“It’s just what I do—did—I don’t know.” He handed her the laptop and sat back against the headboard, putting his glasses on the nightstand and sliding his eyes shut. She’d hoped a shower and some time to himself to think would improve his attitude, but he was still all dark thunderclouds.
“Clyde?”
“Delaney?”
She leaned her head back to cast him a sidelong glance. His profile was tense and rock hard. “What the hell is wrong with you? We just had the best news we’ve had since we hooked up. Could you at least crack a smile? I understand needing to absorb this, but we need to be looking up hospitals and locating you, er, your body, I mean.”
“Locating me,” he said with a flat note.
“Yeah! If we can find out where you are then we can . . .”
“Can what?”
Yeah. What? How were they going to get him back into his body? Shit, she should have watched Paranormal State more often—maybe she’d have learned something. “Okay, so we have a stumbling block or two, but that doesn’t mean we can’t figure it out, Clyde. C’mon, you’re really smart—help me find some answers. I promise it’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.”
Clyde pounced on her like a cat pounces on a stuffed toy mouse, his legs straddling her hips, his arms bracketing her shoulders. His eyes lanced hers, intense and cutting. “Don’t say anything else. I don’t want to talk about my body or where it’s at, or how in the hell we plan to get me the fuck back into it.”
Whoa. “But we have to talk about it, Clyde. If we don’t talk about it, we’ll never figure this out, and then—”
Clyde’s mouth was on hers, stopping her words, her thoughts, stopping everything but the pound of her heart and the heat gathering at all points on her body. His lips became aggressive—insistent—demanding. His rock-hard shaft pushed at her hip from beneath his jeans; he shoved her T-shirt up with hands that were impatient and held urgency.
His hands roamed her body. His lips followed close behind, licking, teasing, sucking her skin, taking her nipples in his mouth and laving them with fierce, hot strokes.
Deft fingers slipped under her panties and spread the lips of her sex, stroking them until they swelled with need, ached to be satisfied. Her clit throbbed, pulsing with wanton lust as she buried her face in the pillow, jamming it over her face when Clyde’s skilled hands and mouth brought her to orgasm. The climax made her stomach muscles clench so tight, she had to fight for air. Delaney stifled a scream with a clenched fist to her mouth, rising up and driving against his hand.
Clyde pushed his hands beneath her, latching on to her waist and dragging her down along the bed to look him directly in the eye. Shocked eyes met blazing blue ones just before he captured her lips again and pushed the heel of his hand to her shoulder, driving her back against the bed to her back.
Commanding, demanding, driven were the words that flitted through her addled, lust-filled brain when he pulled her underwear off and chucked them on the floor. But Delaney wanted more this time; she wanted to taste Clyde, discover what else made him writhe with desire.
Slipping from beneath him, she rolled him to his back, slinking along his body until she laid her head against his pelvic bone. Clyde’s cock strained against his abdomen, reaching upward, the smooth skin hot to the touch and lightly veined.
She snaked her tongue out, flicking it with a light lick. Clyde reached down between his legs, thrusting his hands into her hair with a feral groan. Wasting no time, she took him in her mouth in one downward stroke, letting her tongue follow with a leisurely pass. She grew bold with each plunge of her mouth, wrapping her fingers around his rigid length and pumping him until she felt him shudder beneath her.
Each groan she elicited from Clyde, each deep rumble of satisfaction spurred her on until Clyde’s hands tightened in her hair. “Stop!” he growled, pulling her up to meet his eyes. “I want to be inside you when I come. Deep inside you.”
Her chest shifted at his words, her heart pounding so hard and sharp it would surprise her to find only she could hear it.
Wordlessly, he rolled her to her back, spreading her legs and kneeling between them. His eyes held so many emotions in the light of the room, his teeth clenched with a clear struggle she didn’t understand. Clyde’s large hands clamped onto her thighs when the tip of his cock pressed against her entry, preparing to delve into the wet cavern.
She lifted her hips, welcoming the hard, silken length of him when he plunged into her. He moved within her with fevered strokes, as though each one would be the last, each slick glide melting into the next.
