Page 13 of Burn for the Dragon
He knew he was being irresponsible, not bothering with the human façade he normally kept cloaked around himself at all times. Maybe he wanted her to see him as he truly was. Maybe he hoped it would finally scare her away for good.
Or, maybe he wanted to know if she would run from his “otherness” …or if she would be brave enough to embrace it. “What are you doing here, Everly?” he asked her again. He needed to hear her say it.
As though he’d wished the words from her lips, she told him, “I wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
He thought she would say it. Admit she wanted him as much as he wanted her. It wasn’t as if he didn’t already know what she was feeling. Her desire for him was made clear the moment he’d gotten close to her. But he wanted her to say it.
He needed her to say it.
Instead, she took a step back. “I came to ask you one more time to help me.”
“Bullshit.”
She blinked once. Twice. “What?”
Hawke closed the distance she had put between them. “I said, bullshit. You’re lying. That’s not why you’re here.”
“It is,” she insisted. Those clear, gray eyes roved over his face, as though she was trying to memorize what he looked like.
But she didn’t need to do that. Because Hawke realized, right at that very moment, that he had no intention of going anywhere. Jarred by the truth of his feelings for this woman he’d just met and barely knew, he forced himself to back off. He took two steps and stopped. “You need to leave, Everly.”
She frowned, her chest rising and falling as she sucked at the air he’d put between them. “Hawke, please. Just hear me out.”
“I’m not interested in your damsel in distress tale, and I’m not going anywhere near Parasupe.” At least, not with her. The coven had its own plans for that “company.” “And if you’re smart, neither will you. So, unless you want to bend over that desk again—with a bare ass this time—you’ll get the fuck out of here while you still can.”
It was crude, what he’d just said to her. But for a heart-pounding minute, he thought she was going to take him up on his offer. Her eyes watched his mouth as he gave her the ultimatum, and though they widened a bit, he didn’t miss the way the tip of her tongue wet her lips or how her hands balled into fists. She glanced at the desk, and the breath rushed from his lungs.
But then she pulled herself up, her spine ramrod straight. “I’m not sure who I thought you were, but obviously, I was dead wrong.”
Hawke knew she wasn’t talking about his vampirism, clearly on display at this point. Clenching his jaw to keep from apologizing to her for his insolence, he moved out of the way and allowed her to rush from the room.
He waited exactly three excruciating minutes, and then he followed her.
She’d left the club. He felt her absence down to his bones. But she hadn’t gone far. Once he was outside, he moved swiftly to the shadows as he watched her fight to open her car door. Placing one foot on the back door for leverage, she gave it a furious yank before she finally got it open. She sat inside for a few seconds, staring at the door of the club with an unreadable look on her face. Then she cranked the engine, and backed up without looking where she was going, barely missing a pole. Gravel and dust flying out behind her, she took off out of the parking lot.
Hawke didn’t need a vehicle to keep pace with her, not even with her lead foot on the gas. As soon as she got to the highway and turned south, the road opened up. Nothing halted his progress through the open fields alongside the road except for the occasional gas station or car dealership that lined the side of the highway until they hit the outskirts of San Antonio. After that, he stuck to the rooftops, easily leaping across the distance between them. It was late enough that most humans were ensconced in their homes for the night, and those that weren’t wouldn’t see him. He moved too fast for the human eye to see anything other than an occasional flash of his pink shirt, only stopping to confirm Everly’s whereabouts when he was certain he wouldn’t be seen.
Landing lightly on the roof of a two-story home, he crouched beside the chimney and watched her pull into the small, red brick apartment building across the street, parking directly in front of the stairs. It had twelve apartments—six on each floor. Everly got out of the car, not bothering to lock it after she got the door shut and made her way up the stairs and over to the top corner apartment on the left. There was a small round table on the walkway in the corner outside her front door, and she paused to pet a ragged orange tomcat lazing on top of it. She murmured something to the feline, then she unlocked her door and went inside.
Hawke heard the click of the lock.
With a quick glance around, he straightened and stepped down the incline to the edge of the roof. Crouching down again, he listened for any movement in or around the house he stood on, and when he heard nothing but the steady heartbeats of sleeping humans, he dropped to the ground. The cat watched him, tail swishing with interest as he walked across the street and approached Everly’s car. Opening the door, he punched the dent out just enough to allow her to get in and out of her car without struggling so much. Then he popped the hood and did the same to the part of the dent affecting the seam of the door.
He didn’t want to take the risk of someone seeing him climb the stairs, so he walked around the side of her apartments. Under the concealment of the large, leafy tree in the side yard, he scaled the side of her building to an open window that looked into her living room. The apartment was small, and from what he could see, cluttered with colorful furniture and tapestries that gave it a distinct bohemian feel. But it was clean and open.
To his right, he could see the front door, a small kitchen area directly in front of him, and an open hallway on his left. At the end of it, he could just see the foot of her bed. He heard running water, and after one last look—noting the security system this time—he dropped back down to the ground.
Happy to see she at least acknowledged the disadvantage of her hearing loss when it came to her safety, Hawke stared up at the bedroom window. He had no intention of ever invading her privacy or betraying her trust by going into her home without her knowledge or permission, but it was good to know he could get in if he had to. The security system would be easy for him to get around, and the fact that she was a renter was also good. All he had to do was find out who owned the building, and they could invite him in if an emergency arose.
Waving at the cat, who watched him with the bored nonchalance of a creature who couldn’t be bothered but was still slightly curious, he went back to the club to get his car. If he hurried, he could get to Parasupe and snoop around a bit before the sun rose and he had to find shelter. He’d sworn to Kohl he wouldn’t go all cowboy on the place after they’d shot up his club, but he needed to see what, or who, they had there that would make a smart woman like Everly want to risk her life by attempting to break into a place no human would be able to get into.
Fortunately, Hawke wasn’t human.
