Blood Kiss, стр. 53
“And to think I assumed that was, like, the human lunar landing or something.”
Lassiter glanced over. “Wait, those rats without tails made it to the moon? You’re kidding me. They can’t even decide what time it is, clocks always flipping back and forth from season to season. And then there’s their health bullshit, eat this, you’ll live longer—no, strike that, it’ll kill you, so you need to do this. Internet trolls. Asshat preachers and politicians. And you know, don’t get me started on potholes. Why don’t they fix the roads?”
Marissa threw her head back and laughed. “You don’t even drive. Or care about any of those things.”
The fallen angel shrugged, his gold piercings and chains gleaming like sunshine with the shift. “Just repeating what they talk about on the evening news.”
Marissa shook her head with a smile. And she was about to ask him what exactly he did aside from sunning himself each noontime if there was no cloud cover, and taking up space on that couch in front of the TV—but then his eyes flicked back to her and they were dead serious. As his gaze returned to the big screen, she realized he’d picked up on her mood and was doing his best to help her out of it.
“You’re okay, Lass,” she said softly. “You know that?”
“I’m more than okay. I’m amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing,” he sang out. “So does this mean I can put you down for a dozen of my calendars?”
With any other person in the house, she might have been tempted to laugh it off as a joke. Him, though? “No, you can’t. I don’t even know what they’re like, but the answer is no.”
“Fine, half a dozen,” he tossed back. “They’re only five bucks. I have to cover printing costs. Good news? There was no photographer expense—I took the pics with my selfie stick.”
She lowered a forkful of chicken back to her plate. “You actually made a calendar of yourself.”
“Why do you think I had my pants off.”
“Lass. Really. You took twelve naked pictures of yourself—”
“Jockstrap. I was in my jockstrap, remember. I just did December’s by the fire. I am so hot, it is flat-out stupid.”
Marissa passed an eye around the room and shuddered at the number of things he’d probably put his naked ass on before settling for the hearth in front of the banked fire. “What gave you this idea?”
He rolled his eyes. “We’ve only got how many nights left in this year? I need to get ’em back from Kinko’s before December thirty-first.”
From out of nowhere, she had an image of some poor human in a FedEx Office branch getting an eyeful and a half of the mostly naked fallen angel.
Without warning, she started to laugh so hard, tears came to her eyes. The good kind of tears, that was.
And as she gave herself up to the angel’s ridiculousness, Lass just sat there on the couch, staring up at Melrose Place, a sly, quiet smile on his beautiful, deranged face.
What an angel he was, she thought to herself. A total angel.
Chapter Twenty-nine
As Butch emerged out of the hidden door under the mansion’s grand staircase, his only thought was of finding his mate.
And the sound of her laughter was both an instant locator and a source of high-octane relief. She’d been so distracted as soon as she’d woken up after a day of restless sleep, the weight of what was on her mind giving her the look of someone dragging a baby grand piano around after them. But he’d promised her he would get her something on the girl, somehow, and he was beyond ready to tell her he had an in.
Striding across the mosaic depiction of an apple tree in full bloom, he entered the billiards room, and—
Lassiter lifted both his hands up from his prone position on the couch. “I put my pants back on. I was a good boy.”
Butch’s fangs threatened to drop and his upper lip twitched. “Excuse me? And think carefully before you explain that one. You’re wicked close to the line.”
Marissa took a sip from a glass of water. “It’s perfectly innocent.”
“I’m doing a naked calendar,” the fallen angel started.
“He had a jockstrap on.”
“It was all done with a selfie stick.”
As the pair of them talked over each other, Butch had a sudden urge to plug both his ears, shut his eyes, and go “la-la-la-la-la.” “You know, I’m good. I’m really good not knowing anything more.”
On any of Lassiter’s antics, for that matter. Bitch had a way of making the ordinary complicated and the mundane insane.
It was a gift.
Just ask the fallen angel. He’d tell ya.
“Will you excuse us for a minute,” Butch said as he walked over and gave Marissa a kiss on the forehead. God, her scent smelled good in his nose, and wow, could that female make slacks and a blouse look like a goddamn ball gown. “I’ve got to talk to my girl.”
“NFW, I’m watching Melrose.”
“That wasn’t a request, angel.”
“Is there something wrong?” Marissa asked as she wiped her mouth with a damask napkin. “Did someone get hurt in training?”
He pulled out a stool and sat next to her. “Lass, you were leaving.”
“The fuck I was.”
Butch grimaced and hated making the offer: “You can use the couch at the Pit.”
“Will you make me change the channel when you guys get back there?”
“Will you leave now if I say no?”
“Are you saying no now?”
For godsakes, Lassiter was perfectly capable of playing a round of question tennis until dawn—or one of the parties involved kicked the bucket from dehydration and exhaustion. “Yes, I’m saying no.”
“Wait, does that mean I can watch Melrose or not? The double negative confused—”
“Jesus Christ, will you just go!”
Lassiter was muttering as he got to his feet. “How many times do I have to tell you that is not my name.”
“I need a drink.” As the fallen angel left, Butch got back on his feet and went behind the bar. Pouring himself some Lagavulin, he didn’t beat around the bush, because he knew his shellan wouldn’t want him to. “So I think I have a lead.”
“You do?” She put her fork down on her plate. “What? How?”
He put two pieces of ice in a rocks glass and gave them an amber-colored bath. “That piece of metal is a key, and it gets you entrance into a private club that’s for humans only.”
“Oh, my God, if we can get a membership list, maybe we can find her name.”
Yeah, not a country club, my love, he thought as he took a deep drink.
“How did you find this out?” she asked.
“One of the trainees belongs to it. He’s taking me there ASAP—I just have to check in with the other Brothers about the next couple of nights. I think if I switch some classes around, I can free up Friday.”
“So we’ll go! This is amazing!” As he froze with his glass halfway back to his lips, Marissa frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that. Butch. Seriously, I am going with you.”
He shook his head and followed through on the swallow. “No, I’ll handle this. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know what I find as soon—”
“I am going with you.”
As he got a good look at the set angle of her jaw, he put his Scotch down on the bar. “Marissa, this is not the kind of place you need to even drive past, much less go into. It’s a sex club.”
“So.”
He blinked. “Honey, it’s not—”
“Need I remind you what we did after the movie? Four times?”
“Marissa.”
“Butch,” she echoed.
To keep himself from cursing, he tossed back his drink and poured another. “You’re not up to something like that. There’ll be people fucking all over the place, doing freaky shit to one another. You can’t handle that.”
“Or maybe it’s more like you can’t handle me being there.”
He rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help it. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Or what that kind of thing is like.”
Marissa folded her napkin in slow, precise little squares and laid it beside her mostly full plate. “Well, we’ll just find out when we go together, won’t we.”