Page 38 of Hopelessly Teavoted
That evil smile was unreasonably attractive now, or maybe it was quite reasonable, and what Vickie was attracted to was the justice of it all.
Lex turned to Azrael, and Vickie’s stomach soured. “My most illustrious young Hart, perhaps you are not suited for this comeuppance. It won’t be pretty.”
“He’s with us,” Vickie said, glaring. “We’re friends.” She emphasized the last word.
For some reason she couldn’t fathom, this made Lex smirk and Azrael frown.
“Indeed, pet, whatever you like. You can bring yourfriend.”
Vengeance toward the ghost they sought curled, tempting, sweet, and slick, in her stomach.
“What I would like is to help you capture the bastard. With pleasure.”
“That certainly makes it easier. We need to trick him. He has a penchant for younger women, and there are few ghosts not complicated by the same foibles of their mortal lives.”
“Wait a minute. What makes you think you can use her as bait?” Azrael’s interjections were bordering on dangerous now.
Vickie shuddered. She did not want to play coy temptress to this sort of a man, however dead he might be, but she steeled herself. The cause was important. And a debt was a debt.
“I’ll do it,” she said, threading her fingers through Azrael’s to still his nervous flexing. Emotion flickered across Lex’s flawless face. Dark eyes contracting, he waved a hand, and the night snapped out in front of them, whirling in a tumble of air and atmosphere that smelled pleasantly of bergamot.
They stood in the parking lot of the luxury apartment building on the edge of town, overlooking the valley and the mountains. It was a glistening white marble castle of capitalism. The view alone made the price tag for such living far out of Victoria’s current range, though she remembered how her parents had suggested it once for when she graduated.
She noticed a cherry-red, souped-up antique Packard. Persephone Hart’s old car. Priscilla drove it now.
“Why would Prissy be here?”
“My sister’s girlfriend lives here,” muttered Azrael, nodding at the car. “Evelyn’s subletting one of the condos.”
“Not to worry,” said Lex cheerily. “Little chance the interim Council president is cordial with the ghost we have business with this evening.”
Azrael looked at him suspiciously, and Lex shrugged. “What? I find it makes things easier to stay up to date on witch business from time to time.”
Victoria and Azrael followed Lex into the gleaming silver elevator. It was made of glass on the window side, and it dinged as they reached the top floor. Lex held out a hand, indicating to Vickie that she should exit first. She didn’t dare look back to see whatever pecking order Azrael and the devil established for who walked out next. Lex strode up to the door and knocked on it casually, as though he were delivering pizza and not damnation. Leaning against the doorframe, Lex dazzled. His eyes shone, purple, dark, and as alluring as a midnight ocean. The kind that tempted foolish mortals to dive into its depths, willing to die for the smooth caress of the current.
Intentionally, she realized.
A sharp, clinically beautiful woman opened the door. Her blue eyes were unfeeling ice, but despite her glower, Vickie noticed the dip of her collarbone and the way the cut of her dress drew the eye downward to where the tips of her bleached hair met her neckline. The woman stood there, looking miffed, until she saw Azrael, and smiled a little at his angsty, stubbled face. He wasn’t that pretty for nothing. When she saw Lex, her face softened completely. Vickie wondered if it was the wrong apartment, but Lex flashed a smile that he probably quite literally used to steal souls.
“Good evening, ma’am,” Lex began, his drawl slow and velvet. The words tasted like magic and enchantment. Mystery. Sex. They raised goose bumps on Vickie’s arms, and from thelooks of her, the woman was not unaffected. “I’m from the town newspaper, and my colleagues and I are running a feature on your late husband. I was wondering if we might come in and take some pictures.”
Vickie blanched. Donovan Wagner had been over sixty years old, and this woman looked barely old enough to buy a bottle of wine. Biting her lip, the woman pouted, and Vickie wondered if she was going to tell them to get the hell out of there. It’s what she would have done if Lex had fed her an invented story like that. He didn’t even have a camera.
“Of course,” she said, voice breathy. Vickie rolled her eyes, ignoring the roller coaster in her own stomach. “I’m Clarissa,” she said. She still sounded as though she had been running vigorously or spending a great deal of time with her hand between those unfairly sculpted legs.
Best not to picture that, though. The idea made it difficult to focus, especially pulled as Vickie was by the musky bergamot of the devil and the woodsy lemon of the witch. She was a veritable bouquet of lustful thoughts at the moment, and so was Clarissa, who looked up at the devil from beneath unnaturally long lashes. She smelled like spun sugar and something sharp. Peppermint, maybe. Vickie shifted, made restless by the three of them.
Lex leaned into her and whispered softly, entrancing command in his voice.
“That’s generous of you, Clarissa. It’s a shame you have to take a bath.” His voice spoke command now. An otherworldly influence that made Vickie desperate to go, and even Azrael looked with interest in the direction Lex gestured. “You’ll be so busy with yourself and that bath that you’ll forget we were ever here.”
Clarissa sighed, running a hand down her neck.
“Come on in. I was just about to get in the bath.”
“Lex,” Vickie hissed. “We are not getting in the bath with her.”
No matter how hot she is.
