Page 54 of Viper

Razor twisted his mouth. “He didn’t seem himself yesterday. I asked if something was wrong; he said no.”

Darko frowned. “He would have said if he’d felt bloodlust creeping up on him, so it must have been something else bothering him.”

“Or he lied,” Jester put in, wrenching a sigh out of Darko.

Razor turned to fully face Viper. “Just wanted to let you know that Ella’s at the dive bar. She’s alone.”

A spark of pleasure coursed through Viper. She’d come to him. Finally.

He dug out his cell, intending to tell her that he was on his way. It was only then he saw that she’d texted him—he hadn’t heard the beeping of his phone over all the noise.

Your bar’s pretty busy tonight.

Yeah, that was more or less an invitation right there. He replied:I’d better come see for myself just how busy.

Darko’s brow pinched. “I thought you wanted her to meet you at the Red Rooms.”

“I asked her to,” said Viper, pocketing his phone. “This is her coming to me on her own terms, and wanting me to meet her in the middle.”

“It has to have killed you to stay away the past week,” Sting commented.

It had, but he’d needed her to make the informed decision to allow him into her life. He could have pushed his way into it by seducing her—she would have let him, because then she wouldn’t have had to take any responsibility for having a fallen angel in her bed.

“Playing the waiting game clearly worked,” said Darko. “Bet you’re glad it’s over.”

“Fucking ecstatic,” said Viper, a sense of purposeful determination filling him. Now he could go get his woman.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ella felt him before she saw him. Something about Viper’s presence made the air feel charged. A little electric.

Chewing on one of her fries, she instinctively looked to her right. He was stalking toward her table, his expression determined. The gorgeous, sensual, badass sight of him made her hormones tingle in excitement. Her bodyinstantlyresponded to all that natural authority and raw sexuality.

He’d gotten here sooner than she’d expected. Either he had already been at the Underground when he’d texted her, or he had an ability that allowed him to travel fast.

Or … maybe he had wings, though she doubted it. They would have been clipped from the fall.

Halting before her table, he inclined his head. “Ella,” he said, his tone humming with a note of sexual invitation.

“Viper,” she greeted.

“You came. Sort of,” he said, a tiny upward lift to his mouth.

“I did. Sort of.”

A hotly sexual gleam in his eyes, he slid onto the cushioned bench opposite her. “How’d the job go?” The question was so casual and light, totally at contrast to the intenseI am going to fuck the holy hell out of youlook he pinned her with.

Her belly fluttered. “Smoothly.”

He slowly leaned forward—the simple move making an effervescent tension tauten the air—and braced his lower arms on the table. “Tell me about it,” he urged, his voice low and deep and intimate as it brushed over her skin.

She wasn’t sure how he did that. Maybe it was that his power bled into his voice, making it seem tangible. But sometimes, when he spoke to her a certain way, she honestly felt like his voice touched her. Stroked her. Teased her. As if it had vocal fingertips.

“A human thought that Bloody Mary was on his ass. Turns out it was his ex—a demon, though he didn’t know that—using a glamor spell to fake her appearance.”

His mouth quirked. “I take it you’ve put a stop to the problem.” Not a question. A confident statement.

“I have.” She tipped her chin at her box of fries in invitation.

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