Shadow Thief - Eva Chase Page 0,69

by the back of the SUV. I leaned against the trunk at the opposite end from him, giving him the space I hadn’t been able to offer in the car. Snap gazed down the lane toward that distant haze of artificial light. In the dimness, I thought I could tell his cheeks had flushed, but a glance at his nether regions showed that he was no longer, er, standing at attention.

We stood there in silence for a few minutes. Then words spilled out of me before I could second-guess the impulse. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal, you know. It’s a totally natural reaction that anyone could have in close contact like that. Just a little friction, stirring things up.”

His head swiveled with its serpentine grace to consider me. “Just a little friction,” he repeated, in a tone I couldn’t read. “Is that all it means to you?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again, abruptly unsure how to respond. “Not always,” I said finally. “But I can look at it that way if that’s what you’d prefer.”

He looked away from me with a flick of his tongue over his lips. “I don’t know. I—” He paused, apparently grappling with his words as much as I had. “It’s not a sensation I’m used to. It was… unexpected. As it was happening, I wanted very much for it to be over with, but I also wanted more. I’m not sure which preference was stronger.”

I found myself wetting my lips too. I sure as hell wasn’t going to push him, but— “Well, if you end up deciding on more, just let me know.”

He shifted against the trunk with an audible inhalation, but before either of us could say anything else, Ruse appeared in front of us. He jabbed his thumb toward the end of the lane. “I’ve got a cab waiting that-a-way, with a very agreeable driver who won’t mark down the pick-up. Where’s the lunk?”

“Right here.” Thorn stepped out of the shadows just as the incubus finished speaking. “Our pursuers haven’t made it this far yet, but we should move on with all haste. We can’t shelter for the night in one of those taxis.”

An idea clicked in my head, so fitting I could have laughed if tension hadn’t still been knotted through my chest. “I know the perfect place for us to go.”

23

Sorsha

Even though there was no denying Ruse’s seductive charms, we had the taxi drop us off a five-minute walk from our actual destination. The incubus gave the driver a jaunty salute and said in a cajoling tone, “Thank you, my friend. You’ll drive back downtown and forget you ever came out here.”

As the cab pulled away, Thorn glanced at me. “What is this spot you wanted us to come to?”

I started walking, pointing to the glowing motel sign ahead of us, the letters distorted where half of the bulbs had burnt out. “This is a place people go to specifically when they don’t want anyone to know where they’ve gone.”

Every time Vivi had driven us to the outlet stores farther down this strip, we’d passed the motel with its weather-worn sign offering hourly rates. It’d become a running joke, making up stories about who would be so desperate for anonymity they’d take a room in a place that looked straight out of a slasher flick. A dude having an affair with his wife’s sister—who was also his kid’s teacher and his brother’s girlfriend. A mafia foot-soldier on the run from both the mob and the cops after a catastrophic incident involving a thrown plate of cannelloni. And so on.

Now I was getting to experience that desperation firsthand. Lucky me.

The sign also declared that the management only accepted payment in cash, because they were just that classy. My hand settled on my purse as we approached the front office, but Ruse waved his hand at me dismissively. “I’ve got this.”

In the last few days, my criminal activities had multiplied like rabbits. After yet another tight escape and looking up at the dingy shingles lining the motel’s roof, I couldn’t quite bring myself to care about this latest con. “Be my guest.”

As we’d agreed in hushed discussion in the cab, Snap and Thorn lurked in the shadows while Ruse and I went in. I took one look at the sputtering fluorescent light mounted on the ceiling, the board of nails dangling tarnished keys with numbered fobs, and the faded floral curtains that must have been at least a