Her eyes clenched shut, her jaw locking at the sweet heat he stirred in her. Hot flames licked between her thighs, signaling the beginning of the end. Delaney couldn’t fight the tendrils of climax, couldn’t slow the impending tidal wave of sensation as it lifted her high, pounding into her, then dropped her with a sudden sharp jolt.
Clyde’s thrusts peaked with a frenzied tempo, sinking deeper into her until he roared his satisfaction. He stilled for a moment, then collapsed against her.
Her breathing was irregular, hurting her throat on the way out of her mouth. Holy Clyde gone wild. Every inch of her body was sated, and unable to move a muscle.
Clyde rolled off her, pushing strands of hair from her face and mouth. “Are you okay?” His question was smattered with sweet concern she could clearly hear.
There were levels of okay. This okay was like a level nine point five on a scale of one to ten. Totally okay with the intensity of their lovemaking, but concerned about what had brought on the sudden need Clyde had displayed.
But as she came down, caught her breath, had a moment to reproduce a brain cell or two, she suddenly understood without him having to say a word. Clyde needed affirmation. He needed to feel—to connect—because he didn’t know when he’d do that again after they located his body. He was on overload. That he’d turned to her, even if it was just for comfort of a physical nature, made her heart tighten.
When she finally answered, she looked him directly in his eyes. “I’m more than okay. The question is, are you okay? I was getting pushy in my excitement.”
“I’m okay. It’s a lot to wrap my brain around. All this time I thought I was outta here when my assignment was done, and now I find that that might not be the case. I’m just wondering what the hell we’re going to find when we find me and if I want to get back into a body that’s supposedly comatose. At least in Hell I’m not bedridden.” The emphasis he placed on the word bedridden was hard to miss.
He’d mentioned being sick as a kid—it must be a sore spot for him. She rolled to her side. Seeing him fully naked in the light for the first time took her breath away. He was the most beautiful, magnificent man she’d ever seen, and she couldn’t help but be thankful that wherever his body was, it was alive. Whatever that entailed, she didn’t care. Just the thought that the possibility existed that he could recuperate made her want to do a happy dance. She just wanted to keep looking at him, soak in every last minute of time with him before they had to deal with what was next. “What is this from?” There was a scar on Clyde’s chest, long but clean, extending from his clavicle to his breastbone.
“Heart surgery.”
“Yeah. You said you were sick when you were a kid.”
“I was.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t see this when we . . . you know . . .”
He grinned and winked. “You mean when we wonked, slammed, hooked up?”
She playfully punched him on the arm. “You know what I mean.” Unfortunately, it didn’t mean the same thing for her anymore. There was no one to blame but herself and her Richter scale estrogen levels for the kind of deep she was now in.
Clyde wiggled his eyebrows, making them rise above the top of his glasses, which he’d put back on. “That’s because we’ve done the wild thing mostly in the dark.”
“So you were sick.”
“Very. I was born with a congenital heart defect that worsene
d as I aged. I went through a bunch of corrective surgeries as a kid. I was in and out of hospitals most of my life.”
“Well, that explains your over-the-top knowledge of useless facts like album names and song titles.”
“Yeah. I spent a lot of time reading, watching TV. I’m a sponge, what can I say?”
“Which also explains your love affair with isolation.”
“Thank you, Jenny Jones. What explains yours? Oh, wait—I know the answer to that. Fear.” He smiled to soften the blow of his harsh words.
She ignored his jab. “That must’ve sucked.”
“Not as much as you’d think. I had supportive parents. They tried to make up for my lack of friends in their own way.”
“And your obvious distaste for the word bedridden. Is that what’s upsetting you? Knowing we’re going to find your body in a hospital bed?”
“That’s part of it. I’m not loving the idea that my body’s useless, because I worked so hard to keep it in tip-top physical condition, but what troubles me more is, if I can get back into my body, or whatever you’re hatching in your pretty little head, who’ll help you when Satan makes his next move? In all of this, we’ve sort of forgotten about you and your predicament with the devil, and I just can’t let that happen.”
Delaney’s heart became erratic, wildly so, skipping beats over words she so wanted to believe meant more than just Clyde being noble. “Let’s worry about problem number one. You have a time limit. I don’t, that we know of, anyway.”
