Kait Ballenger - Midnight Hunter

Man, she really didn’t want him seeing the piece of trash apartment she called home. It was already bad enough he knew which crap area of Rochester she lived in without seeing that she wasn’t exactly Suzy Homemaker—if he couldn’t already tell that by looking at her. “Um, I’d prefer not actually—the apartment is a bit of a mess.” Talk about an understatement...

He pressed his lips together as if he were thinking. Before she could figure out what he was doing, he stripped off his brown leather jacket. “Come for a walk with me, then? Here.” He held his jacket out to her.

A tiny cage of butterflies suddenly buzzed around the inside of her gut. Her superhot professor wanted to take a nighttime stroll with her and he was offering her his jacket. Before she could decide whether she wanted to be the type of girl who did that sort of thing with her professor, which was clearly inappropriate, she grasped the leather jacket in her hands and slipped it on. Aw, shucks, who was she kidding? She totally was that kind of girl.

“Let me just grab my keys.” She slipped back into her apartment and darted to the coffee table. She retrieved her apartment keys, stopping only for a moment to lift the open flap of the jacket to her nose. Holding it to her face, she took a good long whiff. The smell of old leather, lemon-scented laundry detergent, Hugo Boss cologne and the unmistakable ruggedness of a well-groomed male filled her nose. Whoa, buddy. That smell almost made her as high as the black magic she’d been fooling around with earlier that night.

This was dangerous, so dangerous, because not only was Dr. Shane Grey her professor and her attraction to him highly inappropriate, but a witch like herself hanging around with a witch hunter was equally, if not more, deliriously dumb.

Without delay, she rushed back out the door, eager for the little business rendezvous and relishing the feeling of his leather jacket bundling her in its warmth.

She’d never claimed to be smart.

* * *

THIS WAS GOING to be even harder than he’d anticipated, because...well... he was already harder than he’d anticipated, and wow, did that make him feel like a grade-A creeper. Shane dared another glance at Vera as she walked beside him down the block. He should not be this attracted to a student, let alone a student who also happened to be a witch, yet here he was, as hungry for her as the day he’d first seen her in his classroom months ago.

It was only a little over a month since he’d discovered that she was not only temptingly beautiful, but a witch with black magic history to boot. During a brief meeting about class work, he’d put two and two together when she’d known far more about the occult than your average religious studies student. One would think that would have been a huge deterrent to his libido, considering he hunted witches for a living, yet somehow it wasn’t.

Despite having grown up the son of a Vegas showgirl and spending countless hours hanging out in dressing rooms with some of the most beautiful women from around the world stripping naked before his eyes, the sight of Vera Sanders fully clothed and in his jacket made him sweat. He wasn’t really sure what it was about her that drew him so strongly, but the combination of long jet-black hair, nearly glowing green eyes and milky-white skin sent his pulse racing to parts of his body other than his heart. If he envisioned what he thought Snow White would look like embodied in the flesh, she was it...well, if Snow White wore fishnets and a plaid miniskirt. Couple that with painted red lips and the long legs of a Rockette, and he was basically a goner.

Clearly, when it came to Vera, in spite of all his intelligence, he had no common sense. If he did, he wouldn’t be here.

He wasn’t even quite sure what it was about her that flipped all his switches to the on position and made his brain short-circuit like he was a twenty-year-old Compaq computer instead of the iMac it normally functioned like. He didn’t even really know her, but from the moment he’d seen her, he’d wanted to get to know her, even though he knew that was a very bad decision.

“So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked.

He shoved his hands in his pockets to shield them from the cold air blowing off Lake Ontario. “I’ve just been assigned a case I could use your help on. I’d like you to point me in the right direction.”

She raised an eyebrow at him like he was nuts. Maybe he was. After all, being near her in a personal capacity, let alone working with her, was a compromise to both his professions, yet part of him wanted to do so much more. But he couldn’t and he wouldn’t. Damn, he was messed up.

“What sort of case could you possibly need my help with?”

“A case involving black magic. I need someone to help me navigate, or at the very least locate, any and all black-magic covens in town.”

Vera stopped in her tracks. The silence left when her high-heeled boots were no longer clicking against the pavement was awful. Nothing but the sounds of the occasional car driving by with blaring, bass-thumping rap music, a staple in this neighborhood, and the wind remained.

Her jaw fell open slightly. “First off, why in the world would you assume I know anything about the black-magic covens in this city?” Color rose in her cheeks as her words filled with anger. “And secondly, even if I did, why would I give you any information about them? I don’t owe you anything.” She glared at him.

That wasn’t the reaction he was expecting. “I’m sorry. I just assumed with your past history you might know...”

She scoffed. “Yeah, that’s right, you assumed. You know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of ‘u’ and ‘me,’ so now you’re an ass for thinking I’m involved in anything to do with black magic, and I’m an ass because I’m standing here yelling at my professor. So thanks for that, Dr. Grey. Thanks.”

He met her gaze. “As I’ve mentioned before, you can call me Shane when we’re not in class.”

She huffed and threw her hands into the air, stripping off his coat. She bundled it into a ball and threw it at him. Without another word, she turned and stomped back toward her apartment.

He hurried after her. “I’m sorry I offended you. That wasn’t my intention. I was hoping you could shed some light on...”

She spun to face him and pegged him with another menacing glare. “I can’t shed any light on anything for you, nor would I willingly help the Execution Underground again. That was a onetime-only deal.” She almost sneered at the mention of the organization he had sworn his life to. “Do me a favor and forget this conversation ever happened.” She turned on her heel again and strode off.

As he watched her go, he couldn’t help but wonder why simply asking for her help had angered her so much. Logic told him it was reasonable to think she might know something about black magic, considering she had a past history of it, so much so that at one point she’d gotten herself into trouble with the Execution Underground. He had seen how black magic affected someone, and he knew how bad addiction could get. It was a nasty, vicious cycle.

Black magic caused a person to feel powerful, grandiose even, like some sort of magical high. In many ways it was just as addictive, perhaps more so, than the cocaine his mother had snorted throughout his entire childhood in order to work all the long hours needed to put food on the table as a single parent. While street drugs deteriorated your health, black magic damaged the soul in a way that, if not stopped, was irreparable.

He hoped Vera wasn’t irreparable.

* * *

VERA’S HEELS RAPPED against the pavement as she stormed back to her apartment. Frustration and anger throbbed in her temples. She slammed the building door behind her for added drama and stomped up the stairs. Who cared if it was the middle of the night and her lousy neighbors were sleeping? They woke her up on a regular basis with their bad seventies porno antics, anyway. Debbie Does Dallas , anyone?