Page 5

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D amon didn’t know what the hell had happened or why the fuck he’d chosen to kiss her.

He glanced down to where Tiffany remained, slumped against the wall where he’d left her, his heart jumping inside his chest. The curls of her hair was slightly ruffled from where his hand had cradled her head, and her bottom lip was flushed a brighter shade of pink from where he’d sucked on it—hard.

Hard enough he’d let himself forget she was Mark’s little sister.

Hard enough he’d wanted that kiss to only be the start.

Shit, he had never intended the night to go this way. When he’d heard the approaching footsteps and covering her mouth wouldn’t quiet her, well...he’d done the first thing that had come to mind, and damn if that hadn’t been a huge mistake.

If he’d wanted her before, now he wanted her tenfold.

What the hell was wrong with him? This was Tiffany.

He had feelings for this woman.

She wasn’t some fucking play toy.

He fought the temptation to curse under his breath. He needed to knock some sense into himself. He couldn’t afford to lose his cool. Long before he’d ever sworn himself to the Execution Underground, if there was one thing his father had taught him about being a hunter it was to never let his emotions get in the way of the job. He’d already made that mistake once before tonight. He wasn’t about to let it happen again. Not by a long shot.

He hadn’t even been with Tiffany more than a handful of minutes and already she was unraveling him, getting under his skin, but he sure as hell wouldn’t let whatever this game between them was get in the way of his job. He couldn’t.

No. He needed to get her out of here, to safety.

Then and only then could he truly deal with his situation with Caius, with Mark.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers in slow circles over his temples. There were six missing women out there, all probably dead, and who knew how many murdered and drained of their blood on the streets. It was his job to protect any future targets from harm.

He couldn’t neglect his duty, his sworn oath, for any woman, even Tiffany.

Still uncertain what he was doing, he picked up his Desert Eagle and holstered the piece behind his back, before Tiffany grabbed her Smith & Wesson from the floor and reloaded the magazine. He glanced at her, his heart jumping into his throat.

Could she see how much she meant to him? Know the truth from a single look?

He had to get out of here, but he sure as hell couldn’t leave her behind.

“Well, that was fun and all, but—”

She moved to step past him, but he caught her wrist in his hand before he could think better of it. Her touch sent a shock through him, lightening him up like an electric jolt. “You shouldn’t be dealing with vamps, Shortcake. Shouldn’t place yourself in danger like this.”

Her jaw dropped. If she’d expected him to say something, clearly that hadn’t been it.

Pulling her wrist away from him, she crossed her arms over her chest, fixing him with a hard stare. “And since when do I answer to you, huh? Last time I checked, I didn’t wake up each morning with the goal of pleasing random strangers. So do me a favor and shove off.”

Damon snarled, fighting the urge to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out of here once and for all. He didn’t care if she kicked and screamed the whole way. He had to get her out of here, away from Caius. That part was non-negotiable.

Mark wouldn’t have had it any other way.

He exhaled a long breath, attempting to reason with her. “This city isn’t safe. Six women are missing, and more have been murdered. I won’t have another death on my conscience because I let you waltz back in there to play with murderers.” He gestured to the main floor.

“Who said I was only going to play?” She shot him an annoyed look, holstering her gun at her back as headed toward the door. “I’m a vampire hunter, not some princess who needs to be rescued.” She paused, glancing back toward him. “Sorry to disappoint.”

She cast him one more furious look, before she strode off toward the dance floor.

Damon swore.

Reckless, infuriating woman.

She was just as stubborn as her older brother.

Mark had always refused help when he’d needed it most.

Muttering a string of profanities, Damon followed her, trailing her out onto the main floor. His eyes locked onto her figure in an instant as she nudged her way through the sweat-covered bodies on the dance floor. The pulsing red lights cast shadows on her hair, tinting the gorgeous brown shades of red and purple. Even from behind she was breathtaking. The sight of her like nectar, sweet and addicting.