Clyde kissed the tips of her fingers. “For the moment, but I’m not getting back into anything, bodies or otherwise, until I know you’ll be okay. So where were we?”
“Sick, you were sick as a kid.”
“Yes. I was pretty sick.”
“But you obviously got better—this”—she waved her hand over his abs—“being your true human form.”
“I did. I worked out, got a degree, and never had a single problem after that.”
“After what?”
“My heart transplant.”
“You had a heart transplant?”
“When I was twenty-two.”
“Wait, you said you were almost thirty-seven. So in 1994?”
“Yep. November 21, 1994. It’s a day I’ll never forget.”
Delaney bolted upright. No. Oh, fuck. No. Any date but that date. Delaney paled, her blood running through her veins like ice. “Where?”
“Lang Memorial Hospital in North Dakota. Where I had all of my surgeries.” He said it with such clarity, it startled them both.
“You remembered . . .”
He smiled. “Yeah. Look at that . . .”
The room became a narrow pinpoint of nothing but the scar on Clyde’s chest. It all added up. The doctor, Florence Nightingale, and finally, Robert Young. Fear threaded its way through her veins. Cold and throbbing. “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” The words spilled from her mouth. She’d seen those papers. She knew where Vincent’s heart had gone. Lang Memorial Hospital. Duh! That’s what Robert Young had been doing when he’d popped up, handing her the last piece of this crazy jigsaw puzzle. Marcus Welby must have worked at Lang Memorial Hospital. She yanked the laptop from the edge of the nightstand and typed in the URL for Wikipedia. Her fingers trembled, waiting for it to pop up. Her throat tightened as she hit the backspace three times before she was able to type in correctly Marcus Welby, M.D.
Oh, God. OhGodohGodohGod.
“Delaney? What’s wrong?”
“You got Vincent’s heart . . .”
“Who?”
She gripped his hands. “Oh, my God, Clyde. Don’t you see? This explains everything. There must have been some kind of mix-up . . . it explains how you ended up in Hell. It explains your ridiculous love of banana Slurpees . . .”
“Okay, slow down. Who the hell is Vincent and what does this explain?”
Her breath quickened, and a cold, clammy sweat formed in her palms. “Have you always loved banana Slurpees or did that happen after your heart transplant?”
He rubbed his jaw in thought. “I guess after. Wait. Definitely after. I remember going into a 7-Eleven and heading straight for the Slurpee machine without really knowing why I absolutely had to have one. I’d never had one before.”
“And isn’t it true that sometimes a heart transplant recipient takes on characteristics of the donor? Or in this case, the cravings of a donor?”
Clyde’s brow wrinkled, his next words hesitant and measured. “I’ve read it’s not uncommon.”
Words were impossible. She had none. She’d done this. She was responsible. What she’d once thought was an act of redemption had turned into—into—Clyde being doomed to Hell.
How could that be? Vincent’s heart had nothing to do with Clyde’s soul. If Clyde’s soul was clean, how could having Vincent’s heart have destined him for this?
“This is my fault,” she choked out, covering her mouth with her hand.
“What’s your fault, Delaney?”
“Why you’re in Hell. It’s my fault. Oh, God, Clyde. If I had known I never would have . . .”
“Would have what? You’re not making any sense.”
“I never would have donated Vincent’s heart. Never. I swear it.” She’d condemned an innocent soul to Hell. Shit. She was officially a soul fucker-upper.
“Delaney, who is Vincent and what does this have to do with me?”
Her hands reached for the edge of the bed, seeking support while the world reeled.
Clyde pulled her back to him. “Talk to me. Who—is—Vincent?”
“My brother. My half brother.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“That has to be it. You got his heart. It explains all the roadblocks we’ve run into. You got Vincent’s black, black, cold heart.”
eighteen
Clyde’s gaze never wavered. “So you owe me an explanation.”
“Yeah, yeah, I do.”
“So hit me.”
“With my best shot?”
Clyde almost grinned, then sobered. “Now.”
“I kinda like you when you get all alpha on me. It’s super-duper hot—especially on a tame guy like you.”
