“Did you decide that before or after you fucked him?” The hellhound’s expression had an edge of scorn I didn’t appreciate, and I let her know as much with a grumbling growl.
She gave her blonde hair a toss. “Oh, please. When immortality is involved, age makes little difference.”
“What about the fact that he’s a prostitute?” I retorted. “And an incubus? They make people love them, Coll. They get off on that shit. I don’t.” The words lashed out of me, weapons against an anticipated hurt. Creatures like Cherry drew admirers like flies to honey, and I would not be caught in that trap.
My cell phone buzzed from its face-down position on the desktop, drawing Colette’s notice as well as my own.When I didn’t reach for it, Colette rolled her shoulder forward.
“Are you going to answer that?” she asked.
I scooped the cell up and checked the caller ID, then groaned.
“It’s Maslow.”
As much as I didn’t want to talk to the wraith, it would be a reprieve from Colette’s pestering. Answering the phone on speaker, I held it in my upturned hand.
“Hey, Maz.”
“Beckett!” Maslow’s voice crackled across the line. “How are you? How are things?”
Colette skirted my chair and returned to her post on the couch. She scooped up the discarded newspaper and gave it a flap before dropping onto the cushions. The springs creaked as she sank against them.
“Same as usual,” I told Maslow. “What about you?”
“Oh, I’m hustling. Moving and shaking.” He chuckled. “I heard you were in the other night. You should’ve said hello.”
I wondered who’d told him about my visit. Surely not Cherry after the way he’d asked me to keep my trap shut. But Luxe might have mentioned it. Or the cocktail waitress. Or one of the bouncers…
“I just stopped by for a minute,” I said. “Had a client.”
Papers shuffled on the other end of the line, preceding Maslow’s question. “How’d that go?”
“Well enough,” I lied.
Quiet ate up the pause. He was hedging, making small talk, and I didn’t trust it. We weren’t friends. I wasn’t sure how he’d got my number, or why I had his. Maybe I’d meant to block it and then forgot.
“Did you need something?” I asked.
Maslow made a pleased sound, like he’d been waiting for an opening. “Just you, Beckett. I’ve got a hell of a deal to cut, and I need an expert on my side.”
Across the room, Colette peeked over the top edge of the newspaper. When she caught me noticing her, she didn’t bother trying to hide her interest.
“What kind of deal?” I asked.
The wraith chuckled. “Swing by the club, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Refusal teetered on the tip of my tongue while Colette nodded openly, lowering the paper to showcase her lipsticked grin.
Rather than blurt an outright “no,” I cut my gaze toward the cell’s screen and frowned. “I don’t know, Maz. I’m awfully busy…”
The jingle of keys drew my attention to Colette again. You would thinkIwas the dog with the way she stood and headed for the door, swinging her key fob in a way that was clearly meant to tantalize.
Wanna go for a ride, boy?
When I stood, I knew Colette would have wagged her tail if she had one.
“I’m on my way,” I muttered, then pressed the “end call” icon before I changed my mind.
I wasn’t sure why I said it. Maybe I was spurred on by the fear of withering away in this musty room. Maybe some part of me believed Maslow’s “hell of a deal” would be the thing to drag my sorry ass out of this sucking quagmire. Or maybe, just maybe, I wanted to get another look at Cherry and decide for myself if he was as stunning in the flesh as he was on that billboard.
