The ding of the elevator had me as excited as one of Pavlov’s dogs. Whether it was the strike of her sword, or the slant of her mouth, the unrelenting pain that usually gripped me had become less potent. The searing agony that once clouded my thoughts and haunted my existence had dimmed. The debilitating bouts of madness, the blackout spells had been remarkably absent in the past few days.
It was as if the edges of my torment had blurred, faded at the seams, turning from vivid scarlet slashes of pain to muted hues of manageable discomfort.
Miranda, had begun to transform my endless torment into bearable stretches of anticipation.
Come kill me again, sweetheart. Kiss me again as you do.
Miranda emerged, her skin glistening more than usual. Tight fitting workout clothes clung to her muscular, tight body. I had to bite back a groan. Fucking hell, she was gorgeous. And fierce, and smart, and a hard-ass. I coulddefinitelysee what a hard-ass she was in those pants.
And I couldn’t wait for her to kill me. She really was my personal angelic badass.
Before I could even open my mouth, she held up a hand. “You can’t kiss me. Not ever again.”
Some part deep inside me growled at my acquiescence, not wanting to promise any such thing. After all, hadn’t her own spawn told her she needed to have fun last night? I could help. I could help her havea lotof fun.
Kissing her had been a hell of a lot more than just fun. It had been a revelation, a cataclysmic event that set my world ablaze. I’d been swept away in a torrent of raw emotion, of sensations I didn’t know I was still capable of experiencing.
Her taste, her touch had seeped into the hollows of my existence, filling the spaces I hadn’t realized were void. Her kiss was not just pleasure—it was a lifeline, an anchoring force that momentarily tethered me to the world of the living.
But I was, after all, a man on a direct course to death.
Though I selfishly didn’t want to spend the rest of my life—short as it may be—knowing what she tasted like and not having her again.
Her eyebrows lifted expectantly. She was waiting for an answer.
I blinked. “Okay.”
Her posture visibly relaxed.
“You’re early,” I pointed out in a gruff tone, trying to pretend I didn’t care about what she just said. That it didn’t rankle me, and that I instantly wanted to haul her up against the bars and kiss her until she lost it.
Calm down. You need her to kill you, not run off in a huff.
“It’s my day off.” She said it as if she’d been walking on a bed of nails and sucking on lemon juice the whole day.
The urge to laugh rose in me. Not a crazy explosive cackle, a genuine laugh. But I bit it back.
“And looks like you’re enjoying every minute of it,” I said.
Miranda pulled the blade from her coat and neared my cage. Every hair on my body rose with excitement. For my oblivion?
I inhaled deeply.
No. For Miranda. I was excited to be near my angel of death. Especially with the close call, I wanted to bury myself in her, lose myself in her and forget the monster I was.
She stopped inches away from me.
Sweet fucking reaper dogs, how does she smell even more delicious? If I didn’t watch myself, my tongue would loll right out of my mouth, as I panted in lust like a cartoon character.
“Someone tried to get the blade,” she confessed in a low tone.
All humor and attraction froze before cracking into a million pieces. I gripped the bars. “What happened, exactly?”
Miranda told me about the person in the orange hoodie. She couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman, or how old they were. They were slight of frame and fast as hell.
“They could have just wanted my car,” she said, unconvincingly.
Panic gripped my chest in a vice before crawling up my throat like a gang of worms. “Miranda, you can’t let anyone get their hands on that blade,” I said.
