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“How do you know? How is it possible that in just a few short weeks, you have become my life? Why do you keep saving me? What are you, Adam Vex, that has my heart tied in knots and my head so confused?”

I sighed and dropped my head back. Cold, wet, and so very tired, all my barriers were down. “I’ll tell you—you and Zee—I’ll tell you everything, when it’s time. But trust me, if I tell you now, the hotel and every name in the guest book won’t survive it. People will come. Bad people. Some good people too, thinking they’re doing the right thing. And everything will change, Victor. Everything.” My voice cracked and my bottom lip quivered. The same old ache consumed my heart. “I’m not keeping the truth from you to hurt you, I’m keeping it to save you.”

He leaned in and skimmed his fingertips down my face, feeling me in the dark. He wouldn’t know the tears from tank water, and perhaps even his heightened eyesight couldn’t see the pain in my expression. But his firmness was welcome, his closeness too. I needed him, and I knew what he was saying—knew what he didn’t yet understand. I knew it, because I felt the same for Zee, and maybe a bit for him too.

“Know that I’ll slaughter everyone here, if you wish it,” he whispered. “Give the word, and rivers will run red with the blood of any who would dare cause you harm.”

A shiver of lust shortened my breath, scorching the tears dry. “Oh, that’s . . . sweet. But probably unnecessary.” Daddy Vampire was hot when he got all stabby. “But we sort of need Agatha to be alive to be prosecuted, remember?”

“They tried to kill us, and would have succeed if you were the average, everyday, unassuming human you clearly are not.” His lips brushed mine, his body now hot where he pressed me against the wall. It didn’t matter that we were wet through, didn’t matter that everything hurt, or that moments ago we’d been fighting for our lives. None of that mattered, only him and me and the emotion burning between us.

His hand dropped to my hip, then eased around to clutch my ass. Yeah, okay, this felt good—getting our sexy on in a villain’s lair right after we’d almost died.

My wet clothes squished between us and cold water ran down my ankles. Hm, not so good.

“We should show Agatha that she shouldn’t have messed with the vampire and his human assistant,” I whispered.

In the dark, I caught a glimpse of Reynard’s fanged smile. “And retrieve Tom Collins,” he said.

“And that.”

His fingers dug into my butt cheek, squeezing and separating. His mouth hovered over mine, the kiss a tease away. His other hand dropped, capturing my other butt cheek, and he yanked me close, right up against his hard cock.

“Shall we continue this later?” he whispered.

Or, could we do this here? Probably shouldn’t. I bit into my lip, breathing hard, and ran my hand up his thigh, discovering a hard ridge in the way that could only be one thing. If I said yes, he’d take me in this gloomy hallway, and wouldn’t care that we were in the midst of danger—maybe he’d even prefer it that way. He did seem to get all hot and hungry whenever violence happened.

A door slammed further along the corridor and the growl that bubbled out of Reynard was pure, predatory threat. Unhinged Victor had arrived.

“This operation is over,” Reynard growled, and stepped back. “I’ll clear a path.” In the low light I caught how he ran both hands through his wet hair, sweeping it back from his severe face, and headed up the corridor, toward the door. Whoever was behind it was about to meet the raw, animal Victor Reynard, and I couldn’t wait to watch.

Wild Victor was stunning. I hadn’t seen him drop the reins of his control before, just hints of it. But as he flew through the door, he turned into a vicious creature made of brutal, bloodthirsty glory. Not that I was into that. At all.

The first two fae he’d met had no idea what hit them. He’d flung them against the wall and dropped them in a blur. A third managed to bark a warning into a radio, then met the same face-down fate.

We strode on, with Victor unleashing all of his savage wrath onto any living thing in his path.

Trailing behind, I stepped over the unconscious bodies. They had tried to kill us, so they deserved it, but also . . . several were probably a bit deceased.

Victor barged through the door into the brightly lit lab. He hissed at the glare, momentarily blinded. One of Agatha’s twins fired a dart gun, striking Victor in the neck.

“Hey!” I barked. “That’s my vampire.”

Victor tore the dart free, snarled, and grabbed the pretty sentinel, slamming him backwards through a drywall, into an adjacent room. But then, as he turned to deal with the second twin, Victor swayed.

“Adam?” He dropped to his knees. “Run.” And flopped forward.

Agatha emerged from a side door, and eyed the hole in the wall and the other twin groaning on the floor. “What a terrible mess.”

I’d had just about enough of everyone’s drama. “Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to drown us.”

Her pretty, eyeliner-enhanced glare landed on me. “Accidents happen, Mr. Vex. Especially around you.” She approached the long lab table, heels clicking against the floor. “I had hoped my long-standing friendship with Victor would withstand this little bump, but it appears I was wrong. You’re the annoying bump, by the way.” That sensation of crow-like hunger about her grew. If I died, she’d absolutely peck my eyes out. “Who are you, to have Baron Reynard wrapped around your little finger and Gideon Cain so desperate to spy on your Sex Hotel?”

Dripping wet, very cold, and not feeling at all nice, I snarled. “It’s not called that! Give me Tom Collins, let me leave with Reynard, and we never have to meet again.”

“That would be one option. However, I did make a deal with Gideon Cain, and he is not a man to be crossed.”

On the floor, Reynard gave a snuffled snore.