Left alone with Jim, Sissy sat and played with the little diamond she’d picked up, moving it around the center of her palm. A minute later, the sound of the Explorer backing down the driveway was louder than it usually was on account of the lack of glass.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s honest.” She looked up. “I’m glad … you came back.”

Jim rubbed his jaw, and for some reason that made her focus on his lips. Which made her wonder—what they would feel like … against her mouth, her throat, her breasts.

“I’ve got to find the next soul. I’ve got to—shit, who the hell is it gonna be? And where are they…”

She had a feeling he was talking to himself, and that was okay. The rambling gave her an excuse to look at him some more, measure his broad shoulders, his veined forearms, his—

“You’re bleeding,” she said, pointing to his shoulder.

He glanced at himself. “Who stabbed me? And why?”

“Colin. They were worried your body would … God, are we really talking like this?” She scrubbed her eyes. “Sometimes this is just too much. It really is.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sissy glanced over at the blown-out windows. The darkness outdoors was because of the sun having set, not that demon, but it was hard to feel safe with all the open frames. Then again, why did she think a couple of panes of glass were going to help.

“Are we okay here?” she said.

“I’ll put the spell back up. I guess it failed or Devina wouldn’t have gotten in here.”

“Yes.”

There was a long, awkward silence. Probably because his head was tied up in war, and hers was somewhere else entirely.

“What were you going to say to me?” she blurted.

“Huh? Sorry, I got game brain.”

As he glanced over at her, she felt foolish. “Oh, it’s okay. It’s nothing, really. Well, actually—what can I do to help? You know, with what you’re doing about Devina.”

He opened his mouth. Then clapped it shut. “I’d really prefer you stay out of this. Not because I think you’re weak, but because I am.”

“You’re weak?” She laughed harshly and eyed the way his biceps stretched the sleeves of his T-shirt. “Don’t think so.”

A strange look came into his eyes. “When it comes to you, I am.”

Sissy’s heart stopped. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He cracked his knuckles one by one. “Listen, I don’t want things to get weird, okay.”

“Oh, yeah, no, weird is bad.”

“But just so you and I are clear, I really fucking want to kiss you right now.”

Chapter Fifteen

What the hell, Jim thought. He might as well lay it all out there.

And as Sissy didn’t run for one of the very, very open windows, he took it as a good sign. Or … actually, a really bad one.

“So kiss me,” she said.

Jim actually recoiled. Which proved that the right woman could turn any full-grown man back into a fourteen-year-old with the right combination of words. Although that quick-fire regression was only the first part of his response. The second half?

Pure. Sex.

Fuck the kissing. He wanted to shove her back onto the hardwood floor, yank her pants down, and get inside of her. In spite of the fact that she was hardly that kind of girl and Adrian would be coming back with twelve thousand calories of fast food at any given minute.

“Or are you going to make me do it?” she asked.

“Do what,” he blurted. Christ, like he had amnesia?

“Kiss you.”

God love her, she didn’t wait for a response. She leaned in, grabbed the front of his shirt, and pulled him to her.

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned as he tilted his head. “Fuck me…”

Please, oh, shit, fuck me, he thought as their lips met in the middle.

She was soft. She was sweet. She tasted like sherry.

And he took over from there.

Dragging her into his lap, he kissed her hard and held her harder. He’d wanted this for too long and for all the wrong reasons, and in the back of his head, he told himself that was why he was instant hot-’n’-heavy. Then again, maybe it was because she was just so good, so right.

He pushed himself back from her. “Shit.”

“What?” she mumbled, leaning into his arms. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know how far you want this to go.” Damn it, the way she was pushing her breasts up to him, her body seemed as ready as his was. “You don’t have to do this—”

“What makes you think I want to stop.”

She put her mouth to his again, and oh, man, wrong call, but sooooo fucking right. And this time he let his tongue do what it wanted to, licking its way in, taking her. That was when she moaned his name.

He almost came in his dusty pants.

Abruptly, she pushed against him, nailing his bad shoulder with her palm. With a hiss, he broke the contact.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, wincing. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, no, it’s cool. I’m going too fast—”

She settled that score by reaching down for the bottom of her shirt and whipping the whole thing over her head.

Jim’s exhale was part curse, part prayer of thanks. Until he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Sweet Mary,” he breathed as he looked at her pink-tipped breasts. “You’re going to kill me.”

“I’m done wasting time,” she said, staring into his eyes. “And I’m done wondering what it’s like. And I’m totally finished with fighting the fact that I want you.”

Boom. Boom. Boom.

His heart was beating so hard, he had to give his sternum props for keeping the muscle inside of his immortal body.

Staring at her breasts, Jim dipped his head and led with tongue, at the same time he lifted her up to his mouth. As he latched onto her nipple, her head fell all the way back, and she said his name in a rough voice that was sexier than anything he’d ever heard in his life. Worshiping her with his lips, he let his hands start roaming. She was so much smaller than he was, but she seemed just as strong, jacking up against his hold, trying to get closer.

Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of him was ready to take her right here, right now. But the decimal point of decency forced him to be reasonable.

She was, after all, a virgin. And although there were a lot of rules that were off, given the fucked-up kind of existence they both had, she deserved better than a wham-bam for her first time.

Besides, it was entirely possible that she was going to come to her senses and regret this.

He slowed himself down, forced his hands to stay on the outside of her hips, told his cock to pipe-down-big-guy.

She sensed the change in him immediately. “Don’t stop.”

“Sissy—”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” She pegged him right in the eye. “Don’t.”

