Persephone shook her head but looked at him, her expression carefully blank. “Last night when things got... weird. It seemed like you were uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable.” It was a damn lie, but she didn’t need to know that. Of course, that assumed he knewwhyhe was uncomfortable. It was like an itch under his skin that he couldn’t scratch, driving him crazy. He didn’t know why he’d rolled out of bed, other than he was a damn coward, so there wasn’t anything to explain.
“You ran out of there like your ass was on fire.”
Dodge concentrated on the road as the bruisers followed closely in their SUVs. They couldn’t afford to get boxed in by the larger, heavier cars; he couldn’t drive through a fucking SUV with a shitty sedan. “It was better to stop. Adrenaline makes people crazy. Didn’t want you to do anything you’d regret.”
“You didn’t give me a chance to do something I’d regret.”
He forced a laugh. “Believe me, you’d’ve regretted it.”
“So you’re that bad in bed?”
Dodge choked on air and nearly crashed the car. “What the f– no, that’s not what I meant.”
“Handsome guy like you, I’m sure you haven’t had to try very hard to get the ladies between the sheets,” she said, tapping her chin as she mused over it. “Clearly haven’t had the chance to develop real skills. I’m guessing you just jump on and pound away? No finesse?”
Dodge wanted to strangle her, laugh madly, and show her the damn truth, all at the same time. She deliberately provoked him, pushed him. Like she wanted to punish him for rejecting her, or maybe convince him to re-initiate contact soshecould rejecthim. Dodge’s head spun. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know what she wanted. He’d kept all previous relationships very simple, very transactional, so he didn’thaveto think about shit like feelings and innuendo and unintended consequences. He wasn’t ready for her. Not by a long shot.
“We are not having this conversation,” he said under his breath. He drove through a yellow light and the SUVs got caught up in other traffic. “Not here. Not – right now.”
Persephone arched her eyebrows in challenge. “Not even going to dispute it, hmm? Guess I dodged a bullet.”
Dodge parked the car in a side lot next to the restaurant. He figured he had just a few seconds before the bruisers caught up and got a good look inside the car. He turned and seized Persephone’s face in his hands and dragged her mouth to his. She tensed, gripping his shoulders like she meant to push him away, but stilled as he deepened the kiss.
The wolf meant to devour her, to mark her so the rest of the world would know who protected her, who looked after her. Persephone’s lips were soft and pliant under his, parting with an inhale as his fingers worked into her hair. He took advantage and teased her tongue with his. He wanted to know every inch of her. She made a soft sound, maybe surprise, but he was so far gone in his need that he hardly knew the rest of the world existed.
There wasn’t enough room in the car. He wanted her back in her bed or in his, somewhere with enough room to lay her out and worship her. She’d made a joke about him just jumping on and having his way, but that was exactly what the wolf wanted. Dodge had better control than that. He wanted to show her how wrong her joke was, wanted to tease her to climax after climax until she knew how wrong she’d been.
He growled against her lips and broke away before things got out of control. Persephone stared at him, reaching a shaking hand to touch her mouth. She looked flushed and rumpled and so well-kissed there would be no mistaking what they’d been up to in the car. He just hoped that Bridger’s goons weren’t taking pictures. That would have been harder to explain than the ‘assistant’ story they meant to use.
But he wasn’t done. One kiss was just a start. Dodge fixed the architect with a dark look. “Believe me, sweetheart, we’ll have this conversation. But both of us have to live long enough to have it, so why don’t we worry about that first?”
She blinked, still looking dazed, but he’d gotten out of the car by the time she started to speak. Dodge opened her door, getting her up and walking so they could get into the Korean restaurant without too much time in the open. He kept his head on a swivel and marked the locations where all the goons set up to watch the restaurant, and figured at least one would try to break into Persephone’s car while they were eating lunch. He clenched his jaw against irritation; there was nothing to do to prevent it.
His hand tightened on her upper arm as he pulled her toward the door; Persephone followed, her face still flushed, as he led the way. Dodge wanted to be smug that he’d at least proven his skill with kissing, but there wasn’t time. The hostess showed them toward the private room in the back of the restaurant where Evershaw, Deirdre, and Todd already waited.
Dodge pulled out a chair at the table for Persephone and shut the door to the room after checking the hall for eavesdroppers one last time. “We’ve got a couple of problems.”
Deirdre’s eyebrows arched as she studied Persephone, perhaps surprised when the architect didn’t run screaming from the room. “Oh? What could possibly...” Her expression darkened as her eyes narrowed. She sniffed the air like someone had broken wind right next to her and she intended to find the culprit. The witch’s voice went quiet and dangerously calm. “Who have you been talking to, Dodge?”
He clenched his jaw and finally dragged out a chair to sit across from her. “It’s been a rough day.”
“It’s about to get rougher,” the witch said sweetly. She poured green tea into their cups, one after another, as Evershaw and Todd scooted their chairs back to get distance. Deirdre aligned her chopsticks and napkin very precisely. “Why don’t you start talking?”
It wasn’t really a question. He took a deep breath and braced his hands on the table. “Last night I went to pick Persephone up at the animal sanctuary, after the run-in with O’Shea and his people.”
He kept talking and everyone grew quiet and still; some of the rage on Deirdre’s face faded into confusion, then kindled into the slow-growing kind of anger that he’d learned to be really, really wary of. Dodge kept half his attention on Persephone, in the chair next to him, and hoped that someone else in the room had a great idea on what the fuck to do. He was all out of ideas except just going out and killing everyone who looked at Persephone sideways.
Chapter 17
Percy
Some kind of haze drifted over me while we were in the office as Smith talked. Almost everything ceased to exist except the old man and the words he spun around me. It was easy to believe magic existed as he spoke. The only thing solid in the whole room was Dodge, grumpy and silent to my left. He got grumpier after we left and headed for the restaurant, and when I tried to distract him and alleviate the tension, it... failed.
Miserably.
Of course, I was lying to myself if I thought I made fun of his sex moves just to alleviate the tension. I wanted to poke him, to pass on some of the uncertainty I’d been struggling with since the night before. There hadn’t been areasonfor him to take off like he did, so of course my brain started filling in all the awful, personal reasons he might have rejected me. Because it sure as hell felt like a rejection.
