“Okay.”
He helped her to her feet and held her close as he led them over to the front door. Inside, he shut things up and locked them, even though his protection spells were better than anything Schlage ever made.
Looking down at her, he lowered his lids to half-mast. “We going to bed?”
“Yes.”
Right answer. So the right answer.
Hitting the stairs, they stayed side by side, even on the landing. Which was good. What sucked? When they passed by the grandfather clock, the one that no one set and nobody cranked, the goddamn thing let out a gong. And another. And a third.
Jim ground his jaw and glared over his shoulder. In a series of quick inspirations, he imagined himself going after the cocksucker with a chain saw … an ax … a flamethrower.
Fourth … fifth … sixth …
“What is it?” Sissy asked as they came up to the second-story sitting area.
… seventh … eighth …
He knew she’d asked him a question, but he was too busy counting, even though he knew damn well what the total was going to be.
“Jim?”
… ninth … tenth … eleventh … twelfth …
“Jim.”
… thirteenth.
“Motherfucker,” he muttered under his breath before snapping himself back to attention. He was not going to let that nasty piece of shit ruin what little time he had with his woman.
Refocusing, he eyed the doorway to the bathroom he used, and was struck by an urge to reroute from the destination of her bedroom. Especially as he pictured her breasts hot-water-slick with soap suds dripping off the tips of her nipples.
Tugging at Sissy’s hand, he drew her over. “Come in here with me.”
Chapter Forty-two
Like she was going to say no to him when he looked at her like that?
As Jim drew her over to the bathroom, Sissy followed, because her body wanted exactly what was in his eyes. Her mind, though … her instincts? They were popping red flags all over the place—something was off about him, that hard glint in his eyes the kind of thing she hated to see.
But what could she do? It was late and everyone had had an exhausting day and there was always tomorrow morning. She’d talk to Eddie and Ad then—maybe they could help.
Jim let her go in first, and then he shut and locked the door behind them while she blinked and winced. The crane-arm light fixture over the old-fashioned sink was on, the clinically bright illumination on all the white tile about as romantic as an eye exam—but he took care of that. Reaching up, he unscrewed two out of the three bulbs and then draped a towel over the remaining one, careful not to get the terry cloth too close to the heat.
“Better?” he said.
As she nodded, for some reason she felt shy—although, come on¸ it wasn’t like they hadn’t gotten down with it before. This felt different, however … maybe because it seemed so planned and intentional. Or, no, maybe it was the fact that with the evil out of her, she felt as though she was about to be with him for the first time. Before? Even though everything had been intense and amazing, that contamination had clouded her—
Holy … shit, she thought as Jim lifted his T-shirt up over his abs, his pecs, his thick neck, his head. Even in the now-diffused lighting, his muscles stood out in sharp relief, carved rather than born, powerful even though he wasn’t fighting anyone at the moment.
Leaning to the side, he started the shower, his body flexing in a coordinated series of movements while he twisted the knobs to get the right combination of hot and cold.
As far as she was concerned? He could futz around with the temperature for the next twenty hours.
Except then it was time for him to work on her. Straightening, he came at her with a burning look on his face—like not only did he want her, but he needed the connection they were about to have.
“You’re beautiful, you know that.” Not a question. A statement—and how great was that? “But you have way too many clothes on.”
“Are you going to fix that problem?” Check her out with the come-ons. “Or make me do it myself.”
“I’m going to take care of it.”
She put her hands over her head as he pulled her sweatshirt off, and then his touch was all over her skin, running up from her waist to her simple white bra. Dropping his head, he nuzzled the white cotton out of the way and latched onto her nipple—
With a hiss, she went lax, her body curving against the hard bar of his arm at the small of her back. As he continued to work her, her clothes disappeared, pants and panties gone, bra off, nothing but naked skin left for his eyes, his hands, his mouth.
She was up and over the edge of the huge Victorian claw-foot tub a moment later, and he joined her under the hot spray, his body already primed and raring to go as he pulled the curtain around them. But instead of lifting her up around his waist, or pulling one of her legs high and going in? He went for the soap, rubbing that bar over and over in his hands until the sudsy froth fell in fragrant lots into the swirl around the drain at their feet. His hands were slow and thorough, and she wished she were lying down so that the only thing she had to concentrate on was the way he caressed her, lingering over her neck and her collarbones, her breasts and her stomach, her thighs and her backside.
And when he finished going over every single square inch of skin she had? He got the shampoo and went for her hair—which of course meant she had to get flush with him, the soap making her slip and slide against his hard body.
