“If you wanted my help in the shower, all you needed to do was ask,” I growl, wrenching her arms behind her back.
“Let me go!”she screeches, kicking and fighting like a wildcat.
I have zero doubt that shehas,in fact, managed to kill men twice my size. She’s nimble, agile, fast, and thinks on her feet. If I’d left her in here alone, she might’ve actually found a way to kill me upon exiting.
“Nope.” I pop thepjust to irritate her, dragging her over to the shower.
This infuriatingly insane woman braces her foot on the edge of the bathtub and leverages it to kickbothof us back. Shealmostsucceeds in toppling us—I momentarily lose my balance. I hear a loudscreechof metal, and glance up in time to see her wrench the shower rod from the wall and shake off the curtain. Then, she’s coming at me withanothermakeshift weapon.
I’m amazedandI’m reaching the end of my patience.
“Ember, baby,” I say, shaking my head. “You gotta stop trying to kill me.”
“Why?” she hisses, twirling the rod in her hands. “Do you finally have the sense to be scared?”
“No, Flame. I’m turned the fuck on, naked, and one second away from ripping your panties and showing you why I’m much morevaluable alive. You should stop trying to kill me for the health of your cunt, because if you come at me again, I’m going to fuckingdestroyit.”
She bares her teeth at me, panting, cheeks flushed, perky tits rising and falling with each breath. Fighting naked really is distracting,andthe best form of foreplay.
Her jaw flexes. “Let me walk out of here and I’ll let you live. You’ll get a head start to run from Dagon.”
“There is no fucking world in which I goanywherewithout you, ever again.” I crack my neck. “You want to kill me? Give it your best shot. But when you lose, I’m gonna punish you, and it’ll make the spanking look like a love-tap.” I shake my head in mock disappointment. “Here I thought we were makingsuchexcellent progress.”
Her grip tightens on the rod. That’s her one and only tell before she comes at me, trying to impale me through the chest with the metal. I twist, duck, and weave around her. It’s never pleasant fighting an enemy unarmed, but Ember isn’t an enemy, andanycontact with her is a blessing—even if it involves her trying to remove my head from my shoulders.
She’s good, I’ll give her that. She delivers a blow to my shoulder that sends pain radiating all up and down my arm; another to my cheek that causes an unpleasantcrackand dazes me. When she dips to swing for my knees, however, I manage to grab a fistful of her hair and kick her legs out from beneath her.
I’m genuinely pissed off now, pain radiating from multiple points in my body, blood dripping from my nose, and angrier than I ought to be while dealing with this girl.
I wrench the metal rod from her hands and toss it out of reach. It’s become abundantly clear that I can’t trust Ember long enough to let her take a shower—even if I’m in there with her. She’s a competent,smart fighter, and since I won’ttrulyfight back—the only way I know how to fight is to kill—I’ll always end up getting the short end of the stick.
“Are you done?” I snap.
She bares her teeth at me, wrenching away so hard she nearly tears her own hair out of her head.Fuck, this girl isferal.
Taming her will be more challenging than all the operations I’ve carried out since joining the Nighthawks, andsomuch more fun. For now, I need to subdue her.
I manage to wrangle her to the ground, straddle her, and pin her hands above her head.
She spits at me again; this time, I don’t flinch. Instead, I wrap my hand around her neck and press down on her carotid.
“I’d say I’m sorry about this, Flame, but I’m really not,” I say flatly, and press down.Hard. I have a duffel in the car with sedatives, handcuffs, and standard tools I always bring on ops—I just didn’t have a second to grab it before she decided to run and nearly get killed in the process.
This girl is going to be more than a handful.
She curses, screeches, and wriggles. I ignore her struggle. At this stage, she really did bring this on herself. I gave her a fair chance to play ball; she proved herself incapable of making nice for two minutes.
She goes limp after thirty seconds. I make quick work of carrying her to the bed, tying her down securely enough that I can slip out and grab the supplies I need, and step back to admire my handiwork.
She’s lovely unconscious, but I find I’d like her much more if she were awake, glaring daggers, and screaming profanities at me. We’ll have plenty of time for that once I get her back to the fortress.
I pull on my pants, grab my keys, and step out into the chilly evening air, bare-chested and glistening with a mixture of water and sweat.
Unbidden, my gaze drifts upwards, locking onto the star-studded sky. It’s been a long time since I’ve truly let myself enjoy a clear view of the stars—they’ve always held too many painful memories for me, but now, I get a moment of relief.
The night sky is a beautiful thing. It’s a canvas for the cosmos, and the backdrop for some of the most profound moments of my life.
Chapter Eight
