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“They’re scurrying like rats now,” he noted. “Let’s see how well they can keep up. I’ll take it easy on them to start.”
Cat didn’t believe that. Her arms locked around his waist, and she tucked her head tight to his back. She needn’t have worried. Bones barely broke eighty as he drove to Skylines, a restaurant located at the top of a building. Cat looked around with delight when they were inside the large, hexagon shaped-room, where windows replaced walls to show the glittering cityscape below. Bones had reserved a table next to one of those windows, and Cat stared out of it with such raptness that Bones waved away the waiter who approached.
“From up here, all the different-colored lights make the city look like a huge Christmas tree,” she said with a smile.
Twenty stories wasn’t even very high. He’d take her to New York so she could see the view from a real skyscraper. Yes, she’d been there when Don had sent her after Ian, but he doubted she’d had a chance to go sightseeing. God, he’d forgotten how sheltered her life had been. If it didn’t involve killing vampires and ghouls, she’d probably never done it.
“Did you pick a table by the window so the guy’s following us could see that we haven’t tried to escape?” she asked after finally tearing her gaze away.
“I did it for you,” he said with a smile. “Though it does help not to have them barreling in here and spoiling our dinner, doesn’t it? Speaking of, here’s the menu.”
She took it from him. The waiter saw that and bustled back over. Bones ordered wine for them both, and then bade the waiter to come back while Cat considered her choices. He’d have a plate of something to blend in, but he didn’t care what it was. All regular food tasted bland to vampires.
She kept flicking her gaze to him over the top of the menu, her gaze lingering longer each time. He’d picked the navy shirt to draw her eye. It was elegant but it skimmed his torso in a tighter cut, as did the sleeves that ended at his wrists. He’d left the top button at his collar undone, showing his neck as well as the faint hollow where his throat met his collarbone. Cat used to love to kiss that spot on her journey down his chest, and if she hadn’t noticed it before, she did when Bones let his fingers brush it as he pretended to study the menu.
Her breath hitched. Oh, yes, she’d noticed.
Bones shifted until his shirt drew tighter against his arm, showing a hint of the corded muscles hewn from brutal labor back in the New South Wales penal colonies when he was human. She noticed that, too, and her pulse increased to a trot.
He owed her this after she’d worn a dress that made her skin gleam like liquid pearls against obsidian. He could barely look away, and if she moistened her lipsonemore time, he was flying across the table to kiss her until she begged to breathe.
As if she heard the thought, she traced her tongue along her inner lip while her scent richened with desire.
“Stop it, luv,” Bones said in a low growl. “You’re making it very difficult for me to behave.”
A grin teased her mouth before she slowly rubbed her legs together, maddening him with the sound of friction caused by her silky skin. He couldn’t wait to hear that sound when her thighs were cradling his hips, his mouth, and his waist.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said in nearly a coo.
The waiter brought their wine. Bones almost shooed him away, too caught up in the way Cat let her fingers graze her cleavage as she took a sip. Then, she made a low “mmm” of approval that had him gripping the edge of the table until he nearly broke off a chunk. He leaned closer, letting his gaze rake over her.
“Do you know how beautiful you are? Absolutely ravishing, and I’m going to spend hours reacquainting myself with every inch of your body. I can hardly wait to see if you taste as good as I remember, but I’m not going to stop until I find out.”
She held her wine a moment before she spoke. “Why wait? We don’t have to stay. We can get the meal to go.”
Bones was about to summon the waiter for exactly that when a distinctcrack!had him surging at Cat with all his speed. He knew that sound. Someone had just fired a high-powered rifle.
Pain exploded in his skull, leaving him briefly blind and deaf. Then, he heard screams above the roaring in his head, and the darkness in his vision lightened to red, allowing him to see Cat beneath him. Blood streaked her face from a new furrow in her temple and she had glass, wood shards, and a fork in her hair, but her hammering heartbeat meant she was alive. That was all he cared about.
“What…happened?” she began before opening her tightly closed eyes. Then, she stared at him in shock. “Oh my God, you’re shot! Someone tried to kill you!”
No, but shoving her out of the way meant he’d taken part of the bullet meant for her. Thankfully, the bullet wasn’t silver, or he wouldn’t have healed already. Bones blinked the remaining blood out of his eyes and glanced around. He’d tackled her onto the floor beneath another diner’s upturned table, with that couple sprawled around them, too. More people screamed as they jumped from their tables, panicked by the gunfire. Good. The chaos plus their being on the ground would make another clear shot at Cat impossible, although the shooter was obviously skilled. Three holes cratered the glass at head height next to Cat’s former seat. If Bones had been amillisecondslower, he’d be cradling her dead body right now.
Cat followed his gaze and then stared at the glass holes where her head had been. Bones took another moment to make sure that he felt fully healed, and then he clutched her to him and rose while his back was between her and the windows behind them.
“Not me, Kitten. Someone tried to killyou.”
And they wouldn’t get away with it. That shot had sounded like it came from street level or close to it, and the shooter would be on the run now that he’d missed.
Bones wouldn’t miss. Screw witnesses, secrecy of the race, and everything else. He wasn’t letting the bastard get away.
“Hold onto my neck and don’t let go,” Bones said while tightening his grip. “We’re getting the sod.”
With that, Bones grabbed his fallen leather coat, and then blasted them through the glass wall behind them.
22
Cat’s scream seared his ears as Bones let gravity take them down while he scanned the area. Most people hadn’t noticed two forms falling from the twentieth floor yet, so they walked at a normal pace along the sidewalks below…with the exception of a black-haired, rotund fellow carrying a large object under his arms as he ran toward a van. From his speed, he was human, and the canvass-wrapped object he carried was shaped like a rifle.
