"What's the Sinkhole, Ric?"

"Badder than bad. More north than North Las Vegas. Actually, its location seems to…move. You don't want to go there, even if you can find it. It's where the worst predatory unhumans hang out, the penny-ante, low-brow loser unhumans, I should say."

"Kind of a Brigadoon for hell-raiser set. Why do you think Detective Haskell was there?"

"Probably had a snitch in the area. Haskell is pretty penny-ante and low-brow himself."

"True."

I got up, collected Ric's wine glass, and refilled it. Mine too. When I brought his glass back, I brushed knuckles with him.

He flinched. Not much. Just enough.

I sat down opposite him. "The newspaper says that Haskell was attacked and beaten. Pretty badly."

"Couldn't have happened to a nastier guy."

"He's in the hospital, Ric. The story says he was mutilated. In a very sensitive area. Chewed."

Ric put down the wine glass. He stood up. A good offense is the best defense. "What? You think I'm a freaking werewolf?"

"I can see your bruised and cut knuckles from here. I think you should tell me what you did."

"Am I asking you the gory details of your sojourn at the Gehenna? I'm sure there are some."

"A few. Nothing serious. What did you do to Haskell?"

"First I got seriously mad. No one mauls you but me."

"I'm so flattered."

"So I faked a snitch appointment and went down to the Sinkhole at night and beat the hell out of him. It was a fair fight. If he'd had any balls he could have beat the hell out of me."

"Apparently he doesn’t have much for balls now."

"That wasn’t me. I left him unconscious and got out of there. He didn't even see what hit him, didn't know who I was. Something else must have got to him after I left."

"You don't sound sorry."

"Are you?"

"We might be. He's still alive. He must have you on his list of possibles."

"No, I tell you. I dressed for the neighborhood. You wouldn’t have recognized me. He didn't see anything coming but my fists. I suppose you're pissed because I went out and avenged your honor. You're liberated and you wanted to do it yourself."

"I'm liberated," I agreed, "and I want…you."

He actually waited for the rest of my sentence. "I want you to…"

Here's the thing. Sure, I wanted to solve the crime, get the better of Nightwine's pride and money, establish myself as a player in Las Vegas, get the hot story, save that poor dead girl's soul maybe, but mostly I wanted Ric.

"I want a date. Formal."

"Easy." He sounded relieved. The little woman just wanted a formal night out, a date. "Where? When?"

"Some hotel. Some restaurant. You know Las Vegas, but maybe you don't know me. You pick. The place, the time, the action."

I almost heard his breath stop.

I'd been putting my faith in him and I didn't really know a thing about him, except he was as good as I was about maintaining secrets. Seeing Madrigal and his mysterious assistants had made me unhappy with the status quo with Ric. This wasn’t going to work unless I got behind those very attractive barriers he erected. Why did he never shed his clothes? Why did he like to control my vertical and horizontal so much?

Yeah, I had phobias to overcome. But so did he.

This had to be an equal deal. I was willing to play a little strip poker if I got a little strip poker back in return. So. My challenge. Me. Stripped. And his play. Next.

Chapter Forty-Four

Ric stood up, clearly confused. Intrigued. Hot. Cold. Wary.

"You're not mad that I took out Haskell?"

"You're not mad that I crashed the Gehenna? Good. Now we only need to find out who the dead guy in Sunset Park was. But before that, there's something I want more."

I leaned into Ric, running his silk-wool blend jacket lapels through my hands. I'd learned that he liked that once-removed form of intimacy. I wanted, as I'd just thought, more.

"Your clothes always feel so good," I said. Then…"I'd love to slow-dance naked in your arms."

I felt him catch his breath, then think about it. We'd been intimate, but this was intimate on my terms, not his.

"Sounds like a plan," he said carefully, as if not believing his luck.

My own breath stopped. I'd wondered about his reticence. His privacy. What it hid. I didn't just want me naked with him. I wanted him naked with me. I wanted to tease him past his shelters, his borders. We were both experts at emotional poker playing. Sometimes you have to raise the stakes to see the other player's cards.

His eyes were all pupil, dark, half-satisfied already. "One condition."

"Only one?"

"You wear something that makes getting you out of it interesting."

I thought. Nodded. "So where in Las Vegas can we do this naked tango?"

Ric had taught me to be a tad exhibitionistic lately, but Los Lobos was out. Maybe in his mysterious, dark, glittering house of mirrors…

"Your naked dance. First drinks and dinner. Then we cha-cha. A big Las Vegas evening out. Leave it all up to me. I'll pick you up tomorrow at…seven."

"Isn't that a little late?"

"It's going to be a long, late night."

His words resonated in my throbbing heart, pulses, and especially elsewhere.

"Long?" I repeated.

"Naked," he echoed.

We nodded, agreeing and excited by it.

Talk about twenty-four hours of sheer anticipation. Ric wouldn’t pick someplace…public. Would he? Then again, he liked to show me off. I preened a little at the thought of his Latino possessiveness, a trait someone like me, always listed on the orphanage records as unwanted, unspoken for, would treasure. My wounds, his wounds, our aphrodisiac.

He called my cell phone that afternoon. "Drinks at the Palms' Ghost Bar, dinner at the Paris restaurant in the Eiffel Tower."

"Those are primo venues. How did you-?"

"No questions. This is just a friendly dress code alert."

"Expensive too. And neither of those places have dancing."

"Nor nudity."

I could tell my crazy impulse had really turned him on. Me too.

I ransacked my closet, looking for the perfect gown to get out of. Who was I? A stripper? Yeah. Something spectacular. Something…very frustrating. My fingers hesitated over the black velvet thirties Nora Charles gown. Perry Mason had returned it with a disturbing message: no DNA on it other than mine. Not even Snow's? What was he, invisible? In that case, Claude should have left a traceable memoir of his playful butt pinch. Time to figure that out later.

The gown? No. Too Snow. I didn't like to mix my…encounters.

At last my fingers slid along the slippery surface of one of my oldest vintage gowns. Made to order for my querido amigo. I smiled wickedly. Yes.

I wore a long, black velvet thirties cloak when Ric called at my door.

"That's it? That's all?"

I shrugged and slipped out the door before Quicksilver could get a piece of my cloak or of Ric. The cloak had an ivory satin lining that almost caught in the door of the Corvette as Ric ushered me in.

Ric was wearing an off-white blazer that looked as smooth as clotted cream over an ice-blue silk shirt carelessly open at the neck. His trousers were black wool-silk with a formal satin stripe up the side. Las Vegas dressy casual.

We skipped the line of gaggling tourists in front of the elevator to the Palms Hotel's Ghost Bar, the city's hottest destination, and fifty-five stories up. No shorts, no hats, no tennis shoes, no baggy or torn jeans allowed. Dressy sandals permitted, no flip-flops.

The Ghost Bar. I knew I'd be uneasy there. My kind of medium had not been defined yet when this place had been created. Sitting in this nineteen-sixties meld of blue and green furniture against silver and ice-white, I let my cloak fall back to swathe the chair behind me and studied the holographic photos of motion picture stars on the wall.