He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot

by Stephanie Rowe

  “I put some gold in it. Rivkas can do that.”

  His eyes snapped open, and he searched her face. “What did you just say?”

  She sat back on her heels, unable to keep the satisfaction of her discovery out of her voice. “You’re Markku, right?”

  “No.” He closed his eyes again and changed the subject. “Thanks for getting me out of there. I haven’t lost control like that in a long time.”

  “Scary sight.” She pursed her lips, then laid her hand over his chest so she could draw her golden fire back into her own body. His skin was warm, humming with energy. Not that she could heal him, but she could keep further damage from occurring by taking back her fire. Gold was bad news for Markku, and she’d probably put a little too much in there. As she drew the gold out, however, she could feel the thrum of his emotions, his passion, his boiling energies. She hadn’t realized Markku were like that. “I thought Markku were extinct.”

  He winced at her touch, then opened his eyes, and she noticed they were an interesting shade of green. A brilliant jade, with flecks of sea foam, and there was a hardness in them that said he wasn’t going to discuss the Markku.

  Fine. She’d work back to it. “Who’s Dani?”

  He studied her for a long moment, and she could practically see him considering how to convince her to help him. She felt an energy pulse where she had her palm on the bare skin of his chest, and a flicker of interest flared in his eyes.

  Crud. What had he sensed from her?

  “Have you ever loved anyone?” he asked.

  Whoa. “Where’d that come from?” She pressed her lips together and concentrated on pulling the gold fire out of his body.

  He caught her chin with his thumb and lifted her face so he could look at her. She met his gaze, doing her best to keep her face impassive, but she felt another pulse on her chin where he grasped her. She scowled and slammed up her shields even as he smiled with satisfaction and dropped his hand. “You have.”

  Yeah, and it was the worst decision I’ve ever made in my life. She put her hand back on his chest and continued to retrieve her fire, frowning as some of his essence came along with it and started warming her cells. She didn’t need his hot emotions pouring into her. She was just fine as she was, and she forced herself to try to block them. “What’s your point?”

  “My sister got mixed up with some bad people, and now her life’s in danger unless I can figure out how to help her.” His anger and frustration pulsed at her through her apparently weak shields. “I can’t let anything happen to her.”

  “So don’t.” She tugged his shirt back over his burned chest, realizing that her best option to keep his emotions away from her was to stop touching him. She was pretty good at suppressing her own emotions, but she’d never been around someone who could project his onto her, and she didn’t like it. Made her want more. “You should get some cream for that or something.”

  He caught her wrist as she tried to pull away. “You know what I’m going through. I know you do. Help me save my sister’s life.”

  She twisted free, and he let her go.

  “Help me, Becca.” There was a raw edge to his voice that caught her interest. He wasn’t simply putting on an act. He really was desperate…and in a convenient twist of fate, so was she.

  She sat back on her heels and studied him as an idea formed in her mind. “I’ll help you if you help me.”

  He frowned. “You’d charge me for saving an innocent?”

  “Many innocents die. It’s part of the cycle of life,” she intoned automatically. “It’s the balance.”

  “I won’t let my sister be part of that balance,” he growled.

  She looked at him, suddenly filled with sorrow for his pain, for the lessons he hadn’t yet learned. He was like an innocent kid hidden inside a big, muscular, hard man-shell. “We don’t get to choose.”

  “I always choose.”

  “Well, Mr. He-man, aren’t you the lucky one? Just think. Someone always in control of everything.” Just the thought of it made her want to pop him with a fireball. Rubbing it in her face that he was Mr. In-Control-of-His-Life, when the only thing she had control over was… well…come to think of it, there really wasn’t anything.

  Which is why she needed to cut the apron strings and get a life.

  Nick reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, pulsing his anger, his rage through her…and underneath, she sensed such a raw and burning passion and love for his sister that it made her stumble. She yanked her hand free and stepped back, his emotions still whirling through her with an intensity she hadn’t realized existed. God, was this what she was missing by being Satan’s minion? This kind of love and emotional intensity? It was like all her senses had suddenly become aware in a way they never had been. Alive. Real. I want that.

