KDBookOnline
Share Us
“Miss Holloway works for me now. You may have her back when I decide or when she wishes to return. In the meantime, I’m concerned about your staffing shortage. I nearly couldn’t lure her away because of it. If the hospital is that underserved, you should have told me. I rely not only on your discretion but on your services, as does my city. Hire more nurses,” he said swiftly. “I don’t care how you find them. Try doubling the starting salary.” He waited, and I just stared at him. “Then double the salary of the other staff, too. And Garcia? Don’t risk my city again, or the next position we hire for will be yours.”
He hung up with that threat and finally turned to face me.
“You just threatened the chief of medicine,” I said, feeling a little numb.
“I dealt with a problem. That’s what I do for my city.”
But it wasn’t for his city. Not really. It was for me, and that was…disorienting. “You told him I was your nurse.” Apparently, I was going to work out my confusion aloud and in real time. Fantastic.
“How did you put it? Even immortals bleed?” he asked tightly. “You know that Gage Memorial exists to provide care for my kind and for our associates. Perhaps it’s time I had someone on call in case of an emergency.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes from his. Nothing about him made sense. “You have an entire hospital on call for you.”
“But I don’t trust them.” He slid his phone into his pocket.
“Why would you trust me?” I blurted out. “I pulled the trigger.” I really shouldn’t be reminding him of that right now—or ever.
A slow smile spread over those lips. “I trust you because you pulled the trigger.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, his eyes straying past me. I looked over my shoulder to where my burned car sat forgotten. “Sure you don’t want a ride home?”
“You didn’t drive,” I reminded him, my brain still trying to catch up with the dizzying events of the last twenty minutes.
But he only laughed. “Later, princess.”
He snapped his fingers and was gone before I remembered the necklace. He’d taken it with him and left me with more questions instead, but I kept coming back to the same one.
What was he getting out of our bargain? There was something in this for him, and I needed to find out what.
Okay, maybe I had two pressing questions.
How was I going to keep myself from asking him to kiss me again while I figured it out?
The second question should have been easier to answer than the first. The trouble was, it didn’t feel that way.
Chapter Twelve
I didn’t know what to do when the sun slipped below the horizon, the day dying in a blaze of fiery orange and crimson. After throwing the necklace at him, I’d waited for Gage to summon me. When the stars punched holes in the velvet night, I began to wonder if he wouldn’t—if he regretted that stupid kiss, too. As midnight approached, I gave up my vigil and poured myself a glass of wine to erase the taste of him lingering in my mouth. I was about to reach for one of my overdue library books when I felt heat prickle the back of my neck.
Then the world was yanked out from under me.
I landed on my ass in the middle of my Nether Court bedroom, wine splashing down the front of my Rolling Stones T-shirt.
Gage leaned against the wall, grinning down at me.
Getting to my feet, I flipped him off. His dark amusement flickered, but he didn’t budge. He was back in his usual suit—probably to better hide his guns from me. His undone shirt collar revealed a whorl of ink that fled out of my sight to somewhere else on his hard body—the body that had been pressed against me a few hours ago. He raked a hand through his jet-black hair, leaving it a tousled mess. “Good evening.”
“Is there something wrong with this place’s foundation?” I snapped at him, swiping at the wine spreading across my torso nearly as swiftly as the heat flooding across my skin. “Or do you just stand around holding up the walls and brooding out of boredom?”
“You’re in a good mood.” He shifted on his feet and moved toward me. “I thought you might be a little nicer to me. I gave you a few hours off.”
I stared at him. That was how he was going to play this? Like he’d been doing me a favor? “Sadly, in your case, absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder.”
He placed a hand on his chest. “You wound me.”
“If only.” I suspected his heart was his least vulnerable target.
I brushed past him, depositing the empty wineglass on the table, and headed into the bathroom to search for a towel to clean up my shirt. He followed me closely. Too closely. The heat of his body, the scent of him—cedar and spice—his mere presence all dredging up memories of that stolen kiss.
I dropped the towel twice, completely flustered between his nearness and those memories. Being this close to him was unbearable. What if he kissed me again?