Call Me Wicked Read online

  She tried to be good, and she often traveled abroad to find lovers, but occasionally she grew weak and took a mortal.

  Carson was one of those instances.

  And entertaining him for that weekend in Vegas had been a favor to Macy, too. She couldn’t very well have turned down helping her best friend, not when she was horny as hell and in need of a weekend getaway to boot. So she’d spent one blissful weekend rocking Carson’s world, and ever since, he’d been trying to track her down.

  To his credit, he’d been an unusually talented mortal lover. She’d never met anyone before who’d satisfied her so thoroughly. But she knew the only way to cure his addiction now was to stay as far away from him as she could. It was the kindest thing to do.

  She watched Macy filling an overnight bag with clothes for her, and she glanced at the clock. It was half past eight. She could be in L.A. before morning.

  Far away from Carson, which was good, but also far away from her job, her friends, her entire life. Far away from everything she held dear.

  But the fear that lurked in her belly told her she had no choice. She had to run as fast as she could, and she had to do it tonight.

  2

  “HEY, ISN’T THAT LAUREN?”

  Carson McCullen nearly spewed his beer across the room when he spotted Lauren Smith’s face on the plasma-screen TV. He hadn’t seen her in two months, not since the scorching weekend they’d spent together in Las Vegas. And now there she was, being interviewed on CNN Headline News, while he and his best friend, Griffin, gaped at the TV.

  “I thought her name was…”

  “Lauren Smith,” Carson filled in.

  But no, her name wasn’t Lauren Smith. Right there at the bottom of the screen, the text said her name was Lauren Parish, medical researcher at San Francisco Pacific University.

  He blinked as the facts settled themselves in his brain.

  That would explain his inability to track down Lauren Smith, who did not work at Western Airlines the way she’d claimed. Aside from one unpleasant phone conversation, they’d had no contact since Las Vegas, in spite of Carson’s crazed urges to see her again.

  He had never been addicted to a woman before. He’d been infatuated, enthralled, aroused, in love and in lust, but addicted? No.

  Then came Lauren, a woman he had not been able to stop thinking about for the past two months, a woman who’d possessed him so thoroughly, he was willing to make a complete ass of himself to have another chance with her.

  Some more words came flying at him from the TV. Words like sex and reduced IQ and weakened recall skills. He grabbed the remote and hit the rewind button—thank God for TiVo—then listened all over again as Lauren talked about the study she’d apparently conducted, which proved that sex really was responsible for making people stupid.

  Or in her words, sexual orgasm led to a temporarily reduced intellectual capacity in humans.

  What the hell?

  He cast a disbelieving glance at Griffin lounging on the other end of the couch. Griffin, who’d been in Vegas that weekend, and who’d met Lauren “the flight attendant” Smith, as well. In fact Griffin’s very own fiancée, Macy, had helped perpetrate the lies about her friend.

  “Dude,” Griffin said, shaking his head. “I’m as stunned as you are. I had no idea.”

  The woman on TV, although she looked identical to the Lauren Carson had spent that frenzied weekend making love to, didn’t sound much like her. This Lauren was clearly a brainiac, with a vocabulary to rival Webster’s and a look that only whispered sexpot. Sure, she was still sexy, but her blatant sensuality was hidden behind an austere black blazer and top, trendy little black-rimmed glasses and a severe bun that tamed her long dark hair and made her look less like a Goth Angelina Jolie and more like the object of someone’s kinky dominatrix school mistress fantasy.

  When the interview ended, Carson backed up the segment again and watched a third time. “I don’t freaking believe this. She’s the same woman, right? We’re not imagining this, are we?”

  Griffin shook his head. “They even said she’s right here in San Francisco. I can’t believe Macy didn’t tell me….”

  “Oh hey, don’t let this come between you two. You know how women are—she was probably sworn to secrecy or something.”

  “So are you gonna stop jonesing over this chick and go find her now?”

  Carson hesitated, but he knew the answer in his gut without saying a word. Hell yeah. He was going to find her, and he was going to find a way to get another chance with her, whomever she really was.

  Lauren Parish, medical researcher at San Francisco Pacific University?

  Not at all who she’d led him to believe she was. He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or pissed off. Sure, Las Vegas was a town where people lied about their names and behaved in ways they wouldn’t in their everyday lives, and with any other woman, Carson would have let it go.

  But this woman—she’d gotten to him. She’d worked her way under his skin, and he’d barely been able to function, he craved her so badly. This woman—this woman he’d fantasized about constantly, wasn’t the woman he thought he’d been with at all.

  He’d tried to imagine her true identity, pictured her sitting in an office somewhere, or even working as a flight attendant for some other airline than the one she’d told him. But he’d never imagined this. He paused the screen with Lauren’s image on it. No doubt it was her.

  She was a scientist. A scientist who’d discovered sex’s dirty little secret, according to CNN.

  No wonder she’d lied about her profession. Had she been experimenting on him? Testing him to see how dumb she could make him in one hot weekend? Or had she been as hot for him as he had been for her?

