Jo gasped. And it was at that moment that his lids rose up.

As he stared at her, she told herself to get a grip. Those weren’t real fangs, for godsakes.

Cursing under his breath, he seemed to force his features into a semblance of composure. “I just need a minute.”

“Okay, sure.” Moving off the sofa slowly, she grabbed for her clothes. “Take your time.”

Concerned for him and embarrassed by… oh, so much, really… Jo made quick work of pulling on her underwear and her pants—and as she got herself back together, she was very aware of how much he was not moving. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. His fingers were now curled into fists, that flex traded in for a tight-knuckled crank. And then there was the breathing.

She looked at his lips, which were now firmly locked in place over his teeth. Maybe she’d imagined those canines?

“Do we need to get you to the ER?”

“What?” he grunted.

“For the Cialis.” Clearly, that was the problem here. “Or the Viagra you took.”

He lifted his head and looked at her myopically. “What?”

“For an erection lasting longer than four hours, you’re supposed to get medical help. It’s on the ads for those pills.” When he still seemed confused, she covered her hand discreetly and pointed downward to what was still very much going on at his hips. “You know…”

Syn re-shut his eyes and let his head fall back against the cushions once more. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Listen, you can be honest. I’m not going to judge. Men take these things, I guess, to make sure they can… be at their best.”

The image of that ad with a man and a woman sitting in porcelain tubs and holding hands in front of a sunset made her wonder what in the hell her life was turning into. But then she already knew the answer to that.

And it rhymed with “trapper.”

“I know it hasn’t been hours,” she said, “but you’re so uncomfortable, maybe we should just go get this taken care of?”

As he swallowed with obvious difficulty, his Adam’s apple went up and down like it was having trouble doing its job. “This is just what happens to me.”

Wait, so staying hard wasn’t a problem for him? “Then stop with the pills.”

“What pills?”

As her cell phone started to ring, she went over and took it out of her purse. When she saw who it was, she looked through into the kitchen, to the digital clock on the microwave. You know, just in case her iPhone was wrong about the time.

But nine o’clock wasn’t that late. And how was it only nine? It felt like four in the morning.

With that thought in mind, she answered in a low tone. “McCordle, I can’t talk right now.” There’s an erection on my sofa. “Let me call you back.”

“Just want you to know the FBI is going to subpoena security tapes from both the Hudson Hunt and Fish Club and Gigante’s back office gambling den at his cement business. They’ve got probable cause on an unrelated RICO charge. They’re going to let us see what’s on ’em. I’ll let you know when I can.”

“That’s great. Thank you.”

Bracing herself, she turned around as she ended the call. Syn was up on his feet and had pulled his leathers into place, somehow stuffing his anatomy in behind the fly. When she considered the logistics on that one, she wondered why he wasn’t passed out on her carpet.

Or why the buttons weren’t going airborne.

“Let me take you to the ER,” she said. “You should be sensible about this.”

Yeah, it’s not like she waited four months to go see a doc.

“It’s not what you think,” he muttered.

“It’s not what you think.” Putting her phone back in her purse, she knew he had to have lied about the Cialis thing. “But you’re a grown man, and you can do what you want—”

“I can’t…” He motioned over his hips. “You know, I can’t…”

“Enjoy your baritone singing voice right now? I don’t mean to make light of this, but—”

“Finish.”

Jo frowned as she felt herself go still. “I don’t understand.”

Syn lowered his eyes to the floor. “I can’t ejaculate.”

“Ever?” She shook her head. “I mean, you orgasm, but you don’t—”

“No, I don’t find a release.”

“At all?” As he shook his head, Jo cradled her purse against her chest. “Have you gone to see someone about this?”

“No reason to.”

“There is every reason to. You’re suffering, and maybe… what happened? Were you hurt?”

“It’s just the way it is for me.”

He went over to the bathroom doorway. Without her noticing, he’d set his leather coat down just outside of the door, and given the bulges under it, she had a feeling he had hidden things of a holster variety under there. Without further comment, he picked the load up and went into the loo, closing the door behind himself. A moment later, he reemerged, jacket on.

“You don’t have to go,” she said.

“It’s best that I do—”

“May I take you back to wherever you live?”

“No, I can do it—”

“The nearest bus stop is a quarter of a mile away. I’ll take you there.”

“That’s okay. I’ll walk.”

Jo found herself speaking quickly because he was clearly in a hurry to leave, and she didn’t want him to go for a whole lot of reasons: “Let me walk you out, then—”

“It’s just cosmetic stuff, by the way.”

“What is?”

Syn pointed to his mouth. “The teeth. They’re caps. Don’t worry about it.”

Jo blinked. “Okay.”

When he nodded, she expected him to come over and hug her. Give her a kiss. Hold her for a minute. Instead, he walked right out her apartment door.

Jo stayed where she was as she imagined him exiting the building. Going down the sidewalk. Heading toward—

She hadn’t told him which way the bus stop was. Did he know? Or—

Rushing out of her apartment, she jumped through the vestibule, and punched her way out into the chilly spring night. Under the bright moonlight, she looked left. Looked right.

There was no one walking down the sidewalk, no huge-shouldered man with a long stride heading away, no solid boots making heavy sounds on the cement.

Syn had up and disappeared.

Again.

 

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

 

Syn rematerialized downtown, taking shape across the street from the Hudson Hunt & Fish Club. The place was dark, no slivers of illumination showing around the seams of the front door or the painted panels of the windows. There was someone in there, however. A blacked-out Chevy Suburban was parked face out in a narrow alley alongside the building, steam rising from its tailpipes. Behind the wheel, the figure of a man with broad shoulders was a dense, solid shadow, and from time to time, when the chauffeur took a draw on his cigarette, his face was illuminated on a flare.