Demon Cant Help It Read online

  She supposed once you got into ghosts and shape-shifting, gender juxtaposition was really the least unbelievable part, wasn’t it?

  “Boris, what are you doing up here?” Erika called to the cat as if the animal might answer.

  Then again, he might. Again, that would hardly be the weirdest thing Jo had had happen.

  The cat didn’t, though, and Jo was admittedly relieved.

  “I swear that cat doesn’t even like any of us, yet he stays.” Erika handed Jo her purse.

  Jo nodded, glancing up there again before falling into step with her friend.

  “Yeah,” Jo agreed, her voice dry, which was better than hysterical, “that cat is weird.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Maksim remained in the doorway across the street, watching. He’d considered approaching Jo when she’d been alone on the sidewalk. She’d been pacing, her movements agitated, nervous.

  But he’d remained hidden, distracted by her behavior. She’d stopped pacing and stared up at the balcony on the front of Ren’s apartment building.

  He followed her gaze, trying to see what held her so rapt, but the balcony appeared empty to him. Nothing there out of the ordinary. Nothing at all.

  Then, to his further confusion, she waved. The gesture was oddly tentative, as if someone waved to her first, and she wasn’t quite sure whether she should respond in kind.

  But then, Erika came out to join her, and when they all looked back to the balcony, it appeared that they were watching Erika’s strange cat. Maksim wasn’t a cat person to begin with—although he liked them better than dogs. Needy little creatures, dogs were. But to wave at a cat? But then, that cat was weird, he had to admit. More than once he could have sworn that same cat had shown up at his place—well, his sister’s place.

  And like just now, he would have bet money that cat hadn’t been on that balcony moments before?

  Something wasn’t right. And given Jo’s behavior last night, with the whatever in the hallway, he wondered if he should be questioning the woman’s mental state.

  Maybe that’s why he couldn’t read her mind. She was just too crazy.

  But he immediately dismissed that idea. Maksim had met insane—hell, his last tryst had been with Vittorio and Ren’s mother and she’d been certifiable. No—that made Orabella sound just normally nuts—the woman had been batshit crazy.

  Jo wasn’t. Something was going on with her. And whatever it was, he’d like it to explain her hot/cold behavior with him, too, but he wasn’t sure about that.

  And because of his confusion, he’d resorted to being a stalker. But he didn’t have much time to think about the depths to which he’d fallen—which again for a person whose home base was Hell was really saying something—because Jo was on the move.

  Maksim waited a little before following the twosome. He couldn’t get too close, because Erika might sense him. Lampirs weren’t quite as attune to other preternaturals as the regular bloodsucking vampires. Unless they were older, which made him glad that neither Vittorio or Ren were with the women. They’d sense him, he was sure.

  But as it was, he only had to stay about a block behind. Not that it mattered; he had a good idea where they were headed.

  Sure enough, the two friends headed directly to the bar where The Impalers were playing.

  Maksim waited outside, watching them as they wove their way through the crowd. It was still early, so the bar wasn’t terribly crowded. The band played on a stage at the far end of the room. Jo and Erika went up to the stage, waving to the others. Vittorio did a hair toss, clearly for Erika’s benefit.

  Ah, the vanity of vampires. Right up there with demons, to be sure.

  Jo greeted everyone, too, but she didn’t look like a woman out for a wild Friday night. Instead, she seemed tense and tired and he wanted to just go up to her and suggest they go back to her place. His place. He didn’t care, he just wanted to be with her.

  And that didn’t please him. Not when he was getting the brush-off. But he didn’t leave. He came into the bar, staying near the front, finding a bar stool and ordering a whiskey on the rocks.

  Jo and Erika stayed up on the dance floor, near the stage for a couple songs, swaying more than really dancing. Then Jo gestured toward the upstairs, and Erika nodded. Both women waved at the band again, then headed to a staircase that was almost unnoticeable if a person wasn’t really looking.

