“So you were saying you’ve got an idea for John’s treatment?”

Sarah stopped. “What’s going on? Just tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it.”

Murhder reached out and brushed her cheek with his fingertips. As silence stretched between them, she got the feeling he was trying out lies to her in his head.

The truth, however, was what he eventually spoke: “We’re running out of time.”

Her first thought—her only thought—was that she couldn’t leave him. Nate. John. And logic told her that that desperation was because she had no other life to go back to anymore. It couldn’t possibly be because … she’d fallen in love with a vampire. In like, twenty-four hours.

Oh, God …

“I know,” she said sadly.

“Come here.”

When he put his arms around her, she went willingly up against his body. And the next thing she knew, they were kissing, lips melding, tongues meeting.

When they were both breathing hard, he took her hand and drew her over to a door. She had no idea where they were going and didn’t care. Whatever was on the far side was dark, and that meant they could steal some private moments.

Really dark, that was.

As they were shut in together, she could see absolutely nothing, the room they had entered pitch black and then some—and oddly, she was reminded of what it was like to skinny-dip at night, your body floating in a void.

At least she didn’t have to worry about sharks in this case. In fact, she wasn’t worried about anything attacking them. Murhder would take care of it—and defend her.

His hands were rough as he peeled off the top half of the scrubs she’d borrowed after she’d taken a quick shower during the day … his nimble fingers shedding the baggy layers, finding her skin. The fact that she was blind in the darkness meant every stroke of his was magnified, and when he captured her breast in his palm, she gasped against his mouth.

She was sloppy with the buttons of his fine silk shirt, impatient, fumbling. When he helped by yanking the thing off, a tear sounded out. And then they were kissing again, the bottoms to the scrubs disappearing, his slacks getting unbuttoned at the waist and falling down to his shoes.

Murhder picked her up and she straddled his hips, his strong arms holding her off the floor. His penetration was a firebrand, nothing slow and gentle this time, his arousal entering her on a one-stroke that went so deep, she nearly orgasmed then and there. Desperate to find a good rhythm, he shuffled them over to a wall, the hard, cool surface hitting her bare back as he braced her against it. Then he pumped into her, his body working hard, churning, dominating.

She held on for dear life.

And only wanted more.

Linking her arms around the back of his neck, she put her face in his long hair. He’d shampooed it, and it was still damp underneath, and she breathed in the scent of—no, that wasn’t shampoo. That was him.

And he was making that erotic sound again, deep in his throat, part growl, part purr.

When he started to release, she went along with him, their bodies going over the edge together, the pleasure so intense it was painful, the line between orgasm and agony mixing, the explosions inside of her racking her to the soul—

All at once, lights came on, rows of caged fixtures in the long, low-ceilinged room illuminating sequentially toward some kind of terminal point.

Target range. They were in a target range.

As they both froze in surprised blindness, Sarah shifted her arms and started patting around behind herself, trying to find the switch they’d hit.

“Oh, my God!” She pushed against Murhder’s shoulders. “What happened to you!”

Staring down at his magnificent pectorals, she saw the leather thong necklace he wore with its piece of quartz in it—but that was not what she was looking at. Bruises. There were big bruises all over his chest and shoulders, the deep purple welts staining his tan skin.

“It’s okay—they don’t hurt.”

He must have found the switch himself because they were instantly back in the dark. But when he tried to keep kissing her, she turned her head aside and pushed at him again.

“You’re hurt,” she said into the void. “I want to know what happened.”

Murhder hadn’t even thought about the black and blue marks. He’d seen them in the mirror as he’d undressed in Xhex’s boss’s bathroom, but they were no big deal. By morning, they would already be faded—and even the bullet wound on his leg was nothing more than a surface graze. He was perfectly fine, the battle bruises nothing more or less than he’d ever gotten when he’d headed out into the field and engaged with the enemy.

“Murhder, seriously.” Sarah’s voice was brimming with concern. “What happened? You’re hurt.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So that’s what, paint? Come on.”

He wanted to track what she was saying and respond appropriately. But she was wriggling around in his hold and that was causing the kind of fiction that males had a hard time focusing through: His cock was hard and ultra-sensitive, her core warm and tight, the slip and slide going right to his head and fritzing out his higher reasoning.

As much as he tried to hold himself back, he started to come, his arousal ejaculating in a series of pumps deep inside of her. He fought it as best he could, gritting his teeth and cursing, and when that got him nowhere, he attempted to pull out—but she squeezed her legs on his hips and arched against him, saying his name in frustration and pleasure.

He didn’t mean to start pumping again, but the next thing he knew they were straining against each other, their bodies taking over, the need for the release, the joining, the connection, overriding everything else.

At least temporarily.

When they finally stopped, he relied on the wall to help him stay upright, his breath punching out of his mouth, his body throwing off all kinds of heat as he braced his weight on his arms so he didn’t crush her.

He felt her hands make their way up his throat … to his face.

“How did you get hurt?” she said in the dark.

Not a demand. A worried plea.

Murhder closed his eyes. He wanted to lie to her and tell her he got distracted and was hit by a car—not exactly a fib, given what had happened in front of Wrath’s Audience House. But that was just going to alarm her more, and he already knew that lying to her was never going to sit right with him.

Abruptly, the lights came on again, the punches of their ignitions echoing in the concrete facility. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a lineup of shooting booths and then paper targets hanging at various distances down a target range.

When he looked back at Sarah, she was blinking in the glare, her human eyes requiring more time to adjust than his did.

With reluctance, he loosened his hold on her waist and let her disengage and slide down to the floor. She picked up her scrubs and got them back on with an efficiency that he respected. He didn’t want anyone to see her naked, either.

As she yanked up the bottoms, she stared at his bare torso. And then looked into his eyes with a very clear you-better-start-talking-now-mister glare.

“I was trained to fight,” he said in a dull voice. “And I fought tonight.”

He pulled up the slacks and did the fly thing. Then he picked the borrowed shirt off the concrete floor and pulled it onto his shoulders. Unable to stand still, he paced up and back by the shooting stations. Each booth had ear protection hanging on a peg. Boxes of ammo stacked on the left. Yellow-tinted eyewear.