a feeling silver is our lucky charm. Even your super-dog has those changeable silver circles on his collar. Time I shared the bounty, babe."
"You know I hate to be called that."
"Yeah, but you're hogging the driving and you can't do anything about it now. Or this."
His hand returned to my inner thigh and didn't look to be leaving until we hit Vegas. Gotta say the bouncy road feel wasn't hurting anything, either. Dolly's vintage shocks were set to velvet vibrate. That Ric. From comatose to cocky after just two dangerous missions. Delilah the secret sex therapist was very happy.
"Where does your silver body jewelry thingy go, anyway?" Rick asked, "when you wear that skintight super-suit?"
This was the man who so memorably removed my new werewolf salsa club duds and twenty-four-year-old virginity in front of his bathroom mirror (before I started seeing dead people in looking glasses) asking. I blushed anyway, but only the half-man in the moon could see that with us zipping down the deserted straight-pin road at almost a hundred miles an hour.
"When you got cozy with what would be my bikini wax job - if I had one - eight miles back," I admitted, "the silver familiar, ah, migrated to a less active erotic zone. Sometimes it doesn't like crowds."
Ric's rhythmic caresses stopped. "Living up to its name, I see. But I don't see. Where?"
While he examined me for a clue, I watched the speedometer. It took a mile, less than a minute, for him to get it.
Ric sounded smug. "Elementary, my dear Watson. I detect two new symmetrically placed oversize silver studs on the chest of your catsuit. Hmm, spiked studs. Muy provocative. Your familiar isn't being shy, Del, it's upping the erotic ante. However or wherever that outfit opens and shuts, I'm going to take my time finding out."
Behind us a huge sigh and agitation on the leather upholstery indicated that Quicksilver was settling down on the backseat for a resigned doggy snooze before he spent the night on outside patrol. He'd always been an ultrasmart and sensitive dog.
Chapter Three
ONCE THE GOLDEN glow of the Las Vegas Strip was unfolding like a fan on the horizon, I checked in with my landlord on my hands-free cell phone.
Actually, I checked in with his butler. He was the one who'd fret about my whereabouts.
I didn't even need to worry about waking him up, because he was one of the celebrity zombies known as a CinSims. You really can't wake up William Powell from The Thin Man and My Man Godfrey films, among other classics, since the actor has been dead for decades and his various acting personas have been grafted onto contemporary zombie bodies at select Las Vegas entertainment locations.
What does it say when the only person who worries about your well-being like a father you can always count on isn't actually a real person?
Quicksilver and Ric listened hard to my end of the conversation.
"Godfrey? Yes, we've stayed out really late, but we're safe and sound." ...
"Master Quicksilver will be fine. Ric has a smart house but Quick is smarter, so we can always use the extra security." ...
"Yes, we're heading to Ric's place. Master Quicksilver and I are doing an overnight. Tell your boss I'll check in with him in the morning." ...
"After breakfast, Godfrey, yes." ...
"Indeed. We are being 'deliciously scandalous' and will 'enjoy ourselves.' Yes, maybe even champagne, but certainly Brimstone Kisses."
I winked at Ric as the phone's ultraviolet glow faded with my conversation.
"Brimstone Kiss." Ric mused. "That's the Inferno Bar cocktail you whipped up for the Humphrey Bogart Casablanca CinSim when you were trying to ply him with booze to save my hide. Is my liquor cabinet likely to stock the right ingredients?"
"If you have OJ in the fridge and orange brandy on hand, I can mix up a Brimstone Kiss."
"Brandy? Nope. You'll just have to rely on my homemade brews and kisses."
By then we'd arrived and Ric's garage door was opening at Dolly's approach as its interior light went on. Luckily, Ric's Vette was a space saver. Dolly could glide her three thousand-plus pounds right in. She's a big girl and proud of it.
Ric and I were entering the connecting courtyard before the system could close the garage door after us, so Quicksilver lingered behind to ensure nothing even as low and slender as a rattlesnake had slipped in unnoticed.
I loved the moonlit courtyard and the soothing splash of its copper fountain recycling water to the lush foliage. It felt so Old