Naturally, she had to amuse herself as he worked at the long lengths.
She went for his erection, taking it into her palms, making him curse and lose his rhythm.
“You sure you wanna do that?” he asked in a guttural way.
“Oh, yeah. Yup. Very sure.”
As she worked her hands up and down his length, the soap was the perfect lubricant, and, God, she loved how he felt. Hard and hot, with that ridge and the blunt head. It wasn’t long before his body slammed against the wall, his great weight pulling the shower curtain out of its graceful fall of folds.
His eyes were stoned and hyper-alert at the same time as he stared not at what she was doing, but right at her face—as if the physical friction was nice and all, but what really turned him on was the fact that she was the one doing it to him. And then he closed his lids and gritted his teeth, his breath going short as he got closer and closer …
He came all over the front of her and she loved it.
But he didn’t recover for long.
He kissed her deep and traded places with her, shifting her under the spray, the rush hitting her hair and drawing her head back. When there was a squeak from the tub, she looked down and saw that he was on his knees in front of her.
His hands were like the warm water, all over her body—his mouth, too, his lips traveling to her hip bones, the tops of her thighs—
The top of her sex.
And then he licked her, his tongue extending, tasting.
Thank God he took control, lifting one of her legs over his shoulder as he went in further, his hands locking on her pelvis to keep her from falling. Now she was the one tangling the shower curtain, grabbing onto the folds, using them to hold herself upright.
She orgasmed against his lips and his face, the sight of where he was and what he was doing pitching her right over the edge within moments. And he didn’t stop.
She didn’t want him to.
Warm and wet—everything was warm and wet, from the heat in the air around them to the shower down her back to the way he made love to her core—
The crash was a shocker, not just bursting the bubble of sex, but blowing it the hell up.
With a quick surge he was up on his feet, ready to fight—but there was no enemy in the bathroom with them.
Sissy lifted her hands, and the soggy, soaked shower curtain came up with them. “Oh … crap. I ripped…”
Glancing up, she saw a whole lot of eye hooks with bits of fabric hanging off them still attached to the metal ring that hung from the ceiling.
“Never mind,” he growled as he picked her up and got out of the tub.
He left the water still running as he backed her against the door, put her legs around his hips, and went into her with a strong thrust. Gripping his shoulders with her nails, she gave herself up to the sex, and oh, man, if what had happened in the tub had been good, this was even better.
And it was what she needed right now.
Joined like this? She could pretend that they were going to be together … forever.
Chapter Forty-three
An hour and one more shower later, Sissy was downstairs in the kitchen, helping herself to the last slice of Eddie’s perfectly cooked chocolate cake. Jim had passed out cold in his bedroom—because that was as far as they’d made it. Even though hers was just four or five more doors down the hall, they’d been too greedy and impatient to make the trip.
Funny, there had been a new and different satisfaction in leaving him in tangled sheets, his fighter’s body all used up because of how much he wanted her.
Before she’d left, she’d stood over him and watched him … even carefully touched the gold dove pendant of hers that he wore around his neck. He’d stirred at that point and that was why she left.
For some reason, she couldn’t shake the conception that something bad was about to happen.
“So, yup, chocolate is perfect,” she muttered as she sat down at the table and took the first bite.
Oh, God, it was amazing: All the endorphins in her body from those orgasms, coupled with the chocolate cake and the fake vanilla icing? High-octane euphoria, even with that spiking fear in the center of her chest.
There was a copy of the Caldwell Courier Journal on the far side of the table, and she pulled it over so her eyes had something to do. The top half of the front page was all about international stuff. The bottom had a picture of some real estate tycoon who had apparently decided to sell off all his holdings and was creating a stir in town—
Sissy frowned and leaned closer to the black-and-white photograph. Then decided she was seeing things.
Except no … that man had a halo: Even with the grainy nature of the image, she could see a faint circle over the businessman’s head.
Vincent diPietro. And the photo had been taken the day before, as he’d walked into his lawyer’s office downtown to sign papers.
Strange, that he had one, as well. But considering everything else that was going on? Not something she was going to give much thought to.
After she finished her midnight snack, she had a skim-milk chaser, and put her dishes in the sink. Then she was all about the upstairs, ready to cozy up to Jim and have him throw an arm over her—because God only knew what the morning was going to bring.
Except she didn’t make it to even the first landing of the staircase.
She ended up in the trashed parlor.
