The Nightlife: San Antonio

  He was still dazed, sighing with the joy of her bite. Her fingers delicately slid across the bite on his neck. “Did I hurt you?”

  His eyes finally came into focus on her as he wiped a bit of slobber from the side of his mouth. “You’re one crazy bitch.”

  She nodded, probably, and grinned. Oops, too many teeth.

  Alarm struck his face. “Who the fuck are you?” He finally pushed her off his lap. She watched his eyes track her inner thighs as she scooted back away for fear he might hit her. The man was unpredictable, but one thing she knew for sure, he desired her.

  She struggled to stand, still unsteady on her feet, and swayed until her hand found the counter to steady herself.

  “This silent shit doesn’t cut it. I need to know who you are.” He stood up and advanced on her. His hand rubbed his neck and came away with a touch of blood on his fingertips. He scowled. “Fuck, you broke the skin. Damn it!”

  Not exactly what she had hoped for. She leaned back, bumping up against the counter. She was so damn tired. Weakness washed through her body and her head swam dizzily. In spite of the rich blood spreading nourishment throughout her system, fatigue gutted her. Every movement brought pain. She needed more of his blood. But she had to wait, let him recover. I am not a killer. I will not kill him.

  She swayed and commanded her eyelids to stay open.

  He watched her suspiciously. “You gotta be pretty high right now, morphine, Demerol, but that wears off fast. Are you feeling any pain?”

  She shook her head, but he probably saw right through her lie. If not for the countertop, she’d have keeled over. Her meal had helped, but it wasn’t enough. Enough for what?

  “As long as you don’t bite me, I will treat your wounds and get you some clothes. Biting is off limits, you understand?”

  She nodded agreement. For now.

  * * * *

  Chapter 5

  He had to change his underwear before he did anything else with the nutjob in his kitchen. Whatever she did to him, he had lost his load, right in his pants. Hell, he was still sporting a semi. He almost fell over trying to step out of his boxer shorts. The damn woman had left him high and light-headed. He grabbed the water bottle off the nightstand and guzzled it down as he looked to the gun cabinet in his closet.

  He checked the lock on the cabinet door to make sure she couldn’t steal one of his guns. The way she latched onto him with her chompers, he wouldn’t put it past her to try something else.

  But damn it felt good when she bit him. He was itching to ask her to do it again. That was the freakiest thing he’d ever felt. Like snorting cocaine and catching an awesome blow job, all at the same time.

  His hands shook as he slipped on some jeans and caught his composure. He found her right where he left her, on his bar stool by the kitchen counter. Definitely have to Lysol the countertops and furniture.

  He handed her a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. “It’s all I have that will fit. Bathroom’s over there.”

  She grabbed the clothes and her huge doe eyes stared at him unblinking. He knew what she was waiting for, but dammit, he didn’t want to get that personal. Crazy chick probably needed help getting dressed. He had caught a full pussy shot as she crab-walked away from him, and she hadn’t seemed to mind. The woman had no modesty.

  This is why he had avoided the nursing routine. He had no stomach for bedpans and wiping asses. But, he needed her clothes off anyways, to check out her wounds. “Do you need a hand?”

  She looked down at his hand, as if he would hack it off and give it to her. Then her eyes traveled to the bulge in his jeans, like she knew her effect on him. The crazy chicks always know. This was the single weirdest experience he’d ever had with a woman.

  She looked over to the bathroom across the room and back at him. “Yes, I need help.” The brat had a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

  He blew out a long sigh and accepted the unpleasant task. “Alright.” He came to her, warily, and slid his arm around her slender waist, her hospital gown crumpling as he helped her walk to the bathroom. Definitely need to scrub up with antibacterial soap before this night is through.

  “Stay off the neck.” He mustered all his considerable severity and eyed her. “I mean it.”

