Together they pulled up her skirt, his hands running hot beneath it and letting her fill them with soft, sleek flesh. Her backside was curvy enough to earn the title “booty,” but it was always played down with the sharp lines of professional clothing. Sexy yet conservative. The kind of conservative sexy that made you want to un-conservative her. Unwrap her. Undo her. Just as he was coming undone, he realized. Not just the way she was feverishly working to open his jeans and push them down off his hips, but just undone. If she knew how devastated he had been when she’d said those things to him earlier … even now it choked him to think of her wishing he’d actually died. Because that was what it had been. If not for Menes, he would have died. Of course, if not for Tameri saving his sister he wouldn’t have even been in that place and time, but that was splitting hairs.

And that didn’t matter now. With one hand on her backside he reached to take himself in hand and aimed himself in the direction he desired to go. He notched himself against her and, gripping her hard to keep her still, he lunged up into her in a single, stunning thrust. She broke from his mouth to cry out, her hands reaching for his hair, grabbing it up into her fists and doing everything but pulling. He didn’t pause, didn’t wait. He had no time for that. He was completely blindsided by the knowledge that he could come in just a couple more strokes. He didn’t understand it really. He had no experience with which to judge this desperation by. He’d always been in total control of his relationships, headlong feelings and undue attachments not anything he’d ever indulged in or craved.

He was just as bad as she was, he realized. He was the pot and she the kettle. At least she had an excuse. A bid to be more professional. What was his reasoning? It was just safer that way, he thought. And there was nothing safe about this. For all they would be immortal and nearly unbreakable, this was akin to taking his life in his hands. Or giving it into hers. And god but it terrified him.

But it didn’t keep him from taking her hard right then and there, both of them moaning with pleasure loud enough to be heard … well, just about anywhere. He wished he could make himself be self-conscious about that. Make himself show her more respect than he felt he was doing just then, but he couldn’t. Didn’t. Wouldn’t.

All he could do was thrust himself into her again and again, as fast as he could humanly manage, sucking air in through his teeth when the urge to cl**ax grabbed him by the balls and ripped through him. It happened so fast. So blindingly fast. And it pulled out of him until it hurt. He was barely aware of the fingernails dug deep into his shoulders, or the way she gasped to catch her breath, or the way she was like liquid in his arms and against the wall.

The wall.

Holy hell! He’d just taken her against the side of the damn house! In public! Well, nearly anyway. He knew no one would have dared come in the direction of the ruckus they’d just made. In that way, he realized, it was damn good to be the king.

“Death by sex,” she breathed into his ear. “Oh yes. I hadn’t considered that one.”

That made him snort a laugh out his nose. Sometimes she just tickled the heck out of him. Like the time she’d taken umbrage with Howard Redman’s lewd assessment of her ass every single time she walked past his desk. Any other woman might have found another path. But not his Marissa. She had leaned over the desk, he could swear she was purposely giving him a peep down her blouse, and had whispered very loudly that what he was doing was called sexual harassment and that the department had a zero-tolerance policy and that he better be careful before some gutsy pissed-off chick decided to sue him right down to his saggy, baggy little boxer shorts.

“Now, Mr. Redman,” she’d said, “if you want to talk about the inadequacies you are feeling that are compelling you to behave this way, you know my door is always open.”

And Jackson had just about died laughing, along with the rest of the bullpen. Redman hadn’t said a single word to her since then.

That’s right. You don’t mess with my woman.

“There are easier ways,” he said breathlessly. “Although, none more fun. And there are rules,” he agreed with her assumption. “You can’t blow yourself up or cut off your head. It has to be something that, had it been a little less serious, modern medicine might have saved you.”

“No beheading. Check.”

“Although, it’s a classic.”

He looked around, double-checking that they were alone. But he knew that wouldn’t last with such a big household moving around the place. The Gargoyles patrolling the grounds alone would catch them soon enough and he absolutely did not want to embarrass her. When Hatshepsut was on board it might be different, but right now he had potentially more fragile sensibilities to worry about. He moved himself out of her, the feel of leaving her bittersweet, the night air cold on his hot, wet flesh. He realized she was probably cold, half na**d in little more than his shirt. He reached for the hem of her skirt, pulling it down over her backside.

“I suppose you have a particular method chosen?” he said, trying to ease her back onto her feet but finding himself thwarted by the persistent vise of her thighs. He looked into her eyes, raising a brow.

“I told you I prefer death by sex. But if you aren’t willing to help a poor girl out, well, then you’re not the man I thought you were,” she said, amusement written across her kiss-swollen lips.

He caught up her mouth with her, kissing her slow and dark, deep and beautiful. It was, he thought, the most delicious kiss of his whole life.

“Being a doctor,” she breathed softly against his mouth when he lifted away from her for a moment, “I think an overdose is best. Just … a cocktail of the right pills and I fall asleep. Before you know it I’m in the … what’d you call it?”

“Ether.”

“What’s it like? Is it like it sounds? All misty and foggy?”

“In a way, yes. Mostly, it’s … very quiet. It’s void of anything except our souls brushing against each other, only half of the time able to connect in some way. It’s very intimate, being up there all together, existing only as consciousness and emotion. It’s very exposed and yet very lonely.”

“It sounds lonely,” she agreed. “I’m glad I’m not staying very long. And by the way, how long does this whole thing take?”