So sweet he never wanted to look away.

He pushed through the crowd until he reached her.

Before she knew he was there, he grabbed her around the waist, pulling her against his body. Using his leather jacket as a cover, he placed the Desert Eagle against her spine, before he leaned down and growled into her ear, “Walk toward the back door quietly, Shortcake, or I won’t hesitate to make you moan more.” His lips brushed against her ear.

“And blow my cover?” She stiffened against him, but he didn’t miss the rapid flutter of her pulse at her throat, or the way she stilled for him. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me,” he purred, pulling her close.

Close enough the round curve of her ass pushed against him. Close enough she could feel what she did to him. He felt himself grow heavy and hard.

“Is that what you call protection?” she teased.

“If playing dirty is what it takes to get you to listen. Now walk.” Damon nudged her with his gun, and she walked forward. As they moved together through the club, he battled the urge to suck on the delicate skin of her earlobe, to kiss his way down the length of her neck and collarbone. The smell of her skin, her hair was intoxicating.

“I’ve never had a man threaten me as foreplay before,” she said, as they reached the club’s rear entrance.

“Don’t get used to it, Shortcake” he grumbled. “Though I’m honored to be your first,” he teased.

She sucked in a sharp breath, cluing him in that maybe those words meant something more to her, but he didn’t have time to fully consider it before he said, “I’d rather take you to the E.R for a bullet wound than scrape your insides off the pavement because some demented vampire attacked you. At least with the gun you’d have a chance of survival.”

She scoffed. “Aren’t you a gentleman.”

“Believe me when I tell you no one has ever called me that before.” He forced her to march ahead of him until they reached the back of the club. He pushed open the door and corralled her into the dimly lit street alley. A burst of cold air hit his face, giving him the wake-up call he needed. The door to Club Fantasy closed behind them and Tiffany let out a long sigh.

“Are you going to take the gun off me now?”

“Are you going to stop being reckless now?” Damon patted down the sides of her jacket and he confiscated her Smith & Wesson. His hand slid over the stake inside her coat pocket.

“Who are you calling me reckless?” The pitch of her voice dropped as tucked her gun inside coat pocket. “I thought you wanted to protect me.”

“You keep the stake for protection, but I can’t have you wielding a gun at me.”

She huffed, giving him a once over. “I thought you liked it rough.”

He lowered his gaze, fighting away the grin that rose to his lips. “Not that rough.” He patted down her jacket again. “Any other weapons I should know about, or can I trust you, Shortcake?”

“You tell me.” Her jaw clenched. “I haven’t shot you yet.” From the way her mouth pursed into a perfect angry pucker every time she looked at him, she was seriously ticked off. Obviously, she didn’t like being stripped of her weapons one bit.

But she hadn’t run away from again. Yet.

Her gaze fell to his lips once more.

Damon grinned. Good girl.

He lowered his gun.

“Look, Damon,” she said, testing his name carefully, like she didn’t trust it. “The kiss was great and all, but I—”

Before she realized what he was doing, he slung her over his shoulder. Tiffany let out a startled shriek, kicking her feet and slamming her fists into his back, but he barely noticed. With quick agility, he hoisted her over his shoulder, jogging down the alley as if she weighed no more than a feather. A feather from a very pissed-off, profanity-ridden eagle, but a feather all the same. His black 77 Monte Carlo—once his father’s now his—sat parked not far from the mouth of the alley. Let her hate him for all he cared. He just needed to get her out of here.

With the way Caius had been fixated on her, it wouldn’t be long before he questioned where she was, and he wasn’t going to be so happy about his dead bodyguard, either.

When they reached the Monte Carlo, Damon wrenched open the door and dropped a still kicking and screaming Tiffany into the passenger seat, before he slammed the door shut behind her, the sounds of her yelling instantly muffled. She shoved herself against the door frame and beat against the window until he slid into the driver’s seat. Thank God for automatic locks and bulletproof glass. He’d tried to keep the car as close to its original condition as possible, but it’d been a necessary upgrade from Headquarters, and at the moment, he was grateful for it.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she shouted as he slid into the car next to her.

