“Why do you care?” Another step. “Last thing you said to me was f**k off.”

I made myself stand my ground. He was only coming toward me to force a retreat, a tack he took when he needed to exert his authority. “I only said that in my head.”

“The look on your face said it all.”

“The same face with the huge gash in it where your father sliced it in two?” He walked right into that one. “That face?”

He blanched. “He’s not my father.”

“I know. But fighting here like this is crazy. It’s like you have a death wish.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

His jaw worked in frustration before he answered. “I’m trying to keep my distance, as per your wish.” He stepped closer, and this time I had no choice but to retreat. But one more step brought me up against a cinder block wall. He braced one hand above my head just to tower over me. “But you’re not making it very easy.”

A surplus of emotion shuddered deep in my core. Reyes Farrow ignited every cell in my body as though I were made of gasoline, one spark away from being engulfed in flames. He knew what he did to me. He had to. And that alone kept me sane. Kept me from reaching out and running my fingers along the bandages at his ribs. Dipping them into the front of his jeans.

I drew in a steadying breath instead. “I saw you this morning.”

A soft frown stole over his face, so I explained further.

“By my apartment building. I saw you standing there. Are you stalking me?”

“No,” he said, dropping his arm and turning away from me. “I’m hunting another animal altogether.”

“And that animal just happens to live in my building?”

He smoothed the tape on his hands. “No, but what that animal wants most does.”

His words caused my pulse to quicken, my breath to shorten. The only thing that wanted me, the only animal Reyes would hunt, was a demon.

Then he was in front of me, his hand around my throat holding me when I wanted to run. “You reek of fear.”

I fought his hold to no avail. “And whose fault is that?”

“Mine, and I apologize again, but you have to get the f**k over it.” He pressed into me until my skin had no choice but to absorb the heat radiating off him in waves. I breathed it in, gasped as it pooled deep in my abdomen and washed down my legs. “They love it,” he said at my ear. “It’s like a drug. In the same way the smell of blood lures sharks, the smell of fear lures them closer, drives them into a frenzy. It is both bait and aphrodisiac.”

“And you would know this how?”

“Because I was one of them, and I want nothing more than to drag you into those showers, rip off your clothes, and have my way with every inch of you.”

I closed my eyes at the image he offered me. “You want to do that anyway.”

“True, but this is stronger. You’re the reaper, and nothing on earth is more mouthwatering to one of my kind than the prospect of licking fear off your skin.”

He’d never told me that. He’d never told me a lot of things, but that particular tidbit would have been nice to know.

“I never told you, because it’s never been an issue,” he said, startling me.

He did it again. Read what I was thinking. I looked up at him in surprise.

“It’s all over your face, Dutch.”

There it was again. Dutch. The mysterious name he called me. A name I had yet to understand.

“I can see it,” he continued. “Your confusion. Your doubt. I can’t read your mind. But like you, I can read your emotions. And it’s never been an issue, because you’ve never been afraid before. Not like this.”

“You’re wrong,” I said, my words breathy with a combination of awe and trepidation. “I’ve always been afraid of you.”

That seemed to give him pause. He loosened his hold long enough for me to scramble out of it. And scramble I did. I rushed out of his grip and backed warily away from him. He kept one arm braced on the wall and inhaled deep gulps of air as though trying to get a grip on his emotions.

“You need to leave before I change my mind about letting you.”

I shook my head. “I’m not leaving until you promise to stop fighting.”

He snapped to attention. “Are you kidding?”

“Not at the moment.” If I ever had any power over him, now was certainly the time to use it. I raised my chin to face him head-on. “I forbid you to fight.”

A sudden burst of anger hit me like a wall of fire. He straightened and advanced.

“You are the one who insists I keep this body. Now you want to tell me what I can and cannot do with it?”

He was right. I’d insisted he keep his mortal body once when he’d wanted to let it pass away. And it was a decision I still stood by. “Pretty much,” I said, squaring my shoulders.

“Well, then, what exactly would you like me to do with it?”

What an amazingly loaded question. He was towering over me again, stepping closer, forcing me back until I hit the table he’d been sitting on. His heat seeped into every pore on my body.

“I need answers, and I can hardly get them if you end up dying in an illegal cage fight. Do they even have an EMT on duty?”

“Dying?” he asked, scoffing at the very idea.

I pointed to his bandages. “You’re not as indestructible as you might think.”