“Is there something wrong?” she asked as she realized he wasn’t eating.

“I do not start to eat until you do.”

She blinked. “A tradition of yours?”

“Yes.”

As Syn just sat there, she picked up her slice, nodded to him, and took a bite. When she swallowed, he finally followed suit, and the man ate like he’d been assigned the consumption of the pizza for a class he was taking: precise, controlled, neat, and efficient.

Unlike him, she only managed two bites before her stomach revolted. So when he asked if he could keep going on what was in the box, she nodded.

As Jo sat back and nursed her beer, she watched him while trying not to look like she was watching him. His jaw was going up and down, the hollow under his cheek appearing and disappearing. She had to admit she was surprised he ate all of it. Then again, with that body of his?

Well, actually, thinking of the utter, stupid perfection of his two-arms, two-legs and a torso routine, he should be taking Tren on a regular basis, eating lean meats and low carbs, and pumping weights at the gym twelve hours a day.

Jo took a deep breath. He was back to staring straight ahead, that haunted cast to his harsh face making her wonder what exactly he was seeing behind his eyes.

“Where does the PTSD come from,” she asked quietly. “Is it from what you saw overseas?”

As he glanced at her in surprise, she shrugged. “A lot of servicemen and -women have it when they come back from Iraq. Afghanistan. Wherever they’ve been. It explains a lot.”

When he lowered his eyes, she sighed. “Yeeeeeah, and here I am, talking like I know anything. I’ve never been in the military—”

“Do you always have that gun on you?” he asked.

You mean the one that you had me point at your chest? she thought.

“If I’m out on the street, yes.”

“Keep it with you always.” He looked at her with serious, steady eyes. “Don’t ever have it out of reach. Do you sleep with it next to you?”

She frowned. “Any particular reason why you’re bringing this up?”

“It’s a dangerous world. You need to protect yourself.”

She thought of Gigante. And the body she’d seen wrapped like a bow around that fire escape. “Yes, it can be. But I don’t believe in being paranoid.”

Liar. But she was trying to front so he’d respect her.

“Paranoia keeps you alive.”

“Has it done that for you?”

“Are you a reporter?”

“Nah, I just hang out at the CCJ office, twiddling my thumbs.” She smiled a little. “Actually, I’m in the middle of my first story now. I was doing online stuff before that. And I’m still doing the online stuff.” She tilted the beer bottle toward him. “How about some quid pro quo? And you choose the topic.”

There was a long pause.

“Well, tonight . . . I saved someone’s life for the wrong reason,” he said softly.

Jo felt the urge to sit upright and go Why? How? Who? Where? in rapid-fire succession. But she sucked all that back.

Keeping her voice quiet and level, she said, “How is it ever wrong to save a life?”

“I just did it because I wanted . . . to fight.”

“The end result was good, though. And how do you know it was just for fighting.”

“Sometimes that’s all I want to do.” His shoulders tightened, as if in his mind, he was remembering specific conflicts. “Sometimes that’s all I have in me and I have to let it out.”

Jo slowly sat forward, compelled by the mask that covered his face. She needed to know what was under there with an intensity that had bad idea written all over it.

“You can trust me,” she whispered. “With your secrets. I’m not a reporter in my personal life.”

“If I thought for one instant you were not trustworthy, I wouldn’t have come here.” His eyes shifted over to hers. “You were the one person I thought of.”

“What happened. You weren’t gone very long.”

“It isn’t how long something takes.”

As he receded away from her again, she had the sense that he had sought her out for some kind of help which she was not qualified to provide. So Jo gave him what she could.

Reaching toward him, she put her arm around the span of his massive shoulder. “Come here,” she whispered.

She expected him to fight her. Instead, Syn’s huge, hulking torso caved into her lap, as if he were past his capacity to hold up the burdens he carried with him.

Running her hand over the rock-hard contours of his bicep, she felt him shudder and saw his thick lashes lower onto his cheek.

“You’re exhausted,” she said.

“More than I can ever explain. Or recover from.”

Jo’s heart went out to him. She knew exactly how that felt. “You can sleep here tonight, if you want.”

Syn focused on the slow, magical circles that his female made on his arm. She soothed his whole body just by her touch, and he gratefully sank into the peace she gave him. He knew it was not going to last. Sooner or later, and certainly before dawn, he was going to have to leave her—and he mourned the loss of her even as he was in her lap.

