Carole Douglas - Virtual Virgin

But . . . it was late and tomorrow was another day.

AND THEN QUICKSILVER and I returned to the Enchanted Cottage to find Ric leaning, arms folded against his chest, against his ’Vette in the driveway.

Talk about a velvet painting. Add it up. Bronze car gleaming under the soft security lights. Bronze-skinned guy with the day’s tie in his jacket pocket and his cream-colored shirt opened three buttons down. The glints in his hair and his eyes both simmered like hot black coffee.

Quicksilver took one look, bolted over the wall, and headed for Sunset Park. He knew my weaknesses.

Going off leash was illegal and I should chase him down and get him home.

“Got all night?” Ric asked.

On the other hand, if Quicksilver couldn’t take care of himself, who or what could?

IT ONLY TOOK a quarter of the night for Ric to soften me into an utterly agreeable state and whisper the bad news in my ear.

“I’m going to hate to leave town tomorrow, chica .”

I paused in doing passionate things to his navel.

“Tomorrow? Leave?”

“An out-of-town consultation gig. It’s secret government work. I can’t tell you anything.”

“Anything? Now that’s a challenge.” I moved my mouth lower. “Where?”

“I’m not supposed to say . . . Delilah! It’s just Texas.”

“Texas? What’s in Texas?”

Lower.

“El Paso. Zombies. Smuggling.”

I had him down to one-word answers, then paused to give him time to catch his breath so I could learn more. El Paso sounded innocent enough. Until I realized what was opposite El Paso.

“Juarez!”

“Delilah! Ouch .”

I put us on serious Pause button. “You’re going back to the worst killing field on the planet and you weren’t going to tell me!”

“Just for a couple of days.”

“And nights. If you want any more of them with me, you’d better take me along.”

“I can’t. It’s not just me involved.”

“So that’s why Tallgrass showed up. You guys put on the foot-shuffling male-bonding act so I’d only be able to kick up a ruckus about being left behind when it was too late.

“I don’t even have a passport,” I said bitterly.

“Delilah, you’re an ace investigator and have more cojones than most werewolves, but the officials we work for wouldn’t understand what you could do for them. This is an all-human, unofficial covert paramilitary, not paranormal, force and operation.”

“All male ,” I grumbled.

“There will be some female troops, but you are not an enlisted woman.”

The finality in his voice was something I’d never heard before. This was FBI Ric speaking, laying down the law in an area where men were mostly men, discipline was strict, and rules were not broken.

I sighed. There was no stopping him, I could tell. Might as well make the most of these last hours before he left.

I wriggled farther down his body, tossing my hair from side to side as it trailed down too.

“That’s a good girl,” Ric murmured after a deep intake of breath. “That’s a very, very good girl.”

He had no idea just how good I could be when I was bad.

WHEN THE LOVE of your life insists he’s going off with his one-time FBI mentor to find his demonic worst enemy in “the murder capital of the world,” a city that boasted almost five thousand murders last year alone, and you will damn well stay home safe in Las Vegas, what’s a modern woman to do?

Argue herself pink, purple, and puce to no avail, and then say, “Yes, dear.”

So he soaks up the supersteamy farewell sex while you soak up his mushy vows of love and a swift, safe return.

Then you check his cell phone and email in the middle of the night when he’s sleeping sounder than an exhausted sultan after you gave him his third orgasm.

And then . . . you wait a few hours after he heads for the airport, take your hundred-and-fifty-pound wolf-mix dog and ex-reporter savvy, and follow the cocky son-of-a-gun right on down to Mexico and Door Number Three, the murder capital of the world, Ciudad Juarez.

Just for the record, and I know where to find hard facts, Las Vegas averages fewer homicides in one year than the City of Juarez averages in one month.

I MADE THE twelve-hour drive on Highway 93 and I-10 to El Paso in ten hours flat.

No way was Quicksilver shipping in the belly of an airplane. Besides, he was great company on a road trip and loved riding shotgun.

And no way was I leaving my Cadillac Eldorado convertible parked at the border, so I found Dolly a good long-term garage in El Paso for the duration and stored Quick’s car-riding sunglasses in the glove compartment.

Before moving on, I tipped the garage attendant royally. I trusted Vegas’s valet parking demons more than the usual humans, but Quicksilver had shown this guy the size of his shark-worthy fangs.

His friendly parting grin had turned the Anglo attendant a whiter shade of pale. He definitely got the message about what would happen if we came back to find Dolly violated in any way, including a joyride.

Twilight was stretching long shadows even longer as we walked the mile to the border. I hated splitting with Quick a couple blocks from the international bridge. I’d have to walk over the Rio Grande River alone.

“Sorry, boy,” I knelt to tell him. “It’s swim or confiscation.”

For the first time ever, I unbuckled the black leather collar he’d been wearing when I’d adopted him at a shelter event in Vegas’s Sunset Park so soon after arriving in town that I didn’t even have an apartment yet. The volunteers had me when they said such a large dog was so tough to place he was slated for so-called euthanasia right after the event.

Quick was a major reason I’d accepted Nightwine’s offer to live in the Enchanted Cottage on his estate. I couldn’t rent anywhere else with a big dog in the package.

As I slipped off Quicksilver’s collar, he growled, the first time ever at me. My fingertips polished the silver moons that circled the wide black leather.

“I don’t want that death-ridden river tainting your lucky charms, amigo . Bad enough you have to swim it.” Given the strife of the border wars, I wouldn’t be surprised to find the Rio Grande a bloody boiling expanse sweeping thousands of visible corpses along.

Quicksilver arfed eager doggie agreement to my scheme, narrowing his eyes at the stream of cars and pedestrians crossing the bridge. Being mostly gray with touches of beige, I knew he’d blend into the water in the fading light. I hoped my copped ID would also pass better muster at twilight.

“Ric was right. We’re both taking a big risk being here,” I whispered into Quick’s wolfish perked ear. “You don’t have to go with me. Ric and you came into my life on the same day, and I couldn’t forgive myself if harm came to either of you through me.”

Yeah, dogs don’t talk, but they do sense more than we can know.

Quicksilver was not a smoochy dog, but he answered by head-butting my shoulder and taking off at a trot, losing himself in the throng of people, heading right for the banks of Rio Grande . . . Rio Bravo to the natives on the other side.

Too late for me to get cold tootsies. Besides, that was hard to do in the cut-down ankle cowboy boots I’d bought to look touristy-fashionable and harmless. They’d still protect my legs from the brush I expected to encounter. I’d stuffed denim jeggings into them, tough enough for a tromp in the desert but not as hot as heavy-duty jeans in this heat-and-dust soaked climate.

In ten minutes I was filing forward in a line of tourists wearing shorts and sandals, visiting Juarez no matter the death toll and time of day, drawn by cheap prices on Mexican tooled leather, sterling silver, and dentistry.