Right. I was shot, kidnapped, and then knocked unconscious and dumped here by Dirk Dagger, the most diabolical villain I’d ever gone up against.
My heart plinged, and I searched the room more thoroughly. Stabbed into the white side table was the dagger he’d held at my heart the night before. Or a week before. Who knows how long I was knocked out this time? Maybe it was years.
I rolled over, wincing as my stitches pulled and my arm throbbed. A note was pinned to the table with the dagger. It was a nice piece, sturdy, but dexterous, like Dirk himself. Didn’t anyone ever teach him not to stab the furniture? Such an unconscionable villain.
I flexed my arm, wincing as I yanked out the dagger and retrieved the note. My arm was sore, but functional. The sadistic doctor did good work. Dirk had some incredibly shady yet capable friends, which was suitable for a villain.
I’m offended that our date was cut so short. Next time, no prior injuries to interrupt us. You’re beautiful, dangerous, a goddess of death, even in puppy slippers.
~D
I glared at the note in my trembling fingers. I’d show him dangerous. Was he mocking me? And that wasn’t a date! His mother kidnapped me! That was…I didn’t know what that was, but it wasn’t a date. Except the way he’d held me at knifepoint had been so flirtatious. Not a date. Except maybe that’s what villain dates were like.
Is that really what he was?
He wasn’t a hero, not the way he orchestrated everything to get me to come out here and take him down. But why? That kiss, of course. Had he been playing me from the time on the tower? And he’d kissed me. So much. It had been war, but also sweet. Sweet war.
For a second my brain turned to goo as his lips devoured me, hands pinned me, whole self dominated me in the most ridiculously attractive way imaginable. No one dominated me, but I’d let him. No, I’d liked it.
I was officially seduced by Dirk Dagger. I’d had every reason and opportunity to end him, or at least hurt him, but instead I’d let him kiss me. He won the game. Where did that leave me? Other than in a bed as soft as clouds?
I rolled out of bed, gripping the knife while my arm ached with every movement. I needed to examine my injury, maybe even go to a hospital and make sure all the bullet pieces were out. He’d bothered to save me from a super-terrorist bullet wound. That meant that he still had a use for me in his long-termvillainous scheme. Or… maybe he liked me and didn’t want me to die until we’d had a proper date with fewer bullet wounds.
I froze when I saw the racks of clothing had been left in the bathroom. A note in Dirk’s masculine handwriting read,
To round out your villainous wardrobe.
~D
My own black flannel pajamas were stiff from dried blood, and my left sleeve was entirely missing all the way from the shoulder seam. Someone had done a very good job removing it neatly. Should I be angry or touched that he thought of replacing my pajamas? Angry. I should be absolutely infuriated, but my heart twinged and butterflies fluttered. I was already seduced. His buying me clothing didn’t undo my downfall. Irritating, but what could I do if I’d been out-villained?
I rifled through the rack. The villainous clothing were in three categories: black leather and velvet office wear, black casual lounge wear, and pink. There were hot-pink leather corsets, and hot-pink sweatpants. He clearly had no idea how to arrange clothing for villainy or anything else. This was all probably an insult, like knocking me unconscious and kissing me, like the first time he spat on my hands, but I didn’t really care. I just wanted him to come back and keep kissing me. Maybe it was his weird sense of humor. Like the Scooby Doo thing. How could I resist something that made no logical sense? It was impossible, emotion fueled instead of anything rational.
Had he personally picked out these clothing items for me? He was officially ridiculous. He should hire someone else who had better taste, and yet, the hot pink skull print sweater was almost funny. No, it was infuriating. So why was I smiling? I wasn’t.
I heard a yowl and then whirled around to see Marcus Licinius Crassus come around the corner, yellow eyes glowing as he growled ominously.
“Down, kitty.” I backed away with the knife in front of me, but could I stab the mountain lion if I couldn’t stab Dirk?
“Down!” Jezebel snapped, stepping into view, a gun in each hand, but wearing a sparkly bra instead of her armored assault suit.
Marcus Licinius Crassus crouched and yowled, looking at her like she’d insulted him.
She holstered one gun and grabbed his collar. “You know that we’re here to rescue Dani, not bite her again. I don’t care how sweet she tasted the last time.” She shook her head and grinned at me, windblown and bloodshot, reeking of tequila. Her smile was one hundred percent threat. She was much more likely to bite me than the mountain lion at that moment.
“So, what’s this all about?” Jezebel asked, gesturing at me, specifically my arm.
Oh. “I got shot.” I shrugged because it seemed so anticlimactic.
Her smile got even wider and harder. “And these?” she asked, nodding at the clothes.
I ran a hand through my hair and then winced as it pulled my stitches. “Dirk’s taste in clothing could be better.”
She nodded, but that smile was starting to make me nervous. “And where is he? Did you dump him in the desert a little more permanently this time? I told you that you have to wait until after the Three-Hundred.”
I frowned at her. Her reaction was all wrong. The anger wasn’t as real as whatever underlying emotion she kept hidden. “I didn’t kill him. I wanted to, but I didn’t.” Could I tell her about his mother? She hated rich men, but did she hate their mothers?
She bared her teeth in a truly painful smile as she spoke through her gritted teeth. “You’re going to have to use a few more words to explain to someone as simple as myself.” Suddenly her smile evaporated, and she was in my face,gesturing with her revolver. “You left Prudence at a gas station! Do you know how hard it was to find you? I had Felicia hack all the hotel cams. You could have been murdered all kinds of ways by the people we saw the other night, not them, naturally, since they’re permanently indisposed, but their associates. I have to keep tabs on you until everything’s settled down! You were supposed to come out for tacos. You took off your helmet and left it with the trailer. Why did you do that? Girl’s Night doesn’t end until I say it ends,” she growled, slamming her revolver into the holster and scowling at me.
