by Vivi Andrews
Maybe it was time Karma Cox learned how to take what she wanted. And right now, what she wanted was running a finger down the nape of her neck. That spot. That spot that was his now. He owned her with it. Maybe it was time she owned him too.
She twisted so she could face him. His hands fell away, but they were still all but draped over one another in her bed. It would be an easy slide into intimacy from here. The black T-shirt stretched across the lean lines of his torso and she ached to strip it off.
She smiled, putting every ounce of invitation she could muster into her eyes. “What exactly is it you want, Prometheus?”
You always get what you want, don’t you, Prometheus?
He did. That was his policy. Do what it takes, get what you want. But if he always got what he wanted, his life should be perfect, shouldn’t it? For years he’d had the shop, power and independence—and he’d been bored. Not on a grand scale like some pampered rich girl wallowing in boredom, but as a sort of low-level mechanical hum that had become the background noise of his life, slowly droning him to sleep. The need to get his heart back had woken him up, but it wasn’t until he was pitting himself against Karma that he’d started to really feel alive.
He got what he wanted. But had he been wanting the wrong things? Independence was strength and vulnerability the last thing he wanted, so he never let anyone in. He didn’t have family or friends to speak of. Women were easy to come by, but they always stayed casual. They never knew him.
And they never looked at him the way Karma was looking at him now. It was always I-need-a-man-and-you’ve-made-me-feel-good. Never I need you. He could be the good guy or the bad guy or whatever guy they needed for a night, but they never knew what they were really getting into bed with. Not like Karma. She knew exactly what she was getting into with him. And she still wanted him.
What should a man want? Security? Love?
Fuck it. Who the hell cared? He just wanted her.
“What do you think I want?” he growled and yanked her into his arms. She landed against him, lips open and eager and he wasted no time covering them with his. Her hands plunged into his hair, gripping the thick strands as he made quick work of unraveling her bun and wrapping the length of her hair around his fist. She straddled him, rubbing close, but he needed her closer. He grabbed her ass, angling her in for a tighter fit, thrusting his tongue into her mouth in rhythm with the grinding of her hips. Jesus, she was electric. Insatiable. The hungry little noises she made in the back of her throat as she sucked his tongue out of his head made all the blood rush down to his cock in eager sympathy. He wanted to flip her, strip her and pound into her until they were both sweaty and screaming. The urge to do just that pressed against the back of his mind—animalistic and so damn right.
Do it. Take her. You know you want to.
Prometheus jerked and his ward tattoo burned. The voice was feminine. Light and sweet. Fuck. That wasn’t him. The fucking sex demon was screwing with him.
He broke the kiss, shoving Karma away from him. She released a startled gasp, sliding across the slick sheets until the bed once again separated them. “What is it?” Her already raspy voice was even more sex-charged than usual, the sound of it going straight to his cock. The hair he’d pulled loose tumbled around her shoulders and the gorgeous arch of her dark brown eyes was accentuated by the heavy-lidded look she shot him.
He wanted nothing more than to drag her back into his arms and pick up right where they left off, but he hadn’t imagined that push. Deuma was paying attention to him now and the idea of her watching him with Karma made his stomach churn. Though she couldn’t actually watch. That he knew of.
Distance. He needed some distance. And focus. Eye on the prize, Prometheus.
“Are you ready to try again?”
“What?” The rosy flush drained from her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes dying.
“I need you in top shape if I’ve got a shot in hell of living through this. You know me. Pure self interest.”
Her look was probing—and he had a feeling he wasn’t fooling anyone. “I do know you,” she said, each word dragging out slowly.
“So one more go?”
“Sure.” She raked her hair back into a new knot, sitting up straighter. “Then you should leave. Big day tomorrow. Chase and Mia are back.”
The area where his heart should be constricted and his palms began to sweat.
Karma smiled, coolly professional again. “Tomorrow we find that box.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Shrodinger’s Safe
The parking lot was more crowded than he’d ever seen it when he pulled into Karmic Consultants the next afternoon for the finding. He found a space for his bike next to a classic Harley and cut the engine. The sky was blue and cloudless, but he swore he heard thunder rumbling in the distance as he crossed the lot to the entrance.
Inside, the lobby was pure chaos. Normally chaos was his happy place, but today it set his nerves on edge. Karmic Consultants was overrun with more than a dozen women shouting over one another, a wash of restless power and the overwhelming scent of patchouli. The noise level was insane—it was like being back in his shop when it was packed with teenage girls. With the advantage of his height, he saw Brittany across the room and tried to catch her eye, but she was in full hostess mode and darted into Karma’s office on some mission before he could stop her. This couldn’t be for his heart. He was sure Karma had said the finder was a guy and there had been no mention of what looked, on closer inspection, like two dozen witches.
“What the hell is going on here?”
The question wasn’t directed at anyone, so he was a little surprised when someone spoke up at his side. “Congratulations, sport. You’re a sideshow.”
He frowned down at the blonde. There was something vaguely familiar about her punk-rock hairdo and shredded jeans, but he couldn’t place her until she thrust her hand at him and continued, “Jo. I’m Karma’s ghost exterminator. Been into your shop a few times.”
