“But I didn’t know how much I’d like you,” he said, and with a sharp tug, he pulled me beneath him and pinned my arms to the mattress with his hands on either side of my head, his weight on my midsection.
I sighed. Liam had that charisma thing going—sexy, alluring, and charming all rolled into one hot package. We didn’t need condoms, as vampires didn’t carry diseases or impregnate, something I didn’t need happening ever again.
And he was against the rules. I was good at breaking the rules. Problem was I always hated myself after I left his place, hated that I did this to ease another kind of pain.
“Jedrik will be wondering why I never checked in,” I said.
“Since when do you check in with anyone? And Jedrik’s a pansy.”
“Sharpshooter with an arrow and has a hate-on for vampires."
“He also went out of the city tonight,” Liam said with a smile.
Shit, he knew everything that went on in this city, and I had yet to figure out how. His contacts stretched further than the Scars. “Got me,” I said.
“Not yet, sweetness. But one day I will.”
Yeah, right. He can have me the day Waleron quits being a Taldeburu—which means never.
Time to get him off and me out the door. “God, you’re relentless,” I muttered.
“Am I?” he drawled, lips inches from mine.
I freed my arm and reached between us and found the hard, heated length, curling my fingers around the thickness. “Are we going to do this or what?”
He chuckled. “Anything for you, sweetness.” Then his mouth slammed down on mine.
The baldheaded dickhead wouldn’t kill her. From what I’d seen on the rooftop three weeks ago, this chick was too important to her husband. The question was why. She was obviously abused, and I’d seen the bastard hit her.
That fuckin’ shit didn’t go down well with me. Not one fuckin’ bit. Didn’t care who the woman was or what she’d done, no man took a fist to a woman.
The most I’d done was smack Balen’s girl, Danni, when she’d been in a full-blown panic and I couldn’t get through to her. It was to shock her. It worked. She snapped out of it.
Of course, if the chick was a CWO bitch Lilac or a vampire, my morals shifted.
Shit, the witch Trinity deserved a knife in the heart, but I’d never hit her. Pathetic assholes hit women.
And now, seeing dickhead with a gun to her head, it seriously pissed me off. Given, I was easily pissed off, but this was more than that.
What I was about to do was irrational and would put both of our lives at risk, but I rarely thought about consequences. I acted on gut instinct and lived with the outcome.
Her russet eyes widened at something over my left shoulder.
Fuck.
I leapt forward at the same time as a gunshot exploded behind me. A searing pain hit the back of my shoulder as I slammed into the girl and her captor. We crashed to the floor, and the gun he’d held to her head slid across the linoleum.
I moved to my knees and, at the same time, hooked my arm around her waist, yanking her away from dickhead, then shoved her aside before I turned and fired my gun at whoever had put the fuckin’ lead in my shoulder.
“Put it down,” a woman shouted from the end of the corridor.
I snorted and slowly smiled. Bitch had no idea who she was dealing with. I wasn’t going to hit her, but I was definitely going to kill her. “Fuck you.”
I shot a round in her direction, but the woman dove into an alcove. I leapt to my feet at the same time as dickhead scrambled to his knees and went for his gun.
I fired.
He rolled and the bullet ricocheted off the floor.
The air shifted and a familiar scent wafted into me from the direction of the woman who shot me—Fuck. That was the smell of lilac and that meant a CWO Lilac.
Lilacs were dangerous and rare. They had webs that shot from their fingertips that could trap you in a cocoon. And not sticky, soft webs, these had to be cut off with a fuckin’ knife.
There weren’t many of them around, and I hadn’t seen one in years. Made me wonder why the hell one was here, because they certainly weren’t fans of humans.
Lilacs lured men to their beds then trapped them in their cocoon, sometimes for weeks or months, the webs soaking up nourishment and feeding the Lilac for her to stay alive. And since Lilacs were beautiful, they easily wooed unsuspecting men.
I sure as hell didn’t want to mess with one when I had the girl, Rayne, to keep safe. “Babe, we need out. Now.” I grabbed the back of Rayne’s sweatshirt and hauled her to her feet while running for the door leading outside. I snatched the knife Rayne had dropped off the floor as we ran.
“A blast about now would come in handy,” I said using telepathy to speak with Quill.
“Location?” he asked.
“West doors. We’re fifty feet away, so don’t blow us up for fuck’s sake.”
“Right. On it,” he replied.
Within seconds, a loud blast vibrated the ground, throwing dickhead off balance and giving me the opportunity I needed. I aimed and fired as I ran, hitting the baldheaded bastard in the chest.