That SOB had sacrificed so much to win. What had he gotten in return?

Loss of a good friend. And fast food tonight.

Hell of a compensation rate.

With a curse, Jim went into his own room, dumped the clothes he’d been wearing in the dirty pile, and picked out a laundered version of precisely what he’d had on from the clean one: white Hanes undershirt that he wore like it was a T-shirt, blue jeans. He left his feet bare. With any luck, he was going to be naked in a matter of moments so who needed socks and shoes.

He couldn’t resist one last look-see in the mirror and actually smoothed his hair down. His buzz cut was growing out, and the fact that the fade wasn’t regulation tight made him itchy.

Old habits of being a military man died hard.

Just as he was about to turn away, he narrowed his eyes and thought of Devina. Over dinner, Sissy and Ad had filled him in on the particulars of how they’d created the portal to Purgatory, and that made him think of the two vortexes that the Creator Himself had made.

One was that mirror of Devina’s.

He’d seen the hump-ugly thing once before, when they’d found her loft in the meatpacking district. Ad—or had it been Eddie? Probably Eddie—had said that taking possession of it was the way to hit Devina in the nuts the hardest. Steal its transportive powers from her, and she was trapped either in Hell or on this side. But you had to be careful how you did it. You shattered the reflective surface in the conventional way and, assuming he remembered right, you yourself were destroyed, busted into a million Humpty Dumpty pieces.

With no hope of a Super Glue save.

The temptation to eliminate the bitch was nearly all-consuming, but he had to wonder what was on the other side of that. Something worse? The safest bet was to just win the war and let the Creator’s rules take care of her.

Except fuck safety. To him, there was a law of equity that demanded she lose the thing that was dearest to her—in light of her fucking with his Sissy and taking Eddie away from Ad.

And PS, he was done apologizing for referring to Sissy like that.

She sure as hell felt like his.

On that note, he left his room and shut the door quietly, even though there was no reason to pretend he was sleeping in his own bed.

Guess he wanted to protect her virtue even in the hypothetical.

Even as he was about to take it.

As he started down the hall, behind him on the main staircase, that fucking grandfather clock started chiming, the gonging noises timed perfectly with each footfall he planted.

Like the damn thing was following him.

Stopping, he turned around, put his palm out, and before he knew what he was doing, created a wall of molecules. Worked perfectly. Whatever that clock was up to, he couldn’t hear it anymore.

The door to Sissy’s bedroom was the same as all the others on the second floor: seven and a half feet tall, four feet wide, with two sets of raised panels that were larger on the top, smaller on the bottom. The knob was crystal and cut in a sunburst pattern, and as he watched his hand reach out for it, he thought of that old movie The Sixth Sense—the knobs that had mattered had all been red.

On that theory, this one should have been made out of a big, fat Burmese ruby.

He didn’t knock. Just opened the way in and slipped inside, and in the darkness, the first thing he smelled was shampoo. It was different from the stuff he and Adrian shared, and he was willing to bet it had come from that Target trip.

“Sissy?”

When she didn’t immediately answer, an injection of pure panic went right into his cerebral cortex, but then he heard rustling from in between the sheets. Going across to where she lay, he put out his palm for a second time.

Willing a soft glow to emanate from his hand, he found her curled on her side facing him, her blond hair splayed out across her pillow, her eyelids down, her lips parted slightly.

For the longest time he stood there, watching her sleep. Funny, seeing her at rest, being there to protect her … turned out to be just as good as the prospect of sex. Felt more right, actually.

After all, people had a way of making bad decisions after life-and-death drama. It didn’t mean they were weak—quite the contrary. It meant they had survived and were glad to be alive.

He’d done a lot of that kind of thinking in the past himself.

And hell, if she wanted to use him? He was more than willing to do whatever she needed, be whoever she wanted him to.

Except in the light of the morning, she might well have a different take on shit. And who could blame her if she did.

So, yeah, a little breather to recharge and realign was probably a good thing … but he didn’t go back to his own room. He walked around the foot of the bed, lifted up the sheets and the blankets, and slid in beside her. He intended to just lie there and listen to her even breathing, but almost immediately, she turned to him like she knew he was there, and snuggled up close.

Holy shit, she was extremely naked.

But that didn’t change his plan.

Arranging her in his arms, he tucked her head under his newly shaved chin and closed his own eyes.

He was asleep on the next heartbeat.

Chapter Eighteen

Sissy woke up to one hell of an alarm clock: warm, broad male hands were caressing her hip, her waist … moving up and around to her—

She moaned as her bare breast was captured, and the arch that she pulled next put her up against something hard and hot.

Jim’s erection.

Popping open her eyes, she stared out at a bright spring morning. Jim was behind her, and pressing in, and yeah, that was a great eclipser. She suddenly didn’t see anything, hear anything, feel anything but him.

Turning to face him, she went to say something, but he was clearly asleep. His eyes were closed, and he started to mumble something that she couldn’t understand.

“…Sissy…”

The sound of her name made her smile. “I’m right here—”

Talk about wide awake on a oner. Instantly, Jim was fully conscious, his blue eyes alert, his muscles tensing—like maybe he’d had some wake-ups in the past that hadn’t been of the benign beeping variety.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” He moved his hips back a little. “Ah … good morning.”

“You should have woken me up last night.”

“I liked watching you sleep.”

The blush that hit her cheeks ran all the way down her body. “It was the sherry. I’m not a big drinker.”

“I got no regrets.” He moved a strand of her hair out of the way. “How you feeling?”

“Horny.”

As Jim coughed like someone had goosed him in the ass, she had to laugh. “Sorry. I’m into being honest.”

“It’s good.” His eyes went to her lips. “Very good.”

