Chapter 12
TWELVE
No one tried to stop him from leaving. Likely no one but Malachi noticed, but even that was probably the least of his concerns, considering he’d been given Milo to deal with. Luis ducked out of the parlor as quickly and unobtrusively as he could, leaving Tomas to guard the door for him.
It took longer than he liked, but he eventually found Francesca and Maxine hidden away in a small sitting room on the other side of the mansion. Only when he saw her standing by a window, her arms tucked tightly around herself, did his heartbeat begin to slow back to its normal pace.
Maxine glowered at him from the middle of the room. He got the sense that he’d just walked in on an argument. That feeling was confirmed when the redhead demanded, “You can’t seriously expect me to leave you alone with him!”
Whatever thin veneer of respect she’d held onto at the beginning of the night had obviously worn off. Luis didn’t really care about that, but he did have a problem with her trying to keep him away from his girl.
“You should probably check on your cousin,” he advised.
Maxine’s mouth popped open, no doubt to say something withering, when Francesca called out, “Max, I’m fine. Just make sure Easton hasn’t caused more trouble, okay? I’m barely hanging on as it is.”
“Fine,” she huffed. Her heels clicked menacingly across the floor as she approached Luis.
Shoving one finger under his nose, she seethed, “Tonight was not supposed to go this way. This is your fucking fault, jackass. If I so much as get an inkling that you made her feel unsafe, I’m taking down your entire family. Got it?”
“Message received,” he replied, stepping aside to let her pass through the door.
He barely waited for her to close it before he flipped the lock. Her gaze was heavy on him as he slowly crossed the room to sit on one of the couches arrayed before an unused fireplace. The room was lit by a single lamp on an end table, but a vampire had no trouble seeing in the dark.
But just because he could see her didn’t mean he could read her.
Worry crawled up the back of his throat and putrefied on his tongue. The bitter taste filled his mouth when he tried to find the right words to lure her closer. “Frankie,” he grated, spreading his hands in invitation. “Come here.”
After everything, he didn’t expect her to heed the order.
She’d abandoned her shoes somewhere, which was for the best. He’s seen her tottering on those ridiculous stilts and wasn’t entirely confident she’d escape the evening without a sprained ankle.
Her feet made only soft tapping sounds on the floor as she shuffled toward him.
That familiar, intoxicating sensation of triumph filled his chest when she stopped only a foot away from his knees.
Using only the softest touch, he gathered her hands into his. “Are you scared of me, kitten?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’m feeling a lot of things right now. I don’t think I’ve settled on what yet, though.”
The urge to soothe her was overwhelming.
Luis carefully tugged her closer, ever-mindful of the slightest flicker of unease in her expression or body language.
When she showed none, he dared to pull her into his lap — the position he’d been dreaming about since the very first time he managed to convince her to sit with him in the penthouse.
Wrapping an arm around her back, he eased her into his chest. His bare skin burned where it touched hers, like she had a little sun inside her that threatened to destroy him if he got too close.
“Easy,” he whispered, tucking her under his chin. “I’ve got you.”
Her breathing was alarmingly fast but she didn’t say a word as she leaned into him. One hand settled over his heart and the other in her lap, the fingers curled tight.
After a moment of tense silence, she whispered, “I didn’t know people would die.”
Luis closed his eyes. Pressing his lips into her hair, he murmured, “I know.”
“I thought it was just— It’s supposed to be a game.” Her breath hitched, almost like she was struggling to hold back tears. “None of this was supposed to happen. I just needed some money. Easton said it would be easy.”
Nothing in the syndicate is ever easy or straightforward, he wanted to tell her. It’s a meat grinder we all get tossed into, one way or another, and none of us escape it unscathed.
Instead, he asked a more important question that had dogged him since he found her in the bedroom. “What could you possibly need this much money for, Frankie?”
Taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, he guided her to meet his eye. “Are you in trouble? If you have debts, I’ll pay them. All you ever needed to do was ask.”
Francesca blinked owlishly up at him. “Why would I ask you for help?”
The normal version of himself would’ve laughed that off. He would’ve laughed at just about everything that had happened that night, because none of it mattered. He’d go on as he always had, making money and playing and pretending like none of it meant anything to him.
