"Don't," I said.
I tried to get up, but Damien held on. He was taller than me and a whole lot stronger. Besides, it was hard to fight someone while buck naked and sexually languid. Though my head said run, my body said walk, or perhaps lie here and do it again.
"Let me go."
"No." He continued to rub my back. Fingers drifting along my scar, thumbs sliding against my spine. One movement relaxed me; the other made me want to jump out of my skin.
"Why are you embarrassed by this?" he murmured.
I didn't answer, couldn't speak. My eyes burned and my throat went tight. The scar would forever remind me that I had been the one to bring disaster down on everyone I loved.
It was fitting that Hector had made me as ugly outside as I was inside. What kind of woman slept with one man when she was engaged to another?
That was a rhetorical question. I can spell slut as well as the next guy.
When I got up, Damien let me go. When I went to get my clothes, he followed. I tensed, expecting him to touch me again. Instead, he kissed me - right on my scar.
I spun around and slapped him. The sound of the blow was crisp in the silence of the early morning. A red slash rose on the pale skin of his cheek.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, horrified that I'd struck him.
He ignored my apology, ignored what I'd done, what I'd said, to take me in his arms and lay his palms all over my back again.
"Do you think this makes you ugly?"
"I don't need a scar for that."
His eyebrows lifted and he tilted his head.
I pulled out of his embrace. I'd said too much. I had to get out of here before I blabbed every secret in my head.
I put on my pants, reached for my shirt, and his fingers circled my wrist. "Leigh, talk to me. I'd like to understand."
His gentle voice did me in. Tears seeped from my eyes. I had to make them stop. Big, bad werewolf hunters did not cry. Petite, blond girlie-girls did. They also got their families murdered before their eyes while powerless to do anything about it. I was no longer that girl; I was the hunter.
I tore away from his touch, threw on my shirt, and ran out of the bar, then up the stairs.
Once in my room I shut and locked the door. I was alone. I should be happy. Instead, the sadness, the loneliness, pressed at me.
I needed to see Jimmy. To remember what it had felt like to love and then lose him.
"I can't live through that again," I whispered.
I was tearing through my suitcase, tossing clothes onto the floor, desperate to find the only snapshot I'd kept of him, when the door behind me clicked open.
I spun around. Damien stood in the doorway. There was a key in the lock.
"You can't just come in here."
My brave words would have sounded better without the tears on my face and the wobble in my voice.
He removed the key, tucked it into his pocket, and closed the door.
"Talk to me," he repeated.
"I can't."
He was half-naked again - loose black pants, no shirt, no shoes. He'd get very little service here.
"You think you're ugly because of a scar. You don't know what ugly is."
Actually, I did. I'd been killing it for two years now. But I couldn't share that with him any more than I could share anything else.
"There's such ugliness in this world, Leigh. So much sadness, so much loneliness. I've seen some pretty awful things, moving around like I do. Met some truly ugly people."
He thought I was upset because I was maimed. I was, but not because of the mark, because of what it represented. Hector was coming back for me. It was only a matter of time. And if Damien was in his way, he'd end up just like Jimmy.
"This can't happen again," I blurted.
Only a foot away, he reached out and yanked me against him. Shocked, I let him.
He kissed me - mouth open, tongue searching, teeth clashing.
Lifting his head, he murmured, "You mean that?"
"Y-y-yes."
"Maybe it can't, but it will. You know it, and I know it. I can't stop touching you. You can't stop wanting me to."
I'd have accused him of being arrogant if he hadn't been right. Which only made me more panicked.
More frightened. More desperate.
"No." I shoved him away with both hands to his chest. He barely moved.
Grabbing my forearms, he dragged me onto my tiptoes. With my feet off the ground and my hands captured I could do nothing but stare at him.
"Yes," he insisted, and his eyes deepened from hazel to brown. "You want this to be just sex? Fine. It's just sex. If that's all you can give me, then that's what I'll take."
He licked a tear from my cheek. I shuddered as my body cried out for his. "Damien - "
He kissed me again. This time I straggled. He was right. I wanted him beyond all reason, and that terrified me.
The door crashed open. Suddenly Damien was gone. I stumbled and nearly fell. Then I could only watch as Will socked Damien in the jaw.
I opened my mouth to shout, "No," but Damien's fist shot out almost too fast to see. It was certainly too fast to avoid. Will's chin snapped back.
The two shook their heads like dogs who'd been doused in water, then circled each other.
I took a step forward just as Will did some fancy Oriental round kick. Damien caught Will's foot right before it connected with his nose. I blinked, impressed. Then Damien shoved and Will tumbled to the floor.
I grabbed Damien's arm. He shook me off. His face was set, his eyes wild. This was not good.
Will flipped from his back onto his feet in a lithe gym-nastic movement. He jabbed, feinted, and knocked Damien's legs out from under him.
Damien went down hard. Will advanced, lip raised in a semisnarl. What was the matter with these guys?
They were no better than animals. I jumped on Will's back.
"Stop," I panted.
Will kept going, and I cocked my arm around his throat, tightened just a little. He choked and froze, giving Damien a chance to get to his feet. He appeared extremely pissed.
Jessie chose that moment to walk in my door. "What the - ?"
She yanked me off the boyfriend by my hair - a neat trick, considering the length of it.
I'd known we'd go round and round; I just hadn't expected it to be like this. We were adults, law enforcement officials, comrades in arms. We shouldn't be screeching and scratching and fighting like girls.
But we were.
I was angry - at myself, the world, you name it. She was pretty mad, too. I guess I couldn't blame her.
She'd seen me jump on her boyfriend and try to choke him. What did I expect? A present?
What I got was a scratched cheek, a bruised wrist, and a kick in the shin. The last really hurt.
"Bitch!" I snarled, and I went for her eyes with my thumbs. Someone hauled me back.
Jessie came after me with her hands crooked into claws. Will caught her around the waist. The two of them crashed to the floor and rolled around.
I was having enough trouble of my own. An iron band was choking off my air. I glanced down and recognized Damien's arm. He was holding me off the ground. I was kicking him in the knee.
"Relax, Leigh. Calm down."
"Easy for you to say," I wheezed.
He kissed my neck, just below my ear. "Hush," he whispered, and amazingly, I wanted to.
I went limp in his arms and he set my feet back on the floor.
"Let me go," I demanded.