I scanned his clown getup, the reds and yellows of his hoodie. “Your name is Ronald?”
With a grin, he said, “The irony is not lost on me, I promise.” He stepped through before I could question him on the
When people crossed, I could see their lives. I could tell if they’d been happy, what their favorite color was, the names of their pets growing up. It was a ritual I’d learned to savor. I let my lids drift shut and waited. He smelled like grease paint and iodine and coconut shampoo. He’d been in the hospital, waiting for a heart transplant. While there, he decided to make himself useful, so he dressed up like a different clown every day and visited the kids in pediatrics. Each day he’d have a new name, something funny like Rodeo Ron or Captain Boxer Shorts, and each day they had to guess what it was from his voiceless clues. He couldn’t talk well near the end, and while gesturing was difficult and left him exhausted, he felt it was better than freaking out the kids with his gravelly voice. He died just hours before a heart had been found. Despite my original assumption, he’d never smoked a day in his life.
And he loved a girl named Jenny who smelled like baby oil and sold hot dogs to put herself through college. Jenny would be the part of this whole grim reaper gig I hated most. The people-left-behind part. I could feel their hearts contract with grief. I could feel their lungs fight for air. I could feel the sting of tears behind their eyes at losing someone they loved, someone they were sure they couldn’t live without.
I sucked in a sharp breath and pulled myself back to the present. Ronald was a cool guy. I’d have to look him up when my time was up, see how his eternity was going. I sank farther into the sofa cushions and took a long draw of coffee, absorbing the caffeine, letting it spark and reawaken my brain cells.
Glancing at my
The mere thought of that price gave me unwanted butterflies in my nether regions. I pushed it from my mind as heat from the sultry night wafted around me like a heavy vapor, seeping into my skin, suffocating any thoughts of comfort. Utterly annoyed, I sat up, pushed a dampened strand of hair out of my face, and headed to the bathroom, hoping a splash of cool water would help and wondering how the heck the night got so sultry. It was freaking November. Maybe global warming had amped up its game. Or a solar flare had pushed through the magnetosphere and was cooking us all alive. That would suck.
Just as I reached for the light switch, wondering if I should buy sunscreen, a sharp stab of arousal sparked in my lower abdomen. I gasped in surprise and grabbed the doorjamb for balance.
This was so not happening. Not again.
I glanced at the faucet longingly. Water would set things right. Couple of splashes and I’d be back to my normal curmudgeonly self in no time. I flipped the switch, but the overhead just flickered as though gasping for air, then died out. I flipped again. And again, before giving up. Mostly because the definition of insanity came to mind.
The wiring in my apartment demoted the term
I stood there contemplating that fact when a ripple of desire gripped me again, seizing me with fierce, delicious claws, trembling through me so hard, I had to clamp my jaw shut. I clutched the vanity as the fervor bathed me in a sensuous heat I couldn’t fend off. It seeped inside me, lured me to the edge, led me to the dark side. Hungrily, I parted my lips and parted my legs and gave it room to grow. And grow it did. It built up strength and power, its tendrils pushing into me, swirling and pulsing in my abdomen.
My knees buckled, and I shifted my weight to my palms as the pressure grew more intense, forcing me to fight for every breath I took. Then the sound of another’s breath mingled with my own, and I glanced up into the mirror.
Reyes Alexander Farrow — the part-human, part-supermodel son of Satan — materialized behind me, his powerful shoulders glistening as steam rose around him, giving the impression he’d just come from hell. He hadn’t, of course. He’d escaped from hell centuries ago and was currently furious with me for binding his incorporeal body to his physical one. But that knowledge did little to lessen the effect.
I squinted to see him more clearly. “What are you doing here?”
He lowered his head, his dark eyes piercing me with an angry glare. The butthead. It was my bathroom.
But I’d bound him. I’d bound his incorporeal body to his physical one. How was he even there? How could he be?
“You summoned me,” he said, his deep voice tight with animosity.
I shook my head. “That’s impossible.”
He reached an arm over my shoulder and braced his hand against the wall in front of me. To tower. To dominate. To make sure I knew I was trapped. His lean body pressed against my backside as he braced the other hand against the wall to my right, completely imprisoning me.
His hard gaze locked on to mine. “Is it impossible because you bound me like a dog to a chain?”
Oh, yeah. He was pissed. “You left me no choice,” I said, my voice quivering, not nearly as confident as I’d hoped.
He lowered his head until his mouth was at my ear. “And you leave me none.” His features darkened. His eyes narrowed as he stared at me in the mirror from underneath his thick lashes, hooded with passion.
I couldn’t look away. He was so beautiful, so masculine. When he wrapped an arm around me, slid his hand down the front of my panties, I grabbed his wrist. “Wait,” I said between ragged breaths. “I still don’t understand how you’re here.”
“I told you, you summoned me.” His fingers tunneled between my legs despite my best efforts, and I gasped aloud when they dipped inside. “You always summon me. You’ve always had the power to call me whenever you want or need me, Dutch. Or haven’t you figured that out yet?”
I fought the delicious sensations spiking in my abdomen with each stroke of his fingers. Fought to grasp the meaning of his breathy words. “No, you’ve always come to me when I needed you. When I was in danger.” And he had. Growing up, he’d always been there anytime my life was threatened.
His breath fanned across my cheek, the heat emanating off him scorching as his mouth sought the pulse point at my throat. “It’s always been you.”
He was wrong. He had to be. The idea that I could summon him, that I’d always summoned him, was unfathomable. I didn’t even know what he was until very recently. I was afraid of him, in fact. He was a dark being made of smoke and shadows, and the last thing I wanted was to be in his presence. How could I have summoned him? What he proposed was impossible.
“But as long as I’m here…” He let that statement linger as he locked me against him and pushed down my bottoms and underwear in one smooth movement. Then he let the slightest grin lift one corner of his beautiful mouth, nudged my legs apart, and entered me in one long thrust. I gasped aloud, and the swirling that had begun only moments before grew to hurricane strength in an instant. I clamped one hand around his wrist at my throat, the other on to his steely buttocks, pulling him deeper, clawing for release.
I kept my eyes open, watching him in the mirror, studying his reaction. The slight parting of his lips. The furrowing of his brow. The fall of his lashes.
“Dutch,” he said in his smooth, deep voice, as though helpless against what he was about to do. His jaw locked together as his climax neared. He lifted one of my legs onto the vanity and pushed into me, burying himself over and over, the act almost violent, coaxing me with each thrust, with each powerful stroke.
And with each stroke, the current inside me surged with more potency, his erection filling a need so deep, so visceral, it devoured every inch of my being. The raw yearning that lingered in the distance rushed forward to pool between my legs. It swelled like a tide, milking me, coaxing me ever closer.
My fingernails dug into his wrist, suddenly remembering he didn’t want to be there. Not with me. Not after what I’d done. “Reyes, wait.”
I felt it the moment it seized him, felt it quake and convulse through his body, and in an instant an explosion burst and shot through me, sending a sharp sting of pleasure ricocheting against my bones, coursing through my
