She pressed her hands on her hips. Had a Glock in each hand.
I wasn’t sure which guns I was supposed to be looking at.
I gave her my best Flynn smile. “I like where this is going.”
She straightened and I made an effort to pull my gaze up from her panties, her flat stomach, the birthmark just over her hipbone, the curve of breasts, and all the way up to those merciless blues. Got lost in the blues for a moment or two.
“Good,” she said. “Because I’m just getting started. Are you fully awake, Shamus?”
“How about you untie me so we can find out?”
She shook her head, walked across the room to a crappy table there, with an even crappier chair. Wood. Scuffed legs, no padding. Probably matched the one I was sitting on.
She lifted it, walked toward me.
“I’m going to try this one more time,” she said. “Talking you into seeing things my way.”
She turned the chair so that the back of it was toward me.
“I asked nice last time. This time I’m not going to ask so very nicely.” She spread her legs and straddled the chair.
Mercy.
Everything went white noise for a moment or two while I did what I could to put out the fire in my groin.
Don’t think of her mouth. Don’t think of her breasts. Don’t think of her thighs.
“...heard stories about the great Shamus Flynn,” she was saying.
“All true,” I interrupted. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Good,” she said. “Because I heard you killed Jingo Jingo, one of the strongest Death magic users around at the fight in St. Johns. And you single-handedly devoured six professional magic users—drained them down so there weren’t even bodies to bury. Then you took on two dead Soul Complements who tried to end the world. You came out of all of that still standing and were made into the head of the magic users in Portland.”
Okay, now she was getting specific. These were things that were only known to the Authority. Maybe she’d dug through some top secret files the FBI or CIA had set up after the apocalypse to try to make sense of the whole ancient organization of secret magic users that had been operating under their noses since before they had noses.
But what she most certainly had not done was get access to this information in any easy or legal manner.
“Who do you work for again?” I asked.
“Now, now,” she said. “That wouldn’t be any fun. First you tell me a little something I want to know. Then I’ll tell you something you want.”
Her hand slipped up her thigh, stopping just short of her hip. She licked her bottom lip and smiled.
She was so playing me.
I loved it.
However, the rope she’d tied me up with was weighted down with Void stones. While that would make it harder for me to use magic, I could still get out of the ropes if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to—yet.
“Who killed your brother?” I asked.
She raised one eyebrow and leaned forward into the back of the chair. Jesus, I wanted to be that chair.
“Tell me if you’re as deadly as they say you are, Shame. Prove to me all those rumors are true. Better yet . . . show me.”
Really? That’s what she wanted to know about me? If I could kill people?
Fine.
I relaxed my hold against the darkness inside me. Let my hunger stretch out and breathe. Brought the monster front and center.
I tipped my head just a bit. Caught her gaze. And held it until her smile dropped away. Held it until she shifted her grip on the Glocks. Held it until she instinctively turned the guns on me, stood up, and stepped back.
“What I am,” I said, “is much, much worse than anything anyone has ever told you, love.”
In the next several heartbeats I learned that Dessa knew fear. And I learned how she handled it: heartbeat elevated, hands steady on the guns. Taking the time to make a decision.
Who wouldn’t shoot the monster if they had it tied up in front of them?
I braced for the bullet I knew was coming my way.
Instead she pushed the chair to one side. Knelt in front of me, then pressed up between my legs, her guns on the floor.
Oh. God.
“I think you’re lying.” And then she kissed me. Kissed me with all her body.
Every inch of me flared at that touch, burning hot and hard.
I let her kiss me, her mouth soft and hungry. And then I kissed her back, coaxing her mouth open, until she relented and let me taste her fully.
Slow. Deep. I savored the taste of her mouth—alcohol, and the sweet of oranges. Felt the low groan in her throat. She exhaled and her body melted into mine.
My hands were still tied. Her hands slid up my chest to the edge of my jaw. Her fingers drew across the stubble of my beard and then back, to knot behind my head and tug at my hair. She dragged my face closer, her fist in my hair.
My turn to groan.
We kissed, hot, wet. I couldn’t think. Didn’t want to.
Yes. God, yes.
The hunger inside me was not Death. Had nothing to do with magic. I wanted to taste every inch of her. Wanted to kiss her until she shuddered in my arms.
I tugged on the ropes. The chair creaked.
Dessa suddenly pulled back and rocked up onto her feet, eyes wide, lips plump and wet, her lipstick smudged.
Lord.
Her fingers flew to her neck, then her arms, brushing over them as if assuring herself she was still whole.
I wasn’t the only one wondering if I’d survived that contact. I wasn’t the only one breathing a little harder.
Her pale skin was scorched red across her chest and cheeks, hot with arousal. If my hands were free, she wouldn’t be standing alone right now. She’d be in my arms, in that bed.
“You could have killed me just then,” she said with a catch in her breath.
It took me a minute to reply. Finally, “You’re the one with the gun.” It came out slow, low, and I watched her pupils dilate in response.
“But you could have killed me,” she said softly. “Drunk down my life.”
There was no reason to deny it. “Yes.”
She licked her bottom lip, and I blinked slowly, unable to look away.
“I need you, Shamus. You are the man I’ve been looking for.”
There was something about the way she said it that made me think she wasn’t talking about sex.
“How about you untie me, then?”
She drew her fingers through her hair, pulling the stray locks of it away from her face. Her heartbeat was still elevated. She swallowed and took a few more steps away from me as if space would cool the heat between us. “First,” she said, “I want you to name your price.”
“For?”
“Helping me find my brother’s killer. I can’t . . . do anything else with my life until that happens, Shame.” She studied my lips with a soft longing as she said it, then stared into my eyes. Her cool blues darkened with need. “Just help me find him, and if I can convince you that he deserves to die, help me kill him.”
“And then?”
“You can name your price. Tell me what you want.”
“I don’t kill people for sex.”
Yet.
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just . . . I didn’t realize what you are . . .” She licked her lips and stared at my mouth again, then my eyes. “How very good you are. You tell me what you want in exchange, and I’ll do it.”
Jesus, I was going to explode.
Eleanor drifted into my line of sight. I had completely forgotten about her. She floated up behind Dessa and put her hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t,” I warned her.
Dessa frowned, and a roll of goose pimples pricked across her skin. Eleanor’s touch was grave-cold.