“I’m Maddy.”
“So glad to have run into you, Maddy.”
He said it so deadpan, his eyes fixed on the road, his mouth fixed into a scowl, that she almost missed it. Mr. Grim had made a joke.
“Wish I could say the same,” she said, looking at him sidewise. She caught a hint of a smile, and in that instant he became very sexy. It amazed her that she could even think sexy thoughts, because she felt like a sewer rat that had been flattened by the bus and picked over by pigeons. But there it was. Sexy.
His hand caressed the stick shift lovingly as he threw the car into a higher gear and they picked up speed. Her knee, so close to his hand, tingled with jealousy. Pathetic knee.
Soon they were in the Queens-Midtown tunnel and flying toward home. They drove in silence, leaving Maddy to contemplate his essential sexiness for far too long. Don’t even think it, Maddy girl, not even for pretend. Men like him had an asshole streak a mile wide. He wasn’t her type, and she was one hundred percent positive she was not his type.
He waited until they reached her exit before he spoke again. “I really am sorry that I hit you. I thought I was watching the road, but there you were. I’ve never…” He raised his hand off the gearshift in a helpless gesture. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”
“Go left here.”
“Do you know how to take care of your ankle?”
“I’ll figure it out. Right at the next light.”
“What do you have against hospitals?”
“None of your business.”
“Fair enough.” Faustin deigned to look at her out of the corner of his eye. “But do you know you’re bleeding?”
“I’m not—”
“There’s blood on you. Do you have bandages and whatever at your place, or should I stop somewhere?”
“I’m all right,” Maddy said, now preoccupied by looking for blood. For the first time, she dared to roll up her pant leg and look at her injured leg. The ankle was swelling and covered in street dirt, but she saw no blood. But the other leg was coated in blood, more than she would have ever expected. It soaked the top of her socks. An involuntary gasp escaped her, and Faustin matched it with a strange hiss of his own.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s not arterial blood.”
Maddy could not take her eyes off her oozing red leg, illuminated only by the glow of the dash and the passing streetlights. “How would you know whether it’s arterial or not?”
“It’s just not.”
“Left here, Dr. Know-It-All. It’s the third building on the left. With the awning. Pull over by the fire plug.”
Before she could figure out how the door handle worked, Faustin came around to her side and opened the door for her. She began to pull herself out.
He put a heavy hand on her shoulder and pushed her back into her seat. “What in the hell are you doing?”
Maddy glared up at him. Did he really just push her? “What in the hell do you think I’m doing, Faustin? I’m getting out of your car.”
“You can’t walk.”
“I can hop.”
He turned toward the building and back again. “It’s a walk up, isn’t it?” That was a rhetorical question. “I’m carrying you.”
“You can’t carry me up three whole flights of stairs. I’ll manage.”
His face went all twitchy, and she realized she’d just injured his male pride.
“You’ll manage? Are you nuts? Do you have a brain injury? You can’t walk.”
“Yeah, and what happens when you throw your back out and drop me down the stairs?”
With a roll of his eyes he said, “As if that’s going to happen.”
“Faustin, you’ve already run over me today. What don’t I think you capable of?”
“Shut the fuck up, Maddy.”
In one fast motion he lifted her in his arms and kicked the car door shut.
Maddy put her arms around his neck because she had no choice and hung there, wet and stupid and heavy. Meanwhile he was dry and strong and smelled good. Really good. Woodsy. Some subtle, hellishly expensive cologne. Another point off the Russian mafia column.
Sliding from annoyance into plain embarrassment, she closed her eyes and hoped he really could make it up all those stairs. The sooner this was over, the better.
Gregor was careful not to smack her injured foot into the wall or stair rail on the way up. The stairwell smelled of bug spray, but it wasn’t a bad building judging by the carpet and paint. Her ridiculous parka was slick and squishy under his fingers, and it still dribbled gutter water with every step.
Maddy was short, but by the heft of her she had some meat on her bones somewhere beneath all that parka fluff. Once in his arms, she went strangely quiet for someone as mouthy as she was and kept her head down. Her black hair hung around her face like a tangled mass of snakes.
Gregor wanted to see her inside safely, and wanted to be sure she was okay before he left her alone, but the smell of her blood was affecting him more than it should have.
He wasn’t hungry, and more than that, general decency should have kept him from lusting after the wounds he had inflicted on her himself. True, he inflicted wounds on humans whenever he ate, but those were clean, intentional wounds. He’d messed this woman up bad, and he felt terrible, and he did not need to complicate these feelings by feeding on her on top of everything else. The problem was that less decent parts of him—and they nearly outweighed the good parts—really wanted to bite her.
The scent of her skin, tinged as it was with the scents of asphalt and oil and fear, was intriguing. Something about it made him want to run his tongue over her naked body very, very slowly. And it did not help to know that if he just turned his head he could put his mouth to her throat. It took every ounce of will not to do just that on the way up the stairs, so by the time they reached her door, he was shaking with tension.
“You’re tired, I’m sorry,” she said as she searched through some bottomless sack of a handbag for her key. “I mean…I’m really impressed you could carry me so far.”
“I’m not tired,” he said through clenched teeth.
She opened her mouth, then shut it. Twisting at an awkward angle, she unlocked the door from his arms and pushed it open.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
By this time he was struggling against a bloodlust he had not felt since he was a teenager. Hunger and desire combined. Indistinguishable. It pissed him off. It didn’t even make sense. So he clamped down on the wanting with an iron fist. Everything was going to be just fine.
Fine until she announced, “I need to take my clothes off.”
He stumbled over her throw rug.
“I mean, I’m wet.” As soon as she said it she let out a little squeak of dismay.
Gregor bit his lip and cast his eyes to the ceiling. Why did he want this woman? He didn’t even know what she looked like, not really, not with the glasses, not with the hair in her face.
“I mean, my clothes are wet and cold. I want to change.”
He wanted to strip her down to her skin and find out what she really looked like. He could feel her lush curves under his hands, her round ass, and the very feminine contour of her thigh.
“You wanna call a friend or something to help you out with that?” With luck she wouldn’t notice the squeak in his voice.
“Yes, I will.” She spoke clearly and slowly, as if trying to gain control of the situation herself. “All I need is for you to help me with my coat, and then get me to the sofa. After that, I’m good.”
Done and done. Underneath the beach ball coat she wore an equally awful cardigan sweater. The kind grandfathers wore. The smell of damp, musty wool put him off more effectively than a string of garlic.
Common sense restored, he settled her onto the sofa in a few efficient moves, propping up her leg and covering her with an itchy throw knit in all the colors of the 70s. Escape was on the horizon. Just a few formalities and he’d be free.