His hold tightened imperceptibly. “Keep pushing, and you’ll be naked, too. Then we’ll see how brave you are.”
Her eyelids opened and then closed again. “I don’t think so.”
“Think whatever you want, baby, but at some point in the very near future, you’re going to be spread out in front of me, all of that glorious skin revealed, and I’m gonna take my time.”
A shiver trembled through her that had nothing to do with the cold. The very idea of spending a night with Daire Dunne, enjoying his obvious attention to detail, heated her in places she hadn’t used in far too long. Yet his arrogance grated. “Here I thought we were becoming friends.”
His bark of laughter moved his chest. “No. We may be enemies, and we may try to be allies, but I don’t fuck my friends until they whimper my name.”
Whimper? Seriously. Whimper. She tried to catch hold of anger or even indignation, but her energy had been depleted. Her mind fuzzed, but she needed a decent comeback. Something that would put him in his place. Unfortunately, her brain refused to kick into gear. “I don’t fuck.”
“Good thing I do.”
She fell asleep as his amusement wandered around them.
Colors, crazy and bright, filled her dreams, but she slept in contentment, protected after so long. The arms around her were temporary, but the sense of safety seduced her into a deep sleep.
A few hours later, her eyelids jerked open. Wind whistled a pissed-off sound around the building, sliding through cracks in the far wall. The fire had died down to a soft crackle, and rolling thunder moved the earth. Her heart rate picked up, instinct kicking in. What had awakened her?
Daire’s arms tightened, and he set her away. “There’s somebody outside.”
Chapter 7
Daire crouched low on the frozen kitchen floor and concentrated on the vibrations outside. The storm had died down a little bit but still competed with other energy sources. He could detect energy waves better than most witches, and he knew those signatures. Demons. At least two—maybe more. Either way, they waited outside in the swirling snow.
“Stay here and be ready to run out the front. A half mile to the north is an old gas station. I hid the snowmobile behind it,” he said to Cee Cee. “They’re out back.” He hadn’t heard any sort of vehicle, so they’d walked. He pointed to the jacket she’d sat on. “Put that back on.”
Cee Cee stood, her eyes wide, her hair wild around her face. “They’re here for me, not you.”
Yeah. He got that.
“You don’t even have a shirt, Daire.” She visibly steeled her shoulders and tried to move toward the back door.
He planted a hand in the center of her chest, halting her easily. “I don’t need a shirt, and you’re not at full power yet. No way could you be after healing your body like that last night.” Plus, he was a fucking enforcer, and nobody was going to harm her on his watch. “They might not know you’re here, so just stay out of the way until I figure out who’s out there.”
She glanced down at the hand at her chest, and a flush worked over her cheekbones. “I told you I don’t need a protector.”
That was too bad. He leaned down and yanked up the jacket to shove over her shoulders. “Zip it up.”
He waited until she’d complied, pure defiance on her face. She could wear any damn expression she wanted so long as she did what he said. He turned away and opened the door to find two demons to the left? and two to the right against a crumbling building of old apartments. “You all about to square-dance?” he called through the lightly falling snow.
One man stepped forward. Curly blond hair, dark eyes, firm but young jaw. Ivan Bychkov looked like a handsome teenage heartthrob and hadn’t seemed to age in the years Daire had read security updates on the Consortia leader. “Bychkov,” Daire said.