Johnny walked down Dumaine and pondered how it was that he’d never really understood women. His relationships such as they were had been like origami, full of little folds, then when he tugged one piece the whole thing collapsed. Here it was happening already with Lizette and he wasn’t even sure he actually liked her. He was pretty damn sure she didn’t like him.
He really hadn’t been passing judgment, but he knew he was right; they had no way of knowing if they’d really had sex. If she had banged someone else, well, she had been out of her mind. Hell, if she had banged him she had clearly been out of her mind. Not drugged, he was 100 percent positive she would not have come near him. He wouldn’t have hit on her sober either. Because he would have gotten slapped.
Johnny worked his jaw and fought the urge to grin. Yeah, she was hot, there was no doubt about it. The uptight paper-pusher had a fiery side, and he couldn’t help but want to explore that side of her.
Lizette had dug her phone out and was speaking into it in French, which made Johnny wonder if it was Dieter, because he could have sworn her assistant was German, but then again, what did he know? Besides, Germans probably spoke French. He was starting to feel like a real potato farmer next to her, which was stupid. He was a musician and chicks everywhere dug that. He wasn’t a loser. Even if he was walking behind her, attached to her like a disobedient dog.
The submissive lifestyle wasn’t for him, he had to say. He was happy for Saxon if that was his thing, but Johnny didn’t like to take orders. He liked to coax and tease and charm his way to get what he wanted. What he wanted right now was Lizette, naked, below him, quivering, her plump lips parted.
“Hey, brother, what’s up?” A man on the corner of St. Philip and Bourbon Street outside of Lafitte’s gave him a wave and a friendly smile. “Where’s your bucket tonight? My wife loved the picture of her with you guys.”
Okay. What picture might that be? And why the hell would he have a bucket? Johnny figured this was a good opportunity to gather some information. He touched Lizette’s arm so she would stop marching down the street. “That’s awesome. I’d love to see it if you have it on your phone.”
“Sure, sure, no problem.” The guy was wearing a golf shirt with large sweat stains in both pits, and he wiped his forehead with a hankie. “I’ll tell you, it’s hot out here. Okay, let me pull it up on my phone. The wife is inside having a hurricane. Little hair of the dog, if you know what I mean.”
Johnny smiled back at him. “That sounds about right for a Saturday night in New Orleans. Hope you’re having a good trip.”
“Oh, the best, absolutely the best.” He glanced at Lizette, who had turned her head and was still on her cell phone. “I’ll tell ya, you’re a lucky son of a gun. Your girlfriend is beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Johnny felt a ridiculous sense of pride, even though Lizette didn’t belong to him in any way.
“Here it is.” The man turned his camera and showed Johnny the image on the screen. “It was so real. My wife loved it!”
Holy fuck. Lizette was going to birth a cow. Johnny tried not to react, but it was hard not to at least go a little buggy-eyed as he stared at the picture of him biting Lizette’s neck, her eyes rolled back in ecstasy, blood trailing down the back of her shirt. The tourist’s wife was standing next to them grinning and pointing. Lizette was perched on a bucket, and in front of them was a pile of money on the street. Oh God, they had been charging tourists cash to watch him suck her blood.
“That is a great shot,” he told the man with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
“How do you get the blood so realistic? I could swear it even smelled like blood.”
Johnny gave him a shaky smile and a wink. “Trade secret, buddy. Can’t give that away or we’ll be out of business.”
The tourist laughed. “Sure, sure, I understand. You want me to send you a copy of this picture? I can shoot it to you in an email.”
“Great, thanks.” Johnny gave him The Impalers email address and debated if he could get away with never telling Lizette about this. Ever. But he wasn’t about to turn down a copy of that picture. It was intensely erotic and he wanted to blow it up and study Lizette’s expression alone in a dark room.
“I’m Mike, by the way.”
Johnny exchanged a few more pleasantries with Mike, then said good-bye as the guy headed back into the bar to find his wife, probably excited to tell her that he had seen the fake vampires again. Little did he know.
Lizette put her phone away. “Who was that?”
Johnny wrestled for a few seconds, a little afraid of the fallout if he told her the truth. Yet he knew if she found out later she would decapitate him for not telling her. He kind of liked his head right where it was, so he cleared his throat as they started walking again and gave her a smile. He’d just ease into it. “Was that Dieter? Does he know anything?”
“No, that was his Parisian assistant.”
“Your assistant has an assistant?”
“Oui. So what is going on? Who was that man?”
There was no way out of it so he bit the bullet and tried to sound charming. “Well, the good news is I know where you got all that cash from and it wasn’t from stripping, if that’s what you were worried about.”
“Of course not!” she said, but she sounded relieved. “How did I get it?”
“It seems we set ourselves up on Bourbon Street with a bucket. You know, like the living statues who paint themselves silver or like a ghost and stand there and don’t move while people take their picture. They have a donation bucket out. Apparently we put out a donation bucket.”
