Taming the Darkness: Love & Monsters, Book 2 by Devin Harnois

under her touch and it made her bolder. She urged his lips open and slipped her tongue into his mouth. Nothing in the kiss made him seem like a monster, even his groan was entirely human. He leaned a little toward her, just with his head, and kissed her back.
    Victor broke the kiss. “Claire.” The whisper had a hint of growl beneath it. “I want you.”
    “So you’ve said.” She leaned back, watching his eyes. She was starting to get used to his mismatched gaze. She was starting to get used to a lot of things.
    “Even if I was worried about losing control, I’m too hurt to fuck you. So if you want to take advantage of the situation, feel free.” He shifted a little and winced, as if to demonstrate.
    The practical side surfaced. “But you heal fast.”
    “Not Wolverine fast.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “My face will be okay in about an hour. My side won’t be okay until probably dawn. The nasty got a few organs.”
    She felt sick thinking about the damage those long claws had done. “Oh, painkillers. Shit, I should have thought of them sooner.” For herself too. Her head was still pounding and the bruises from the seatbelt ached. “Um…do they work on you? Or did the vaccine change that?”
    “They work. I just need more of them.”
    Claire dug in the first-aid kit for the bottle of aspirin and also pulled out the carefully packaged morphine syringes. He held the syringes up. “Should I use this instead?”
    “You want to get me high?” He smiled.
    She rolled her eyes.
    He pressed a hand to his side and the smile faded. “Give me the morphine.”
    She opened the package and pulled the cover off one of the needles. Victor held out his arm. She stuck the needle in, just like she’d been shown in first-aid training. After a moment, he sighed. “That’s better.”
    “You should have asked for it sooner,” she said as she pulled out an aspirin for herself.
    “Didn’t think of it. I’m easily distracted.” His smile this time was dreamy.
    Claire took a pill and washed it down with water from a bottle. She considered how much she hurt and took a second pill. She couldn’t imagine what Victor was going through. “Have you been hurt this bad before?”
    “Not this bad, although since I’ve been altered I’ve had some nasty injuries.” He chuckled and repeated, “Nasty. Nasty injuries from nasties.” Morphine didn’t make you silly, so that was just him.
    “What did you do before this?” She settled down with a few inches of space between them.
    “I was evening shift. Before that I worked in the weapons factory after putting in my four months in the night shift.” Tension leaked out of him as the morphine continued to work.
    “Were you called back in, or did you choose to come back?” All able-bodied people, with few exceptions, could be called back into rotation on the force.
    “I chose to. I got restless not going out to fight them.”
    She smiled. “I hate to admit it, but we’re a lot alike. Sometimes I take a few months off to keep myself sane, but I keep coming back. I have to know I’m doing something, and working in a factory or a greenhouse just isn’t enough.”
    “Not much glory there either,” he teased.
    She straightened, her bruises protesting. “You keep bringing that up. You got a problem with me?”
    “No problem with glory hounds, as long as they don’t step on me to get to the glory.”
    “You’re my ticket to the glory. If I step on you, no glory.”
    “That’s not reassuring,” he said.
    “How about this—I don’t step on my partners. I might be a bit of a glory hound, but I’m not an asshole about it.” She shifted, uncomfortable at having to defend herself.
    “Fair enough. If this project fails, they’ll kill me. Throw me out like a defective weapon.”
    “You mentioned that the first day.” Part of her had agreed with the idea then. Only a few days ago, and so much had changed. “What about me? Would they get rid of me to cover up