Immortal (6 page)

“You want to know? Fine.” He leaned in again, the air between them growing charged. “She tried to seduce me. She was half-naked in my bed, with your body, your skin, your scent. And it almost fucking worked—how about that.”

Sissy blinked as her body registered heat—but not from anger. No, this was something else entirely.

Sexual desire. The kind she'd read about, heard about, seen on the big screen, but never, ever felt. Not even close. And she knew
damn well what he was doing here—he was trying to scare her off. Except what he failed to realize was . . . that was a hell of an admission on his part.

She thought back to Bobby Carne and his Bud-in-a-can-fueled come-on. Jim was the farthest thing from that sad production—he was a man, not some high school senior with delusions of being Ryan Reynolds. And the idea that Jim might have been attracted to her, even if it was a lie . . .

Then again, the demon had been driving that bus, so to speak.

Jim broke the eye contact first. “Don't look at me like that.”

“Like what,” she said in a husky voice.

“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered. “You don't even know.”

“Jim—”

“No, nope, I gotta go. . . . I really fucking gotta go.”

With heavy feet, he stalked through the open door and marched up the stairs, his big body moving fast and with power. A moment after he was out of view, she heard a door slam on the second floor.

There was a temptation to follow him up there. Open that door. Find out . . . what was on the far side of that heat in his eyes. But she had a feeling all she was going to get was a fight.

Or maybe something she wasn't sure she could handle.

She thought of that demon in the cemetery, so sure of herself, so confident. Now,
that
was a woman—entity, whatever—who'd take care of a man like Jim . . .

Great, now she felt like finding a Zippo lighter and putting it to good use.

Instead of taking off after the guy, or going Stephen King and giving in to her inner Firestarter, she went over to the protection spell and put her hand out. As if the glow was a living thing, it came forward to her palm, stretching out to lick at her, and staying connected until she pulled her arm way back.

After playing with the connection for a little bit, she went back inside and closed that reinforced front door. Under normal circumstances, she would have been impressed by the size and heft of all that oak—but nothing was normal anymore, and she had a feeling she could trust whatever Jim had done out there in the yard more than anything built by a human.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, she wondered what he was doing in that bedroom of his. The only way she was going to get an answer was by finding out for herself—and how embarrassing would it be to barge in on him changing his clothes . . . making his bed . . . folding his laundry.

Yeah, 'cause he had time to worry about those last two.

Besides, like they'd do anything other than rehash the convo they'd just had?

As she stayed where she was, an inner part of her pointed out that there were, in fact, other things they could do—things that were tied to that light in his eye. Hell, maybe it was time to lose her virginity. And assuming that was true . . . she could not think of a single man, living or dead, who she'd rather give it to than Jim.

“Shit,” she whispered.

Jim was hard as he shut himself in his room.

And not as in hard-headed. Hard of hearing. Hard backed.

Slamming the door, he leaned back against the damn thing.
Bam . . . bam . . . bam . .
 
.
The sound of his head hitting the wood was like the heartbeat in his cock.

As he looked down at his hips and measured the tent his erection had made in his sweatpants, he thought, Man, this was too fucking true about him. Back in his old life, when he'd been deep into black ops and working as an assassin overseas, this would happen to him. Keyed-up, going into crunch time, his blood would be running high, his aggression spiked—and he'd inevitably need to burn some of the energy off.

And not on a treadmill.

But FFS, you'd think with the way he'd spent the night with Devina, this wouldn't be a problem.

Shutting his eyes, he cursed as another round of images assaulted him, pictures of him fucking that demon twelve different ways to Sunday all but blinding him. And then he saw Sissy . . . standing on that porch . . . staring up at him like . . .

Like maybe she knew he wanted her.

The very male-est part of him was totally prepared to test that
theory out on the horizontal. Yeah . . . in spite of the fact that he needed to stay the fuck away from her, his conscience and his higher reasoning were more than ready to take a quick vacay just so his small head could get the job done.

Great. Good thinking, right there.

Abruptly, he remembered that picture he'd seen of her at her parents' house, the one where she'd been on the sidelines of some game, her eyes narrowed, her body curled and tensed like she'd wanted to spring forward into the action. Her long blond hair had been pulled back, her face had been clear of makeup, and the other people in the background had been student athletes just like her.

She'd looked her age there.

Downstairs on that porch? That had been a woman. Not a girl.

Frankly, he wished the grown-up divide hadn't been crossed—because retaining it would have been enough to keep him in check. He'd always been into full-on women; he liked sex hard and raw, and that required someone with backbone and passion. Some little chippie with strawberry lip gloss and Hello, Kitty sneakers really, totally wasn't going to fucking do it for him.