“Wanna see me not so tame?”
“No. I’m sorry. I was making light again, wasn’t I?”
“No more light and no more secrets.”
“Okay. So it went like this. Kellen and I had a half brother. His name was Vincent. We had no idea he existed. None. My mother never, ever mentioned him. She never breathed a word about another marriage other than the one to my father. As far as we knew, Dad had been her only husband, for reasons we found out much later. I was in college, studying veterinary medicine, and Kellen was bumming his way through life, delivering pizzas while he figured out what he wanted to do with himself. Mom was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s.” She choked on the word—still so hard to say out loud, even now. Her mother’s deterioration had been one of the longest, hardest, most draining periods in her move to adult-hood. Draining and sometimes unbearable.
“And your father was already gone.”
“Right.”
“And?”
Delaney scoffed with a snorting huff. “This Vincent shows up, and he has proof he’s our half brother. Real proof, Clyde. He had a bunch of pictures of my mom and him. All sorts of pictures. But it wasn’t just that—he had other proof, too. Birth certificates and a marriage license—stuff we followed up on and found county records, divorce papers for.” Even now, she still couldn’t believe how Vincent’s father had managed to cover it all up.
“And what was his explanation for why he lived with his father all those years and not your mother and you?”
Vincent had had an answer for everything. “His claim was that all of his life his father, Richard, had told him his mother—my mother—was dead. Vincent said Richard could barely talk about it without becoming enraged, but when his father died, he’d left a will with a confession about my mother in it. He’d
told Vincent from a very young age that my mother left them before her eventual death. Richard knew all about my mother and us—he’d kept tabs on us over the years. In this letter, he made it look like she’d gone off and gotten herself some new family and that telling Vincent she was dead was easier on a little boy than telling him his mother ditched his ass, but just before his death, he had some private detective find us so he’d be able to leave Vincent the information.”
“A coward even in death,” Clyde said with distaste.
“Anyway, once we got past the shock and disbelief, the endless questions about why Mom had never breathed a word about Vincent and a former marriage—questions he knew damned well we couldn’t ask her because of her debilitation—both Kellen and I decided he was family. Where we come from—how we were raised—you don’t turn away family. Anyway, we were young. I was almost twenty at the time, Kellen was eighteen, and Vincent was pushing thirty-five when we met him. Thirty-five and rich. He had buttloads of money, and between college and Mom’s care, well, we were drained. The life insurance policy after my father’s death was slowly running out—which meant I’d have to leave college to keep her where she was.”
“But Vincent had an answer, and I’m betting cash and a savior complex were involved.” Clyde’s words were snide, angry.
Delaney pinched her eyes with her thumb and forefinger to keep tears from flowing. “He said she was his mother, too. He was some rich defense attorney by then, and Kellen and I were stupid and hopeful—so hopeful we were willing to do whatever we had to, to give every comfort to our mother until she passed.”
“And Vincent helped.”
“Hoo boy—did he ever. But there were things about Vincent we could never quite pinpoint that made both of us really uncomfortable.”
“Like?”
Simply remembering, dredging up all those times with Vincent, was like a shitstorm of painful memories. “Like he walked life on the edge. He drank too much. He was a pig when it came to women. He objectified them, leered at them, made remarks about my college girlfriends all the time, but he never lacked for one wrapped around him like some big bow. He was essentially a total scumbag. He defended the lowest scum of the earth, too—murderers, rapists, a pedophile or two. Yeah, I realize someone has to represent filth like that, but these defendants were prominent members of the community, most of them so guilty they may as well have had it written on their foreheads with a black Magic Marker, and all with buttloads of cash. Yet, Vincent didn’t see it as such a big deal—not when he boldly told us about one guy he’d gotten off for murdering his wife even though he knew he was guilty. He prided himself on the strings he could pull with the cops. Then once, after we’d all been out to dinner together, we were pulled over. Vincent had definitely had too much to drink, and Kellen and I knew it. I know I should have taken the keys from him, but I don’t know that I got just how trashed he was until the officer made him get out and walk in a straight line. I figured we’re screwed. But nope. He hands the cop something, mentions a name or two, and it’s over as fast as it started.”
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