The plywood sheets over the busted-out windows did a fairly good job of keeping the rain out, but they weren’t a tight lock, so the room felt colder and even more damp than the rest of the house. And even with the drafts, the piney smell of the fresh-cut plywood permeated the air, like someone had hung evergreen air fresheners off all the sconces.
As her bare feet went silently over the chilly, bare floorboards, there were no lamps to turn on, because they’d all been sucked away along with the tables they’d been sitting on. There was, however, enough illumination to see by: Thanks to the exterior fixtures mounted on the corner of the house, artificial light bled through the loose seals around the window wells, looking as if maybe the plywood panels were doors you could pass through to other planes of existence.
She found what she was looking for on the mantelpiece over the marble fireplace.
Devina’s book barely fit on the ledge, its ragged leather cover hanging off nearly to the point of falling. She figured Adrian must have put it there while he’d been working on the room. Or maybe the thing had climbed up the moldings and taken a seat by itself.
She hated the weight of the tome in her hands, and the old-man-flesh feel of its cover. Hated being near it at all. Before, it had been nothing more than some book; now it felt like she was carrying a severed arm over to the light.
It was two deep breaths before she could open the thing. Two more before she could actually look down and—
“What the hell?”
Frowning, she flipped through the pages, going back and forth and … nope, she recognized nothing. The writing now seemed like something utterly foreign, a hodgepodge of symbols and strange letters that was unreadable as far as she was concerned.
Closing the volume up, she returned it to its place on the mantel.
The relief was so great, she was dizzy.
Hitting the stairs, she was halfway up before something Jim said came back to her. It had been when they’d sat outside and she’d asked him, What happens now?
With you? Nothing.
At the time, she’d been talking about the war, not her future, but his answer had been about her and her alone.
Assuming he won the war—and she had to believe he would, because the alternative of her, and everyone else, going into Devina’s possession was too horrifying to contemplate—what then? She had to think that if she’d been welcome in Heaven, she would have ended up there after the ritual in that tub at the loft. But no, she was still here.
Guess eternity on a cloud wasn’t in her future.
So what did that leave her? Endless years roaming the earth as some disembodied soul? Because halo aside, that was what she was, for all intents and purposes.
Resuming her ascent, she went to Jim’s room, slipped through the doorway, and took off her sweats before getting in between the sheets. As strong arms scooped her up and pulled her into a tight embrace, she needed the warmth and the grounding.
He helped her to her feet and held her close as he led them over to the front door. Inside, he shut things up and locked them, even though his protection spells were better than anything Schlage ever made.
Looking down at her, he lowered his lids to half-mast. “We going to bed?”
“Yes.”
Right answer. So the right answer.
Hitting the stairs, they stayed side by side, even on the landing. Which was good. What sucked? When they passed by the grandfather clock, the one that no one set and nobody cranked, the goddamn thing let out a gong. And another. And a third.
Jim ground his jaw and glared over his shoulder. In a series of quick inspirations, he imagined himself going after the cocksucker with a chain saw … an ax … a flamethrower.
Fourth … fifth … sixth …
“What is it?” Sissy asked as they came up to the second-story sitting area.
… seventh … eighth …
He knew she’d asked him a question, but he was too busy counting, even though he knew damn well what the total was going to be.
“Jim?”
… ninth … tenth … eleventh … twelfth …
“Jim.”
… thirteenth.
“Motherfucker,” he muttered under his breath before snapping himself back to attention. He was not going to let that nasty piece of shit ruin what little time he had with his woman.
Refocusing, he eyed the doorway to the bathroom he used, and was struck by an urge to reroute from the destination of her bedroom. Especially as he pictured her breasts hot-water-slick with soap suds dripping off the tips of her nipples.
Tugging at Sissy’s hand, he drew her over. “Come in here with me.”
Chapter Forty-two
Like she was going to say no to him when he looked at her like that?
As Jim drew her over to the bathroom, Sissy followed, because her body wanted exactly what was in his eyes. Her mind, though … her instincts? They were popping red flags all over the place—something was off about him, that hard glint in his eyes the kind of thing she hated to see.
But what could she do? It was late and everyone had had an exhausting day and there was always tomorrow morning. She’d talk to Eddie and Ad then—maybe they could help.
Jim let her go in first, and then he shut and locked the door behind them while she blinked and winced. The crane-arm light fixture over the old-fashioned sink was on, the clinically bright illumination on all the white tile about as romantic as an eye exam—but he took care of that. Reaching up, he unscrewed two out of the three bulbs and then draped a towel over the remaining one, careful not to get the terry cloth too close to the heat.
“Better?” he said.