Lizette gave him a look of bemused bewilderment. “Why would people pay to see us standing there? I doubt either one of us is that interesting standing on a bucket.”
“Speak for yourself,” he teased. “But um, well, the thing is . . . we seemed to be reenacting a vampire bite.” Reenacting. Actually doing it. Almost the same thing.
“What? What do you mean? Like how?”
“You know, like my fangs on your neck. Breaking your skin. Sucking whatever blood didn’t run down your shirt. You know. Like that.” Johnny braced himself for a second slap.
Fortunately, she appeared too stunned to even consider it. “Why would you do that? Are you insane?”
“I don’t know! Maybe we needed cab fare. You did freeze my assets.” He wasn’t going to take the full blame for this either. He dug out his phone to see if Mike had emailed him the picture yet. “Besides, you looked like you were enjoying yourself.” She did. So there.
“I highly doubt that!” she said with extreme indignation.
Thank God for technology and Mike’s eagerness. “Ha! Look at this!” Johnny shoved the image in her face. “Tell me you’re not enjoying that.”
She so clearly was, it made him horny all over again, if he had ever actually stopped. The way her head was thrown back in complete abandon, her eyes half-closed, tongue out on her bottom lip. It was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.
Lizette grabbed his phone and stared closer. Then the phone tumbled out of her hand down onto the sidewalk. “That isn’t me. That can’t be me. I would never . . . I couldn’t . . . it’s not possible . . .” Her voice trailed off, her eyes glazed, her free hand fluttered aimlessly over her chest.
After rescuing his phone and making sure it still worked despite the screen kissing the concrete, he eyeballed her, a little worried at her tone. “Do you need to stick your head between your legs or something?”
“Excuse me? How dare you!”
Maybe that didn’t sound right. “I don’t want you fainting!”
But Lizette was tugging at their attached wrists. “I want this thing off of me right now! I want away from you. I want to leave this street, this city, and go back to Paris.”
People were stopping to stare at them. Johnny gave the observers a casual smile. “She’s drunk,” he told them.
“I am not drunk!” She whacked his arm with her giant purse.
“Look, we’re home,” he told her, pointing to the door that led up to Saxon’s second-floor apartment. “Maybe we can talk about this inside. You know, away from total strangers.”
“As if it matters! After last night, apparently there is nothing left to hide!”
Yeah, she was flipping her wig. Johnny debated calling Stella or Dieter for backup, but Stella was busy with Zelda and he hated Dieter, purely on principle. He was on his own. “Lizette, obviously nothing bad happened last night, because we’re still here. No one is in jail or in a science lab, so let’s just go inside and keep it that way, okay?”
“Oh, now you are so reasonable?”
She was fairly quivering with indignation, and she was so tiny and cute that Johnny couldn’t help himself. He bent over and kissed the tip of her petite nose. “Yes. I’m being reasonable, so we should probably make note of this. It doesn’t happen all that often.”
His kiss rendered her speechless. She blinked up at him, eyes wide, mouth open, anger deflated. She murmured something in French.
“I know,” he told her soothingly. At some point he probably needed to confess that he didn’t speak French, but so far, it didn’t seem to matter. The extent of their conversations was about how he was screwing up and her fears of exposure. All he really needed to do was agree.
The nosy partiers had lost interest and had kept walking, so he took her hand, the one attached to his, and held it like they were teen lovers. It felt oddly comforting, and made the handcuffs irrelevant. He held open the door for her and led her into the courtyard. Up some groaning wooden steps and they were at Saxon’s front door. His apartment was essentially just a long narrow room, originally slaves’ quarters to the town house facing Dumaine. It was perfect for a vampire who didn’t want a lot of natural light, but it was too small for Johnny. He felt claustrophobic inside it, and the feeling immediately came over him as he pushed open the door.
“It isn’t locked?”
“Nah. Saxon doesn’t have much to steal and he could defend himself. He may look like a twelve-year-old girl, but he is an immortal.”
“That’s true.” Lizette looked around. “Well, obviously he is not here.”
“Yeah.” Johnny frowned at the empty room. “I am starting to get a little worried. I mean, I could see him coming back here to sleep or get some stuff, but where else would he be on his own wedding night? Everyone wants booty on their wedding night.”
“I think everyone got booty but him.”
Johnny laughed. “It was definitely a wedding to remember. Except no one remembers it.” He went over to Saxon’s tiny fridge. “Want a drink?” There was blood in there, and suddenly Johnny just wanted a drink and a cigarette. But he had quit smoking, so he would have to settle for a glass of red.
“I think perhaps that would be wise.” Then Lizette surprised him by opening her purse and pulling out the wad of cash. “I suppose we should split this, yes? I believe you earned it.”
Johnny grinned, but as he poured them both a drink into jelly jars from Saxon’s cupboard, he wondered if her thoughts were taking the same turn his were—straight back to the image of him biting her neck and drawing her blood into his mouth.
He wanted to bite her again. Now.
“Don’t even think about it,” she told him, proving that not only was she adorable, she could read minds as well.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he lied.