One

Three months later

I was on fire.

Blood pounded in my ears. My breath came in shallow gasps, panting in and out. Hands were racing across my bare skin, rough and gentle all at once. I let my body arch to meet them. Up, I thought. Take me up. Drive me to the brink and send me straight over the edge.

He knew how. I knew that much.

Blindly, my fingers sought his face, and brought his mouth to mine. The kiss was sure and deep, potent as a drug. I let my fingers roam down his body and felt his urgency increase. Now, I thought. I want you inside me now. Don't wait. Don't stop.

A strange, wild keening filled the room. I heard my lover give a grunt. He lifted his head, shaking it as if to clear it. The sound continued, piercing as a siren. Which, as it happens, is exactly what it was. Just my luck. I was in bed with the only guy in Las Vegas who downloads police sirens as ring tones for his cell phone. His most recent acquisition: one that sounded like those sirens you hear in French films. High low. High low. High low.

Very sexy on the screen. Not so sexy in real life—particularly when sex was the thing that was getting interrupted.

"Dammit!" Detective Carl Hagen said. He drove his fist against the wall behind my head with more than a little force. He looked down at me, his dark eyes narrowed. "Hold that thought. In fact, hold that position. Move so much as an inch and I'll be forced to cuff you."

In spite of the way my entire body was screaming in protest, I managed a laugh. "Promises, promises."

He gave a snort of what might have been amusement, then rolled toward the edge of the bed, reaching for the still wailing phone. As he sat up I saw him wince as he flexed the fingers of his right hand.

"Ow."

"That's what you get for resorting to violence," I remarked.

"Keep it up, Steele," he said over his shoulder. "See what it gets you." He flipped the phone open and the siren cut off. "Hagen," he rapped out.

I watched in silence as the transformation took place. One moment, I had been in bed with a man. Now, I was in bed with a cop. Carl's entire body went on alert, seemed to listen, as if he could absorb information through the pores of his skin. When he tucked the phone against his shoulder and reached for the pen and pad of paper on the bedside table, I sat up. I know serious business when I see it. Homicide detectives don't get all that many happy calls in the middle of the night.

"Give me the address," he said, and began to write. As always, his movements were economical, precise. I don't think I've ever known anyone quite as spare, as direct, as Carl. Absolutely no effort is wasted. Though he can circle around it if he has to, he always has the point in sight. It's what makes him so good at his job, to say nothing of certain other things.

I pulled my knees up and rested my chin against them, watching him work. We were an unusual couple, no two ways about it. Detective Carl Hagen and I became acquainted several months ago, under less than romantic circumstances, when I was questioned in the disappearance of a man named Nathan Lawlor. Though the homicide division was called in, they bowed out in the end, mostly because nobody could actually produce any evidence of foul play, let alone a body.

Nate Lawlor had simply vanished into thin air, which is essentially what happens when a vampire gets staked. The police, backtracking Lawlor's steps, discovered that he had spent his last evening at the Scheherazade. A number of staff members had been questioned, including Marlene and me. When my turn came, I told as much of the truth as possible. Yes, I had waited on Nate, known he had big winnings. Yes, I had found him attractive, so much so that I broke my own personal rule and let him take me home.

But he had been as alive when I left him as he was when I arrived, I informed the police. As to his present whereabouts, I knew absolutely nothing.

That also happens to be the truth. Even vampire experts haven't devoted a lot of time to where vamps go once the undead part of their existence comes to an end. My personal opinion, also my fervent hope, is that they occupy the lowest, most uncomfortable ring of Hell.

Since I was the last person to see Nate alive, I was initially considered a suspect. Fortunately, all my coworkers at the Sher backed me up—Marlene, in particular. I think she felt guilty for having encouraged me to go for the gusto in the first place.

The investigation into Nathan Lawlor's disappearance stalled. Everything about his life was precisely where he had left it. The only thing missing was Nate Lawlor himself.

He was gone. But the attraction the homicide detective and I had carefully sidestepped during our interviews stuck around. About a week after the case was officially considered cold, Carl Hagen strolled through the doors of the Sher and into my life.

Copyright © 2006 by Parachute Publishing, LLC.