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“Given you’ve attempted to seduce me a few times tonight, try what, exactly?”
“Donning a granny nightgown and glasses and attempting to feed me to your crocodile, for one.”
“Alligator. And the only one donning anything grannie is you, with those panties.” Capping the visual of her in said panties, I turn toward the door and leave the room before I can act on the urges she’s stirred inside of me. No idea how the hell this girl managed to weasel her way past my ordinarily steel defenses. Once I’ve decided not to fuck someone, it’s fairly easy to avoid the need to fuck them. Except this one, it seems. “Good night, Miss James.”
“Goodnight, Captain Wolfie.”
The glance I shoot back at her is rife with enough apathy that she lowers her gaze, obviously hiding a smile. She reaches into the pocket of the shorts she wore earlier, the ones she carried out of the bathroom, and pulls out a baggie of pills, dumping a few into her palm.
I stride back toward her. “No drugs while you’re staying here.”
“What? These? They’re sleeping pills.”
“Hand ‘em over.”
Before I can snag them from her, she slips the baggie up into the bottom of the towel and sets her hand over it. “No way I’m handing these over. I need them to sleep.”
A flick of my fingers, and goddamn her rebellious headshake that spikes my blood. “Now.”
“No. I’m serious. Aside from weed on occasion, I don’t do drugs. Not like that. I promise.”
“Newsflash. Sleeping pills are drugs, chère. Now let me see them before I’m forced to strip search you. And I can assure you, that won’t be pleasant.”
“You want them? Get them yourself.” Hands set on either side of her, she spreads her legs just enough to show the baggie tucked between those slender thighs. This girl is a piece of work. An irritatingly beautiful piece of work, whose ass I’d love to spank right now.
Eyes on hers, I shove my hands up under the towel, and every drop of blood rushes straight to my dick the moment my rough fingers meet her creamy, soft thighs. Spongy, wet curls dance over her shoulders, as she tips her head, watching me. Toying with me. “Did you find what you’re looking for?”
Teeth grinding, I snatch the bag of pills and step back from her. I scan over the small, blue tablets, and I can at least rule out the fentanyl-laced variety that were going around a couple months back. Those had an ‘M’ etched into the surface, no doubt distributed by the Diablos, and were more rounded, while these are oval-shaped.
“Where’d you get these?”
“Far, far from here.”
“Good. Don’t buy anything from around here. Not unless you want to end up in the emergency room, coding.” Tossing them back to her, I try to ignore the lingering sensation of her skin against my fingers, and how fucking sweet those thighs would feel at either side of my face.
“A hundred bucks says you dream about me tonight after this.”
“As I understand, you don’t have a hundred bucks to spare.”
“I don’t. You do, though.” As soon as she crosses her legs, my dick practically leaps out of my zipper, and I’m backing myself to the door. “Goodnight, Thierry.”
Closing the door behind me is all the control I have right now around this crazy little cock-tease, who’s snaked beneath my skin like a bad rash. I’ve had women flirt with me, but nothing like her. It’s telling, the way she suddenly took interest the moment I backed off. She seems to like a chase when she knows it’s nothing but a long stretch of empty road. Nothing to tie her down, or up, for that matter. Not that I blame her, seeing as I’m not one for commitment myself. She’s like a compact dose of chaos that I want to detonate, just to see how it feels to explode with her.
I won’t, though.
Slipping out the chip I dug up from her bag earlier, from my pocket, I stare down at it. Things stopped adding up for me the moment Julio told me to scope out that house without killing anyone. Someone encroaching on Matamoros’ turf would’ve been killed instantly. Yet, Julio wants her alive.
He wants to observe her.
And I intend to find out why.
* * *
Having poured myself a drink, I sit down at the desk in my office and flip open my laptop. After sticking the chip into the USB drive, I wait for the outdated technology to catch up, as it spins and spins, opening files at a snail’s pace. A single folder, labeled Antitheus, pops up on the screen. A quick search of the word results in one who pretends to be God; the devil. A Greek translation of the word spits back, godless. Glancing toward the door and back, I turn down the volume and click on the curious file from the chip. More files pop up on the screen, one of which is a video titled Ritual of Sire and Sacrifice.
When I click on it, a dark screen flicks to a dim, pixelated scene. The hazy silhouette of trees and brush against a dark sky in the background suggest it was taken out in the woods at night. Light flickers from a bonfire set off at the edge of the frame, just outside of a circle of figures standing shoulder to shoulder, wearing what looks like long-horned goat skulls over their faces.
Pausing the video there, I study the skulls.
