“Sounds like a plan,” Diego said.
Zane hung up and reached over to toss his mobile on the night table. “You heard all that?”
She nodded. “Yeah. No need to put him on speakerphone. He has one hell of a deep voice.”
Alyssa started to move, but he held her in place. Getting a firm grip on her hip, he rocked slowly in and out of her, barely able to contain the growl that wanted to slip out at how good she felt around him.
“You know we’re going to need to shower before we leave, right?” she asked, her body automatically moving in time with his.
“I can shower and be ready in five minutes,” he whispered against the curve of her neck, fighting the urge to bite her there. “How about you?”
“The same,” she said softly. “But that doesn’t give us a lot of time.”
“Two minutes is all the time I need to make you fall apart again,” he told her, thrusting faster even as he slid his hand between her legs to caress her clit.
Alyssa didn’t reply. Instead, she reached back and tangled her fingers in his hair, silently urging him to take her harder.
* * *
“You guys got here fast,” Rachel said as he and Alyssa met up with her and Diego at the entrance to an alley off Third Street.
Zane looked around, wondering what they were all doing there. The area was dark and relatively deserted, which was surprising considering Downtown LA was full of clubs, restaurants, shops, and tourist traps. But when he’d plugged it into the map app on his mobile phone, he hadn’t seen anything of interest around there.
“I thought for sure you’d get stuck in traffic,” Rachel added. “You must have gotten dressed and out the door in thirty seconds flat to make it here this soon.”
Zane threw a glance in Alyssa’s direction, seeing the quick grin that slipped across her face. No, they hadn’t gotten dressed and out the door in thirty seconds—not even close.
The look Rachel and Diego shared spoke volumes. They smelled Alyssa on him and him on her. Diego looked surprised while Rachel looked extremely satisfied. To their credit, neither of them said anything, though they looked like they wanted to.
“We were lucky. Traffic was light,” he said. “What are we doing here in an alley at midnight? It doesn’t seem like a place where Stefan can nab his next victims.”
Diego jerked his chin at the area farther down the alley.
Zane didn’t see anything at first, but then he spotted a couple in dressy clothes walking toward them. Halfway in the alley, they turned and headed down a set of steps, disappearing underneath one of the buildings. He picked up bits and pieces of their conversation, then the distinct clank of a heavy, metal door. Thirty seconds later, three women hurried into the alley, teetering on their high heels and laughing. They vanished down the same stairs.
Obviously, there was a club down there.
Zane looked around. Other than a piece of red neon attached to the wall near the steps, there was nothing to tell anyone the place was there. Even the neon—a stylized cat with back arched—didn’t exactly scream nightclub.
Maybe it was an invitation-only kind of place.
“I thought for sure we’d lost Stefan when we got here. They parked in a lot nearby, so we followed their scent and it led us to this place,” Diego said as four guys jogged down the steps, joking with each other about who was buying the first round of drinks. “Oh, and I should probably mention, some of the people with Stefan reek of mud and stale blood. The stench was nasty as hell.”
Zane threw a glance Alyssa’s way, knowing there was no way she could have missed that whole thing about Diego and Rachel tracking Stefan’s scent. But Alyssa didn’t even bat an eye. Maybe she hadn’t been paying attention?
He seriously needed to have a talk with his pack mate about keeping a low profile regarding the werewolf stuff.
“How long have Stefan and his buddies been down there?” Zane asked, not caring if Stefan’s friends stunk. The guy was a wanker. It wasn’t shocking the people he hung out with smelled crappy. “And is there a back way out of the club?”
“About twenty minutes,” Rachel said. “And there’s a loading dock on the far side of the block that seems to be connected to this side. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a labyrinth of interconnected rooms and corridors down there. If Stefan and his chucklefucks grab someone, that’s probably the way they’ll get them out.”
“We need to get down there,” Alyssa said. “They might already have drugged someone by now. Twenty minutes is a long time.”
As they headed toward the stairs, Diego slipped ahead to fall into step beside Alyssa while Rachel hung back with Zane. “You and Alyssa, huh? Wow. Who saw that coming?”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “If you say I told you so, I’ll bite you.”
“You won’t hear it from me,” she promised. “I’m only glad you figured it out. You two are good together.”
