Immortal

by J. R. Ward

  "Not in the slightest. Makes perfect sense to me."

  She looked over at him as he took a drag on his cigarette and the tip burned bright orange. "I swear, that is one of the things I like most about you."

  His brows popped. "What is?"

  "You always understand me."

  "You're pretty reasonable. Pretty damned smart, too."

  He leaned in and put a kiss on her mouth--and it seemed like the most natural thing: the soft brush, the giving and receiving, the warm thrill that came with the contact. And when she didn't want him to move away so fast, all she had to do was put her hand on his massive arm and he stayed right with her.

  As if he once again knew what she needed.

  Laying her head on his upper arm, she stared up at his face as he resumed looking out ahead of them both. And sadly, the preoccupation that bled into his features was a reminder that this moment between them was the exception, not the rule.

  The war was still ongoing.

  "What happens now?" she asked roughly.

  "With you? Nothing. You're clean."

  "I mean with Devina."

  Those brows went down hard and stayed there, and the coldness that gleamed in his eyes was a reminder that he was a soldier, not just a lover.

  "You don't have to worry about that." He leaned in and kissed her again. "You're safe. You're free."

  Not as long as you're still fighting, she thought.

  It felt like a crime to contaminate this quiet time between them with talk about the last round. But she figured that was where he was in his head, too. Had to be. He had to be thinking about where the next soul was going to be found, and what Devina was going to--

  "I really wish you'd met my mother," he said roughly.

  As Sissy jerked back, he looked over at her. "Did my smoke get in your face? Shit, I'm sorry--lemme put this out."

  "No, no, not at all." She stopped him. "Honestly, it's okay. I'm getting used to it now, and it's funny, it kind of smells nice to me."

  Probably because the scent of tobacco was coming to remind her of him.

  "You just surprised me," she murmured.

  "About my mother."

  "Well, yes. And I would have loved to have met her, too." God, the more she thought about it, the more . . . "I really would have liked to meet her."

  "She would have loved you."

  Sissy blinked a couple of times. Coming from a man like him? That was the best compliment she had ever received.

  "What was she like?"

  Jim took a long inhale and made smoke rings that drifted up into the light that bled out of the house.

  The night was so much less dark when you were not alone, she thought. And there was never a more connected feeling than talking with him like this.

  Well, except for the sex part.

  And they were going to get to that later on.

  "She wasn't super-tall," he said eventually. "But she was strong. Oh, fuck, she was strong. Most farms out there, the women labor in the house, you know--and that's a lot of work. Farmers are going from before sunup to after sundown, and they need food . . . need someone holding down the fort with the kids and the bills and the other stuff, too. My mom, she did both sides of it. I once saw her chop up a hundred-year-old oak tree. Tornado knocked it down in the front yard. Took her two school days to do it--but we had firewood all winter just from that beast alone."

  "Do you miss her? I guess that's a dumb--"

  "I miss all of it. I miss the life and the land, and her." He rubbed his eyebrow with his thumb like he was trying to hide a weakness from her. "I thought that was where I was headed. You know, after I got out of the military. I was going to work here in Caldwell only long enough to make sure Matthias wasn't going to be a problem." He glanced over at her. "I was not going to bring that shit out west. No way. A farm in Iowa was going to be my slide into middle age. My final resting place."

  "I guess your life didn't turn out as you thought, either."

  "No, it didn't." He stared at her. "I met you, though."

  She smiled and kissed the curve of his triceps. "There you go again, making me blush."

  "Did I?"

  "Yes."

  He made a sound that was somewhere between "Mmmm" and "Wait'll I get you upstairs, woman--then we'll see about blushing."

  But soon enough, he was back to staring out in front of him.

  "Jim?"

  "Yeah?"

  God, she hated to ask this. "What happens next."

  Apparently, Jim was a Neanderthal. Not a surprise, really, considering how brutal he could get. But it didn't exactly make him a contemporary hero. The reality was, however, that as Sissy put that question out there, all he could think of, as he tried out various gloss-shit-over explanations in his head, was that he didn't want her anywhere near any of this.

  It made him remember something he'd heard about parachutists, the guys who jumped out of planes into war zones. The military commissioned a psych study on them, and one of the interesting things that had come out of it was that a huge majority of them never felt any fear at all in the regular course of their work. None. An issue of self-selection? Probably--after all, you didn't get into that kind of work unless you had an adrenal gland that was asleep on the job.

  But that hadn't been the data point that had struck him: Nearly one hundred percent of the men said that the only time they did get scared? Their last jump. It was as if they knew they'd rolled the dice and come out on top too many times--and they expected the odds to regulate on their finale, like the universe was going to reach out and grab them at that point because it was its last shot.

  And that was exactly how he felt now.

  Sissy had squeaked by not just once, but twice. He didn't want to gamble on a third try.

  And as he considered the danger she'd been in? Naturally, he had to think about Devina--and all at once, an unholy anger coiled in his gut, one that was so powerful, it wiped out even any thoughts of Sissy. Fuck the war. Fuck the souls. Fuck everybody and everything.

