“Th-that was s-s-supposed to be me.” She nodded toward the ambulance, her expression caving in on itself, her slender form quaking like a rickety telephone pole on the edge of an immense fault line. “They c-came here for m-me.”
Supposed to be her? What?
“What do you mean?” he demanded, instinctively thumbing away a glistening tear from her smooth cheek, growling when he noticed the circle of angry bruises darkening up around her neck making the white of her pearl pendant stand out in harsh contrast. He’d seen that before, too. Some sorry sonofabitch had tried to strangle Eve. Some sorry, dead sonofabitch should Bill ever find him and get his hands on him…
“Th-the men who killed Buzzard,” she choked. Buzzard? He glanced toward the ambulance, then closed his eyes as a wedge of remorse briefly invaded his mounting rage. The rascally biker had been an annoying, charming, and licentious old fart by turns. But he’d been a decent fellow, all things considered. And he’d certainly deserved a shitload better than whatever violent end he’d obviously met. “He caught a stray bullet,” she went on, and once again his heart stopped cold because…bullet. There’d been fucking bullets involved? Jesus Christ. “But it was a bullet meant for…for me.”
Her voice rose with each syllable, and he knew the sounds of hysteria and shock when he heard them. Soon, she was very likely to either completely lose it or go catatonic. He’d seen both, experienced both, and he wasn’t sure which was better. One allowed the horror to spill out in a vile, endless stream. The other allowed it to slowly simmer until the terror coagulated and hardened into something awful that you carried around inside yourself for life.
Sweet Jesus, how he wished he could take it all away. Just pluck the experience from her psyche and take it into his own, lock it in the box where he kept all his unspeakable memories…
“H-he…he said,” Eve stammered, and he could tell she was becoming more and more unstrung with each passing second. “He said, there she is and pointed his gun at me. I dove for him. We…we struggled. So…so—” She couldn’t go on, and he did the only thing he could think to do. He pulled her against him again, holding her as tight as he could.
So, whoever wanted to kill her had found her here at Delilah’s? But how?
Confusion and rage warred inside him for supremacy. But he knew neither of those emotions was what Eve needed from him now. So tamping down his desire to ask more questions or just begin to arbitrarily kill everybody she knew for good measure, he cupped the back of her warm head in his palm and tried his best to hold her together because she felt like she was about to blow apart.
Then, she did something so shocking he could only stand there like a friggin’ idiot.
She kissed him.
One second the woman’s nose was buried in the crook of his shoulder, and the next second she grabbed his ears and slammed her mouth—her open mouth—over the top of his.
And unlike that girl he’d known years ago, this one didn’t hesitate. There was no slow, tentative tasting, or gentle foray of her tongue into his mouth. Hell, no. This was the kiss equivalent of zero to sixty in less than a second, and all he could do was blink at her blurry face in cross-eyed confusion for a long moment during which time she kissed him so passionately he was surprised he didn’t just melt into a puddle of lust around his biker boots.
Eventually, however, instinct and bone-deep hunger took over, and he reached up to palm her tear-wet cheeks, angling her head so he could join in on the two-tongued fun fair they had going.
And, it was confession time again. Because, he didn’t give a rat’s ass that this was undoubtedly one of those instances when a person had mistaken grief for lust. He didn’t give a rat’s ass that she’d likely regret this in about two seconds flat…that he’d likely regret it, too. Because for one blessedly passionate moment, the past was forgotten. For one brilliant instant, it was just the two of them, locked together, giving in to the flame of desire that’d burned in them since the moment they first locked eyes on each other.
She moved against him, her whole body sinuously sliding, and she was sultry and hot when he pushed his thigh between her legs. And then sanity returned. For her, not for him. He’d have probably laid her down right there in the parking lot if she hadn’t suddenly pulled back, blinking up at him with over-bright eyes and an expression of…
What was that? Confusion? Regret? Horror?
He didn’t have time to figure it out, or to contemplate the ramifications of what it meant to have lost his control around her yet again, because movement out of the corner of his eye snagged his attention. He looked over to find Delilah standing in the doorway of the bar, dried blood streaked down her T-shirt.
She looked like an extra in a slasher film. Scratch that, she looked that the slasher in a slasher film, because her expression was straight-up, undiluted I’m-shithouse-crazy-enough-to-kill-someone-right-now. Nostrils flaring, jaw grinding, fists clenching and unclenching, she stepped into the parking lot and started marching stiffly toward Mac.
Oh, damn.
Bill knew what was coming before the loud smack of Delilah’s open palm meeting Mac’s hard jaw echoed around the block. The former FBI agent’s head snapped back and to the side, emphasizing the strength of the blow. But no sooner had he shaken off the harsh strike than Delilah was grabbing the collar of his light-weight motorcycle jacket and screaming into his face, “How dare you bring whatever bullshit you’re involved in to my doorstep, you bastard!”
Chapter Twelve
Eve pushed away from Billy’s warm, reassuring, oh-so-deliciously-solid chest—she could not believe she’d just kissed him or, considering their talk this morning, that he’d actually kissed her back—when she heard Delilah’s words explode into the noisy city air. All the blood that’d been sizzling through her veins because of Billy’s scorching kiss instantly froze into solid red rivers of ice.
No. Oh, no! Delilah couldn’t blame this on Mac. She just couldn’t. This wasn’t Mac’s fault. It was her fault. All her fault…
Without a second thought, she turned and raced toward the tussling couple. Through her tears—was she crying?—she could see Mac dragging Delilah around the corner and into the alley where he wrapped her in a reverse bear hug, seizing her from behind by securing her wrists low across her waist as he bodily lifted her from the ground until all she could do was kick ineffectually as she screamed profanities hot enough to blister the ears off a sailor.
“Delilah,” she breathed. Was that her voice? Why did it sound like that? Like it was being pushed through water. “It’s n-not Mac’s f-fault.”
But her words were too hoarse and too quiet for Delilah to hear, and before she could swallow and try again, Billy stopped a group of police officers from moving in to investigate the commotion. “Gentlemen, my friend back there doesn’t need any help. He’s man enough to handle what she’s dishing; don’t you worry.”
One of the officers eyed him skeptically, and Billy made a face. “She’s hurt and grieving,” he explained, and Eve knew all about that, didn’t she? “And she needs to take it out on someone. She’s decided to take it out on him.” He pointed his chin toward the alley where Mac and Delilah had moved out of sight. “And like I said, he’s man enough to handle it.”