Tempt the Stars

water washed it away. I bit higher next time, closer to the point where he’d left his mark on my own neck, and felt him suddenly go rigid against me. And then shove me into the wall and
take
me, with a reckless abandon that left me breathless and aching and gasping and—
    “Cassie?”
    I did jump that time, and gave a shriek, almost falling on my ass. Because that hadn’t been Mircea’s voice. It took a disorienting second of clinging to the soap dish to process the fact that a) those had been Marco’s deep tones, b) they were outside the shower, c) there was no one in here except for me, and d) I might possibly be going crazy, but that wasn’t exactly news.
    “Are you all right?” Marco demanded.
    I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I could. I was panting like a freight train and my eyes were crossing as I struggled to suppress a really inappropriate orgasm. What the
hell
?
    “Cassie?”
    I swallowed, staring at the fogged-up door, where the light from the bedroom was mostly blocked by Marco’s Roman profile. He was looking at the wall, despite the fact that even vampire eyes couldn’t have seen much in here, because he knew how I was. They all knew how I was about bodily modesty, which was stupid considering how much of the time I ended up naked, but there you go.
    But he wouldn’t be outside for long, if I didn’t manage an answer. Preserving what was left of my modesty wasn’t his job; keeping me alive was. And I’d almost died in the bath once before, because people hadn’t wanted to disturb me, although how I would manage to kill myself in a shower was debatable. But let’s face it, if anybody could . . 
    “Cassie.” And okay, that had the “you have exactly three seconds to respond before I charge in and save you, so if you don’t want saving, you better damned well speak up” tone. And since I was still sprawled against the wall, body tight and shuddering, I decided that might not be a great plan.
    “I . . . yes. Yes.”
    “Are you sure?” He didn’t sound convinced, and I couldn’t blame him. My voice had been a broken croak.
    I cleared my throat and tried again. “Yes, I—I’m fine.”
    “Okay. It’s just you’ve been in there awhile.”
    Yeah, I guessed so. My fingertips were going pruney, and I felt more than a little waterlogged. Along with really, really confused.
    I swallowed. “I was just about to get out.”
    “All right.”
    “Marco . . . you . . . haven’t heard from Mircea tonight, have you?”
    “No, it’s a little early for him to check in. There’s a time difference between here and New York, you know.”
    “Yeah. I know.”
    “I’ll tell him you’re fine if he calls. Get some sleep, Cassie.”
    “I’ll do that,” I said, staring at my empty shower.
    After all, tomorrow was going to be hell.

Chapter Fourteen
    Hell, it turned out, looked a lot like Vegas.
    Not the neon, glitz-and-twinkly-kind. More the arid-sand-littered-with-desperate-people kind, but still. There was a vague sort of familiarity to it. I wondered why a certain green-eyed demon had never mentioned it.
    Of course, he hadn’t mentioned much,
I thought angrily, just as the guy at my side went sprawling.
    There was nothing to have caused it that I could see, except for his own dusty pair of Pradas, but he hit hard nonetheless. I stopped abruptly and went into a crouch, afraid we’d just tripped some ward or other his senses had missed. But I guess not. Because a second later, he flipped over, sand clinging to one side of an elegant profile, and stared at the pale blue sphere I’d decided to call the sky. And cursed inventively.
    I took a swig from the too-warm water in my canteen and waited it out. “Do you want to ride the camel thing?” I asked when the tirade finally tapered off.
    The only answer was another spate of cursing.
    “Guess not,” I said, and passed the canteen to the third member of our trio, who finished it off in one hearty swallow.
    “Did you just drink
all
the water?” Casanova demanded, struggling to sit up. Only to have the beast’s ratty tail smack him in the face.
    I’d have had some smart-aleck response to that. Something about Casanova being a vampire and not really needing water. Or about the likelihood of his spilling it, considering his current lack of grace. Or about the fact that we’d gone to a lot of trouble to find someone willing to sell us one of the camel things just so he could ride instead of staggering through the dust