  “So do you think she was like, experimenting on me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, that weekend, all the, ah, bedroom activities. Do you think she was testing out her hypothesis on me or something?”

  Griffin laughed. “I think she’d lose her standing in the scientific community if her research methods involved Vegas hotels and alcoholic beverages.”

  “I guess,” Carson muttered, not feeling very convinced.

  “Hey, medical researchers have to get laid, too. I’m sure she was into you.”

  Carson stood and went to Griffin’s desk, opened the Web browser on the computer, and navigated to a directory Web site, then typed in Lauren’s correct name and city. A few seconds later, an address he didn’t recognize popped up, and he read it aloud to Griffin.

  “Hey, that’s like three or four blocks from Macy’s place.”

  Carson stared at the address. He could hardly believe he now had a way to see Lauren face-to-face again. This woman who’d wrought wonders on his body and haunted his fantasies was only minutes away.

  Why did it matter so much that he try one more time to have a second chance with her? In his gut he knew without a doubt…

  She made him feel alive. In his entire wild-child life, he’d tried everything and done everything. He’d begun to fear his picture appeared on UrbanDictionary.com beside the word jaded. He’d started to believe there was nothing left in life that would thrill him, nothing that would ever truly excite him again.

  There were downsides to growing up a spoiled upper-middle-class brat, having the cushy house in Woodside and the mom who drove the Mercedes wagon, the Brazilian nanny and the Christmases in the Tahoe vacation house with the million-dollar views of the lake. Carson had had it too easy. He knew this about himself, and he knew he’d taken it all for granted.

  Whatever he’d gotten in life, he’d gotten by coasting, because he’d always been too busy chasing after the latest thrill or the latest honey to give a damn about anything else.

  Until Lauren. Not only did she make him feel alive, but he had a feeling she could make him care about something again, and he wanted to find out if he was right.

  “I was being all eco-conscious and took the Muni over here. Do you know
if it stops in that neighborhood?”

  “Are you for real?” Griffin said. “You’re just going to go over there and drop in on her unannounced?”

  Was he?

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “I think we had such a strong physical connection, if she sees me face-to-face, she won’t be able to slam the door on me.”

  “You’re going to wait until daylight, though, right? You know, so she doesn’t call the police on you and have you arrested for stalking her?”

  Carson glanced at his watch. “It’s only eight-thirty. Not too late to drop in for a friendly visit.”

  “If you’re determined to make an ass of yourself, I can give you a ride just to witness the spectacle. I’m spending the night at Macy’s anyway.”

  Carson clicked Print on the Web browser, and a few seconds later Griffin’s printer spit out Lauren’s street address. He folded up the sheet of paper and put it in his pocket.

  He was vaguely aware that his behavior had left the realm of normal and entered might-be-mistaken-for-a-lunatic territory, but he was having a hell of a hard time caring about appearances right now. Not when he had a chance to see Lauren again.

  “Okay, man, let’s go.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were parking outside the address. He stared up at the building where Lauren lived and felt a pang of desire hit him like a brick wall. God, how could he want a woman so badly who apparently didn’t want him? He wasn’t sure he wanted to explore any answers to that question, so he took a deep breath and got out of the car.

  Before shutting the door, he leaned down to look at Griffin and said, “I can catch the Muni back home if you don’t want to wait.”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. I’m sitting right here.”

  “What if she invites me in?” Carson said, realizing he sounded a little too pie-in-the-sky hopeful.

  Griffin laughed. “Come back out or call me on your cell to tell me to go. Until I get the word from you, I’ll be here.”

  He sat back in his seat and cranked the stereo, and Carson slammed the door.

  He climbed the stairs to her apartment two at a time, his heart racing and his mind whirling around the fact that he was about to knock on her door, possibly about to see her again. Finally.

  He hadn’t even brushed his damn teeth. Pausing at the top of the steps, he dug around in his wallet and found an emergency piece of gum tucked into one of the credit card slots, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth. Much better. He couldn’t meet the woman of his erotic dreams with dog breath.

  But when he arrived at Lauren’s door, he found it ajar. He knocked tentatively, waited, then when he heard no sounds coming from within, he stepped inside.

  A coatrack lay across the floor at his feet, and all around the wreckage of the apartment suggested something was seriously wrong. Papers, pillows, toppled furniture and the various items of everyday life were strewn about, cluttering the floor. Either Lauren was allergic to housework, or someone had trashed her place.

  His chest tightened.

  Where was she? He stepped over some books that had been knocked off shelves and went to the bedroom, where a similar state of disarray prevailed. A window gaped open next to the bed, and cold air poured in. Had someone broken into the apartment via the window?

  Had Lauren been home? Was she hurt, or worse? His gut clenched at the thought.

  No one was in the bathroom, either, nor the kitchen when he peered into it. Something was seriously wrong, and his brain was only starting to catch up to the facts. Careful not to touch anything unnecessarily and damage evidence, he eased Lauren’s front door closed, then ran back downstairs to Griffin’s car.

