The Curse of Tenth Grave

by Darynda Jones

“I’m talented that way,” he said, sliding his knuckles over my belly button.

  “You walked in, and because I couldn’t quite control the shift from this plane to the next, I was straddling both at that time. All I see is this darkly fierce, insanely powerful being that is not entirely human, but not entirely otherworldly, either. He’s like a panther and an otherworldly assassin all rolled into one. He oozes power and stealth and grace and”—I lowered my gaze—“and sex, so much so that I’m afraid of what I will do around him. Around you.” I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth. “My attraction to you was so instant and so visceral, like I had a rope inside me, and it had been anchored to you the whole time. And the minute I saw you, something tugged it. Pulled it tight. The world spun around me, and I was so afraid I would melt into a puddle.” I let my gaze wander back to his. “Reyes, I was awestruck.”

  “Really? ’Cause you looked horrified.”

  I laughed softly. “It’s a statistical truth that women are better at nonverbal cues and reading people than men. Maybe you should leave that stuff up to me from now on.”

  He dropped his gaze again. “Horrified is pretty hard to mistake.”

  “I’ve been wondering if it was something else,” I said, ignoring him. Horrified, my ass. “Well, a lot of something elses but one in particular.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “I’d forgotten you.” When he didn’t say anything, I explained. “You’d predicted months earlier that I would forget you when I learned my celestial name, and you were right.”

  “I knew you would. It was no surprise.”

  “But I didn’t forget you like you made it sound like I would forget you. Like I would grow out of you. Like I would get over you and just not love you anymore and move on.”

  “True. But in a way you did. You almost grew out of yourself.”

  “That was a lot of power to give to a down-to-earth girl from New Mexico whose only aspirations included trips to coffee plantations around the world and eating orange Popsicles without getting juice on her chin. When I find out whose idea it was…”

  A gentle laugh softened the sharp edges of his tightly wound emotions.

  “But the thought of not loving you anymore? Reyes, I can’t breathe when you aren’t near me. I can’t think straight.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” He smoothed his thumb over my belly button, causing another tingling sensation between my legs. “And I’m grateful, but you’ve had a lot on your mind as well.”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Ah.” He nodded in understanding. “So I have to tell you all my secrets, but you won’t share yours?”

  A snort escaped me before I could stop it. “Reyes Alexander Farrow, I know damned good and well you have not, and will not ever, tell me all your secrets.”

  His gaze suddenly bored into mine. “I might surprise you someday.”

  “Yeah?”

  “But you have to go first.”

  He was right, to a degree. We had to communicate. Wasn’t that what the experts said? Communication was key?

  I decided to start with the one that hurt the most at that moment in time. I closed my eyes like a coward and said into the darkness, “You have another child.”

  “Do I?” he asked, his voice fused with humor. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  I looked at him again, mouth slightly agape. “How is this funny?”

  “No idea. But trust me, it is.”

  “Reyes, you have a five-year-old son in Texas.”

  He cinched his brows together and then released them when understanding dawned. “Right. Damien. I’d forgotten I fathered him. And while I was in prison, no less.”

  “So, that’s your excuse? You couldn’t possibly father a child while you were in prison?” When he only stared, fighting a grin, I said, “Ha! I already know how it happened, Mr. Man.”

  His brows shot up, completely intrigued.

  “You impregnated a female corrections officer.”

  “Ah.” He nodded, thinking back. “Oh, right, well, thank goodness it wasn’t a male corrections officer. Talk about a hard labor.”

  He was laughing at this. Scoffing. Dismissing it willy-nilly. I lay there appalled and flabbergasted and stunned. Speechless. “How can you take this so lightly?” Well, not entirely speechless.

  He slid his hand around my waist until his fingertips rested on my spine. “Because you, Mrs. Davidson, are hilarious.”

  He was taking this really well. Maybe a little too well. “Are you insinuating that Damien Clay is not your son?”

  “Please tell me you didn’t waste valuable time and resources investigating this when all you had to do was ask me.”

