Veck’s knees seemed to buckle. Either that or she threw off his center of gravity—either way, he sagged into the wall and had to throw out a palm to hold himself up.
Working her sex through her trousers, she watched him watch her—and it was gratifying to know this solo act wasn’t going to last. His rabid eyes were locked on what she was doing,his body trembling like at any second he was going to snap and take over what she’d begun.
“Want to help?” she drawled.
He was on her in a flash, adding his hand to her ministrations, until she moved out of the way because it was more exciting for him to stroke her.
Under his quick and nimble fingers, her pants came undone and then he was pushing them down her thighs, his efforts aided when she braced her foot against the toilet seat and lifted her butt. With the waistband around her knees, he had access to her panties and—
“Oh, God!” she called out as he found her.
There was something so delicious about the combination of her being superslick and him doing the rubbing. And that was even before he ducked under the barrier and went skin-to-skin with her core.
Digging into his shoulders, she yanked him to her mouth as he focused on the top of her sex, driving her higher, and higher, and—
Reilly came hard, the force of the orgasm clenching her legs together around his talented hand, her body jerking in rhythmic pulses. He didn’t stop what he was doing, however—he helped her ride out the cresting waves until she was a limp, panting bag of bliss.
As Veck pulled back and stared down at her, he might not have had a release himself, but he damn sure was looking satisfied.
“How was that for an hors d’oeuvre?” he murmured, his low-lidded expression suggesting he knew every bit of how great he was.
When she’d recovered enough to move, she reached out and cupped his erection through his closed fly. “Payback is going to be a pleasure.”
CHAPTER 32
Standing across from Devina, in the backyard of the Internal Affairs officer’s house, Adrian was not reacting to a target for the first time in his unnatural, immortal life.
As he stared over Jim’s shoulder at that fake-ass glamour-puss piece of evil, the demon’s words banged around his skull sure as if she’d put a minion under his chrome dome and the fucker was whaling at his brain with a sledgehammer.
The old Adrian would have trampled Jim, or anything else in his path, to lock his hands around her throat and squeeze until she didn’t just suffocate, but he snapped her ugly head right off her spine.
That was, however, precisely what she expected. What she was banking on. The reason she’d spoken.
And he stayed in control as it dawned on him that his hothead routine was the reason his best friend had been murdered. Jim was right: Destabilization was the name of the game, and the demon had done what she had because she was sure it was going to help her in the war.
So, yeah, as much as it killed him, as much as it ground his molars and fisted his balls, he simply stood where he was.
He couldn’t answer her, though. He didn’t trust himself to open his mouth.
“Eddie’s safe and sound,” Jim said. “And we’re taking care of him.”
“New jobs as morticians. How quaint.” Devina smiled broadly, as if she were truly, deeply happy. “But don’t you miss him, Adrian? Never mind, I can feel you from here. You know, if you ever need a shoulder to cry on, I’m always available.”
Just as he was about to tell her to shove the plastic sympathy so far up her ass she gagged on the shit, Jim tightened his hold on Ad’s arm—until the guy was all but cutting off the circulation.
And the savior was right: If he reacted as Devina wanted him to, Eddie had died for fucking nothing. Which was the only thing worse than their losing him in the first place.
On that note, he put his other hand over Jim’s so that they were both holding him in place.
Devina seemed momentarily nonplussed. But it didn’t last. “Paralyzed by grief, Adrian?”
An eternity passed.
And sometime in those infinite heartbeats between her taunts and his nonreaction, he started to grow cold: His emotions ceased to run to any kind of extreme, as if they had burned out—and like a star that collapsed in on itself, he felt a turning tide that retracted him out of Devina’s reach.
She would have been better off to just leave him alone and let him stew in his anger. But now that she’d pushed him into this arctic clarity, for the first time, he could respond solely with his mind and not his heart.
He released his grip on Jim and stepped away from the savior. As he separated them, Jim’s head ripped around as if he were about to intercede, but Adrian just stood next the guy and faced the enemy.
“Did you want something, Devina?” Adrian said in a dark voice. “Or is this just a social call.”
Cue another round of silence. This time, however, Devina started to fidget with her long hair, her short skirt, her gold bangles.
And for Ad, there was no satisfaction at ruining the demon’s fun. There was just a deadly quiet in his chest, a resonate power that for all his ferocious warrior instincts, he had never gotten close to before.
It was as if he’d been reborn. And he’d be damned if he ever went back to who he had been.
Literally.
As Jim looked over at the other angel, he thought, Okay, who the fuck are you, and what have you done with Adrian Vogel.
The male beside him wasn’t anything close to the guy he’d met and worked with for the last two rounds in the war. This was a robot who looked like Ad: utterly identical, but completely rewired from the original.
There was no emotion in his face, his body, his vibe.
Nothing.
And something told Jim the shift was permanent, like the guy’s motherboard had been blown out and replaced. Hard to know if it was good news or bad, though. The lightning-quick temper was gone. The passion was gone. The heat was gone. In its place? Icy calculation—which made him untouchable in a way.
And that was a sword that cut both ways, didn’t it. But whatever, there was time to worry about repercussions later.
Jim turned his head back to Devina. “So what’s it going to be. Social? Or business.”
Devina swept her brunette hair up and out, the waves bouncing with health like she was in a shampoo commercial. “I’m very busy.”
“Then why are you standing here talking.” Jim took out his Marlboros and shook for a cig. “If you’re such a busy little girl.”
“Oh, you have no idea how much I’m working on.” Her nasty smile was the kind of thing horror movies tried to pull off and couldn’t get anywhere near. “I’m all about the game changers. And I’m looking forward to this round being over.”
“Because you like the taste of losing?” He took out his Bic and lit up. “Strange appetite you have there, sweetheart.”
“I like the taste of you.” She ran her hand down her body. “And I’m going to gorge myself soon enough.”
“Doubt it.”
“Have you forgotten our agreement?”
“Oh, I remember it.”
“And I haven’t lied.”
“You must be so proud.”
When Jim said nothing further, she played with her hair a little more . . . and that was it. She just stood there
