by Virna DePaul
Once again he reminded himself it wasn’t going to happen. No matter how he admired her, and no matter how she made him feel, she was a job and that was all she could ever be.
He took out his cell and punched in Carly’s number.
“You found her?” Carly’s voice was husky. Feminine. It was flat-out sexy—deliberately so—and he couldn’t help compare it to the gravelly, clipped speech that Ana had used, her occasional melodic slip into Spanish aside. Despite the sentiment behind her words, the flow of them combined with the touch of her body had made him hard, harder than the brick wall he’d been pressed against. The intensity of his desire as well as his decision not to push her too far—yet—had been the only reasons he’d remained against that wall. Despite carrying an illegal gun, Ana had turned her life around. He didn’t want to take that away from her. And she had no reason to hurt him unless he gave her one. Besides, it wasn’t as if one of her bullets could kill him anyway.
As far as he knew, nothing could.
“She’s not going to be as easy as the others,” he said in response to Carly’s question.
“I wouldn’t say the others have been easy.”
“She’s good. Even managed to get my gun.”
“Right,” Carly answered, her tone laced with the knowledge that if Ana had gotten Ty’s gun, it was because he’d let her do it. Just like he’d let her spot him watching her in the first place. “Did she shoot you?”
“No, she did not shoot me. She cursed me, though. In Spanish. Something that seemed to bother her.” It had certainly bothered him, but only because he’d liked it. Too much.
He closed his eyes and replayed her words, enjoying the way it made him think of heat and skin and sweaty, slippery silk sheets. With her golden skin, cinnamon eyes, and dark hair, he could easily picture her spread beneath him, begging him for release as he crooned back to her in her native tongue:
Todavía no. Not yet.
Un poco más largo. A little longer.
Dé a mí. Give to me.
He bit back a groan.
Give to me.
Even now his dick twitched, ready to get busy, ready to immerse itself in Ana’s warmth.
He couldn’t have her. Not sexually. Not in ways that might involve her heart as well as her body. And that made him angry.
It fucking made him want to kill someone.
Thankfully, Carly seemed oblivious to his internal struggle. “Excellent,” she said. “You’re right about that, she hates it when she speaks Spanish. She’s trying to deny who she is—who she was—but even after all these years she can’t. She’s still the tough little girl from the Bronx.”
“Yes. The little girl packs quite a punch, too.” Raising a hand, Ty rubbed at his mouth, grinning when he saw the blood. She might not be able to kill him, but she sure as shit could make him bleed.
“Was that before or after she got your gun? Pity. I know how fond you are of it.”
His silence just seemed to amuse her. True to form, she pounced on it.
“Oh my. Are you saying you can’t handle this one?” she purred.
God, he hated Carly sometimes. Hated her bitch-on-steroids act. Hated the necessity to partner with her at all. But she hadn’t always been like this. Years ago, as a fellow newbie agent with the FBI, she’d been good at her job but she’d had a gentle side, too. That part of her had long been quashed. And now? Sure, she’d helped Ty and Peter when they’d needed her most, but her assistance had been more about using them than saving them. Carly was doing what she needed to adjust to her new life, part of a team but very much alone. Just like him.
Ty glanced in the direction Ana had disappeared. “No,” he said, this time letting a trace of humor leak into his voice. “I can handle her. I’ll just have to be a little more direct, that’s all.”
“You don’t have authority to reveal what you are, Ty,” Carly snapped. “Not yet. We have one month until the leaders of Salvation’s Crossing attend the Hispanic Community Alliance fund-raiser, and we need Ana fully invested before we show our hand.”
“I have no plans to tell her I’m a vampire right now. But she still has my gun, and I have no intention of letting her think she can take anything from me and just walk away.”
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other Books by This Author
Excerpt from Turned
