Dylan had a waitress bring him another beer. A different waitress brought him a third after he’d slowly nursed the second to an empty bottle.

Women drifted by like bait in front of sharks. He didn’t bite.

Not because he couldn’t, hell no. He could take any one of them home and make her scream without breaking a sweat himself. Later maybe, for now the camaraderie satisfied him.

The blonde with the rack made her move. She came over, leading with her breasts and showing a lot of cleavage. She stopped between Mettes and him, fingers tipped with long red nails settling on their shoulders.

“Dance?” Fuck?

And he had the feeling she was signaling she was good with two on one if they swung that way.

“Love to,” Mettes said, standing and guiding her to a postage-stamp dance floor, there for giving the chemistry a test drive before taking the action elsewhere.

Patterson took a pull of beer then tipped the bottle toward a looker sitting with a couple of friends. “I’m going to make a play for the brunette. Short, curvy, hot blooded. Got a strawberry-blonde at the table with her, close as you’re going to get to redhead tonight.”

“Pass.”

Stine from Burglary laughed. “Might have to give him one of your Viagra pills, Patterson, so he can get some interest going for a strawberry-blonde.”

That’s all it took to get the razzing going all over again. Fuck, not that he cared, even when Rabe, Stine’s partner, said, “Guy probably developed this obsession in adolescence, when he got hold of his first porn magazine.”

“That explain why you like leather and restraints?” Stine asked.

“Hell no, that comes with being a cop.”

Dylan laughed with the rest of them though his balls went tight at imagining Seraphine tethered to the bed. She wouldn’t surrender control for just any man. His gut said she’d probably never given a man that much trust. To be the first, the only—

No! Not going there.

He knew the cure for what ailed him.

He forced himself to mentally undress the strawberry-blonde sitting with the brunette. Before he’d gotten more than the dress off her, sharp pain sliced across his throat.

He coughed, his skin feeling too tight to contain a sudden humming energy, like he was buzzing.

What the hell? He glanced down at the beer in his hand. Had the waitress slipped something into it? Or more likely, been distracted by the blonde so she could, hoping to get luckier when she made her move?

No way could the buzz be explained otherwise. This was a cop bar run by an ex-cop, and he’d paced himself so he’d be good to drive.

Dylan set the bottle down. He took his hand off it.

“Shit.” Blood coated his palm.

The three cops at the table leaned over, looking at the wound across his palm. No fucking way was he going to explain how he got it in the first place—or point out that he’d thought it was totally healed. He sure as hell didn’t want to walk down memory lane and relive the embarrassment of having to stand in front of Skinner, head of CSI, like some rookie cop who’d contaminated the evidence and say, “Better take a sample of my DNA. You’re going to find it on the knife.”

Not just any knife but Lucifer’s Blade, in the possession of the late Senator Harper and his wife, who thought they could call up demons in their secret room. Christ.

A chill swept over him at remembering that first sight of it on the altar, the rubies in its black hilt glittering like wicked temptation. And how he’d blown off Trace’s warning, which had come from Seraphine, that the blade was so sharp it would cut with a mere touch. Not that he believed the rest of it, that a single drop of blood forged a link to the dark realms.

Dylan snorted. Normalcy restored. Nothing wrong with his mental faculties, and the humming had muted. Nothing to do with drugs or drink, just the end result of a long forty-eight hours as they’d worked the Booker homicide.

He grabbed what napkins were on the table and pressed them to his palm. They turned red. Blood soaked into the handkerchief he applied next, though at a slower pace.

By the time the bleeding stopped, his mood for bad music and hustle had deserted him. He rose to his feet, the motion shoving the chair backward. “I’m out of here.”

Patterson shook his head in a way that telegraphed pathetic bastard, half serious and half joking, but then that was the guys in Vice.

And yeah, maybe he was, because he didn’t bother giving the strawberry-blonde a second look. His dick didn’t even twitch in protest when he left the bar and the possibility of getting laid. But it made its demands known the instant he saw Seraphine.

Fuck! He blinked, just in case he was mistaken, even if the damn ring felt like it was going to melt down on his finger.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. What the hell was she doing here? Hooking up with someone?

No way. He refused to believe she could possibly be interested in any of the cops inside, even Mettes, who from time to time forgot how hard it was to make relationships work and hooked up with a woman for a go at serious.

Steps away, her smile went uncertain when he didn’t return it, but fuck, his brain felt scrambled. And then his dick set up a howl for attention when she said, “Hi, Dylan.”

Jesus. Same husky voice, only softer, more intimate, and damn if he didn’t have a hard time looking away from her lips.

“Hi, yourself.”

He felt like Alice falling down the fucking rabbit hole.

Jesus. Just give into it.

He leaned in, his body hijacking his mind. A whiff of her elusive scent and there was no avoiding full body contact.

His arms went around her, pulling her into a hug. His cock did a victory cheer. Yes! Yes! Yes! Finally!

She melted against him, molding soft curves to hard need, eyes meeting his, lips parted.

This is a mistake, the part of him that knew better warned.

It didn’t stop him from closing the distance, tasting, exploring, tongues getting acquainted in a hot, slow rub.

Her hands settled at the base of his spine to send jagged streaks of lust through his cock and testicles with the touch of her fingernails. He backed her up against the nearest car as if somehow doing it would allow him to grind the clothing that separated them away.

More. Deeper.

He did with his tongue what he couldn’t do with his cock. Need taking him, obliterating everything else.

Christ he had to have her. This was how it’d been the day they met. All he wanted was to peel her clothes off and get inside her. He’d tried to keep her out of his head for weeks and now…

The first kiss only whetted his appetite for another, and another. It opened the floodgates to fantasy after fantasy, images he’d suppressed at every turn because of where they would ultimately lead—to being in bed with a witch.

A witch.

Not again. Never again.

He’d sworn he’d jerk off in the shower before getting involved with someone like her.

Breathing hard, he managed to stop touching Seraphine, stop kissing her.

Breaking contact was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Or so he thought, until he said, “Look, this can’t work between us,” and walked away from her.