrigued her. Gwenna sat back in her chair and crossed her ankles.
"What, no excuse for this one?" He gave her a wry look.
Since she had been making excuses, she just gave him a smile back. "Now that could be interesting. I have a lot to learn, but I do enjoy the challenge of ferreting out info online."
"Maybe you can practice by helping the department match the rest of those e-mail addresses to real names."
Gwenna nodded. She'd been thinking the same thing herself. "Sure, of course I can do that. Whatever you need to help figure out what the hell is going on and who's responsible for Andrew's death. I can e-mail you the list I already have so you can get started."
First on her list was going to be Slash and FoxyKyle. They dominated the loop. And they had both taken measures to secure their identity. Gwenna wanted to know why.
"You got any paper? I'll give you my e-mail address."
Gwenna retrieved a pad of paper from the kitchenette area and watched Nate scrawl something on it with the pen she'd handed him. He was left-handed, and his elbow tilted out at a funny angle when he wrote. But his strokes were confident, sharp. Just watching him reminded her of the night before, of his hands moving over her with that same matter-of-fact approach. He took, but he didn't own, didn't try to possess or dominate. He was just positive his touch would be well received and he was right. She had welcomed every lick, every suck, every touch.
And now they weren't going to speak about it, and she was going to let him walk out the door and deny herself the chance to explore his body further all because she was a lifelong introvert.
It was beyond stupid.
He stood up. Sexy as hell, with caramel-colored hair; broad shoulders; face, demeanor, and expression as rugged and impenetrable as the north moors; a man's man, with a penis large enough that he was entitled to brag about it.
If she wanted a crack at same said penis yet again, she was going to have to be bold. She fought for the nerve, for a little backbone. To be QueenieG, in real life, as well as online.
"I'll be in touch." He passed the paper to her with zero hand-to-hand contact and headed for the door.
Gwenna stared at his back. He really and truly was going to walk out and never even discuss the fact that his cock had been in her mouth not eighteen hours earlier. And she'd done a pretty fine job of working him over, if she did say so herself, and he wasn't even going to acknowledge any of that? It irritated her enough that she steeled herself. Damn it, she did not like being ignored.
"Are you honestly just going to leave without even mentioning that we had hot sex last night?"
Nate came to an abrupt stop. Gwenna's heart was pounding as he turned around, but it was more from anger than nerves. If he just did that thing where he stared at her and didn't speak, she was going to throw something at him. Like her sofa.
But his eyes narrowed and he said in a very low, tight voice, "You're the one who left without a word. I figured that meant you didn't want to discuss the fact that we had hot sex. On a massage table. Where you came three times."
Oh, my. Gwenna felt heat flare up spontaneously between her thighs. Had it only been three times? She'd been fairly certain she'd spent the whole time in a sort of continuous orgasm.
If the fact that she had left was the only thing bothering him, then she could resolve that straight away. "Sorry about that. I got a call from my sister-in-law that a friend has left her husband—a real rotten sort—and she was crying… it was a girl thing. I had to go over there and offer some comfort."
"You're just a comforting kind of gal, aren't you?"
"What the hell does that mean?" It almost sounded insulting.
"Nothing." Nate rubbed his head with his hand and made a sound of frustration. "You could have woken me up. I felt like a jackass waking up in that room by myself while the staff checked me out."
Yikes. The staff had found him? That must have been an eyeful. "I thought you could really use the sleep… I know you'd had a hard couple of days and it seemed important that you get some deep sleep."
He stared at her. She stared back.
Nate sighed. "Fuck."
That's what she had in mind, but she didn't think that's what Nate meant.
"Gwenna. I have had a hard couple of days and I don't have it in me to be playing guessing games. If you didn't mean to ditch out on me, what are we doing here? What do you want from this? Just last night?"
She shook her head. It felt like they'd just got started and she was attracted to him, physically and otherwise. "No. I would like to see you again. What do you want?"
What Nate wanted was a big old tropical island far away from death with Gwenna naked on it, but seeing as that wasn't a real likely possibility anytime soon, he gave her the simplified version of the truth. "I want you." Painfully. Immediately.
Her blue eyes widened, sparking with desire. "It's good to hear we're in agreement then."
Nate closed the distance between them. Gwenna was wearing the tightest stretchy pants he'd ever seen, and he loved the way they hugged her ass, and even better, the way they clung in front, outlining her sex for him. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her, hot and hard, forcing her lips open with his tongue, while his free hand stroked over the front of her pants, and his cock went hard on cue.
Her gasp against him satisfied him. Gwenna's knees bent, and she leaned forward, her soft fingers wrapping around his wrist like she meant to stop his touch. The hell with that. Nate pressed his thumb against her clit, nudging her legs apart. Then he stroked and petted her over the soft stretchy pants, loving the way the fabric cupped her mound, enjoying the sound of her breathing in his ear, her tiny little gasps and sighs. Gwenna was petite and proportionate, but while he'd originally thought she was fragile, lithe, skinny, he now knew her body was all woman, with curves and a healthy muscle tone. She was thin, but firm, curvy, but toned. Perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect.
