Midnight Hunter (The Execution Underground Book 3)

by Kait Ballenger

  Intriguing? Intriguing? The word she’d wanted to come out of his mouth was beautiful, sexy, irresistible or tempting, but certainly not intriguing. It seemed so clinical, so distant, like she was some scientific specimen meant for observation.

  “Uh, thanks?” She phrased it as a semi-question, because honestly, she was more than a little confused as to whether he thought she was intriguing like she thought he was, or if he meant she was a total freak worth studying.

  The awkward moment was broken by the sound of a dinging bell, muffled as if it came from under the couch cushions they were sitting on.

  Shane patted his pockets. “That’s my text alert—probably one of the guys with news. But my phone must have fallen out of my pocket and into the couch. Crap.”

  He turned around and dug underneath the cushions for the wayward phone.

  Vera pulled out her own phone and picked his number off the contacts list, then hit call. “Here. Maybe if I call it, you’ll be able to find it easier.”

  “No,” Shane nearly shouted, but it was already too late.

  A muffled rendition of The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” played from underneath the cushions. Shane scrambled to find the phone and turn off the ringer with a look of horror on his face. Vera couldn’t help but laugh at the hilarity of it all.

  And then it hit her. He chose songs he thought fit the person calling. She ran through the lyrics to the song in her head. Yep, she was pretty sure it meant exactly what she thought it meant. He wanted her—badly. Or he wanted her to get the hell away from him. She wasn’t sure which.

  When he finally snatched his phone from between two cushions, she raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I can explain,” he said.

  Did she want to hear his explanation for this? “Oh?”

  She waited for him to go on, but he simply gaped at her, lost for words.

  “Doc Grey, do you want me?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “Vera, I...” He stopped abruptly. “I...”

  Well, if there was ever a time in the world to throw herself under the bus and test the limits of the tension between them, this was it. Either she would be shot down like a deer at close range or the growing heat between her legs would be greatly multiplied.

  He stood two feet away from her, still struck dumb in the most adorable way. Oh, man, she was really going to do this, wasn’t she? Before she could talk herself out of it, before she could fear rejection and chicken out, she stood and stepped toward him. He didn’t back away, just stood there as stiff as a board.

  “I asked you a question.” The words came out breathier than she’d intended. She stepped closer, until their bodies were less than an inch apart, and stared up into his gorgeous, honey-brown eyes. He met her gaze, and she saw a spark behind his irises that could only be described with one word: desire.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Vera, regardless of how I feel, I can’t...”

  And that was all she needed to hear, a confirmation that he wanted her, too. She launched her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her until their mouths finally crashed together. The feel of his soft full lips pressing against hers was nearly enough to send her reeling. But when his tongue expertly parted her lips, gaining entrance to her mouth, she moaned beneath him. Her insides unraveled completely. His aftershave filled her nose, mixed with the undeniable, sexy scent of 100-percent male. She could breathe that scent for the rest of her life and never find it any less intoxicating.

  And the feel of his lean, rock-hard body flush against hers...

  Wetness pooled between her legs the likes of which she’d never known before. Wanting nothing more than to open herself fully to him, she allowed his tongue to sweetly probe the inside of her mouth. Snaking her hands up his back, she tangled her fingers in his hair, and, sweet Lord, was his hair magnificent, like pure silk against her fingertips.

  She allowed her hands to trail back downward and onto his chest. Her hands continued their exploration down his body, over the metal of his gun. She slowly took a firm hold of the buckle of his belt.

  He jerked away so quickly she was fairly certain he’d gotten whiplash. What the hell?

  Before she knew what was going on, he was pacing the other side of the room, swearing in a way she’d never been certain a highly intelligent person could swear until then. Her now-swollen lips felt cold with the absence of his, and instead of sexy and sensuous, the wetness in her panties suddenly felt uncomfortable and dirty.

  “What’s your problem?” That was all she could manage to choke out. She’d thought it had been going so well. From the way he’d maneuvered his tongue into her mouth, any sane woman would have thought he’d been enjoying himself.

  “What’s my problem? What’s my problem?” He stared at her with wild eyes. A mix of emotions she wasn’t able to identify passed over his face with the speed of a raging storm cloud.

  “Yeah,” she said, repeating her question. “What’s your problem? We both seemed to be enjoying ourselves until...”

  “That’s exactly the problem,” he snapped. “We can’t enjoy ourselves.”

  “Of course we can. No one’s here. It’s not like the dean is going to waltz in any second.”

  He held his hands in front of him, his movements frantic but firm. “No, no. This can’t go any further. This ends here.”

  “Why? We’re both consenting adults. You’re barely five years older than I am. I don’t see why we can’t...”

  He cut her off again. “Because...just because.”

  She placed her hands on her hips. She wasn’t letting this go. She would argue with him until he realized what a fool he was being. “‘Because’ isn’t a reason. It’s...”

  “Because I don’t want you, okay?” he shouted.