“For however long it takes you to die, Marissa. Once you are pulled into the Ether, Hatshepsut will meet you instantly. She will know you are for her. I wish I could explain the why and the how of it, but I can’t. It’s just the way it is.”

“As long as you’re sure she’ll like me enough to … well, what if she doesn’t? I mean, we can’t just say ‘oops’ here.” She reached with her soft fingers to brush his mussed hair into whatever order it was that made sense to her.

“She’ll like you. She trusts me implicitly to know her and her needs. She trusts me to send her perfection.”

“Perfection?” She dropped her gaze. “I think after all of this we both should know my ‘perfection’ is an illusion. I’m not perfect. Not even close.”

“You’re perfect for us,” he said. “And that’s all that matters. There is no other choice, Marissa. Not for us. We don’t want anyone else but you.”

That made her soft smile return and she looked at him again.

“Then let’s get this show on the road!” she said.

“Yeah, about that. You think I could pull my pants up first?”

She laughed, the sound of it echoing into the cold New Mexico night.

Chapter Nineteen

“That’s the last of them,” she said, her hand trembling as she put the glass of water down by the empty pill bottles. She nervously licked her lips and then straightened the collar of his shirt against her throat.

“Come and sit back,” he invited her, patting the bed beside him. He was sitting back against the headboard, where an empty pillow was waiting for her.

She slid over to him, the cotton sheet and its remarkably smooth thread count feeling incredibly soft. She curled up against him.

“I’m so scared I’m nauseous,” she said as she wrapped her arms tightly around him and hugged herself to his warmth and strength. “Or maybe that’s the medication. I’ve never swallowed that many pills all at once before.”

“I don’t blame you for being scared. And I’m not going to tell you not to be. This is your process and you are going to go through it any way you want to. It’s not every day you get to commit suicide.”

“I know. And I’m warning you now, if this gets messed up I’m coming back to haunt you. And I’m going to be a jealous ghost. I’m going to be there especially when you try to touch someone else.”

He smiled. She could feel the way his lips moved against her scalp and hair. How strange that every feeling, every sensation seemed so incredibly acute. She was noticing the way he smelled. Clean and freshly showered. They’d gone in together, bathed together, made love together. Then he had donned a clean pair of jeans and she had put on a clean shirt. But it was still his. It felt, she thought, like being covered by him. The touch of cotton against the hairs of her body was like a petting touch all over all at once. Her legs and feet were bare. She hadn’t even put on any underwear. Just his shirt.

“What will we do first? When I come back?” she asked.

He chuckled. “I’m thinking sex might be involved. That seems to be the way of it lately.”

“You’re probably right.” She smiled up at him, tipping her head back so she could see the peacock green of his eyes. “After all, we kind of had over a year of long-distance flirting, however subconscious it might have been.”

“True.” He drew soft fingers along the side of her face, drawing on her as though tracing her image. “Can you try to remember something for me?” She nodded. “Just be yourself. When you meet her? She’s not a pharaoh. She’s not a figure of a larger than life romance. And she’s not even a Bodywalker when she’s there. She’s at the purest form of her soul, and she will want to know you on the same level. She won’t expect more than you can give. She won’t try to bully you or subjugate you. That doesn’t interest her. Next to her relationship with me, her relationship with you is going to mean everything to her.”

“That’s … it’s comforting to hear you say that,” she confessed. “I’m still nervous as hell.” She glanced down at her hand, rubbing her fingers together. They were starting to feel a little numb and she felt the first hint that she was being affected. She’d never tried recreational drugs, but the sensation lapping like a soft tide throughout her face and body was probably what getting stoned felt like. Suddenly she wished she knew.

“I’ve never been drunk. I should have done that,” she observed. “I don’t suppose a Bodywalker gets drunk?”

“No. We process the alcohol too quickly. It’s fun to try. Sometimes if you work hard at it you can catch a good buzz.”

“That’s what I have at the moment. A good buzz.” She was silent a moment, focusing inward to the sensations walking sluggishly through her. “Promise me something? If something goes wrong—”

“It won’t,” he said sharply. “I’m not promising you a damn thing until you come back and make me.”

“Okay.” She paused a beat. “But you’ll take care of Lina, right? So that she’s safe? She needs a keeper, you know.”

“I got that feeling,” he agreed dryly. “And we’ll take care of her together. We’ll keep her here with us and try and keep her from getting into too much trouble.”

“Ihron. Or no, better yet, Ahnvil. He’s big and strong and damn serious. She needs some seriousness to countermand her special kind of crazy.” She smiled, thinking of all the things Lina had done over the years. In a way she had been jealous of her sister. She just threw herself into her every passion, chased after anything if it seemed interesting enough, and dug her feet in for whatever cause she deemed justified her loyalty. Marissa had spent her entire life trying to be what was expected of her. Trying to be the steady. The rock. And now, suddenly, here she was doing the craziest thing of all, outstripping her sister.

“I’ll make sure she gets an appropriate bodyguard.”

“Not Max,” they said in unison. She laughed, the sound resonating muzzily and warmly inside of her, clearly an affect of the drugs wending their way through her system.

“No,” he agreed. “I think Max likes her a little too much. We’ll find someone else for her daytime endeavors. Although she might find herself becoming more nocturnal if she hangs around us constantly.” He paused a moment. “Your feeling it, aren’t you?”