She rocked against me, teasing, and her eyes sparkled with mischief. “If you think I’m falling asleep around you, though, you’re deluded. No offense, Leon, but”—she paused, rising up on her knees to grasp my erection in her hand, guiding me to her opening—“I don’t trust you.”
The air escaped my lungs in a whoosh as she sank down onto my dick, taking me in one movement despite how tight the fit was. “I’d be disappointed if you did,” I admitted when I caught my breath. “So I guess we just have to stay awake. Whatever will we do?”
She gave a soft groan, bracing her hands on my tensed abs as she rose and fell slowly, teasingly. “I think this is a good start,” she whispered in a husky, sex-drenched voice that went straight to my dick. Goddamn, she was worse than any addiction. Somehow, I sensed she could easily be the death of me, too.
Now, she’d challenged me, though, and I was determined to fuck her so good she wouldn’t be able to keep those beautiful sapphire eyes open a moment longer.
As it turned out, I was the one who fell asleep first. My plan backfired, and she fucked me into a deep, dreamless sleep. The kind of restful sleep that I hadn’t had… maybe ever? I certainly didn’t remember ever sleeping so well. When I woke, my muscles ached in the most amazing way. My dick tented the sheets, rock hard, and a warm feeling filled my chest.
“Danny,” I mumbled, reaching out for her with just one eyelid cracked. I needed to touch her skin, to feel her breath on my lips, to know that she was still here with me.
But the bed beside me was empty and cold, and I sat up with a heavy sense of dread.
“DeLuna!” I shouted, but she didn’t respond. Of course she didn’t. She’d waited until I had fallen asleep… and left.
I wasn’t even mad about it, either. She was a mercenary, raised by the Guild. Her actions were like that of a frightened animal, slinking away silently and running for safety. Of course, I knew better than any that she was no mere house cat. Danny DeLuna was a predator, but so was I.
She must surely know, the game had only just started between us.
Smiling, I climbed out of bed and sauntered into my bathroom to shower but pulled up short when I saw the mirror.
“Shit,” I murmured, my pulse racing with excitement, “now you’re just teasing, DeLuna.”
On the mirror, she’d left me a very clear message. Or so it may seem.
Leon,
This was fun, but lose my number. You’ll never see me again.
x Danny
She’d signed off with an imprint of her lips, and it did all kinds of delicious things to my emotions. It was a challenge, obviously. She was running, but she wanted me to chase her.
I took a closer look at the writing, touching a finger to the ink. Then I brought it to my mouth.
Fuck. She’d written it in blood, the sick bitch.
My dick hardened like stone. Even more so when I spotted the freshly applied dressing on my thigh. She hadn’t written it in her own blood, she’d used mine. And somehow managed to cut me without ever waking me up.
Oh yeah. I was coming for her… No way in hell was I walking away from a woman who was clearly my soul mate. We were fucking fated.
3
The solid smack of leather gloves hitting the heavy bag soothed my frayed nerves slightly, but I still carried tension between my shoulder blades that held me on a knife’s edge day and night.
“Maybe he decided to let it go?” Jude suggested when we took a break. She was breathing heavily, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead, and I grinned.
“You need to get down here more often, Mackenzie; you’re puffing like an old lady.” I tugged my own boxing gloves off and grabbed my bottle of water. I wasn’t going to address her suggestion that Leon had decided to let it go. That wasn’t even remotely a possibility. Not for him… or me.
Jude grimaced and took a long drink from her own bottle. “Fuck you, DeLuna. I’m probably the fittest librarian in the world.” She limped heavily over to where she’d left her cane, then shot me a teasing smile. “Maybe you need to stay with me more often, kick my butt back into shape.”
“Oh, honey, that boat sailed a long ass time ago,” I teased, nodding to her leg. She knew what I meant. The broken leg that had ended her future as a mercenary had been a thorn in her side ever since. Multiple surgeries and an infection had left her with extremely limited mobility in her left leg. The fact she was at the gym with me at all was impressive.
She wrinkled her nose at me, but it was in good humor. We were close enough that we didn’t take offense to teasing, and I knew better than anyone else how much her leg still hurt her—emotionally as well as physically.
“Come on, Mackenzie, that bottle of vodka in your freezer is calling our names.”
Jude scoffed. “It’s ten in the morning!”
I shrugged. “So what? You don’t have to be back at work until Monday, right?”
She groaned and shook her head as we headed through to the gym’s showers. “You’re so fucking bad for my liver, DeLuna.”
Grinning, I headed into a shower cubicle to rinse off the light sheen of sweat from our workout. I’d been staying with Jude for almost a week and hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Leon. I’d thought surely he would have found me by now; I wasn’t exactly hiding. Edinburgh was quite literally the current home of the Guild, and he knew where Jude lived. If he had wanted to, he could have turned up on her doorstep the very next day.
But he hadn’t. Nor had he even so much as called.
What the fuck? I’d thought my parting note was pretty fucking clear… shit, I’d used his own blood to write my challenge out on the mirror. There was no way he could have missed it.
So why hadn’t he tracked me down? Was he reconsidering that unofficial kill order? Just because he wasn’t going to kill me that night didn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility another night.
Angry again, I washed my body with the harsh smelling gym soap, then towel-dried. I really needed to day-drink and wallow in self-pity.
I should be scared. Leon was fucking insane, and he was an executioner to boot. If he’d decided to kill me…
Well, if he’d decided to kill me, I would probably be dead. So, fuck being scared. I was angry. Had the sex really been so forgettable that he wasn’t going to bother coming after me?
“You done in there or what?” Jude called out, jerking me out of my depressing thoughts.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered back, dressing in clean clothes and stuffing my sweaty workout gear into a bag. “Let’s go.”
Jude arched a knowing brow at me as I stomped out of the shower cubicle, but when I shot her a glare, she just shrugged and said nothing. I knew she knew what I was shitty about, though. She was my best friend for a reason.
She held her tongue the whole way back to her apartment, but to think she was doing anything but biding her time would be stupid. She waited until I’d mixed us both martinis—dirty—then pounced once I’d taken that first mouthful.
“So, are you going to tell me the whole story about what happened with Leon?”
I held the vodka in my mouth a moment, narrowing my eyes at my friend, then swallowed. “Do I have to?”