After a while, he turned onto his back and looked up at her. When her eyes went to his mouth, he knew what was on her mind, and not just because of what she was focused on. Her scent changed, and with every inhale, he took her arousal into himself, his body instantly responding, his cock thickening in his leathers, his blood starting to pump. Hard.

“Will you let me pleasure you?” he said in a deep voice.

As her eyes flared, he made no move to touch her. He wanted her to freely choose her way. Freely choose him.

Although how freely could she have him when she didn’t know what he was?

In time that would be solved, though, he told his conscience as he inhaled her scent even deeper. In time, they would be the same when she went through her change.

And after that? Well, he was deluding himself if he thought they had a future. No female would be with the likes of him for long.

But they had this moment right here, right now.

“How about we both get pleasure,” she murmured.

Reaching up, he touched the length of her red hair, running his soldier’s callused fingertips down the locks that fell, softer than water, more beautiful than moonlight, even rarer than gems and gold, upon her shoulder.

Tilting up, he put his lips to hers and stroked her mouth with his own. He went slow, and not because he wasn’t desperate. He was panting for her and they hadn’t even started yet. The truth, however, was that he wasn’t sure how to do this, where to put his mouth, his hands, his body. He had touched females before, back in the nights when he’d been mining the depths of his impotence, trying to find the end of it— before he’d realized it wasn’t who he was with, but himself, that was the problem. Back then, he’d never worried about being suave, or having moves, or even about pleasuring the one he was with. They had always taken what they wanted of him, and not one had been bothered when he had told them he couldnae finish. He had been used, and he hadn’t minded the using.

To be offended by the likes of that, you had to have self-respect.

“What do you like?” he said as he sat up and switched their positions, shifting her over and settling her across his thighs.

As Jo sprawled in his lap, he liked the way her hair licked over the leathers that covered his lower body. He liked the swell of her breasts beneath her simple shirt. He liked the way her legs stretched out. He liked the fact that there was much to look forward to.

Such as undressing her and mounting her.

“I like kissing you,” she said.

“Then we shall do more of it.”

Syn eagerly complied with her request, and as their lips met once again, he allowed his hand to do what it wanted—which turned out to be travel down her throat to her collarbone . . . to her shoulder . . . to her waist . . . to her hip. As he further learned the sweetness of her mouth with his own, he took his time with the lushness of her body. He knew they were building something resplendent in this intense, quiet space, a construction that would shut out the world, if only for a short time. Upon this desire they shared, they would layer upon layer a temporary sexual fortress against the pain and strife of the outside, of the past . . . of the future.

For he knew that theirs was not a longtime thing.

He wasn’t made for that.

Losing himself in sensation, his fingertips went to the top button of her shirt, and as he started to unfasten the disks, she arched up and sighed into his mouth. It was hard to keep from ripping the blouse apart, but he wasn’t going to do that. For her, he would be different than he truly was—

Oh . . . dearest Virgin Scribe.

The shirt halves fell open, exposing creamy curves covered by exactly the kind of sensible bra he knew she would wear. She didn’t need lace. She didn’t need frills. She didn’t need anything but what was underneath to be sexy. Erotic. More than he could ever want.

Syn was careful as he took her shirt off, because he was very aware of how delicate she was compared to him. She was not weak, but he was brutally strong and he would never forgive himself if he hurt her or any of her things.

The purr in the back of his throat was a surprise to him. And when she laughed in satisfaction as the sound rumbled out of him, he felt warm in places that had nothing to do with sex.

But then he refocused. Particularly as she released the front clasp of her bra.

And that was when things changed.

No more slow. No matter what he told himself.

With a growl, he lifted her up so she could straddle him, and taking his lips from hers, he nuzzled into the side of her throat—and kept going. Driven by sexual instinct, he went down, down . . . to the swells that were tipped pink and tight, just ripe for his mouth. Sucking her nipple in, he tightened his hold on her waist as she gasped and grabbed the nape of his neck.

As his fangs descended fully, Syn wanted to score her flesh and suck something else in, but he couldn’t go that far. One taste of her blood and there would be no control left in him—and even if she knew what he was, and she did not, it was far too close to her transition to risk drawing anything from her vein.