she was all Little Miss Vampire Slayer and why Reaper wanted her dead. Then he would have gotten her to safety. He sure as shit wasn’t supposed to kiss her, let alone end up fucking handcuffed.
He grimaced and yanked his arms again. Clang clang. “Mother fuck—” Pain seared his shoulder. He glanced down. A thick trail of blood oozed from his shoulder. She’d taken his tracking chip.
“Now, now, you should watch your language around a lady.”
Garrett brought this head up. The overhead light from the bathroom switched on, and he squinted his eyes to shield them from the glare. Immediately he assessed the woman in front of him. Gone was the soft willing woman. She’d been replaced by hard soldier. A year ago, he had been the type. Now what are you?
“I didn’t realize I was dealing with a southern belle. Pardon my fucking French. I’ll try and watch my mouth next time.” He inhaled a sharp breath.
He knew how this was going to end, judging by the waves of aggression coming off her. She was pissed. The thread of arousal was still there, but she didn’t want to feel it. She resented it, and him for making her feel something. Resentment was a powerful emotion in the hands of any woman, let alone one with a score to settle.
He steadied his breath as he grabbed the base of the heating vent he was chained to. Slowly, he worked the base of the radiator with his palms. If he could just get it loose—
“Oh fantastic, a comedian.” She squatted down to meet his gaze and checked his shoulder. She placed a suture kit on the tiled floor and pulled the needle out. “I’ve been dealing with you Trackers for over four years since you morons snatched me up off the streets. Granted I haven’t run across one of you assholes in a while, but in all this time, not one of you has ever cracked a joke. Just kill, kill, kill. Or attempt to kill as the case may be. For Trackers, you guys kind of suck at your jobs. You only ever managed to miss Cassie, then she, Seth, and Jansen took a fleet of you out in Riddenwell. You and I have already tangoed, and I don’t think you liked it much.”
Hazel eyes with flecks of green met his. A spark lit through his body, and he immediately wanted to press right between her thighs just like he had before—what the hell had happened to him? “On the contrary, sweetheart. I’m dying to get you under me again—moaning for me. You would have let me have you. Opened your soul up to me.” He knew he was pushing his luck and should shut up. They were running out of time. If she knocked him out again, that was more precious time they would lose. But he was pissed that she’d so easily shoved what she’d felt aside and was ready to kill him. “Even now, I can smell the need all over you. You want me.”
He watched as the delicate line of her jaw set. “I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you. Where you’re going, there’s a few people who have the power and hatred to kill you on sight.”
He traced the outline of features with his eyes, drinking every angle and curve, from her cinnamon-kissed skin to her lightly upturned nose, to her full lips and almond-shaped eyes. “But not you? Why don’t you hate me?”
She threaded the needle and knotted the end, before donning the thinnest leather gloves he’d ever seen. “How can you be so sure I don’t hate you?”
“Maybe it’s the way your body wrapped around mine on your couch. Maybe because I can still taste you, and I’m dying to know how you taste all over.”
He flinched as sure hands began the sutures.
“This again? I don’t want you.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. Your secret is safe with me. I won’t tell your friends. But I know what happened in your living room wasn’t a fluke. You want me.”
She sighed and rocked back on her heels. “Have you figured out my power yet?”
“Seems like you kill people with electric ecstasy. You’re the most potent kind of drug I’ve ever experienced. “
“Wrong. Usually my touch can kill someone if I hold on for more than a few moments. When I’m holding on, I get their memories, their feelings. If they’re amplified like I am, I get their abilities for a short time. You know