What was Amaury up to? Maybe he was planning to drug her. It wasn’t safe here. She should have never allowed him to bring her to his apartment.

His lusting gaze reminded her that her shirt was still gaping open, exposing her breasts. She quickly pulled it together in the front and caught him frown.

“Can you bring me an icepack for my ribs to keep the swelling down?”

Amaury got up from the couch, bringing his crotch to eyelevel. His huge hard-on was impossible to overlook. Was he doing this on purpose to tempt her? Her womb clenched at the thought of what it would feel like to have his cock inside her.

“Sure. Give me a minute.”

Nina watched him as he walked to the kitchen. She figured she had less than a minute before he would be back with the icepack, and she used it wisely.

In under ten seconds she was at the entrance door, opening it quietly. Luckily she hadn’t taken her shoes off. She didn’t bother with buttoning her shirt, but scurried out the door without looking back.

Amaury was dangerous, and not only because he was a vampire. He was a man who could get to her, penetrate her defenses, and devastate her. She could never let that happen. All these years she’d carefully guarded her heart so nobody would ever hurt her again. She wouldn’t let her guard down now. Not for him or anybody else.

And he was still the enemy. She couldn’t betray Eddie’s memory by consorting with the very man who, together with his partners, was responsible for his death. She felt like a traitor for having felt pleasure when Amaury had touched her. She would never allow it again.

Eight

The door connected with the weasel’s face and knocked him backwards into the kitchen of his sorry excuse for a studio apartment. The place stank. Nina tried to ignore the unpleasant odors of stale smoke, mold, and spoiled food, and concentrated on the man in front of her.

With an angry jerk of her foot, she slammed the door shut behind her. Her informant held his bloody nose and gave her a shocked look. She kicked him in the balls for good measure, and he doubled over. Who was the weaker sex now?

“Stop it,” he begged.

She hated beating up people who were smaller than her, but this time she had no pity. He’d sold her hide to those vampires, and she needed to know why.

“Now, we’ll talk,” she announced. Nina knew Benny had a strange sense of what he considered the truth, and the only way to get it out of him would be to beat it out of him. Something she was definitely in the mood for tonight.

Still holding his balls, his face twisting in pain, Benny held up one hand in surrender. Nina wasn’t fooled. The moment he recovered, he would fight back. But she wouldn’t let him recover—not this time.

She’d already figured out that Amaury couldn’t possibly be behind the attack on her. After all, the butt-ugly vampire had nearly killed him, and Amaury hadn’t looked the least bit remorseful or pissed off when she had staked the bloodsucker. Unless he’d set all this up to trick her and make her trust him—which would make no sense. She dismissed the idea outright.

Benny straightened. Without hesitation, she balled her hand into a fist and hit him in the gut, his untrained stomach muscles providing no real resistance.

“Ugh!” he grunted as he tumbled backwards and landed against the kitchen counter. Utensils scattered onto the floor.

“There’s more where that came from. Now I want an answer.”

He gave her one of his fake innocent looks where he raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “What answer? You haven’t asked me anything yet.”

“Don’t play as dumb as you look, or I’m gonna turn you into a eunuch.” Somebody like Benny should definitely be taken out of the gene pool. Darwin would thank her for it.

Benny looked around himself. She noticed his gaze zeroing in on a set of kitchen knives just within his reach.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she warned in a low tone.

Nina knew he wouldn’t listen. He wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed and had obviously still not learned that disobedience would earn him further injuries.

The moment Benny seized the knife from the counter and pointed it at her, Nina had already pulled out her own blade from her pocket. She never left home without it.

“Benny, Benny,” she scolded and shook her head in disapproval.

He gave her a smug grin, looking from her knife to his. “I think I have the bigger one.”

Typical man! “Size doesn’t always matter. It’s what you do with it that counts.”

“Come and get it, Nina.” His free hand motioned her to approach. The idiot had watched entirely too many bad movies and clearly fancied himself as the next Rambo—well, the next really small Rambo without the muscles or the brains anyway.