And now that she was an assassin master, she rarely left the den except to go to Guild headquarters or the hospital, so her choices had been even more severely limited, mostly to Lycus. It would probably be that way for the rest of her life.

“Foreplay is overrated.” The gash in her arm screamed with pain as she shed her pants and hopped up on the stretcher. She left her thigh and ankle holsters in place, though, because her weapons weren’t going anywhere.

“Then you’re not doing it right.” Con snapped on some surgical gloves, somehow making the sound and the action erotic. “You’ve had shitty lovers.”

“You were one of my lovers,” she pointed out, but he didn’t take the bait.

“Once. And there is something to be said for a hard, fast fuck.” His voice became a mesmerizing purr. “But there’s nothing like taking the time to slowly peel off every article of clothing, to kiss every inch of your lover’s skin as you do it. To lick all the sensitive places until they quiver. To explore all the textures of your partner’s body with your fingers, your mouth.” His fangs flashed as he added, “Your teeth.”

Hunger gripped her so fiercely she had to struggle to breathe. Yet somehow, she managed to speak calmly, as if Con’s graphic words hadn’t affected her. “The end result is the same. An orgasm. So why waste all that time? In the hour it takes you to lick someone from head to toe”—God, seriously? Want.—“I could have had half a dozen orgasms.” Assuming she was with some fictional male who could come that many times, too—or a Seminus demon, whose ejaculate left females climaxing over and over, even if he left the room.

“Trust me,” he murmured, “the wait is worth it. You’ll get all those, but they’ll be better. Hotter. A-fucking-mazing.”

Sin went utterly wet and achy. Even if her succubus needs weren’t creeping up on her, Con would have jump-started things.

“Put pressure on your laceration.” The abrupt change of tone and subject made her blink, but he turned away to paw through the glass-faced cabinets and toss supplies next to her on the gurney.

Still dizzy with the images he’d put in her head, she grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser behind her and held it to the bleeding wound. A trickle of warmth ran down her arm and into her palm, and she covertly tucked another paper towel inside her coat sleeve. Then she entertained herself by watching Con’s fine ass hugged by black BDU pants. When he swiveled around back to her, she got a kick out of the way his gaze went to her bare thighs and black silk thong that was now damp with her arousal.

The longer he stared, the faster her heart beat, the more her belly fluttered.

The hotter it got inside the damned ambulance.

When his silver eyes finally snapped up, they’d darkened to a rich, smooth pewter, the hunger in them stark and undeniable, which was no surprise given what they’d just been talking about. For just a moment, she wondered if he’d act on his need, and she was both disappointed and relieved when he sank down on the padded bench across from her.

“This is pointless,” she said, even though the towel under her fingers had soaked through. “I heal quickly.”

“The dart the Carceris struck you with was coated with an anticoagulant. Keeps you bleeding so they can track you in the event that the dart doesn’t stick.”

Clever. “How do you know so much about them?”

“I’ve had my fair share of experience with them.” He gripped her calves with both hands, spread her legs, and tugged her forward so he was between her thighs, her knees resting against either side of his ribs.

Sin tried to ignore the intimate position, but her body couldn’t, and she tensed, feeling caged even though it was he who was pinned between her legs. “You’ve been arrested? What did you do?”

“Like I said, I have experience with them.”

“Ooh,” she teased, dragging her foot up his back. “A bad boy. Come on, spill.”

“Maybe I killed annoying succubi for fun.” His words were gruff, but his fingers were gentle as he lifted the towel to inspect her leg wound.

“I hope you gave them a bunch of those foreplay orgasms first.” He snorted, but didn’t offer up any details about his time with the Carceris. Clearly, he wasn’t going to talk, so she studied the inside of the ambulance, with its cabinets, benches, and a station near the front that looked like a miniature chem lab for mixing potions. “So, how do vampires do this job, anyway? Doesn’t the sight and smell of blood make you hungry?”

“If you’ve just gorged on Thanksgiving dinner, do you want to have a sandwich?”

That was a joke. She hadn’t had a Thanksgiving dinner since her grandparents had been alive. But suddenly, she craved turkey, mince pie, and homemade rolls. Nostalgia, something she’d banned long ago, filled her with the same warmth she’d felt when her family gathered around the rickety old holiday dinner table. As a child, she’d envisioned futures that involved a husband, children, Uncle Loren and his family, all gathered for holidays with their grandparents. Now she knew better than to let those childish dreams in, and ruthlessly, she flexed her arm and allowed the pain to bring her back to the present, where she’d never celebrate sappy, sentimental holidays again.

“I don’t want food after a large meal, no, but… Oh, so you feed before your shift?”

“And during. We keep snacks in the cooler. All medics do, depending on their species. Worked with one partner who gnawed on bones the entire shift.”

Gross. “What if it’s not just diet that’s an issue for you guys? What if it’s something else?”

“What? Like needing to kill or absorb pain?”

She shrugged. “Or screw.”

One tawny eyebrow shot up. “Species who kill uncontrollably can’t be medics, but we used to have one guy who fed on others’ pain. This was the perfect job for him, until he decided he’d rather not make patients feel better. The sex thing… I don’t know. Guess it depends on the breed of incubi or succubi. Shade manages fine for short shifts. Why? You thinking about signing up? Because I’ll bet you wouldn’t have any trouble getting a partner who could, ah, help you out between runs.”

Oh, and wouldn’t thatconversation with Shade, who ran the paramedic program, be fun? “Thanks, but I already have a job.”

He shook his head, unscrewed a bottle of something, wetted a gauze pad, and swiped it over her cut. “This is a coagulant Eidolon developed from vampire saliva. It’s more effective on supernaturally inflicted wounds than anything humans have invented.”

“Eew.”

“Would you rather I licked you?” The dark, sultry note in his voice wrapped around her like a silk ribbon.

How to answer that? Because either yes or no would be both truth and lie. In the end, she managed a breathy “No,” which she could only hope sounded more convincing to him than it did to her. She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Look, can you step on it? I need to get to my assassin den.”

He leveled her an amused, no-deallook, as if she had absolutely no say in her future. “I told you, you’re coming to my place.” He finished mopping up the laceration, which, thanks to the vamp spit concoction, was now oozing instead of gushing. “The Carceris is looking for you. They’ll hit all of the obvious places first.”

“Well, Captain Bossy, the den has security goons.” When Con took a break from twisting the top off a small bottle of antiseptic to give her an are-you-fucking-serious look, she sighed. “I know they can’t stop the Carceris, but they’ll at least warn me.”

“Are you sure about that? Little sting…” He squirted the liquid into the cut on her thigh and she gritted her teeth against the pain. “Aiding and abetting is a serious offense. Do your guards love you that much?”

No, they didn’t. A slow roll of guilt rose up in her as she thought about how Eidolon and Wraith had come to her aid even knowing what they were risking.