  Maksim picked up his drink and trailed along behind. He didn’t even bother to be surreptitious as he passed the stage. Vittorio nodded at him from his spot playing bass. Ren waved as he belted out the lyrics to a Journey song. That man loved his Journey covers.

  Even the other guys in the band, Drake, Wyatt, and Elton, their new drummer, acknowledged Maksim, used to seeing him when he bartended. Maggie was the only member to address him with anything less than affability. And even her reaction wasn’t rude exactly, but more one of circumspection.

  Her eyes narrowed and she gave him only a slight nod. Then she looked at the stairs as if she wanted to give Jo a heads-up that he was there.

  He entered the doorway and climbed the steps. She’d know soon enough.

  Jo sat on the bar stool, telling herself this was good, calming. Being with Erika, the music pulsing down below them, the warm glossy wood of the upper bar.

  Nothing would happen here. Of course, her visions happened right in front of Erika. So Jo couldn’t say what would and wouldn’t happen. But she hoped, prayed, she could just have an uneventful night.

  “This is good,” she said to Erika as if saying something affirming aloud would make her feel even more definite about the whole plan.

  “Yeah, it’s nice up here, isn’t it? Not so loud or crowded.”

  Jo did like that. Sometimes that kind of massive sensory overload was as lonely and overwhelming as being by oneself. It still forced a person to be stuck inside their own head, unable to really talk or hear, and she didn’t want that. She also didn’t feel like dancing. Fatigue weighed heavily on her.

  Then she saw him, and all thoughts of exhaustion and stress left her. Well, the stress was replaced by a different kind of nervous tension. And all hopes of an uneventful evening were gone.

  Maksim didn’t notice them at the other end of the bar as he took a seat and held up his glass to the bartender, indicating he wanted another.

  Jo stared at him, eating up the sight of him as if she hadn’t just seen him this morning. All of him.

  That particular thought didn’t help her already aware body. It was amazing. The man could walk into a room, and she wanted him.

  “Maksim is here,” Erika said, the announcement striking Jo as rather funny. The classic after-the-fact sort of comment.

  But all she said was, “Oh yeah?” She pretended to follow Erika’s glance to locate him. Then she took a sip of her club soda and lime.

  “Aren’t you going to go say hello?”

  “No.”

  “But you want to.”

  Jo frowned. “How do you know that?”

  Erika shifted on her bar stool. “Well I just assumed you would want to. Since he works with you.”

  “Not anymore.” Jo took another sip of her drink, trying to remain casual and not stir any suspicion in her already too perceptive friend.

  “Really?”

  Jo nodded, even though she wasn’t totally sure about that fact. She was assuming after her blatant cold shoulder this morning, he’d want very little to do with her. If the slammed door and not showing up to volunteer were any indication, he definitely wanted nothing to do with her.

  Yet he was here. Not that he had an idea that she was. Just a coincidence, obviously.

  “Oh, listen,” Erika said. “This is my favorite song.” A look of longing came over her face.

  Jo smiled, knowing where Erika wanted to be. “Go down and watch him if you want. I’m fine here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.” She wasn’t fine, but she didn’t want to let her friend on to tha
t anymore than necessary.

  “Come with me.”

  Jo shook her head, a little more adamantly than she needed. She did not want to walk past Maksim. She wanted to stay right here. Invisible.

  “Go on. I’m enjoying listening from up here. Plus I need to sit for awhile.”

  A flash of concern darkened her friend’s eyes to stormy gray. But then she nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “Have fun. Don’t worry about me.”

  Erika rose, and for a second Jo doubted her agreement to let her go. She was going to pass Maksim, too, and then he might know she was there as well.

  But he didn’t notice Erika, because he was interacting with the bartender, a young thing with pert breasts and her midriff bared.

  So what, Jo told herself. She was the one who’d put the distance between them this morning. Who cares what or who he did?

  She shook her head, knowing that answer wasn’t the one she wanted it to be.

  She shifted back on her stool, so that the few people between them would shield her from view. And him from her, too. All she needed was for him to see her ogling him at the end of the bar. With any luck, he’d have no idea she was here.