As she nodded, for some reason she felt shy—although, come on¸ it wasn’t like they hadn’t gotten down with it before. This felt different, however … maybe because it seemed so planned and intentional. Or, no, maybe it was the fact that with the evil out of her, she felt as though she was about to be with him for the first time. Before? Even though everything had been intense and amazing, that contamination had clouded her—
Holy … shit, she thought as Jim lifted his T-shirt up over his abs, his pecs, his thick neck, his head. Even in the now-diffused lighting, his muscles stood out in sharp relief, carved rather than born, powerful even though he wasn’t fighting anyone at the moment.
Leaning to the side, he started the shower, his body flexing in a coordinated series of movements while he twisted the knobs to get the right combination of hot and cold.
As far as she was concerned? He could futz around with the temperature for the next twenty hours.
Except then it was time for him to work on her. Straightening, he came at her with a burning look on his face—like not only did he want her, but he needed the connection they were about to have.
“You’re beautiful, you know that.” Not a question. A statement—and how great was that? “But you have way too many clothes on.”
“Are you going to fix that problem?” Check her out with the come-ons. “Or make me do it myself.”
“I’m going to take care of it.”
She put her hands over her head as he pulled her sweatshirt off, and then his touch was all over her skin, running up from her waist to her simple white bra. Dropping his head, he nuzzled the white cotton out of the way and latched onto her nipple—
With a hiss, she went lax, her body curving against the hard bar of his arm at the small of her back. As he continued to work her, her clothes disappeared, pants and panties gone, bra off, nothing but naked skin left for his eyes, his hands, his mouth.
She was up and over the edge of the huge Victorian claw-foot tub a moment later, and he joined her under the hot spray, his body already primed and raring to go as he pulled the curtain around them. But instead of lifting her up around his waist, or pulling one of her legs high and going in? He went for the soap, rubbing that bar over and over in his hands until the sudsy froth fell in fragrant lots into the swirl around the drain at their feet. His hands were slow and thorough, and she wished she were lying down so that the only thing she had to concentrate on was the way he caressed her, lingering over her neck and her collarbones, her breasts and her stomach, her thighs and her backside.
And when he finished going over every single square inch of skin she had? He got the shampoo and went for her hair—which of course meant she had to get flush with him, the soap making her slip and slide against his hard body.
Naturally, she had to amuse herself as he worked at the long lengths.
She went for his erection, taking it into her palms, making him curse and lose his rhythm.
“You sure you wanna do that?” he asked in a guttural way.
“Oh, yeah. Yup. Very sure.”
As she worked her hands up and down his length, the soap was the perfect lubricant, and, God, she loved how he felt. Hard and hot, with that ridge and the blunt head. It wasn’t long before his body slammed against the wall, his great weight pulling the shower curtain out of its graceful fall of folds.
His eyes were stoned and hyper-alert at the same time as he stared not at what she was doing, but right at her face—as if the physical friction was nice and all, but what really turned him on was the fact that she was the one doing it to him. And then he closed his lids and gritted his teeth, his breath going short as he got closer and closer …
He came all over the front of her and she loved it.
But he didn’t recover for long.
He kissed her deep and traded places with her, shifting her under the spray, the rush hitting her hair and drawing her head back. When there was a squeak from the tub, she looked down and saw that he was on his knees in front of her.
His hands were like the warm water, all over her body—his mouth, too, his lips traveling to her hip bones, the tops of her thighs—
The top of her sex.
And then he licked her, his tongue extending, tasting.
Thank God he took control, lifting one of her legs over his shoulder as he went in further, his hands locking on her pelvis to keep her from falling. Now she was the one tangling the shower curtain, grabbing onto the folds, using them to hold herself upright.
She orgasmed against his lips and his face, the sight of where he was and what he was doing pitching her right over the edge within moments. And he didn’t stop.
She didn’t want him to.
Warm and wet—everything was warm and wet, from the heat in the air around them to the shower down her back to the way he made love to her core—
The crash was a shocker, not just bursting the bubble of sex, but blowing it the hell up.
With a quick surge he was up on his feet, ready to fight—but there was no enemy in the bathroom with them.
Sissy lifted her hands, and the soggy, soaked shower curtain came up with them. “Oh … crap. I ripped…”
Glancing up, she saw a whole lot of eye hooks with bits of fabric hanging off them still attached to the metal ring that hung from the ceiling.
“Never mind,” he growled as he picked her up and got out of the tub.
He left the water still running as he backed her against the door, put her legs around his hips, and went into her with a strong thrust. Gripping his shoulders with her nails, she gave herself up to the sex, and oh, man, if what had happened in the tub had been good, this was even better.
