Chapter 4 #3
“Careful, Bishop. You’re holding a weapon against a monster. You better be prepared to use it.” I leaned forward until my mouth was next to her ear. “Knife play isn’t for the timid. If you draw blood, you have to lick the blade. Those are the rules.”
Her lips parted in a small gasp even as she seemed to lean unconsciously closer to me.
I inhaled deeply, catching the sharp tang of adrenaline spiked with the sweetness of arousal.
She was terrified and dripping for it.
She shifted her weight forward and pressed the point harder against my flesh. “Then you better bleed enough to make it worth my time.”
Holy fuck, she was actually in to this. She wanted the violence just as much as I wanted to crack her wide open. I needed to drag the vicious creature living in her skin out of her and see exactly how much damage we could do to each other.
“Guys--” Menace started.
I snatched the knife from Annie’s grasp and pressed it against his femoral artery under the table. Unlike Annie, I could exert enough pressure to fucking stab him if he ruined this moment.
Menace made a strangled sound in the back of his throat but wisely clamped his mouth shut.
I saw movement in my peripheral vision as Dawn returned from the restroom.
Fuck.
I pocketed the knife and Annie blinked. Just like that, we both slipped back into our civilian masks. Her expression smoothed into polite interest, though her cheeks remained flushed. I adjusted my features into Thomas Smith’s pleasant, non-threatening smile.
Only Menace looked like he might vomit, his face ashen as he reached for his wine glass with a trembling hand.
Dawn slid back into her seat, beaming. “Did I miss anything?”
“Just chatting about work,” I said, my Scottish accent back in place.
My phone buzzed again. The Syndicate only pinged that persistently when someone was about to get their throat slit or their rank revoked. Neither option appealed to me tonight. Not when Annie Bishop was finally looking at me like she wanted to do the slitting herself.
I tried to reconcile the rule-abiding Keeper with the woman who’d just held a knife to me and asked me to bleed for her. The perfect Keeper had a dark side and I wanted to explore every inch of it.
Dawn chattered about going to some new bar downtown after dinner, Velvet Room, dry ice cocktails, blah blah, but I barely heard her. What mattered was it would be the perfect place to get Annie alone.
“I can’t,” Annie said, not looking at me. “Havoc’s got a charity thing early tomorrow.”
The window of opportunity was shrinking faster than I could calculate alternative scenarios. Dinner would be over, and then what?
Normally, I didn’t have to work this hard. A look, a smile, maybe a casual touch on the arm, that was all it usually took. I’d crook my finger and women would follow me anywhere. The Thomas Smith effect, as Menace called it. The face that launched a thousand bad decisions.
But Annie Bishop wasn’t most women.
Maybe I should just be direct. Tell her exactly what I wanted.
I want to fuck you, Bishop. Right now.
Would that work? It might. The way she’d responded to the knife, to my voice. There was something there.
A phone buzzed and Annie reached for hers, frowning at the screen.
“Speaking of work,” she said, already gathering her purse. “I need to head into the office. Emergency situation.”
My phone vibrated against my thigh again. I slipped it from my pocket, keeping it below table level as I glanced at the screen.
URGENT: Syndicate requests immediate conference.
Fuck.
“Well,” I said, slipping my phone back into my pocket, “it seems the universe has a sense of humor. I’m also needed at the office.”
Annie’s eyes narrowed. “What a remarkable coincidence,” she said low enough only I could hear as each word dripped with suspicion.
“The demands of corporate America,” I offered with a shrug. “Never truly off the clock, are we?”
“I’ll Cash App you for the wine,” Annie said, the words tumbling out as she snatched her clutch from the table.
“Don’t worry about it!” Dawn started, beaming up at her, but Annie was already moving.
She cut through the crowded dining room, putting physical barriers between us. I tossed a goodbye to Dawn and Menace as I turned and followed the flash of pink.
She was trying to escape, a frantic, clipped pace that screamed panic. She thought distance would save her. She thought if she reached the street, the monster in the bespoke suit would vanish.
Cute.
Annie darted outside, her heels clicking against the pavement. The coastal fog had rolled in thick and the mist curled around her calves, clinging to the skin exposed by the hem of her dress. I fell into step beside her.
The tempo of her heels accelerated.
The staccato sound triggered every predatory instinct I possessed. The urge to chase. To catch. To pin her down until she stopped fighting and started begging.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
Annie stopped and whirled around. “You absolutely will not.”
“It’s late.” I moved toward her, collapsing the distance between us until she had to crane her neck just to maintain eye contact. “And the parking garage is three blocks away. A lot can happen in the dark, Annie.”
“Try it and I’ll tase you.”
“Promise?” I stepped closer and she took a stumbling step backward. I followed the retreat, crowding her until her back hit the rough brick wall of the restaurant. I planted a hand next to her head, trapping her.
“I have a meeting to get to,” she said. Her voice trembled slightly despite her best efforts to sound authoritative. “Didn’t you say you did too?”
“My meeting can wait.” I lowered my head, burying my nose near the frantic pulse jumping at her neck, inhaling the scent of her. “My priorities have shifted.”
The mist swirled thicker around us, creating a curtain that isolated us from the rest of the world. The few people passing by on the sidewalk were nothing but blurred shadows, irrelevant to the hunt. If I decided to hike up her dress and take her right here, no one would stop me.
“Is the Scottish accent real?”
The question threw me off guard. Most people facing me in the dark dissolved into weeping messes or paralyzed prey. Annie Bishop was analyzing my vocal patterns. It pleased me that she was keeping her head.
“Yes.” I coated the word with the burr I usually kept locked away.
She tilted her head, the movement exposing an inch more of her throat. “Why do you lose it? For Cipher, I mean.”
“It helps me stay hidden,” I replied. “Usually.”
Her eyes dropped to my mouth and her cheeks flushed. “It was your smile that did you in.”
“Many men have similar mouths, Annie.”
She arched her brow. “Those other men didn’t kiss me earlier today.”
“I’m pleased you’re still thinking about it,” I murmured, tracking the way her lips parted. “Because I haven’t been able to think of much else. I can still taste you.”
Her eyes widened and her flush spread to her chest.
“Nothing happened,” she said, the lie was trembling on the tip of her tongue. “You kissed me. I defended myself.”
I brushed my knuckles along the curve of her jaw as I captured a strand of her hair. I wrapped it slowly around my index finger, binding her to me.
“That wasn’t self-defense.”
“What would you call it?” she challenged.
I curled my finger, pulling the lock of hair. She gave a small gasp as the tension forced her head back to offer up the vulnerable expanse of her throat to me.
“Foreplay.”
Her phone buzzed and she jumped, startled. She cursed quietly looking down at the screen.
“I need to go,” she said.
I opened my hand, allowing the strand of hair to slip free, letting her untangle herself from me.
“Leave me alone,” she demanded, her voice shaking as she stepped around me.
“Oh, Annie,” I murmured. “That’s the one thing I’ll never do.”
She retreated toward the neon-lit safety of the intersection. She thought she was escaping. She probably thought this was over.
But I had been watching her from a distance for years. And now that I had felt her against me, now that I had tasted her and smelled her arousal, merely watching was no longer an option.
“Run, Annie,” I whispered, watching the fog swallow her silhouette.