Axe was in hell. And he ate up the pain.

As he sat in his far-off corner of the restaurant, he watched Elise smile at the human man. Tilt her head as if her professor were saying something that particularly interested her. Motion with her hands. Laugh.

She looked into the other man’s eyes. Clinked her wineglass with his. Took a piece of food from his plate to try.

And the whole time, she was so exquisitely beautiful, the flickering candle on the table playing over her face and throat, her shoulders and her hair.

He hated that she was with someone else. Detested that they were sharing a meal—which felt more intimate than the sex he had on a regular basis. Was downright violent about the thoughts that man was undoubtedly having in his head.

But he loved to hurt. The jealousy was an agony that left him deliciously crippled, and he opened himself up to the pain of being on the outside looking in.

Even though he barely knew her, he loved her in this moment. She was the conduit to the vein of torture, and as physically attractive as he found her, the power she had over him turned her into a goddess.

“Would you care for anything else?” the waiter asked him.

Axe shook his head. “Just the check.”

“Here.”

The leather folio was put at his elbow and the guy marched off. Not that Axe blamed the human. All Axe had had was water and dinner rolls—before rocking the house by ordering a coffee.

The total was five dollars. He left the only ten-dollar bill he had and thought, Hey, fifty percent tip. Check him out, a high-rolling motherfucker.

As he took another sip from his water glass, he enjoyed an uncharacteristic, unwelcomed moment of introspection: while Elise laughed again, he was vaguely aware that where he was at was really bad juju.

In her own, almost innocent, way, she was rocking his world. Bringing him to his knees. Demanding all his attention without even being aware that she was asking anything of him.

And in response, he was going to be making a demand of her. The second he got her alone.

She was not going to deny him, either.

Over at Elise’s table, the check arrived, and after it was paid, the pair of them got up—which was Axe’s cue to sneak out the fire escape behind him. As he pushed the bar, no alarm sounded, and the fresh air made him realize how much the place smelled like steak.

His body was humming, so the cold didn’t register at all, and he stayed in the shadows of the single-story building as he walked around to the front, his boots crunching over the frosted ground. The entrance to the restaurant had an awning with no side panels, a thick mat running down the pavement underneath it like the poor relation of a movie premiere’s red carpet.

The happy fucking couple came out a moment later, and Troy put his arm around Elise’s waist as they went down the three shallow steps to the runner.

And didn’t that make his fangs descend in a rush. But he stayed right where he was.

A gust of wind caught Elise’s hair, sweeping it in the professor’s direction, the ends of the tendrils feathering across his shoulder.

She laughed as she regathered the errant strands, put the length in a twist, and tucked it into the collar of her coat. And then they kept chatting. It was easy to get the gist. The human motioned to the parking lot as if to offer to take her home. She shook her head. He motioned to the cars once more. She put her hand on his forearm and shook her head again.

She was telling him an artful lie about why he couldn’t drive her home.

Axe smiled, flashing all his teeth in the dark. Nah, she wasn’t going anywhere with good ol’, man-bunned Troy. And she knew right where Axe was, his position upwind of her carrying the scent of his arousal right into her nose even as the human remained clueless of his presence.

Those rats without tails were so easy.

But they didn’t get a first-date kiss. Nope.

It was pretty clear when Troy was thinking about going in for one. But Elise stepped back and put her hands in the pockets of her coat. And the man respected the boundary, lifting his hand in goodbye.

Which saved his fucking life.

Elise stood under the awning in the wind as the guy got into a perfectly respectful Subaru and backed out of his spot. Then he pulled up to the awning, put the window down, and tossed something off with a grin. She laughed. Waved.

Buh-bye, human.

Elise waited until the taillights made a left out of the parking lot and headed down the main road beyond.

Then she turned to him.

She came to him.

And Axe let her do the walking, staying where he’d planted his boots.

When she was standing in front of him, he purred deep in his throat. “How was dinner,” he asked in a growl. “Did you like it?”

Her lips parted, her breath coming hard. “He was good company.”

“I wasn’t asking about him. How was the steak.”

With that, he reached out and locked his hand on the back of her neck. Pulling her up against him, he arched his hips into her so she felt exactly what he was about.

Elise gasped, her eyes closing as she went limp.

He pushed her against the building and held her there with his body as he freed her hair, the gusts whipping it around him. Planting his palms on the cold stone on either side of her head, he leaned in and put his mouth right at her ear.

“So how was he …,” he drawled.

Before she could answer, he took her earlobe between his lips and sucked on it, ending with a nip from his fang.

“Hmm?” He extended his tongue and licked at her. “How was he?”

Her reply was her hands coming up to his shoulders and latching on so hard he could feel her nails through the leather of his jacket. Oh … fuck, he wanted to be naked and have her do that, so that she left little half-moons of blood in his flesh. And then he wanted her to bite him hard at his throat and take from his vein.

Axe ran his lips over her jawline and then hovered a millimeter from her mouth. “You’re not answering the question, Elise.”

She was panting as hard as he was, her body his for the taking, her sex fully aroused for him. And you want to talk about satisfaction? That Mr. Perfect human in his precious little Merrells and his scarf, who’d gotten to sit across from her at dinner, and charm her with his wit and his intellectual savvy, was never going to get this kind of reaction out of her.

Never. Fucking. Ever.

