Page 37 of White Raven
Athan heard the music blaring before the elevator even stopped on their floor. His jaw tightened and he hurried to the apartment door, swinging it open and nearly catching a contact buzz. It was like slamming into a brick wall of—good grief. Walking through that apartment was like second nature. Everything looked different, but it still felt the same. He could do it in the dark, and without his keen senses. But nothing prepared him for the sight of these idiots…particularly the jaw-dropping one with the hazel eyes that turned towards him as he stepped into the living room. Fuck, if she wasn’t the most scandalizing—beautifulcreature he’d ever seen in his life. It never got fucking easier. Never got boring. He’d probably always lose his breath every time he saw her. That messy cascade of silky black curls that nearly reached the middle of herverynaked back. That lacy black bra that exposed that little place near the middle that he loved to bite. That spot distracted him from the gaping paper towel she now had on her ribs.
That’s why she came. She tattooed herself for the man she killed.
God, he’d never feel this way about anyone else. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be pissed at her now. The neck of her half-empty beer bottle hung in her fingers, while two of them jutted out to hold something that definitely wasnota cigarette as she grinned, heavy-lidded and—sexy as hell.
“Evening, detective!” Sarah smiled, raising the blunt to her mouth. Rhaena turned in his direction beside her with a matching one in her lips. Her white blouse was half-buttoned, and she held a…paper towel roll?
“You too?” Athan smirked, crossing his arms. “Conduct unbecoming of an officer, Northwood.”
“Indeed!” she grinned, holding her smoke. “And I’ve never been more pissed at myself for not breaking the rules sooner.” She turned the end toward him and reached across the space between them. Wren looked up from the floor with a completely entertained smile and they all waited for him to make a decision.
“You’re trying to make a two-hundred-year-old vampire crack under peer pressure? What would Jenkins say?” Athan looked up at Rhaena under his lowered brows.
“He won’t say shit, if you don’t go tattle on me,” she snorted. “You’re off duty for the next month. Stop thinking like a detective and for once…just have some fun?”
Sarah sipped her beer and waited in anticipation. Athan glanced around the place that he used to escape to…the place that was his first haven since getting out of Dahlia’s reach. Images of Sarah’s body against his on that leather couch flashed in his mind. Of Rhaena bent over that kitchen counter. Of the reason for the dent against the front of the stove and Sarah’s bleeding feet after they’d spent a night devouring each other’s mouths. What was another memory to add to this place? He reached for the blunt and turned it, pulling hard on it and enjoying the fire in his throat while Wren howled from the corner in triumph.
“I will bedamned!” The redhead leapt up from her spot on the floor, raising her beer at him. “You officially have my blessing. Thanks for telling me, by the way.” Her middle finger shot up and he exhaled.
“Not still holding out for me, are you Red?” Athan smiled, passing the roach back to his partner. “Stratford will be very—”
“Do fuck off,” Wren barked, Sarah laughing hysterically.
He stayed, knocking a few bottles at a very impressive rendition of Conrad Stratford, and finally feeling a rare morsel of peace that had very little to do with the weed, andeverythingto do with his company. Rhaena looked legitimately exhausted after cramming an entire bag of chips down her throat and draped herself across Wren’s odd-shaped sofa. She was drooling well before Wren joined her on it, tugging a plush blanket over them both. When that left Sarah and himself being the only ones still awake, they found themselves sitting across from each other, leaned back against the cabinets on the kitchen floor, passing a bottle of whiskey he’d left behind and tapping the end of their cigarettes into the mouth of one of the only empty beer bottles they hadn’t shattered.
“I have to be honest,” Sarah smiled, taking a long swallow of amber liquid. “I fully expected you to storm in here ready to tear the world down after you realized I’d left.”
“I guess I couldn’t blame you for thinking that. It was definitely how I felt on the way up here.” He stared at the grungy paper towel that was plastered against her skin. “Will you let me clean that up?”
Sarah looked down, forgetting she’d even gotten the tattoo, and nodded. “Oh…yeah.” She had no idea. With the new speed of her healing, she could have done without the towel completely. He fished out a fresh roll from under Wren’s sink and wet it, leaning back against the cabinet and waving two fingers at her to come forward. “Where? Your lap?”
“Mmhmm…” he hummed, smirking. She dropped her cigarette into the bottle, and it hissed when it hit the stale beer at the bottom. The hold that everything she’d consumed tonighthad on her wouldn’t last much longer with the strength of their immortal bodies, but she still seemed blissfully unaware when she crawled over and straddled him. Sarah leaned back and he peeled off the tape around the edges, discarding the towel next to him and carefully wiping away dried blood and ink. An open pocket-watch and a tattered newspaper with the headline:MONSTER!, revealed itself beneath. His heart wrenched, and he gently smoothed over Wren’s handiwork. “You’re not a monster, Sarah.”
“No?” she asked softly, watching his hand as he cleaned her up. “Tell that to the man in the ice box uptown.”
“No. You’re not, and that’s coming from the ice box whose lap you’re sitting on.”
She snickered. “You’re a nice guy, Athan Kane. Whether you choose to believe it or not.”
Athan tipped her chin up with a finger and met her surprised stare. “I’ve never been a nice guy, Sarah St. James.”
“I don’t see a villain when I look at you, Athan.”
“And that’s why I love every fucking part of you. But he’s there.”
Sarah audibly swallowed. “Yeah?”
He eyed her mouth as she bit down on her bottom lip.
Christ, she’s intoxicating. Every inch of her.
“Yes,” he whispered, leaning closer to her open mouth.
“Show me, then.”
His other hand dropped the damp towel and splayed across her lower back, sliding slowly up her spine that curved with his touch. He couldn’t contain himself when she made noises like the ones coming out of that lovely, scarred throat.
“Put your clothes on. We’re going home.”
