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What Adults Do

ITOSSED MY BAG ONTOyet another hotel bed. With a low huff, I sifted fingers through my tangled red hair to relieve some tension built up over several days in a car alone with the most tempting man I knew. Unsheathing several daggers placed strategically around my thighs and torso, I undressed as much as I could after another long day of driving. I stored them in a drawer and hid several under my pillow.

Nowhere was safe. A good vampire hunter always had something ready to use.

I rolled the tension from my shoulders and rubbed the ache from the back of my neck. Then I slipped off my jacket and threw it onto a chair nearby. The door to the room shut with a click, the lights dimming, and Phillip’s soft steps over carpet hit my ears as he came closer. I took in a sharp breath, never totally prepared to be near him.

Since leaving, Phillip focused on getting us where we needed to go. He didn’t have instructions for another mission because he’d requested a month for relocation and training. So right now, he wanted to find a temporary place to stay and hideout. His intention was to teach me how to see through and break down Eros’s magic, and I was eager to learn whatever I could.

In a few days, we’d board a flight for Austria from a city along the East Coast. We weren’t far, about ten or twelve hours from the city if we drove the entire day tomorrow. Phillip kept an estate in Austria, one he was confident Eros wouldn’t find. Not sure what made him so confident, but I’d learned not to ask too many questions when it didn’t pertain to my own learning. The vengeance in the other Hunter’s eyes whenever Eros was brought up warded off prying.

We’d already driven for several days to throw off our scent—or so he said. Eros would have trouble tracking us, and because Phillip didn’t report our location along the way, no one at the Organization would have access to the information.

And that was all he said about it.

Our conversations went stale two days ago. They completely lacked their usual luster. Phillip seemed guarded and quiet, and I didn’t know how to break the Austrian out of it. Any bit of sarcasm I aimed his direction he quietly took with a grin and nod.

It pissed me off. It was a quiet rejection. It felt like the other Hunter was keeping me at an arm’s length, never wandering into the suggestive back-and-forth we often fell into, or touching me in any way I could misinterpret.

He’d barely looked at me most days.

And after nothing but time alone with the sexy bad boy, I was riddled with sexual desires to have his naked body over me, his mouth tasting every expanse of my body, and our sweaty skin fusing in forbidden sin.

Memories of his heat and flexed muscles, of his deep groans and suffering grunts, of his face twisted in pleasure, plagued me every minute I was alone with him. I didn’t have an outlet for the fantasies wreaking havoc on a weak mind. I quietly simmered in sexual frustration the entire drive from the West to East Coast.

Hormones, dude. They were the worst.

Honestly, I wanted nothing more than to grab the other Hunter by his collar and throw him onto the bed to demand he finish what he started. Demand he take me the same way he had our first night together. Convince him I was ready for the consequences.

But I didn’t have the balls.

I was scared of being completely rejected, so I kept my wayward desires locked away.

The hair on the back of my neck was brushed aside as I unlaced my boots and worked quietly to remove them. The Austrian’s fingers lingered over my skin, a phantom sensation I felt right in my gut, and traced each notch of my spine down to my shoulders before his hand fled. Caught off guard, I barely smothered a moan.

“Happy birthday, V,” Phillip said, standing directly behind me.

My pulse quickened, thundering in my head, when the deep vibration of his voice reignited the just below the surface lust. I was so weak to him. “Yeah. In two hours.”

“Probably the first time I’m early for anything,” Phillip joked, coming closer.

I moistened my lips and glanced over my shoulder, noticing first the sensual look in his eyes, and then the way his cerulean gaze seemed to slow-sweep down my backside with the intention to take in every inch. It was all animal, and it made my face instantly hot and my fingers itch to touch him.

I could do it, just turn around and kiss him.

Glancing away, I finished taking off my shoes and discarded them. Slowly, I took a seat with my hands tightly clutching the edge of the mattress. I crossed my legs in a lax manner. “Lucky me.”

Phillip peered down from his nearly six and a half feet of height, bulging arms crossed over his chest.

In a tank top and black pair of pants with his dark hair slicked back and every piercing in place, everything delicious about him was on full display. The maze of beautiful tattoos, the thick, defined muscle of his body, and his striking gem-like gaze that seemed to penetrate straight to my very soul were a temptation most wouldn’t be able to deny.

And if asked, I wouldn’t deny him.

“We won’t travel today. We’re going to at least celebrate your birthday, so what do you want to do?”

So many things, but none of them appropriate, sir.

“Isn’t that a bad idea with Eros still out there?” I decided to ask, even though my thoughts were far from innocent.