Demon Marked

trick was, her procedural memory couldn’t recall it.

Her attention returned to the tattoos on her face. Okay. So she couldn’t make her face resemble Florence Henderson’s, but she could find out what the symbols meant. Turning away from the window, she stripped off her jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair.

When she slid down her sweatshirt’s zipper, Nicholas glanced up from his dinner and newspaper. He looked again when her T-shirt came off. For a moment, he didn’t react, then that cold amusement overtook his expression. His lips thinned and tilted upward just at the corners, his eyebrows lifting a fraction of an inch.

He sat back in his chair, his gaze running the length of her naked torso and pausing on her breasts. “Dinner comes with a show?”

She bent over to haul off her boots. “It’s so we can take pictures of these symbols and send them to the Guardians.”

“That’s not happening tonight.”

“Why?” Barefoot, she straightened and unbuttoned her jeans. “You had to use a credit card to reserve the hotel. How long do you think it’ll be before they find us?”

“Not long. We’ll find another place that takes cash tomorrow morning, but stay checked-in here so they won’t know we’ve gone.”

“So it won’t matter if we send the pictures.”

“It will, because they might not have connected my name to the card I used. We might have a few days. An e-mail would bring them in right away.” His gaze lifted to her face as she lowered her zipper. “Whatever you’re doing right now, it won’t work. You can choose that body or any other. You look gorgeous, perfect—but I know you’re still a demon.”

Perfect. Ash liked that, too. And was it evil to be glad he thought so, despite his obvious desire not to? If it was, she didn’t care. It felt good. Nicholas thought she looked gorgeous. Too bad he’d gotten the rest of it wrong.

“I didn’t choose this body,” she pointed out. “I have no idea why I look like this.”

“Right.”

Oh, yes. Her plot. “So you’re attracted to me, just as you were to Rachel. And you think I deliberately chose this body to foster that attraction. I didn’t.”

“Don’t compare yourself to Rachel. You look similar, but there’s a critical difference: She wanted me in return.”

Not much of a difference, then. “I do, too.”

“Jesus. You expect me to believe that?” He shook his head, then dismissed her by returning his attention to the paper.

So he’d decided to take the irritating route again, conveniently forgetting the portion of their bargain that made it impossible for her to deceive him.

“I can’t lie,” she said. “You made certain of that.”

Oh, that little smile again. But this time, he didn’t bother to look at her. Now that was interesting. She knew he liked her body. Why not look at it, unless he felt her nudity threatened him in some way?

“I made it part of our agreement,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you haven’t been lying. It only means that you’re fucked if you do lie. For all I know, you’ve been lying since the moment we struck that bargain.”

“So basically, I’m either lying about everything, or I’m not. But you choose to believe that I’m lying. You chose to believe that I was breaking our bargain from the word go.”

“Making any other choice would be stupid. You’re a demon.”

Maybe he was right, and any other choice would be stupid; he did know more about demons than she did. But he also had to know that there was no middle ground here. Either she’d lied . . . or he’d made the wrong choice.

And if he believed that she’d lied, why keep her around? If she’d broken her bargain, Nicholas had no use for her. He lived for revenge. He discarded anything that got in the way of his goal, and a lying demon wouldn’t be any different.

So despite his response, he must be allowing for the possibility that he might be wrong. That he didn’t know everything. He might not admit it to her, but he must acknowledge the possibility to himself. Otherwise, he’d have already dumped her off on the side of the road.

She liked that about him, too.

Nicholas looked up. He’d been waiting for her to answer, she realized. Maybe waiting for her to argue. But when his gaze dropped to her bare chest and he took a long, slow breath, Ash decided she’d rather do something else.

“I want to have sex.”

He met her eyes again. Aside from that small movement, Nicholas didn’t react.

His body did. A slight darkening of his skin followed the increase of his heartbeat. A flush, a quickening. Born of anger or arousal? Maybe caused by both—and both pleased her. She liked provoking that reaction, whatever it was.

And even if it was physical arousal, it wasn’t desire. He didn’t want her. His cold blue stare communicated that perfectly across a room full of silence: Don’t fuck with me.

Too bad, because she fully intended to. She didn’t expect him to fulfill her request for sex, but she wanted —needed—to push him about this. To make him acknowledge that she felt something.

Holding his gaze, Ash arched her brows. She could do cool and amused, too—and she could stare longer than he could. Whatever he thought that icy look would accomplish, she wasn’t capable of feeling intimidated or discomfited. She wouldn’t back down, and he’d have to eventually respond.

What would he say? Would he tell her to go screw a stranger on the street? She would have, if the thought appealed to her even a fraction as much as the prospect of sex with him did, and even though she knew Nicholas wouldn’t climb into bed with her. Telling him what she wanted and forcing him to respond satisfied a deep-seated need that she hadn’t known existed until a few moments ago. And yes, it was a little evil, a little mean.

Maybe she was getting the hang of this demon gig, after all.

Finally, he set his knife and fork onto this plate, so carefully that she didn’t detect a clink. Oooooh, such restraint. She could hear his blood raging through his veins, yet he was so determined not to betray anything he felt. Simply fascinating.

Honestly, what did he think she’d do if he did reveal his emotions?

Perhaps she was about to find out. Nicholas rose from the table, all coiled tension and deliberation. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he crossed the room. Despite the icy threat emanating from him, Ash held her ground. The last time he’d come so close, he’d kissed her. He’d also electrocuted her, but he didn’t carry a weapon now.

Unless that weapon was his hand—not to hit, but to hold. Her pulse leapt when he cupped her jaw, when she felt the faint rasp of calluses against her skin, the sweep of his thumbs across her cheeks. Too late, Ash remembered: She couldn’t pull away until he let go.

She didn’t him want to, not yet. Heart pounding, she held his gaze. His eyes so cold and his expression so flat, though his blood raced, too.

The same restraint and tension flattened his voice. “You say that you didn’t choose this body on purpose, and yet you offer it to me.”

“I’m not ‘offering’ my body to you. It won’t be yours. I just want your penis in me, and to discover whether I’d enjoy it.”

Almost imperceptibly, his fingers tightened. “You wouldn’t enjoy it.”

“You’re so terrible in bed?” Ash doubted that. “Don’t worry, I’ll make the best of it.”

The brief clenching of his jaw betrayed his frustration. Because she’d continued pushing, or because a part of him wanted to make the best of it, too? Either way, his reaction pleased her.