  “Becca…”

  She shook her head and took another step back, trying to regain control, trying to cleanse her body of all that was Nick. Trying to forget what she’d just felt. You can’t have it, so you have to let it go. But God, she wanted it.

  Nick Rawlings might be her key to getting free of Satan, but he was too much for her. His passion and radiating emotions cracked through the walls she’d worked so hard to erect to protect herself. She couldn’t afford to feel what he felt, not with her life the way it was, not with the things she had to do every day for Satan.

  She took a deep breath. The guy who’d tried to kill her had the same aura as Nick, so he must have been Markku. She hadn’t sensed any emotions from him, so he was different from Nick in that way. Safer. She’d find him and torture him into telling her all that he knew. Much better plan.

  She drew her shoulders back as Nick pulled himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the Dumpster.

  “See you around, Nick Rawlings.” Then she started to dissolve.

  “The people who took my sister want me to kill Satan to save her.”

  She reformed instantly at his words, clenching her fists in aggravation. “Seriously?” That would completely piss her off if Satan died, killing her before she was able to get free of him. “Are you going to accept the assignment? Just a hypothetical question designed to help me decide if I need to kill you.”

  His eyes glistened with the knowledge that he’d finally hooked her. “If it’s my only option, yeah.”

  She narrowed her eyes at his admission. Either he was a total idiot for telling her that, or he was so arrogant about his ability to kill her that he didn’t mind telling her. Or maybe there was something that she was missing. “Do you think I won’t kill you? I’m sure a gold fireball in the right eye would take care of business quite nicely, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged and propped himself up on the Dumpster, still looking a little wobbly. Now that he’d figured out how to get to her, he looked like a man who had all the time in the world to reel her in. Gone was his desperation, replaced by a quiet confidence that was actually quite appealing. “I’m not worried. You’re too smart to kill me.”

  She grinned. “Compliments like that will get you a quick death instead of a long, drawn-out torture, but you’ll still end up dead. I’m not quite the pushover I seem, you know.”

  He shrugged off her threat. “Killing me accomplishes nothing, because if I don’t kill Satan, the people manipulating me will keep trying until they get it done. So either way, Satan will end up dead, and then you and all the other Rivkas go ‘poof.’ And if you kill me, you lose the inside track, since I know details about my sister that you don’t. We need each other.”

  Damn the man for being so logical.

  “Killing Satan would seriously screw up the balance of all our worlds, so I’m trying to avoid it, and I need your help to do so. I figure we could team up to find the person who wants Satan dead and kill them first. Then you get to stay alive, and I get my sister back, and the bad guy dies. Everyone wins, we drink champagne, have a party, and then call it a day.”

  She cocked her head. “So, why do you need
me? You seem like quite the capable guy.”

  “I need a Rivka because they know all about hell, but only one who can make decisions without Satan’s permission can help me, because I seriously doubt Satan would allow you to waste your time saving an innocent. You’re the only Rivka who has the ability to act independently.” He watched her. “So…you in?”

  She kicked a rusted can out of her way while she contemplated, then turned to face him. “I’m perfectly capable of killing you and then tracking down this annoying little troublemaker on my own, but you have something I want, so I’ll make a deal.”

  His face got serious. “My soul?”

  She reached out and laid her hand on his belly…erm…rock-hard washboard stomach…and felt no tingle indicating he was black-hearted scum who needed a good ass-whupping by Satan.

  She paused, realizing she hadn’t touched a man in a nonviolent way since before electricity was invented. He wasn’t throwing his emotions at her through their contact, giving her the chance to simply feel the warmth of his skin.

  It felt nice.

  She cleared her throat and peeled her hand off his body. “You’re too pure to be harvested.” She hooked her thumbs on the waistband of her skirt and looked at him. “I want to know all the details about how the Markku got free.”