  Maksim knew the exact moment when Jo spotted him. Her eyes widened and she shrank back in her seat, trying to hide behind Erika. The reaction irritated him a lot.

  The bartender, a girl in her early twenties in a pair of skintight, low-rise jeans and an equally tight black camisole placed a whiskey on the rocks in front him.

  She leaned forward, offering him a hint of her cleavage. “Can I get you anything else?”

  She smiled invitingly.

  Maksim lifted the drink to his lips, downing the amber liquid in one swallow.

  “Yeah. Another,” he said, sliding the empty glass back to her.

  She looked slightly disappointed by his blatant disinterest, and while he wasn’t particularly worried about her feelings, he could relate to her displeasure. He’d love to have his attention drawn to another woman. Hell, little Miss Bartender would do. But that didn’t seem like a possibility while Jo Burke filled his every thought.

  Taking no more notice of the bartender, he shifted forward to sneak a look at Jo. He could only make out part of her face and her shoulder.

  Sadly, the partial glimpse of her did more to his libido than the obvious and provocatively clad bartender. He closed his eyes, blocking out the limited image of her.

  He was losing it. That was the only explanation. Going completely mad. The cut of a cheekbone, the corner of a mouth, the curl of brown hair around the pink shell of an ear, the curve of a shoulder. None of those features should be enough to drive him to utter distraction.

  But they did. She made him nuts. Lust pulsed through his body as much a part of him as his blood. Just from having her in the same room with him. But something else mixed with the lust, making it more powerful, more intense. He didn’t want to consider what they thing could be.

  Crazy. That’s what he was.

  He opened his eyes, needing just another glimpse. But this time broad shoulders blocked his view of her.

  A man in faded jeans and a T-shirt stood between Maksim and her, his elbow leaning on the bar, his body swaying toward Jo.

  Maksim could see her hand reach for her drink. The curl of her fingers around the glass, the leisurely lift of it out of sight. Maksim could visualize those pretty lips of hers, as she took a small sip. The movement casual, not agitated. Maybe she smiled at the guy afterward, her lips wet and glistening from the liquid she’d just sampled.

  The glass returned back to sight, but she didn’t take her hand away. One of her elegant fingers circled the rim, the swirling hypnotic, a little flirty.

  She liked this guy’s attention.

  Fuck that.

  “So what’s your name?”

  Jo debated whether she should tell this guy, or just be straight up and advise him he was wasting his time. She decided that while she was in no mood to make small talk with a stranger, much less flirt with one, it wouldn’t hurt to answer.

  “Jo.”

  “Jo. I like that. Is that short for Josie?”

  Jo shook her head. Did people have nicknames for Josie?

  “Jolene?”

  She supposed the guy was getting closer. Sort of. And she’d have to give him a little leeway, he was clearly a few drinks into the night.

  “Josephine,” she supplied for him, a little afraid of what his next guess might be. Joanie? Jody?

  “Oh, Josephine. That’s a pretty name.” He swayed toward her, his gaze on her lips.

  She took a sip of her drink, not wanting to risk him moving in for a kiss, although he was likely swaying because of the alcohol and focusing on her lips because the room was spinning.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, not that she particularly cared, but it seemed the polite thing to do. And actually, he was doing a terrific job of hiding her from Maksim. He wasn’t necessarily keeping her mind off him, but he was a distraction of some sort.

  The guy rocked forward again, this time enough to make Jo lean back in response. Okay, a pretty poor distraction, but she’d take it right now.

  “My name is Cameron.” He squinted, looking like he didn’t know why he was telling her that. Clearly her question had become a distant memory in a matter of seconds.

  She wished she could drink. Maybe then Maksim could become a distant recollection to her.

  “So, are you from here?” Cameron asked.

  “Just moved here.”

  “Me, too!” Cameron raised his huge plastic tumbler filled with some sort of orangey-pink liquid that looked pretty noxious. It seemed to be doing a number on him.

  “To us. And our move to the best city in the world.”

