Page 84 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“I’m not asking you, Ember, I’m telling you. You’re moving in with me, and it’s happening tonight—”
“Just like that? We’re not going to talk about what happened? You’re not going to even ask me if I want to?”
“—so go and pack a bag.” He paused a moment. “And I dare you to tell me you don’t want to while keeping a straight face.”
Her mouth opened—outrage or alarm, he couldn’t tell—but he could tell the thought of moving in with him excited her. Her blood had begun to pound through her veins and a sweet bloom of heat rose from her skin, tinged with the scent of delicious hot readiness.
God, what that scent did to him. His body reacted on a molecular level and an erection charged to life between his legs.
Seeing how he was naked and pressed tight against her, she didn’t miss it. Her face flushed a deeper shade of red. She bit her lip and gazed up at him, the expression on her face alternating between a furious scowl and something else. Something a little more ambivalent.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why now?”
Fighting the urge to kiss her, tear her clothes of
f, or otherwise get her into a compromising position, he hesitated, deciding whether to tell her the truth. But no—he had to tell her. She deserved to know what was happening.
Watching her face carefully, he said, “Those men in the alley, that night in Gràcia.”
Her breath hitched. She stared at him, silent and apprehensive, waiting for him to continue.
“Their group knows where you live. Or at least they did—they were at your old apartment earlier today. It’s only a matter of time before they find you here.”
Judging by her reaction, it might have been wiser not to tell her the truth.
At the top of her lungs, she shrieked, “What?” then spun wildly out of his arms, frantically looking around the apartment as if expecting them to leap from behind the furniture. Her eyes grew even more huge than before, her face paled to white. “The ones you said would kill us both?”
He felt a little awkward standing naked in the middle of her living room, aroused, but he only said, “Yes.”
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God! What are we going to do?”
“I told you. You’re moving in with me.”
“I can’t—I can’t—this is insane! What am I supposed to do, hide for the rest of my life?”
“No,” he said, very calmly. “Just until I kill them.”
She gaped at him. Several seconds ticked by and then slow, spreading recognition transformed her face from panic to understanding.
“That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re in Spain. You’re an…an…” she trailed off then swallowed. “Assassin,” she finished in horror.
“No,” he protested instantly, then paused to think about it. “Well, yes, but not really. That’s not what I normally do, this is a special circumstance—an emergency, really—I can’t exactly explain it.”
She was still gaping at him. Outside, the sound of two cars colliding in a traffic accident on a street a few blocks away underscored the lunacy of the situation with a thunderous, metallic bang.
“I knew it,” she whispered. “I knew it the first time I saw you.”
His brows raised. “That’s very interesting. You can tell me all about it in the car.” He was by her side in two long strides and pulled her up against him. Gazing intently down into her eyes he said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to let anything hurt you; you have my word. You’ll be perfectly safe in my home—”
She sputtered a horrified laugh. “Safe in the home of an assassin?”
“I just told you, I’m not really an assassin—”
“Not really an assassin is pretty much the same thing as being not really dead, or not really pregnant! You either are or you’re not!”
His face hardened. “Ember, this is no time to split hairs—”
“No,” she declared with a hardness to her voice that brought him up short.