But the normal version of himself was dead in a ditch somewhere, brutally murdered by this woman the moment she chose to kiss him first, and he was beginning to realize that there might not be any chance of reviving him.
Luis had to consciously unclench his jaw to respond to her. “Because,” he dragged out, “I’m your vampire. Your man. If you need help, you come to me first.”
Of course she chose that moment to get a little bit of her fire back. Francesca put her hands on his shoulders and straightened her arms, pushing herself back far enough to give her attitude plenty of room.
“You are not my man,” she tartly corrected him. “If you recall, I turned you down. Twice.”
“You also let me spank your pussy with my bloody fingers,” he challenged, eyebrows raising. “And I’ve now killed for you. In vampire terms we’re married.”
Francesca slapped his chest. “Oh, shut up. We are not!”
Relieved to see a little life returning to her perfect face, he offered her an easy grin at odds with his next question. “So are you going to tell me who you owe money to or am I going to gave to torture it out of you?”
“Why?” she asked, suddenly shrewd. “You gonna take my fingers if I don’t?”
Luis winced. Ah, she heard about the trophies.
It was an ill-conceived idea he’d had back in his early days as a junior enforcer.
He didn’t particularly love torture, though he was understandably extremely good at it.
However, he quickly learned that a terrifying reputation did a lot more for interrogation than any pliers, drills, or ropes could.
Keeping a box of fingers — mostly of people caught cheating in their underground casinos and game rooms — for a while did the job of spreading his reputation well enough that he’d been able to toss the damn thing just as they began to really stink up his office.
He didn’t love that she’d heard the rumor, true though it was. Any tiny, dying hope that he could maintain the carefully crafted illusion he’d presented to her flicked out.
Sighing, he pulled one of her hands off his shoulder and gave her knuckles a soft kiss. “No, I like your fingers where they are. When I torture you, it’ll be a little different.”
“Yeah? How?”
His eyelids fell as he imagined all the wonderful ways he could make her scream. Cock hardening beneath her wonderfully round ass, he murmured, “Keep being a bad girl and you’ll find out soon enough.”
It was such a pleasure watching her cheeks go from sallow to pink in the blink of an eye. “You know that even if you win my contract, there’s absolutely nothing in it that says I’ll sleep with you, right? You just get my blood.”
Just? It wasn’t just anything.
Even the mention of her blood made his venom gland ache.
He couldn’t deny that sipping her was very high on his list of desires, but it wasn’t something as basic as hunger that motivated him.
The sharing of blood directly from the vein was an intimacy unlike any other.
It was an exchange of trust, and it bound a vampire to his anchor in a way that was almost impossible to describe.
Which was exactly why he’d never done it before.
Turning her head towards his a bit, he risked another bite by pressing a skimming kiss to rouged lips. They softened under his, parting invitingly and tempting him to taste her again. Speaking between kisses to her upper lip, then the corners of her mouth, he ordered, “Answer my question, kitten.”
Her eyelids fluttered. She went soft against him, all curves and silk and hands sneaking under the unbuttoned sides of his shirt. “Um… I don’t…”
His hands skated up her back, tracing the perfect contours of her. “I’ve got you,” he promised, tracing his claws over the wings of her shoulder blades to feel her shiver. “Just tell me.”
Francesca’s breath feathered over his lips. Her fingers curled into the hair at the base of his neck, holding tight, when she kissed him oh-so-gently.
“No,” she growled. In an instant, the fingers in his hair stopped being gentle and turned to tugging hard enough that his neck bent back on reflex.
Luis choked, more shocked than hurt, as she hopped off his lap and bounded away on her bare feet.
Not this time, he thought, snatching her around the waist before she could run away.
Francesca howled, her legs kicking and fists bouncing harmlessly off his forearms as he dragged her back to the couch. “You just saw me kill a man,” he marveled, cock stiffening in his trousers, “and you think it’s a good idea to fight me?”
“You’re not going to kill me,” she answered with absolute conviction.
Luis hid his smile. “That’s the second time you’ve run from your man. I can’t allow that, kitten.”
Deliciously flushed and nearly vibrating with need in his arms, she twisted her head around to challenge, “What are you gonna do about it? Punish me?”
Gods, he’d found a treasure. A true, divinely crafted treasure.