  Cameron clearly had been toasting many things over the course of the evening. But she lifted her glass, again to be polite, tapping the rim to the side of his cup.

  He sloshed a little of the toxic mixture on his oxford shirt on his way to his mouth, supporting her theory this might be one toast too many.

  He just chuckled as he wiped the liquid off with his hand, which made her laugh, too. He wasn’t an obnoxious drunk, just a jovial one, and she decided maybe she was enjoying the distraction.

  She set down her drink, her hand lingering on the coolness of the glass. She absently circled her finger around the rim, her thoughts skipping back to Maksim. He was so close, but a lot of good that did her.

  Okay, maybe good ole drunk Cameron wasn’t much of a diversion after all.

  “What do you do for work?” Cameron asked as if he’d read her mind and was trying to do a better job for her.

  Sorry Cameron, but there’s fat chance of that.

  “I’m the director of a community center,” she said.

  “No way! I work at the Micro Center. It’s a computer store.”

  Jo stared at him for a moment, trying to decide if he was making a joke. She concluded he wasn’t, but laughed anyway. Because he was so sincere in their almost eerie kinship that what else could she do.

  “Wow, that’s so spooky,” she managed to say once she stopped laughing.

  “I know,” he agreed wholeheartedly, his eyes widening at the very thought.

  Jo laughed again, but the laughter died on her lips as Maksim walked past them. His green eyes sought hers, leaving no doubt that he was aware she was here. Without even turning to follow his path, she knew he stopped and took the stool on the other side of her.

  To confirm her thoughts, she heard him call out to the bartender.

  “Hey sweetheart, mind bringing me another down here?”

  The bartender smiled at him, clearly pleased with his endearment. She nodded and bounced off, happy with his attention.

  As most woman would be, Jo supposed. And the idea rankled her.

  Jo didn’t turn around, but she could feel him right behind her. His presence was like a physical touch across her back.

  Maksim didn’t bother
to slide the stool next to Jo away from her. He wanted to be in her space. He wanted her aware of him. But if she was, he couldn’t tell.

  “Do you like being a director?” the guy who was standing far too close to Jo’s other side asked. He swayed slightly, and Maksim could see he was pretty well wasted.

  Jo’s voice was muffled slightly, because she wasn’t facing him, but Maksim could still make out her words.

  “Umm, yeah, I do.”

  “Do you have pottery classes?”

  Maksim raised an eyebrow and fought the urge to roll his eyes. Jo had given him the deep freeze just to go out and talk to this winner. He didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused.

  “No,” Jo said slowly, clearly finding the guy’s question a little strange too. “No, we don’t.”

  “Ah, that’s too bad. People like to do pottery.”

  Maksim shook his head, unable to suppress his disdainful amusement.

  “I guess that’s true,” Jo said.

  “You know, you have really pretty eyes.”

  Any hint of amusement evaporated, and Maksim couldn’t help looking at the guy.

  The schmuck touched Jo’s hand, which had stopped swirling seductively around the edge of her glass. Maksim gritted his teeth as he watched the man’s thumb brush over the soft skin of her fingers. Jo didn’t pull away.

  Before Maksim thought better of it, he shifted, his arm grazing Jo’s back. She straightened like an elastic snapping into place, aligning her spine, but she still didn’t look at him.

  The guy rocked toward her. “You smell nice, too.”

  Maksim scowled at the man, but the stupid, leery drunk was too lost in his interest in Jo to notice.

  “Thank you,” Jo said, and still didn’t move her hand out from under his. Maksim fought the urge to pull her away. Pull her away and kiss her senseless.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Maksim couldn’t stop himself from turning on the stool to face the two of them. Now this he wanted to hear.

  “No. I don’t.”

  Technically that was true, Maksim supposed, but that didn’t matter at the moment. Her words still made him see red.

  He hooked a hand under her elbow and tugged. She slid around on the stool like the seat spun on its own. Her dark eyes snapped open wide and her lips rounded into a perfect “o.”