Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland Page B

you’d be getting a news-reel on me every time I touched you. That would cramp my style.”
    “What style?”
    Instead of answering, he yanked a few more buttons free, then lowered his head and closed his lips over my nipple.
    His mouth was scalding; his tongue pressed me against the roof of his mouth, over and over, suckling. This was such a bad idea; so why did it feel so good?
    “No,” I whispered. His only response was to score me with his teeth. My breath hissed in. I wasn’t hurt; I was even more aroused. But now was not the time; this was not the place.
    “Stop,” I said, but he didn’t.
    His fingers dug into my ribs; his mouth continued its assault on my skin. Annoyance replaced the arousal, and I brought my elbow up toward his nose. Without even lifting his head he blocked the blow with the palm of his hand. The impact vibrated all the way to my shoulder. I began to get scared.
    I’d never felt physically threatened by Jimmy, probably because I’d beat the crap out of him on several occasions. I always suspected he’d let me, or at least not fought back very hard. But Jimmy was no longer the man I’d known. He was no longer just a man at all, and who was to say he wouldn’t take what he wanted.
    His teeth scraped me again, harder this time, and I bit back a startled cry. I wouldn’t be afraid. I hated being afraid. Once I’d gotten off the streets I’d vowed never to be afraid again.
    Big hopes that were too easily dashed.
    My hands clenched, and the hilt of the knife I still carried bit into my palm. I brought it up without thinking, or maybe I’d been thinking it all along.
    Jimmy twisted away with a slightly feral snarl. I missed sticking him by centimeters. I expected to see fangs pressing against his lips, blood trickling down my breast, but he looked the same as he always did. So did my breast.
    I held the knife in front of me like a talisman. “Don’t touch me again.”
    “I don’t take orders from you.”
    “You took them from Ruthie, and since I’m assuming Ruthie’s place…” My lips curved. “I always wanted to be the boss of you.”
    He reached out with that inhuman speed and snatched the knife from my hand. “I told you this wouldn’t hurt me.”
    “Like I would believe anything you had to say, San-ducci.”
    He rolled his eyes, then stabbed himself through the palm with the blade. The damn thing went all the way through his hand and stuck out the other side. The blood I’d been dreaming of flowed, pattering onto the plank floor like a light spring rain.
    “Oh, shit. Oh, hell,” I muttered, taking a step forward, meaning to help, remembering what he’d done, what he was, then taking a step back.
    “Give it a rest, Lizzy. I’m fine.”
    He hadn’t burst into ashes. That was good. Maybe.
    Jimmy yanked the knife out. I winced at the wet, sucking sound, and he glanced at me with a worried frown, probably wondering if I’d faint. He should have known better.
    The gory wound in his palm began slowly to close. Within seconds, the blood had stopped dripping. Within minutes, his palm appeared as if it had only been cut with broken glass instead of pierced by a silver blade.
    My eyes met his. “How?”
    “I’m a breed. Mostly human, which is why I’m not evil, but still something more.”
    “I’m just supposed to believe you when you tell me you’re not evil?”
    “I work for the good guys. Doesn’t that make me one of them?”
    “Not necessarily.”
    “I don’t kill people. I kill Nephilim.”
    “According to you, they’re half people.”
    He wiped his hand on his pants, leaving a streak of blood that blended into the navy blue denim. Could be mud. Could be ketchup. Could be anything. I needed to buy darker jeans.
    “The Nephilim are evil.” He lifted one shoulder. “It’s just the way they are.”
    “But you’re not?”
    “No. I’m not saying that some of the breeds don’t fight for the other side. But given the generation or generations we’ve been