Sex and the Single Vamp by Robin Covington

business. This was not the time for this discussion. Deacon agreed.
    “We are talking about this later.” He emphasized his point by cupping her head with his hand and dragging her forward into a brutal kiss that ended with a gravelly “fuck” and the slam of his truck door as he exited the vehicle at vampire speed.
    Cici shook her head, not really understanding what the hell had just happened, but pushing it to the back of her mind for now. If Deacon thought he was the only one who had questions, he was sadly mistaken. She got out of the car and followed him to the house.
    They fell back into their old routine: Deacon taking the lead and Cici covering his six. Deacon was tactically trained, a soldier since his youth, so he was always in charge. Not that she hadn’t gained some serious skills over the years and saved his bacon a couple of times, but he was definitely the head of any op.
    He handed her a set of latex gloves and she slipped them on as she looked around them. The street was quiet; a murder next door typically made people stay inside. So there weren’t any visible watchers to see Deacon break into the cipher lock.
    “You’ve been here before?” Deacon asked, following up when she nodded a yes. “Can you take us to the bedroom?”
    “This way.” She tried to ignore the pang that shot through her as she passed artwork, photographs, and furniture all lovingly placed by her client Maria, when she and Strauss had moved in. She’d glowed with happiness as she showed Cici around the house, so excited to build a home with her new husband. She forced down the lump in her throat, but couldn’t hold back the tear that slipped out and slid down her cheek.
    “You okay?” Deacon asked as he climbed the staircase next to her. She nodded, but he saw her pitiful attempt to surreptitiously wipe the blood-tinged tears away. He grabbed her arm, stopping her on the landing. “Hey, let it out. They were your friends.”
    “There’s no crying in baseball,” she said, attempting a joke with a line from one of her favorite movies.
    “This isn’t a game and you get to mourn your loss.” Deacon leaned in and kissed her cheek, and when he pulled back she could see the faint stain of blood on his lips. In this place at this time it was completely inappropriate for her to want him, to need his arms around her, but she did. She let him pull her close, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding on tight.
    “Deacon, you need to stop being sweet to me,” she mumbled against his shoulder.
    “Why?”
    “You just do.”
    “Yeah, like I understood that.”
    She smiled when his shoulder shook with muted laughter. His hand came up to stroke her hair and suddenly she knew she’d made the right call. Deacon would solve this problem and then…well, what more he could fix was wide open. “I know this is hard, but the best way to honor your friends is to catch who did this. You can do it.”
    “Yeah. I can, with your help.” She nodded and wiped away the remnants of her emotion. It wouldn’t be the last time she grieved her friends, but it would have to be the last for a while. She had to get them justice first.

Chapter Five
    Deacon watched Cici pull herself together, steely determination tightening every soft curve of her face. His goddess was back. Wounded. Beautiful. Fierce. Passionate. It pretty much summed up Felicity Trent for as long as he’d known her.
    She pointed to a set of double doors to the right of the landing. “In there.”
    Deacon turned, moving ahead, and she followed, careful to trail closely in his footsteps.
    “Stay near me. Don’t touch anything. I don’t want them tipped off we were here.” He stepped across the threshold. Cici stopped dead in her tracks and he knew she was shocked. She wasn’t used to a crime scene after the forensic unit had been there—many years a spy, but never a cop. The lush coverlet and matching curtains were stripped from the bed and windows. Every personal item