“I ain’t either, dude. Call her a bitch again and I’ll turn you into mine.” She watched Ash in utter disbelief. He was entirely focused on their assailant, and something burning in his eyes was…scaring her. It scared the guy too. He took a step back. “That’s right,” Ash went on. Very slowly, he was distancing himself from Maddie and, though her instinct was to hang on to him, she stayed put. “Back away now. Those shakes are rough, aren’t they? You couldn’t hit one of us if you tried.” He scoffed. “In fact you probably can’t even afford bullets.”
Oh God, he was only agitating him, and he was doing it on purpose, as if he got some kind of sick thrill out of it.
The gun rose to point straight at Ash’s nose. “Keep talkin’, man, and I’ll show you a bullet up close and personal. I ain’t telling you again. Gimme the money.”
Ash didn’t even flinch. He walked closer. “However much it is, it won’t be enough. You know it. You have a beast inside you, and you’ll never be able to feed it enough for it to stop eating you alive.”
The gun shook violently. If Ash wanted, he could grab it. But he didn’t. “What the fuck’s wrong with you, man?” the guy asked, his voice wavering on the edge of desperation now.
“Walk away.”
“I need it—”
“Walk away. Fire that gun, and I’ll f**k you up.”
Fire that gun and you’ll be dead! Madeleine shrieked on the inside. She couldn’t even make sense of what she was seeing. Except for one thing. Blind, senseless rage was filling the man’s eyes now, and she saw the instant he passed the point of no return, knew instinctively it signaled imminent disaster. It was the same look she’d always seen on her mother before she felt her hand whack her across the face, only ten times deadlier. Her heart stuttered and nearly stopped.
“Fuck you!” The gun went off, the bang and ensuing echo deafening as it bounced off the buildings surrounding them. Madeleine screamed and ducked, her hands over her ears. Despite all his brave words. there was no way that shot had missed Ash, oh God—
She glanced up to the sound of scuffling feet. Ash wasn’t lying on the ground like he should be. He’d grabbed the man and slammed him against the brick wall nearby, holding him with only his palm against the man’s chest. The gun was on the ground. The guy was screaming as if he’d taken the shot, but Maddie didn’t see any blood. All she saw was Ash’s fingers digging hard into his chest. Then the mugger collapsed, falling to the ground in a lifeless heap.
“What did you do?” Maddie cried. Her heart thundered as loud as the gunshot, and her knees would hardly support her weight.
“Nothing. He’s unconscious. Let’s get out of here.”
“Are you hurt?”
He grabbed her hand and propelled her down the sidewalk. She staggered, managed to catch her footing. “Not a scratch,” he said.
“But we need to report this, we need to wait for the police—”
“No harm done. We’re fine, he’s fine.”
“He doesn’t look fine!”
“He is.”
“What did you do to him?”
“A little technique I learned.”
“What, the five-point-f**king-palm-exploding-heart technique?”
They cut through an alley to a parallel street, and another and another, weaving around Dumpsters and debris until Maddie’s breath wheezed through her lungs. Ash’s hand pulling hers was all that was keeping her up, keeping her going. She remained silent as he hailed a cab and shoved her inside first with a hand on her ass.
What had just happened? She couldn’t speak, still numb from shock, as Ash gave the driver her address and settled back in his seat. He turned his dark gaze on her and reached up to stroke her hair. Her eyes closed. Tears threatened, and she didn’t want them. She wanted to hold it together.
“Okay?” he asked.
She managed a nod, her fingers clenched so tightly around the purse in her lap they ached. He noticed, gently extricated it from her grip, and gave her his hand to hold on to with her death grip.
He wasn’t affected by this at all. He wasn’t trembling, wasn’t even breathing heavy. His gaze on her was steady, assessing. She looked at him, watched the lights from the street pass across his face.
He’d saved her life. Even if the bullet had missed them both, he’d placed himself between her and that gun. He could be dead right now, and that guy needed to be behind bars for it. If their mugger was really okay, why wasn’t Ash eager to let the police handle the matter?
But he hadn’t done anything that she’d seen. The mugger hadn’t been bleeding. So how could he be dead by a simple hand against his chest? She saw again in her mind the way he’d fallen, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. No strength in his limbs whatsoever.
Ash pulled closer to her, putting his mouth barely an inch from her ear and murmuring, “Madeleine, it’s okay. I promise. You’re safe now.”
She took a deep breath. The black sparkles that had been filling her vision began to recede somewhat. His touch skimmed over her shoulder, behind her neck, until he was embracing her. Then, with his comforting warmth around her and his hands so gentle on her, she nearly lost it. Her fingers clenched in his shirt, fisting it until she thought she’d rip the fabric.