  Her hands dropped from her hips, and all the blood drained from her face. He didn’t want her? The rejection stung so hard she nearly staggered before she caught herself. No. He was lying. A person didn’t kiss you back like that if he didn’t want you. She wasn’t letting him escape her that easily.

  “Then why did you kiss me back?” she demanded. “If you don’t want me, why not push me away to begin with?”

  “You’ve never reacted without thinking and then regretted it? I’m a man, Vera, and one under the age of thirty at that. You think when a beautiful woman kisses me I’m immediately going to push her away? Of course it’s going to take a moment for me to come to my senses. Even I’m not immune to thinking with my groin instead of my brain.”

  Ouch. That hurt. More than she cared to admit. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. Not a single tear would she shed in front of him.

  “Well, excuse me for getting the wrong impression. Maybe the next time you ask a woman to stay in your home with you, flirt unapologetically with her and make her share her intimate life story with you like you’re the best of friends, you should make sure you’re actually interested in her first, okay? Maybe then she won’t kiss you against your will.”

  Wrenching her bag off the sofa, she stalked toward the door. She didn’t even bother to look over her shoulder to see if he would try to stop her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHEN THE DOOR to the apartment slammed behind Vera, the string of profanities that fell from Shane’s lips could have made Jace blush. What the fuck had he been thinking, allowing her to kiss him like that? Then pushing her away? And, oh, God, saying he didn’t want her? That was the biggest lie ever to have crossed his lips.

  And that was exactly the problem. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman in his life, but he couldn’t have her. He couldn’t. That was that. She was his student. He was her professor. End of story. But when she’d kissed him like that it had torn his willpower into shreds. His brain insisted he had made
the logical and right decision by telling her he didn’t want her, by ending things right then and there.

  But his heart? Well, his heart sang a different tune. His heart said a kiss that electric should never be ended. His heart said she was not only beautiful but smart and impressive and funny, and everything a man could want in a woman. And most importantly, his heart said seeing the pain on her face as she’d stormed out felt as if someone had taken a meat cleaver straight to his aorta.

  Everything in him longed to run after her, but should he?

  “Fuck.” He ran out the door behind her before he’d even fully made up his mind to do so. He charged down the stairs and out into the street. He needed to protect her, to keep her safe. But even as the thought occurred to him, he recognized it for the lie it was. He wanted a lot more than that.

  Spotting Vera just a few yards away, he ran after her. “Vera!” he shouted.

  She turned around, only to frown at the sight of him. Yeah, he had to admit that hurt, not that he didn’t deserve it.

  “Vera, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. It’s just...”

  She raised a hand to stop him. “Oh, no, I think it came out exactly the way you meant it, and that’s fine. Message received. I’ll never come on to you again. My apologies, Professor.”

  She stressed the last word with so much anger and hurt, his chest ached. “You don’t understand. It’s not you. It’s...”

  She shook her head. “I get it, okay? I really do. You don’t owe me an explanation. Let’s just forget it ever happened.”

  Forget it ever happened? Damn, those words hurt. The memory of the intimacy that had flowed between them minutes earlier would be permanently seared into his skull for all eternity, and if he was truly honest with himself, he didn’t want to forget it.

  Shane nodded, his brain yet again telling him that was the logical thing to do, despite the way his heart ached in his chest. He was a coward. If he were a braver man, he would have kissed her again right there, but he couldn’t bring himself to let all those inhibitions go.

  “Will you please come back inside? If you go home, you’ll be vulnerable to whoever sent that familiar after you again, and I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.

  The frown across her face screamed that going back upstairs with him was the last thing she wanted to do, but she clearly understood the necessity of it. She marched past him without a word, back toward the apartment. He followed her inside.

  As Shane closed the door to his grandmother’s apartment behind them, he reached out and touched Vera’s arm. If he tried one last time to explain, maybe then she would understand.

  “Vera, I really do want you to know that it’s not you...”

  She stepped out of his reach. “I’m going to go to bed early,” she said, cutting him off midsentence. “I need to call my uncle and tell him I won’t be at work tomorrow night. I’ll have Jess cover for me. Besides, you need time to prepare your strategy for the coven’s meeting tomorrow without being distracted. Good night.”

  Walking down the hall, she disappeared around the corner, clearly headed into the guest bedroom. Shane’s heart fell. Maybe it was better this way, better if she thought he wasn’t attracted to her at all. Maybe that way neither of them would be tempted again. He tried to convince himself of that, but the ache in his chest refused to respond.

  He returned to the living room a moment later and quickly found the offending phone that had been the root cause of the evening’s awfulness. Changing Vera’s ringtone to that song had been either one of the dumbest things he’d ever done or one of his most brilliant ideas ever, depending on whether you asked his brain or his heart.

  He turned on the phone. A text from Ash read, We won the zombie lotto. Howard Sternman’s awake.

  So Ash and Trent had been stuck with the work for the night. He texted a quick reply. Thanks. I appreciate it. A wave of relief had washed over him as soon as he read and recognized the name. He could go to bed tonight knowing that his fellow hunters would make certain the zombie version of Howard Sternman didn’t kill anyone.

