Page 66 of Hero & Villain
Roger nodded easily. “While my sadism goes down to the bone. How do you like your pain, pink-haired female in puppy slippers?”
The guy with the booze elbowed Roger. “Name, Rog, you’re supposed to ask for her name.” He was handsome enough, but compared to the pretty one, he looked positively drab.
“No names,” Dirk said and turned me so I was wrapped in his arms, tight like a boa constrictor. “Left upper arm, bullet wound, use morphine. If it hurts her, I’ll hurt you.”
Roger wrinkled his perfect nose. “I don’t think that’s necessary. Pink can take pain. Look at her pupils, barely dilated.”
“Of course she can take pain,” his friend said, nudging him while he stared at me. He should get some popcorn and pull up a chair. He clearly enjoyed watching the show.
“Ah,” Roger said, eyes lighting up. “In that case, you won’t feel a thing.” He moved fast, stabbing a needle into my shoulder and another beneath the wound, so suddenly that I didn’t have time to brace myself or react.
The next second he was irrigating the wound, washing it out and then bending closer while I tried to ignore how tight Dirk was holding me. Maybe I should resist, but not until after these two idiots left us alone together. When we were alone, I’d finish kissing him and then maybe… My mind wandered to other things, holding his hand, staring into his eyes under a sea of stars, sharing a bar of chocolate, you know, things no villain would ever do.
“There’s a bullet in there,” Roger said conversationally, pulling out a scalpel. “I’ll have to cut it out. Looks like one of those hollow-shelled international numbers that super terrorist assassins use. Pink, where did you find a bullet like that?”
Dirk growled at him. “Take it out, sew her up, then get out.”
Roger shrugged. “I’m just saying that it’s going to take some time. Those things go in clean and tight, barely noticeable, then shatter inside. She’s going to take a few layers of stitches. You can see the mess under the skin at the back of her arm. There will be dozens of splinters to get out. It could take me an hour when I’m sober.”
“How drunk are you?” I asked. I couldn’t feel my arm anymore. Whatever he’d shot me up with had worked fast.
Roger shrugged and glanced at his friend. “How drunk am I?”
“Not more than one and a half sheets. No wind.”
I glared at the friend. “That’s helpful.”
He smiled sweetly. “I’m glad I could help. You’re very beautiful, and your pink hair matches Dirk. Did you do that on purpose, or was it fate?”
I shook my head, but the room spun in spite of Dirk holding me very tight. “I guess it was fate.” I stared at Dirk, his warm eyes the only thing that wasn’t shifting in the crazy world.
His eyes narrowed, and he looked down at my lips. “Sometimes it seems like there is no other possible explanation.” He kissed me, right there in front of his friends, kissed me until I couldn’t feel anything but his lips, and then, not even that.
Chapter Twenty
HERO
Iclosed the door of the opulent suite on the lowest floor that the Providence had rooms. Daniela didn’t like heights, and I intended to give her everything she wanted, whether she wanted me to or not.
Trevor and Roger were on either side of me, watching me lock her up with far too much interest.
Once I’d turned and started down the hall, Trevor said, “That’s Clint’s missing fiancé. I didn’t know that you stole people’s fiancés. I’d say shame on you, but you probably rescued her from his profligate ways.”
“That’s who that was? No, she had him whipped literally, remember?” Roger said, shooting a look at Trevor. Trevor was always drunk, so sometimes he missed the important things.
“Isn’t she the granddaughter of someone terrifying and horrible, like the Godfather only international?” Trevor asked before he opened his flask and took a deep drink. He hadn’t drunk the entire time Roger had been operating on Daniela, or when he’d knocked her out and injected a tracking device that I’d made after she disappeared with Jezebel and the girls. It wasn’t stalking to keep track of her; it was part of the plan, exactly likehaving her on my lap with her knife against my throat had been part of the plan.
Fine, it hadn’t been part of the plan, but it should have been, because it was brilliant. She was brilliant and when she woke up in the morning, I’d casually ask her out on a date involving bullets and blood loss so she was once again compelled to hold me hostage, or maybe something she’d actually like, maybe a symphony and the finest chocolate in the world.
“What’s that silly grin for?” Horse demanded as he stepped into the hall in front of us, tightening his robe around his waist and baring his impressive chest hair.
We all stopped as if we’d been caught doing something illicit, which was ridiculous, because while it may have been illicit, we hadn’t been caught.
“Daniela is a guest at your hotel. That means that you can’t show her your chest hair, right?” I said, giving him a hard smile.
Roger smacked me. “Look at that alpha coming out to mark his territory. It’s urine, though, not blood. Which is harder to get out of plush carpet, Nathan, blood or urine?”
Horse, also known as Nathan, frowned at Roger and then raised a finger to point at him. “What did you do?”
