Instead, he’d taken in the situation at a glance and acted accordingly. Well, all right, that was a rather large lie. He had panicked—all he could think of was to get her home, stop her from leaving him. Leaving town, rather. And in his panic, he’d smacked her when he only meant to tap her. The one bit of luck was that it had happened too quickly for the lone witness—the doorman—to see much more than a swirl of cloth. Dusk and speed were his friends, even if Jane was not.

And that was the rub of it. He’d allowed himself to forget, for one evening, that he was the monster in the fairy tales. He had forgotten there could be no relationship with a woman other than the most carnal type. He wouldn’t have vampire women, and mortal women wouldn’t have him. Well, that was fine. That was just fine.

He was a monster, and he was done pretending otherwise.

But Jane would pay for making him forget. She’d pay for making him think, however briefly, that he was a man first and a beast second.

Chapter 5

Jane groaned and tried to roll over. The phone was ringing. It would be Moira, telling her to get her ass to the Cape. She couldn’t see Dick tonight. She had to answer the phone and tell Moira to go fuck herself, and then—

Wait.

That had already happened. So why was she still in bed?

She opened her eyes and tried to sit up. Three alarming facts registered immediately on her brain: 1) she couldn’t sit up, and2) she was tied to a bed. She was, in fact, 3) tied down in the same room with an annoyed vampire. And not a prayer of room service.

“Ohhhhhh, you idiot!” she howled. If she could have slapped her hand over her eyes, she would have. If she could have slapped him, she would have. As it was, her ankles and arms were spread wide and tied to each poster of the bed. “Do you have any idea of the trouble you’ve landed me in, numb nuts?”

Dick, sitting in the chair next to the bed, blinked at her. He did that a lot…a long, slow, thoughtful blink when he was taken by surprise. It was like a stall for time or something. She thought it was kind of cute yesterday. “I shouldn’t have expected maidenly protestations,” he said after a long pause.

“You should expect a fractured skull, you undead idiot! What the fuck am I doing tied to your bed? Is it your bed? It damn well better be your bed! If I’m in some strange dead guy’s bed, your ass is grass!”