IT RAINED for the next two days. When Chaz finally arrived at Artie’s place, Tabby was at the front desk. Her long black hair was twisted in braids, and she wore a striped top with her skirt. When she smiled, her candy-red lips parted to reveal teeth that were spread far apart at the front.
“Yes?”
“I need to see Sully.”
“He’s not working tonight.”
“I have something for him.”
“I can keep it for you,” Tabby said and gestured behind the desk. “In a basket right here. It’s where all the gifts go. But if someone has a red dot on their name for the night, it means they don’t work.”
Chaz’s stomach twisted into a knot. After the long day he had, he wasn’t sure if he could walk away from Sully so easily. And that thought scared him more than he wanted to admit. “Can you call him? I know he’s in his room. If he says no, I’ll leave—I promise.”
Tabby gave him an odd look. Her eyes were as large as marbles. Chaz wondered what kind of creature she was, or if she was, like Sully, a human. When she picked up the phone, he let out a breath.
“Thank you.”
Tabby didn’t meet his eyes. She dialed a number and spoke in a hushed tone. Artie, not Sully, appeared two minutes later. She wore a long dress. One side of her chest was flat, something that Chaz had never noticed before. Breast cancer? Had she removed it to beat a disease? Artie’s transition from sex worker to madam took on a sudden clarity. He wondered if she, or anyone else he knew, had ever visited the monster hospital they’d uncovered.
“What can I do for you today, Chip?”
“I’d like to see Sully.”
“I can give you someone else’s blood tonight. How is that for a compromise?”
“Oh.” Chaz shook his head, not even remotely hungry after the huge meal he’d had the last time he was here. “No, I don’t want to drink. I have something for Sully.”
Artie smiled, just barely, when Chaz held out Reggie’s phone. “I will take it to him. When I get there, I’ll ask if he’s up for seeing anyone tonight.”
“Good, okay. Thank you.”
Artie gestured toward the couches at the side, and Chaz took a seat when she disappeared. Artie had a persuasive way about speaking. Her height and lucid, almost deep, sonorous voice made him feel rooted in place. He needed to see Sully—desperately wanted to—but if Artie was the deliveryperson, then he could handle the wait.
A few other men came into Artie’s foyer, so Chaz tried to hide his face behind magazines. He checked each one carefully, but none of these were Desire on Fire or any of the associated companies Chaz had searched. Two days had passed since they’d found the monster hospital and Chaz had retrieved the phone, and most of those days had been spent going over paperwork for all the blood at the scene, coming up with nothing conclusive. A few more names from the back of the Desire on Fire magazines had turned up as missing people or unsolved homicides, but as Declan pointed out, that was common for sex workers. Hardly a conspiracy. The number of vamps who were in that tally, though, made Chaz reconsider breaking out a ball of red string to start connecting the dots. He suddenly wondered if there might be a connection between the men on Reggie’s phone and the men at the back of the magazine from the house, but he pushed the thought away. You’ve had a long day. Everything is scrambled. You need to calm down.
When Sully appeared on the staircase, all of Chaz’s anxiety disappeared. He’d been nervous Sully would reject him tonight. He’d never come to Artie’s on a Wednesday before, so it was very possible the not-working-tonight story had been real. He’d wanted to come sooner to give Sully the phone, but he’d been exhausted the past two nights. He still was now, if he was being honest, but Sully’s presence warmed Chaz’s heart—and made his body respond right away.
Sully rushed over to him, the flip phone in his hand but not turned on. “Is this really it? You got it from him?”
“Yes. It was easier than I thought. He gave it up.”
“And he didn’t send anything out?”
“No. I checked, but I didn’t touch anything on the phone because I wanted you to feel safe. You can see for yourself.”
Sully was shaking. Chaz went to put an arm around him, only to realize his brown coat was so soaked it was nearly black. He glanced over his shoulder and realized there was a gigantic outline where he’d been on the couch.
“Oh shit. I had no idea I was wet.”
“Hmm?” Sully tore his gaze away from the phone to look at the couch. He chuckled. “You do that a lot, you know.”