  Devina was going to go down--and not just because she lost the Creator's little game.

  The bottom line was that for him, watching Sissy in that bathroom today had been the final nail in the coffin. She had suffered yet again, been tortured . . . yet again. And something inside of him had snapped: Even as he sat beside her here, and smoked like he was normal, and was ready to take her upstairs and make love to her like he was normal, he was a beast.

  Inside his skin, he was an unhinged, vicious sonofabitch on the knife edge of insanity.

  And until he brutalized Devina? He wasn't going to be able to concentrate on anything else.

  "Jim? What happens next?"

  He cleared his throat and twisted away from her--ostensibly to stab his cigarette out in the ashtray he'd brought with him, but also because he hated that he was lying to her.

  "Same as always."

  "What does that mean?" she pressed.

  "I find the soul, somehow, and go to work."

  "Are you worried about the last round?"

  "No, not at all." At least this was the truth, and he turned back around toward her. "I feel great. I feel strong. I'm ready to shut this game down in the right way."

  And that was also the God's honest. The rage in his bones was a great clarifier, a figurative Windex wash of the filter he had on the world and the war and himself. With it around? He could see everything clearly, what he needed to do, where he needed to go. His target set, he was able to tune out all background noise and movement, zeroing in solely on discharging a kill shot.

  "Jim?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Are you all right?"

  He tucked her in tighter against him and kissed the top of her head. "Never better. I've never been better."

  The shiver that went through her made him frown. "It's cold out here," he said. "Let's go in."

  "Okay."

  He helped her to her feet and held her close as he led them over to the front door. In
side, he shut things up and locked them, even though his protection spells were better than anything Schlage ever made.

  Looking down at her, he lowered his lids to half-mast. "We going to bed?"

  "Yes."

  Right answer. So the right answer.

  Hitting the stairs, they stayed side by side, even on the landing. Which was good. What sucked? When they passed by the grandfather clock, the one that no one set and nobody cranked, the goddamn thing let out a gong. And another. And a third.

  Jim ground his jaw and glared over his shoulder. In a series of quick inspirations, he imagined himself going after the cocksucker with a chain saw . . . an ax . . . a flamethrower.

  Fourth . . . fifth . . . sixth . . .

  "What is it?" Sissy asked as they came up to the second-story sitting area.

  ...seventh . . . eighth . . .

  He knew she'd asked him a question, but he was too busy counting, even though he knew damn well what the total was going to be.

  "Jim?"

  ...ninth . . . tenth . . . eleventh . . . twelfth . . .

  "Jim."

  ...thirteenth.

  "Motherfucker," he muttered under his breath before snapping himself back to attention. He was not going to let that nasty piece of shit ruin what little time he had with his woman.

  Refocusing, he eyed the doorway to the bathroom he used, and was struck by an urge to reroute from the destination of her bedroom. Especially as he pictured her breasts hot-water-slick with soap suds dripping off the tips of her nipples.

  Tugging at Sissy's hand, he drew her over. "Come in here with me."

  Chapter

  Forty-two

  Like she was going to say no to him when he looked at her like that?

  As Jim drew her over to the bathroom, Sissy followed, because her body wanted exactly what was in his eyes. Her mind, though . . . her instincts? They were popping red flags all over the place--something was off about him, that hard glint in his eyes the kind of thing she hated to see.

  But what could she do? It was late and everyone had had an exhausting day and there was always tomorrow morning. She'd talk to Eddie and Ad then--maybe they could help.

  Jim let her go in first, and then he shut and locked the door behind them while she blinked and winced. The crane-arm light fixture over the old-fashioned sink was on, the clinically bright illumination on all the white tile about as romantic as an eye exam--but he took care of that. Reaching up, he unscrewed two out of the three bulbs and then draped a towel over the remaining one, careful not to get the terry cloth too close to the heat.

  "Better?" he said.

  As she nodded, for some reason she felt shy--although, come on, it wasn't like they hadn't gotten down with it before. This felt different, however . . . maybe because it seemed so planned and intentional. Or, no, maybe it was the fact that with the evil out of her, she felt as though she was about to be with him for the first time. Before? Even though everything had been intense and amazing, that contamination had clouded her--

  Holy . . . shit, she thought as Jim lifted his T-shirt up over his abs, his pecs, his thick neck, his head. Even in the now-diffused lighting, his muscles stood out in sharp relief, carved rather than born, powerful even though he wasn't fighting anyone at the moment.

  Leaning to the side, he started the shower, his body flexing in a coordinated series of movements while he twisted the knobs to get the right combination of hot and cold.

  As far as she was concerned? He could futz around with the temperature for the next twenty hours.

  Except then it was time for him to work on her. Straightening, he came at her with a burning look on his face--like not only did he want her, but he needed the connection they were about to have.

  "You're beautiful, you know that." Not a question. A statement--and how great was that? "But you have way too many clothes on."

  "Are you going to fix that problem?" Check her out with the come-ons. "Or make me do it myself."

  "I'm going to take care of it."