“Personal protection wards.” He nodded as the memory snapped into place. “Is there a ghost problem here?”
Jo snorted. “Not unless the witches start killing each other. Nah. I’m just here to watch the show.”
“I take it I’m the show.”
“Best one in town. Never seen a heart outside of a body before.”
So much for discretion. Half the town probably knew he was trying to double cross Deuma. “I hope you don’t see this one, because if you do it means someone opened the box and I’m dead.” Hell, he was probably dead anyway. “What’s with the witches?”
“Apparently we need the whole coven for whatever they’ve got going to fetch your heart box thingy, but there’s some kind of power struggle going on and one chick stole some other chick’s boyfriend—or girlfriend, I didn’t quite catch that—and they have to be cohesive and all kumbaya or the magic won’t work, so that one in the purple is trying to make them all work through their differences. But I think that chick with the scarf just bit the one with the dreads, so we might be here a while before we hit kumbaya.”
“Is the finder here?”
“Chase? In Karma’s office. You should probably go on back. Tell Karma Brittany’s needed out here. If we don’t have her luck, I don’t think reconciliation is happening anytime this century.”
He nodded his thanks and made his way around the perimeter of the lobby, giving the witches a wide berth. He wasn’t the best-loved member of the magical community and he didn’t want to give any of them an excuse to remember he’d pissed them off in years past. He wasn’t usually one for caution, but today was one gamble after another and he didn’t need anything else fucking up his odds.
Inside Karma’s office, it was blissfully quiet—giving him a new respect for her soundproofing. Karma stood in front of her desk, leaning back against it, facing a young couple while Brittany hovered nearby. As Prometheus walked in, the couple—who had to be the finder and his wife—were speaking. The pai
r had come to his store once, to confront him about his less-than-legal possession of Mia’s heirloom watch, but the three of them hadn’t exactly been properly introduced. At the time, Prometheus hadn’t given them much thought as anything other than a way of getting at Karma, but now that his life depended on them, he took a moment to linger in the back of the room and study the couple.
Chase looked like he’d just walked off the cover of a Surfer Studs calendar and Mia was a bookish little thing with glasses but even though they weren’t touching, there was an invisible bubble that seemed to enclose the two of them in their own world, an intimacy that marked them as a matched set.
“—didn’t expect to like Bali, but the local customs with regard to copulation and familial structure were fascinating—”
“And you liked surfing.”
The woman shot her husband a glare and replied, “I liked surfing with you. But when you tried to put me on my own board—you have to admit, that was a disaster.”
Chase turned to Karma. “Unfortunately, Mia was born without balance or coordination. We’re hoping it’s not genetically dominant.”
Prometheus cleared his throat and four pairs of eyes turned toward him.
Karma’s affectionate smile faded into brisk professionalism as she straightened away from her desk. “And our guest of honor has arrived. Prometheus, you’ve met Chase and Mia, I believe?”
He nodded to them as he approached. “Nice to see you again.” Chase smiled and Mia glowered—which seemed to be her natural state, so he didn’t take it personally. He turned his attention to Karma—looking nothing like the woman in yoga pants with her hair tumbling around her shoulders that he’d left last night. “Jo says they need Brittany’s luck out there to achieve kumbaya.”
Karma’s lips twitched and Prometheus realized he’d never heard her laugh. What a victory that would be.
“Brittany, would you mind playing mediator for the witches? See if you can work your magic on them?”
Brittany blinked, coming back from whatever solar system she visited in her off hours, and nodded, her curls bouncing. “My pleasure.” She flashed Prometheus an encouraging smile as she scurried past. “Rodriguez says good luck!”
“Thanks. Where is the surly exorcist? Doesn’t he want to watch the spectacle too?”
“He’s doing a project for me,” Karma answered as Brittany disappeared into the lobby.
Prometheus arched a brow, feigning a calm he was nowhere close to feeling. This was all getting far too real. “Won’t we need him here to summon my old friend?”
“We aren’t summoning anyone today. The witches have a way to trap the box containing your heart so we’ll be able to hold it until we have more information about how to go about reversing the process and putting it back in your body without killing you or harming any of my people. We’ll locate the box and fetch it, but that’s as far as we go today. As soon as the witches are ready.”
“I should probably inform you that not all of the witches are overly fond of me.”
“Which is why I’m paying them double. I’ll add it to your bill. Be grateful they share your mercenary sensibilities.”
Be grateful. It wasn’t a sentiment he was familiar with. Maybe that was why he felt so uneasy. He’d more or less blackmailed Karma to gain her assistance, but now he wasn’t sure why she was helping him—calling in the witches, pulling in her finder on his first day back from his honeymoon. Things had changed. The consultants were treating him like he was one of them. The Karmic family.
“Since we have to wait for the witches…” Mia stood, knocking her glasses back up her nose. “Would you mind if I ran a few tests on you?”
“Tests?”
“Mia’s a scientist,” Chase explained. “She wants to figure out why you aren’t dead.”
