Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [9]
He shoved half a bagel slice in his mouth and chuckled, swallowing before speaking. I took a token bite of mine, even though I was too nervous with him sitting across from me to be hungry.
“You know,” Trevor said, “I can’t get over the fact that I’m shacked up with a cop. I mean, do you know how many times I’ve been busted?”
Twice. Both misdemeanor charges that were cleared with a fine. I also knew that Trevor was five-ten instead of six feet like he always claimed and that he wore blue contacts. What, I was supposed to sleep with someone who, for all I knew, could be a chain-saw sex killer? How did normal women date like that?
I said, “Yeah, that’s funny,” in a tone that sounded dolorous even to me.
Trevor reached across the table with fishy-smelling fingers and brushed my hair behind my ear. “You okay, babe? You seem really spacey.” There was genuine concern sitting in his eyes and I breathed in before answering, to fill my nostrils with the scent of the here and now and dispel the clove-tinged past.
“Fine. Sweetheart.” That came out easy enough. I tried again. “Thanks for coming over. It was … nice.”
Trevor snorted. “Nice? I’m not nice. But I like you.” He winked, dropping his plate into the sink and going to my shiny new stainless refrigerator. The old Frigidaire had been scrapped due to damage from large-caliber bullet holes. “You got any beer?”
“No.” I had drunk enough of it in my teens to last for a while, possibly the rest of my life. And what the Hex did Trevor think he was doing, anyway? Was there a set of relationship semaphores I wasn’t privy to that said, Hey, invade my privacy and drink all of my beer, if I have it? The one nice thing about life with Dmitri had been the lack of bullshit. He wanted me, and one time I had wanted him, and it happened, and afterward he made it okay with an easy smile and a touch against my cheek. Weres are creatures of instinct, and you know where you stand, even if the only slots to stand in are “prey” and “mate.”
Trevor came behind me and massaged my shoulders. “You’re tense, darlin’,” he murmured in my ear, lips grazing the top. “Let’s forget the beer and go upstairs. See what I can do about that.”
My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in with a vengeance, the memory of Dmitri’s hands where Trevor’s sat now twisting my stomach. I twitched under Trevor’s touch, and he noticed, stepping back with a sigh.
“It’s him again?”
I turned with what I hoped was a convincingly perky smile. “Who? Babe.” Hex me, I was awful at platitudes. Probably why I never made it as a cocktail waitress.
Trevor leaned against a counter and pushed a hand through the green-streaked black hair that fell in front of his eyes. “Your mysterious ex that you won’t talk about. Luna, you know I think you’re the hottest woman I’ve ever been with, but this existential crisis shit has gotta go.”
I looked down at the braided rug, shamed. Just how much I didn’t talk about, Trevor had no idea. And it was unfair. Dmitri was gone. I had met Trevor because he was gone. Hadn’t I gone out determined to rejoin the population at large, and forget him? Now I had Trevor, and cutting him off would be cruel and brand me a truly dysfunctional individual for life.
He looked at me again when I came and slid my arms around his waist, pressing our bodies together. I made sure he could feel I wasn’t wearing a bra, and his eyes darkened a bit, a smile creeping to the corners of his mouth. I kissed him and paid special attention to sliding my tongue between his lips. Pressure against my groin through his jeans told me that we were well on the way to making up.
“Upstairs, you said?” I purred, pulling back. Trevor nodded, his breath coming out in little puppy pants. I could smell his plain human pheromones, cloyingly sweet like a narcissus flower.
“Upstairs,” he agreed, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me after him.
The sun had set again by the time I woke up, showered, and made my way downstairs to my office to check e-mail. Trevor was still snoring and tangled in my sheets, and I was inclined to leave