  “My grandpa’s generation broke free, not me.”

  “But I’m sure you know the story. Or at the very least, the answer’s inside you.” She walked up to him and laid her hands on his chest, dropping her shields completely. Hot, passionate energies tumbled out of him and flooded her body, but she forced herself to ignore them, as she searched for what she knew had to be there.

  And then she found it: deep inside him she could feel the cold stillness that she carried every day. Satan’s life force lived on inside his being. He was truly Markku.

  She dropped her hands and sighed with relief as the emotional bombardment stopped. “You’re definitely from hell, but now you’re free. I want to know how it all happened. Your family history and your body have stories to tell. Lessons I can learn. I want access to all of it.”

  Hope gleamed in his eyes. “And you’ll help me with my sister?”

  “First you give me the information.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a Rivka. Once you get what you want, you’ll split before I get any help from you.”

  She set her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Just because I’m from hell, that automatically means my word can’t be trusted?”

  “Well, when you say it like that…yes.”

  He had a point. Satan tried to make her break her promises as much as possible, and if he found out about this one, it would be the same. “Well, you’re also from hell, so how can I trust you not to bail as soon as your sister is free from whatever oh-so-scary thing has her in its scaly tentacles?”

  “Because you have Underworld resources at your disposal and you’d have no trouble finding me if I tried to hide from you.”

  “Um…yeah, true.” It wasn’t, actually. Hell wasn’t all that up-to-date in its ability to track every single human and Otherworld being on the planet, but it was a rumor Satan liked to foster because it kept people from thinking they could sell their soul and then hide when he came to collect it. Satan did have tracking devices that he saved for high-profile souls that were flight risks, but they were all in use right now. If O. J. Simpson would just hurry up and die…

  “So, it’s a deal?” he pressed.

  “Sure. Deal.”

  He grinned, and she felt the relief cascading off him. It was such a fresh, sunny sensation that she wanted to lean into him and let it wash over her body. How cool would it be to embrace her emotions like that?

  His hands went around her upper arms, and she suddenly realized she actually had been leaning into him and he’d grabbed her to stop her from actually falling onto his chest. She started to jerk back, when she realized that his grip on her arms was doing all sorts of funky things to her body. Heat. Light. Simmering energies. All of it pulsating where he was gripping her. It was such a rush. Felt so good…

  “Are you all right?” His voice was low and a little bit husky.

  Um, hello? What are you doing? She immediately pulled back. “Yeah, I was just checking to see that you had the goods. Markku ones, I mean.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it felt like.” He was sporting the smug look that all men wore when they realized a woman had the hots for them, and it instantly made her want to pop him with a fireball.

  But she was a little woozy from his playing emotional footsie with her. God, what was wrong with her? Men didn’t affect her like this.

  No, but apparently men like Nick Rawlings did.

  She pointed at him. “This deal is business only. Got it?”

  “Oh, I got it.”

  And what, exactly, did he mean by that? “Nick—”

  There was a sudden explosion of gold bubbles, and she snapped her mouth shut as Satan burst out of the Dumpster, flew into the air, and landed with a graceful swish between her and Nick. He was wearing black satin pants, a white silk shirt, and a thick gold chain with diamonds in it. He threw his hands onto his hips and puffed out his chest. “Rivka! We need to talk.”

  Oh, shit.

  Eight

  Nick stepped back when the leader of hell appeared in front of him. When the Markku had broken free of hell with their well-organized mutiny, Satan hadn’t exactly been happy with them, and he had used his Rivkas to wipe out any that he discovered over the years. And now, here Nick was, stuck in an alley with Satan.

  Which would have been great if he was actually planning to kill Satan to save his sister, but until he was convinced that his sister really would be released upon the death of Satan, he wasn’t going to do it. Not only was he averse to being manipulated, but he was well aware that killing Satan would create a power void with major implications for all living and Afterlife beings. Bad implications. Especially since Satan Jr. would probably try to take over hell, and he was pure evil in a way that Satan wasn’t. As bad as Satan was, the world was better off with him alive.

