Naughty Karma: Karmic Consultants, Book 7 (22 page)

Prometheus nudged it with his foot. It slid easily across the carpet. Not heavy then. It would be awkward but he could lift it. “Where do you want to put it?”

“There’s space in the Bat Cave. It would be safe there.”

“Good idea.” His heart would be safe with Karma. Something about the thought struck him as funny, but he couldn’t dredge up the enthusiasm for more than a weak smile. Not with the box staring back at him.

“You know what I’ve been wondering? Why your heart? I’ve never heard of that being something devils like to bargain for.”

“I’d just had my heart broken when I made the deal. Couldn’t imagine that I would ever miss the damn thing.” He’d never admitted that to anyone, but the words just flowed out. If she’d been looking at him, he didn’t think he would have been able to answer, even with the vodka.

Karma was quiet for a long moment beside him, then, “What was she like?”

He shrugged. “Just a girl. Honestly I barely remember her.” That was true enough. But he remembered how he’d felt. How, for the first time in his life, he’d let himself want a
home
. How badly he’d wanted it to be her. He remembered her laugh. How she’d laughed when he’d proposed.
Don’t be ridiculous, Prometheus. We’re kids. You didn’t think this was serious, did you?

So he’d stopped taking love seriously. And he’d found a way to get rid of his heart and ensure he never felt that awful, wrenching powerlessness again.

“Was it worth it?” Karma turned her head, looking at him, and Prometheus lurched to his feet.

“Sure. Who wouldn’t want to be all-powerful? I’m living proof you don’t really need a heart.” He rounded the crate, looking for likely handholds. “Besides, the she-devil was hot. Perfect tonic for a broken heart.”

Karma’s gaze flicked downward. “Ah. I hadn’t realized your relationship went further than a business transaction.”

He shrugged. “I was nineteen and she was made for sex. What was I supposed to do?” When Karma didn’t answer, he bent and hefted the crate into his arms. “You wanna get the door?”

For a second he thought she might say something biting, but whatever it was that rose to the tip of her tongue, she swallowed it back and rose, poised as always. “Certainly. I can’t have you chipping the doorframe as you try to wrangle that thing.”

There was no doorframe chipping, though it was a tight fit on the elevator. Prometheus set the crate in her living room space, where it looked strangely appropriate amid the spare elegance of the room’s style. They both stared at it, listening to the eerily audible thumping of his heart, then Karma shifted away from him. “I’ll walk you out.”

The elevator ride back up was as silent as the ride down had been. When the doors opened, Karma exited first, making a beeline for the doors. He’d clearly said something to upset her, but she was tucking it up behind her layers of restraint. He liked it better when she was screaming at him.

He caught up to her halfway across the lobby. “Karma.” He grabbed her upper arm and she stopped, turning slowly. When she was facing him, she pressed a palm flat to his chest, right over where his heart ought to beat. He’d never been more aware of the silence of his own pulse.

“You’ll have it back soon. Who knows, maybe you’ll like it.”

Soon
had to be one of the scariest damn words on the planet. Either he’d have his heart back, or he’d be dead. Not exactly an ultimatum he was eager to see finalized.

“Deuma knows we’re up to something,” he heard himself confess, before the intent to tell her had even finalized in his brain. Damn vodka.

“How do you—”

“She came to see me. At my shop. She mentioned you.”
Worth three of you…
“I think she’d like to work out a renegotiation.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Original deals with devils are dangerous enough. Renegotiations are usually fatal.”

“So we stick to our original plan. The witches assure us the box is unchanged in any way that Deuma would be able to pick up on. She shouldn’t be able to sense that we’ve done anything and Rodriguez is digging into her history, so we’ll have every advantage we can muster when we summon her. We’ll be prepared for whatever she throws at us.”

Her reassurance made the uneasiness churn even more violently in his gut. “There’s no hurry. I promised Mia she could examine me some more. Tell Rodriguez to take all the time he needs. I wanna make sure we do this right.”