Within seconds he was turning the key in the ignition and easing on the pedal.

“What is wrong with you?” Tiffany yelled as the car rumbled to life and they started to pull away. “Stripping me of my weapon and then throwing me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes? What are you? A caveman?”

Damon ignored her, pulling the car away from the curb until they were barreling down the street. The entrance to Club Fantasy soon becoming nothing but a speck in his rearview mirror.

“Uh, hello!” She banged her fist on the dashboard. “This is the twenty-first century. This is called abduction, and in case you didn’t know, it’s illegal in every state!”

He tried to tune her out, but it was no use. Damn him, he’d just sucked face with Mark’s little sister, and now he’d had to throw her over his shoulder and haul her away like some kind of monster. Though if he admitted it to himself, how many times had he wanted to do exactly that as he’d read her letters? He fought hard to stifle the grin that curled his lips.

Yeah, he’d wondered, all right.

“What are you some kind of sick freak?” As she caught his expression, Tiffany’s jaw dropped. “You think this is funny, don’t you?”

He cast her an annoyed look. “I can promise you this, Shortcake. I think this situation is anything, but funny.” Infuriating. Frustrating. And fucked up were more like it.

Eyes narrowing, she looked between him and the Monte Carlo’s wheel.

Damon growled, so low and throaty he surprised even himself. “Don’t.”

The tone of that one word stopped her short.

“Like it or not, I’m trying to keep you safe. So, sit back and put your seat belt on.”

She scowled. “I wouldn’t listen to you even if—”

“Tell me something, Shortcake,” he said, instantly cutting her off. “Would you have come with me if I asked you nicely?”

She wrinkled her nose, like the thought disgusted her. “Not if your life depended on it.”

“Exactly,” he said, making his point.

She fell silent for a long beat, staring at him as if the fury in her eyes could burn him up like a vamp in the sun. Finally, she said, “I don’t know you.”

“You’re right. You don’t,” he said, echoing his words from earlier.

Silence stretched between them for a long beat, before finally she settled into her seat, defeated, at least temporarily. Damon glanced toward her. Normally, he wasn’t a man of many words, he craved the quiet implicitly, but something about her silence made him uneasy. Like he’d been cut off from the one lifeline she’d given him.

“You said your last name is Solow, right?”

The question was out before he could stop himself.

The words stirred her instantly, having the exact affect he’d intended.

“What’s it to you?” she whispered, her expression filled with weary curiosity.

Damon didn’t deign to answer, instead allowing the silence to speak for him. Watching him from the corner of her eye, she relaxed into her seat and clipped the seat belt into place.

With her finally strapped in, Damon clamped his mouth shut and sped toward the Golisano Hospital at full speed, the city lights and few people roaming the streets blurring as they sped by. There was no way of knowing his next best move on his case without seeing the victim, and with Tiffany at his side, going after Caius or God forbid, Mark, was not an option.

Maybe with any luck seeing the victim would be enough to scare some sense into Tiffany, enough that he could drop her off safely at home and trust that she wouldn’t go running back into the line of fire the first chance she got each day. Crime scene photos never did the actual carnage justice, and he needed to see the details firsthand. Maybe…so did she.

After several minutes of silence, Tiffany finally broke. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “Why do you care about me?” She fixed him with a hard stare. “I don’t know you.”

Damon bit his tongue and concentrated on keeping his expression flat, distant. He couldn’t let her know who he was. If he did, she would hate him and never trust him to keep her safe. But he couldn’t avoid her questions for long. He had to give her just enough to trust him. Just enough to keep her safe.

“It’s my job,” he said.

She shook her head, clearly not buying that for a single minute. “What about the other humans in there? What about them?”

He gritted his teeth. Boy, she had to hit him right where it hurt, didn’t she?