He would really have preferred Sissy stay on that side of the line. Trouble was, courtesy of her trip into Hell, her eyes were now devoid of any semblance of youth, her soul having aged in Devina's wall, tempered into steel by the torture and the pain. She was no longer that field hockey player with her friends, hyped up on a game played on high school grounds.

She was a woman.

And this was a problem.

Damn it, he'd had such good intentions. Ever since he'd found her bled out in that bathroom, his only goal had been to get her safe—and he'd checked that off his bucket list by making that potentially devastating bargain with Devina. Except what exactly
had it gotten Sissy? Out of the demon's wall, sure. But now, all she had was a job combing through an impossible book, looking for a way to get him to and from Purgatory.

Meanwhile, he was upstairs with an issue that, all things considered, he was going to have to cure with his left hand.

“Goddamn it,” he breathed.

Shifting his eyes over to the messy bed, he remembered Devina lying on it, clothing herself in Sissy's flesh, hitting him up for sex. That had been his fault. He should have put up multiple protection spells back when they'd moved in.

Then again, if the demon had been able to make it through one, maybe the whole more-is-better thing wouldn't have worked, either.

Shit, how had she pulled that infiltration off? he wondered.

Sliding down until his ass met the floor, Jim propped his elbows on his knees and thought about the many and varied ways a guy could get himself into trouble when he thought with his little head instead of his big one.

And what do you know, the stretch of the sweatpants across his hard-on made him roll his hips—and not because the shit hurt.

I guess I don't expect you to enjoy it, how 'bout that. Or are you going to tell me men can get it up even though they're disgusted by someone? Didn't think the anatomy worked like that—then again, I'm a virgin, right. So what do I know.

“Fuck me . . .”

And that was the problem, wasn't it. Sissy was right: Men couldn't get it up if they weren't into the sex. Unfortunately for him, he didn't necessarily have to like what was happening to get aroused—it was kind of like stabbing your enemy. You were juiced going into the deed, and satisfied when it was over. But that wasn't the same as “enjoying” something.

Somehow, he doubted these subtleties were the kind of thing
Sissy needed to hear about. And he was equally certain that his cock didn't give two shits about them.

It knew what it wanted.

He shifted around again, that rasp across his dumb-handle making him grit his teeth and hiss. And for a split second, he couldn't help but go back to that moment when Sissy had been begging him to kiss her—

All it took to reel shit back in was remembering that it hadn't actually been her.

Annnnd all it took to crank things up again was remembering how she had looked at him down on that front porch.

Another hip roll to relieve pressure just ramped him even more. And before he knew it, instead of heading downstairs and seeing what he could do to help with that forty-pound book, his palm was in fact getting into the swing of things.

Or the stroke, as it were.

What the hell else could he do? The damn erection showed no interest in deflating—and even if he did a tuck-up, he had Jon Hamm proportions, so it wasn't like that was a good enough camo job.

He deliberately kept any thoughts of Sissy out of it. Instead, he concentrated on his tight grip going up and down, and the squeeze on the head, and the twist going around the shaft. He had to drop his knees to get room to work, and as the waistband cut into his ass, he ripped off the damn pants. Pretty quickly, a savage edge took over. Biting down on his lower lip until he drew blood, he let his anger out along with his lust, his hatred of Devina driving him higher, hotter.

It was a sick thing to dwell on, but safer and more gentlemanly than what he felt for Sissy.

The orgasm hit like a lightning strike, stopping his heart, freezing his hand, jerking his legs. Then came the thunder—rolling though his mind, his body, his soul . . . and all he saw was
Sissy, turning in slow motion to face him, her eyes staring up at him with a woman's speculation.

As the release kicked out of his body, he milked it only because he wanted the sex out of him . . . so he could concentrate, get back to work, do the right thing.

In the wake of the orgasm, exhaustion dogged him, pulling at the corners of his eyes, drooping his shoulders. It had been so long since he had slept well.

Nearly three decades, as a matter of fact.

Not since his momma had died.

And as he snagged hold of those sweatpants and used them to wipe up, he thought any true rest was going to be a long, long time coming.

For now, though, maybe he'd just shut his eyes and let the post-climax floats recharge his batteries a little. He didn't have tons of time at his disposal, but then again, he never crashed for long, either.

The last thing he thought of as he drifted off while still propped against the door wasn't a thing at all.

It was the woman downstairs who was searching through that book. He wasn't sure whether he hoped she found anything . . . or not.

