Demon Night

need before he released her and stepped away. She sagged against the wall, her senses on fire, her knees weak.
    Ethan half-turned, ran his hand over his face. “All right then.” His chest heaved. “All right. I’d best go, Miss Charlie, because I shouldn’t make this decision for you.”
    She swallowed past the sudden knot in her throat and straightened up. “I wasn’t relying on you to make the decision. I’m just being slow.”
    “Hell and damnation, Charlie, that’s not what I—” His eyes closed. “I’m just tempted to make you want me so bad you can’t say no.”
    She thought a weak, needy part of her wanted that, too—but of course he wouldn’t take her choice that way.
    And she was too grateful and frustrated and mixed up to respond.
    Ethan released a long sigh, met her eyes again. “I ought to get up to Seattle before dawn, anyway. You need anything before I head out?”
    You. But that wasn’t fair. He had work to do and she had…to sleep. Eventually.
    “No,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”

CHAPTER 20
    Fuzzy, in less than a day. There were a million other mysteries that ought to have been pressing on his mind harder than Charlie’s face when he’d walked out her door. But instead of puzzling over the nephilim, instead of planning how he’d approach Manny, Ethan spent most of the flight back to Seattle remembering how good she’d felt against him, and wondering how a woman could want anything so much and still not take what he’d been offering.
    She didn’t like to need something so bad; but she wouldn’t be needing it if she had it. And God knew he’d have done anything to give it to her, make certain she’d want for nothing, if she’d just let him provide it.
    Hell. One hundred and fifty years old, and he still couldn’t comprehend some women. And it just figured he’d go and fall for a difficult one.
    Difficult…but she sure was a comfortable fit. She’d gotten under his skin and itched something terrible, but he didn’t reckon he’d ever been so easy with someone, so eager to spend time in her company, so anxious to please her.
    He shook his head as he flew in over Manny’s building. Fuzzy and smitten. He was like to get himself killed soon.
    Vladimir and Katya had lived on the second floor, and their rich furnishings had been a better indication of their long life and history than the stark garage below. A glance through the garage windows confirmed that it had been cleaned out. Manny had likely sold the equipment, which would account for all the new sparklies the vampire had been sporting the last time they’d met up.
    A woman’s screech split the predawn quiet. Ethan palmed his sword, but he wasn’t expecting trouble. That had been more pissed off than afraid, and Manny’s girls were…something else.
    There were difficult women, and then there was Cora and Angie.
    Cora opened the door at his knock, cocked her hip. “Hiya, Drifter.”
    “Miss Cora,” he returned, thankful that she’d dressed her lips with a smile. It gave him something safe to look at, considering that she wasn’t wearing anything else. “I don’t suppose—”
    Two bare-assed figures dashed through the foyer, then out through another room. Well, hell—that wasn’t something Ethan saw every day. Angie was after Manny with a butcher’s knife.
    Cora turned to look, twisting a lock of black hair around her finger, a gleam of pleasure in her eyes. “He called her a whore while he was feeding from her.”
    Ethan took a moment to debate whether he should let Angie have at the vampire. Manny had been their pimp before he’d transformed them, and Ethan reckoned the only reason they were with Manny was to make his life hell.
    Ethan was inclined to let them—but if Angie cut out Manny’s heart, that wouldn’t help Ethan discover why Brandt might have visited Vladimir and Katya.
    Reluctantly, Ethan headed in after the screeching woman. Angie didn’t fight once he got ahold of her in the parlor, just turned around and snuggled in close.
    Damnation. That likely wasn’t going to get Manny to open up any, either.
    But Manny didn’t look jealous as much as he did relieved. “Thanks, Drifter. The crazy-ass bitch doesn’t know her place.”
    Ethan let her go.
    Angie took one step and burst into laughter when Manny cringed back, his hands over his genitals. She turned, her auburn hair falling like a curtain across her shoulder. “You smell like a vampire, Drifter. Anyone we know?”
    “I