  “I most certainly did not. Cookie did. I’ll have a talk with her tomorrow. So, fess up. Yay or nay on the paternity test?”

  “Dutch, if I ever have another child, I promise, you’ll be the first to know. Probably because you’ll be in the throes of labor, screaming. Damien Clay is your boyfriend’s son. He never married the mother.”

  I blinked in surprise. “My boyfriend? My new one? You know about Fabio?”

  He didn’t bother answering. Apparently it was beneath him to comment on Cookie’s sofa.

  Okay. My boyfriend’s son. Great. “Well, it’s awfully nice of you to make his child support payments for him. It’s very avant-garde. Very nuclear family. In a postapocalyptic way.”

  “It was part of the deal,” he said with a shrug. “I wanted extra eyes I could trust on our daughter, and he was extra eyes I could trust.”

  I snapped to attention and rose up on my elbows again. “What does Beep have to do with any of this?”

  “I hired your boyfriend. Actually, all three of them.” When I gaped in confusion, he added, “Your biker friends, remember? They keep an eye on the Loehrs and, in turn, Elwyn. Only I didn’t want a paper trail. They are, after all, wanted fugitives.”

  “Donovan?” I asked, stunned. “Of course. You hired Donovan and the guys to watch over Beep.”

  They were perfect. And he was right. They were wanted for a bank robbery thing. It didn’t matter that they were blackmailed into doing it. They were good guys, and when it came to hiring strong arms to protect Beep and the Loehrs, Reyes had brought them in.

  “So,” he continued, “part of the deal was that they use only cash and the credit cards I send them and that I make his child support payments so there will be no trace of his whereabouts online.”

  I was still gaping at him, but this time in absolute awe, even more in awe of him than when he’d first walked into the Firelight Grill, the diner in New York. “That’s amazing, Reyes. I had no idea you did all that for them. For Beep.”

  His full mouth thinned. “Sometimes your lack of faith in me astounds.”

  “Not lack of faith.” I shook my head, adamant. “Never lack of faith. I just tend to underestimate that brain of yours.” I tapped his temple and then brushed a lock of hair back and tucked it behind his ear. He totally needed a trim. “I keep forgetting your IQ is higher than my bank balance.”

  “That’s not saying much.”

  “It’s kind of too bad, though. I was going to rescue Damien, bring him home, and raise him as my own.”

  “Like a wolf in the wild?”

  I could swear I’d heard that before.

  “I doubt his mother would have appreciated that,” he said, being all logical.

  “Yeah, Cookie said the same thing.”

  “Okay,” he said, “next. Now that we’re getting everything out in the open, what else has been bothering you?”

  “Nope, the last one was mine. It’s your turn. What else has been bothering you?” I’d let my fingers linger. Traced his jaw. Delighted in the feel of his stubble. “What other secrets are you hiding behind those sparkling eyes?”

  He grinned. “You have my heart. That’s where I hide all my secrets.”

  “Then I guess I don’t have the key.”

  “Are you kidding? Yo
u forged the key.” He kissed the tip of my nose, lay back, and tugged on one of my belt loops until I was tucked safely at his side. Folding one arm behind his head, he stared at the ceiling. I followed his line of sight, wondering about the little boy hanging out up there, then returned to Reyes’s magnificent profile.

  “You haven’t really talked about what happened to you in the warehouse in New York.”

  “You mean before you got there?” I asked.

  He nodded, and I thanked God he could no longer read my emotions. That was where I got the god glass. That was where I found out my husband was a god of Uzan. And that was where I got the means to trap said husband should the need arise.

  “There’s not much to tell. Kuur tried to get me to tell him where Beep was. I wouldn’t. He got mad. Chaos ensued.”

  “Chaos always ensues when you’re around,” he said, his voice full of humor. “Nothing else happened?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “Then why do I think you’ve been hiding something from me ever since that night?”

  “No clue. Why do I think you’ve been hiding something from me ever since that night?”

  “No clue.”

  I rose onto my elbow and put my chin on his chest. “Let’s make a deal.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s not keep any secrets from each other anymore.”

