Should not lean toward.
Should not slip my fingers along his waist and stroke up his back.
He bent just slightly, easing down to me, the shape of him, the scent, the heat swallowing up all my space, all my world, all my air.
“I’ve done some things I regret,” his words were warm puffs of air across my cheek, moving toward my mouth. “Breaking up with you before we really had a chance to see if we would work out is right up there on the top of my list. You want honesty? All right. I want this.”
His blunt fingertips pressed across my waist, skimmed up my back, one palm warm and right between my shoulder blades, the other shifting lower, cupping heat onto my lower back.
“I want a second chance I don’t deserve. I want to be with you, Delaney. And honestly?” His mouth drifted closer to mine, breath soft against my skin. “I didn’t kill Sven. I haven’t been near him since I went to the bar to meet those men who, yes, think the town is full of vampires.”
A hot current raced down the core of me like a heating coil on fire. I wasn’t sure if it was lust or victory. He had told me the truth. Admitted there was a group of vampire hunters in town.
That’s what Rossi had suspected. All I had to do now was figure out which of them had killed Sven, who sent them to do so and why, and then see that justice was done.
Kiss me, my heart begged, over and over in rhythm to my ragged pulse.Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.
But my mouth had other ideas. “You said you work with them.”
He shifted away, inch by inch until he was standing above me looking down into my eyes.
“Not how you think.”
A bucket of ice down my pants couldn’t have chilled me quicker.
It was my turn to take a step back. “Then tell me how you know them, who they are, and how you’re involved in this mess.”
More than a hint of my official tone crept into my voice. From the flash of irritation in Ryder’s gaze, he wasn’t a fan of that kind of bossy.
“There are things you shouldn’t know, Delaney. Things I can’t talk about.”
“I want names. I want to know who’s behind the group of hunters. I want to know any information you have on who killed Sven. This is murder, Ryder. Someone lost his life. In my town—our town. A place that is supposed to be safe. So I don’t give a damn what you think you can’t talk about. You will talk about it to me. Or I will take you in and deal with you with the kind of thoroughness you might never recover from.”
Something kindled in his expression—hunger—and I felt the snap of sexual tension spark between us. And right after that, I felt his anger.
“You’ve already decided what I am,” he all but growled. “Already decided I am guilty and not owed the same kind of protection as any other person in town. Decided it the moment you got your hands on whatever evidence you think implicates me in this thing.”
“Your blood. They used your blood to kill him.”
I said it softly, but Ryder’s head jerked back as if he’d been slapped and his mouth went thin. He stood there for a long moment, his eyes sharp and turned inward as if he weren’t in this room, as if I weren’t standing in front of him, as if this conversation weren’t happening.
“That’s why you were asking about the Red Cross.”
“Did you really give blood to them?”
“It was a Red Cross mobile van. I thought it was a whim...but maybe...”
I waited as he sorted through things he didn’t want to tell me. I could press to make him talk, but he’d push back. Better to give him a minute and see if he would come around.
“Who would have wanted your blood? Who would have taken it, and wanted to implicate you in Sven’s death? Someone in your group?”
“My group?”
“You said you’re a part of them. The hunters. Tell me how.”
He was still tight, his fists clenched at his side, the fabric of his shirt straining against the bulge of muscle. He looked like he wanted to hit something.
I understood the feeling.
