“You’ve never been more attractive to me than you are right now,” she whispered.
In answer, Fionn flicked her an unreadable look. “Go to sleep, Rose. You’ve had a tough morning.”
Disappointment at his avoidance sank deep in her gut. With a sigh, she replied, “I will when you tell me why we’re going to Orléans.”
The car sped up as Fionn drove them onto the highway that would take them out of Barcelona. “I’m going for a fight.” The words sounded dragged out of him.
“A fight?”
“An underground one.”
Their conversation from yesterday played over in her head. “Places for vamps and werewolves to take that natural aggression they don’t want pouring out around humans. They beat the living daylights out of each other with it instead.”
Rose considered Fionn. “Why do you need to fight?”
That telltale muscle ticked in his jaw. “I need a fight, that’s all.”
“You’re frustrated?” Sexually or otherwise? Rose was hoping it was otherwise because Fionn deciding to take/or give a beating rather than throw her onto a bed somewhere and let their wild sides reign was a little insulting.
“Today the Blackwoods could’ve gotten you. That was my fault. I took too big a risk with you.”
He felt guilty.
Rose relaxed a little. “Fionn, I’m a big girl and I decided to go after the dagger.”
“Because I asked you to.” He shot her a dark look. “Go to sleep, Rose, and give us both some peace.”
She eyed him, in no way put off by his grumpiness. Instead, longing coursed through her as she watched his big hands change gears, pushing the Bugatti to 120 mph. It didn’t even feel like it was doing sixty. Rose sighed, closed her eyes, and settled in to sleep. But before she let slumber come for her, she murmured throatily, “There are better ways to vent your frustration.”
Even though Rose didn’t open her eyes to see his reaction, she felt the air inside the car turn electric as a flood of desire gripped her belly low and deep.
It was foreign.
It was his desire.
Although pleased by the thought, his desire only inspired a natural response from Rose. She shifted in her seat, crossing one leg over the other, and willed her blood to cool. Thankfully, Rose was so goddamn weary from the encounter with the Blackwoods, exhaustion pulled her under.
The arousal never faded, though, pulling her deep into the dark where the only thing that existed was Fionn. Naked. Entwined with her.
There were few streetlights in this district of Orléans. Industrial buildings, sites, and warehouses occupied the street in Saint-Jean-de-la-Ruelle. Broken chain-link fences, old, tired concrete buildings, rusted corrugated iron, and faded red brick surrounded them.
Fionn had, with much regret, left the Bugatti with a contact at a luxury hotel near the Loire River. He had no idea who the man was, but Bran had trusted him to return the hypercar to Jada. Rose had chuckled sleepily as Fionn handed over the fob with obvious reluctance.
It was probably wrong that not buying a Bugatti before his final trek into Faerie now ranked on his list of top twenty regrets.
The woman at the top of that list, holding the number one spot with a painful, talon-like grip on his soul, watched the shadowed figures disappear into a large warehouse across the street, behind a secure chain link fence.
Fionn had assumed a sleeping Rose would be a reprieve from his unexpected and entirely unwanted attraction. Instead, it had proven the opposite. He didn’t pretend to have the nose of a wolf, but fae had heightened senses. Rose’s scent changed as she slept, becoming musky, feminine, and familiar.
Whatever she was dreaming about, she was enjoying it.
Too much.
Now and then, she’d emit little moans or groans that were driving him wild. At one point Fionn drove so fast down the highway hoping to run from his desires that he’d inadvertently taken the tank too low. Rose had slept through his pit stop at the gas station. He’d had to take a minute before getting out of the car or everyone in the fucking vicinity would know Rose had him primed like a prepubescent boy instead of the goddamn immortal warrior he was.
Fuck.
How is she doing this to me? he wondered as he studied her watching the warehouse.
By the time he’d handed over the Bugatti, Fionn was ready to unleash every molecule of pent-up frustration on someone. He just hoped there was a being up to the challenge in that warehouse. The plan had been to leave Rose at the apartment