  And then there was that whole thing that killing Satan would also kill Becca…not that Nick was concerned about the fate of any evil, soul-sucking Rivka.

  Really. He wasn’t.

  Satan didn’t turn around, however. He kept his attention focused on Becca. “Rivka. I have big love problem.”

  Becca let her breath out in apparent relief at the question. “Problem with the ex-Guardian?”

  Satan sighed and hopped up to sit on the Dumpster, swinging his Italian-leather-clad feet like an agitated little boy. “Yes, I promise her much and I cannot live with my promise. So I shall break promise and not tell her, no?”

  She raised her brows. “Isn’t that what you always do?”

  “Yes, yes, I am very proud of my ability to break promises.” He sighed heavily. “As woman, would you continue to enjoy my airplane rides of love if you know I lie and break promise?”

  She shifted and glanced at Nick, as if she were embarrassed to be talking about anything personal. “Um, listen, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with the dating thing, but I have to think that Iris will be a little pissed.”

  How could she not have dating experience? She was gorgeous and spunky, and she had so much attitude that he could spend years trying to figure her out. Then again, having her boss be Satan might be a bit intimidating to some guys, he supposed.

  “Yes, yes, but she ask me to not be who I am. Is that love?” Satan frowned and tapped his heels against the Dumpster, making it thud. “You would not ask me to change. You embrace my inner demon, no?”

  Becca winced. “Satan, you can’t judge any relationship based on you and me. You threaten and torture me, and I tell you what you want to hear in order to keep you somewhat sane.”

  “Yes, yes, it is lovely what we have, is it not?” He gave her a smile that actually looked genuine.

  Wasn’t that interesting? Based on
what his pa had told him, Nick had always assumed Satan was just an evil, heartless leader of hell, but he was getting some hits of definite affection off Satan, directed toward Becca. He opened his senses and realized Satan was projecting all sorts of emotions, including confusion and fear.

  Fear? Satan afraid? Of what?

  “Satan,” Becca said. “You need her. She needs you. It’s just a little bit of work to get past the ‘leader of hell/Guardian of all that’s good’ conflict. You guys can do it.”

  He frowned at her. “But I torture and pillage, and that is what makes women swoon for me. If I become wussy she-man, then no woman will want me.” His scowl deepened, and he jumped off the Dumpster and stomped his foot. “Is that the plan of fair Iris? To demasculate me so she has no competition?” A spiral of smoke began to float up from the top of his head. “I cannot allow her to nip my manly parts off with a pair of clippers! I must resist!” He stopped suddenly and sniffed the air, then whirled around to face Nick.

  Uh-oh.

  Satan pointed a glowing red finger at Nick. “You eavesdrop on my therapy session with my personal servant! No one is permitted to hear that Satan has feelings! You die, mortal!” And then a fireball shot out of his finger and slammed Nick in the chest.

  Nick took the hit without moving.

  Satan raised his brows and peered at him. “How are you not dead?”

  Oh, hell. “I’m an elf,” he lied.

  “Elf? Elf?” Satan whirled toward Becca. “Elf do not die from fireball? Did I know this?”

  She looked at Nick, and he could see her thinking. Was she going to give him away? She had no reason to protect him…depending on how badly she wanted to be free of Satan. He tensed his body, ready to fight if he had to. Finally, Becca said, “He’s a mutant elf.”

  “Mutant? How interesting.” Satan peered at him and flicked his ear. “No pointy ears either. Do you have any elf qualities at all?”

  Um…he really had no idea what elf qualities were…

  “Hey, he’s a guy.” Becca was suddenly between them. “Why don’t you ask Nick for advice on how to date? I’m sure if you promised to cut out his tongue if he repeats the conversation, he’d be happy to keep it quiet.”