His face became super-clear to her, everything about his eyes and his mouth and the intense way he stared at her burning into her brain. Reaching up, she stroked his jaw, then his hair.

That halo of his, that nearly unnoticeable circle of golden light, shimmered around his head.

“You sure you want this?” he asked in a deep voice.

She had to smile. “You’re such a gentleman.”

“No. Not at all.”

Sissy wound her arms around his neck. “Well, I think you are, and yes, I’m sure. Everyone should be with an angel for their first time.”

“I’ll make it good for you,” he murmured as he lowered his head. “I promise.”

His kiss was soft and slow as he plied her mouth, and she let the sensations of heat and a drugging intoxication run through her body. He took his own sweet time, his tongue licking over her lower lip before dipping inside … and then he was back to just kissing her.

For, like, ever. Until, as much as she was into it, frustration started to war with the enjoyment.

But he was onto her. Just as she was about to say something, one of those hands of his slipped around and caressed her back, her shoulders … her arm …

When he found her breast, she was starved for the contact he gave her and she arched against him once more, rustling the sheets—and finding his erection. Greedy to know him, she did some exploring of her own, moving her touch down to his hips.

He took her hand away from his body, planting a kiss in the center of her palm and rolling her over.

“But I—”

Jim covered her mouth with his own and cupped her breast. Then he licked down her neck to her collarbone. “Feel good?”

“God … yes…”

He sucked her nipple in, and the lust that shot through her jerked her chest up, forcing her breast further into his mouth. With an erotic shift, he rode the wave of her body with his big palms, finding his way down to her thighs. Spreading her legs, she wanted him back where he’d been the night before—and he didn’t disappoint her.

His fingers swept up to her core, and the instant he touched her there, another release, even bigger than the first one he’d given her, threatened to take her over.

“Please,” she breathed. “Please…”

The rubbing down there, the sucking at her breasts, the sense of his own need brought her to the brink. But instead of sending her flying, he held her in place, backing off when she got close, inching her forward so she didn’t lose the cut of the desire.

She dug her nails into his heavy shoulders. “Jim … I can’t hold on…”

His mouth covered hers once more and he kissed her—again with the long and the slow. “Shh, baby, I got you.”

That was when he finally shifted over her. She was so dazed she wasn’t sure what he was doing when there was a pause. But then she realized he was pushing his jeans down.

“You sure about this?”

“God, yes.”

Given how crazy she was as she writhed underneath him, she couldn’t believe how in control he kept himself—but it came with a cost. His jaw was clenched and his voice was rough and fine tremors wracked his powerful body as he settled in between her legs.

She still couldn’t feel him against her sex, though—except for where his thighs pressed into her core.

“I’m going to die if you don’t—”

He cut her off by kissing her again, and then she finally got the contact she wanted. Something blunt and hot brushed against her core—and then he shifted, his hand going between them. He knew right where to put himself, and holy shit, she trembled.

Not from fear.

His thumb found the top of her sex and began to rotate in a tight little circle. The orgasm he’d been toying with for however long sprang back to life with a vengeance, and this time he didn’t stop. He kept her going until the pleasure snapped free and took her for a joyride even higher and brighter than the one down in the parlor.

And that was when he pushed inside of her.

She was in the throes of the release to such an extent that when he hit a barrier, she felt no pain. Not even as he pulled back and then swept through it. And then he was deep inside—and not moving at all.

As Sissy floated back to reality, she became aware of an incredible sense of fullness, one that was at once foreign and so completely right that she felt tears prick in the corners of her eyes. And then she realized … Jim was trembling. From head to foot, his massive body was twitching, the muscles contracting in random jerks and spasms.

“Jim?”

Moving her head to the side, she looked at his face. He was focused on the headboard, his eyes rapt and glassy at the same time, his jaw clenched and grinding, his breathing rough and uncoordinated.

“Jim … what’s wrong?”

When she shifted under him, he hissed. “Don’t move.”

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“Fuck.”

“What—”

Just like that he pulled out of her, but he didn’t go far. He mashed his head face-first into the mattress next to her shoulders and bowed his arms, the great muscles of his biceps bunching up under his skin. Then his hips ground down hard, his stomach pushing into her pelvis.

Now he contracted. All of him at once. And it was so violent, the bed slammed into the wall behind, clapping hard once, twice … three times.

Jim went lax as rope, falling on top of her as he exhaled into the pillow.

Unsure what to do, she tried to wrap her arms around him, but he rolled off and turned away.

All she could do was stare at that tattoo of his, the one of the Grim Reaper that covered his back, the one of the great black-robed figure with its scythe and its bony hand reaching out of his skin.

Clearly, she had done something wrong.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Ad sat at the table and checked the clock again. Ten a.m.

Time to get moving, people, he thought as he glared at the ceiling.

But nope, the lovebirds had apparently tuckered themselves out and were having a lie-in. Meanwhile, he was down here with two bags of ossifying McMuffins and a whole lot of going-cold coffee.

Not that he was bitter.

Okay, he was bitter.

Sex was an easy thing to give up if you weren’t around it at all and you were too busy trying to survive to think of the bump-and-grind. But that kind of amnesia was hard to sustain when what you were never going to have again was happening under the same roof as you.

And hell, maybe it all made him miss Eddie even more.

He’d had the best damn time bringing women home for that gameless schlub. Eddie had always been good at everything, the keeper of all knowledge, the perfect fighter, the even-tempered voice of reason in a sea of chaos. Chicks, on the other hand, had been his undoing. One glance from some hot piece and he’d always clammed up like an astrophysicist at an AVN convention. He’d had the sex drive of a lion, however—and that was where Ad had come in.