My heart thudded in sudden pain and excitement.
"Well," Susan said, looking from the sizzling blasting rod up to my face. "I’ve heard of running into an old flame, but this is ridiculous."
Chapter Four
Susan.
My brain locked up for a good ten seconds as I stared down at my former lover. I could smell the scent of her hair, the subtle perfume she wore, mixing with the new-leather scent of her jacket and another, new smell—new soap, maybe. Her dark eyes regarded me, uncertain and nervous. She had a small cut on the side of her mouth, beading with drops of blood that looked black in the red light of the blasting rod’s fire.
"Harry," Susan said, her voice quiet and steady. "Harry. You’re scaring me."
I shook myself out of my surprise and lowered the blasting rod, stepping over to her, "Stars and stones, Susan. Are you all right?"
I offered her my hand and she took it, rising easily to her feet. Her fingers were feverishly warm, and wisps of winter steam curled from her skin. "Bruises," she said. "I’ll be fine."
"Who was that?"
Susan glanced the way her attacker had run and shook her head. "Red Court. I couldn’t see his face."
I blinked at her. "You ran off a vampire? By yourself?"
She flashed me a smile that mixed weariness with a sense of pleasure. She still hadn’t taken her hand from mine. "I’ve been working out."
I looked around a bit more, and tried to reach out with my senses, to detect any trace of the unsettling energy that hovered around the Reds. Nothing. "Gone now," I reported. "But we shouldn’t hang around out here."
"Inside then?"
I started to agree, and then paused. A horrible suspicion hit me. I let go of her hand and took a step back.
A line appeared between her eyebrows. "Harry?"
"It’s been a rough year," I said. "I want to talk, but I’m not inviting you in."
Susan’s expression flickered with comprehension and pain. She folded her arms over her stomach and nodded. "No. I understand. And you’re right to be careful."
I took another step back and started walking toward my reinforced-steel door. She walked a few feet away, and at my side, where I could see her. I went down the stairs and unlocked the door. Then I pushed out an effort of will to temporarily disable the protective spells laid over my house that amounted to the magical equivalent of a land mine and burglar alarm all in one.
I went in, glanced at the candleholder on the wall by the door, and muttered, "Flickum bicus." I felt a tiny surge of energy flowing out of me, and the candle danced to life, lighting my apartment in dim, soft orange.
My place is basically a cave with two chambers. The larger one was my living area. Bookshelves lined most of the walls, and where they didn’t I had hung a couple of tapestries and an original Star Wars movie poster. I’d scattered rugs all over my floor. I had laid down everything from handmade Navajo rugs to a black area rug with Elvis’s face, fully two feet across, dominating the piece. Like the Beetle, I figured some people would call my ragtag assembly of floor coverings eclectic. I just thought of them as something to walk on besides freezing-cold stone floor.
My furniture is much the same. I got most of it secondhand. None of it matches, but it’s all comfortable to sprawl on, and my lights are dim enough to let me ignore it. A small alcove held a sink, an icebox, and a pantry for food. A fireplace rested against one wall, the wood all burned down to black and grey, but I knew it would still be glowing under the ash. A door led to my tiny bedroom and the apartment’s three-quarters bath. The whole place may have been ragged, but it was very tidy and clean.
I turned to face Susan, and didn’t put down my blasting rod. Supernatural creatures cannot lightly step across the threshold of a home unless one of the rightful residents invites them in. Plenty of nasties can put on a false face, and it wasn’t inconceivable that one of them had decided to try to get close to me by pretending to be Susan.
A supernatural being would have a hell of a time getting over a threshold without being invited in. If that was some kind of shapeshifter rather than Susan or, God help me, if Susan had gone all the way over to the vampires, she wouldn’t be able to enter. If it was the real Susan, she’d be fine. Or at least, the threshold wouldn’t hurt her. Getting paranoid suspicion from her ex-boyfriend might do its own kind of damage.
On the other hand, there was a war on, and Susan probably wouldn’t be happy to hear I’d gotten myself killed. Better safe than exsanguinated.
Susan didn’t pause at the door. She stepped inside, turned around to close and lock it, and asked, "Good enough?"
It was. Relief, coupled with a sudden explosion of naked emotion, roared through me. It was like waking up after days of anguish to find that the pain was gone. Where there had been only hurt, there was suddenly nothing, and other feelings rushed in to fill the sudden void. Excitement, for one, that quivering teenage nervousness that accompanies expectation. A surge of warm emotion, joy and happiness rolled together with a chittering glee.
And in the shadows of those, a few things darker but no less vibrant. Sheer, sensual pleasure in the scent of her, in looking at her face, her dark hair again. I needed to feel her skin under my hands, to feel her pressed to me.
It was more than mere need—it was hunger. Now that she was standing there in front of me, I needed her, all of her, as much as I needed food or water or air, and possibly more. I wanted to tell her, to let her know what it meant to me that she was there. But I’d never been very good at expressing myself verbally.
By the time Susan turned around again, I was already pressed up against her. She let out a quiet gasp of surprise, but I leaned gently into her, pressing her shoulders to the door.
I lowered my mouth to hers, and her lips were soft, sweet, fever-hot. She went rigid for a second, then let out a low sound and wound her arms around my neck and shoulders, kissing me back. I could feel her, the slender, too-warm strength and softness of her body. My hunger deepened, and so did the kiss, my tongue touching hers, lightly teasing. She responded as ardently as I did, her lips almost desperate, low whimpers vibrating through her mouth and into mine. I started to feel a little dizzy and disoriented, and though some part of me warned against it, I only pressed harder against her.
I slid one hand over her hip, beneath the jacket, and slipped up under the T-shirt she wore to curl around the naked sweetness of her waist. I pulled her hard against me, and she responded, her breath hot and quick, lifting one leg to press against mine, winding around my calf a little, pulling me nearer. I lowered my mouth to her throat, tongue tasting her skin, and she arched against me, baring more of her skin. I drew a line of kisses up to her ear, gently biting, sending quivering shock waves through her as she shook against me, her throat letting out quiet sounds of deepening need. I found her eager lips again, and her fingers tightened in my hair, drawing me hard against her.
My dizziness grew. Some kind of coherent thought did a quick flyby of my forebrain. I struggled to take notice of it, but the kiss made it impossible. Lust and need murdered my reason.
A sudden, shrieking hiss startled me, and I jerked back from Susan, looking wildly around.