Stepping out, he held the door open for her. He shot her a sharp smile. “Funny. I don’t see a body. You must’ve been mistaken.”
Dahlia peered around the door jamb like she expected Devon to pop up and grab her. Surprise warred with relief when there was nothing and no one to see. He could practically hear the questions dancing on the tip of her little pink tongue. A smile cramped his cheeks when she stubbornly held them in.
Smart girl.Only a fool asked questions about where bodies disappeared to, and his girl wasn’t one of those.
Clapping his hands again, he cajoled, “Get to it, pet. We should’ve been out of here ten minutes ago.”
She gave him another one of those withering looks. He wondered if she’d keep it up if he told her how much it turned him on.
Probably not,he decided as he watched her scurrying around.
Felix loved her spine. He loved that she knew the risks of pissing off a man like him and still stood up for herself.
In his world, the currency was prestige and protection. It paid to suck up to the biggest prick in the room. Alliances and matings were all built on the idea of giving and receiving protection in some sense — financial, physical, or political.
That meant that for most of his life, the people he met were either trying to get something from him or trying to kill him. Even his own family.
Especiallyhis family.
But Dahlia was different. She’d never asked him for anything. She had nothing to gain from his downfall. She stood stubbornly outside of the bloody world he intended to rule, and because of that, she treated him with absolutely zero respect.
Helovedit.
“Where are we going?” She didn’t sound enthused, but she didn’t stop shoving silky bits of fluff into her overnight bag, so he counted it as a win.
“Home.” Felix peered into her closet. It took some effort to resist the urge to press his face into the clothes. He wanted to roll around in her scent like a blissed out cat.
Something hard thumped his back and clattered to the floor. Felix glanced down. A lone black leather heel lay on its side by his feet.
After scooping up the sexy projectile, he turned to find Dahlia glaring at him. “Where’s home?”
“Somewhere safe.” Her apartment was so small, it only took him a handful of steps to hand the heel back to her. Spying the other one in the bag, he pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth in a vain attempt to ease the ache.
Why she thought four inch tall black leather stilettos were essential, he had no idea. He was simply grateful.
Dahlia snatched the heel from his hand. Pointing it at him like a weapon, she demanded, “Where, Felix?”
He rolled his eyes. “To the Amauri estate. There’s a witch waiting in the back alley with an m-gate at the ready. It’ll take us directly to my house in United Washington. Happy?”
She scoffed. “What does my happiness have to do with any of this?”
A little of his good humor bled away. He didn’t like that, but he also knew better than to make promises to her about what their future would be like. Even if she believed him — unlikely — there was no guaranteeing anything in their world. Most especially happiness.
“Time’s running out,” he prompted her. “Do you have everything?”
Dahlia did another quick sweep of the apartment. After snatching her makeup case off the bathroom counter, she zippedup her bag and turned toward her closet. “I just need to change and we can?—”
“Don’t. I like the short-shorts.” Felix snagged her bag and strode to the front door. Tossing it out to Nash, a rough-looking behemoth and one of the trusted cousins he’d left standing in the hall, he said, “We’re leaving. Is Genevieve ready?”
Nash nodded. “Yes, sir. But we should hurry. There’s movement two streets up.”
Felix nodded. Turning back around, he found Dahlia in the middle of ignoring what he’d told her. She was rummaging around in a small chest of drawers, her fingers curled around what looked suspiciously like a pair of pants, when he swooped down on her.
She sputtered indignantly when he pressed his shoulder into her middle and lifted her feet off the ground. Her smooth legs flailed uselessly in front of him as he adjusted his grip.
Her movement stopped abruptly when his fingers settled in the crease between her ass and her thigh, putting his fingertips right where they belonged: in the hot cleft of her silk-covered cunt.
“Careful, pet,” he warned, rubbing his index finger along the gusset of her sleep shorts. “Don’t squirm too much. You don’t want to ruin these pretty pajamas, do you?”
