by P. C. Cast
She stared at him, her lips parted in surprise, the stick still gripped in her fists. This time there was more tenderness in her gaze than heat, more apology than anger. For a second he thought she’d run headlong into his arms. A kiss of gratitude with the promise of more to come would hit the spot. No such luck. He knew what he looked like: his narrowed, mistrustful eyes and guarded expression kept her rooted to the path. “Any reason I should know about for why there are suddenly so many subdemons, Miss d’Mon? The town’s been clear of them for months.”
“I don’t know. You’re the demon hunter, not me.”
“Any prior experience with demons?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“I don’t think so.”
“If you feel the need to interrogate me, call the sheriff and make it official.” She looked him square in the eye when they spoke, and she spoke what was on her mind, holding nothing back. She seemed afraid at times, just like Harmony said she was, but not afraid of him. Not one frickin’ bit. She held her ground, didn’t let him intimidate her. It had him aching to get her into bed. To see how she looked at him then. To see if she maintained eye contact when he made her come. When he made her beg for more. Yeah, that’d be something.
She reached for the child, lifting him out of the stroller. Her voice lost its edge. “Thank you for saving us.”
“That’s what they pay me for, ma’am.” His hunter senses were turned on so damn high that he could feel the surge of heat in her body as he took another step closer. Longing and hunger flashed in her eyes. Her scent washed all around him. It was a frickin’ aphrodisiac.
“Stop it,” she whispered.
“Ma’am?”
“The way you look at me, it drives me crazy.”
“Nice to hear it’s mutual.”
“Shay! Damon Junior!”
The boy squealed at the sight of Damon and Harmony jogging toward them. “Mama! Papa!”
The reverend reacted in obvious terror, seeing the dead goat, the fallen ravens, and scattered feathers. “Subdemons.”
“Aye,” Damon said, grim. His wife gently took the boy from Shay.
“You okay, honey?” Harmony murmured to Shay.
“Fine!” Her voice was overly perky. A sign of guilt, but she’d done nothing to warrant it. It added to the mystery Quel was determined to figure out.
“Miss d’Mon was no mere observer,” Quel told them. “She was fighting them back with a stick when I got here. Defending your little boy.”
His compliment drew praise from Harmony and Damon yet seemed to make Shay uneasy. In fact, her obvious embarrassment told him she’d prefer the topic to go away completely. Why?
Damon’s hand fell on Quel’s shoulder. “You protected my son—both of you,” the former demon said, his voice deep with emotion, with accent thicker. “You have my loyalty and my gratitude.” He gave Quel’s shoulder a hearty squeeze before turning back toward the cottage with his wife.
“Would you like a second chance at those brownies, Mr. Laredo?” Harmony called over her shoulder.
“No thanks, Reverend.” He wanted a second chance at Shay d’Mon.
She started to follow the couple. Quel cleared his throat. She stopped, glancing over her shoulder. “Woman, you ought to take credit where credit is due. You did a damn fine job with those subdemons.”
“The credit’s yours. You killed them.”
“You’re no coward. That’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of.”
She sighed in exasperation. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She started walking away.
“You want to get a drink?”
She halted. “What?”
“A drink. On me. At Knight Caps, the bar on Main.”
The breeze tossed her curls and the hem of her soft shirt. Her silence made him feel like an idiot for asking her out.
Since when had he ever cared whether a woman took him up on an invitation or not? When they said no, he’d call it their loss. Hell, usually he wasn’t ever doing the asking; he didn’t need to. Women were buying him the drinks, not the other way around. That’s not how he wanted it with Shay. Suddenly it became pretty damn important that she said yes. “When’s your night off?” he persisted.
“Tomorrow. I’m off at six. Six until . . . until dawn.”
He lifted a brow, waiting. As much expectancy as reluctance filled the new silence. Maybe she was in as much doubt about him as she was her. He didn’t blame her.
“Knight Caps,” she said finally. “Tomorrow, six o’clock.”
