Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men #6) - Giana Darling Page 0,47
it a question.
Eric, silly, sweet Eric, ignored him again. Instead, he placed his hand on my knee again for a little shake and beseeched me with his wide, dark eyes. “Don’t do anything rash just because you feel unsafe.”
“You seem like a stupid motherfucker,” Priest continued, deadpan. “So I’ll tell you one more time to get it into your wee fuckin’ brain. Back. The. Fuck. Up.”
“Listen, asshole,” Eric started to say, rising to his feet so he could turn around.
He didn’t get the chance.
Priest was there so suddenly, I couldn’t compute how it happened. He was just there, pressed to Eric’s back, his arm around his neck in a chokehold, his booted heel kicking out Eric’s long legs so he folded helplessly into the tight embrace.
“Seems your friend has a death wish, Little Shadow,” Priest said calmly as Eric fought the hold, hands tearing at Priest’s arm until it bled. “Should I play fairy fuckin’ godfather and grant it?”
“Priest,” I said, trying to bite back the lust warming my tone. “He’s my friend.”
His red brow hiked into his forehead. “He wants to fuck you.”
Eric gurgled in protest. Priest tightened his hold.
“Maybe,” I consented. “But if you killed everyone who wanted to sleep with me, you’d be so busy killing people I’d never see you.”
He blinked at me, but I caught the way his firm mouth twitched with humour. “I work quick,” he informed me.
“I don’t doubt it,” I agreed, having so much fun, too much, when my friend was clearly in distress. “Still, why don’t you put him down? I don’t have many friends and I’d like to keep the ones I do have.”
Priest considered it for a long moment while Eric turned a startling shade of red. Finally, he ducked his head slightly to whisper terrifyingly in Eric’s ear. “I don’t give warnings. I’m the man they send in once the threat’s been laid out. I’m the man who finishes the job. Count your lucky fuckin’ stars that today, for her, I’m exercisin’ restraint.”
Eric gasped as he fell to the floor, catching himself badly on one hand so he yelped with pain. I wanted to go to him, but the way Priest continued to loom over him, eyes dark and fixed on his prey, I decided it was best not to get between a predator and his meal.
I squirmed in my seat, thighs rubbing together to ease the ache between them.
I wanted him.
Oh, but I wanted him more fiercely than I’d ever craved anything else. In fact, I decided, watching as Priest crossed his arms and bared his teeth at Eric, I didn’t think I properly understood the meaning of the word crave until I met Priest.
“Done playing?” I teased him, unable to curb my sunny smile.
Priest’s eyes flicked up to mine and the hatred in his eyes eased into something just as dark, but totally different. It was the kind of darkness you wanted to fall into.
“No.” But his posture adjusted slightly, shoulders pulling back, weight settling in his heels so I knew the imminent threat had passed. “Only ’cause you got a show to do and I got Lion callin’ me back in five.”
“So gracious,” I said, deadpan, even though my lips twitched. “Can I get to work then?”
Priest inclined his head in agreement, but instead of leaving, he crouched down to stare at Eric who was massaging his neck and staring at his attacker with unveiled hatred. Priest studied him like a scientist with a bug under the microscope, no doubt detailing all his obvious failings. Finally, he grinned that horror fun-house clown grin and lashed out to grab Eric by the neck again. Before he could react, Priest flicked his knife open with a sharp jerk of his wrist and pressed the tip to the exposed skin between Eric’s clavicles above his tee.
Another quick flick and he was carving an inch-long gash into the skin there.
“Strike one,” Priest intoned in that flat operator’s voice. “The only one you’ll ever get.”
Eric tried to struggle away, but Priest dropped his hold, causing my friend to fall awkwardly onto his side again. Then Priest wiped the bloodied blade on Eric’s head and turned on his heel to leave without a backward look.
“Wow,” I whispered, reeling.
“No fucking kidding. That guy is a fucking psycho,” Eric exclaimed as he stood, fingers pressed to the lightly bleeding wound at his throat.
A giddy little giggle boiled in my throat, bubbling up from a dark, heated place in my gut that Priest never