Firestorm

'She isn't awake.'

'Could've fooled me.'

David let out a slow breath that stirred my hair. 'She's still dreaming, Jo. When she wakes up… it will be worse. A lot worse. Unless something happens to change her mind about humanity.'

'Ashan took care of all that. He's been whispering sweet nothings in her ear for years, I'd be willing to bet. Maybe centuries. Nothing I can do or say will counteract that.'

David kissed the top of my head where I was curled against him, and he stroked my hair. It was a familiar ritual. My curls relaxed under his touch and smoothed into a silk-soft curtain. I'd never realized how intimate that was, how… caring. He felt so strong when I leaned against him. So solid and immediate and real. 'Don't underestimate yourself,' he said. 'You stopped me in my tracks the first time I saw you. She has to love you.'

I was overwhelmed by how much I missed him. Such a girly thing to do, but I couldn't help it; I turned my face to his chest and began to sob. Abjectly, silently, near-hysterically. My whole body trembled with the force of it. I didn't want to be doing these things, risking these things; I wanted to forget the feeling of dread and terror and helplessness that Eamon had buried inside me like a broken-off knife. I wanted to take David home and live in peace. For heaven's sake, just live.

He understood why I was crying, I guess, because he didn't speak. He just held me, stroking my hair, and let me cry. There were advantages to having a lover older than recorded history. He knew when to be quiet and just let me get on with it.

Once the storm had passed, I felt weak, feverish, and not very much better. My eyes were scratchy and swollen, and I needed to lie down and curl up in a ball for about, oh, a week. Next to him. Holding him.

'I'm sorry,' he said, and let me straighten up when I tried to pull away. 'You didn't ask for any of this. You never did.'

'Damn right.' I took a handful of tissues from the box that Sarah had been using before me, and used them to wipe my face, blot my eyes, and blow my nose. David watched with nothing but compassion on his face. 'I was going to ask why me, but I don't think there's really a very good answer for that.'

'The stronger the shoulders, the larger the load,' he said. It sounded like an aphorism, but I didn't know it. 'You're strong, Jo. Stronger than most humans I've ever known.'

'Great. My boyfriend thinks I'm a Clydesdale.'

He smiled. 'I think you're a goddess.'

'Sweet,' I said, and honked my nose, 'but goddesses don't cry in their beer about crap like this, do they?'

'How many goddesses have you ever met?'

I didn't want to ask how many he'd met. Sounded like a discussion of former girlfriends that I didn't want to have right now. 'How long can you stay? With me?'

'I don't know.' Oh, hell, I didn't want him to be honest about it. Men. Why don't they ever know when to slide in the comforting lie? 'Like you, I'm doing this from moment to moment. On instinct.'

'Yeah, but at least your instincts are honed by a few millennia of experience. Mine, they're finely calibrated by a few years of screwing up.'

That got a cute little smile from him, with raised eyebrows, and nearly revealed a hidden dimple. Ooooh. I blotted my tears again, to keep him in focus.

'Close your eyes,' David said.

'Why?'

His eyebrows quirked. 'Don't you trust me?'

Unarguable. I closed them, although it deprived me of the sight of him, which was a big minus. The sandy itch of postcrying swelling was nearly unbearable… until I felt the light, silky stroke of his thumbs across the lids.

And then the itchy, swollen feeling was gone.

I sucked in a startled breath and discovered that my bloated sinus passages were fixed, too. Nice. The ache in my temple also vanished.

The vague heavy ache of the aftereffects of Eamon's drug were gone, as if it had never existed.

I opened my eyes again and looked straight at him. His smile kindled into the kind of fire you get at the heart of a nuclear power plant. The look melted me into a little radioactive puddle. Figuratively. But I wasn't entirely sure he couldn't do it literally, as well.

'You bastard,' I breathed. 'You could have just zapped Eamon's poison right out of me, couldn't you?'

'I wanted a hands-on approach. And I wanted him to clearly understand that we were not the people he should want to play with.'

'Oh, I'm pretty sure you got it across to him.' I put a hand on the warm plane of his cheek and let my fingers glide down the warm skin, rough with just a hint of beard. David might be wearing human form as a kind of disguise, but he was thorough about it. He understood the delight of textures.

'We can leave in the morning,' he said. 'Imara's right. You need the rest.'

I didn't want rest. All I wanted was a bed, a lock on the door, and David. It was irresponsible, it was dumb, and I didn't care. I was exhausted with the strain of giving up what I wanted for the sake of… everyone else.

The weather was distracting me. I got up and yanked the cords on the curtains to whip them closed.

His hands slid around me from behind before I could turn around again. They wrapped hot around my stomach and pulled me back against his body. His head dropped forward, pressed against mine, and I felt the shuddering breath that went through him. As if he wanted to weep the way I had, but men—even male Djinn— didn't do that kind of thing. He pressed his lips to the back of my neck instead. His voice, when it came, was rusty and low. 'I hate this,' he said. 'I hate seeing you hurt. I want to keep you safe, and I can't. I can't even keep you safe from me.'

'You have.'

'So far.'

'You will.'

'Maybe.' He loosened his hold on me and let me turn around; his hands settled on my hips and pulled me closer against him. 'I wish you'd never met me. You'd have been—'

'Dead,' I finished for him. 'You know, because you saved my life. A few times.'

He shook his head. 'You might not have been in danger if it hadn't been for me.'

'Not everything's about you. Or the Djinn,' I said, but I said it gently, because I hated to imply he wasn't the center of the universe, and kissed him to let him know not to take it personally. It was a nice, long, slow kiss, and it felt like we were melting into each other. Tension flowed down my back, out through my feet, and left me in a deliciously languorous state of bliss. Without breaking the kiss, David walked me back a step, then another, until the bends of my knees collided with the bed. I wavered, then let myself fall; David let go long enough for me to writhe fully onto the bed, and then he just stood there, looking down at me.

'What are you looking at?' I demanded. I got a beautiful smile that held just a tinge of sadness.

'You,' he said. 'I just want to remember this.'

He shrugged off his olive drab coat and let it fall in a heavy thump to the carpet. Underneath, he was wearing a blue-and-white shirt and a pair of khaki cargo pants.

'Your turn,' he said.

'We're taking turns?'

He shrugged. There was a sinful glint in his eyes. 'One piece at a time.'

I didn't have a coat. I considered, then kicked off my shoes. That got a raised eyebrow. He retaliated by stripping off his own, socks included. I loved his feet. Long, narrow feet with a high arch. Baby soft, because the Djinn had no use for mundane things like calluses. Every inch of him was perfect, I recalled. Warm and velvet-soft and perfect.

I was igniting inside like an oil-soaked rag on a bonfire.

'Shirt, please,' he said. The word was almost a purr in his throat. 'Slowly.'

I made a production out of it, arching my back to slide it off over my head, shaking my newly straightened hair until it fell like black satin over the lace of my bra. David's expression was closed and mysterious, his eyes narrowly focused on the rise and swell of my breasts, the way the lace curved down and away from the skin.

I propped myself up on my elbows, making sure he got a good, long look, and gave him a slow smile. 'Your