“No, but I’m sure they won’t mind us making use of their facilities for a while.”
“And where might they be while we’re doing this?”
“The south of France, according to the neighbors.”
“Convenient.”
“Totally.” He glanced at me. “I’ll cook.”
“This morning you said you couldn’t cook.”
“No, I said I couldn’t do pancakes.” He glanced at me. “There’s coffee on the floor at the back.”
I twisted around in the seat and saw two cups sitting in a take-out tray. “You took time to grab coffee? When there’s who knows how many bad guys coming after us?”
“The bad-guy ranks are currently two down. If we keep picking them off, the odds will be on our side sooner or later.”
His voice was philosophical, but it wasn’t something I wanted to think about. I might be determined to find the people behind the cleansings and Rainey’s death, but I really hadn’t gone as far as thinking what I’d actually do once I’d found them.
Perhaps deep down I’d never really thought that I would. “Is there nothing that scares you?”
He considered the question for what seemed an inordinate amount of time, then simply said, “Yes.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What?”
His gaze met mine, but those dark depths were totally unreadable. Once again I had no idea what this man was thinking or feeling, and in some ways, that was even more scary than the situation we’d found ourselves in.
“You scare me,” he answered at last.
“Me?” I said, surprise making my voice little more than a squeak. “Why the hell would I scare you?”
He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Because you don’t react as expected.”
I had a strange feeling that wasn’t what he’d actually meant, but I also knew he wouldn’t admit to anything else. Not yet, anyway.
Chapter Eleven
I leaned back in the kitchen chair and stared out the dust-covered windows. Damon’s idea of pretty was vastly different from mine—no surprise, I suppose, given he apparently found plain brown draman extremely attractive.
The apartment was part of an old confectionery factory, and it was still very industrial in feel. Old bricks, hard steel, bright chrome, and polished concrete were the flavor of the day.
But it was directly opposite Deca Dent, and provided the perfect refuge to spy on the club. Not that there was anything or anyone to spy on at the moment. The place was as deserted as an old cemetery.
Of course, we still did regular perimeter checks, just in case they used the rear entrance.
“Would you like any more steak?” Damon asked.
He was sitting opposite me, but his bare feet were caressing the bottom of my leg and there was a heated, hungry look in his eyes. The meal he’d cooked had catered to one hunger; now the other had come to the fore. Even after we’d spent a good percentage of the afternoon twined around each other, exploring and caressing and loving until exhaustion hit and the meal was ready.
But as much as I wanted nothing more than to touch and be touched, I also hungered to be something other than just another sexual partner. It might never amount to anything permanent, but I wanted to be remembered as more than just another woman in a long line of them.
So I ignored the simmering desire, and simply said, “If I eat anything else, I’ll burst.”
“What about some more red?”
I shook my head and watched him pour wine into his glass, then said, “Tell me, why do you see yourself as little more than a killer?”
“Because that’s what I do and that’s all I am.”
“But it’s not.” There was a slight tic in the muscles along his jawline. This man really didn’t like talking about himself. Was it was part of his training or did it go far deeper? “You like to keep people at arm’s length, don’t you?”
His expression closed over once again. “Why would you think that?”
“Because any normal person would be terrified by the statement.”
“You weren’t.”
“We’ve already established that I’m far from normal.” My voice was dry, and amusement briefly tugged the corners of his mouth. “Besides, the situation we were in was far from normal. I needed to get out of that place and if I had to use a killer to do that, then I damn well would.”
“That still doesn’t make your statement about me true.”
“Of course it does. You’re too at ease with calling yourself that, so you’ve done it more than once. Add to that the fact that you’ve already said you have no intention of ever getting emotionally involved, and your emotionally barren little world remains nice and secure.”
“You really do like making snap judgments about people you barely know, don’t you?”
“It’s not a snap judgment. And besides, after last night and this afternoon, you can’t exactly say we’re strangers anymore.”
“It makes us intimate strangers, Mercy, nothing more.”
My smile felt tight. “You do realize your strategy is doomed to failure, don’t you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “And why would you think that?”
“Because you are neither cold nor unfeeling, Damon, and sooner or later someone will break through that wall you’ve raised around your heart.”
“I come from a long line of muerte who lost their heads, not their hearts. I expect to be no different.”
“Then you’re selling yourself short. You are not your forefathers.”
“And you,” he said gently, “are reading entirely too much into my actions. I will not fall, Mercy, no matter how great the attraction between us.”
I snorted derisively. “Oh, never fear, I have no illusions when it comes to you and me. You’ve expressed your views well enough when it comes to draman and their usefulness.”
“It’s not because you’re draman.” He reached out and wrapped his hands around mine, squeezing lightly. “I don’t see you as draman. I don’t think I ever have, which is why I was so surprised when you told me you were.”
“That’s not the point—”
“But it is. I won’t have you believing something that isn’t true.”
“Then what is your great truth?” I muttered, suddenly wishing I hadn’t gotten into this whole subject. It didn’t really matter which of us was right, because there was one truth that wasn’t going to change. The magic we’d felt every time we came together—the intimacy and the possibilities—would not be explored once this case was solved. No matter what, he would walk away, and it would probably hurt a whole lot more then than the thought did now.
Because no matter what he said, there was something between us. Something that was worth exploring.
“You were afraid today when you saw that car, weren’t you?”
I frowned. “Of course, but—”
“Well,” he continued relentlessly, “imagine living with that sort of fear daily. Imagine living with me and not knowing at the end of each day whether I’d walk in the door at the end of it.”
“If you love someone, you love the whole of them. And that includes what they are and what they do.”
“It’s easy to say that when you’re not living the situation day in, day out.”
“People do.”
“Yes, and lots of marriages break up over it, too. That’s a statistical fact.”
“The difference between your statistics and what we’re discussing here is two simple words—soul mate. When you meet her, Damon, your dragon will not let her go.”
When it came to dragons, that was the truth—and yet not the whole truth. A dragon male might meet his soul mate, but that didn’t necessarily mean he had to settle down and make a commitment to her. My clique’s king was living proof of that. He kept his queen by his side but he refused to commit to her, and continued to breed with other women whenever the whim took him. I couldn’t actually complain about that, because if not for our king’s philandering ways, my brother would not exist. And Trae was the one thing in my life that I couldn’t do without. He wasn’t only my brother, but my savior. I wouldn’t be here today if he hadn’t saved me all those years ago when one of his idiot half-brothers had decided I’d needed to learn to fly. Which is how I’d gotten one of those damn scars—Trae had misjudged his claw position as he’d swooped from the sky to grab me, inches from the rocks.