He touched a hand to the brim of his hat. “Yes, ma’am. Six works.” The “until dawn,” he figured, was still negotiable.
Laredo walked her all the way back to the house. Thunder rumbled distantly. The scent of rain was acrid in the air. Then the first drops fell, wetting her skin. An image of stripping Laredo out of his clothes and making love on the wet lawn filled her mind with vividly erotic images. She sucked in a quiet breath, trying to control this new body that seemed to have a will of its own. Her arousal added to the many sensations, internal and external, colliding in a vivid, exhilarating storm. All these long centuries, she thought she knew what it was like to be alive. She hadn’t known squat.
The demon hunter stopped at the base of the porch steps, turning up his collar against the rain. His right cheekbone had a small scar. A bump on the bridge of his nose hinted at a long-ago break. He hadn’t lived an easy life or even a happy life; even without her demon mental powers, she could tell.
It made her want to make it all better.
Stop! It was bad enough he hunted demons. Why did he have to look like the only mortal she ever cared about and would have lost her heart to, had she a heart to lose? Acquiring a temporary soul may have heightened her ability to feel emotion, but she sure as snake’s scales wasn’t going to let it turn her into a simpering, lovesick fool. Her weakened state was humiliating as it was. No need to make it any worse.
“Before I go, since you have such a nasty habit of attracting subdemons”—he lifted his silver cross off his neck—“use my talisman to ward them off.” He dropped the chain over her head.
Cool and smooth, the cross dangled between her breasts. She gasped, half expecting some sort of sizzling to begin, the silver burning her demon flesh, the cross shredding her, but her skin didn’t react. In wonder, she fingered the cross. This body of hers was unlike any other she’d inhabited. “It protects you?” she asked, trying to hide her shock.
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
That had more to do with the fact she’d been avoiding him, fearing Lucifer would sense her attraction to the mortal. Now she’d gone and agreed to meet him—at a bar, no less—like a common human.
“Well, I’d better get going, Miss d’Mon.”
“I guess so,” she said.
Hesitating, he acted as if he wanted to say more. She knew she did. The intensity between them made no sense, considering they hardly knew each other. Their inexplicable connection seemed to prove what she already sensed herself. They went back, way back. Fifteen thousand years and counting. Call it reincarnation, whatever, but they’d been down this road before: Laredo as a doomed Ice Age hunter and she as an inexperienced demon who thought she could live as a human. With deadly consequences.
Then why was she heading down this same road again, knowing where it ended? This time, you won’t let it get that far.
Laredo tipped his hat. “Good day, ma’am.” Swinging his rifle from his hand, he walked away, his long legs carrying him swiftly out of sight.
Sipping a scotch, Quel waited for Shay the next day in Knight Caps. The bar was filling up. The music was loud. The fairy-goths were stirring up the usual trouble, and a trio of witches near the back were having themselves quite the party with a sullen-looking vampire. Quel had saved the stool next to him. It had taken some work keeping it empty of the shapely asses of the women he didn’t want sitting there, which was every other female in this bar.
He
glanced at his watch. It was almost seven, an hour past the time Shay said she’d meet him. What had he been thinking, giving her the cross? It was his mother’s cross. Shay was a stranger. No, she’s more than that. He damn well couldn’t figure out what, though.
Frowning into his drink, he pushed his thumbs impatiently around the rim of his glass. Then he downed the drink he’d been nursing for an hour. He’d wanted to be sober when she got here. Guess it didn’t matter anymore. He flicked a finger at the empty glass. The bartender, Falon, poured another scotch—straight up, no ice, no water.
Then a woman’s voice: “Nothing gets in the way of you and your scotch, I see.”
She came. He slid around on the stool to face her. Shay wore a black tank top cut low enough to show off the rounded tops of those amazing tits, a pair of faded jeans, and stilettos with heels high enough to give someone a nosebleed. Her tanned skin sparkled like the cross she wore around her neck. She’d glazed her skin with some kind of lotion. Everywhere? He couldn’t help wondering. This wasn’t the timid schoolteacher-nanny; this was the crazy girl who’d driven that Porsche. “I like my scotch the way I like a woman,” he drawled. “Real, undiluted, nothing in between me and her.”