Karma pressed her hand harder against his chest. “It’s gonna be okay. We’re not going to let it fail.”

But it wasn’t only failure he was afraid of now. Now Karma was a part of things and he didn’t want to think about her getting hurt because of him.

Or her people. They’d gone above and beyond today, and they would go further. For him. As they would for anyone they’d claimed as part of their piecemeal family. They were what family should be but had never been for him. He wasn’t a part of their family, not really one of them, but they’d absorbed him in a way—like a step-sibling, an awkward uncle…or a foster kid. It was unnerving. More so because part of him liked it.

He’d never been confused before Karma, but she’d spun his world around so he wasn’t sure which direction was up anymore. He’d never cared about good or bad, but he’d always known what he wanted. Now the lines of his own desires were blurred by distinctions that weren’t in his vocabulary. The only clear thing was the woman in front of him—and the fact that she was coming to mean far too much to a man who made a point never to need anyone.

He studied her face, close enough to kiss, obviously willing—an open invitation in her eyes. Her lips were full—each of her features so perfectly refined. She was so striking, so beautiful her tawny skin seemed to glow with it. It would be easy to claim her as his own, and he was a greedy man by nature. Covetous. And she so clearly wanted to be claimed.

“I should go.”

Karma dropped her gaze. “Right.” Her hand fell away.

His hand didn’t seem to be getting the message from his brain that he was supposed to let her go. Slippery silk covered smooth skin beneath his fingers. It would be so easy to tip their relationship—whatever the hell it was—into something more. Something hot and sweet and maybe a little rough. Just for tonight. It didn’t have to mean anything.

She’s worth three of you
. The memory of the words echoed in his brain. Their meaning shifted, taunting. He dropped his hold on her arm. Karma deserved better than what a man like him could offer. She deserved all the bullshit he’d always disdained. The honor and poetry. And for once he was feeling noble enough to want to protect her—from himself.

“Good night, Karma.”

The asphalt gleamed wetly in the parking lot as he approached his bike. The sky roiled with layers of ominous clouds, so dark it could have been midnight rather than six. Wind made the flags on the building across the street twist and snap as erratic spits of rain sprayed the roads. It was gearing up to be a helluva tempest.
Maybe my last
.

He grimaced as the macabre thought hit him. He’d always loved storms. Even as a kid, he’d never been afraid of thunder and lightning—giving his foster moms (the ones who actually gave a damn) fits as he climbed up into trees or onto the roof to stare up into teeth of the angry sky, coming in dripping wet and exhilarated.

He was far from that exhilaration now. His chest felt hollow, empty for the first time, and as close as they were to success, all he felt was death sliding an icy hand up his spine. He’d known he would drop dead when his contract with Deuma was complete, but he’d never felt his mortality the way he did now.

Great time for a midlife crisis. Just as the clock was ticking down. So what was he supposed to do now? Go skydiving? Buy a fucking Porsche? Screw women a decade younger?
Been there, done that
. How did a man who lived like a rock star, letting only whim guide him, have a midlife crisis? Get a minivan and a dog and a house in the suburbs?
No fucking thank you
.

Thunder growled overhead, seeming to ask,
What do you want to do with your last month on earth, Prometheus?
Hell, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to do Karma. He wanted to bend her over and take her hard and fast, his hand fisted in that thick, black hair. He wanted slow and hot and wet, with every move amplified as he took her inch by inch. He wanted to trace every millimeter of that silken skin with his fingertips and then start all over again with his lips, tongue and teeth. She was the storm he wanted tonight.

So what the fuck was he doing out here? Getting rained on in a fucking parking lot?

She was too good for him. So fucking what? When had that ever mattered? Who the fuck was he kidding? He’d never had a noble day in his life. His thoughts sharpened and the shadows of his mortality cleared. So he was going to die? Fine. Tonight was do or die. And he was doing Karma.

