Sherrilyn Kenyon: Night Pleasures

"Oooo," she commented dryly. " Very scary ."

He gave her an unamused look. "Baby, you ain't seen scary yet."

Amanda smirked at his Ford Fairlane, tough-guy demeanor and gave a very unfeminine snort.

He ignored her. Using the jagged blade, he tried to pry loose the rusted hinges.

"You're going to break that blade if you're not careful," she warned him.

He gave her an arched look. "Nothing on this earth could break this blade. " He ground his teeth while hammering the boot with his fist. "Much like nothing on this earth appears able to move this hinge. " He tried for several more minutes.

"Damn," he snarled when the hinge refused to budge. He retracted the blade, then bent over to put the boot back on. The back of his coat parted with his movements, gifting her with a nice view of him.

Oh yeah, nice butt.

Amanda's mouth went dry as he finally straightened to his full six-foot-five-inch height.

Oh my, my, my.

Okay, she took it back, he did have one feature she found irresistible. His height. She'd always been a sucker for any man taller than her. And with this guy, she could easily wear three-inch heels and not offend his male ego.

He towered over her.

And she liked it.

"How do you know my sister?" she asked, trying to keep her thoughts focused on the matter at hand and not on the matter of how much she wanted to taste those lips of his.

"I know her because she keeps getting in my way. " He snatched at the cuffs again. "What is it with you humans that you feel this incessant need to delve into things you should leave alone?"

"I don't delve into…" Her voice trailed off as his words penetrated her mind. "You humans ? Why would you say that?"

He didn't answer.

"Look," she said, holding up her arm to show the handcuff. "I'm stuck with you right now, and I want an answer."

"No you don't."

That did it. She hated alpha men in the worst sort of way. Those domineering, I'm-the-man-baby-let-me-drive types nauseated her.

"All right, macho babe boy," she said irritably. "I'm not some little ditz to bat my eyelashes at the buff stud in black leather. Don't try your he-man tactics with me. I'll have you know, in my office I'm known as the ball-breaker."

Kyrian frowned at her. "Macho babe boy?" he repeated in disbelief.

There had never been a time in his extremely long life that anyone had had the mettle to stand up to him. As a mortal, he had made entire Roman armies flee in stark terror of his approach. Few men had ever dared meet him eye to eye.

As a Dark-Hunter, he made legions of Daimons and Apollites quake in his presence. His name was whispered in awe and with reverence, and this woman had called him…

"Buff stud in black leather," he repeated out loud. "I don't think I've ever been more insulted."

"Then you must have been an only child."

He laughed at that. In truth, he'd once had three younger sisters, but none of them had ever dared insult him.

He swept a look over her. She wasn't classically beautiful, but there was an exotic quality to her almond-shaped eyes that lent her a fey charm.

Her long, mahogany hair was loose, spilling about her slender shoulders. But it was her blue eyes that were captivating. Warm and intelligent, they were narrowed on him now with malice.

A faint blush stained her cheeks, making her eyes a full shade darker. In spite of the danger they were in, he wondered what she would look like after a full night of raw, exhausting sex. He could just see her eyes dark with passion, her hair mussed, her cheeks red from his whiskers, and her lips moist and swollen from his kisses.

The thought made his entire body burn.

Until Kyrian felt the familiar prickling on the back of his neck. "It will be dawn soon."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. " He pulled her to the left, then began examining the rust-covered walls for an escape. "Once we're released, we'll have to find a way to break out of these cuffs."

"Nice of you to state the obvious. "Amanda glanced down his body and saw the jagged wound through the torn material. "You really need to tend that."

"God forbid I should bleed to death, eh?" he asked sardonically. "Then you'd have to cart around my rotting corpse."

She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Could you be any more morbid? Jeez. Who was your idol growing up? Boris Karloff?"

"Hannibal, actually."

"You're trying to scare me, aren't you?" she asked. "Well, it won't work. I grew up in a house with an angry poltergeist and two sisters who used to conjure demons just to fight them. Buster, I've seen it all, and your gallows humor isn't working on me."

Before he realized what she was doing, she grabbed the bottom of his shirt and lifted it.

Amanda froze at the sight of his bare stomach. It was lean, hard, and flat, and he had a rippling six-pack of abs that any gymnast would envy. But what made her gasp was the multitude of scars covering his flesh.

Worse, she saw the terrible gash in his side that ran along his lowest rib.

"Good Lord, what happened to you?"

He jerked his shirt down and took a step back. "If you mean the scars, it would take me years to account for all of them. If you mean the gash, it came from a thirteen-year-old Apollite I mistook for a child in need of help."

"You walked into a trap?"

He shrugged. "It's not the first time."

Amanda swallowed as she swept her gaze over him. An aura of danger and death surrounded him. He moved like a sleek, graceful predator, and those eyes…

They seemed to be able to take in more than just his basic surroundings. Those wicked jet eyes held an indescribable ethereal glint to them.

And they stole her breath every time he looked at her.

She'd never seen a blond man with eyes like that. Nor had she seen any man so incredibly handsome. His features were chiseled and perfect.

He oozed an almost unnatural masculine sexuality. She'd seen plenty of men who had tried their best to project what nature had dumped by the truckload onto this man.

"What is a Dark-Hunter?" she asked. "Is it like Buffy the Vampire Slayer ?"

He laughed at that. "Yes, I'm a small, emaciated teenage girl who struts around fighting vampires in earrings they would rip out of my ears and shove up my—"

"I know you're not a girl. But what is a Dark-Hunter?"

He sighed as he led her around the room, looking at the walls as if searching for a secret door. "In short, I execute the things that go bump in the night."

A chill went up her spine at his words, and yet she sensed there was something more than just his simple explanation. He appeared deadly, but not twisted, or even cruel. "Why do you want to kill Desiderius?"

He glanced at her before trying to open the steel door again.

He wrenched the handle so forcefully, she was amazed he didn't rip the doorknob off. "Because he not only kills humans, he steals their souls."

She tensed at his words. "Can he do that?"

"You said you've seen it all," he said in a mocking tone. "You tell me."

Amanda wanted to choke him. Never in her life had she met a more arrogant, or infuriating man.

"Why do I always get sucked into this supernatural mumbo jumbo?" she muttered. "Is it too much to ask that I have one average day?"

"Life is seldom what we want it to be."

She frowned at his words, and at the odd note in his voice.

Kyrian tilted his head, and held his hand up to signal her for silence.

Out of nowhere, the doorknob clicked.

"Knock, knock," Desiderius said. "You have the day to hide. Come nightfall, we hunt."

"Yeah, yeah," Hunter said. "You and your little dog, too."

His blithe tone amazed her. The chilling words had absolutely no effect on him. "You're not scared of his threats?"