Free Virgin Daiquiri (Last Call #4) by Moira Rogers Page B

ratchet up their delicious evil powers.” Even
as her lush red lips formed the words, she hooked a hand into his
belt and pulled him closer. “It makes me hot.”
    Distracted as he was by her mouth, he didn’t
notice her lift her glass. He didn’t notice anything, actually,
until she smiled and poured the frozen drink down his pants.
    The music didn’t stop, but all movement on
the dance floor did. The regulars of Last Call caught their
collective breath and watched as Leo stood frozen in place while
fruity slush dripped down his legs.
    It really should have killed his erection,
and he was more than a little pissed off when it didn’t. If
anything, he was harder than ever. But then, he’d always been a
sucker for a challenge.
    And she was apparently a good one. The
mention of virgin sacrifice meant she belonged to one of the
prominent magical families that dominated New York, fighting
meaningless little battles to gain the slightest advantage. But
human sacrifice was the darkest of all magics, and someone with
that sort of blood would never have made it through Last Call’s
wards, unless…
    Leo glanced at Bernie again and lowered his
voice, hoping to keep his words from any members of the gawking
crowd who happened to possess superhearing. “She’s the Dumitrescu
girl, I take it?”
    “ I am,” she answered,
holding out her hand as though she hadn’t just dumped a drink on
him. “Caitlin Carlson.”
    She was a little bit insane, and it was
making him hot. He took her hand and teased his thumb along the
backs of her fingers in the slightest caress. “Caitlin Carlson. Do
you know why everyone’s staring at you?”
    Her bland expression didn’t change, but he
felt the slight shiver that ran through her. “Because they figured
out my identity before you did?”
    “ Because you just dumped a
frozen drink down the pants of a seventeen hundred year old demon.”
He turned her hand over and traced his finger along her palm.
“Luckily, all of the rest of the demons salivating over you are
scared sick of me. Ben considers me a tolerable sort of fellow and
fairly trustworthy. So if you’re determined to go upstairs, you
should bring me with you.”
    She pulled her hand free of his with a
laugh. “Then you must be Leofric.” Her gaze roamed over him,
and the corner of her mouth tugged up into a smile. “Ben’s right.
You look like a surfer. Bernie?”
    Bernie started a little and cleared his
throat. “Tall, blond, built. Surfer, sure.”
    “ Not that.” Caitlin held
out her hand.
    He made a noise somewhere between a sigh and
a groan, but he reached under the bar and retrieved a key card.
“Why couldn’t you have pulled this stunt while Ben was in
town?”
    “ Because destiny is
complicated.” With those cryptic words, she plucked the card from
Bernie’s fingers and headed for the back steps, toward the
elevators.
    Leo shrugged at Bernie and flashed him a
grin. “I’ll be good, man. Last thing I want is to get kicked out of
my favorite hangout.”
    “ Sure, I’ll tell Ben that
when he comes for my head.”
    “ You do that.” Leo winked
and strode past the bar, still trying to convince himself he was
only going upstairs to save the girl from herself.
    It was such bullshit even he didn’t believe
it.

    Caitlin’s hand shook so badly it took her
three tries to call the elevator. She dealt with practitioners of
black magic every day, but demons were beyond her realm of
experience. She tried to stay far away from dark magic as a rule,
and demons were about as dark as you could go.
    A moment of doubt shook her. Was she
mistaken about her vision? Usually, her precognition was reliable,
and it had led her to Last Call tonight. The dream had been clear
-- a room, Caitlin, and a man above her.
    What she hadn’t realized was
that the tall, buff and naked man in her dream was a centuries-old
demon. Mistaken identity?
    If so, she’d be screwed, in more ways than
one.
    He stepped up behind her as the elevator