Dark Secrets(26)

"I'm used to not working Mondays. So I try to get everything I need to get done finished by the end of my shift on Sunday."

"You know," he said, dark eyes penetrating. She actually squirmed it was so intense. "You half-lie better than most seasoned professionals ever could."

Damn he was good.

So instead of continuing to engage him on the subject which she knew she would only have to keep telling half-truths about and that he would see right through them, she changed tactics.

"Why are you still here?"

"Because it's fucking three in the morning."

"And..." she said, waving a hand, brows drawn together.

"And you're..."

"A woman," she finished for him, shaking her head. "I am a woman with eight years of Krav Maga training and several more of mixed martial arts. The scariest person on these streets at three AM isn't some random whack job. It's me."

"Won't argue with that, babe. Though I don't know enough about your skills to agree or not." If she wasn't mistaken, she was pretty sure he was purposely trying to get a rise out of her. 

"You and me. Anytime. I bet I wipe the floor with you."

"Baby, you and me get anywhere near a floor or bed or chair or fucking dark alley somewhere and the last fucking thing we will be doing is martial arts." His smile went wicked then as he pushed off the wall. "Unless, of course, that's how you get your foreplay on. In which case, I'd be happy to toss you around for a while."

An almost comically strong surge of desire sparked low in her belly at that, making her seriously want to give it a try. The way adrenaline got surging when you were sparring made her genuinely want to know how it would feel to mix that with the intense desire she felt for him and see where that might lead.

She had a feeling it would be the sex of a lifetime.

Too bad it wasn't going to happen.

"Alright, I'm too tired for this," she said, shaking her head and turning to walk away. "Have a nice night, Danny."

She got maybe five feet before he moved in beside her.

Stopping, she turned to him. "What are you doing?"

"Walking you home," he said casually, hands tucking into his front pockets.

"I don't need you to walk me home."

"Probably not, but I'm doing it anyway."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a pain in the ass?"

"I have a feeling I will hear it from you constantly."

Faith exhaled and started walking again, faster. She figured the less time she had to spend near him, the better. Especially if her plan to keep him at a distance was going to succeed.

"Alright, this is me," she said several minutes of silence that she found incredibly tense while he seemed fully at ease later as she stopped outside her apartment building.

"Nice."

"So you can go."

"I could. But I'm walking you in."

"You can't be serious."

"And yet I am."

"The door is locked."

"Still walking you to your door, Faith. Like it or not."

She made a deep, growling noise as she fished her keys out of her pocket and walked toward the door. "I thought you said you weren't a good guy."

"I'm not," he agreed, reaching above her head when she unlocked the door to hold it open for her. "But I'm a decent human being. And decent human beings make sure that women out on their own in a dangerous city at three AM make it inside their apartments in one piece."

"You're not getting inside," she clarified, going toward the staircase and wondering why the hell she didn't just swallow her fear of plummeting to her death and take the elevator. It was small and closed in and unsafe, sure, but it was faster.

"I wasn't expecting to," he said without a hesitation. "Though I think we both know I will be getting in there eventually," he told her as they started climbing.

The way he said it, it almost made it sound like a premonition, like it was something they couldn't change.

And maybe a small, or even slightly larger than small, part of her was becoming comfortable with that idea.

Really, what was the harm?

He would be on his own shift in no time. Even if things went south hard and fast, she would only have to deal with him on the occasional weekend shift or at work meetings.

"What?" he asked when her gaze slid to his, looking at his strong, obnoxiously perfect profile until his head turned to look at her.

"I think I'm done wearing my bitch mask," she surprised herself by saying. It wasn't often that she let on that she was anything other than the persona she showed to the world, the carefully crafted badass who no one from the mob boss Vin to the sleaze ball pick pockets or rapists on the streets at night would ever want to fuck with.