“At first I thought Karma must have been being metaphoric when she said we needed to relocate your heart, but she assures me it is your physical heart that is missing, which is, you’ll have to admit, something of an extreme medical irregularity. I’d love to run a few tests, see if I can’t figure out why you aren’t a rotting corpse. Basic stuff. The sort of thing you’d get at your yearly physical for starters.”
“I haven’t had a physical in twenty years.”
Mia looked at him like he’d announced puppy drowning was his favorite hobby. “Sit down and take off your shirt.”
Chase lolled back in his chair. “A less secure man might be insulted that his wife’s first priority on getting back from her honeymoon is to get another man’s clothes off. Aren’t you glad you married me, cupcake?”
Mia ignored her spouse, her frown locked on Prometheus. “Why aren’t you stripping?”
He looked to Karma for assistance but she arched her brows with studied innocence. “I’d do what she asks. Consider it payment for the find.”
He wasn’t used to feeling indebted to anyone, so he immediately reached for the hem of his shirt, to even the scales. But he kept his eyes on Karma as he did, grinning wickedly when he saw her gaze snag at the ward tattooed just above his waistband. “Anything to get my shirt off, eh, angel?”
She rolled her eyes. “Be good and do what Mia tells you. I’m going to check on the witches.”
Karma strode out of the room without a backward glance, leaving him alone with a surfer chaperone and the mad scientist who was pulling all manner of strange devices out of the bag at her feet, cooing over each one like a favorite child. “I’m so glad I brought the portable EEG.”
“The witches are ready.” Jo opened the door to Karma’s office and her eyebrows flew up. “Nice six-pack.”
“Damn.” Mia pulled off the last of her sensors and stepped back, glowering at him.
“Thanks,” Prometheus said to Jo before returning his attention to the mad scientist. “Was that damn, we’re out of time or damn, you’re on the verge of death?”
“Damn, you’re normal.” Mia pouted as she began to pack up her things. “Your pulse is wrong, but everything else is entirely within natural ranges—with the exception of neural activity which is highly elevated in the region which may or may not relate to psychic ability. I’ll know more once I’ve examined your blood work, but so far everything is standard.” She spat the word like a curse.
Prometheus reached for his shirt. “I’ll take standard.”
“You won’t be putting your heart back in for a few days, will you? Would you be willing to come by my lab for a few more tests before your anomaly goes away?”
Before your anomaly goes away. Prometheus was jolted again by how close he was to having his heart back. He hadn’t missed it, these last twenty years, until he’d realized his time was running out. He’d kind of liked being the only man in the world—that he knew of—walking around without a heart in his chest. Now everything was going to change. One way or the other, things would be different. If everything went according to his plan, he would be whole—and with enough power that he’d be virtually immortal. With a little less luck, he might be limited to mere survival, no more power. And if they failed, if Deuma had her way, he might succeed in getting himself killed a couple months early. Either way, he wouldn’t be an anomaly anymore.
“Sure, Mia. I’ll come by in a few days.”
“If you’re done being dissected,” Jo said from the threshold, “Karma wants to do this in the lobby. She says it’s the only place there’s enough space for all the witches, but I think we’d all fit in here—she just doesn’t want to let the double-double-toil-and-trouble lot into the inner sanctum.”
“Can you blame her?” Chase said.
He and Mia headed for the door and Prometheus trailed behind, suddenly overcome by the need to drag his feet. He’d never been the uncertain type before—never really had anything to lose—but today was different. Today mattered.
He stepped out of Karma’s office and into a scene that couldn’t have been more different than the last one he’d seen. The witches were hugging, weeping and swaying—as if th
ey might actually burst into a chorus of kumba-freaking-ya at any moment. Brittany stood in their midst, beaming at them like a proud parent. Karma looked like she was trying not to let anyone see how much she wanted to smack them all upside the head as she wrangled them into place. Prometheus caught her eye over the heads of the witches in front of her and she shot him a quick eye roll. He winked. Her lips twitched and she shook her head; he could almost hear her mentally calling him incorrigible. He’d been called worse.
Then the witches all settled into a circle with a plain plywood crate at the center and Karma was waving him and Chase over. Time for the moment of truth.
A full coven of witches was always a pain in the ass and today was no exception. She kept them on retainer because they could do things no one else on her staff had a prayer of accomplishing, but they weren’t hers the way the other consultants were—and they had an amazing capacity for generating useless, migraine-inducing drama.
The first warning throbs of a headache were building when Prometheus caught her eye and winked. And just like that she felt her headache ease, even as another tension replaced it.
What if this didn’t work? That was why it was so important they to do this today, rather than wait until closer to the deadline, so they had time for a backup plan, but having time for a backup plan didn’t mean she actually had the first idea what that backup plan would be.
Chase was confident—but he was always cocky. The witches seemed sure their part would work—but Karma had seen them equally assured five minutes before the Samhain ritual had exploded in their faces. Literally.
If she could will it to happen, today’s find and fetch would go off without a hitch—but even if her powers had been at full utility, that wasn’t within Karma’s powers. She didn’t know when this had become personal, but Prometheus had indeed become hers to save, though what she felt for him was still unclear and certainly in a different category than the way she cared for her consultants.