  “That’s kind of radical, don’t you think?” He was teasing. Humor tugged at one corner of his mouth.

  “I hear it’s all the rage.”

  “No secrets between married couples? You’re going to start a revolution if you keep thinking like that.”

  I squinted in thought. “Maybe more like, no secrets unless the other person knows you’re keeping a secret. You know, full disclosure.”

  “I’m not sure you’ve grasped the concept of full disclosure. It would imply, you know, full disclosure.”

  “True, but work with me here.” I got excited. This could be just the ticket. “I could tell you I have a secret that I couldn’t tell you, but then you’d know I had a secret so it would all be out in the open and no one would feel guilty or left out of the loop, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “You don’t think that would defeat the purpose of revealing a secret?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  He cleared his throat, and I had a sneaking suspicion he was trying not to laugh. His hand, the one he’d slipped under my sweater again, slid up my spine, his splayed fingers scorching my skin, infusing it with warmth. “Okay, let’s give it a shot.”

  I wiggled closer in excitement. I thought about the things I’d been keeping close to my heart. The first secret, the super-big biggie, the monstrosity of all monstrosities, was of course his godly status. I was keeping it because, well, he was created using the energy of an evil god, so I wasn’t sure what would happen when I told him. And the second was the god glass. Similar reasons. Different outcome. Besides, the god glass was the heart of my backup plan.

  Now that I knew what he was, I understood so much. I could feel his power. It pulsated out of him in waves. It was raw and turbulent and dynamic. He was so much more than just supernatural, and now that I knew, it made sense.

  He was a force. A maelstrom. A nuclear reactor. And such power was often wild. Unpredictable and uncontrollable. I simply needed to know more. Unfortunately, there was only one entity I could think of who grew up in the same neighborhood, who knew more about Reyes than anyone else on this plane: Osh’ekiel.

  I would tell Reyes eventually, but I needed to do a little digging first.

  “All right,” I said, swallowing hard, “I have two secrets I can’t tell you.” I fell back and spread my arms, one landing on his face. Quite on purpose. “Whew. Boy, do I feel better getting that off my chest. Oh, wait.” I thought a moment. Technically the fact that I hadn’t told him that Satan had somehow trapped him when he was in evil-god mode could count as a third secret. “Cancel that. I have three. Sorry.”

  He bit the arm that was still lying across his face softly, making me giggle like a schoolgirl. I rolled closer.

  After I nestled beside him again, he said, “Three, huh? That’s a lot of secrets.”

  “True, but at least now you know I have them and that I’ll tell you when I can. The minute I can. No, the microsecond I can. So, what about you?”

  “Hmmm,” he said, thinking aloud. “I guess I just have one. No.” He thought again, drawing it out until I was on the verge of chewing my nails off. “Two. Yeah, technically I have two.”

  I stared, crestfallen. “You’re keeping two secrets from me?”

  He laughed out loud. “You’re keeping three from me.”

  “But—” I rose onto my palms. “But what are they? Why are you keeping them from me?”

  For the barest hint of a moment, sadness flashed across his face. It was mostly in the eyes. The tiniest slip. The barest hint. But he recovered instantly and grinned again. “I knew this wouldn’t work.”

  Dread spread through me. Reyes didn’t get sad. Reyes got mad. He became stone. He plotted and planned and worked until no matter what the problem was, he knew how to solve it. But sadness? Was it something he couldn’t control? Something he could do nothing about? Inevitable?

  But the whole reason for this was to form a stronger bond. To trust one another even when we couldn’t tell the other, for whatever reason, what that secret may be.

  “No, you’re right. It’ll work. Thank you for telling me.” I lay back down and focused on the hand at my back. At least he was touching me. “I was worried,” I said, reveling in the feel of him.

  “About what?”

  “The fact that you haven’t touched me in over a week.”

  “I explained that.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Dutch, you deserve so much better than me.”

  Glaring up as hard as I could, I said, “You either have an inflated opinion of me or a distorted opinion of yourself. I think it’s both. I think the only way we are going to settle this once and for all is”—I shifted onto him, raised his shirt, and dipped my hands down his pants—“to work it out until we are too exhausted to argue.”

