Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

Like he had all the answers and every time he opened his piehole was an opportunity to man-splain things.

“FYI, I know what you’re doing,” he said.

Bingo. “What’s that. And should I take notes, or is this going to be another statement of the obvious—”

“As you hear yourself talk, you realize how insane you’re behaving, but your heart isn’t going to let it rest, so you have to divert things. It’s fine. We can look at my injuries again. But I don’t think we should ignore what’s actually happening here.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

“You’re right. I’m totally off base. So by all means, let’s check me out because I’m the one who needs help.”

With that happy little pronouncement, Sahvage took the ends of his shirt and did not look away as he slowly raised the damn thing . . . revealing that tattoo and all the musculature under his inked skin. As he tossed what had covered his torso aside, he resettled back in the chair like he was fully naked. Like he was absolutely confident in his body. Like he was very aware she couldn’t not notice what he was showing her.

And respond to it.

FFS, with his chest now bare, he seemed to be even larger, and Mae swallowed through a tight throat. But not because she was afraid.

No, fear wasn’t the problem. Not even close.

“Come tend to my wounds,” he said in a low murmur. “And by the way, you can touch me anywhere. You know, for clinical purposes. Far be it from me to deny any assessments as to my health and overall well-being.”

Mae blinked. Then recovered. “You are an ass.”

“Yeah, I know.” He leaned in and lowered his lids. “But you want me anyway.”

Deep in the heart of downtown, Detective Erika Saunders pulled her unmarked over to the side of an alley that ran between two apartment buildings. Putting things in park, her headlights shed a whole lot of lookey-lookey on a boxy black SUV that was snuggled up close to a dumpster. Over to the left, there were a couple of uniformed officers milling around, and a patrol car was blocking the entrance off Trade. No news crews.

That was not going to last.

Getting out, she snapped on nitrile gloves and palmed her flashlight. The unis fell silent as she approached, and she gave them a nod as she zeroed in on the SUV’s driver’s-side door.

“When was this called in?” she said as she trained the beam inside the vehicle—or tried to. The windows were blacked out.

Leaning around to the hood, without touching the side of the vehicle, she pointed her flashlight in through the front windshield—

Fuck.

She didn’t even hear what the reply to her question was from the officers. She was too caught up in the man and the woman who were sitting side by side in the front seats. The pair were prime-of-life candidates, although the whole “life” part of that descriptor was no longer applicable. And what do you know, the bodies had massive wounds in the centers of their chests, their clothes stained with blood, their laps soup bowls for all the congealing plasma.

Erika moved in closer to the safety glass, so she could see further into the vehicle. In between the seats, on the padded console, their hands were linked, the dead fingers intermingled. And up on the headrests, they were looking at other, their unseeing eyes focused on the space between their waxy, gray faces.

Erika swept the flashlight around. The young man was shirtless, a collection of tattoos randomly inked on his torso and down his arms, like someone had thrown a book of illustrations at his skin. He was muscular but thin, a wiry guy who was probably just around six feet. He reminded her of Pete Davidson. Next to him, the woman was voluptuous in her bustier, with some really good hair. Gold bamboo earrings. Nose piercing. Tattoos, but not as dense as the guy’s and much more curvilinear.

They looked like they belonged together, sexy, into the club scene. Probably dabbled in drugs, but not too often given their otherwise state of good health.

“My killer’s certainly got a type,” Erika said as she went to open the car door. “Who called this in?”

“Jogger,” one of the officers said from behind her.

The air that was released was dense, smelling like cologne, perfume, blood, and fecal matter.

Erika inspected the hole in the guy’s sternum. Then she touched his cold neck with the fingertips of her gloved hand. No pulse. No shit. “And when was this called in again?”

“About twenty-five minutes ago. Maybe thirty.”

“They’ve been here a while.”

“Expensive ride. I’m surprised it didn’t get stripped.”

Easing back, Erika inspected the vehicle. “Mercedes. Blacked-out rims, blacked-out windows. I wouldn’t have messed with it, either, for fear of which street dealer owned it—oh, and what do we have here.”