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I hooked my fingers over the waistband of his jeans, pulling myself toward him. He rocked a little but stood his ground, making me come to him. I was okay with that.
Body to body, I breathed out, brushing his throat, almost close enough to kiss him. Not quite. I watched movement under his skin as he swallowed. A quick kiss, a taste of salty skin with a flick of tongue at the V of his open collar.
My hands slid to the button of his jeans, unfastening it. Then I opened the zipper, slowly. He made a sound deep in his chest, like he didn’t want to let it out, didn’t want to admit I was getting to him. He was perfectly capable of running away if he wanted to. He didn’t. Looking up, I could just see the smile touch his lips.
I slid my hand down the open access, maneuvered under his boxers to bare skin, and felt for him. Wasn’t hard to find. Throbbing manhood, they called it. Ben had it. He shivered a little at my touch. Pressed into me. His hand—fingers spread, eager—found my hip, slid to my backside.
I kissed his chin—he turned his face and caught my lips with his.
Cradling him, melted against him, I urged him on. Pulled him to the sofa, pushed him down, climbed on top of him. I was hungry for him. And relieved that he hadn’t walked away. Grateful and thrilled. It all wrapped together with heat and lust building in me. I pulled off my shirt, tossed it aside. Grabbed his jeans and yanked down. Rubbed my hands up his body and watched him flex under my touch. He closed his eyes, and his hand clenched on the sofa.
I considered: This had been a pretty big fight. I’d screwed up, I could admit that. That meant I was going to have to spend a good long time making it up to Ben, right?
I could do that.
I felt better in the morning. That might have been from anticipating the show, looking forward to taking the next step. Or it might have been from being curled up in bed with Ben, who was smiling vaguely in his sleep. The apology must have worked.
Despite everything, I was looking forward to talking about the demon on the show. Some people accused me of being a sensationalist, of fishing for controversy. Maybe even of inciting controversy. Really, I loved drawing back the curtain, dragging this stuff into the open, kicking and screaming sometimes, and shining a bright light on it. I thought of it as dispelling ignorance. Ignorance bred fear, and I didn’t like being afraid.
I didn’t want to have to wait through an entire day until it was time to do the show. On the other hand, vampires couldn’t bother me during the day.
No, bothering me during the day was Detective Hardin’s job. I would have loved another hour or two of sleep on a day when I had to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at midnight, but Hardin called my cell phone.
“What have you been doing?” said Hardin, and she wasn’t happy.
“What do you mean, what have I been doing?”
“Are you near a TV? Can you turn on the news?”
“Just a sec.”
The TV was in the next room. I pulled on a robe and went out to turn it on, then flipped channels until I found what Hardin was talking about: A local newscast showed a building on fire. Then another one. And another. A series of film clips showed five different buildings, in different parts of town, all on fire. The scenes were nighttime—they must have happened last night. A caption read “Fire Department Stretched Thin.”
Ben had been working at his desk. Drawn by the images, he leaned forward and stared at the TV.
“Oh my God,” I said, sinking to the sofa. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Even apart from injuries from the fires, I have three more bodies just like Cabrerra.”
A wave of dizziness hit me as the blood left my head. I sat down. “Who? Who are they?” Which of my pack members had paid for my curse this time?
“They’re not werewolves. The victims are random, as far as we can tell. If these are all connected, and I dare you to tell me they aren’t, this thing’s gone on a rampage, and I need to know why.”
Not werewolves. My pack was safe. But I didn’t feel any better, since three random innocents had died because of this. No one was safe.
“I think we cornered it,” I said. “Maybe even scared it.”
“So you figured out what’s doing this? You know how to stop it?” She sounded excited.
I winced. “What would you say if I said it was a genie?”
“Like in a bottle?”
“Yeah.”
She paused for a long moment. “I don’t know what I’d say. Aren’t they supposed to grant wishes? Not go around burning people to death?”
“Well, there’s the bedtime stories, and there’s reality. We all know how that works, right?”
