A preternatural connection.
A longing to have someone she could trust.
A yearning to feel that she wasn’t all alone in the world.
Things she often dreamed could be hers one day . . . before everything she had was ripped away from her.
She shook her head, reminded of where she’d come from and how far she still had to go.
“Take your hands off me.”
He held her gaze. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Okay. You’re wrong.”
A scoff curled his lip and those incredible aquamarine eyes flashed with a crackle of amber heat. He moved closer, leaving less than an inch to separate them. The pointed tips of his fangs gleamed in the moonlight. “Now, try to tell me I’m wrong without lying about it.”
“Damn you, vampire. I said you’re wro—”
His mouth came down on hers without any warning. Firm, forceful, a total shock to her system. But his lips were infinitely soft, his kiss moving from power to possession.
Devony melted under the tender assault. She wanted to pull away. She wanted to fight him.
God knew, she wanted to deny everything she was feeling.
Desire.
Hunger.
A marrow-deep need that rocked her to her core.
That need ignited her blood like flame to tinder. She couldn’t hold it back. Every cell in her body lit up, sending fire into her veins. Her fangs erupted from her gums. Underneath her clothes, her glyphs came to life, pulsing like living tattoos on her skin.
And as Rafe drew back from their kiss on a hissed curse, her glowing eyes bathed him in the hot glow of her transformed irises.
“Holy shit,” he uttered tersely, his own fangs gleaming in the darkness. “I knew it. You are Breed, a daywalker.”
His hold on her went slack now. Devony yanked out of it on a low growl.
All he’d done was kiss her, yet every fiber of her being felt electrified and raw. If she had thought having him around was dangerous before, now she understood it was something far worse.
Because now he knew unequivocally what she was.
And she wanted him in spite of what that knowledge could cost her.
He lifted his hand to her face, his expression one of disbelief . . . and potent desire.
Before his fingers had a chance to brush her cheek, the garage’s back door opened and the gang filed out dressed in head-to-toe black and armed with heavy firearms.
Cruz hailed Rafe from across the lot. “Good. You’re right on time. We’re rolling out now.”
Devony could feel Rafe’s big body tense in front of her. He was positioned to shield her face from their view, giving her the moments she needed to bring her transformation to heel.
“What’s going on?” he asked the men. “We got plans or something?”
Cruz chuckled as Ocho clicked a remote starter and a parked delivery van with a linen company logo on its side fired up. “Hop in, both of you. We can cover the logistics on the way.”
With the other men climbing into the vehicle, Rafe cast a surreptitious glance at Devony. “What’s going on?”
She didn’t answer, mostly because she couldn’t find her voice to speak. All of her energy and focus went into the effort of schooling her features back to a state of calm before she had to make the trek over to the waiting van.
That kiss had shocked her. Not only because of Rafe’s audacity in doing it. Her own response was just as jarring.
His brows furrowed as he waited for her reply. “What’s Cruz got planned tonight?”
“I guess we’re going to find out,” she told him tightly.
Part of her wanted to clue him in. After all, he had shielded her from discovery for the second time when he could have just as easily hung her out to dry. But how could she help him make inroads with the gang when her goals depended on keeping him out?
After that kiss, it wasn’t only her goals she wanted to protect.
She clutched her safe-cracking kit tight against her hammering heart, even though she was certain his acute hearing couldn’t be fooled.
As she stepped past him, she paused to level a glare on the Breed male’s maddeningly handsome face.
“If you ever try something like that with me again, vampire, I will fucking ash you.”
CHAPTER 6
Rafe tried to assure himself that the kiss he’d laid on Brinks didn’t mean anything. He sure as hell hadn’t intended it to mean anything. Just a tactic to throw her off guard, force her to let go of the fierce hold she seemed to maintain on her Breed nature.
He’d needed a weapon to combat her stubborn denial and he had reached for the first one that came to mind.
Now, it was all he could do to sit beside her in the back of the delivery van and pretend that kiss hadn’t short-circuited his brain along with the rest of his anatomy.
He wanted her.
Fuck, he’d wanted her the moment he walked into Asylum the other night and saw her running the pool table over Cruz and the others. Those luscious curves and long, lean legs. That cascade of silken, dark hair framing those big bourbon-colored eyes that made him hard no matter if she looked at him in fury or in tormented desire.
Shit. Thinking about what she did to him only made the problem worse.
And he’d be damned before he’d let himself walk right into a seductress’s trap.
Though to be fair, Brinks—or whatever her true name was—behaved less like a seductress than a combatant. He didn’t doubt for a second that she meant it when she threatened to ash him.
He would trust that more than sweetness and honey any day.
Especially after he’d barely survived the trap the Opus bitch had set for him in Montreal.
Yet as the van left Roxbury heading north onto Columbus Avenue, Rafe couldn’t help but wonder if he was being led into a different sort of trap tonight.
He leaned forward to get a better look at Cruz in the passenger seat. “You mentioned logistics back at the garage. What’s going on?”
A few moments of odd silence fell over everyone on the heels of his question. Rafe flicked a glance at Brinks, but she turned her head to stare at nothing.
“You like art, vampire?” Cruz asked, nonchalant.
Rafe grunted. “Sure. Depends what kind.”
“Fine art,” Fish said from across from him. “Monet, Renoir. Classic shit like that.”
Behind the wheel up front, Ocho snickered and shook his head. “You wouldn’t know a fucking Monet or a Renoir from an Elvis on black velvet.”
“Who cares, asshole?” Fish scowled. “I’m not planning to hang one on my wall.”
Rafe’s hackles were already up on instinct, so the idiotic back-and-forth only increased his impatience. “You told me we were going to discuss business tonight, Cruz. Lucrative business, you said. So, what is it?”
Instead of answering, he reached back to hand him a flyer for an art museum exhibit that would be opening in a couple of days in Boston.
Son of a bitch. Rafe’s veins tightened as he realized what he was seeing. “This is from the Museum of Fine Art.”
Cruz stared at him. “So, you’re familiar with the place? That’s good.”
He knew damn well Rafe was familiar. No doubt, that was the whole point of the conversation. The whole point of this entire exercise.