get you before you could make a move. You have a bounty on your head so high commoners on the street are frantically searching for you so they can get the reward. So…please tell me you weren’t actually heading there.” He cocked his head like he was waiting for my answer. Embarrassment sizzled up my spine. “HDF does train their soldiers to have an ounce of common sense, don’t they?”
“Fuck you,” I snarled. His scorn burned my cheeks with chagrin. He was right. I had acted purely on emotion, tossing all my training away in a blink over the need to get home. I hadn’t thought about how extensively I was being sought, foolishly thinking I could easily dissolve in the city, getting to the gates without a problem. Home was within reach.
With his free hand, he tugged off the jacket hood covering my head. It felt as if he were stripping me bare, his lashes lowering to my lips before popping back up. “Without even a goodbye, huh?”
I could see my chest lower and rise with my breaths, the need to shove him back, slam him back into the wall and…
My gaze dropped, running from the feral thoughts coming into my head.
“I didn’t threaten Rosie to keep you here because I get off on toying with you.”
“Don’t you?” I jerked my head up, my teeth grinding together as he boxed me in with his other hand, his gaze like razor teeth, gnawing into me. His mouth was so close to mine, and I could feel the heat of his breath. I dug my nails into my palms. “Seems exactly what you enjoy.”
He watched me.
“What do you want with me, Warwick?” I pushed my chin even higher. “You won’t tell me anything. Even how we got out. It was planned. By who? Why? Why did you save me?” He kept his lips secured together. “You’re not keeping me around because you care about me. Are you any better than the men outside hunting me?”
We stared at each other, an emotion I couldn’t decipher clouded over his face for a moment.
“Be ready after sundown.” He abruptly turned away, flipped up his hood, and sauntered to the door. “I’ll be back.”
“What?” I lurched off the wall, coming after him. “Where are you going?”
“We can’t stay here any longer.” He stared at me accusingly. “I need to handle a few things first. Ready at sundown,” he repeated before storming out the door, leaving me rattled and confused.
Flopping down on the bed, I let out a frustrated exhale. Asshole.
“Oh, luv…” Rosie clicked her tongue from the open doorway, looking between where Warwick went and back to me. “If you two don’t fuck soon, you’re going to combust.”
“Rosie.” I rubbed my head. “It’s not like that. We hate each other.”
Laugher howled through the room, her hand going to her throat. “If this is what hate looks like, then sign me up.”
“We are nothing but a forced partnership for the time being. That’s it.”
“Luv, my marriage was a forced partnership. What you two have…you guys could ignite the Eastern Bloc with your sexual energy. You two have a connection; I feel it in my bones. Anyone alive could.”
“No.” I shook my head, rejecting her theory. “I have someone at home I love. He’s everything to me.”
“I don’t doubt you might genuinely think that.” She leaned against the door, still dressed in her negligee. “But take advice from someone who’s seen a lot. There are very few people who find someone who challenges them, makes them feel alive, fights and loves with the same passion.”
“How do you know I don’t have that with Caden?” I folded my arms.
“Because I’ve seen you with Warwick.”
Chapter 32
“Stay close,” Warwick sniped, his foul mood infusing the weight of the shadows as he headed out the back of the alley. The night-kissed air colored the path in dusk, the sun’s exit painting the alley in various dark blues and purples. His surly temper had not ebbed since finding me on the street. If anything, it had only gotten worse.
After another goodbye to Rosie, the madam of the house watched us, expressionless, from her doorway as we departed the protected walls of Kitty’s. She neither looked relieved nor sad by our departure, making me even more curious about what Warwick’s connection was to her. I didn’t sense any sexual vibes between them, but at the same time, there was something between them, something that had made her willing to hide the two most