But the heat wafting toward me now had the consistency of anger. I lifted a hand and placed my palm on the Sheetrock that separated us. It was scorching, almost painful.
Yep, anger.
He’d been lying in bed, probably thinking of the best way to dispose of the Dealer. I would have to convince him otherwise for the time being. The Dealer was different from other Daeva. He’d been born on earth. He was, in every sense of the word, human. Partly, at least. And very much like Reyes himself.
So if Reyes was going to stew in his own anger, fine. I did what I had to do, and he would just have to learn to live with it. We were nigh affianced. He had to take the good with the bad. And besides, I could give Reyes Alexander Farrow something much better to think about.
I wondered if he could feel my emotions through the wall, because his heat grazed over my fingertips and along my palm as though purposefully. As though it had an agenda.
Reyes could do amazing things with his essence. He could send it out. He could skim it over my skin. He could bury it deep inside me until I writhed in ecstasy. I wondered if I could do that, too.
I’d left my body before. I’d killed a man in the process, but from that experience, I knew it was possible, but could I control it the way Reyes could? He’d come to me hundreds of times, even when we were growing up, before I knew who, or what, he was. And now I’d done it. My essence, my spirit, had left my body. Could I do it again? The first time was under extreme duress. I wasn’t duressed at the moment. A little stressed, maybe. A little befuddled at what had happened with the Dealer, with everything he’d told us, but not duressed.
Still, I was the grim reaper. I had to get a grip. Figure this shit out before I was ripped apart by a hellhound. I had to learn what I could and could not do, and I had to learn to control it. What better test subject than someone who was almost indestructible? I could be like a mad scientist, and Reyes could be my experiment. What could go wrong?
Closing my eyes, I ran my hand farther up the wall. The sensation of fire grew stronger as I brushed my sensitive fingertips over the texture. I let it. I welcomed it, urged it closer, absorbed it until it penetrated my skin, soaked my bones to the marrow, and pushed up my arm. It touched my neck, tingled along my cheek like a soft caress, laced across my collarbone, down over my chest and flooded my torso with a tart warmth. Danger and Will struggled against the confines of my T-shirt, their crests jutting out, the texture of the material only serving to harden them more. The friction sent a jolt of pleasure straight to my core, rippling through me, pressing down until the heat dipped low in my abdomen, until it consumed every molecule in my body.
But it was my turn. I was the mad scientist in this scenario. I wanted to do the same to him, to penetrate his body and soul the way he’d penetrated mine. I fought the unimaginable pleasure coursing through my veins and I focused. I pushed. I sent out my energy, let it glide along my nerve endings and up through my arm until it broke through the wall between us. I still couldn’t actually see Reyes, but I could sense him and feel him. I could very much feel him.
I let my energy wash over him. Let it explore the hills and valleys of his muscles as they contracted and released under my touch. I felt the smoothness of his skin, the hardness of the muscles underneath, the tautness of his abdomen. Lower and lower until I was rewarded with a telltale rush of blood.
He sucked in air through his teeth when I grazed his erection. The sense of accomplishment was heady, but I wanted more. I wanted inside him like he’d been inside me. I wanted to make him come from the inside out. I wanted to make him writhe in ecstasy. Beg for release. But he’d put up a guard. A mental block of some kind. Always wary of what I might see if he let me in.
That was hardly fair.
I sharpened my touch. Let my fingernails bite into his flesh. Coaxed and urged him to let me in. His arms were resting above his head, and he curled his hands into fists. Clenched his jaw.
“Dutch,” he said in warning.
I said nothing back. I wasn’t sure if I could. But I pushed again, opening his legs, and let my energy pulse over his body in electric waves. He threw back his head, pressing it into the pillow as his fingers became entangled in the sheets around him.
And he lowered his guard.
The moment he did, I entered him. Our energies collided in a rush of sensuous elation, the atoms pushing and pulling until the friction built to nuclear levels. He arched his back and fought me, each of us struggling to get the upper hand, to send the other over the edge first.
