Page 19 of Vengeance of Childhood Proportions

He clucked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, shaking his head slightly. “Naughty Little Owl. Your ass is going to pay for that small sip in a big way.”

I lifted my head up. The Dirty Shirley had done nothing for me anyway, but he didn’t need to know that. Swiveling the stoolaround, I put my back to the bar. He also didn’t need to know that I had two knives in my belt at the small of my back. They blended in with the leather, but he was trained to notice such things.

Shawn Mallory was a big guy. Muscle to muscle, he was larger than Jason’s more compact build. I was able to turn myself around with my right knee crossed over my left leg without him needing to stand up from his crouched position. It put our bodiesextremelyclose together and my right knee brushing his groin. His bulging groin, I noticed.

His white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows revealed the hint of ink beneath. The maroon tie around his neck was loose and damn if my palm wasn’t inching to grab hold of it. Black slacks, boots, and a belt adorned his lower half. I did not see a gun or a badge anywhere on his person, which was likely because of where we were. Weapons were not allowed inside the club, nor was anything that could be considered identification. I was breaking the rules by having the knives inside my belt, but what Valentino didn’t know didn’t hurt him.

“Who said your hand is going anywhere near my ass?” I asked him. I specifically left off the title of ‘Sir’, since he was neither my Master nor my lover. Also, there was a part of me that seemed to enjoy seeing that shadowed jawline tick.

Perhaps there was a bit of a brat in me after all.

He leaned closer and I caught a hint of mint on his breath. “Who said it was my hand I’ll be using?”

Our noses were right in front of the other and it wasn’t until his just barely brushed the hooked nose of my mask that I remembered I was wearing it. I knew from catching my reflection in my rearview mirror that I was wearing my blonde wig but I couldn’t remember what color contacts I’d put in. Regardless of color, they weren’t my own.

He wasn’t looking atme.

Since the day Jason had walked me out of that fucking asylum my parents had dumped me in, I’d been wearing colored contacts and wigs. It was how I was able to walk in and out of my victims’ lives without them knowing I was around. After today, I wondered if that had even been necessary.

Christopher might have recognized my face the first day I’d revealed myself in the bunker, but he hadn’t remembered my name. None of them had, or they would have corrected him.

Jason was the only person who called me by my name and even that was shortened to ‘Hols’ most of the time. I had no friends to give a fake name to. All my family was dead. Really, the only place who had a name for me was this club and they called me ‘Dani’.

No one sawme.

I truly was forgotten.

Ironic, because it was all I wanted in high school. To be invisible, to fade into the background. To be left alone with my books and my studies. What would my life be like now if that fucking day had never happened?

Why did it bother me so much that this man wasn’t looking atme?

Despite my mask, he clearly saw the change in my demeanor. He immediately stood up. In the span of a second, he went from being domineering and provocative to protective and defensive. He was searching all around, using reflections and his peripheral vision to check for the danger that had triggered me while keeping his gaze on mine. When he registered that there was nothing buthimthat could have prompted my reaction, he took an intentional step back.

Holding his hands out to the sides in a universal sign of showing he was unarmed and not a threat, he said in a cool, smooth voice, “I apologize, Little Owl. I will not touch you or hurt you. You have my word.”

He didn’t understand that it wasn’t his promise of punishment that had triggered me, but the depth in which he was staring into my eyes. But it wasn’t like I could explain that to him. Saying “it’s not you, it’s me” was clichéd and so fucking lame.

I also couldn’t let him believe he’d done something wrong. Sure, he was the special agent that was currently investigating two of the murders I’d committed and would likely have a third on his hands soon, depending on what Jason did with Sam’s body, but that wasn’t a reason to be cruel to him. I’d initiated our flirting, if you could even call it that, when I’d taken a sip of my drink.

And as soon as he’d seen the change in me, he’d backed off. There’d been no hesitation on his part, nor had he tried to coax me back to where we’d been. He’d moved toprotectme until he realized he was the cause. Well, not really him.

Fuck, I was such a head case.

I slowly stood up off of the stool. Wow, he was tall. Even in my stiletto boots, he still had several inches on me. There were thirteen inches between us without my heels.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I told him truthfully. “It was the way you were looking at me, like you could seeinto me.” My cheeks reddened and I looked away. “No one’s ever bothered to look before.”

I heard his boots on the vinyl planking slowly approach. He bent so his face was in front of mine, even with my head turned. Carefully, he raised his hand. He moved like a trainer trying to tame a wild horse. I watched him hesitate just before touching my skin and understood he was waiting on a signal from me.

I lowered my arms, not realizing I’d had them circled around my middle, and nodded to him. His calloused fingers trailed from the left side of my chin to my right before gently guiding my head to face forward again.

We stood like that for a long moment, me looking up and him looking down. His dark green eyes to my fake shading. It was as if he was trying to prove to me without words that hewaslooking. Maybe it was wishful thinking that he liked what he saw.

He dipped his head lower. A small gasp escaped my mouth. As a general rule, I didn’t kiss the guys I was with. It was too…intimate. I didn’t want to be thatclosewith a man. Fucking was one thing, but a kiss? The couple of times I had kissed guys, when I’d first tried dating, it had ended badly. I’d killed one because he’d gotten handsy without my permission. In my defense, who grabbed a girl’s pussy on the first date during a first kiss?

A dead man, that’s who.

But I wouldn’t learn what it was going to be like to kiss Special Agent Shawn Mallory. At least, not today.

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