“I know. It rains so often, I guess I just—”
Sully kissed him. Hot and frantic, it struck Chaz as more than a way to get him to shut up. Chaz barely grasped onto Sully’s shirt for balance before he pulled away. Chaz could feel Tabby’s stare, along with Artie’s.
“What… what was that for?”
“A thank-you. I’m just so relieved.”
“You thank everyone who helps you by kissing them?”
“No. I do other things.” Sully grinned and his voice took on that sultry tone that struck Chaz in his groin. His skin flamed with desire, then chilled as he still remembered the rain-soaked clothing he was in.
“I… I should get out of this,” Chaz said. “At least I know why no one let me upstairs.”
“Well, I’m not actually working tonight. But you can come up and change if you want. And I’ll clean the couch later. Or someone will—like Trina. She’s been shirking her duty, so maybe. I’m just so grateful.” Sully smiled again, his eyes alight, and grabbed Chaz’s hand. “Come with me.”
Chaz squeezed Sully’s hand and allowed himself to be led to an elevator at the back of the first floor. Sully stepped inside and shut the door tight. He turned to Chaz and held up the phone again. “So you’ve checked it?”
“I have,” Chaz repeated. He had a feeling Sully still needed to hear the details in order to feel safe, so Chaz went over the meeting with Reggie the best he could. “He was working for the tabloids. Not a gang, like I was worried. He was taking the photos so he could jerk off later because he’s stuck in a car long hours. He didn’t send it. He had no data plan to send anything digital. You’re safe. You’re fine. I promise you.”
“You can’t promise me my safety at all times.”
“But from Reggie, I can.”
“Sure. Fine. He can’t come back here anyway,” Sully said, worrying his lip. “But he works for the tabloids?”
“And he keeps up with the Citizen’s Brigade.”
“So he wants nothing to do with humans? He only sells monster stories?”
“Basically yes,” Chaz said. When the elevator got to the fourth floor, Sully made no attempt to get out. He still stared at the black screen. “Why don’t you turn it on and see for yourself?”
“No. I trust you.” Sully turned around and opened the elevator door. To Chaz’s surprise, he held the phone over the crack between the floor and the elevator and let it drop. Chaz gasped. They were both quiet as the phone fell and cracked at the bottom. The acoustics were incredible as it smashed.
“There. No way it survived that.” Sully beamed. He let out a breath that sounded like a sob, which soon turned into a laugh. “Maybe not the best way to solve that issue—”
“You know, I probably would have done the same thing.”
“Good. Now come to my room.”
Sully held his hand out so the elevator door didn’t shut, then guided Chaz down the hallway to his room. Sully’s desk was covered with sheets of paper and a dozen books, all marked on different pages. The stereo in the corner blinked a paused time. Sully’s bed was messy, more books stacked on the sidelines, as if he hadn’t gotten out of bed all day except to listen to music and read. There was something so simple and romantic about that, it made Chaz’s heart swell.
“Should I sit… or…?”
“Right. Your clothing. Here. I have some stuff that’s probably in your size.” Sully opened the mirrored closet doors and took out several shirts that clearly wouldn’t fit himself. “I’ve washed these, don’t worry. But they were from old customers who left them here.”
“Thanks. I don’t mind.”
Chaz shucked off his shirt and gave it to Sully. He added it to a small bin of laundry in the corner, followed by his pants. Chaz wasn’t sure if he should keep his boxers on. Since it was only the edge of his pants that had been wet, he didn’t bother stripping down right away. The thought of changing in front of Sully should have been arousing, but it was more comforting than anything.
Sully was sitting on his bed by the time Chaz was done and gestured to his chair. “Or you can sit here, with me?” Sully asked.
“I prefer being with you. Feels like a long time.”
“Days pass differently depending on what you’ve been doing. But I like having you close.”
As soon as Chaz sat down, Sully turned to meet his gaze. Another playful smile danced on his lips, which soon turned into a kiss that was more than a frantic thank-you. Sully closed the distance between their bodies, grasping on to Chaz’s arm as he did. Chaz opened his mouth for Sully to deepen the kiss, adding their tongues together. Chaz breathed in all of Sully: from his minty shampoo to his body’s scent down to the taste of chocolate and coffee on his tongue. Chaz consumed all of it, every last heady and thick sensation.
