Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

“Black.”

“Interesting,” she said, and stripped out of her sweater in one smooth motion.

Her body was exactly as pleasant to look at as the contours of the sweater had promised, possibly more so. My libido approved vigorously.

I hurriedly turned my back. “Hey.”

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, something like laughter in her voice. “Turning your back, really? On this? What kind of big-time badass are you, anyway, Dresden?”

“The kind who doesn’t know you, Miss Ascher,” I said.

“That’s a fixable problem, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice teasing. “And it’s Miss Ascher all of a sudden, huh? I wonder why that is.”

Her black satin bra hit the counter in my peripheral vision. It had little bits of frilly lace along the edges.

I hurriedly jumped into the pants before I embarrassed myself. “Look,” I said. “We’re working together. Can we just get the job done, please?”

“Not nearly so many scars on your back,” she noted. “You don’t run from much, do you?”

“I run all the time,” I said, stuffing my arms into the shirt. “But if you let yourself get attacked from behind a lot, you don’t get scars. You get a hole in the ground.”

Her boots made some clunking sounds on the floor. Socks and jeans joined the bra on the counter. “This thief we’re picking up,” she said. “You two have some history, huh?”

“Sort of,” I said. “She stole my car.”

She let out a brief laugh. “And you let her?”

“She gave it back,” I said. “I bailed her out of trouble once.”

“Think you can get her to go with us?”

“If it was just me, it would be more likely,” I said.

“Or maybe you’d try to throw a wrench into the works by making sure she didn’t get on board,” she said, her tone wry. “After all, you like Nicodemus so much.”

Oops. The woman was sharp. “What?” I asked.

“Based on your response, I’m going to assume that you don’t have much of a poker face, either,” she said. Cloth made soft rustling sounds. “Don’t feel bad. It’s one of the things I’m good at. I’ve got a feel for people.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that I can tell that right now, you’re wound up tighter than twenty clock springs,” she said. “You’re nervous and scared and angry, and you’re about to explode with the need to have sex with something. I’ve met guys fresh out of prison who aren’t bursting at the seams as hard as you.”

I paused in the midst of fastening cuff links.

“Seriously, I can promise you that you are impaired right now. You should blow off a little steam. Be good for you.”

“You’re an expert, eh?” I asked. My voice sounded a little rough.

“On this?” she asked, her voice teasing again. “I’m not bad. Zip me?”

I turned to find her facing away from me. She was wearing the hell out of a little black dress accented with shining black sequins. Her legs were excellent. There wasn’t much of a back to the dress, but there was a short zipper running a few inches up from the top of her hips. I was pretty sure she could have managed it alone. But I took a step over to her and did it up anyway.

She smelled like late-afternoon sunshine on wildflowers. Her long, curling hair touched the backs of my hands as they moved.

I felt the Winter in me stirring, taking notice of whatever had gotten to my sex drive, hungry for an outlet. That wasn’t a good thing. Winter thought sex was almost as much fun as violence, and that they went even better mixed together. Like chocolate and peanut butter.

I started multiplying numbers in my head and stepped away again, focusing on getting dressed, and eight times eight, and putting on socks without sitting down or noticing the woman whose gaze remained on me.

“Man,” she said finally. “You’ve been burned more than once.”

I fastened the pretied tie onto the collar and straightened it by feel. “You have no idea.”

“Fine,” she said, her voice steady and calm. “You don’t want to have fun at work, that’s cool. I like you. I like your style. But this job is important to me, and to my partner. Get it right. You screw us over, and you and I are going to have a problem.”

“You really think you can take on a Wizard of the White Council, Miss Ascher?” I asked.

“I have so far,” she said, without a trace of threat or bravado.

I turned to face her and found her on something almost like eye level with me, thanks to a pair of heels that went with the dress. She was fastening a diamond tennis bracelet onto her left wrist.

I stepped up close to her and took the ends of the bracelet in my fingers. “You should hear my terms, too,” I said, and as I did, I could hear the Winter in my voice, making it quiet and cold and hard. “This town is my home. You hurt any mortals in my town, I take you out with the rest of the trash. And you should remember the state of my back, if you start thinking about putting a knife in it. Try it, and I’ll bury you.” The clasp closed, and I looked up to see her keeping a straight face—but I could see considerable uncertainty behind it. She drew her arm back from me a shade too quickly, and kept her eyes on my center of balance, as if she was expecting me to take a swing at her.

I’d had to talk tough to monsters and dangerous people before. I just couldn’t remember doing it while sharing a somewhat intimate domestic moment, like getting dressed together, or while helping them put on jewelry. There was something in that gesture that made Hannah Ascher a person first, a woman, and a dangerous warlock second. And I had effectively threatened her during that moment—which had probably just made me, to her, a dangerous Warden of the White Council slash paranormal criminal thug first, and a human being second.

Super. Harry Dresden, intimidator of women. Probably not the best foot to get off on with someone with whom I was about to face considerable intrigue and danger.

Maybe next time, I’d just stick a gun in her face.

“You look great,” I said in a voice that sounded a lot gentler than it had a few seconds before. “Let’s get to work.”

Nine

The Peninsula is one of the ritzier of the ritzy hotels in Chicago, and it has a grand ballroom measurable in hectares. The serious events of Chicago’s nightlife rarely start before eight—you need time for people to get home from work and get all pretty before they show up looking fabulous—so when we arrived aroun

d seven thirty, Ascher and I were unfashionably early.

“I’m going to be right down here on the street,” Karrin said from the front seat of the black town car Nicodemus had provided. She had checked it for explosives. I’d gone over it for less physical dangers.

“Not sure how long it will take,” I said. “Cops going to let you loiter?”

“I still know a few guys on the force,” she said. “But I’ll circle the block if I have to. If you get in trouble, send up a flare.” She offered me a plastic box with a boutonniere made from a sunset-colored rose in it. “Don’t forget your advertising.”

“Not like I need it,” I said. “I’ll recognize her.”

“And she’ll recognize you,” Karrin said. “If she doesn’t know she’s supposed to talk to you, she might avoid you. It’s not exactly hard to see you coming.”

“Fine.” I took it, opened the box, and managed to stab myself in the finger with the pin while trying to put the damned thing on my lapel.

“Here,” Ascher said. She took the flower, wiped the pin off on a tissue, and passed it to Karrin, along with whatever tiny bit of my blood had been on it. Then she fixed the flower neatly to the tux. She wasn’t making any particular effort to vamp, but her dress was cut low, giving me several eyefuls during the process. I tried not to notice and was partially successful.

“Here we go,” Karrin said, and got out of the car. She came around and opened the door for me. I got out, and helped Ascher out, and she flashed enough shapely leg to keep anyone on the hotel staff out front from noticing me except in passing. Karrin got back in the car and vanished with quiet efficiency, and I gave Ascher my arm and escorted her inside.

“Try not to look like that,” Ascher said under her breath, after we were in the elevator.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like you’re expecting ninjas to leap out of the trash cans. This is a party.”

“Everyone knows there’s no such things as ninjas,” I scoffed. “But it will be something. Count on it.”