Chapter 6 · The Hold Doesn't Open

"Precinct Nine, radio check." The voice crackled out of the board speaker, flat and bored, like the guy on the other end had no idea he'd just walked into the middle of a bite mark.

I didn't move. Couldn't. Dean's teeth were still in me, blood and slick and God knows what else running hot down my collarbone, and somewhere under all that noise my own console had gone and answered a channel neither of us touched.

"Copy, Nine." My voice came out wrecked. Not sexy-wrecked. Just wrecked, like I'd swallowed gravel. "Board's up. Stand by."

Dean pulled back an inch. Just an inch. Enough that I could see his eyes change — heat draining out, command sliding back in like a blade going back in its sheath. His mouth was red. Mine, probably, too.

"You're bleeding," he said. Not an apology. A status report.

"No shit."

His hand was still on my hip. The other one — the one that had been fisted in my hair two minutes ago — was already moving toward his belt. Toward the gun.

"Don't," I said.

"Don't what?"

"Reach for that like I'm suddenly the threat because you got a taste."

He didn't stop moving. Just rested his palm on the grip, thumb along the frame, not drawing, just —