When Sully pressed Chaz into the bed, straddling his waist, he allowed himself to be dominated. He was hard in a matter of seconds and couldn’t help but buck into Sully’s body. Sully explored Chaz’s sides and stomach, pulling up the shirt. Sully laughed into the kiss before he broke it and ran his tongue along Chaz’s chin to his ear.
“I hate to get you dressed and then take it all off again,” Sully said. “But do you want to?”
Chaz’s head screamed yes. His hand hit a book on Sully’s bed, though, and he paused. “I thought you weren’t working tonight? Am I cramping your study time?”
“Not at all. And I owe you one.”
“Owe me one for…?”
“The phone.”
“Oh. So this would be… free?”
Sully nodded and kissed up Chaz’s jawline again. “What do you say?”
“Um.” Chaz bit his lip, unsure what the proper etiquette would be. One thing he’d always liked about Artie was her sense of decorum about the payment. It was always done at the front, with cash or plastic, and not with the worker involved. So the time together felt more romantic, less like a transaction. But he hadn’t given Artie his credit card. She may have already had the number, but he hadn’t put in a time request either. With Sully rocking into him, both of them already hard, it was too difficult to focus on the merits of free service. “You don’t owe me anything. I got the phone because I wanted to help you.”
“How noble. My detective. My vampire detective….” Sully kissed the soft spot on Chaz’s neck, sucking the skin harder and harder. Sully’s mouth formed a bruise on his skin, one that would turn bright red and purple and then brown as it healed in a matter of hours. Sully sucked on Chaz as if he was going to break the skin and savor him, taste him, like they were one and the same creature.
Chaz groaned under Sully’s embrace. He didn’t want to do things this way—not because of the phone. The phone wasn’t his payment for sex. It was his job. There was an honor in that he wanted to preserve.
“You, you, you,” Chaz stuttered before he managed to get out his sentence. “You don’t have to.”
“I know. I don’t have to do anything. I want to.”
“But I want to pay you.”
Sully pulled away, furrowing his brow. “Because that’s all I’m good for?”
“No, no. Because you’re a person who lives in this city and I’m a detective. I really did get you the phone because I wanted you—and anyone else—to be safe.”
Sully considered this for a long time. He broke the sustained silence with a sigh. “Fine. You’re right. Probably silly of me to offer a freebie anyway, especially since that’s what our good tax dollars are for. And before you even question it, yes, Artie and everyone here pays taxes. Some of the witches are good with numbers and everyone does their laundry or buys them herbs in April to get them to file for them.”
Chaz laughed, completely baffled by this side of the business. “Really?”
“Oh yeah. Taxes are serious business. Not paying them is how Al Capone got busted. Artie can’t have that.”
“You amaze me. You know that, right?” Chaz caught some of Sully’s hair in his finger and curled it behind his ear.
“Ah well, I aim to please. You can pay me for tonight. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
Sully sank lower on Chaz’s torso, lifting up the shirt even farther and peppering Chaz’s skin with kisses. Once he undid Chaz’s pants, he kissed around the hipbone and shot a seductive glance up at Chaz.
“What do you want, Chip? I’ll do anything you want.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” Sully said, his breath throaty. “I can suck you without a condom. So I can taste you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I know you’re good. We fuck with condoms, but a taste now? Oh, a taste….”
Chaz swore he melted into the bed as Sully slipped his dick out of his pants. Sully’s hot breath warmed his skin, teasing and coaxing precome out of him. He ran his thumb up his shaft, beading the precome there so he could lick it off. He tasted Chaz as carefully as he said he would, licking and bathing Chaz’s dick with warmth and attention. When Sully finally put his mouth around him and sucked, Chaz was already close. So, so close. As Sully’s head bobbed, Chaz tried to focus on the moment. On the right now. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw the arrows from the crime scene. Cupid’s arrows. They struck him in his body, over and over again like tendrils of desire, and went through his heart. I am falling for him. Falling so, so hard.
“Yeah, Chip, yeah.” Sully broke the contact between their bodies so he could remove Chaz’s pants completely. He took off his own shirt and pants as well. Sully licked up Chaz’s thighs, nipped the skin, and sank back into place, now completely naked. “Oh, Chip, I’m going to make you come so hard.”