At the same time I was exploring him, he was exploring me. It took me a moment to realize part of what I was feeling was my own skin being caressed. My own fires being stoked. His energy brushed over me and around me and into me like liquid smoke, fusing with every particle in my body as he stirred the arousal crackling inside me. I felt his hunger, hot and urgent between my legs, raw and powerful. The air in my lungs thickened as a series of aching spasms grew stronger with each beat of my heart, siphoning me closer and closer until a white-hot orgasm burst inside me, crashing and tumbling and reeling.
I’d gotten lost in my own swelling desire, but it seemed my climax was all Reyes needed to release his own firestorm. His muscles tensed around me as I felt the sweet sting of his climax spill onto his stomach, the evidence warm on his abdomen.
I felt him claw at his sheets as the orgasm coursed through him, ebbing only for a microsecond until it spiked again in time with his racing pulse. After a few agonizing moments, it slowly ebbed, leaving only Reyes’s labored breathing in its wake. He’d had a death grip on his sheets. He disentangled his fingers and ran them over his face before covering it with one arm.
He spoke to me then, his deep voice husky, spent. “Come sleep with me.”
When I didn’t answer, again unsure if I even could, he rose to clean himself off. I could see him more clearly now, but my touch was still more sensitive in this state than my sight. Something I’d have to work on, would have to strengthen like a muscle.
I stayed with him until he crawled back into bed and dragged a sheet haphazardly over his bottom half. Then he pressed his hand against the wall, and his lids drifted shut almost immediately. Just before I left, he whispered it again. “Come sleep with me.”
But he was out. It was odd sensing everything about him and yet not actually seeing him with my eyes but only in my mind’s eye. I could suddenly understand why, when he was growing up, he never knew if I was real or not. He’d thought I was a dream. That was exactly how this felt. Dreamlike. Real and yet not real. Tangible and yet untouchable, as though he would slip through my fingers if I actually tried get hold of him. But I’d done just that. Touched him. Caressed him. Milked him until he came.
I fell asleep immersed in his essence, in his taste and texture and earthy scent. I also fell asleep with my hand against the wall, his heat warming my palm not six inches away from his.
8
Clothes? sufficient
Keys? found ’em
Coffee cup? full
Sanity? sanity?
—T-SHIRT
I woke up what seemed like seconds later to a hand over my mouth, and that’s just never a pleasant way to wake up. Alarm spiked so fierce and so fast, Reyes was there instantly, incorporeally, engulfed in his black robe. It grew like a tidal wave around me, and I heard the sing of a blade being drawn. But I didn’t know what was happening. I held up a hand to stop him, trying to gain my bearings. A man in a black ski mask stood over me, a gun in his right hand, the tip of which was lodged against my left temple. A fact that made me very uncomfortable.
Reyes growled, and I could feel his visceral need to slice through the man, to overtake him. He pushed it back. Swallowed it down. But it wasn’t easy, and his control wouldn’t last long. Which meant I didn’t have long.
I forced myself to relax, to control my reactions, and sought the intruder’s intentions. Did he want me dead? If so, I was about to unleash an enraged son of Satan on his ass. But I recognized the reason for his presence instantly. He was carrying out orders. I could feel obligation, along with a disturbing sense of enjoyment, rush through him. He was a messenger, a fact that raised the question, whom was the message from?
The man laid a piece of paper on my chest, then used that hand to clutch my throat. “You have forty-eight hours to find out where they’re keeping her or your friend dies.” He shoved into me, crushing my larynx and jamming the barrel into my temple as a warning. “And no cops.” He shoved again, pushing off me; then he was gone.
Only as he was leaving did I realize there were two of them. They bolted through my bedroom door, having no idea how close they’d come to having their spines severed.
I coughed and drew in a deep breath as Reyes’s robe disappeared. He rushed to me. “Who the fuck was that?”
I held my neck, tested my throat with a quick swallow. “I have no idea. But I’m okay.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Wait, my friend?”
Dread sent a rush of adrenaline shooting up my spine. I jumped up and ran to Cookie’s apartment. She’d locked it, thank God. I pounded on the door, then went back for my key, but she opened the door before I could find it.