There it was: that flash of heat again. He wanted to press his lips to her neck where those hoop earrings glittered in her soft halo of curls. He wanted to grab her thighs and haul her legs over his hips, right here in the bar. No, he wanted her in private, hard and up against the wall in his small room. Then, when he’d slaked the fire burning in him all damn week, he’d take her nice and slow.
Shit. He hadn’t moved, and he’d already worked up a sweat, not to mention one helluva hard-on. He motioned to the bartender. “Give me a couple of cubes.” Ice splashed into his drink.
“What happened to undiluted?”
“You showed up, Miss d’Mon.” He turned the stool to face her. They sat, jeans to jeans, knees almost touching. “Woman, you got a way of looking at me that . . .” He let his words trail off, shifting his focus to the drink. He wasn’t used to this kind of frank talk. Revealing talk. Telling people his feelings.
“That . . . what?”
He shook his head. “Who do you think of when you look at me?”
This time she glanced away. “Wine,” she told the bartender.
“Red or white?”
“Roman.”
The bartender glanced at Quel for enlightenment.
“Italian,” Shay corrected.
“We’ve got Californian.” The wall behind the bar was filled with wine bottles.
Shay pursed her lips and pointed to one, seemingly at random. “I’ll have the red.”
Her first sip was a hearty one. Shay d’Mon definitely attacked life with gusto. He liked that. Careful women bored him. “You never answered my question,” he said, low in her ear. “Who are you thinking of when you—?”
She sealed her mouth over his. He almost fell off the stool. Two heartbeats: that’s all his surprise lasted. Then he took hold of her soft hair and kissed her back. The soft little sound of pleasure she made drove him crazy. His hand fell to the side of her throat, resting on her throbbing pulse. The scent of her skin and her perfume filled his nostrils along with another scent that threatened to make him drunker than the scotch: he couldn’t make sense of it; he only reacted to it, as he had the night she’d driven down the mountain. It seemed like a scent that he already knew—deep down, a memory he’d always carried without realizing it, just like he felt he’d kissed her before. It was impossible. No way would Shay have entered his life and sneaked out of it without him noticing. And she definitely wasn’t sneaking out now. No damn way. He suckled her tongue, devouring her lips like she was the best damn bite of candy he’d ever tasted in a life of savoring every last piece thrown his way.
He became aware of a roar. Not the one in his head. The crowd in the bar was cheering.
Shay pulled back. “You,” she said. “I think of you.”
“Liar.”
She blushed. “You can tell?”
“Yeah, I can tell.” He reached for her, needing to touch her again. His fingers trailed up and down her back, following the bumps of her spine. He liked the goose bumps his caress raised on her bare arms. “That will come in very useful, too, angel, knowing how bad of a liar you are.”
She shot him a panicked glance. “Because,” he brought his lips to her ear, “when I kiss you again, I’m going to ask that same question. You’re going to tell the truth this time, and the answer had better be me.”
He saw her throat move before she glanced away. The song that had been playing ended, and a slower tune came on. “I’m thinking you dance as good as you kiss,” he said.
“Maybe . . .”
“Let’s get out there, and you can show me.” What was with him? He never wanted to dance.
She sent a look of longing to the dance floor. “I used to like dancing.”
“With so-and-so?”
Lifting one reddish brow, she shot him a confused look.
“The guy you think of when you look at me.”
She shook her head. “We never danced.”
It had Quel wondering what they did do that had been so memorable. He took her hand. “It’s been a while,” she warned.
“We can fix that.”
He sensed only a moment’s resistance before she let him lead her to the dance floor. He found a place in the middle of the swaying couples before sliding his hands over the body he’d been aching to touch all damn week. She melted against him, threading her fingers in his hair. It was like coming home. She fit him; he fit her. Déjà vu. He could almost believe he’d done this before and knew just how to hold her. Call it schmaltzy, but there it was.