  I slid my hand down his rock-hard abdomen and wrapped my fingers around his erection. Every muscle in his body turned to marble. He clenched the hand at my back into a fist as I pushed all the way down to the base of his cock. I massaged and kneaded until I felt the familiar rush of blood beneath my fingers.

  He took a fistful of hair and pulled my mouth onto his as I worked.

  I leaned away. “But really, can I have a hint? Not even for both of your secrets. Just one will do. Wait, are they related?”

  Without another word, he grabbed the edge of the Twister mat, pulled it over us, then rolled, locking us together like the contents of a burrito.

  “Are you sure Cookie left? She didn’t just go to the bathroom or something?”

  He covered my mouth with his and pushed his hips into mine, his erection hard against my abdomen.

  “If she’s still here,” I said, suddenly winded when he sought an ear, “she is about to be severely scandalized.”

  Completely ignoring me, he flipped me onto my stomach, his movements rough, hurried, and pressed into me from behind. And as he wrapped his long fingers around my throat from behind, he asked, “What was it you were saying about erotic asphyxiation?”

  “I was mostly kidding—” I gasped when he tightened his hold with one hand and pushed my pants down with the other. Cool air rushed across my skin a microsecond before his flames blistered it.

  Then his mouth was at my ear again as his fingers unfastened his own jeans. “Spread yourself,” he said, his voice low and smooth and demanding.

  But my jeans were only down to my knees. I couldn’t spread my legs.

  When I didn’t obey immediately, he sent a hand up my shirt and under my bra. At first he only fondled Danger, but then a sharp sting sent goose bumps erupting over my skin as
he squeezed the delicate crest between his fingers.

  He straddled me and locked my knees closed with his. “Spread yourself,” he repeated at my ear, his fingers growing tighter and tighter around my throat. He buried his face in my hair and breathed in my scent. His cock lay against the small of my back, hot and hard and ready.

  I reached back, put my hands on my ass, and spread myself for him.

  “Good girl,” he whispered before gliding his fingers seamlessly into the slickness there. He moaned into my hair. “You’re so fucking wet,” he said as he pumped into me.

  I just wanted it to continue. Wanted him to continue. Until I couldn’t see straight.

  Then he pulled his fingers out and rubbed my clit softly. Luring. Coaxing. The movement sent waves of pleasure spiraling through my body, lighting every dark corner, kindling the most dormant parts of me with tiny, glittering earthquakes.

  That time, I moaned, and it excited him more. He slid the length of his erection over my skin and positioned himself for entrance, his heavy cock pressing into me, struggling to be loosed between my legs like a racehorse seconds before the gates open.

  But he paused, caught my earlobe between his teeth, nipped hard enough to wrench a gasp from me, then whispered, “Let’s hope I fuck the right one.”

  The right one? My eyes flew open, and I stiffened, fearing anal sex like a Roswellian fears probes, but in one quick move, he buried his cock in my cunt.

  A spasm rocketed through me, and I almost came the moment he entered, but he held fast, entombed deep inside me, waiting for me to calm. Waiting for himself to calm. I started shaking, and my fingers slipped. He tightened his hold to the edge of oxygen deprivation.

  “Vous ne devriez pas taquiner, mon amour,” he said, his French as strong and fluid as his movements. “You should not tease,” he repeated in English.

  Even though he was still, the beginnings of an orgasm resurfaced in the distance, rippling through me in hot, pulsating waves. The tighter his hold, the deeper his cock, the closer it came. I struggled beneath him, luring it even closer, begging, but he held fast. His weight too much. His hold too strong.

  He kissed my jaw. My neck. The corner of my mouth. Then, without warning, he slid out, but only an inch or two before he plunged back inside. I gasped as he held me down again. Tightened his hold on my throat. The constraint caused a flood tide of pleasure. It spread like wildfire, and I squirmed underneath him. Wanting that again. That pang of desire, sharp and erotic and fierce.