  And that left him to focus on what to do about the meeting of the black-magic coven tomorrow. He needed to prepare himself both mentally and physically. He contemplated breaking up the coven as soon as they burst in, but that would be taking too great a risk. They needed to not only make certain the lead necromancer was present, but they also needed to learn what the coven was up to, because whatever it was, it was going to end with them.

  He would infiltrate their ranks, gather intel, and decide further plans from there. His mind wandered to the fact that tomorrow he would potentially come face-to-face with the necromancer perpetrating these hideous crimes. That thought alone caused the Walther PPK at his waist to suddenly feel one bullet too heavy.

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, the spell didn’t work?” Nathanial growled.

  Trista stood in front of him, curls falling across her forehead. She bit her perfectly formed lower lip. She was beautiful, he would give her that, but at the moment a distinct longing to wrap his hands a little too tightly around her pretty throat coursed through him. She was incompetent, and he couldn’t have that. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and even though she was standing and towered over him, when she saw the look in his eyes she shrank visibly. She looked away, refusing to meet his gaze. When had she become so weak? Obedience he demanded, but this was nothing but weakness and fear. He hated those two worthless qualities. And as time passed, Trista was proving herself just as worthless. Beautiful, but worthless.

  “The spell didn’t work. He rose, but he didn’t kill,” she said, still refusing to look him in the eye.

  “Do you know why? Do you know what went wrong?”

  Her eyes remained glued to the floor as she shook her head.

  Nathanial’s mouth tightened into an angry pucker. He spoke through gritted teeth. “If you have no answers, then why are you bothering me with this nonsense?”

  “I—I thought you would want to know.”

  “I want to know solutions, not be presented with problems. Keep it up and I’ll start thinking the problem is you.”

  Trista shook her head so vigorously he could practically hear her pea brain rattling in her skull. “I didn’t mean to...”

  “You didn’t mean to what? Come to me like an idiot with no answers?” He stood, looming over her. She cringed and shrank even further. “Your familiar already failed to possess its target, and now this? Your job as my right hand is to ensure things run smoothly in this coven. Come to me without answers again and I’ll show you exactly how worthless you really are to me.”

  She shivered as he stepped closer to her but managed to choke out, “You don’t mean that.”

  His eyes widened. Who did she think she was? How dare she tell him anything about his own intentions? His right hand shot out and clutched the delicate column of her throat. He squeezed until her pulse throbbed beneath his fingers. A strangled cough escaped from her lips as she desperately clutched at his hands. He forced her to look at him. Her wide, terrified eyes met his.

  “Don’t you ever tell me what I do and do not mean, understood?” His grip tightened.

  She tried to nod, but his hold on her throat held like a vise. His eyes raked over her. Pathetic. Where did someone so weak find the gall to be so blatantly defiant? Sheer stupidity had to be accountable.

  “I could kill you now, you know.” He watched as the terror in her eyes deepened. “What’s to stop me from ending your life right this second?” Slowly, he released her throat, allowing her just enough air to speak.

  “Because you love me,” she gasped.

  He laughed. Love her? She couldn’t possibly be that delusional, could she? But as he looked into her eyes he saw no doubt, just pure, unadulterated hope and desperat
ion. It disgusted him. Love? She really thought that? Love was an emotion he had no time for. No one had ever had the time to bestow such a supposed gift on him. Now that he was older, he was wise enough to know that it was a silly, useless emotion that only caused people to make stupid, weak decisions. Perhaps as little as five years ago he might have fallen for her. At that time in his life, he’d still been so desperate for any shred of affection that he probably would have entertained her silly notion. He would have fallen into her arms like the weakling he was then and never looked back. He knew better now.

  If all his years in the foster system had taught him anything, it was that people and relationships were expendable. He’d been sent home with dozens of families, assured that he would find a home where someone would eventually adopt him, but no one had ever shown him love. It was always the same. The new families with no children were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. They eagerly took him home, declaring they would be his new parents. That would usually last for a week or two until everyone got comfortable. Then one too many feet out of line or one too many smartass remarks later and they decided he was unsalvageable, like a piece of garbage, and threw him back in the system. And that was just the well-meaning families. Never mind the ones with creepy uncles who touched him or so many foster kids just for the sake of the government payments that they never put a decent meal on the table. He’d seen it all. And all that experience had taught him one valuable lesson: relationships were only useful if they benefitted you, and right now Trista’s fabricated love story was doing nothing but pissing him off.

  His anger simmered, and he allowed his power to flow up from deep inside until it flooded his body. With the wave of his hand, Trista’s slender form flew across the room, slamming headfirst into the altar table. She cried out in pain from the impact, keening like a kicked dog.

  He strode across the room toward her, using his power to hold her in place. She lay sprawled against the table, her ass stuck out in front of him like an offering. The sight of her being controlled by him, vulnerable and weak, had an erection burning between his legs. When he finally stood behind her, he ground his cock between her ass cheeks.