“I can’t save everyone.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “So, you save the one person in the entire building who needs the least amount of saving?”

He didn’t respond.

She huffed. “That makes total sense.” She rolled her eyes.

He shot her an icy stare. “That sort of attitude is exactly why you need saving, Shortcake. You’re not invincible, and with those shoddy moves, you were going to get yourself killed in there.”

“Stop calling me that.” Without warning, she yanked up the sleeve of his leather coat. “And you’re not invincible either. See, I jabbed you right...”

Her voice trailed off as she ran her fingers over his skin.

Electricity shot through his limbs, making him nearly pull the car over. One small caress and she could bring him to his knees.

He clenched his teeth.

She stared at his forearm, those amber eyes wide with shock and curiosity. The wounds had already begun to heal, the only remaining signs several pink crescent-shaped scars, which at this rate would soon disappear.

Her gaze shot to his, searching for answers.

Ones he wasn’t ready to give.

Even though he wanted to. Ever since she’d first walked through that alcove door.

“What are you?” she whispered.

Damon sighed, and for the first time in a long time, he felt himself hesitate.

Tiffany stared at Damon’s arm, her eyes wide as adrenaline coursed through her. Her fingernails had dug deep into his skin not even half an hour earlier, and already the healed wounds were nothing but faint pink lines and some residual dried blood. She ran her fingers over the skin once more, ignoring the desire that pulsed through her every time her skin connected with his. Her nipples hardened into taut peaks as she brushed the muscles along his forearm.

If she was honest with herself, she wanted to touch him all over. Run her hands up his thick biceps and onto his chest, down to places where she’d never touched a man before. The thought of their kiss lingered in her mind. She didn’t care that he’d only done it out of necessity. Her lips burned with the need to touch his again. Yet she didn’t even know him.

What twenty kinds of messed up was that?

She drew in a sharp breath. She needed to calm herself. She barely knew this man. There was no way she could want him, need him, so desperately. It was pure lust making her uncertain.

“What are you?” she repeated.

He didn’t look at her, just continued to watch the road as he drove. “A vampire slayer, a hunter.”

“My brother, Mark, was a vampire slayer before he died.” She held back her expression, watching the look in his eyes. “He’s the one who taught me how to fight.”

Damon stiffened like a rigid board, his hands squeezing the steering wheel tighter, the ice behind his eyes blazing a captivating blue.

“You knew him, didn’t you?” she asked, the question falling from her lips.

He cleared his throat. “Listen, Shortcake—”

“Tiffany,” she corrected, her voice barely a whisper. “My name’s Tiffany, but…that’s not the first time you’ve heard my name before, is it? You knew him, didn’t you?”

“Tiffany,” Damon warned, his dark gaze flicking toward her.

The flash of grief in his eyes was enough to cut straight through her.

Of course. She’d expected as much. No wonder she’d trusted him from the start. In fact, she should have anticipated that Mark would have sent someone to look after her sooner, someone to look out for her if something happened to him. He was always thinking about her safety like that. Never his own, of course.

She cleared her throat. “Look, I get that most hunters have this overwhelming sense of duty to protect the innocent. My brother was the same way, always spouting at me about what to do if a vampire ever attacked me and feeding me horror stories so I wouldn’t stay out too late at night. But I don’t need protecting. I may be a woman, but you seem to forget that I hunt vampires, too.”

Damon stared straight ahead at the road, his face unmoving and cold. “Not on my watch, you don’t.”

“And who gave you that authority?” she asked, challenging him.

He didn’t respond.

But she wanted to hear him say it. Wanted to feel that connection to her brother once more, more than anything. Anything that would help her feel like Mark wasn’t just…gone.

As if he and everything he’d worked for had died with him.

“You’re a member of the Execution Underground,” she said, watching Damon’s expression tentatively. “Just like my brother.”

And B...

The unwanted thought passed through her quickly.