Prometheus spun on his heel and stalked, head down, back toward his new favorite kind of storm.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Animal Urges

Karma got as far as the elevator door before she stopped, cursed and ran after him. She didn’t know how she felt about him—and the fact that he’d clearly slept with the maenad and saw no other use for his heart than in a business transaction—but she knew she didn’t want him to leave. It wasn’t logical, this desperation for him to stay, this bizarre certainty that if she could just get her arms around him, cling to him for a while, it would soothe the restless fears churning in her heart.

Logic had its day, but instinct was ruling the show now and instinct knew exactly what it needed. A tall, fierce warlock who took no prisoners and asked for nothing from anyone—until he came to her.

She slammed out of the front doors, straight into a storm. Inside the building, she’d barely been aware of the thunderheads gathering, but now wind and rain slapped her in the face, soaking the delicate silk of her blouse and plastering it to her skin in seconds.

She shivered, even though the rain was warm; Prometheus hadn’t left.

He strode toward her like a warrior intent on pillaging, head down, body tense. The rain began to pound, needles of it smacking into her skin, but Karma stood immobile, making no move to shield herself as she watched the freight train of sexual intent driving toward her. Lightning flashed and Prometheus lifted his head. He jerked to a stop when he saw her standing five feet in front of him, breathlessly watching him come.

His inky black gaze started at her sleek Louboutins—getting ruined in the deluge—and worked over her calves and the snug pencil skirt, pausing to study her soaked blouse as it outlined every curve, then rising to the length of her neck, her lips. When his eyes locked on hers, there was a stretching moment, a raw fraction of a second, when time seemed to shudder to a stop. The rain hung suspended in the air, flags froze on the breeze, and all that existed, all that was real, was the fierce hunger etched into every line of his face.

Then something snapped in him, some measure of control, some veneer of humanity, and he was on her. There was no time to prepare for the onslaught. The kiss was open-mouthed and already three steps down the road to mindlessness. His arms bound her to him, lifting her off her feet and up for a better angle. His tongue plunged between her lips, thrusting and tangling, and she met his frenzy with her own, clinging and pressing herself tight into his body. He growled into her mouth, the predator in him she’d always sensed no longer lurking beneath the surface but on full display. And she couldn’t get enough.

He broke the kiss, pulling back until they were eye to eye. Savage satisfaction pulsed through her at the look of raw lust on his face. She’d put it there. She’d done that. He lowered her until her feet touched the ground, his eyes shuttering. A little shiver of uncertainty spiked. He wasn’t ending things here, was he? Not now, God please not now.

Thunder rolled, reminding her of the storm that soaked them both. He set her away from him and rumbled darkly, “If you don’t want to do this right here in the parking lot,
run
.”

Karma gasped. The eroticism of the image—him driving into her against the side of the building, the storm providing all the cover either of them cared about, drenching them—was nearly enough to buckle her knees. She couldn’t think of a coherent response. Couldn’t
think
. Logic was gone. Thought was gone. It was all instinct. And when he growled low in his throat and took a step toward her, instinct surged in a flood of adrenaline and she ran.

She didn’t look back, but she could feel him behind her, the push of his magic raising the hair on the back of her neck. Through the lobby, into her office, she opened the panel, swiped her thumb to call the elevator and didn’t even have a chance to pull her hand back before he was spinning her, pinning her to the doors as the silk screen parted, his mouth back on hers. His hands locked around her wrists, pressing them to the door above her head and she pushed back, resisting so she could feel his strength trapping her exactly where he wanted her. She arched against him and he ground his hips into her, the hardness of him a luscious length against her abdomen.

The doors opened and she fell back, only his grip on her keeping them both from tumbling to the floor. He lifted her, spinning them both, and she felt a pulse of magic push against her skin as he carried her into the elevator like she weighed nothing more than a feather. Karma broke away, twisting to reach for the down button, but Prometheus caught her hands and dragged her mouth back to his, the down button lighting without either of them coming within a foot of it. Her lips curved against his—you had to appreciate a man with such varied talents.