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I remembered why Alec and I had broken up before. He was stubborn and hardheaded and didn’t know how to take no for an answer.
Not that I’d ever said no to him. He’d been my drug of choice growing up. Two years older than me, I’d looked up to him. Alec Coalman was a demon hunter god. So suave and dangerous. Everyone wanted to be him and, well, boink his brains out.
And oh, I had. My seventeen-year-old self was head over heels for him when he was nineteen, and everyone knew it, even Alec.
But I was the guild leader’s daughter. No one wanted to piss dear old daddy off, and so I was hands-off. With that being the case, I took matters into my own hands. One night after we’d been on a hunter together, we’d been laughing, something he rarely did except with me, and reminiscing about the fight we’d just had.
“Did you see that vamp’s face?” I laughed, clutching his muscular arm. “Who are you?” I imitated the pissed-off vamp’s voice when we’d barged in unannounced.
“The delivery boy,” Alec repeated what he’d said, smiling from ear to ear. “It was lame, I know.”
“But it worked.” I pointed a finger at him knowingly. “He dropped his guard long enough for us to...” I smacked my fist against my palm. “Bang. Right through the heart. It was great.”
Our laughter trailed off, and a tense silence filled the car.
Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, I cleared my throat and asked, “Do you ever feel so hyped up after a fight?” I gestured toward my tank top-clad chest, not much had changed in that aspect except maybe a cup size. “You know like you have all this excess energy you need to burn off?”
Alec nodded, his blue eyes crinkling at the sides. He didn’t wear glasses back then. Not that they detracted from his features at all. If anything, it made him even more of a stud muffin.
“I usually go for a run after or the diner...” I trailed off, glancing over to Alec and hoping he caught onto my invitation.
Alec’s hands adjusted on the steering wheel, tightening slightly. “I know what you mean. The adrenaline, the release, it makes you starved and...” he trailed off his eyes darkening as his eyes slid my way for a moment. Only a moment, but I caught it.
Licking my lips, I murmured, “Horny?”
He let out a long shaky breath. “Yeah. Horny.”
“I’m not a kid, Alec. You can say that shit in front of me.” I narrowed my gaze at him and shifted sideways in my seat.
He let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, I know.” His words made a certain amount of joy fill me. The hottest guy in the guild was attracted to me. “But your director would kick my ass.”
I frowned.
We were quiet for a few moments, and then I asked, “So if I wasn’t the director’s daughter, you’d what?”
Alec’s eyes moved away from the windshield and lingered on my face, his eyes dipping to my lips and then lower, making my body warm from the feel of it. “Best not to go there, Addie.”
Smirking and feeling a bit more confident, I inched forward until our faces were a hair’s length apart. “Who’s Addie?” I brushed my lips against his and then climbed into the back seat of his car.
Swallowing thickly, Alec’s eyes followed me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not a hunter tonight. I’m a civilian girl, looking for a one-night stand,” I told him with a sultry smirk, or at least I hoped it was. I have thankfully improved my seduction skills since then.
Sitting in the middle of the backseat with my legs splayed on either side of the floorboard, I threw my arms onto the back of the seat and puffed my breasts out. Honestly, I probably didn’t have to do that much to get him to come to me. Just kissing him, making the first move, probably would have done it.
I had to give props to my past self though. I sure knew how to make an impression. Thinking about it now, it made me want to laugh. I’d been a slutty bitch, that’s for sure.
Not much has changed there, to be honest, except this time, it was Alec who was chasing after me.
I remembered later telling my dad that he should have made Alec the next in line to lead the guild. He was the best. I was only second rate. That was when I thought the sun shined out of Alec’s ass.
Dad had said, “What makes a good fighter doesn’t necessarily make them a good leader.”
I never knew what he meant until later, much later, when it came down to my heart or my sword. I’d known which one I’d picked then, and I never regretted it. I still didn’t now.
Pulling my shirt over my head, I exited my apartment, not surprised to see Alec waiting by the door. “Fine. I’ll come to the guild, but don’t expect me to find anything. I’m not the best hunter in the guild, after all.”
Alec let out a hard, shaky laugh. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Some days I wonder if you are the only one of us who know what they are doing.” He pulled his keys from his pocket and nodded toward the stairs. “Come on, I’ll drive.”
“Fuck that.” I pulled my own keys out to my Harley Night Train and grabbed the helmet I kept by the front door. “Every time I get in a car with you, someone loses their pants.”
The look Alec gave me was as hot as molten lava, but then that mask was back in place. “That was then.”
I winked at him. “Bet I could still get you out of yours.”
“Never said you couldn’t,” Alec replied coolly, “but I wouldn’t think you’d want to fuck your lover’s murderer.”
Alec gave me his back as he walked down the stairs, and my heart sank into the floor. His words echoed in the hallway, and I had to pull back the steel vault around my chest before I followed him.
He hadn’t been talking about the pile of dust in my bed.