Fear crystalized my sight, turning everything into high definition, vivid motion. I wondered, calmly, if this was how I was going to die. If this was it, it, it, and I was going to be dead, dead, dead.
Before he could reach me, though, he drew up short, eyes blown wide open, torso frozen and arched like a bow with tension. There was a stomach-turning, wet squelch and then the point of a massive knife protruded from his inner right shoulder. I watched it twist, watched my attacker gurgle and actually squeak with pain before he crumpled to the ground unconscious.
Behind him in the shadows of the open door stood Priest.
Bea
A sob boiled up my throat, but I caught it in my hand as I stood, staring wide-eyed at my unlikely hero.
Priest was cloaked in darkness, only the end of his Roman nose and the steep edge of his taut jaw and high cheekbone caught in the artificial red light of the exit sign just behind him in the hall. He looked like an avenging demon as likely to slay you as to help you, dangerous and on edge despite his calm demeanor.
But something was in the wait between us, a vibrating energy like a plucked guitar string that sang through my blood.
He took one step forward, pried the knife from my attacker’s back, checked his pulse, then stepped over his prone body to get to me. His body moved so sinuously—a heavily muscled, grace-greased machine.
My mouth went dry, and my hand shook where it was still pressed to my blood-coated mouth.
He stopped only inches away, the tips of my leather heels against his leather boots. He wasn’t breathing hard, but I could see the way his firm mouth parted over his breath, the way his chest moved beneath the familiar, stiff material of his Fallen cut. I soaked up every inch of him, counting the countless freckles on his cheeks above the beard, drawing the shape of his straight eyebrows and the exact angle of his square chin. Just the sight of him soothed the flapping, anxious bird of angry fear attempting to take flight in my belly on broken wings.
I sucked in a harsh gulp of iron-poisoned air as he slowly lifted his hand and took mine from my mouth. Every inch of me held precariously still as if I was being sniffed by a wild animal when he drew a thick, calloused finger along my already swelling cheekbone, then down to the corner of my mouth where he gently smeared the crying blood onto my lips like a morbid gloss. His gaze intensified as his thumb parted my lips, and the piece of my attacker’s ear, still tucked into my cheek, became visible. Reminded of it, I spat the hunk of flesh out onto the floor to my side. Something in his posture changed, his body tightening and angling toward me.
Slowly, he turned his head to look at the prone body of the man he’d stabbed, noting the bloody mess at the side of his ear. When his gaze returned to mine, it pinned me as readily as bindings at my hands and feet.
Something flashed between us, a lightning bolt of lust catching fire to the blood-soaked room.
And then he was kissing me.
Kissingmekissingme.
Kissing me so hard I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t want to. His hand was still at my mouth, tugging it open with a thumb pressed into the skin beneath my lower lips. I flicked my tongue over it, tasting the salty tang of his skin, the metallic bite of another man’s blood.
It shouldn’t have been sexy.
It was wrong, maybe even disgusting.
But it lit something in me I’d unconsciously been building into the makings of a bonfire for a long, long time.
I moaned and clawed at his leather clad shoulders, my leg hooking around his leg so I could climb him like a jungle gym. I was desperate for him, this man who was at once a hero and a villain, who was death to so many but so life-affirming for me. I needed him in me, on me, around me. I wanted him to fucking consume me.
He met my franticness with ease, that hand out of my mouth sliding down to my throat where he pressed hard into my jugular, I knew, to confirm my heartbeat. In his own way, he was frantic too, though more controlled, always more controlled than me.
His grip bit into my hip as he plastered me to the length of his body, grinding me into his thigh so I could have some friction against my clenching pussy.
It was wrong to be so turned on, to want sex more than my next breath after almost being assaulted and raped, after ripping off half of my attacker’s ear, the remnants of his blood still on my chin, sucked away by Priest’s mouth on my lips.