Page 18 of Hero & Villain (Super Serum Billionaires #1)

Chapter Ten

VILLAIN

D irk dropped me off at Jessie’s barracks while it was still raining.

I jumped out of the truck and ran for the door, refusing to look back at the man I’d come so far to ruin.

I was still recovering from bruises only to scrape off half the skin on my leg on the cliff face.

The only thing I’d hurt was his shoulder, and only that because he had a hero complex whether he admitted it or not.

I limped into the front hall, my wet sneakers squeaking on the tile floor.

I leaned against the front door and closed my eyes, putting my weight on my uninjured leg.

I’d spent all day with him. I should have had him eating out of the palm of my hand, but I was much closer to falling for him than he was for me.

Like the soft brush of a kiss he gave me.

Was I ever going to forget that? No. Would he forget me being idiotic? Also probably no.

I groaned as I struggled with my wet shoes.

He didn’t like dyed hair. He liked tough women who could climb a cliff without getting paralyzed by fear.

I should have played hard to get, not kissed him and then pushed him away repeatedly while insulting him.

I was not cute when I insulted people. Except Philippe had laughed at me the one time I’d used my new vocabulary on him after Juvie.

He’d looked at me like I was an adorable puppy, although he was the kind of person who kicked puppies.

I finally got my shoes off and left them in the entry before limping to the kitchen, leaving a wet trail behind me.

Dirk hadn’t tried to stop anywhere for dinner or brought out the cooler again.

I wanted to hit my head against something.

Toni would have eaten a sandwich that fell in the dirt.

I’d really acted like a prissy princess for some unknowable reason.

Like I couldn’t remember how not to be an ice queen.

Whatever.

I ate some Italian leftovers in the fridge and then washed up before going down the hall to the music room.

The room was dark, but instead of turning on a light, I made my way blindly through the instruments to Othello.

I didn’t want to see anything, particularly any partial reflections of myself in any of the polished instruments.

I exhaled in relief as I sat down on the grand piano’s bench and propped the cello between my legs.

It was old, ancient, and it sang a song that reminded me of Straw.

I played a few pieces of Bach before my fingers moved on to the song from the climb down the cliff.

I’d never played anything from my own head.

I’d never heard music unless I saw it in front of me before, at least not as long as I could remember.

It seemed that when my mother was alive, we’d sung together, but it was hard to remember anything before she died.

I shoved thoughts of her out of my head and lost myself in the cello, exploring sounds and phrases until pale dawn crept over the floor, reminding me of my aching back and sore knee. Knee? All of me ached. I stretched and stood, carefully carrying the cello back to its stand.

I brushed the neck reverently and then turned.

Jezebel was sitting cross-legged on the floor with diagrams spread around her.

I hadn’t even noticed her. Weird. Scary.

But did I really care? She had me unconscious for three days.

If she was going to do something to me, she’d probably already done it.

“You said you weren’t good,” she said without looking up.

“If you think I’m good, you have no ear.”

She glanced up and grinned. “I have no ear. I collect instruments, but not because I play them.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down. “What did that cretin do to you? You looked bad enough when I left you with him. Did you fall off a horse?”

“A cliff.” I glanced down at my knee and scowled. “I’m sorry about your jeans.”

“Those were good denim, too. If you’d been wearing leggings…

” She sighed and leaned back on her arms while she studied me.

“I’m going to leave you home by yourself today.

You can’t limp around like that, and you’ll need to sleep after making love to my cello all night.

Try not to blow anything up while I’m gone. ”

“What are you working on? Are you going to take over the world?”

She shuffled her papers together, but I saw a map and what looked like targets.

It probably had something to do with the routes they were going to take in the next race.

“It’s for our girl’s night this coming weekend.

You should be recovered if Dirk doesn’t throw you off any more cliffs. ” She flashed a grin and stood.

I yawned and limped towards my room. “I’d tell you I don’t need to recuperate, but the thought of seeing him again so soon makes me feel positively queasy.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What did he do to you?”

“He’s just disgusting.”

“He made a pass at you? Is that why you fell, because he was coming on to you and you backed up?”

I rubbed my face. Did I actually have to tell her about it?

Maybe she could help me make sense of it.

