Page 26 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Of course it was her goddamned phone.

Laying under Dev, on the verge of the kind of pleasure that made you believe in magic, Lyric squeezed her eyes shut in frustration. But then she remembered all the reasons someone could be trying to call her.

And one in particular.

“I think it’s me,” she mumbled as she scooted out from under the human man who hovered over her with every promise of multiple orgasms that she’d ever heard about.

Her legs were like rubber, and her balance was wonky on the way over to her parka, and she couldn’t decide whether the interruption was a good thing or not. Pro? It slowed things down from warp speed to what might be more reasonable. Con? Well, duh. It slowed things down.

At the dresser, she fumbled through her pockets—how were there so many?—and then she dropped the phone, but caught the slippery weight just before it hit the floor. As she turned the cell over, she frowned.

Shuli?

Why was he calling her? His party invitations were always on text.

Bumping the guy to voicemail with relief, she put the phone back and the—

Holy. Shit.

The man stretched out on that bed was like a Greek god who’d come down to earth.

Gym-created muscles were all well and good, but there was something primordial about a body that had been carved from hard work.

Dev was an absolute specimen, from his broad shoulders and heavy arms, to his six-pack…

to his bulging thighs that strained those poor running tights.

She wondered just how far Nike had gone testing the tensile strength of all that nylon.

And then there was the erection he did nothing to hide. As with the contours of his legs, every detail of his arousal was visible from the long shaft to the blunt and curving head.

“You have to go?” he murmured. “Or did you put your coat on because you think it’s cold in here?”

Lyric glanced down at herself. Huh. Guess some part of her had made a decision.

Looking back up, she found that his eyes were hooded with banked heat and that the dark waves of his hair were all messed up—because her hands had been in them. With his parted lips, he was the picture of a male who’d been interrupted at the wrong time.

But he didn’t seem frustrated or angry.

No, that was her job. The frustration, that was.

“I…” She pulled her hair back and tied the length in a loose knot. “I don’t know.”

Dev nodded and started to sit up—Jesus, talk about a show. If he was all hard angles lying down, the rippling motion under his skin now was a show to watch—

“No.” She put her hand out. “You just hang. I’ll see myself to the door—” She glanced over her shoulder. “I mean, the exit. Downstairs.”

Dev eased back against the pillows, stretching an arm behind his head. “Suit yourself.”

Oh, God, why the hell had she come here. She had all the dating chops of a nun, and meanwhile, Mr. Sexual with the humongous hard-on over on the bed was just business-as-usual, like women came and went all the time for him.

And could he maybe drag a blanket over that baseball bat of his? Having that thing out on display reminded her of the time she’d tried to give up chocolate and had seen M&M’s everywhere.

Then again, he’d make a tent even with all that spandex— fuck .

Focusing on her parka, she went to zip things—

When she glanced up, he was right next to her. Neat trick, given that human men supposedly didn’t dematerialize.

She let her hands drop. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for.”

“I…” Lyric shrugged—and decided to fuck it and be honest. “I really want to have sex with you. Except I’m just not sophisticated enough to walk away a couple of hours from now all, ‘Hey, that’s cool.

See ya.’ If I stay, I’m going to regret it.

Not because it didn’t feel good, but because I’m just doing a different version of the shit I decided to get away from after last night. ”

“And what shit would that be?”

There was a beat of silence.

“Pretending to be someone I’m not.”

“Okay, I’ll walk you out,” he said evenly.

As a sinking feeling set up shop in the center of her chest, she thought, holy crap, how ridiculous. It was the height of insanity to feel let down because he so smoothly respected the boundary she’d set. What did she want? Some kind of tug and pull just to prove he wanted her?

She made a casual motion with her hand. “You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

As he grabbed his windbreaker and pulled it back over his head, she snuck a final glimpse at those abs. Then he was opening the door and holding it wide.

“Ladies first.”

Zipping up her coat, she shuffled past him, and looked down the hall. There were a dozen other doors, the elevator in the middle, and an open staircase over on the right. Heading for the steps, she waited for him to lock up. He didn’t.

“So this is a safe building?” she murmured as she put her hand on the balustrade and started the descent.

“Safe is relative. But no, I’m not worried about someone going through my things.”

Lyric made the half circle at the platform between floors.

God, she was running out of time to talk to him, and all this silence was a waste—but as far as mood killers went, she’d just dropped the intimacy H-bomb of all time back there.

Meanwhile, she could feel him behind her, his bigger body moving lockstep with the rhythm she set on the stairs, his heavier footfalls echoing around them.

When they got to the lobby, she started to scramble for words and almost wished there were a reason for them to keep going, into the basement.

But “goodbye” was the only one she needed, wasn’t it.

Dev did the duty with an inner door and then the outer one that didn’t have a lock on it so that the mail carrier could reach the boxes in the vestibule. Finally, they were outside, the cold feeling so much colder somehow.

“Are you Ubering again?” he asked as he looked up and down the street.

“I—ah, yes, I am.”

To prove the point she was independent, she front and centered her phone.

“Let’s go back and stand in the lobby, then. While you call for one.”

Lyric opened her mouth. But she wasn’t sure how to lie her way out of the fact that she was tired and had just been planning to dematerialize.

The species divide was not that big when they’d been eating or talking—or kissing.

Just like last night, though, humans did not ghost away to other destinations.

Backtracking into the lobby, she went to work on her phone. The cell service wasn’t great, only two bars, and she had to install the damn app.

Which was what happened when you’d never had to call an Uber before.

“Something wrong?” he asked as she fiddled with her phone.

And that was when she smelled it.

Glancing up from the little screen of her Samsung, she drew in a slow, deep breath through her nose—not that she needed the confirmation. The sickly sweet smell, of baby powder and dead flesh, was utterly unmistakable.

There was a lesser in the building. Close by.

And the thing was going to know exactly what she was.

“I have to go.” She backed away to the solid door. “And I want you to head upstairs. Now—”

“What’s wrong?”

“I… can’t—” She shot back to the exit. “Goodbye, Dev. And lock your door, for once. Please .”

Dev’s brows tightened. Then he shrugged. “Fine. Take care of yourself.”

He turned away and started for the stairs, moving slower than she wanted. But at least it was so much faster than him standing still.

Blasting out past the mailboxes, she hit the night air again and kept on going down the steps to the snowy sidewalk.

She told herself that as a human, Dev wouldn’t be of any interest to a slayer, not unless they wanted to try to recruit him.

But he didn’t seem like the kind of lost, disaffected soul the Lessening Society went after.

Oh, God, what if they scented her on him?

“This isn’t the damn field,” she muttered. “What is it doing here…”

The street Dev’s building was on wasn’t some deserted, decaying stretch of bad zip code. It was a going concern, with all the buildings occupied, lights on in so many windows, cars passing by, even a couple of bundled-up pedestrians across the block hustling for their SUV.

But damn it, the war was everywhere.

All the time.