She cried out, clamping her eyes shut against the onslaught of pleasure that surged from inside and cascaded over every inch of her flesh. He kissed her then, swallowing each moan she made. It was hard and hot and wet and fierce and made her head swim even more. Then she felt him surge between her thighs.
When he was finished kissing her, he pulled back and looked her in the eyes. “He will try to have you, but know this. You are mine.”
* * *
She opened her eyes and expected to find herself staring into the man’s hungry eyes, but instead she was staring at the numbers on her clock radio. It was 6:00 a.m.
Eden rolled onto her back and blinked up at the ceiling of her bedroom. A dream. That’s all it was. Another crazy dream. She touched her lips. So why were her lips swollen as if she’d just been kissed within an inch of her life? And why did her thighs ache and her insides burn?
Eden groaned and crawled out of bed, itching to fire up her laptop in order to do some research on The Gate nightclub. She wanted to know exactly who owned it and how long it’d been in business. Something was going on at that club and every instinct she had screamed that it had everything to do with the missing woman, Lilith Grae. Maybe even with the man she’d shot a year ago. Someone at the club knew Eden was looking for Lilith, and by the way Eden had been treated, it was obvious that person didn’t want the woman found.
And Eden needed to know if the man who’d taken her for a wild ride onto a roof of a building was connected to the club. She thought that he was for sure.
He knew her, that much was clear, but how and why?
After finding zero references to the club on the net, Eden closed the lid on her laptop and looked around her apartment. She had lots of time to kill. Several hours before she went back to the club to investigate further. Come hell or high water she was going to find out how that big-ass, fiery son of a bitch had disappeared through a solid wall.
Eden wasn’t operating under any assumptions that the bouncer was going to let her in through the front door. She had no doubt he’d recognize her even if she went in disguise. So she had to find another way in.
Every business had a back entrance. She’d learned that the hard way. She just had to find it and exploit it to her advantage.
By the time 2:00 a.m. came Eden was more than ready to go. She’d dressed all in black and had packed a blade in her ankle sheath. She needed to be prepared if big, bad and stinky attacked her. Because she had a strong feeling that if she came across him, he wasn’t going to give her a warning. He’d given that to her the first time. She didn’t believe in second chances.
Eden parked a couple blocks away from the club. Instead of heading down the main street, she took a detour down a side street, then crossed, intent on finding an alley behind the building. The kitchen staff had to have a way in and a way out, especially to take the garbage out.
After taking a wrong turn, she found the alleyway. As stealthily as she could, Eden walked down the lane, counting down the doors from the end of the street. She knew that the club’s main door was four businesses down from the main street, so it was logical that their back door would be four down, as well.
When she reached the fourth door, she pressed her ear to it. She could hear the telltale thump of techno music—she definitely had the right door.
Eden ran her hand down the door to the handle. She turned it—it was locked. She hadn’t expected anything different. Reaching around to her back, she slid out her lock-picking kit from her rear pocket. She unrolled it and plucked out the tools she needed.
It took her about five minutes to pick the lock. It was something she’d learned during her short-lived career as a cop. Sometimes to catch a criminal a cop had to think like one, and sometimes even act like one.
Putting her tools away, Eden slid her pack into the small of her back, then carefully opened the door. There was no one in the immediate area. She crept inside, hoping no kitchen help decided right there and then to toss out any trash. She was in a small corridor and she walked it pressed against the wall, mindful of any noise that she made.
The corridor opened up into a storage room. This was where all the extra napkins and straws and little pink umbrellas were kept until they were needed. She crossed the floor to the door and peered through the small window into the kitchen.
There were two people manning the grills and deep fryers. Eden slowly pushed open the door and walked in. Their backs were to her and she quickly moved across the kitchen to the swinging door. She’d just touched the door to push through when a voice sounded behind her.
“What are you doing back here?”
She turned and, feigning ignorance, looked around. “I was looking for the bathroom.”
“Well, this ain’t it.”
“I noticed. Sorry to disturb you. I’ll just go out and find it.”
That made the little kitchen man grin and he shook his head as she pushed the door open and went through.
