Reap & Redeem

by Lisa Medley

  As he backed up and away from her, he leaned against the wall, trying to slow his breathing and get his heart rate back under control. Olivia rose up on her elbows, tilting her head quizzically at him, her own chest rising and falling rapidly, her hair wild.

  “What’s wrong, Kylen? Is there danger?”

  Yes.

  “No…I’m sorry.” He turned toward the living room, not wanting her to see his expression, and closed his eyes.

  “What are you sorry for, Kylen? Kissing me or stopping?”

  “Yes.”

  He walked to the window and pulled the blind aside so that he could peer down into the alley. A dozen or more imps were waiting below. The longer he stayed in one place, the more seemed to gather. While he didn’t want to encourage them, he couldn’t deny that they’d come in handy twice already.

  He was playing with fire. He consoled himself with the justification that he was using the resources at hand for the greater good.

  Yeah, that’s it. He was a freakin’ Boy Scout.

  Maybe if he kept telling himself that, he’d begin to believe it. Believe that he was somehow redeemable, that this entire situation was.

  Not likely.

  He heard Olivia padding up behind him, and then her arms encircled his waist from behind, and she pressed her cheek into his back. He stiffened in her hold and suppressed the moan boiling up inside him, demanding that he turn around and finish what he’d started.

  “What’s out there?” she asked, holding on to him like he was a lifeline.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then come back.”

  “No. It was a mistake. If you’re going to finish your damn list, we need to go do it. I can’t afford to take another night off to babysit you.” He pried her hands from his torso and twisted away from her…but not fast enough to miss the look on her face.

  He hated that look. Despised himself for being the cause of it. He’d add it to the list of shitty things he’d done in his life.

  A list that continued to grow longer.

  * * *

  Olivia gazed into the mirror in her bathroom and rubbed cover-up over the light blue discoloration that ran along the veins of her throat. She drew apart her robe and looked again at the blue line that tracked through the vertical center of her body from stem to stern. Kylen’s kiss had engorged it, and it was even brighter now. The more she touched him, the more he filled her with this remarkable blue light…and the better she felt.

  Sliding the red, low-cut dress over her head and down her body, she frowned into the mirror. The bruising on her neck from the other night was still apparent. She tried to lighten it with makeup, but the low cut of the neckline drew attention to it. Between the bruise and her weight loss, this dress just wasn’t going to work. Grasping the hem, she pulled it back up over her body, tossing it out of the bathroom and walking naked through her bedroom to her closet.

  Flipping through the few dresses she owned, she settled on her one and only little black dress. It wasn’t low cut, but these days she didn’t have much to show off, anyway. Tonight was about pushing her limits and doing the things on her list that scared her most.

  She needed to dress for the occasion. With the right outfit and a few more glasses of wine, she might just finish the damn thing tonight. Except maybe that last one…#59, give everything away, would be easy. She’d already boxed most of her personal things and made arrangements for the women’s shelter to collect them upon her death. #60, save a life, would be a little more difficult. She’d tried to do that in the alley, but obviously that had fallen through. It had been an overly ambitious wish, she realized.

  Still, she was so close.

  Sliding the sleeveless black dress over her head, she smoothed it down her bony torso and sighed. It would have to do. She slipped on a pair of sparkling silver heels and called it good. She didn’t actually know if she could accomplish #54, dance all night in the shoes she’d chosen, but they went with the dress, so she’d give it a shot.

  Realizing that most of the remaining items on her list involved a bar in some way, she chuckled to herself. They’d all seemed like such a good idea while she was safe in her bed and lost in her daydreams. Olivia had never liked to draw attention to herself.

  Walking back into the bathroom, she brushed her hair. The white contrast of her hair against the black dress and her pale skin made her look like a negative image of herself. Peering into the mirror with the hard lens of self-examination, she realized that her chances of completing #58, have a one-night stand, seemed more remote than saving a life. Her reflection frightened even her. No wonder Kylen had fled.

  She glanced around her apartment. Not knowing if she’d be able to return, she pulled open the drawer of the antique secretary desk in her bedroom and extracted her checkbook. She wrote out a check for her landlord and attached it to the envelope containing her last will and testament, which she’d prepared weeks ago.

  With #57, pay my debts, now complete, she picked up her borrowed clothes from the bathroom floor and retrieved her list.

  She drew a neat line through #56 learn to use a weapon and #57 pay my debts. Four left. She studied the last fourteen items on the list:

  47 swim in the ocean

  48 fly over a volcano

  49 volunteer at a homeless shelter

  50 have a pet

  51 make the best dessert ever

  52 get drunk

  53 dance all night

  54 sing in a karaoke bar

  55 sleep under the stars on the fall equinox

  56 learn to use a weapon

  57 pay my debts

  58 have a one-night stand

  59 give everything away

  60 save a life

  Folding it neatly, she stuffed the list into her tiny, jeweled party purse and draped it over her shoulder.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kylen nursed a Crown and Coke as he sat in a booth across the bar from Olivia, watching her dance. DJ music vibrated against his sternum, threatening to reroute his heart’s normal rhythm, replacing it with the pounding beat of the dance music pulsing through the bar.