  “Okay.” She spoke so quietly, like a dainty little woman made of glass, ready to shatter at the slightest mistreatment. You’d have thought he just stomped on her toes the way she looked all butt-hurt.

  There was something strange about her eyes. She never blinked, always held his gaze directly. Most women would look away, or smile, or fidget uncomfortably. Not her, she just stared. He suspected a man could become completely lost in those dark orbs.

  A smile quirked his lips. She was probably a lesbian. Seems like most of the hot chicks have gone lesbian or, at least, bisexual. A cruel joke on men.

  He scooted her a little closer and helped her limp into the cramped space of his half bath. There wasn’t much room for this sort of thing. The other bathroom off his bedroom was plenty large, full-size tub and all, but he’d rather have this smaller area to disinfect. Probably need an entire case of Clorox wet wipes for this girl.

  She sat on the toilet seat, and leaned back with a weary sigh, oblivious to the fact that the gown covered almost nothing of her legs and thighs. What an odd girl. So alive, spry. The more he checked her out in the bright light of the bathroom, the weirder it got.

  She should be on life support, laid out, leaking from all those nasty wounds. This woman looked like shit, but nothing even close to the injuries he had seen on her body two nights ago.

  He couldn’t help himself. He undid the buttons of her gown and opened it. His hands reached for her red-stained bandages. She just sat there and watched him, silent. The bandages came away easily, revealing wounds that had seen several weeks of healing.

  “Holy hell!”

  He backed away till he hit the door jamb with his shoulder. She just sat there, looking down at her naked chest, only to look back up at him, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s … fucking amazing!”

  “Yeah? Well it hurts, a lot.” Her strange puzzlement morphed to a hiss of pain. For a moment there, she had a snarl going. Oh man, not only was she crazy, but she had a mean streak too. He needed to get rid of this girl fast.

  He quickly pulled the rest of her bandages from her stomach, breasts, and thigh. “I’m sorry. I can give you something for the pain, but it’s only Percocet. I have a few pills left over from when I strained my shoulder a couple months ago.”

  Eyes squinted up in pain, she nodded. “I’ll take whatever you have.”

  She lay there fully exposed, a single button holding her gown together, bloody, bruised, definitely not in any shape to be sexy. But those words, spoken in her husky, pain-filled voice led to the wrong kind of response low in his groin. His eyes traveled down her slim belly to the soft curves of her shaved mound. He could see the top of her slit.

  Under different circumstances, this woman would be a fine little piece of ass. He was already getting hard again. Stop it you idiot. She needs your help, not your cock. Stop being such a perverted sociopath. She caught him staring at her in fascination, and he almost felt embarrassed. Almost.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  He jetted to his bedroom, to the master bath. His shaking hands found the half-full bottle of Percocet and then he dug through the mirror cabinet for the first aid kit he’d cobbled together from stolen hospital supplies. One of the perks of working as a paramedic, he never needed to buy medical supplies.

  “Here.” He handed her two pills and a bottle of water, double the normal dose. She was probably in a shit-ton of pain.

  She reached out to take the pills. “No water. I can’t stand the taste of it.” She swallowed them dry.

  He shrugged. The woman would dehydrate without water. But that was going to be her problem, as soon as he could get her out of his apartment and onto a bus. “You really do need fluids, but, suit y
ourself.”

  Dark, hungry eyes assessed him. She stared at his neck, and then tracked down the line of his body, to the lump in his pants. He could almost feel her eyes on him, like she wanted him, his body. Nutjob probably wanted to take another chunk out of him. Or maybe she was simply hungry.

  “Can I get you something to eat?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes flicked up to his face, to his neck. “Later.” She slumped there on the toilet seat.

  The woman looked exhausted. She should be. That kind of near death experience takes a lot of recovery. He recalled that desperate moment when her heart had actually stopped – he thought she was gone for sure.

  The woman was tough as nails.

  He stared at her again. She opened her eyes and caught him. Like before, she held his direct gaze, unflinching, unblinking. She stared so long that he actually began to feel uncomfortable. Him. He was never intimidated by women.