Damon’s hands tightened on the wheel.

She grinned. She didn’t need his confirmation to know she was right.

“You’re a member of the Execution Underground, and you knew him,” she repeated, smiling. “Mark, I mean.”

It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be.

She’d suspected as much. She never would have let him whisk her out of the club like that otherwise. Sure, she’d been eager to get back to Caius, but this hunter had piqued her curiosity, and while it wasn’t like her to abandon her mission, Caius could wait.

But this…?

This chance to gain unfettered access to her brother’s memory, to the knowledge he and his former organization held.

She wasn’t foolish enough to allow an opportunity like that to pass her by.

While she didn’t know many specifics about the clandestine organization, she did know that they trained men to be elite, specialized hunters of the supernatural and dispatched them across the globe to protect humanity. The Execution Underground had recruited her brother shortly after they’d gotten wind of their parents’ brutal deaths. During the attack, Mark had managed to save her from the monster, though at the time, he was totally untrained. The Execution Underground had been interested in him from that point onward.

It hadn’t been long before they’d whisked him away to a private facility to train, while she’d been left behind, alone, forced to stay with their Aunt Cecelia.

But she’d never resented him for that. Not one bit. No, instead she’d thought her older brother valiant, brave even. Brave enough he’d went and gotten himself killed. Now, look where that blind admiration had gotten her?

She should have fought beside him when she had the chance.

She shook her head, trying to fight away the now painful memories that worked to claim her. Whenever Mark had visited, he’d never shared much about his organization with her. She’d always gotten the impression that she somehow wasn’t meant to know, and at the time she didn’t have the courage to question it. To this day, she still didn’t know which vampire had led the attack that killed her family, but Mark had been close to the knowledge, or so she’d been told, before he’d been killed, at least, and she was determined to find out what information her brother had found. Mark had worked every day after their deaths to find their parents’ killer and destroy the monsters that had stolen their parents’ lives, but Caius had taken Mark’s life just before her brother had the chance to avenge their family. That didn’t seem like a coincidence.

Now she wouldn’t rest until both Caius and the murderous vampire who destroyed their parents exploded like the overstuffed blood bags they were. It was the least she could do for Mark, to save what was left of his legacy as he’d saved her. She had to continue his life’s work, and she had more than a passing feeling Damon was the key to the knowledge her brother had been keeping from her.

Without a word, Damon pulled the car to a stop outside Golisano Hospital, the silence between them long and pressing.

She raised a brow. “What are we doing here?”

He reached for the handle, refusing to look toward her. “Stay in the car.”

“Like hell I will.” She grabbed onto his sleeve, forcing him to turn and face her.

“We’ve been through this, Tiffany.”

“You may be through with it, but I’m sure as hell not.”

Damon sighed, long and heavy, before he cast an exasperated look toward her. “If I said I’m working a case and you could come inside as long as you promise to behave, would you listen?”

She grinned wickedly. “I can be a good girl.” She batted her lashes. “Promise.”

Damon growled in warning, but for a moment, she thought she saw a hint of appreciation in his gaze. Maybe he did want to play with her after all.

She leaned back in her seat, considering him once more. “I’d be more inclined than when you’re ordering me around for no reason, I mean,” she said, using her hands to form a little halo above her head as she cast him an innocent expression.

Damon fixed her with a hard stare, his eyes seeming to speak volumes that she didn’t understand, before abruptly, he exited the car. He pressed the unlock button.

With a squeal of delight, she scrambled after him, eager for more information as she struggled to keep her cool. She’d never been part of an official case before. She’d only worked to avenge her family’s deaths, and always alone. Sure, she’d killed other vamps in the process, helping one innocent soul or another, but she had never worked a real live case. Had never been able to continue Mark’s legacy in any official way.

But apparently there was a first time for everything.

And as for her new grumbling ice-eyed partner?

Her eyes shot toward him as she joined him beside the car. Well, that was something she could get used to.