Maybe Ad was right and he shouldn't tempt the Fates by giving Purgatory a try.

But as always, he was in between a rock and a hard place.

The shadows were growing long out on the lawn when Sissy got to the last page of the book from Hell. Putting her hands on the small of her back, she stretched for the one hundredth time and looked over at Adrian. The angel had shifted positions around three in the afternoon and now he was lying length-wise on the
sofa, one of the velvet accent pillows stuffed under his head. He hadn't moved since then, except for crossing and uncrossing his feet. She knew he wasn't sleeping, though.

Where was Jim? she wondered.

“Upstairs,” Ad answered like she'd spoken out loud. “You want me to get him for you?”

She closed the book and stared down at the pitted, stained cover. “I don't know.”

A split second later, she heard footfalls coming down the stairs, hitting the front foyer, zeroing in on the parlor.

“Is that your doing?” she asked softly.

“Walkie-talkies are so damn cumbersome. Fuckers require batteries, too.”

“Nice trick,” she said, straightening her shirt, pushing her hair back.

Right before Jim came into the room, she wondered what she looked like, and wished she had a hairbrush, a mirror . . . maybe some toothpaste.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, she thought. One, there was no competing with the likes of that demon. And two, like she wanted Devina's leftovers?

Jim entered the parlor in blue jeans and a white T-shirt that pulled across his pecs and stretched around the heft of his biceps. His face was remote, and his eyes did not meet hers, but his sheer presence sure got through to her. He was, as always, magnetic, the kind of man anybody would look over at. Was it the height? That build? The perma-frown? That beautiful, shimmering halo around his dark blond head . . .

Okay, fine. Maybe she did want to compete with the damn demon.

Even though that made no sense, and was self-destructive in the extreme.

“I didn't find anything,” she announced. “Not one thing.”

Unbelievable, really. Considering the tome had how many words in it? Two trillion?

Jim frowned even more deeply. “You're kidding me.”

“Nope.” She wasn't sure what she had read, actually. The writing had a funny way of going in one eye and out the other. But she was very clear that there had been nothing about Purgatory.

“Are you sure you're reading it right?”

Sissy turned the book around and pushed it across the coffee table to him. “Give it a try yourself.”

“I don't know Latin.”

“Guess you're out of luck.”

“Goddamn it.”

“Well, what do you want me to say? It's not in there. I mean, the place exists, because you two tell me it does—so maybe, I don't know, is it possible there's another name for it? Or is there another source of information we can use? Like, have you got an Internet for the afterlife?”

They both looked at Adrian, who was sitting up and rubbing at his dark hair until the stuff stood up like he'd licked a light socket. “Not that I know of.” The angel shook his head. “You know, maybe this is something we need to back off from. I've been thinking about it all afternoon, Jim. If by some miracle you manage to get yourself over there, I'm really not sure we can get you back in one piece—even without Nigel. And before you ask, no, I don't think the Creator's gonna be all about helping your ass, especially 'cause you're doing this to get around one of His rules.”

Jim cursed. “No, we're going to find a way. I'm not giving up—”

The attack came out of nowhere. One second Jim was standing just inside the room, looking pissed off. The next, a bare-
chested man was rushing at him from behind, flashing through the doorway soundlessly, some kind of glinting weapon over his head.

Sissy screamed and pointed—and that was what got Jim ripping around just before he got stabbed in the back. His response was instantaneous, his body bracing against the onslaught, his hands latching onto that raised arm and twisting the blade out of range. But he couldn't throw off the aggressor, the other man as powerful as he was.

It was Colin, the guy from Jim's hospital visit, she realized. The dark-haired one—

Bang!
They slammed into the mantel.
Crash!
They knocked over a side table and shattered a lamp.
Screech!
Their combined, thrashing weight pushed one of the sofas off the rug and onto the bare floor. And as the two of them twirled in a deadly waltz, Adrian jumped up, drawing a knife she hadn't been aware of being on him.

But the angel didn't get far.

With a quick surge, the attacker extended his free hand and sent a blast of white light at Ad, blowing him off his feet with such force, the couch he landed on shot across the room and splintered into the wall.

With the angel slumping down to the floor, Jim and the aggressor ping-ponged around the parlor, ricocheting off the walls as they fought for control of that crystal weapon—and Sissy was not about to sit around and wait to see who got tired first. Lunging out of their way, she looked around for something, anything, to help fight Colin off.

She grabbed the first thing she came to, a brass candlestick that weighed as much as a crowbar. The beeswax wick stick went airborne as she picked the thing up, lifted it over her head, and ran across—