Well, considering the way she was looking at him? He was incapable of not giving her whatever she wanted: car, house, orgasm after orgasm after—

“How ’bout we compromise,” he drawled, dropping back down to her mouth and running his tongue across her lower lip. As she shuddered in his arms, he had to smile. “Yeah, how ’bout we just focus on you.”

“Jim, I want—”

“I know what you want. And I’m going to give it to you.”

There was nothing like this in the world.

That was the only thing Sissy could think of as she lay in Jim’s arms, half-naked and fully turned on. The rest of it was all instinct and heat, a need for something that she’d previously been lukewarm on, a drive to get closer to him than her own skin.

As she arched against him, he didn’t leave her hanging, coming back to her mouth and kissing her more. She had the clear sense he was holding everything back on his side, and that just plain sucked. If only she could—

That big hand of his, the one on her hip, shifted down to her thigh … and moved inside, inching its way up to the source of her heat.

Everything went heavy and sluggish—in the best way. Moving her leg up and to the side, she gave him all the access he needed as she hung onto the bulk of his shoulders and waited for him to get where she wanted him to be. He went slowly, oh, so slowly, but that was good too, because it meant she could feel everything—from the way his tongue penetrated her mouth, to the hard contours of his arms, to the straining at the tips of her bare breasts and the coiling urgency inside of her.

When he cupped her sex, she cried out and dug her nails into his shoulders—except he just stayed there and kissed her, as if he were giving her a moment to adjust. After a time, though, he began rubbing at her, the pressure and rasp of her panties and the sweatpants exactly what she needed. He wasn’t rough, but she wanted him to be. He wasn’t fast, but she wanted him to be.

He got the job done, and she wanted him to.

The urgency got raw quick, and Jim didn’t tease her. As if he knew this was the first orgasm she was going to have, he took her up steadily and let her body do the rest: That coil deep inside wound tighter and tighter and tighter—and when it snapped free, she felt like her blood had turned into gold, and her bones into fireworks.

His thumb continued to circle as he helped her ride the pulses out, and when it was over, she went completely limp. All she could do was stare up at him through heavy lids.

Well, now she knew why romance novels sold so well. Holy crap.

“Onv gokd tbaj okdrwa.”

Sissy frowned and mumbled, “What did you say?”

He repeated whatever it was twice before she heard him right: “We’ve got to get you dressed.”

Jim stretched an arm out, snagged her shirt, and pulled it back over her head. And then he arranged her in his lap, holding her close in his strong arms. The peace between them was as powerful as all the pleasure had been, especially as he stroked her hair back from her face. It was a surprise that a man like him could be so gentle—she felt precious, important, invaluable as he stared down at her like he didn’t want to ever leave her.

“What were you going to say to me,” she whispered, reaching up and running her fingertips down his hard cheek. The stubble that had grown in was rough, but the skin underneath was warm.

“It was—”

A set of headlights washed across the devastated front of the parlor, and Jim cursed. “Goddamn fast food. He should have gone somewhere fancier.”

Sissy had to smile. “I agree.”

“Hold on,” he grunted, shifting her and then gritting his teeth.

As he rearranged what was no doubt an erection and a half, she went right back to where they had just been, hot and hungry. Except now she wanted to pay him back.

Not that she had a clue how to do that. But given his talents? She was willing to bet he could show her.

“We’re not finished.” She turned his face to hers. “You and me … we’re not finished.”

There was the distant sound of a door slamming and then Ad called out from the back, “Hi, honey, I’m home.”

It was painful to watch the warmth leave Jim’s face, especially as he set her apart from him and put his clothes back in order.

“Jim,” she said. “We are not done.”

When all he did was rub his face, she told herself it was sexual frustration and a battle with the good side of his nature. But she wasn’t sure—

“I’ll come to you,” he said in a dark voice. “Tonight.”

His eyes slid over to her and they burned like bonfires. “And this time I won’t stop.”

Sissy’s lips parted so she could breathe properly. And the suffocation kept up even as Adrian came in with five stuffed Mickey D bags and started passing around the goods.

All she could think of was how fast they could eat the stuff … and get to bed.

Chapter Sixteen

Devina’s hands were bleeding.

As she sat on the foot of her bed, she noticed the blood when she went to pull down the ripped sleeve of her leather pantsuit.

There was also something in her eye. Wiping her fingers off on the bedspread, she discovered that one of her false lashes had come unglued and was hanging off the corner of her lid. She pulled the fuzzy caterpillar-thing free and let it drop to the floor.

It landed in a pile of flesh-colored powder … next to a shattered Estée Lauder compact, the mirror of which was cracked down the middle.

Taking a deep breath, her nose tingled at the choking scent in the basement: part Ysatis by Givenchy, Paris by YSL, and Chanel’s Coco and Chance Eau Tendre. She wondered idly how long the HVAC system was going to take to air everything out.

Long time.

Especially given that those were not the only perfume bottles she had shattered. The battered remnants of her makeup table were surrounded by broken glass and mangled spray mechanisms. She must have destroyed fifteen different scent containers.

It was nothing compared to what she’d done to her collection.

Looking past the immediate carnage of makeup, handbags, shoes, and clothes, she could not believe what she had done. In the aftermath of her explosion, she was in awe of herself.

Not a new experience, except this was not something to be proud of.

She had laid ruination to that which was most precious to her—when what she should have been fucking up was Jim’s arrogant ass. Worse? She couldn’t even remember what it had been like to let it all out. Her rage had been white-hot and blinding—and it wasn’t until she’d sat down here and realized that her hands were cut up that what she’d done dawned on her.