  The girl had something very different about her, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Okay then. I’m going to clean you up, change your bandages, and then get you dressed.”

  Finally she looked away to close her eyes with a nod of agreement. He wondered if he had met his match, another sociopath. That would be his fate, to meet a smoking hot piece of ass, get her home and naked, only to find out she was even more fucked up in the head than him.

  His hands worked fast, almost on automatic. In a few minutes he had her cleaned up, fresh antibiotic cream, gauze, and tape. She never moved, never made a sound, just gritted her teeth as he worked.

  There was something sexy about a naked woman gritting her teeth in pain, even when it shouldn’t be sexy.

  She didn’t move when he slid her leg into a pair of his shorts, then the other leg, and scooted them up to her thighs. Dammit, she fell asleep. He picked her up ever so gently, wrapping one arm around her back to hold her against his chest, while he worked his shorts up over her ass one-handed.

  This was just a little too intimate for medical professionalism. Who was he kidding? He’d never been a professional anything, except for his days in the military. Adrian knew his shit in the field, for sure.

  This paramedic crap isn’t for me. Should’ve gone for the mercenary contract.

  * * * *

  He was very strong. Strong enough to carry her with one arm while his hand groped all over her ass, doing a little more than just pulling up her pants. She didn’t care. Let him get a handful. The pain was slipping away as the pills kicked in. Her limbs felt like gelatin, and all the hairs on her scalp had turned prickly, itchy. He’d given her something strong.

  She briefly wondered if he was planning to take advantage of her after she passed out, but then he set her back down on the toilet. One arm at a time he slipped a t-shirt over her head and pulled it down. Though his fingers brushed her breasts, he wasn’t frisky. Maybe her initial impression was good. The man could be trusted, to a point.

  He had a certain something odd she identified with. She sensed he was a free agent, uncluttered by the conventions of society. She had no idea how she understood this about him, but it felt true. He was a man who could handle extreme and unusual situations without balking. How many men would bring a gunshot victim home to their apartment and clean her up in their bathroom without complaint, without calling the police?

  Luck had been with her when she found him in the parking lot. He was the only thing she had going for her, and she wasn’t willing to leave this sanctuary anytime soon. Not until she figured out the answers to who, what, where and why.

  After washing his hands three times with antibacterial soap, he toweled off and turned those deep, intense hazel eyes on her again. He had no problem staring her down, like she was just a piece of meat. Another interesting thing to add to the list of interesting things about him.

  She knew it was coming before he spoke. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I need to rest … for a while.”

  She needed to feed, again, soon. She needed the taste of his rich blood in her mouth.

  “Yeah. Um … Where are you from? Don’t you have some people you can call for help? A bus ticket or something?”

  Asshole was already planning to shove her out the door. What a mess of contradictions. Why did he help her? Because he was a paramedic? Not likely. This guy was way too much of a prick to be a selfless, life-saving, paramedic. Nothing about him made sense.

  “No. There’s no one I can call. Daime tiempo … Give me time to rest.” Then it hit her – Spanish? She spoke Spanish? She met his intense, soul-scraping stare as her slurred words rolled off her tongue slow as molasses. If he thought a little stare down was going to get her off that toilet seat, he had another thing coming.

  As she sagged into the porcelain, spineless and feeling no pain, she realized he would have to carry her. The pills had kicked in hard, and she was so exhausted, high, she could barely focus on his beautiful, arrogant face.

  “Fine. You’ll have your rest. But then I’m putting you on a bus to wherever it is you came from.”

  That’s what you think.

  Smart enough to figure out she couldn’t walk anymore, he scooped her up in his arms. Her world faded to black as she rested her cheek against his warm chest, asleep next to the only man she knew, the only person in the world she could trust. Sort of.

  * * * *

  Chapter 6

  “What the hell am I trying to prove?”

