Hoodoo Woman (Roxie Mathis Book 3) by Sonya Clark Read Free Book Online Page B

“Yeah, me too.” He pushed the French press in my direction. “Here, you finish this. I need blood.” He retrieved a bag of his specially acquired black market blood from the fridge, drinking from it like a kid with a bag of Capri-Sun.
    I made him a cup. “Are you sure about this? With her, I mean.”
    A drop of blood escaped the tubing and clung to the corner of his mouth. “I can do casual just fine, but there’d be nothing casual about getting involved with her. She’s too intense. I can’t ever do that again.”
    I gestured at his face, grateful when he wiped the blood away. “You’ve done intense with a mortal before?” Normally I didn’t ask too many direct questions about his past, content to let him tell me what he wanted, when he wanted. This time I felt not only would it satisfy my curiosity, it might give him some clarity if he talked things out.
    It didn’t work. He shook his head. “Not taking the bait. But yeah, I’m sure about Shelby. No good can come of getting involved with her. She needs a nice boy who can take her out in the daylight.”
    “What about you, Bubba? What do you need?”
    I wanted to see him happy. Mostly he was pretty happy, around bouts of melancholy he dealt with by drinking too much. Booze, that is. I didn’t consider myself a romantic person but I guess there was some of that in me because I wanted to see him find love. Then I thought about the scrambled mess of my own love life and decided maybe booze wasn’t such a bad answer, after all. My boyfriend was hundreds of miles away and not talking to me, what the hell did I know?
    He finished the blood and tossed the bag into the garbage can. “Someone who can stay in the dark with me. You smell like cologne your boyfriend don’t wear. What’s up?”
    I blanched. Two brief hugs, one in greeting, the other in goodbye, was enough to drape me in the scent of Ray’s aftershave? Sometimes vampire senses were too much. “It’s aftershave, not cologne. And he’s just a friend.” I gave Daniel the rundown on the dead girl haunting my hometown.
    “She’s haunting the whole town?” Excitement colored his voice and pushed the last of the red out of his aura. “Fucking awesome. You should have her go give your parents a good scare.”
    Daniel had never met any of the rest of his living descendants but I’d told him plenty. His suggestion was tempting, but only briefly. “Ray wants me to help solve her murder so her ghost can rest. Can I stay at your lake house?”
    He eyed his still untouched coffee for a long moment then dumped it in the sink. “He the one you used to call Deputy Hot Pants?”
    Shit. I was hoping he wouldn’t remember that. “Uh.”
    From a cabinet he produced tequila, twisted off the top and drank straight from the bottle. “I need a change of scene.”
    “Uh,” I said, this time with more alarm.
    “You know how much I like working with you. Think I’ll go tag along.”
    “That might not be the best idea.” My brain scurried to come up with reasons, other than the obvious daylight impediment.
    He took another swig of tequila. “It’s perfect, Roxie. I’m running away from a potential relationship, you’re about to cheat with an ex while your current meditates over his dick or whatever the fuck that moron is doing. We’ll work this case and keep each other from going off the deep end.”
    “I’m not about to cheat with my ex. Don’t be ridiculous.”
    Daniel Rambin had the best bitch please face I’ve ever seen and he gave it to me then. “Do we have to have the talk about vampire senses again?”
    I stared at him blankly, not sure what he meant.
    He said, “Let me put this delicately. Deputy Hot Pants turns you on. Are you hearing me, girlfriend?”
    Mortification swept through me, followed by a desire to bury myself in a deep hole. “That’s not…no. No to the tenth power, Bubba.”
    Okay, so, yes, Ray Travis was still the most handsome, appealing man I’d ever met, the thought