  This might not be the last place in the universe he wanted to be right now, but it was in the top three.

  The one redeeming thing about the entire situation was that Olivia looked amazing. If he was going to be stuck watching someone’s every move…well, the view wasn’t exactly disagreeable.

  The sound of her heels clicking across the hardwood floor of her apartment before they left had nearly broken him, torn as he was between guilt and desire. He’d turned and sucked in a hard breath, frozen in place.

  She was a vision in black and white. So much so that he fleetingly wondered if the color had drained from his sight again. Her hair hung across her shoulders and down her back, sleek and touchable, and the black dress she was wearing clung to her in a way that left very little to his heated and overactive imagination.

  His hands had opened and closed into fists by his sides. How he’d wanted to run those hands down her curves. He’d turned away from her before he could act on the impulse, which, he realized, was becoming a troubling trend.

  Now he was watching her dance with idiot after idiot to the relentless beat as his cock pounded along with the music. Each beat was an exclamation point on the stupidity of what he wanted to do.

  He wanted her.

  He wanted to scoop her up, take her out of here, and have his way with her. Fate be damned. It was an impulsive and stupid idea—one he would not act on—but he couldn’t banish it.

  The urge stewed inside him as yet another man put a hand to her waist and ground himself against her on the dance floor.

  Dance all night was not going to be a possibility.

  They’d only been there for two hours, and it already seemed like all night. She’d have to call it good enough. Mercifully, a pause in the cacophony brought her eyes up to meet his. She smiled, disengaged herself from the clutches of her current admirer, and walked
his way.

  The boy trailed after her until he realized where she was heading. Kylen gave him his best “you do not want to fuck with this” look, and the kid veered off toward the bar.

  Smarter than he looks.

  Kylen’s eyes locked with Olivia’s, and he watched her every move until she was sitting across from him in the booth, safe from the clutches of stupidity.

  Maybe.

  She smiled at him. “You don’t look like you’re having fun.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You could dance with me,” she cajoled.

  “No. I couldn’t.”

  “Are you going to sit here and brood all night?”

  “No. We’re leaving.”

  “But we can’t. Karaoke starts in ten minutes. Besides it’s only nine o’clock! That’s a far cry from ‘all night,’” she pouted, sliding her shoe off to rub her foot.

  “You can barely stand in those shoes anymore. Sing your song, and then we’re leaving.”

  She frowned at him before sliding her shoe back into place. “You can’t take me against my will.”

  “Watch me.”

  She rolled her eyes at him and glided from the booth.

  He did watch her as she navigated the gyrating crowd to the DJ booth. The DJ bent down to take her request, and then nodded and pulled her up onto the small stage.

  A spotlight illuminated her and the music faded into a new song: “Glad You Came” by The Wanted. Olivia began singing the first lines, and as the music swelled and filled the bar, the already-full dance floor exploded into activity.

  Three scantily clad young women jumped onto the stage and joined her, singing and dancing with abandon. Olivia continued to sing, her voice surprisingly strong and melodious for such a tiny girl, directing her lyrics toward Kylen like a weapon, using them to pierce his steely heart.

  Her backup singers sang the chorus a little less impressively, and the crowd joined them, waving their arms in the air to the music.

  Olivia had them all in the palm of her hand. Kylen included.

  As the song wound down and morphed into yet another driving beat, the crowd cheered her, parting so she could make her way back to the booth. Flushed and smiling from ear to ear, she was radiant, and he knew exactly what she was thinking—#54 sing in a karaoke bar, was complete.

  She stopped at the bar and ordered a drink. Kylen watched as a man pushed up against her from behind and leaned in, speaking into her ear. She laughed and took her glass of wine from the bartender.

  Kylen’s heart was pounding in his ears, and it had nothing to do with the music.

  The man slid his hand down her back and rested it on top of her ass. Before he even realized he was moving, Kylen had pushed the man away from Olivia and pinned him to the wall. The admirer’s feet hovered several inches above the floor.

  Sparks along his shoulder blade whipped Kylen’s attention back to Olivia, who was pressing her hand against him, “Please don’t hurt him. Let’s leave. I’m ready.”

  Without a word, he allowed his prey to slide to the floor. Fear rolled off the prick as his aura cascaded from him in waves of muddied colors. He was right to be afraid.

  Kylen watched the man flee through the crowd, rubbing his neck as he went.

  Olivia took Kylen’s hand and pulled him toward the exit sign beyond the restrooms. He let her. Together they walked out into the alley behind the bar, the music deadening as the steel door swung shut behind them.

  “Well, that was fun. For a while,” Olivia said, looking up into the night sky.

  “You’re finished?” he asked, realizing he was still holding her hand.

  “I guess so.”

  “Good.” He pulled her to him and the blue light from his touch glowed around her like fog. She was luminous. He held her tightly against his body and slid his hands up her back and into her hair as his mouth found hers. He was a goner.

  All he could feel and hear and taste was Olivia.