  She put her hands over her head as he pulled her sweatshirt off, and then his touch was all over her skin, running up from her waist to her simple white bra. Dropping his head, he nuzzled the white cotton out of the way and latched onto her nipple--

  With a hiss, she went lax, her body curving against the hard bar of his arm at the small of her back. As he continued to work her, her clothes disappeared, pants and panties gone, bra off, nothing but naked skin left for his eyes, his hands, his mouth.

  She was up and over the edge of the huge Victorian claw-foot tub a moment later, and he joined her under the hot spray, his body already primed and raring to go as he pulled the curtain around them. But instead of lifting her up around his waist, or pulling one of her legs high and going in? He went for the soap, rubbing that bar over and over in his hands until the sudsy froth fell in fragrant lots into the swirl around the drain at their feet. His hands were slow and thorough, and she wished she were lying down so that the only thing she had to concentrate on was the way he caressed her, lingering over her neck and her collarbones, her breasts and her stomach, her thighs and her backside.

  And when he finished going over every single square inch of skin she had? He got the shampoo and went for her hair--which of course meant she had to get flush with him, the soap making her slip and slide against his hard body.

  Naturally, she had to amuse herself as he worked at the long lengths.

  She went for his erection, taking it into her palms, making him curse and lose his rhythm.

  "You sure you wanna do that?" he asked in a guttural way.

  "Oh, yeah. Yup. Very sure."

  As she worked her hands up and down his length, the soap was the perfect lubricant, and, God, she loved how he felt. Hard and hot, with that ridge and the blunt head. It wasn't long before his body slammed against the wall, his great weight pulling the shower curtain out of its graceful fall of folds.

  His eyes were stoned and hyper-alert at the same time as he stared not at what she was doing, but right at her face--as if the physical friction was nice and all, but what really turned him on was the fact that she was the one doing it to him. And then he closed his lids and gritted his teeth, his breath going short as he got closer and closer. . . .

  He came all over the front of her and she loved it.

  But he didn't recover for long.

  He kissed her deep and traded places with her, shifting her under the spray, the rush hitting her hair and drawing her head back. When there was a squeak from the tub, she looked down and saw that he was on his knees in front of her.

  His hands were like the warm water, all over her body--his mouth, too, his lips traveling to her hip bones, the tops of her thighs--

  The top of her sex.

  And then he licked her, his tongue extending, tasting.

  Thank God he took control, lifting one of her legs over his shoulder as he went in further, his hands locking on her pelvis to keep her from falling. Now she was the one tangling the shower curtain, grabbing onto the folds, using them to hold herself upright.

  She orgasmed against his lips and his face, the sight of where he was and what he was doing pitching her right over the edge within moments. And he didn't stop.

  She didn't want him to.

  Warm and wet--everything was warm and wet, from the heat in the air around them to the shower down her back to the way he made love to her core--

  The crash was a shocker, not just bursting the bubble of sex, but blowing it the hell up.

  With a quick surge he was up on his feet, ready to fight--but there was no enemy in the bathroom with them.

  Sissy lifted her hands, and the soggy, soaked shower curtain came up with them. "Oh . . . crap. I ripped . . ."

  Glancing up, she saw a whole lot of eye hooks with bits of fabric hanging off them still attached to the metal ring that hung from the ceiling.

  "Never mind," he growled as he picked her up and got out of the tub.

  He left th
e water still running as he backed her against the door, put her legs around his hips, and went into her with a strong thrust. Gripping his shoulders with her nails, she gave herself up to the sex, and oh, man, if what had happened in the tub had been good, this was even better.

  And it was what she needed right now.

  Joined like this? She could pretend that they were going to be together . . . forever.

  Chapter

  Forty-three

  An hour and one more shower later, Sissy was downstairs in the kitchen, helping herself to the last slice of Eddie's perfectly cooked chocolate cake. Jim had passed out cold in his bedroom--because that was as far as they'd made it. Even though hers was just four or five more doors down the hall, they'd been too greedy and impatient to make the trip.

  Funny, there had been a new and different satisfaction in leaving him in tangled sheets, his fighter's body all used up because of how much he wanted her.

  Before she'd left, she'd stood over him and watched him . . . even carefully touched the gold dove pendant of hers that he wore around his neck. He'd stirred at that point and that was why she left.

  For some reason, she couldn't shake the conception that something bad was about to happen.

  "So, yup, chocolate is perfect," she muttered as she sat down at the table and took the first bite.

  Oh, God, it was amazing: All the endorphins in her body from those orgasms, coupled with the chocolate cake and the fake vanilla icing? High-octane euphoria, even with that spiking fear in the center of her chest.

  There was a copy of the Caldwell Courier Journal on the far side of the table, and she pulled it over so her eyes had something to do. The top half of the front page was all about international stuff. The bottom had a picture of some real estate tycoon who had apparently decided to sell off all his holdings and was creating a stir in town--

  Sissy frowned and leaned closer to the black-and-white photograph. Then decided she was seeing things.

  Except no . . . that man had a halo: Even with the grainy nature of the image, she could see a faint circle over the businessman's head.

  Vincent diPietro. And the photo had been taken the day before, as he'd walked into his lawyer's office downtown to sign papers.