“We gotta get you away from here. You’re too valuable to lose.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Not against the likes of this, cop.”
“It’s just a slayer—”
Butch felt his arm get taken in a rough grip, and his body weight get dragged up off of the pavement. Then there was no further conversation. V hustled them away, and the mhis followed him, followed them. The pace that was set was fast, and Butch shuffled along as best he could, his testicular-magedon slowing him down.
“This is waste of fucking time,” he muttered into the wind. “We could just be fighting the damn thing.”
“Don’t be afraid of me.”
As Syn spoke the words, he saw through the syllables to the lie underneath. This female with the red hair and the green eyes should have been terrified to be alone with him, in a place where no one would hear her scream. But she didn’t know about him and what he had done in the past.
This was a good thing.
“You can put the gun away,” he said.
Her eyes were leery as she regarded him with a self-possession he respected. “I don’t need to be saved.”
“Yes, you do.”
“So exactly how do you intend to rescue me.”
“Listen to what your body is telling you.”
“Well, right now, it says I’m hungry. You going to order me a pizza?”
“It’s not interested in food.”
“Oh, really?” Keeping her weapon in her grip, she yanked her purse into her lap, and with her free hand, she rummaged around in it. “I beg to differ. And how about you don’t try to tell a women what her body is doing. Let’s start with that.”
Extracting some kind of a long, thin packaging, she ripped open the wrapper with her teeth, and took a bite of smoked beef. She chewed with determination, glaring up at him, challenging him to argue with her about what they both knew damn well was going on with her.
“So what now?” she demanded. “You going to put the mental whammy on me like you did the cops? Or does that only work with members of law enforcement?”
Syn shook his head. “I don’t want to do that to you.”
“So you admit you . . .” She motioned the stick back and forth between them. “. . . somehow hypnotized them.”
“I solved a problem for us.”
“But how? I don’t know a lot about the way it works, but you didn’t use a pocket watch, and you didn’t ask any of them to count back from a hundred.”
Even though Syn tried not to, he found himself watching her mouth as she enunciated her words. Her lips captivated him in ways that had nothing to do with her upcoming transition, and most certainly called into question his Good Samaritan impulses. Indeed, as his body stood before her and his eyes roamed around her face, things that he shouldn’t wonder about began to shift his consciousness away from her change.
For example, it was right about now that he noticed her thighs were spread for balance as she sat on that countertop.
He wanted to see what was under her windbreaker.
Under her fleece.
Under . . . her jeans.
As he blinked, a series of images flickered with impossible speed on the backs of his lids. He saw himself moving in closer, his hips splitting her knees even further apart, his chest pushing her back so she was lying against the wall behind her, his hands locking on the hard ridges of her pelvis, one on each side—
Syn took a step back, as if the added distance would help the sex surging in his blood. It did not. He promptly returned to staring at her lips. And meanwhile, she was on a roll with the wordsmithing, talking at him, telling him God only knew what.
It was fine. As long as she was speaking, she wasn’t running from him.
This was good. This was better.
Because if she ran, he was liable to go after her, and that was a race he would win. And when he caught her, he would mount her—
Under his skin, a wave of instinct crested, the power thickening his muscles and his blood. As both of his hands curled into greedy fists, he was aware of his breath getting tight.
“I have to go,” he said roughly.
That shut her up, her mouth stopping its sensuous contortions. “Running from little ol’ me? That’s a surprise. Or is it my gun you’re afraid of?”
Neither of them moved. Until she took another bite of