And it was what she needed right now.
Joined like this? She could pretend that they were going to be together … forever.
Chapter Forty-three
An hour and one more shower later, Sissy was downstairs in the kitchen, helping herself to the last slice of Eddie’s perfectly cooked chocolate cake. Jim had passed out cold in his bedroom—because that was as far as they’d made it. Even though hers was just four or five more doors down the hall, they’d been too greedy and impatient to make the trip.
Funny, there had been a new and different satisfaction in leaving him in tangled sheets, his fighter’s body all used up because of how much he wanted her.
Before she’d left, she’d stood over him and watched him … even carefully touched the gold dove pendant of hers that he wore around his neck. He’d stirred at that point and that was why she left.
For some reason, she couldn’t shake the conception that something bad was about to happen.
“So, yup, chocolate is perfect,” she muttered as she sat down at the table and took the first bite.
Oh, God, it was amazing: All the endorphins in her body from those orgasms, coupled with the chocolate cake and the fake vanilla icing? High-octane euphoria, even with that spiking fear in the center of her chest.
There was a copy of the Caldwell Courier Journal on the far side of the table, and she pulled it over so her eyes had something to do. The top half of the front page was all about international stuff. The bottom had a picture of some real estate tycoon who had apparently decided to sell off all his holdings and was creating a stir in town—
Sissy frowned and leaned closer to the black-and-white photograph. Then decided she was seeing things.
Except no … that man had a halo: Even with the grainy nature of the image, she could see a faint circle over the businessman’s head.
Vincent diPietro. And the photo had been taken the day before, as he’d walked into his lawyer’s office downtown to sign papers.
Strange, that he had one, as well. But considering everything else that was going on? Not something she was going to give much thought to.
After she finished her midnight snack, she had a skim-milk chaser, and put her dishes in the sink. Then she was all about the upstairs, ready to cozy up to Jim and have him throw an arm over her—because God only knew what the morning was going to bring.
Except she didn’t make it to even the first landing of the staircase.
She ended up in the trashed parlor.
The plywood sheets over the busted-out windows did a fairly good job of keeping the rain out, but they weren’t a tight lock, so the room felt colder and even more damp than the rest of the house. And even with the drafts, the piney smell of the fresh-cut plywood permeated the air, like someone had hung evergreen air fresheners off all the sconces.
As her bare feet went silently over the chilly, bare floorboards, there were no lamps to turn on, because they’d all been sucked away along with the tables they’d been sitting on. There was, however, enough illumination to see by: Thanks to the exterior fixtures mounted on the corner of the house, artificial light bled through the loose seals around the window wells, looking as if maybe the plywood panels were doors you could pass through to other planes of existence.
She found what she was looking for on the mantelpiece over the marble fireplace.
Devina’s book barely fit on the ledge, its ragged leather cover hanging off nearly to the point of falling. She figured Adrian must have put it there while he’d been working on the room. Or maybe the thing had climbed up the moldings and taken a seat by itself.
She hated the weight of the tome in her hands, and the old-man-flesh feel of its cover. Hated being near it at all. Before, it had been nothing more than some book; now it felt like she was carrying a severed arm over to the light.
It was two deep breaths before she could open the thing. Two more before she could actually look down and—
“What the hell?”
Frowning, she flipped through the pages, going back and forth and … nope, she recognized nothing. The writing now seemed like something utterly foreign, a hodgepodge of symbols and strange letters that was unreadable as far as she was concerned.
Closing the volume up, she returned it to its place on the mantel.
The relief was so great, she was dizzy.
Hitting the stairs, she was halfway up before something Jim said came back to her. It had been when they’d sat outside and she’d asked him, What happens now?
With you? Nothing.
At the time, she’d been talking about the war, not her future, but his answer had been about her and her alone.
Assuming he won the war—and she had to believe he would, because the alternative of her, and everyone else, going into Devina’s possession was too horrifying to contemplate—what then? She had to think that if she’d been welcome in Heaven, she would have ended up there after the ritual in that tub at the loft. But no, she was still here.
Guess eternity on a cloud wasn’t in her future.
So what did that leave her? Endless years roaming the earth as some disembodied soul? Because halo aside, that was what she was, for all intents and purposes.
Resuming her ascent, she went to Jim’s room, slipped through the doorway, and took off her sweats before getting in between the sheets. As strong arms scooped her up and pulled her into a tight embrace, she needed the warmth and the grounding.