“Charley!” she said, hurrying forward. “What happened?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Cookie glanced around, wondering why she wouldn’t be.
“Amber,” I said a second before scrambling to Cookie’s apartment to check her room.
Cookie was right behind me, as was a flesh and blood Reyes Farrow. He’d thrown on a pair of jeans and come out of his apartment. I opened Amber’s bedroom door and turned on the light. She was sound asleep, her long dark hair tumbling over her pillow like a princess from a fairy tale.
Cookie whispered behind me. “Charley, what? What’s going on?”
I turned off the light and closed the door. “I’m so sorry, Cook. Two men just broke into my apartment.”
“Why the fu—?” Reyes began, his voice loud enough to wake Amber.
“Reyes,” I said in a breathy hiss, “not here.” He was angry with me once again. Men and their mood swings. Women had nothing on them.
I led them both back to my apartment, and the minute I closed the door, he tore into me. “What the fuck was that?”
He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the button on his jeans had yet to be fastened, so it took me a minute to respond. “What? They threatened a friend. They said if I didn’t find some chick in forty-eight hours, my friend was dead.”
“And?” he asked, getting closer to me. His anger undulated around me, hot and pulsing.
“And if they are holding a friend of mine, I couldn’t have you severing their spines, now, could I?”
He whirled away from me with an angry growl.
Cookie was holding a hand to her chest, not sure what to make of everything. “Two men broke in?” she asked, glancing around.
“Yes. Oh! The paper.” I hurried back to my room and brought out the paper he’d practically stabbed into my chest. It was a picture of a woman with a name underneath. That was it. “Okay, I have forty-eight hours to find this woman or my friend dies.” I shrugged. “Like I only have one. Which friend?”
“I don’t know,” she said, lowering herself onto a chair. “Maybe we should call everyone we can think of. Make sure all of your acquaintances are okay. I mean, did it sound like they were actually holding a friend of yours?”
“Kind of,” I said, thinking back. “I’m not sure. It happened so fast.”
Reyes was busy pacing like a caged animal, and I couldn’t help but note the fact that he was becoming more attuned to my emotions. He’d appeared the moment alarm rose within me. It was uncanny.
“I’m sorry, hon,” I said, walking to him. “I just couldn’t take the chance. I needed to know why they were there before I sentenced them to life in a wheelchair.”
I stopped talking when I noticed the look on his face. He was still angry, but his expression had softened.
I reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “What?”
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, ragged. “You called me hon.”
A soft laugh escaped me. “It’s a term of endearment.”
He blinked as though he didn’t know what to think.
“Hasn’t anyone ever called you hon before? Honey? Sweetheart?”
“No.”
I wondered what his human parents had called him when he was a baby. “I bet you have, you just don’t remember.”
“You should have let me rip them to shreds.”
“That may be and I may regret that later—in fact, if my track record holds true, I’m fairly certain I will—but for now, I’m fine.”
He ran a finger down my forearm, not wanting to show too much in front of Cook, most likely.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Cookie asked.
“They said no cops. I’ll call Uncle Bob and fill him in tomorrow morning.”
She nodded and rose to go back to her apartment.
“Yes,” I said, following her out. “Go, get some rest.”
“Rest?” She pointed to Mr. Coffee. “You start the coffee and I’ll get dressed. We’ll start making phone calls immediately.”
God, I loved that woman.
* * *
We called every friend I’d ever had since the day I was born. Not really, but it felt like it. My friend Pari, a tattoo artist who’d been banned from computers for hacking, complained for twenty minutes that I’d woken her. After an eternity, she finally shut up long enough for me to ask her if she was being held hostage by a group of men in ski masks. Then I had to suffer through another twenty minutes of what a stupid question that was.
“It wouldn’t have seemed stupid if you really were being held hostage by men in ski masks,” I’d argued. Either way, that was the last time I’d call her at four in the morning.
By six, I was pretty much out of people that I could call friends. Not that it took me that long to go through the list. It just took that long for people to answer their phones. We had to call some repeatedly, a fact that they did not appreciate one bit.