  She clutched at him, and a soft mewl swelled up from inside her that was damn near his undoing. Somehow, he managed to disengage from her, pulling himself back from the brink of taking her on the pavement in the bleak alley. He dragged her behind him, leading the way to her apartment, desperate to be inside her.

  She couldn’t keep up—her heels kept getting stuck in the broken sidewalk, threatening to pull her down. In frustration, he scooped her up into his arms. She submitted and tucked her head and face against his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. He carried her the rest of the way home like that.

  A herd of imps followed silently behind them, keeping just out of reach of the streetlights. He sensed their presence, but ignored them as he punched her code into the security pad. He lowered her to her feet at the bottom of the stairs and reached down to slip off her high heels. Her hand clutched his shoulder for support as he removed the shoes, and sparks of light spread across his chest, crackling under her touch.

  “Come.” He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Olivia’s heart drummed in her chest. This was not how she’d expected things to go. Not at all. She’d expected to bring home a stranger to mark this particular item off her list. It had never occurred to her that it might happen with someone she knew. A night in a bar didn’t count as knowing.

  These past few days, she had come to know enough about Kylen to make her realize he wasn’t entirely the bad boy he portrayed himself to be. He was gruff, yes, but kind, too, and he’d gone out of his way to recreate her impossibly ruined list. Taken her to the glorious Shipwreck Beach. Flown in a helicopter despite his discomfort. All for her.

  Every moment she spent with him seemed to only make her want more. More moments and more of Kylen.

  Not to mention that he’d saved her life. Twice.

  And now, as he set her down on her bed, his eyes were twin flames of desire. This wasn’t the first time she’d had sex, there had been a few men through the years, but it would be her first one-night stand. She already knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  His skin was alight with blue energy, and it raced beneath the surface, trailing the caress of her thumb across his face.

  He was rough, hard and handsome in that terrifying way of forbidden fruit and bad boys. His blond hair fell forward from his forehead as he lowered himself over her, brushing his lips down the side of her neck, and then up and behind her ear. His rapid breath was a smoldering prayer against her skin.

  She shivered, and gooseflesh crawled across her shoulders and up her throat. Her hands tangled into his hair, clutching him for dear life. This time he wouldn’t escape her desire, wouldn’t have second thoughts or regrets. If she’d learned anything during her illness, it was that life was short.

  She wasn’t going to miss out on one more day.

  Or night.

  Kylen groaned and pressed himself against her, and she rose to meet him, intensifying the flow of blue energy between them. Sheer carnal instinct directed her body, and she was its willing slave. When he edged away from her, she panicked and grappled at his shirt to hold him in place.

  “Weapons,” he explained, brushing his lips against hers before he pulled away.

  Olivia watched as he walked over to the mirrored antique dressing table and bent to unlace his boots. He hiked up the right leg of his pants and unstrapped the knife sheathed there, and then repeated the action for the left leg, placing both blades on top of the dresser. He unhooked his belt and jerked it from its loops, snapping it from around his waist.

  She felt her heart beating in her ears, and her breathing became nearly impossible to control as he peeled his black T-shirt up his torso and over his head. Scars marred his otherwise perfectly defined chest, raised white ridges running like rivulets along his ribs.

  He caught her eyes in the mirror, and balled the shirt in his hands, worrying it; his expression threatened danger and passion all at once. Her tongue darted involuntarily across her lips. Dropping the shirt to the
floor, he loosened the scythe scabbard and shrugged out of it, carefully placing it on the dresser with his other weapons. He removed a final blade from the back waistband of his pants and kicked off his boots. His muscles rolled as he bent to remove his socks one by one and stuff them into the tops of his boots.

  He was only half-naked, but she sensed his vulnerability. His weapons were as important to him as a limb—they were a physical extension of him—and without them he was naked. She’d never seen that many weapons on a man.

  He was a god.

  As Kylen walked back toward the bed, her heart rate picked up its pace even more. She had never wanted a man so much. Reaching up, he grabbed a bedpost high above his head with each hand and stared down at her. Normally, she would have been uncomfortable with his judicial assessment of her, but this was far from normal. Far from her normal anyway. She had no idea about Kylen’s normal. His eyes fluttered shut, and he hung his head to his chest, pulling in a long breath.

  “Are you sure you want this?” he asked, without raising his eyes to her.

  “Yes.”

  Releasing a sigh, he extended his hand to her. She raised herself and crawled over to him, kneeling on the bed before him. Cupping her face in his hands, he ran his thumbs over her cheekbones. The blue energy nearly brought tears to her eyes as it trickled into her. She searched his eyes for whatever torment he was suffering.

  Because he was suffering.

  What was troubling him? It was hard not to take it personally, but somehow she knew it wasn’t her. It was something else. Something she would never live long enough to learn about.

  Grasping her around the waist, he pulled her to her feet and pressed his forehead down to hers. He reached behind her, unzipping her dress, and then pushed it from her shoulders as his palms slid across her skin. Blue sparks skipped across her collarbones as he traced them with his feathery touch, and her stomach tightened in anticipation.