Page 24 of Dancing with Daggers

"That's what I needed to hear. You want to come in here with no panties on and make me crazy? You deserve everything you get."

Zia laughed. "You're right. I do deserve to have all my holes filled until I'm coming so hard, I black out. Carry on."

"Gods, woman, you're something else." Ares's teasing mood vanished, and he began to fuck her with his dick and fingers hard enough to make the desk shake. She was going to have bruises on her hips, and he didn't feel even a little bad about it.

"Bite me, Ares. Oh fuck, please before I lose it," Zia begged.

Ares sank his fangs into the curve of her shoulder and began to come with the first hit of blood on his tongue. She was in his veins and melding to his bones, his orgasm shaking him to his core like it always did when it was with her. It was a primal force, knocking down all the walls inside of him that he had forgotten existed. He came back to reality with Zia sobbing his name through her own release. Ares pulled his fangs from her and laid gentle kisses over her shoulders.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up. You're a fucking mess," he crooned softly. He freed himself from her and took a long, smug look at the state he'd put her in and the sight of his come wet on her thighs.

"I don't think I can move," Zia said dreamily.

Ares picked her up and carried her into the bathroom. He placed her on the counter before wetting a hand towel with warm water.

"Spread them," he said and stepped between her thighs.

Zia did as she was told without sassing him for once. Ares cleaned her up with gentle swipes. She watched him with a dreamy, faintly amused expression on her face.

"So are your days always this exciting? I'm starting to understand why you work so much," she teased once he had cleaned himself up and straightened his suit.

"Only since you turned up in my life," Ares admitted. He cupped her face and kissed her, soft but deeply possessive. She had brought this new side out in him, and he didn't know how to put it away again. He didn't even know if he wanted to.

Ares's phone buzzed angrily in his jacket pocket. He was about to toss the phone into the toilet to shut it up when he saw the number. "Shit, it's my PI. I have to answer this." Zia mimed zipping her lips. Ares huffed out a laugh and answered. "Someone better be dead."

"Ares! Fuck, man. I'm in trouble. I found Mars. He's back in Inferno!I think he saw me," Samuel babbled. "Fuck! Get over here at sundown, and I'll have everything ready for you. After that I'm leaving for a few weeks. You don't pay me enough to deal with your psycho family!" The phone went dead, and Ares went cold, then hot, then cold again.

Mars is back in Inferno.

Zia pushed off the counter. "We need to go."

"We? Zia, I can't…"Ares began.

Zia grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. "Look at me. Whatever is about to happen, you're going to need backup. I have weapons training, and I'm good in a fight."

"Zia, if Mars is there… You don't know what he's like," Ares replied, his voice shaken. He needed to get a grip on the old fear threading through him. He wasn't the scared little boy anymore, and Mars had been the one to run away from him that fateful night, not the other way around.

"I have a good idea about what he put you through and that's enough for me. You helped me with my monster, so I'm going to help you with yours," Zia said. She kissed him hard before letting him go and heading for the door. "Pick up your feet, Volso. You're not doing this alone, and I'm going to need my knives."

Ares followed her, a small smile on his face. No, he wasn't alone anymore. Mars needed to be dealt with once and for all, and Zia was the only one he trusted to have his back and not put a dagger in it.

17

Zia knew her time for dodging Ares's unspoken questions was coming to an end. She was dressed in black and had a holster full of her custom-made daggers on. He had taken a long look at her and said nothing. It wasn't the time, but the questions hung between them all the same.

Maybe she was making a huge mistake by going with him. There would be no going back if he saw this part of her. Despite that, she wouldn't let him face Mars alone. She had dug into his past and found out about him killing his father and the horrible beatings he had taken when he was a child. She had seen the little boy covered in blood, lining up his cars in neat rows.

They both had monsters in their pasts that needed to die. She had suspected that Mars must have been in on the beatings that his father was dishing out to Ares. The way he had gone utterly still when he received the phone call told Zia she was right. Zia knew what that kind of fear was like. She wasn't going to let Ares face it alone, no matter how capable he was of dealing with it.

You are so in love with him, a small voice said in the back of her head. Zia was still trying to fight that voice. She was just dickmatized, that was all. Ares had seen parts of her that she never showed anyone and hadn't flinched. She knew that she couldn't keep doing this job either. It was starting to feel like a betrayal. She would get through the night and make her exit. It was one of the reasons she had showed up in his office. She had sent her final reports off to Corven that morning and wanted to have one more day of pretend. Mars turning up had fucked the rest of her plans.

"This is it," Ares said, pulling the car up in front of a run-down set of office buildings. They were on the edge of the vampire district, where it crossed into the human one. It wasn't the worst part of the area, but it was a shadowy, liminal space that had always put Zia's teeth on edge.

"Samuel does a lot of work for vampires, huh?" she asked, checking the street before getting out of the car.

"He was a cop once and found that working privately paid better, and he could get more justice done," Ares answered vaguely.

Zia followed him up the stairs instead of getting them into the elevator. She had a hand resting on the hilt of one of her daggers, ready for anything that might want to jump them.

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