“Are you going to see him again?” he drawled. “Because I think you should.”

She recoiled at that, pulling away. “What …?”

“I like to watch you with him.”

“Why?”

“Because it hurts. Now, give me what I want,” he growled as he closed the distance between their mouths and kissed her hard.

The bar counter in the club was long, crowded and noisy, and a total waste of time—except for the alcohol. And as Novo motioned for the bartender to bring her another Scotch, she looked down the stretch of men and women, the lot of them crowding in like they were cows at a trough.

She would have been seriously disdainful of them.

But for the fact that she was one of the herd.

“Here,” the server said. “On the house.”

The guy was tall, on the thin side for what she liked in males, but the shaved head, tattoos across his chest, and gauges in his ears were right up her alley.

“Thanks.” She saluted him with the squat glass. “What time do you get off?”

“Four.”

“Good to know.”

She walked off, heading back for a place she didn’t want to be and couldn’t get away from.

As usual, Peyton had engineered the meet-up at Ice Blue, a techno club he couldn’t seem to live without. And also as usual, he’d gotten them a seating pit in the VIP section, behind a velvet rope that kept out the riffraff.

As she came up to the bouncer, he let her in. “Back so soon?”

“Got my drink. I’m good.”

He gave her a confused look, but she left him to chew on the reasons why she might have gone independent, when there was top-shelf bottle service in Peyton’s velvet-seated sunken sex pit.

Not that there was any sex going on.

Boone was nursing the same Grey Goose and cranberry he’d started the night off with, his eyes scanning the human crowd with a detachment akin to an entomologist in his lab. Paradise and Craeg were relaxed and not in big hurry to come or go—which was what happened when two people were free to bang anytime they wanted. And Peyton? He was hanging with a couple versions of himself, the defensively heterosexual males dressed in expensive, tight-legged suits.

That collection of arched brows, laconic hand motions, and airs of entitlement were denser than their saturated colognes.

Definitely not her kind.

Resettling next to Boone, she crossed her legs and leaned back in the slick, padded wraparound. Why in the hell anyone would put greased-pig fabric on something drunk people were supposed to sit on was a mystery. Then again, like Peyton, this particular club was more about appearances than anything else. The wait line had been like tryouts for The Bachelor—not that they’d had to bother with it thanks to Peyton—and there had been a Manhattan dealership’s worth of Mercedes in the lot out back, and if she saw one more Scott Disick wannabe hitting on a fake tan with DDs, she was going to—

Holy shit.

She was boring herself with her own internal conversation. So why didn’t she leave?

The answer to that was just across the shallow, carpeted pit. And of course, Peyton wasn’t looking at her.

No, Peyton was leaning forward, and looking around one of his silk-suited buddies—and in spite of the fact that he was wearing his blue-tinted glasses, and even with the laser beams spearing through the fogged-out air, it was obvious who he was staring at.

Obvious what he wanted.

Paradise.

And the longer Novo watched the male look at their fellow trainee, the more Novo had to own up to the fact that that obsession was part of the fucker’s appeal. After all, he was everything she didn’t find attractive, and yet she always ended up knowing when he came into a room and when he left it. Knew what clothes he was wearing. How he was fighting. What mood he was in, and whether he was eating or drinking, and anytime he was on his phone. She noticed when he’d had his hair cut and when it was getting shaggy. When he was injured, tired, or hadn’t slept.

Knew when he banged human women in the bathroom at the end of a club night.

It was like he was some kind of homing beacon—except the damn thing kept calling her to a house she didn’t want to even enter, much less move in to.

So, yeah, with him rocking his full-scale addiction to Paradise, his elusiveness had to be the explanation for the attraction.

Had to be—

Paradise sat forward and said something to Peyton … and he fucking loved whatever it was, throwing his head back, laughing like the female was a cross between Louis C.K. and a resurrected George Carlin.

Novo drank half of her Scotch.

When she brought her head back to level, Peyton was standing in front of her. “Hey, we’re gonna go. See you in class tomorrow night.”

He clapped her on the shoulder and walked right by, the three look-alike friends in his wake like water-skiers behind a flashy boat.

Boone got up and stretched. “I better head, too. Have a good night.”

“We’re going as well.” Paradise smiled as she took Craeg’s hand. “Enjoy yourself.”

Annnnnd then there was one.

One advantage to being totally self-sufficient and independent was you didn’t care if you were left alone. But for some reason, tonight, it dawned on her that none of them would have done a toilet flush like that to Paradise.

Not that Novo resented the female or thought the object of Peyton’s affection was weak. It just seemed … weird. Or something.

Whatever.

Novo stared past all the empty seats to the humans that mingled on the far side of the sunken area. There were probably three hundred guys she could fuck if she wanted, including Mr. Four a.m., the bartender. Just as many women if she were in that kind of mood, too.

Too bad not one of them seemed appealing—

Peyton popped into her line of sight from out of nowhere—to the point where she wondered if he wasn’t a hologram created by her brain.

“Forgot my phone.”

Oh, so this was real—because a hologram wouldn’t have to justify its existence.

But instead of going over to the sofa where he’d been, he stayed where he was.

“Yes?” Novo drawled.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking a load off.” She indicated the seating area. “I would think that’s self-evident.”

When his stare drifted down her body, she narrowed her eyes. “The question more is … what are you doing here, Peyton?”