  Griffin was staring at his PDA when Carson pounded on the driver’s side window. He frowned and lowered the window.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but Lauren’s place is trashed, and she’s not home.”

  “You went in?”

  “The door was wide-open. I think we need to call the police or something.”

  “That’s crazy. Let me call Macy first and see if she’s heard from Lauren.” He hit a couple of buttons on the PDA, then held it to his ear.

  A few seconds later he was talking to Macy, explaining the situation, then listening, then saying “Oh” and “Uh-huh.”

  He hung up and stared at Carson again looking as if he’d just received news that Elvis was actually alive and hiding out in the trunk of his car.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think my girl has lost her mind.”

  “Griffin, what the hell is going on?” Carson demanded with a little more force as his stomach coiled itself into a bigger knot.

  “She said we shouldn’t call the police, and that we need to get out of here as fast as we can. That we have to make sure we’re not followed, before going to a gas station three blocks north of here. Lauren is supposed to meet us there.”

  Carson looked around, wondering who it was that might follow them. And why the cloak-and-dagger routine? Lauren was going to meet them? Lauren was there with Macy right now? This was all too weird to even wrap his brain around. He felt as if all the key facts were missing, and yet at the same time, his pulse quickened at the thought that Lauren was only a few blocks away, out of his reach…but not for long.

  He had to shake himself to remember the fact that she was in some kind of trouble.

  He got in the car, then Griffin started driving in the opposite direction and making a few turns to shake off any possible tail before finally heading north. The entire time Carson watched out the rear window to make sure no one was trailing them. As they were pulling into a gas station out of the shadows on the side of the building emerged the woman he’d been aching for months to see.

  She was more stunning in real life than he remembered. She had a strange, cool, sexual energy about her that made her seem almost otherworldly. Not like a mere mortal, but like some sex goddess come to Earth to bring to life his every fantasy.

  Her long black hair draped her shoulders and chest, framing a face so ethereally pretty, he had a hard time looking away from it. She was tall—at least five-nine and the only woman he’d ever been with who could look him in the eye when she wore heels—and her body was lean and catlike, with a few lush curves thrown in to make things even more interesting.

  She motioned for them to park, then she climbed into the backseat, all the while her gaze only brushing past Carson, barely acknowledging his presence. Her spicy-sweet scent wafted over him and his cock went hard instantly.

  “Drive,” she said by way of greeting. “Fast.”

  3

  LAUREN HATED HERSELF for getting caught without a plan. She didn’t want anyone else involved in the danger she faced now, but already three innocent mortals had been pulled into it.

  “Where are we headed?” Griffin asked as he glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Macy’s going to let me borrow her car, but I wanted to talk to you two first. She’s going to meet us at Stonestown Mall.”

  “Going shopping?”

  “Not exactly,” Lauren said, not wanting to give away any more information than necessary. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you what’s going on. I’d really appreciate your not asking me any questions right now.”

  Carson was sitting sideways, watching her over the back of the passenger seat. He seemed shocked to see her again, and if she hadn’t been so damn scared, she might have been able to summon some surprise herself.

  “I saw you on the news,” he said.

  “What were you doing at my apartment?”

  Lauren finally remembered her seat belt and buckled herself in as the car turned a corner.

  “I wanted to say hi.”

  “How’d you find me?” she asked, her stomach queasy.

  “The magic of the Internet. It was easy once I had your real name from the CNN interview.”

  Apparently The Order had found it easy
, too. Or was she being paranoid? Was it possible the men who’d broken into her apartment had just been run-of-the-mill meth addicts looking for something to steal?

  Her brain couldn’t dwell on a single thought for long. One thing she’d had hammered into her relentlessly her entire life was that there was no such thing as too much paranoia where The Order was concerned.

  “You went to my door and knocked?” she asked Carson.

  “Yeah, but the door was open. I looked inside and saw that the place was empty, and then I left. Why?”

  “Did you see anyone, or did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Griffin, did you stay in the car or go to my apartment?”

  “I stayed in the car.”

  The witch hunters had been known to leave surveillance equipment behind after they invaded a witch’s residence, and they very well could have video footage of Carson now.

  “When are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Carson asked.

  She covered her face with her hands and sighed. This was all too much, too fast. She would have to take Carson with her. He wouldn’t be safe in San Francisco.

  “Just give me some time to think,” she muttered.

  Lauren’s heartbeat didn’t return to normal until they were well out of her neighborhood. That damn study. It had endangered not only her, but her friends, and Carson. How had she been so stupid?

  Why hadn’t she paid more attention to the elders’ warnings?

  Lauren had spent most of her adult life too busy working toward her career goals to worry much about clan politics and fear. Her intelligence was stronger than her unpredictable gift of prescience, so she’d gone with her greatest strength, graduating summa cum laude from Stanford with a Master’s in human biology, then taking a much-sought-after position at a major university, where she’d gotten involved in sexuality studies.

  Her entire adult life, aside from a minor rebellion at the age of eighteen, had been normal and free of danger. It had made her get sloppy.