Strangers of the Night Read online

  “You can always learn something new,” Vadim says calmly with barely a glance at her brother. He’s got her in his sights. She wonders what he sees.

  Persephone thinks that might be what is agitating Phoenix so much—that Vadim is paying more attention to her. And there’s not a sexy vibe from it, either. They’ve dealt with that, living on the streets for the past few years. She’s done her share of using sex as currency. Phoenix has done his, too. But she’s definitely not getting that feeling from Vadim right now, not for either of them. Whatever he wants from her, it’s not her body, and that’s why she trusts him but her brother does not.

  “What if we still say no?” Phoenix challenges.

  Vadim shrugs and gestures at the sparsely furnished motel room where he found them. “You walk out of here.”

  “And if we change our minds?” Persephone asks.

  “Then you contact us.”

  “We won’t change our minds,” Phoenix says and grabs her by the hand. “Come on, Persephone. Let’s get out of here.”

  She’s the one who looks over her shoulder as they leave. Vadim is staring. He mouths something at her just before the door closes off the sight of him.

  “You will be safe.”

  Chapter 4

  The Slaughtered Lamb had been sold and bought several times over the past ten years, each owner adding or taking away something to add their individual touch to the place. The pub had suffered for it. Kane could recall when the dark atmosphere had been kitschy, not merely worn-out, and when the drinks had been cheap and the food good. Now he sat beneath a set of flickering sconces made to look like gaslights and a portrait that from one direction showed a beautiful young woman in a historical gown, but from the other showed a werewolf.

  He should call it a night. He hadn’t been planning on hooking up with anyone when he got in here, but funny how a beer or two could get a man thinking about it. Especially when faced with a tiny-waisted brunette with curves that wouldn’t quit. She’d been eye-fucking him from across the bar since she arrived about twenty minutes ago and slipped into the spot he’d been heading for. He’d considered sending her a drink, but that would mean he’d have to have a conversation with her, and unless he really wanted to take her home...

  Shit. She’d seen him staring and now she was getting up to cross the room. He hadn’t meant to make eye contact, and why? Because he was stupidly hung up on someone who clearly thought he was a douchecanoe. Kane looked up at the brunette, who’d tossed the fall of her heavy dark hair over her shoulder and was giving him a slow, easy smile.

  “Hey,” she said with that subtle twist of her body that emphasized her hips and breasts, that trick women did when they wanted you to not just look but also touch. “I’m Jena.”

  “Kane,” he said. “Hi.”

  “So look, Kane,” she said as she leaned closer so he could hear her without problem over the noise from the rest of the pub, “here’s the thing. I’m about ready to head out for the night, but I was wondering if you’d like to come along with me? Or better yet, I could go home with you.”

  It was not the most blatant offer he’d ever had, but it ranked right up there. The funny part of it was, it was exactly what he needed in this moment. A no-frills, no-effort-needed, straight-up hookup. If she’d played at seduction, he’d have sent her on her way.

  Instead, he gave her a thorough up and down perusal, making sure she knew he was checking out every bit of her before he fixed his gaze on hers. Smiled. Stood. “Sure. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Persephone had spent longer than usual on what she thought of as “the glamour.” It was not truly physical, because her body never actually changed. It was all illusion, a short-range manipulation of whatever parts of the brain controlled vision, smell, touch. Everyone else in this place would see her for what she really was, but Kane, the man upon whom she’d set her ravenous, manipulative sights, would be enthralled so long as she kept up the effort of the illusion.

  She’d considered asking him to take her to a hotel, but she knew he didn’t have money to toss away on something decent enough not to give her the shudders. Besides, in the morning when she slipped out of his bed, it would take only a few minutes to get back to her place, where she could get between her own sheets and hopefully drift off to sleep with a body worn out from a few rounds of amazing sex. She’d done it before.

  When he led her into the building’s lobby and toward the elevator that broke down more often than it worked, however, she hesitated. Fucking in an elevator was one thing, especially if it was the kind lined with mirrors so you could watch yourself reflected into infinity. This elevator didn’t have any mirrors, it smelled vaguely and constantly of cat pee, and the last thing in the world she wanted was to get trapped inside it with Kane while she wore a fake face. They’d have to wait for hours before someone could get them out, and that person was most likely to be her, and that would quickly become a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

  “Um...” she said, holding back. “How about the stairs?”

  She jerked at thumb toward the small hallway next to the mailboxes set into the wall. Kane gave her a curious look she couldn’t interpret, but nodded. He glanced over his shoulder as he led the way, holding open the heavy steel fire door so she could go first.

  “What a gentleman,” Persephone, a.k.a. Jena, murmured with an extra swing of her hips as she started up the stairs. Let him admire the badonk in her donkadonk, she thought with a small smile that faded when she got to the landing and looked over her shoulder, intending to give Kane a sexy, come-hither look.

  He was frowning.

  “Something wrong?” Persephone hesitated, a hand on the railing, to study him.

  “Have we met before?”

  She started back up the stairs. “I don’t think so.”

  He followed her through the metal door at the top of the stairs, but she held back to let him lead the way to his apartment. Once inside, she also held back to let him make the first move. Sure, she’d put on this face, this body, this hair, all designed to get Kane’s hormones roaring. And sure, she’d gone after him in the bar the way a wolf would take down a deer with a broken leg.

  That didn’t mean she didn’t like to be pursued.

  She didn’t have to wait long. In a few long strides, Kane had her in his arms. His mouth slanted along her own in a perfect, sensual pleasure that always made her wonder how he knew exactly how to touch her, every single time.

  He broke the kiss to brush her lips with the tip of his tongue, his eyes searching hers as she shivered. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Maria.” Shit. Shit. No, she’d said—

  “I thought you said it was Jena.”

  Persephone straightened her shoulders and gave him a tipped, coy smile and a flutter of her lashes designed to send a man straight to his knees, which was the perfect position for him to get between her thighs with his mouth. Kane didn’t kneel, but his gaze did go heavy lidded. Dreamy. His eyes lost their usual sharp, fierce focus.

  This was glamour of a different sort.

  “Maybe you meet so many girls whose names you don’t ask that you got me confused with someone else,” she said with a practiced pout. She put herself into his arms, offered her mouth, pushed her hips forward to rub her belly against his hard crotch.

  It worked, of course. There was a reason cats butt your hand to get them to pet you. Persephone’s pussy knew how to do the same thing.

  She knew where his bedroom was. Even if she hadn’t been here a dozen times in the past year, it mirrored her own, immediately below. She waited for him to take her there, though, letting him grip her by the upper arms and turn her. Still kissing, they moved across the L-shaped living room and through the small arched alcove between the kitchen and hallway, then a few steps more and into the bedroom.