Her cheeks flushed.
“Maybe. I mean, I want to say yes, but I wouldn’t know until I was in a situation where I needed to.”
“That’s the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Don’t flirt with me. You need to get some sleep and the sound of your voice already makes me irrationally horny. If you keep flirting, I’m going keep you up another hour, at least.”
“I’m not hearing a problem with this.”
“Austin. Cut it out.”
“Fine.” I sighed. “You’re right. I really should sleep but, fuck, I don’t want to. Not when I finally have you all to myself.” I rolled over, pinning her to the mattress. “Not when you’re so tempting.”
My lips went to her neck, my hand slid under the shirt she’d stolen.
“Aus, you’re not being very good right now.”
“I’m a supervillain, love. The wordgoodisn’t in my vocabulary.”
“You drive me crazy.”
“Excellent, now you know how I feel.”
I should have listenedto Violet when she told me to go to bed the first time, and I most certainly should have the fourth. But she was so fucking tempting, so fucking soft, so fucking warm. It was nearly 6 a.m. before the exhaustion took over completely, and I passed out the second she started playing with my hair.
Tell me why I insisted on six-hour check-ins? Why I ever gave a single other person her contact information? Why her ringtone was so fucking obnoxious? Once I was fully awake I’d be tracking down the caller and killing them. I wasn’t fully conscious, only enough to tell she’d sat up and was no longer in my arms. I felt myself frown and reach for her. She laced her fingers through mine but stayed at the edge of the bed.
“Hello?” Violet whispered. “I don’t know, morning brain I guess.” She laughed, voice going back to normal. “I had a pretty late night last night.” She paused. “Hem, you gotta stop that.”
That poisonous weasel! I was awake now, reaching for her phone. She levelled me with a glare and stood up out of my reach.
“Sorry, what was that? You cut out,” she said.
I sent my shadows to bring me that other side of the conversation, because she wasn’t putting it on speaker and I needed to know how dead to make this fucker.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I thought we were just having fun.”
“I’m not uncomfortable. I just…” She met my eye and smiled. “I’m off the market.”
I had to dig my nails into my leg to keep from walking over there, hanging up, and taking her against the wall.
I was so fucking in love with this woman.
“Seriously? Damn, who? No, don’t tell me I’ll probably try and kill him. Man, you picked a good time with Avalanche probably dead, he would definitely try and kill him.”
She snorted at the glare I shot at the phone.
“One, they still haven’t found him, so he could still be alive. Two, why do you think that?”
“V, you should have heard the speech he gave me after I met you.” He lowered his voice an octave. “She is off fucking limits. If you try anything, I’ll kill you. Do we understand each other?” He laughed, voice back to normal. “He said something about it being dangerous or whatever to be involved with you ’cause of the whole villain thing, but I didn’t buy that shit for a second. Dude’s hard-core protective of you.”
“Is that so?” She raised her eyebrow, grinning at me. “Well, maybe it’s a good thing he’s missing, then. I really like this guy; I’d hate for him to wind-up dead.”
“No, give me a name. With Av out of the picture, it’s my turn to be the protective one.”
“Good try. Bye, Hem.”
“Wait—”
