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blurred as they sped by. There was no way of knowing the next best move without seeing the victim. Crime scene photos never did the actual carnage justice, and now that he was on the scene he needed to see the details firsthand.
    After several minutes of silence, Tiffany finally broke. “Why are you doing this? Why do you care about me?” She fixed him with a hard stare. “Why do you care if I die?”
    Damon bit his tongue and concentrated on keeping his expression flat, distant. He couldn’t let her know who he was. If he did, she would hate him and never trust him to keep her safe. But he couldn’t avoid her questions for long.
    “It’s my job,” he said.
    She shook her head, clearly not buying that for a single minute. “What about the other humans in there? Isn’t it your job to keep them safe, too?”
    He gritted his teeth. She’d hit him right where it hurt, but he would never let her know that. “I can’t save everyone.”
    She crossed her arms over her chest. “So you save the one person in the entire building who needs the least amount of saving?” He didn’t respond. She huffed. “That makes total sense.”
    He shot her an icy stare. “That sort of attitude is exactly why you need saving. You’re not invincible.”
    She scoffed. “Neither are you.” She yanked up the sleeve of his leather coat. “See, I jabbed you right...” Her voice trailed off as she ran her fingers over his skin.
    Electricity shot through his limbs. One small caress and she could bring him to his knees. He clenched his teeth. Everything in him fought against that knowledge. He couldn’t grant her power over him.
    She stared at his forearm. The wounds had already begun to heal. The only remaining signs were several pink crescent-shaped scars, which at this rate would soon disappear.
    Her eyes widened. “What are you?”
    * * *
    T IFFANY STARED AT Damon’s arm. Her fingernails had dug deep into his skin not even half an hour earlier, and already the healed wounds were nothing but faint pink lines and some residual dried blood. She ran her fingers over the skin once more. Desire pulsed through her every time her skin connected with his. Her nipples hardened into taut peaks as she brushed the muscles of his forearms. She wanted to touch him all over. Run her hands up his thick biceps and onto his chest, down to places where she’d never touched a man before. The thought of their kiss lingered in her mind. She didn’t care that he’d only done it out of necessity. Her lips burned with the need to touch his again.
    She drew in a sharp breath. She needed to calm herself. She barely knew this man. How could she want him, need him, so desperately? “What are you?” she repeated.
    He didn’t look at her, just continued to stare at the road. “A vampire slayer, a hunter.”
    “My brother, Mark, was a vampire slayer before he died.” She held back a small smile. “He’s the one who taught me how to kill vampires.”
    Damon’s whole body stiffened like a rigid board. His hands squeezed the steering wheel tighter. The ice behind his eyes blazed a captivating blue.
    Tiffany wished those eyes were hovering over her as his muscled body slammed into hers. She cleared her throat and blinked several times. She needed to get the image of him naked out of her head, no matter how delicious she was sure he would be. She knew nothing about him. She snapped her wits back into place.
    “Look, I get that most hunters have this overwhelming sense of duty to protect the innocent. My brother was the same way, always spouting at me about what to do if a vampire ever attacked me and feeding me horror stories so I wouldn’t stay out too late at night. But I don’t need protecting. I may be a woman, but you seem to forget that I hunt vampires, too.”
    Damon stared straight ahead at the road, his face unmoving and cold. “Not in my sanctioned territory, you don’t.”
    Hot as he might be, the man had some serious control issues, and she