Page 634 of Flirting with Darkness

Hadrion.

“Okay, but… I still want to go back to the bar,” I say, extending my compromise to see if it’ll be enough to tempt him, and he sighs, then nods.

I’m already moving toward the bike as he begins to speak. “I’ll take you, but you stay hidden. And we’re not going to go right away. Let’s give things a little time to cool off.” He reaches back and flicks open a secured case that’s behind the passenger seat of the bike. “You’re gonna ride right this time. Pillion. Grab the helmet.”

I may or may not be making the biggest mistake of my life, I think, as I grab the helmet out of its case and slam it shut again. But, given everything I’ve seen and learned in the past hour, what other choice do I have? At least for now?

I slip behind him, onto the bike, taking a moment or two to be grateful he’s letting me ride properly this time, instead of just hucking me over his shoulder.

“Ready?” Hadrion calls out, and I wrap my arms around him, tight and fast. The bike vibrates heavily against me and we speed forward, pavement unspooling underneath us as we race back to the city.

3

HADRION

Talk about finding a diamond in shit. Lowtown doesn’t give birth to anything good or even halfway decent — case in point, Katy’s sorry excuse for a family and their run-down shit-hole of a bar. The glitter and the glitz, the glam, the gold, is all reserved for uptown.

I thought this job would be an easy one. Get in, get the necklace from the girl, and ascend to my rightful place on the food chain. But the universe always seems to have this way of fucking with even my best laid plans…

At least this particular twist isn’t the worst thing that could have happened. I’ve had a sexy piece of something clinging to my back for the whole ride into the city, and no amount of extra leg work is gonna take away all the warm and fuzzies that fills me with. I can practically feel the inhale of her gasp when we pull up over the arching bridge that connects lowdown with uptown, and the towering, crystalline silhouette of the citadel comes into full view for the first time.

Most people in lowdown spend their whole lives down there, and I’m pretty sure Katy is no exception to that rule. How this one piece of jewelry ended up around her neck of all people’s is a mystery to me — but it doesn’t really fucking matter. All that counts is that I’ve got it within my sight, so close to my grasp, and every single other fucker chasing it down don’t. There’s no way I’m gonna let any of them get their hands on it — not when I’ve spent the last ten years seeking it out, and I can feel the weight of every single one of those seconds.

Clock’s ticking, right in my heart. I’m running out of time. And little Katy came into my life at the exact right second… she just doesn’t know it. Yet.

“Holy!” she squeaks in my ear as we crest the bridge that starts low in the slums and arches high to get half-way up the mountain plateau that uptown is built on.

Uptown is quite literally ‘up’. At night it’s a gem, all neons and strobes cutting lines of light like knives across a pitch black sky. Right now, the sun threatens to set bloodily in the distance, and it’s turning every single one of those glass skyscrapers into tall, living flames.

“Never been up?” I yell back to her, and I feel the shake of her head, her chin dragging against my shoulder. Heat flares at the base of my cock, and I tighten my grip on the handlebars. Bike ain’t exactly helping matters in that area, either…

“Just wait,” I holler back, trying to stay focused on the road, and not how her curves are pressing into me, around me. If we make it back to my club with all of her clothes still on, it’ll be a damn miracle. The bike roars like a predator beneath us, buzzsawing over the pavement as we sail down the long bridge.

Katy’s fingers dig deeper into me as the city spears the sky all around us. We absorb into the traffic and I weave between cars this way and that, and not at all because every time I do she whimpers and her hands claw at me tighter…

Who says this mission has to be all work and no play? The smirk that stretches my lips makes me grateful she’s behind me, and not in front, where I’ve spent the last several minutes imagining her. She has no idea the plans I have for her. I’m not entirely heartless in my prickery, but if anyone’s gonna be receiving any sort of benefit out of our short lived acquaintance, I’m going to make sure it’s me.

Horns blare as I dice up the evening traffic, taking a corner sharp, and then another, shops with their banners and signs flying past us as I push the bike to the limit of what it can do in such a thriving, built-up area. I can only imagine her behind me, head whipping this way and that, enthralled by flashes and glimpses of a life she’s never seen before.

There’s an alley up ahead and I swing into it, braking sharp and bumpy so she’s thrown up against my back. Heh. Buildings surround us, low rises, a couple of garbage cans and empty crates — we’re behind my place. It’s not much to look at from the outside, especially out back, but I hit a button on the handlebar of my bike and the garage door we’re in front of eases open like the maw of a camouflaged demon.

She’s huffing for breath, panting and gasping, as I haul myself up and climb off the bike. It’s an adorable sight. She stares up at me, both pupils blown.

Then her mouth pops open. And noise comes out of it again.

“What the hell was that?!” she shrieks, all the blood gone from her face. “You were trying to kill me!”

“I mean, if I’d fucked up, I’d have died too. And look, here you are, alive,” I say, offering her my hand, keeping the other on the bike. She could let it topple right on top of her, with how shaky her legs are right now. Maybe even at full strength, who knows.

“Oh, I don’t make any promises you’re gonna survive the next five seconds,” she threatens under her breath. She slips awkwardly from the pillion seat to mine, and stumbles off of the bike, rebuffing my hand. I try not to smile. The idea of her even being a mild risk to my wellbeing is comical. She’s small and curvy and doesn’t look like she’s been doing any long distance running lately, let alone advanced martial arts training, so unless she’s packing a gun somewhere on her that’s got silver bullets loaded into it, I’m pretty safe.

“C’mon, this is my place.”

“Whatever,” she mumbles and tags after me. She’s struggling to get her helmet off, fingers slipping on the catch.

“Put that on the bench,” I point to the workbench I keep in the garage. Once she’s in, and the bike’s parked, the door descends behind us, shutting out the world. And shutting us in. A spiral staircase to our right leads to my loft, and I beckon for her to follow me.

“Is this where you harvest my kidneys?” she asks as she follows me up.

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