  With the crazy chick asleep in his arms, he walked into the kitchen and managed to snag a Hefty trash bag from the drawer without dropping her. No way he was putting this girl on his sofa without a protective barrier. There are some things you can’t wash out of fabric.

  She murmured something and her little pink tongue darted out to her lips, as if she was thirsty. He thought about trickling some water down her throat, but she had seemed pretty adamant about her dislike of water. And, she was sleeping. He’d rather not wake her up and have to deal with any more crap.

  The clock on the oven shone the bright red numbers of 4:10 a.m. He felt burned out. He needed a shower and some serious disinfectant. He laid out the trash bag end to end on his couch and placed her on it. Comatose by Percocet, she didn’t move.

  “What the fuck was I thinking?” He should have driven away, left her in the parking lot, or taken her back to the emergency room. This shit was not his problem. Who knew what kind of insane mafia crap she was involved in.

  Adrian hit the shower, scrubbed long and hard with antibacterial soap, and toweled off. He thought he heard something, so he slid out into the darkness of his apartment in nothing but his boxer shorts. She lay on his couch, curled up in a fetal ball. The plastic bag was all over hell. Damn, might have to throw out those cushions after all. Then he noticed she was shivering.

  He’d neglected to give her a blanket.

  He rummaged through his linen closet and found an old comforter left over from some chick he’d dated a few years back, name long forgotten. He figured he could just throw it away after the fact. As he slipped the blanket up to her shoulders, one eye peeked open at him briefly, and then slid closed again.

  With the crazy girl squared away, he hit his bed so hard the mattress springs groaned in protest. He drifted asleep within seconds.

  * * * *

  “Corporal Adrian Faulkner. You have a … colorful and interesting service record.”

  Colored red is what he probably meant to say. Red with blood and death.

  Adrian nodded, like he always nodded every time this dream played out.

  “Two tours in Iraq, that’s a bit unusual. Most soldiers have no desire to come back here. Most soldiers would rather be stationed in Hawaii or somewhere they can grab some third world ass for a few pesos. Iraq is not a soldier-friendly environment.”

  Adrian nodded again. What do you say to shit like that?

  “I read your psyche profile. Read your military records. Read your CO’s recommendation for counseling. Nothing here tells me what you thi
nk. What’s on your mind soldier?”

  “I was ordered to counseling, so here I am.”

  The Army shrink stared at him with eyes that sought to strip him of his secrets. “Lieutenant Stevens says you’re a cold-blooded bastard. Says you never complain when it gets ugly, when the casualties pile up. All the other guys in the unit complain, but not you.”

  Adrian shrugged, as he had always shrugged when faced with the unpleasant truth of his experiences in the military.

  “He says the only thing he really knows about you, besides the fact that you are very good at killing the enemy, is that you’re excessively clean. You have the cleanest uniforms, the cleanest equipment, and you carry around antibacterial soap like other guys carry condoms.”

  Adrian shrugged again. Guilty as charged. So sue me, I like to be clean.

  “Got nothing to say about all this?”

  He shook his head. Never really pays to say anything to a shrink, they twist words into whatever meaning they want, kinda like an attorney.

  “You know what your service record doesn’t show which says a lot to me? Guilt. You don’t express any remorse for killing in the field of battle.”

  Since shrugging was inappropriate, Adrian just watched him, a wary feeling creeping into his gut. He didn’t like the direction this interview had taken.

  “There are certain kinds of people who can pull the trigger and not feel guilty. Usually they feel the opposite, excited, invigorated. For these people killing is a rush like no other. It’s the ultimate exercise of power, to take a life.”

  Silence was probably more inappropriate at this moment, so he grunted. “I guess. I’m a soldier. I do what the Army tells me to do.”

  “Certainly. And you’re a damn fine soldier at that. But you’re also a human being, and us humans tend to feel shitty about blowing people’s faces off.”