He kept whispering soothing nonsense and, somehow, incredibly, she began to believe it. She was okay. He was okay. That guy back there, he was probably okay too, but even if he wasn’t, he’d tried to freaking kill them. They might not have walked away from that encounter with their lives even if they’d done what he wanted.
Though Ash had seemed to deliberately provoke him, almost as if he’d gotten off on it.
And was she absolutely insane that, despite her fear in the middle of the situation, she’d…liked it? Not necessarily to see someone get hurt, but… Oh, hell, she might as well face it. David would have grabbed her purse out of her hand and thrown it at the guy without even the thought of pulling such a badass—if terribly unwise—intimidation tactic.
Who the hell was he?
“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear. He exhaled as if hearing the words was a relief he’d been waiting for, and his lips grazed her neck. She sighed, threading his soft hair through her fingers. Her panic folded up and disappeared, but the remaining adrenaline from their ordeal was stirring excitement in other far more pleasurable areas. It was shameful to admit, but suddenly all she could think about was ripping his jeans open and—
She didn’t know what was wrong with her, what he was doing to her. His hand grazed her breast and a quiet explosion went off inside her. Her h*ps surged toward him, and she could scarcely refrain from climbing over onto his lap. “I want you,” she told him, quiet enough that their driver couldn’t hear. But Ash’s answering growl…he probably did hear that. She didn’t care. Ash wouldn’t have to push very hard and she would probably sprawl back and give it to him right here in the backseat of the taxi.
“I’m going to have you in so many ways tonight,” he promised, kissing a path upward to her lips.
“You are so bad for me.”
“You are so good for me.”
She didn’t understand how that was true, but then his mouth covered hers, and it didn’t matter. She moaned. Hot, wet, tasting of the drinks he’d had at the club and something deeper, something nameless but profoundly erotic. With every thrust of his tongue into her mouth, the need growing between her thighs doubled.
As bad as he might be, her body didn’t care. She needed him in as many ways as he’d promised to have her.
He was still stunned, off balance. She couldn’t see it, he made sure of that. The front door to her apartment slammed behind them and he staggered into her bedroom with her clinging to him haphazardly, their mouths fused. The only way to keep her away, to keep her separate, was to get inside her. Keep her as disoriented as he felt, unable to see inside him at what she’d done.
What she’d done…
He’d just saved her life. Again. That wasn’t what he was here for. He was here to kill her, inflict physical and spiritual death, and an opportune moment had just presented itself. What she didn’t realize was their unwelcome visitor had every intention of ending them right there on the sidewalk, and he’d had to draw his fire or Madeleine could have very well died right there.
He couldn’t predict what might happen to her anymore. Everyone had a set time to die, but they also had free will that could cast them into a gray area. Usually that involved entering a contract with one of his kind, like Gatlin. Or pissing one of them off, which was the reason the mugger was a soulless heap on the concrete right now. Madeleine was a question mark as well, now that Ash was an influence in her life.
If she’d died tonight, he wouldn’t have been able to take her because of the stay, but the hard part would’ve been over. Her spirit would roam free, lost and mystified, just like that bastard who’d dared threaten her was doing now. Ash would go back and deal with that one later.
He was as shaken from that encounter as she, but for an entirely different reason. Never once had it even occurred to him to let her die. He’d have torn the man limb from limb if she’d had so much as a scratch on her.
Get inside her. Fuck her hard, over and over, get her out of his system. It was the only way. He tore her jeans down. She was trying to help, but he knocked her hands away, too impatient for her interference. Her fingers went straight to her panties, tugging them down too. “Don’t rip these!” she insisted, and he acquiesced and allowed her to strip them off her legs.
Then she was open, and ready, so pink and wet. He couldn’t spare her the time to prepare her for his entrance; he freed his c*ck from his jeans, reached over to search through the drawer for one of the hated sheaths that were completely unnecessary but that she would insist upon. Once it was rolled in place, he guided himself to her p**sy and shoved.
Her h*ps wrenched off the bed to take him, but her hands pushed at his shoulders, fingers clenching around his shirt. “Oh God!” she gasped.
She might be tender from all their vigorous activity last night, so he gave her a moment, murmuring nonsense meant to soothe her. He would say anything, tell her anything she needed to hear, if she’d only let him stay right here, wrapped up tight in her wet oblivion. If she’d let him take her the way he needed to, hard, fast, now. “Madeleine,” he rasped out.
“Do it, f**k me.” She undulated her hips, inflicted sensual devastation on him.
Unholy Hell, that was it. “Yes,” he growled. She was throwing so many emotions at him right now, he couldn’t distinguish one from the other. Sparing her nothing, he unleashed all his frustrations on her, slamming into her as if he could f**k it all away. Her head tipped back, exposing the pale, graceful column of her throat, her writhing emotions dissolving into bliss. All of them. The fear, the pain, the numb shock of her earlier trauma. Wiped away.
This was the only truth between them.