“You tried to kiss me. I said no. You kept pushing it, so I slapped the shit out of you. I think perhaps you were a little resentful?”

“You mistake your value. It is what you Americans do.”

This was getting me nowhere fast. I scooted into the booth next to him so we would be at eye level. They had to squish together to fit me in.

“So, what’s this all about, Sam? What are you trying to accomplish?”

He shrugged. “I decide to make film. Documentary, yes? You are big business.”

“You think—?”

“I do,” he said, a sharp edge to his voice. If he wasn’t careful, he’d cut his own throat with it.

“I wasn’t finished. I meant to ask you if you think you’ll live that long.”

The other three men in the booth tensed and looked at their friend a little more worried than they had been.

“All we need is interview, and we will leave.”

“I think not.”

“We know who you are,” Samuel said, his words broken around the edges.

His thick accent was almost impossible to understand at times. Now was not one of them, though. I was getting every word. Every syllable.

“We know what you are.”

It was a threat. Give them an interview or else. But, seriously, or else what? What could they do? Throw me into ghost-hunter jail?

Still, a threat was a threat, and it stung. This wasn’t about me anymore, however. He had been talking to Amber. Manipulating her into giving him information.

Despite the anger pulsing through my veins, driving the blood through my body faster and faster, I smiled. Put my elbows on the table. Leaned my head on my clasped hands. And said in the softest voice I could manage, “If you knew who I was, you wouldn’t be speaking to me in broken English.”

At last, his smile faltered. Just a little.

I leaned closer, going in for the kill. “If you knew what I was, you wouldn’t be speaking to me at all.”

Then I put my mouth on his. I wasn’t sure why until I did it, and then I knew. I showed him. What I was. What I was truly capable of.

He couldn’t move as I pressed images into his mind. Things I’d seen. Things I’d done. Things I’d do to him given a good enough reason.

I showed him just enough to put the fear of God into him. I felt his body lose all its energy, all its life force, as he watched the atrocities play out in his mind, unable to close his eyes to them as though they’d been injected straight into his brain. Then I felt him lose control of his muscles, but he stayed locked against me, unable to move, until I heard a whisper in my ear as though from miles away.

“Dutch,” it said. Soft. Unhurried. “You’re killing him.”

I felt my face being pulled off Samuel’s. Turned. And another’s lips taking the place of his. Scalding. Sensual.

The kiss did what I had just done to Samuel. It stole my energy. It siphoned my will, but I fought back. I showed the intruder images. Of things I’d seen. Things I’d done. Things I’d do to him given a good enough reason. But these images were not morbid or horrific or atrocious. They were a visual representation of all the feelings I had for him. My husband. My dark, cryptic, mystifying man.

He deepened the kiss. Drove his fingers into my hair. Breathed fire into my mouth as his tongue pushed past my teeth and he drank his fill. Passion overrode all other thoughts. A warmth pooled in my abdomen as his heat leaped out and swallowed me. He put a knee on the bench. Wrapped a hand around my throat. Pressed into me.

And then he took control. He pushed his thoughts into me, pushed his energy into me, constricted and released, deep and sensuous, until wetness flooded my panties. My legs parted involuntarily. Wanting more. He pulsed through my veins like electrical energy. Tugged at my inner core. Drew me closer to the brink of orgasm.

And then we were no longer in the restaurant.

Then we were no longer in the city.

Then we were no longer on Earth.

Star systems rocketed past us. Creatures from other dimensions swam around us. And suns collided. Exploded. Showered us with a billion shards of light.

I gripped the table so tight my fingernails broke against the wood. The pleasure of pain brought me spiraling back to the present. Reyes was bent over me. His breath ragged. He pulled back, and his face showed the same surprise I felt to the marrow of my bones.

Then I remembered where we were. What I’d done. I turned back to Samuel. His hands were clasped tight on the table in front of him. To steady himself. To try to keep his hands from shaking. But his entire body shook, so it did little good. A combination of tears and sweat streamed down his face.