“Wait!”
He hesitates, glancing back at me over his shoulder. It’s brief, so brief I barely catch a glimpse of his features. But in the dim light of the streetlamps overhead, I see a flash of brown and blue.
Those eyes.
I know those eyes.
I could never, ever forget those eyes. I stared into their churning depths two and a half years ago as my lifeblood poured from my body.
It’s the man from the club.
But in the split second I realize that, he turns away from me and stalks into the alley, swallowed up by the shadows again.
Chapter 2
My body lurches forward automatically, and I step toward the mouth of the alley as if I’m about to follow the man who disappeared into its depths.
Then I freeze.
No. Why the fuck would I do that?
My gaze drops to the dirty pavement where the mugger went down, and my stomach churns at the sight of the fresh blood that spatters the ground, glinting almost black in the dim light.
Latent adrenaline and fear surge through my body as I realize how easily that could’ve been my blood. I remember the brutal sounds of the men attacking the meth-head. None of them made a noise. There were no shouts or jeers or taunts.
Just ruthless efficiency and cold violence.
A shiver wracks me, and I turn away from the alley suddenly, sprinting down the street toward a busier road a few blocks over. I need to get out of here. I need to get home.
As I reach Adams Street, I catch sight of a cab turning onto the road, and I practically hurl myself in front of it, desperate to make it stop. The driver hits the brakes and leans out the window with a shout. “What the hell is wrong with you, lady?”
I don’t answer. I just yank open the back door and slide inside, rattling off my address by rote.
He shoots me a suspicious look, like he’s thinking about telling me to get the fuck out of his cab. Then he grumbles something under his breath and pulls away from the curb.
It’s a short drive. I was more than halfway to my house when the meth-head pulled a knife on me. But my mind is buzzing as if it’s trying to receive a staticky radio signal, and my fingers drum out an erratic rhythm on the faux-leather seat beside me.
Those eyes.
One a pure, rich brown and the other a striking combination of summer blue and the same chocolate brown.
It was the dark-haired man from Club 47. And the same two men who were with him that night. All three rising up out of the darkness like ghosts from a fucking grave.
The man I saved. I know it’s him. I’m fucking sure of it.
It’s been over two years since I last saw him, but it would be impossible to forget his face.
Did he forget mine?
Does he know whose life he just saved?
My ride ends abruptly as the driver pulls up outside my apartment building. I grab several bills from my night’s tips and hand them to the driver with my shaking hand. As he pulls away, I race up the complex stairs and head to my apartment. Once inside, I immediately bolt the top lock, turn down the lights, and peek outside the window at the street below, breathing hard.
A shiver crawls up my spine as I wait in silence, wondering if I was being followed by more than just the meth-head tonight.
Wondering if I’ve been followed home.
Pain throbs at my side as I lie on the cold pavement, unable to move.
Each breath that passes my lips grows more and more shallow as I slowly bleed out from my wound.
My eyelids flutter closed and then open again at the warm sensation of someone touching me. I look up to see a man hovering over me, carefully checking my wounds. His hips settle between mine as he drapes his body over mine, cradling my face as the weight of him presses against my hips.
I know him.
I recognize him.
Two striking eyes stare back at me with a raw intensity that I’ve never forgotten. That I’ll never be able to forget.
His fingers brush away dark locks from my chest as he assesses the wreckage before him—my blood covered body, broken and destroyed.
My heart squeezes as a look of disappointment crosses his face. Beneath the gritty lights of the alley, his brown hair glows at the edges like an angelic crown fit for a king. Two men stand behind him. His sentinels. The other pieces of him.
His striking eyes search mine for answers to questions I’ll never know. He leans close and whispers in my ear, and just like I do every time, I strain to understand his words.
What is he saying? What does he want so desperately for me to know?
But the sounds travel into my mind without taking root. All I’m aware of is the feel of him speaking—the deep rumble of his voice and the way his breath stirs my hair.
He pulls back a little, and his expression shifts, a sliver of vulnerability rising to the surface, changing everything about his appearance.
When he lowers his head and claims a kiss, my whole body jolts at the warm sensation of his rough lips on mine.
The kiss begins slow like a waltz, but it quickly turns into a desperate race for something deeper. Harder.
The taste of copper fills my mouth as he slides two fingers across my bruised lips. In vain, I try to move my hips, needing something I can’t even name. Each press of his fingertips feels like an electric shock, painful and sweet at the same time.
He moans as his hand slips down my body, tracing every curve until he’s claimed all of me.
And as blood continues to pulse from my wounds in time to the fluttering beat of my heart, he thrusts inside me, splitting me open.
I wake with a jerk, sitting up so fast it makes me dizzy. Cold sweat drips down my back as I take in my surroundings. The room is dimly lit, but familiar. I’m back in my bed, in my apartment, in the shitty little complex on the west side of Halston.
Far away from that awful night so long ago.
So why the fuck doesn’t it feel like it?
Why does it feel like the past is in this fucking room with me, breathing down my neck?
My skin goes cold, and I clutch my covers to my chest, wrapping them around my body with my good arm. I drag my lower lip between my teeth, half-expecting my lips to feel bruised and swollen from kisses that aren’t even real.
Fuck.
It’s not the first time I’ve dreamed of the night I got shot. It happens all the fucking time, although sometimes the dreams are so ephemeral that I barely remember them. But it was more vivid last night than it’s been in months. I swear I could feel the weight of the stranger as he settled into the cradle of my body. I could feel his hands on my skin. I could practically breathe in the scent of him, and it filled me with a strange ache.
Attraction and revulsion.
Pleasure and pain.
Desire and fear.
My dreams of that night are always a confusing mix of polar opposites, as if I somehow crave the very thing I’m trying to flee from.
Ignoring the goose bumps that rise on my skin, I throw the covers off and pad to the bathroom. The dark ink of my tattoo stands out starkly against my pale skin, catching my gaze in the mirror as I wait for the water to heat up in the shower. I got it done almost a year ago, a month after I started working at Duke’s. The image popped into my mind fully formed, but I’m a shit artist, so I described it to the guy at the tattoo parlor and he sketched it out for me.
But he captured what was in my head perfectly. The ink covers my entire right arm—what’s left of it, anyway. Brilliant, deep red roses bloom on my skin, their petals shiny and smooth. Their stems bend delicately and gracefully, as if a wind stirs them, and a dark gray-blue ink fills the background of the image, growing lighter as it moves toward my shoulder.