Shay’s body was toned and firm in all the right places, and soft where it counted. He, on the other hand, was hard where it counted, almost to the point of pain. Even harder was his ability to remain a gentleman, but he did, keeping his hips from pressing too hard against hers and giving away just how eager he was to have her.
The music stopped. They stayed there, holding each other, his lips resting on her hair. Her shirt was so thin he could feel the heat of her skin burning his palms. He didn’t know what possessed him, and he kept thinking she’d chicken out, but he took her hand, steering her out of the bar. He led her around to the back alley and up the dark, narrow staircase to his room, shoving the door closed with his boot.
Seven
Shay still hadn’t come to terms with the fact that she’d showed up at the bar at all, and here she was, in his room. They were kissing before the door slammed shut, the kind of deep, thorough, wet kisses she’d always loved and that too few men knew how to do right—and as skillfully as Quel Laredo. You desire me. You can’t get enough of me. Shay instinctively sent the thoughts. Then she remembered there were no powers of persuasion to back them up. She was on her own. Nothing but chemistry fueled this seduction. She knew little of making love as a powerless being. There was no dark magic holding Quel here. There was no reason other than chemistry to make him want her. To desire her. How did humans manage it? How did they overcome the fear and doubt?
The kiss turned even hotter. Then he was pulling off her shirt and smoothing his hands over her breasts. She unhooked the bra. He threw it out of the way. His pants dropped, then hers. And he reached for a bedside box. Protection, she thought, dazed.
They were frantic now as he backed her up against the wall. It was a blur of sensation, uncontrollable need. Kissing wasn’t the only thing that was going to be good with Quel Laredo. Of that she was absolutely sure.
He lifted one thigh over his hip. “Quel . . .” she moaned. She thought she saw a shadow of a smile as he hoisted her other leg off the floor. Then he plunged deep.
A flash of pain, a swift intake of breath. In the next breath the stinging dissolved into sheer pleasure.
“Who are you thinking of now?” he demanded. “Me or him?” He was thrusting slow, swaying just right. His eyes
were dark, burning into hers.
“You,” she whispered. Dark satisfaction, even triumph glimmered in Quel’s gaze as he crushed his mouth to hers. Perhaps he read the earnestness there that she hadn’t revealed before, perhaps, too, a glimpse of her surrender, yet she felt nothing that smacked of defeat. She’d simply told the truth, a new habit for her, but one that felt exquisitely freeing.
She clung to him as he rocked inside her, her fingers grasping for purchase on his hard, slick body. No words now, only her sighs and his groans, his scent mingling with hers. Her human body was a gift. The pleasure it brought her was intense. Sex had always been good but never like this. Never like—
“Oh!” She came apart, crying out as she writhed against him.
“Angel,” he hissed, pressing his teeth to her shoulder as he thrust into her body. His peak came soon after, crashing over them both like an earthquake before subsiding into trembling aftershocks.
He swept her away from the wall and tossed her onto the bed, kissing his way down her body to where she still throbbed for him. When his lips touched her between her thighs, her body made no secret of how he affected her. She moaned, arching her back. He chuckled smugly. “Angel, we’re gonna have a good night tonight.”
They kissed and stroked each other until Quel pushed up, frowning down at the tangled sheets. “You’re bleeding.”
“I am?” She squinted in the dim light but couldn’t make out much.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Then she remembered the pain. “Just for a minute.”
He stretched out next to her, his head propped on one hand, his other flattened on her stomach. The heat of his palm, the male possessiveness in his touch, made her shiver. “It’s not your period?”
“I . . . don’t think so.” Could this body menstruate? The other bodies hadn’t.
“Shay?”
“Yes?”
One, two moments of silence ticked by before he asked, “Were you a virgin?”
Hades. That was it. She hadn’t even thought about the issue of virginity. She’d been so hot for Quel that she’d forgotten all about her cover. Her demon self was no virgin, but her physical body was—as innocent and untouched as . . . that damn soul she was stuck with. “I should have thought to say something.”