Free Finding Fire: Paranormal Romance (Bad Boys Of The Underworld Book 1) by Mallory Crowe

who the majority of her outgoing calls were directed to. “As you might know, I’ve had a few stressful nights. I took a day trip to see a friend,” she said.
    “Did that help you?” he asked.
    “She helped me to realize a few rather important things.”
    “What did she help you to realize?”
    “You scare me,” she admitted, without working up the nerves to meet his eyes. Instead, she stared down at the table. “On a massive scale, you terrify me. You scare me multiple different ways. Do you realize that?”
    She did find the will to meet his eyes to read his reaction to her blunt statement. He didn’t appear to look guilty, but at least the news didn’t make him happy either.
    “You could’ve killed me so easily so many times now. All I have is your word that you won’t. I met you last night. I have no reason to believe anything you say.”
    He remained silent and let her continue. “You want me to help you with this…” She stopped to look at the company that surrounded her, which was mostly unfriendly. She continued, “With this…little project of yours. You want me to help you do this to some man or thing that I’ve only seen once for a few minutes fifteen years ago. Hell, I only have your word that it actually is the same person. I still don’t know what he did with my father.”
    “What can I do to convince you I’m being truthful?”
    “That’s something my friend helped me to realize. One of the reasons I’m so scared is that I have no control. You’re bigger, stronger, and scarier than I am, and I have no way to double-check the information you’re giving me.”
    “I can’t help any of that,” he responded.
    “I know. I think I have a compromise though.”
    “I can’t wait,” he said sarcastically.
    “Let me talk to the, well, the one ‘that we both seek’ before we do anything rash.”
    He raised an eyebrow at that. “Talk to him? Who exactly do you think you’re dealing with? He’s not going to let us talk to him and then allow us to leave alive if you have a sudden change of heart and can’t bring yourself to kill the bastard.”
    “Well, I can’t just take your word for it. I need more. I’m sorry.” Anna went to push herself up, but his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.
    “Don’t go yet.”
    Anna stared at his hand on her skin. It was so big, it looked as though it would swallow her hand whole. She felt tingles of warmth spread through her body, all centered on the point their skin touched.
    She sat down and slowly pulled her arm away from his grip. He released her arm. She watched his beautiful hand as it went back to his glass. “That was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
    “What?”
    She steeled herself and met his eyes. “We need to talk about sex.”

CHAPTER NINE
     
     
    Anna could feel the blood rush to her face as he laughed out loud, causing a few heads to turn. He dropped his voice a little. “Sweetie, we can talk about that whenever you want to.”
    She’d been dreading this part of the conversation on the whole trip back to the city. “We need to talk about the fact that we’re not going to have any.”
    He wasn’t laughing anymore. “Are you kidding me?”
    She glared at him. “Yes. This is my favorite thing to joke about,” she said sarcastically. “I’m dead serious. We can’t do anything.”
    He opened his mouth to say something, but snapped it shut before any sound came out. Instead, he took a long swig of his drink.
    Anna looked at the glass and tried to decipher what was in it, but the sides were too dark for her to make out much. “What are you drinking?”
    He handed it to her. She looked inside, but it was too dim to make anything out. She tilted the contents toward the top of the glass and took a small sniff. Immediately, she gagged at the coppery scent.
    “Why would you hand that to me?” she asked, so loud it was almost a shout.
    He didn’t answer her. His eyes were focused on something over her