He gave her hip a squeeze before he gently nudged her in the direction of her bedroom. “Because this is going to be a long conversation.”
“Bossy,” she muttered, without heat, as she crossed the short distance to her bedroom door.
The faintest amused huff reached her. “You’ll get used to it.”
Zia bit her lip, suppressing a smile. Even the low-burning unease in her belly couldn’t stop the warmth that spread through her. She wasn’t sure what it said about her that she liked his bossiness so much — who in their right mind found an inability to ask for thingscharming? —but she did.
Nonetheless, she was determined not to let him know that. If he suspected she was fond of his imperiousness, she had the suspicion that he would become utterly intolerable.
Not wanting to waste a second with him, she hurried to peel off her dress and ruined tights. The tights went into the tiny trash can in her bathroom, though she momentarily considered keeping them as an erotic momento.
That done, she pulled on a pair of stretch lounge pants, a comfortable sweater, and gave her face a good, hard scrub. Her curls were a mess, but at least her skin was flushed and her slightly smeared mascara nowhere to be seen.
Zia stood in the center of her bedroom for a moment, considering whether she should pretend, for a while longer, that she was more sophisticated and sexy than she was. Perhaps she could replace the sweater with something tighter? Maybe something with lace? The lounge pants would have to go, too, though she was at a loss as to what could possibly replace them. Her only other options were flannel pajama pants with schnauzers on them andjeans.
In the end, she forced the doubt and insecurity aside. For the gods sakes, the man had already put his tongue between her thighs. He had practically asked her to move in with him. What did she have to be self-conscious about? If he didn’t think a woman could be desirable in comfy pants and a wool sweater, then he wasn’t the man for her.
Tugging on a pair of fuzzy socks, she trotted back into the small living room to find Harlan seated on her couch. Her hundreds of houseplants — big and small, planted, purchased, rescued, and reclaimed — overflowed around him like a lush, living throne. He had turned one lamp on, casting him in a soft yellow glow, and sat in the way powerful men sometimes do: legs spread, one ankle propped on a knee, and arms stretched over the back of the couch.
He looked damn good.
As soon as she stepped into the room, his hungry gaze pinned her in place. A tiny smile curled his lips. Lifting his right hand off of the armrest, he curled two fingers in the air. “Come here, pet.”
Her entire body flushed. There wasn’t even a flicker of disappointment in his gaze. He wanted her just as much with her makeup scrubbed off and her fuzzy socks on as he did when she wore her best cocktail dress and heels.
Goddess,she thought, already walking,he could ask me to jump off of a cliff and I’d probably do it.
Her heart sped up with every step closer. When he planted both feet on the floor and reached for her, she felt it lurch in her chest, as if it was trying to reach him.
Harlan gathered her into his lap, arranging her so her legs were stretched over the cushions, and tucked her head under his chin. They were quiet for a long time. Zia listened to his steady breaths as he slowly stroked his knuckles up and down her spine.
Finally, he broke the silence. “I am not a good man, Zia.”
She held her breath. Though a part of her wanted to explode with questions, she got the sense that he was working himself up to something, and she didn’t want to interrupt him.
In his rich baritone, he haltingly continued, “I told you I worked for the Syndicate. I didn’t tell you what I did. It’s important that you know that before we… before we go any farther.”
She curled her fingers into the lapel of his jacket. Whispering, she asked, “What did you do?”
“For nearly one hundred years, I was the best assassin in the New Zone — the loyal hunting dog of the Amauri family. I killed, I maimed, I stole.” Harlan threaded his fingers into her curls and gently pulled her head back, forcing her to look at him when he continued, “I am the most dangerous kind of criminal you can probably imagine, Zia, but if you choose me, you will have me on a string. There is not one being on this Earth who could defend you more fiercely than me.”
She swallowed hard. In a hoarse voice, she said, “You told me you were retired.”
Harlan’s eyes darted about her face, as if he hoped to find something in her expression. “I am. I haven’t accepted a contract in four years. The family let me go, and I made it clear that I wouldn’t work for them ever again when I left.”
“Did youlikekilling people?”
The lines around his eyes deepened. “No. It was a job — one I was trained for since the moment I could walk.”
Relief helped soothe some of the nausea that climbed up the back of her throat.Thank the gods.
Zia was no fan of violence, and her stomach turned at the idea of someone beingpaidto take a life, but she was not completely naive. The UTA was a dangerous place. Even the EVP had its dark corners and shadowy deals. She knew that her brothers probably did things she would find morally repugnant in those secret labs, just as she knew that Harlan’s life in the New Zone was something she probably couldn’t comprehend.
It was a notoriously lawless territory. The Syndicate was the closest thing to a real government it had. She struggled to imagine what kind of brutality was necessary to keep control in a place full of exiles, criminals, and people desperate to disappear. It must have been particularly difficult when the people whodidhave enough power to do so were constantly at war with one another.
So though it disturbed her to imagine Harlan killing people — being thebestat it, no less — Zia wasn’t entirely surprised. She knew that it wasn’t just his vampirism that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
Harlan wasdangerous.
