her an apologetic look and rolled out of bed to retrieve it from the back pocket of his jeans. A glance at the display showed him it was Nix. “Excuse me,” he said to Keira and moved a few feet away. With his back to her he connected the call and brought the phone to his ear.
“We need to see you,” the half demon, half vampire said in a no-nonsense voice. But he heard the underlying tension in her tones. “Now.”
That tone of voice was one he couldn’t argue with, but he did anyway. “Can’t it wait?”
“It can’t. Get here as soon as you can.”
“I’ll be right there.” He ended the call and turned to face Keira, meeting her questioning gaze. She’d moved to the edge of the bed, as unconcerned with her nudity as he was with his. “I have to go. It’s something to do with Lucifer.” He quickly dressed then came to stand in front of her and rested his hands on her slender shoulders. Then he bent and pressed his mouth to hers, once. Twice. Three times before he tore himself away. “God above, you’re addicting.” He lightly rubbed his thumb over her lips. “I’ll see you later.”
As he made his way to his motorcycle, he cursed the interruption even while he felt grateful for it. He was never one who’d been comfortable talking about his feelings, and it was even worse now that things were so mixed up.
The next week and a half could not go by fast enough, though he knew the danger would escalate. And when this was all over, and he’d been shown to be a fraud where the rogues were concerned, what would that mean for him and Keira?
Chapter Eleven
Keira stood at the door, in jeans and a T-shirt, the tile floor cold against the soles of her bare feet, and watched Finn swing one long leg over his bike. She’d wanted to tell him she’d joined the rogue group at Caladh’s request, that she was one of the good guys. By all the gods how she had wanted to confess. She wished she could explain that she was there to stop them, not help them, that in order to put an end to Stefan’s idiocy she had to assist them in the short term. She wanted more than what they had, but she couldn’t risk the mission, or her heart. She believed him when he said he cared for her. She could see that in the way he looked at her, the tenderness he displayed while they were together. But Finn only thought of himself and would never be able to give her what she needed emotionally. She had to be prepared to be the one to walk away when the relationship stalled, which she was almost certain it would do.
Even as she believed that deep down, where it counted, Finn was good in spite of the violence that surrounded him, she also believed he didn’t want to change. And until he figured that out about himself, she couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t betray her if she told him the truth. So she’d kept quiet.
And it wasn’t as if she was the only one with secrets. She watched him rev up his bike, the sound echoing throughout the neighborhood. When he waved at her, she summoned a smile and lifted her hand in farewell. Of everyone she knew Finn was the best at skullduggery. As he pulled away from the curb, the thought of following him to see what he was up to flitted across her mind. Before she could talk herself out of it, she turned back inside, locking the front door behind her, and grabbed her purse as she headed to the garage. Because she was barefoot she had to move the driver’s seat forward before she could back out. Within a few seconds, she was heading down the road after him.
She did her best to keep a few cars between them so he wouldn’t know he was being followed. She’d never really done this before, but she watched a lot of television. When he turned into a subdivision, she pulled over to the curb and waited a few seconds, her heart pounding like bongo drums in her throat, before she made the same turn.
It took a few minutes of driving around the neighborhood before she saw his motorcycle parked in front of a territorial-style house. The outside was adobe with an arched entryway leading to a large