Actually, no, she didn’t know that part. She wasn’t some kind of all seeing, walking, talking crystal ball. All she’d had were glimpses. Snatches of conversation. His memories. The few that had filtered through the blood link. What became of Mr. Trigger Happy, she had no idea. So she just stared back at Simon and waited.
“There wasn’t a choice, Dee. He forced my hand.”
Ah, one of those stories that wasn’t going to end well.
“Frankie came after me, okay? He shot me in the back and would have killed me—”
“Wait.” Her eyes narrowed. “Frankie?” The guy’s face flashed before her eyes. Broad features. Balding hair. “Frankie Lee?” She should have put those pieces together sooner.
“Yeah.”
She whistled and drummed her fingers on his chest. “Went big-time slumming, huh?” Word on the street was that Frankie would shoot his own mother—and, actually, had—for a quick grand.
“He came after me,” Simon repeated, his face tense. “There wasn’t a choice.”
Silence for a moment, then Dee ventured, “I’m guessing old Frankie won’t be taking any more hits.”
His palm pressed harder against her back. “I swear I didn’t pay him to kill you. I wouldn’t have done that!”
“But you didn’t even know me then. I was just a hunter to you, another—”
“You were everything.” Rasped. His eyes blazed at her. “You still are.”
What did a woman say to that? Dee pulled away from him and reached for the sheet. She just needed to cover up, to take a second to think.
He grabbed her wrist. “You don’t want to hear about how I feel, do you? Too damn bad, babe.” His thumb rubbed over her pulse point. “You know I came after you because I thought you’d take down Grim.”
And she had. A point for the good guys. Well, semi–good guys, anyway. “I know you wanted to be free, you’ve already—”
“I wanted you. Want you.” Simon shook his head. “From the moment I saw you, I wanted you.”
Fair enough. She’d wanted to jump him, too. He’d tackled her; she’d wanted to return the favor.
“I thought it was just lust, Dee. That I could take you, enjoy you, and walk away.”
Kind of hard not to flinch at that one. With her left hand, she jerked the sheet up to her chin. Simon held tight to her right wrist. “So you were using me for sex and death?” Grim’s death. No getting around she’d been a means to an end there. But she’d thought there might be more. He’d made her think that.
I’ll fucking love you forever.
Say it again.
But now the guy wasn’t talking rose petals and sunsets.
“I knew I was lost.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the flesh of her palm. “When you died in my arms.”
Okay, she definitely flinched. Not her best memory.
“I wanted to change you. You were dying in front of me, and I knew you were supposed to be a Born. Catalina had told me about you.”
Had she really thanked the witch properly for that? Nah. She hadn’t let Cat know how much she appreciated the woman’s secrecy. Payback, um, gratitude would come eventually.
“You weren’t going to stay dead.”
Who did these days?
“You weren’t supposed to stay dead,” he amended. “But I was shit-scared and when your eyes closed, I wanted to change you.”
Her heart stilled at that.
“I wanted it so fucking much.” Another hot kiss against her palm.
“But you didn’t try.” No bite. No exchange of blood.
“No.” His breath blew against her flesh. “Because if I was wrong about you, if the witch and that damn seer were wrong, I wasn’t about to make you into the thing you hated.”
And she had hated the idea of vampirism. Becoming a vampire had once been her worst nightmare. Strange, because now, things all seemed so different.
“If you were dying, I wasn’t going to make you come back to me. That was the hardest thing I ever did.” His lips thinned. “Watching you die and not knowing if you’d ever open your eyes again.”
The last thing she’d seen had been him. “You left me.” The words came out as an accusation and she realized that, yeah, that had bothered her. No matter what was going on between them, no matter what secrets he’d kept—and she’d known there were secrets even then—she’d expected him to stay with her.
“I thought I was the last person you’d want to see.”
He’d been the one she wanted the most.
“I knew you needed time to adjust. Seeing me…I was afraid it would push you too much.” His gaze held hers. “But then you came to me.”
Sex.
Blood.
So much hunger.
“You weren’t afraid of me,” he said.
“I was afraid of myself.” A stark confession, one she should have given sooner. “I didn’t want to become—”
Like Grim.
Like Leo.
Like so many of the others she’d taken down over the years.
Not a monster. She hadn’t wanted to be a woman ruled by the bloodlust and lost to humanity.
“You have the control, Dee. You’re not going to turn and start killing innocents.” He freed her hand and rose, moving slowly away from her. “That’s not going to happen with you. There’s no Born to take over your mind. No one to force you. There’s just…you.”
It had been just her for years. Maybe she was tired of that. She wrapped the sheet around her body. “So what happens now?” Did she go back to Night Watch? Keep hunting? While he—what? Got the hell out of town as fast as he could?
Just…you.
She’d be left alone? Again?
Only this time, she wouldn’t be looking at a few empty years before her. She’d be looking at forever.
Without him.
Shit. When had the vampire started to mean so much? Because she couldn’t breathe without tasting him. She wanted his touch, his mouth, his blood. Him. Always him.
“Pity we didn’t meet before,” she whispered. What would life have been like?
She glanced over, saw him hauling on a pair of jeans. He froze at her words, then gritted, “I wish to hell we had.”
So did she. “Simon…” What could she say? Her eyes drifted over him. Broad, strong shoulders. Muscled chest. Slim hips. So sexy. So—
Simon.
Vampire. Man.
Hers.
Dee’s breath caught. “You—you came to me because you thought I’d stop Grim.”
A nod.
“But if you just wanted to be free of him, why did you keep putting yourself between me and—” Everything. Everyone. “I can take care of myself, you know. You don’t have to jump in front of me every time things get a little dicey.” A very bad habit he seemed to have there.
He snapped the button on the jeans. Yanked up the zipper. Denied her the too pleasing sight of his still aroused flesh. “I was protecting you because you’re mine to protect.”
Okay, now she was nearly cutting the sheet with her death grip.
His eyes narrowed and he stalked around the edge of the bed. “You want to clear the air about what’s happening here? Okay. Fine.”
Uh, maybe she should yank on some clothes, too. She reached for her shirt. He grabbed her arms and pulled her against him. “This is a fuck-off talk, isn’t it? One dressed up in some kind of nice, polite chitchat.”
His eyes turned to black.
“I never told you to fuck off,” she managed, voice quiet.
“Yet.” His fingers tightened around her. “I protected you because you were mine to protect, got it? I knew I wanted you from the beginning.” He kissed her, hard, deep, and had her nipples tightening, her sex clenching, and her toes curling. Oh, yeah. “Mine,” he gritted again. “I wasn’t going to let anyone—Grim, your demon friend, or even your witch—stand between us.”
No one was between them now. Only the thin sheet.
“The start was screwed-up.” His chin lifted. “I’m not denying that. Yeah, I lied. Yeah, I tricked you. But I’m also the man who was ready to die for you. I’m the—”