Pike had me in his arms in a split second and was wrapping me in one of Emerson’s discarded muslin swatches. He spun me as he wrapped and before I knew it, I was fairly well mummified.
“Thanks. I think it’s out.” I tried to wiggle my arms but they were clamped to my sides. “A little help?”
Pike pulled a chair out from Emerson’s drafting table and plopped himself down. He kicked up his feet and crossed his own arms in front of his chest. “No.”
“No?”
He wagged his head. “No. I’m not going to help you get out of that until you answer some questions for me.”
I tried to take a step, but my legs were clamped too. I considered a Hulk-like show of vampire prowess, but then I’d have some explaining to do.
“What kind of girl catches on fire and doesn’t know it?”
I bit down hard, feeling the edge of my fangs slicing into my gums.
Looks like I would have some explaining to do, after all.
“Why do you care?” I asked, chin hitched.
“Because I just walked in on a woman snooping around a dead woman’s place, and said woman—the first one—caught on fire.”
I tried to shrug nonchalantly. “So?”
“So there is no fire around. And I had to tell you that you were on fire. Who does that?”
“Spontaneous combustion happens, Pike. Look it up on Wikipedia.”
He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Can you help me sit down at least?”
I started to take a series of minuscule steps while Pike pulled a chair out for me. He put his large hands over my shoulder and that same spark shot through me, making every hair on my swaddled arms stand on end. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Get off me,” I said, maneuvering myself into the chair. I sat down hard, feeling Emerson’s cheap chair selection ringing up my tailbone. “This is rather uncomfortable.”
Pike sat across from me and narrowed his eyes into what I figured he supposed was an intimidating glare. I rubbed the tip of my tongue over one fang and felt my stomach growl when my eyes fell to the thick vein in his neck, pumping fresh blood.
“I’m here.” I tried to shrug. “What the hell do you want to ask me?”
Now Pike leaned back and kicked one ankle over his knee. I told myself that the constant salivation was a result of skipping my breakfast pouch and had nothing to do with the way his jeans rode up at the thighs or the way he pursed his red, full lips.
I bit mine.
“Apart from this whole thing,” he said, gesturing to the apartment. “How do you know Emerson?”
I rolled my eyes. Why were the pretty ones always so dumb?
“We’re both fashion designers. We meet up at events and she’s a two-faced design stealer.” Pike’s eyebrows rose and I hurriedly tacked on, “God rest her soul.”
“So you and she weren’t friends?”
“What gave you that impression, Colombo?”
Pike blew out a sigh. “So before you,” he cleared his throat, “caught fire, what were you doing here? Stealing?”
“Stealing my own designs? Hardly. I was looking for clues.”
“Clues?”
I was getting frustrated and the muslin was starting to chafe. “About who killed Emerson!”
“If you hated her, why would you care?”
“Because I’m a good f**king person, okay?” I stopped trying to hide my annoyance, and that seemed to make Pike crack a self-appreciative grin. “I’m not so sure about that. Good f**king people don’t burst into flames.”
“Look it up!” I snapped.
Pike popped out of his chair. “Can I take a picture of you?”
“So you can sell it to some bondage website? Hell no.”
“Okay, I’ll cut you free.” He produced a pocketknife and flicked it open. He didn’t look menacing nor did he brandish the weapon in any way other than to show me he had it, but my hackles went up.
This guy wanted something.
“What do you want?” I asked, suspicion shading my voice.
Pike leaned toward me and gingerly edged the tip of the knife into a piece of muslin, directly between my br**sts. “Nothing, Nina. Just a nice, normal, honest-to-goodness photo of you.”
I glanced down at the tip of the blade resting an inch from my chest. He could plunge the thing in with all his might and nothing would happen. I’d keep (not) breathing, blinking, and looking very much alive.
But the blood-free wound would be a little bit more difficult to explain than my completely plausible spontaneous combustion explanation.
“What are you?” Pike asked, his voice slow, his eyes wickedly alive with something that looked only vaguely human.
“A San Franciscan,” I tried.
The blade came a hair closer, and I heard the distinctive sound of muslin starting to split. “What. Are. You.” Every word was its own sentence, each punctuated by Pike’s wild eyes.
I considered letting him stab me, then breaking out of my mummy costume and ripping his idiot throat out. But UDA law strictly forbade that kind of thing, even if your local breather was a nosy asshat.
Or so fiercely handsome that this completely unfortunate situation left a fire between my legs while I tried to lean into his blade. There was something sexy, something so undeniably hot about Pike’s hard-set eyes, about the danger of that slick blade resting between my br**sts.
I locked Pike’s eyes, hoping my coal-black ones were as hard or as deep as his. I ran my tongue over my teeth and my mouth dropped open as Pike leaned into me. I could hear his heartbeat speed up. I could hear the blood as it pulsed through his veins. Could feel the hot moisture from his lips as he breathed.
“I—”
“Apartment sixty-one A, right here on the right.” It was the landlord, his voice a combination of asthma and Jersey—and he wasn’t alone. Another voice—low, gruff.
“Detective Moyer,” I whispered to Pike.
His face paled when the doorknob rattled and before I knew it, I was staring at Emerson’s ugly carpet while Pike carried me over his shoulder and shoved me—and then himself—into the bedroom closet.
“What the hell are you—” I started to hiss but he stopped me with a scathing look and a finger pressed to his lips as we heard the landlord, the detective, and, I figured, one or two of the pup cops, filing into Emerson’s living room.
“Shut up or they’re hauling us both off to jail,” Pike said with a low hiss.