Vampires Are Foreve(43)
Despite the fact that they passed sex shops and peep shows, or live erotic shows interspersed among the window women, the atmosphere was almost that of a carnival rather than…well…a Red Light District.
Thomas stopped walking suddenly and Inez glanced at him curiously. “What is it?”
“This is the spot,” he answered, his head turning slowly as he surveyed the area.
“Here?” Inez asked doubtfully. They were standing in front of a sex shop with red-lit, women-filled windows spreading out on either side on both the ground and second floors. Hardly a place she’d expect to find Marguerite Argeneau.
“Herb said that she’d be no more than fifty feet away,” Thomas said with a frown as he glanced around.
Inez glanced one way and then the other, trying to judge how far fifty feet would be in each direction. There were no bars or restaurants in this little stretch, however, only the sex shop and red-lit windows.
Movement caught her eye and Inez glanced to the second-floor window in front of her as a pretty young blonde in white lace panties, bra, and stockings drew the curtains open. A man stood in the room with her, his belt undone and hanging open, his pants zipped up, and he was rushing to do up the buttons of his shirt. He was an average-looking man; average height, a little too thin, a little awkward looking. He also appeared pretty flustered about the woman having opened the curtains before he was dressed and gone, and Inez found herself embarrassed for him. She turned away, facing Thomas to give the man in the window privacy.
“She must have just been walking past here when they tracked her,” she said. “Call your friend and have him track her phone again.”
Nodding, he pulled out his phone.
Inez glanced around as she waited for him to make the call, her eyes sliding over the windows on the street, noticing that the women on the second floor all seemed to be just that little bit prettier than the ones on the ground floor. Most on the second floor also wore more expensive-looking lingerie, or leather compared to the women below, and she wondered if there was a price difference between the ones on the ground floor and the ones higher up.
Thomas began to speak next to her and Inez listened absently as he talked with his friend, Herb, and asked him to track the phone again. When he finished, she glanced his way in question as he flipped the phone closed.
“He’ll call back when he has the location,” Thomas explained, slipping the phone into his back pocket.
Nodding, she stepped out of the way of a large group of men gamboling down the walkway, singing some bawdy song. Once they were past, she turned to Thomas and suggested, “Why don’t we go find a pub up the street while we wait?”
Thomas hesitated and then shook his head. “If we go in the wrong direction, we’ll just have that much farther to backtrack.”
“Right,” Inez said on a sigh. She was exhausted. Her feet were sore and her ankles still swollen from the flight. She was also hungry again despite the fact that she’d eaten twice that day. And she couldn’t complain about any of the above since he’d wanted her to stay at the hotel in the first place. Grimacing, she walked over to lean against the railing that ran along the canal to keep the unwary and just plain drunk or stoned tourist from stumbling into the canal.
“You look tired,” Thomas said with a frown and when she merely shrugged, turned up the street. “Come on. It could be as much as an hour before he calls back. We may as well have a drink and maybe something to eat.”
Brightening at once, Inez fell into step beside him, finding a little energy at the prospect of a seat and drink in her future.
They hadn’t gone far when they had to move to the side to make way for another large group, this one a bit rowdy and most definitely drunk or stoned or both. Thomas instinctively took her arm to move her out of the way of the group, having to pull her right into the mouth of a short narrow alley to get out of the way.
Inez tripped over the uneven path and though Thomas caught her, he was pulled somewhat off balance as well. They stumbled like a couple of drunks until she came up against the wall, her back slamming into it.#p#分页标题#e#
Grimacing, Inez lifted her head and found Thomas frozen before her, his face carved from stone, his eyes flashing silver in the dark alcove. Her own eyes widened and she found herself holding her breath as she peered up at him. It felt like a very dangerous situation to her, though she couldn’t have said why, and then his head lowered and his mouth covered hers and she knew exactly why. The need pouring off the man and evident in his demanding kiss was almost shocking. This kiss was nothing like the one in the hotel in London. That had been commanding and seductive, this was wild and out of control, an explosion of desperate need that was frightening in its intensity.