“Fuck.” Chaz groaned. Sully spread his fingers over Chaz’s balls, then farther back. He licked a stripe down until his tongue was near his hole. Chaz groaned again and again while Sully moaned his name—Chip—simultaneously. Sully’s hands felt so good on him, along with his mouth and tongue, but the name—the name jarred him. Sully touched him so easily, so effortlessly, it was as if Sully could read him like Braille. But hearing Chip and not Chaz, the name his mother had picked out for him, nearly ruined the moment.
“Fuck. I want you so badly, Chip.” Sully moaned as he moved to bring their dicks together. He arched his back and ground his hips into him. Sully nearly glowed with a sheen of sweat. It made his black hair even darker over his forehead. When their mouths met, Chaz tried to keep Sully silent. He wanted him, like this, unraveling in his arms. He wanted to hear his breath and moans. Not the wrong name. Not anymore.
“I think I know what you want,” Sully said, after breaking the kiss to whisper in Chaz’s ear. “You want inside me? Or should I go inside you?”
“Fuck.” Chaz shuddered. Both. He wanted both at once but could only choose one.
“Let me guess?” Sully said with a laugh. “You want everything? We may be able to do that. Since I don’t have any other clients tonight, we can keep going and going. You like that?”
“Uh-huh.” Chaz placed his hands on the small of Sully’s back, over his ass. He brought him closer, harder and faster, into him. He wanted Sully to ride him until he came against his chest, and then he wanted Sully to rim him until he was a mess on the bed and fuck him too. He was about to open his mouth and tell Sully every last filthy thought that came to mind when an alarming cell phone ring cut through their groans and panting.
“Fuck,” Chaz said. “That’s my work cell.”
“Shhh. You’re not on the clock. You’re with me, Chip. I need you.”
Sully straddled Chaz again and wrapped his legs tightly around his body. He reached behind him and grabbed a bottle of lube and added the gel to Chaz’s cock. He stroked their dicks together, almost in time to the sound of the phone going off. Chaz tried to focus, but he was going soft in Sully’s hand. Why did he not leave his phone in the car? Why did he not put it in airplane mode? And why, at nearly midnight after hours of fucking paperwork, was Jack or Declan calling him? God, that could only mean there was another body and—
“Chip. Chip.” Sully clasped Chaz’s dick, squeezing hard and trying to bring it back to life. “Come on. You’re so hot and I want you right here. Chip…. focus…,” Sully whispered in Chaz’s ear, dragging his tongue and hand along his skin. From the way Sully’s body twisted, Chaz knew his ass was visible in the mirror again. The thought of Sully preening for him, and then begging to be fucked, nearly sent Chaz into a tailspin. He would have come if not for the damn phone ringing and the wrong name from Sully’s mouth.
“I should just hang up the phone,” Sully said. “Chip, let me shut it off—”
“Chaz,” he said, almost panting. He grasped Sully by his waist to prevent him from crawling off the bed, then took his face in his hands. “My name is Chaz.”
“Chaz,” Sully repeated as if this was normal. He bit his lip and turned to grasp one of Chaz’s fingers in his mouth. He sucked it like he’d sucked Chaz’s cock. “Come on, baby. Chaz. I want you. Get hard for me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Chaz’s stomach tightened. Hearing his name—a name he hadn’t heard or dared to say out loud in years—made him shudder. Then it made him want to cry. When Sully noticed the lip tremble, he stopped sucking his fingers and pressed his mouth to Chaz’s instead. He kissed him, slow and soft, and moved his hands to grasp Chaz’s in his own.
“You okay?” Sully asked. “Chaz?”
“I am. I just…. The phone.”
It still rang in the background, when all logic said it should have gone to voice mail by now. The sound was coming from the bottom of Sully’s hamper, the phone wedged in his wet pants’ pocket. “God, I want you so much, but I have to answer that.”
“It’s okay. I’ll still be here.” Sully shifted off Chaz’s body and folded his knees close to his chest. He made no effort to cover himself, only picked up one of the books to look at while Chaz retrieved the phone. When Chaz sat on the edge of the bed to answer, Sully slipped a hand around his back. Still sticky with lube but fine.