Driving her wild without undressing her was really damn hot, and Nate saw no reason to stop. He kissed and licked her mouth, his fingers moving over and over her, brushing her nipples, smoothing over her tight ass, sliding up and down in the indentation in her pants he'd created by stroking her, pressing a little deeper and deeper as she moved restlessly, knees bending further.
"Take my pants off," she murmured, her cheeks bright pink spots of color, and her eyes half closed, glazed with desire.
Nate bit her bottom lip. "Shh. You're fine like this."
Her gasp of indignation turned him on. "Take my pants off," she demanded, clamping her hand around his wrist and holding him still with a strength that surprised him at the same time it made him hotter than hell. Damn, the lady wanted her pants off. She looked so sweet and innocent, like she'd faint at the site of a naked man, but looks were deceiving. Shit. Gwenna gave as good as she got.
"Yes, ma'am." He ripped her pants down to her knees and slid two fingers inside her wet, eager body.
"Oh, hell, Nate." She closed her eyes, and still gripping his wrist, she came, with graceful shudders, head falling back, back arching, hips thrusting to meet his touch.
It was beautiful. And suddenly, in the midst of the lust, the hot, wet desire to grab her hips and fuck the life out of her, Nate felt something else. Maybe a kind of gratitude to her for sharing herself with him at the right time, maybe an attraction for her as a woman, a human being, or maybe a kind of interest stirring to life that went beyond sex, and the instinctive urge to protect her, in all her intriguing mix of strong yet incredibly vulnerable. Whatever the hell it was, it was there, and Nate was caught off guard. It wasn't a bad feeling, but it was unnerving, and he needed to regroup, get a grip on his life before he dove in and did something stupid as hell.
So after she came back to earth and smiled at him, making little sighs of delight, Nate gave her a soft kiss, and pulled her pants back up.
That earned him a frown. "What are you doing?"
"I need to go back to work."
"You can't take five more minutes?" Her outrage nearly made him laugh.
"I don't want to settle for five minutes," he told her, which was true. It was also true he was feeling a little like he'd been nailed by a baseball in the gut, and he needed to figure out what the hell that meant. Or more importantly, what to do about it. "What are you doing tomorrow night? Can I see you?"
Tomorrow was Kyra's wake, which meant he should probably spare Gwenna the lousy company afterward. But then again he'd have to see his parents, which was always a total nightmare, and Gwenna Carrick was a wonderful distraction. She had a quiet comfort about her that appealed to him.
"Oh, shit, I can't tomorrow." She entwined her fingers with his. "My brother has this big corporate party thing and I promised I would go. I'm appalling at these functions—I can't think of a damn thing to say and I hide by the potted plants, but I told Ethan I'd be there. How about Sunday night?"
"Sure. I'll call you." He took another kiss, enjoying the way she responded so quickly to him, and the sensual feel of her mouth beneath his. "Can you send that slayers' loop info before you go to bed tonight?"
The doorbell rang behind him. "Expecting company?" If she had a date, he was pretty sure he was going to be ugly jealous. On the other hand, if it was her loser ex-husband, Nate was going to enjoy threatening him with a little force.
"I'm going out with my girlfriends." She moved around him, adjusting the waistband of her pants—which he had messed up—and opened the door.
Nate saw an amazingly thin woman with long dark hair dressed in the tiniest red outfit he'd ever seen in his life. It was like a headband masquerading as a dress. Next to her was a blonde who was a solid ten inches shorter, wearing jeans, high heels, and a sparkly blue shirt. Gwenna looked a little under-dressed for whatever night out they had planned.
"Who are you?" the brunette asked. She didn't sound accusatory, just sort of mildly curious.
"I'm Nate Thomas. Who are you?"
She walked into the apartment and blinked. "I'm Kelsey Columbia, but after my divorce, I'll have to decide if I want to go back to being Kelsey Dickens or not. I've never really liked that name. I was kind of thinking this is my chance to just pick whatever name I want. What do you think of Kelsey Kinko?"
Nate kept his voice even. "That works."
The blonde shook her head. "I told you that sounds like a stripper name."
His thoughts exactly.
While Kelsey pouted, the blonde stuck her hand out in his direction. "I'm Alexis Baldizzi-Carrick, Gwenna's sister-in-law."
He shook. Firm, confident grip. "Nice to meet you. I'm Nate Thomas, a detective with the Las Vegas Police."
At which point Gwenna grabbed his other hand and tugged on him. "Well, thanks for dropping by. I don't want to be late for the concert and I'm not even dressed, so sorry to rush you off, but we'll speak soon, and I'll see you on Sunday."
Gee, he could take a very subtle hint.
But while she could shove him out the door, he wasn't about to let her forget the unfinished business they had for Sunday.
Nate tugged Gwenna up against his chest. "Sounds good." Then he gave her a big-ass kiss, with tongue, sliding his hand all up and down her backside for good measure. "See ya, Gwenna."
Then he left, absolutely positive he had a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.