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She stayed down, listening to Jackson calling out her name, his voice coming from the direction of the building.
"We won't hurt you! We just want to talk!"
Yeah, and she was a monkey's uncle.
She grit her teeth, anger filling her, the urge to punch his teeth hard enough to make him bleed surging through her. Oh, how she'd love punching him.
"I know you like playing games, babe, but this isn't one!"
She hated, absolutely detested, when he called her 'babe'. It made her feel like one of those floozies who surrounded men in their world. She should have knocked him down.
"Look, I know," Jackson continued talking, his voice inching closer to where she hid. "I know you hate me for taking the codes but it was all money, babe. I did like you. We can help you if you help us."
Was he high?
Her grip tightened on the gun.
A shot fired. The eagles went wild.
Morana flinched at the noise, her gaze sliding upwards to see the eagles flying haphazardly in chaos, completely frantic, and felt her heart beat in tandem with their wings. She waited for Jackson to speak again, but he didn't. The dread in her stomach tightened.
"I prefer you blonde."
Her breath seized in her throat at the voice coming from behind her. The voice she hadn't been able to forget for a week. The voice that had whispered the ways of murder into her skin like a lover's caress. The voice of hard whiskey and sin.
She swung her gaze up, her eyes leveling with the barrel of a Glock pointed right at her head. She slowly let her gaze travel up to the sure, steady fingers, up the forearms exposed under folded sleeves of a black shirt, roped with muscles, up the shoulders she knew possessed the strength to pin her useless against a wall, up that scruff littering his square jaw, and finally to his eyes. His blue, blue eyes. His blue, wiped-clean-of-every-expression eyes.
It was just a second of these observations, a second of feminine appreciation before she let herself remember who he was.
And swung her arm up, pointing her gun right at his heart with his own pointed at her head, in a silent standoff.
Standing up, her eyes not wavering from his, her arm not wavering in her hold, Morana tilted her head.
"I prefer you gone."
His face retained the stoic expression, his eyes narrowing slightly. They stood silently for a few minutes, just with their guns pointed at each other, and Morana realized it was rather pointless. She knew he wasn't going to kill her. He had ample opportunity just last week and he hadn't. He wouldn't do so again.
"We both know you won't shoot me, so let's remove the guns, shall we?" she suggested conversationally, never blinking once to give him any opportunity.
His lips curled but the amusement never reached his eyes. He raised his arm, pulling it back, waving the white flag, and she dropped her own, keeping him in his sights. The moment her gun was down, he stepped into her personal space, placing his gun right between her breasts, his face inches from her own, the scent of his sweat and cologne mingling in the air around her, every fleck of blue in his eyes somehow highlighted even in the darkness that had descended around them.
He leaned in slowly, speaking softly, his eyes hard, never moving from hers, his words making her breath hitch a little in her chest. "There are places on your body that I know," he spoke, his free hand wrapping around the back of her neck, his grip strong, just on the periphery of threatening, as the gun stayed right above her racing heart. "Places that you don't know. Places where I can shoot and harm and you won't die."
He leaned even closer, his whisper just a ghost across her skin as her neck craned to keep their gazes locked, his hand cradling her nape, his height looming above her, his eyes never moving from hers. "Death isn't the main course, sweetheart. It's the dessert."
His eyes hardened even more, his tone frigid, his fingers flexing on her neck in warning. "Never make the mistake of thinking you know me. It might just prove to be your last."
Her heart beat in her chest like a wild animal running for life. Even though her chest heaved with something she so did not want to look at, Morana grit her teeth at the sheer audacity of the man, the sheer arrogance of him. Why did all men around her behave like nominees for Asshole of the Year?
Steeling her spine, she flashed her arm out before she could stop it, her leg hooking around his knee, classic self-defense training overtaking her senses for a moment. She tugged with her leg just as she pushed his weight with her arm, knocking him down on the hard ground, her triumph flaring at watching the brief surprise cross his face. Within a heartbeat, he was back on his feet again, in a lithe movement that would have awed her had he been anyone else. But she wasn't done.
Morana stepped into his personal space this time, her finger going to his hard pecs under the open collar black shirt, poking him once as she spoke, her head tilted back to keep their eyes locked, her voice colder than his had been.
"Never make the mistake of thinking you scare me. It will be your last."
His jaw clenched, his eyes trained on hers, the tension so thick between them she could have cut it with a butter knife. His stance remained icy. She felt fire flooding her veins as her chest heaved.
Another voice interrupted their tense moment.