“I was a dominatrix two weeks ago. I can handle men making passes at me. He’s just weird and random.

No, I fell from my own genius. He kept me from hurting myself worse.

If I ask you to change my bandage, will you knock me out for half a week again?

” I stared at her, and she stared back. I hadn’t meant to be quite so honest, but I was exhausted, and half-high from playing an exquisite cello all night after a week of abstinence.

She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t make any promises, but it isn’t likely. These are expensive drugs. I don’t use them just on anyone. Come on.”

She patched me up in an enormous bathroom next to a closet full of sequined bras and minuscule denim shorts. She ripped the bandage off briskly. She poked the injury, which looked absolutely terrible in this light. “Dirk bandaged this up? His talents lie elsewhere.”

I bit my bottom lip and tried to think of something else. “What are you going to do for Girl’s Night Out? Why would you need maps of New Mexico?”

“You have sharp eyes. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Do you want to come?”

“Oh, I didn’t ask because I wanted to be invited.”

Her eyes went hard. “It’s the weekend before a big race. Everyone will take it off to do whatever keeps them from stressing out and performing badly. Some people get massages. We’re interested in a little more active sport.”

“Who knew massage was a sport? Will the dragon be there?” I’d only had a vague memory of fierce eyes and wild dark curls as she’d driven towards me down the alley.

“Of course.”

“What will you do?”

“There are a lot of shooting ranges in the desert. Some are quite famous. We aren’t going there.”

“So, shooting guns?”

She wiggled her eyebrows. “There will definitely be shooting along with off-roading over treacherous terrain. You’re Nitro’s cousin, so you shouldn’t be uncomfortable handling a weapon or a Mac truck.”

“Mac truck?”

She smiled innocently. “Someone has to drive the Mac truck.”

“I don’t know if you’re messing with me or in earnest. Either way, I’d rather play Othello. After I sleep for a few days. Unassisted.” I headed to my room and passed out with those elusive notes from the stormy night waiting around the edges of my consciousness.

I woke up to find someone in my room. It was dark, and there wasn’t anything in this room I could use as a weapon.

Picture frames and blankets were notoriously nonlethal.

The door creaked closed, and the brush of a foot on tile was the only proof that someone had been there, but I’d felt another presence.

I knew the feeling of someone in the dark watching me sleep.

I rolled out of bed, landing soundlessly.

I moved as quickly and quietly as I could, but they’d hear the door open and then they’d run, unless it was the crazy cowgirl, in which case she’d probably tell me she knocked me out to stop me from screaming.

My tangled hair and sore throat were proof that I’d been having loud nightmares.

I should probably talk to her in the morning about not liking anyone in my room while I slept, but she was awake now, and so was I.

I threw the door open and ran towards the shadow at the end of the dark hall.

It was hard to tell, but it seemed bigger than Jezebel.

The shadow leapt for a wall, kicked off it and launched up towards the open skylight.

It wasn’t Jezebel, and there was no way I’d let an intruder escape.

I leapt after him and grabbed his ankle, tugging him hard enough that he missed the edge of the skylight and came down, on top of me.

The breath left me while the heavy body draped over me, night vision goggles over his face.

The light came on, and then Jezebel was there, pointing a revolver at the extremely heavy man. “Don’t move.”

I still couldn’t breathe. His elbow was in my solar plexus. I yanked off his goggles, pulling out some of his dark hair. His eyes weren’t soft, but they were amused, and the grin on Dirk Dagger’s face was the most arrogant, mischievous, disgusting thing I’d ever seen in my life.

I rolled him so I could straddle him and punch the grin off his face, but that would hurt my hands. I stayed like that, glaring down at him with my arm cocked until Jezebel lowered the gun with a sigh.

“Do I want to know why you’re in my house, Dagger?”

“I thought Pinkie was killing you. I’ve never heard so much screaming.”

He’d heard me scream? He must have come in here and seen me in all my incredibly unattractive vulnerability.

I punched his nose, breaking it with a satisfying crunch that I regretted immediately. It felt like I’d popped a blood vessel. My hands were not weapons. I snarled at him as he gazed back at me, eyes brighter than before while dark red blood gushed from his nose.