“Hello?” Chaz asked. When the other line disconnected right away, he realized he’d been too late. “Shit. Now it fucking stops when I’m here to answer. Fuck, I need to call back.”
“Wait two minutes. Maybe they’re leaving you a message. If it’s important, they will.”
“Gah. You’re probably right.” Chaz turned to Sully to thank him and was met with another comforting kiss. They were both naked, but no longer hard. It was as if they’d already had sex and they lingered close in the afterglow. Chaz sighed, realizing that the afterglow between them—not to mention the sex—would probably have to wait for some time now.
When Chaz’s phone buzzed in his hand, one message waited for him. “Good call,” he told Sully before dialing in his code. Jack’s clipped voice came on the line.
“Hey, man. Sorry, I know you’re probably exhausted, but this is your job. Two more bodies found at the same fucking brothel we were just at. I don’t know how they got in, especially since that tunnel didn’t lead anywhere but out into a field and we’ve had it closed off. Cop cars have been there for days too, but someone must have slipped past the caution tape and dropped two more vamps. One of the bodies is a woman. You said you saw someone in the house, right? We’re gonna need you to get your ass over here. Come soon, or I’m going to send the rookie Ramirez to wake you up at home. Declan’s already here. With coffee. So come.”
Chaz didn’t bother to save or replay the message when prompted. He tossed the phone on the pile of clothing instead. “Fuck.”
“What happened?”
“Two more bodies. Shit. We had a scene cleared, and they somehow got in.”
“More workers?”
“I don’t know. Probably. They were found in a brothel next to a monster hospital. But they were definitely vamps. And if we had proper people to report to for this case, none of this—”
“Hey. Shh.” Sully patted Chaz’s shoulder. “There was nothing you could have done. How could you have known something would happen?”
“There was. I could have….” Each time Chaz blinked, the arrows stared back at him. Stabbed him. “I could have done so much more.”
“No, no, Atlas. You can’t carry that kind of burden.”
Chaz didn’t answer. He rose from the bed and went in search of his pants. Sully dressed in a matter of seconds. When he was done, he waited on the edge of his bed with another book in his hand, ready to go back to work.
We were so close, Chaz thought. His anger bubbled inside of him again. All he wanted to do was lie with Sully. Was that so hard?
“Why the hell would someone try to get inside the crime scene?” Chaz complained. “We already had it sectioned off. That’s so fucking risky.”
“Was… was there anything left behind? The only reason to risk being caught is to get something the cops may not have seen.”
“The papers,” Chaz said. “There were a bunch of papers in Czech.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to tell you about them. Any idea why these were left behind?”
Sully bit his lip and shrugged. It was clear he knew something more from the way he deliberately hid his eyes.
“Sully,” Chaz said, the weight of his request making him feel bruised, “I need your help with this.”
“My help?”
“Yes. You know more about this than I can even fathom.”
Sully let out a laugh. “About sex work?”
“Well, yes, but also Czech. Or Slovak. You can talk to witnesses we have there. To someone—anyone. I know it’s not fair of me to think you’d just do it. We could get a department translator. But I….”
“You already made a promise to someone, didn’t you?”
Chaz looked away and Sully sighed. Chaz figured he’d blown it entirely. Who wanted to be pulled into a vicious murder investigation? Who wanted to be part of any of this? He’d told Jack he’d get a translator, but how risky and stupid was it to bring a sex worker to a crime scene? Where they could be recognized? It was silly, and Chaz’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment.
“Never mind. I shouldn’t do this. It’s not fair.”
“No. It’s… not the way I thought I’d spend my night off, but it sounds like you need someone who can speak Czech.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. It’ll be nice to talk in another language again. I write down so much, but never really say it aloud.”
Chaz’s stomach unclenched. The knots of worry and anger—especially at Declan one-upping him by already being at the fucking scene—eased. “Thank you so much. The department will pay you. It’ll be a legit job.”
“That sounds good,” Sully said, standing to kiss Chaz on the cheek. “But you don’t have to persuade me, Chaz. I’m already a done deal.”