Now she was in another short hallway, and Eden walked it quickly, hoping not to come across any waitstaff along the way. At the end of the corridor, she could see club-goers milling about the hall in front of the washrooms. She recognized the scene from the other night. She stepped out and pretended to be part of the crowd. No one noticed her as she sidled up to a group of three women insistently chatting about some guy who’d bumped into them on the dance floor.
One of the girls glanced at her. Eden gave her a quick smile, then passed them to near the men’s washroom. She stopped before the door, looked around to make sure no one was paying much attention to her. With her blond curls tucked up into her black wool hat maybe she’d be mistaken for a guy. She could only hope as she took a deep breath and pushed open the door to enter.
Thankfully there was no one at the urinals. She couldn’t be as sure about the three stalls. Leaning over, she looked for feet under the doors. She found none, and, taking a final big breath, she pushed open the last cubicle door and went in, shutting and locking it behind her. Now she had the privacy she needed to really inspect the wall.
On first look, she couldn’t see any indication of a trapdoor or slide-away. She ran her hands over the whitewashed brick, searching for anything out of the ordinary. She didn’t find anything. No latches or buttons or cracks in the mortar. Nothing to show that the wall would or could move at all. It seemed 100 percent solid, so how had the bastard gone through it?
Eden leaned against the cubicle side and stared hard at the wall. She was missing something. But as she stared, something happened. Her visions wavered in and out as if looking through a wave of extreme heat. The solid bricks didn’t appear so solid anymore—they looked languid, viscous like a thick white fluid. It had to be a trick of the fluorescent light in the bathroom, but she dared to hope otherwise.
Tentatively, she reached out with her hand and pressed her fingers to the wall right were she could see it shimmer. Her fingers didn’t hit anything solid, but something gushy and malleable. She kept pushing and her fingers went through the material and disappeared from view.
Panicked, she pulled her hand back and looked down at it. It was still solid; her fingers were still there. But they glimmered with what looked like something shiny and wet. She rubbed it between her fingers—it was like liquid silk.
Taking a deep breath, Eden stepped forward and pushed both hands to the wall—they sunk into the impossibly mysterious substance. She followed it through, unsure if she was delirious or if this was truly real.
As she walked through the gelatinous wall, her body tingled. It was as if a thousand pins had pricked her flesh, from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet. There wasn’t exactly pain, but it wasn’t a pleasant feeling either.
The sensation lasted only a few seconds, and then she was through the barrier. Blinking, Eden looked around. She was no longer in a cubicle in the men’s washroom but in a back alley someplace else. She whipped around and stared at the brick wall behind her, the wall she’d just come through. It looked solid, formidable even. She placed her hands against the brick and pushed. Nothing happened. It was as unyielding as it appeared.
She glanced down at her hands and her body and noticed the same type of glimmer from before. It clung to her skin and her clothing. She ran a finger over the back of her hand—it came away damp with a glittery substance that reminded her of gelatin.
Eden turned back around to face the alley she was in. It didn’t appear to be the same one she’d come down to get into the club. She didn’t recognize it offhand, but then again, most alleys looked the same.
Filled with trepidation, she walked down the lane. Every now and then, she stopped and listened. There were sounds in the vicinity. Most were ordinary city noises—cars whizzing by, ladies in high heels clicking down the sidewalk, the bark of a dog—but there were also other sounds. Ones she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Odd noises like the clacking of something heavy, and shuffling as if someone was dragging something big behind them as they walked.
Before she even stepped out onto the main street, Eden knew she wasn’t in the city she lived in any longer.
Chapter Seven
It was the smell that alerted Eden to the danger long before she saw it lumbering down the street toward her.
A combination of musk and mothballs, the smell reminded her of wet, dirty dog. Which, by the size and shape of the creature walking toward her, might not have been such a bad description.
Eyes wide, heart pounding, Eden watched pressed up against the brick wall as a dog, upright on two feet, with a very scruffy muzzle but bright green eyes, strode on by her as if on his way to an important meeting, or date by the swagger in his back end. He glanced briefly at her as he passed and gave her a derisive sniff, then continued on as if nothing was amiss.
Eden stayed pressed against the wall for another ten minutes, trying to get her bearings. She was also struggling for breath because she swore she saw a half man-half snake slither down the center line of the road. It almost got sideswiped by a horse and buggy going the opposite way. Thankfully, the horse yelled “move it” at the last minute and the snake creature slithered off to the right.