He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot

by Stephanie Rowe

  But she did.

  Because she’d saved him from taking out a bar of innocents without worrying about her own safety.

  Because he’d seen the pain her own eyes, a deep desperation that clung to every inch of her soul.

  Because he knew she cared and tried desperately not to. She’d been so upset about Paige’s affection toward Dani that her emotions had almost burst free, even while under the influence of the bubble.

  Because she’d tried to heal him after she’d fireballed him.

  He thought of her warm hand on his skin, drawing the golden flames back out of his body before they could do any more damage. She’d had no reason to help him, and she’d done it anyway.

  Becca might be a Rivka, but she was also a woman, who had to fight every minute to retain her own identity and sanity. She was strength and fire, and he wanted to know what other secrets she had buried inside. Oh, yeah. He wanted to know.

  She turned back to face him. “Satan has ordered me never to go in there and take anything, but he’s never ordered me not to show someone else how to do it. You game?”

  He smiled. “Do you ever do anything Satan tells you?”

  “I try my best not to.”

  “Have I told you how impressive that is?”

  Her eyes lit up, but she ignored his comment. “I’ll describe the machine, you get it, and then I’ll get us out of here.” She flared up a blue fireball. “Ready to piss off the leader of hell?”

  Eleven

  Becca was still reeling from Nick’s kiss when she blew up the doors to the Goody Room and Nick darted inside to search the rubble. She could still feel the warm hardness of his body against hers. His lips trailing down the side of her neck, drawing heat into parts of her she didn’t even know existed…

  Get a grip, Becca.

  She wiped her wrist across her forehead, where perspiration was beading.

  What had been in that kiss? It had taken every defense she had not to be overwhelmed by the intensity of it. Kisses weren’t supposed to be like that. They were about lips meeting, bodies doing their thing, and maybe a few hormones getting into the act.

  They were not about ripping away at her walls and invading every cell in her soul.

  She shuddered as there was a crash and a curse from inside the Goody Room. She should never have let Nick overwhelm her with his life force when they were in Dani’s apartment. For God’s sake, she’d actually gotten tipsy on him! And she still wanted more. More of his heat. More of his kisses. More of his touch. She wanted to feel alive the way only he could make her feel, and there was just no place for that in her life.

  Because the second he let go of her, it was gone again, leaving her feeling worse than before. If she wasn’t careful, she could become a Nick junkie, and she’d have to go into rehab when this whole thing was over.

  Nick rehab. Hah. That would be productive.

  Nick emerged from the rubble, his shirt off and wrapped around a heavy object. “I can’t touch gold,” he explained.

  She stared at his dust-covered chest, at the curves of his muscle, at the ripples on his belly and felt desire flare through her. Think of where he could take me if I let him. Just once. God, she wanted to feel that alive just one time.

  He cursed and stopped dead, staring at her.

  “Nick?” Could he sense what she was feeling? If he made a move again right now, she wouldn’t stop him. She couldn’t. She wanted him too much. “Nick…”

  He said nothing, and his gaze flicked off her, to somewhere behind her.

  Okay, so it would be up to her. She lifted her chin and walked up to him. “Kiss me.”

  He stared down at her, his eyes dark. “No.”

  She frowned. “Why not?”

  “Because if I do, I’ll want to rip apart all your shields and possess you on every level of your existence.”

  Oh. She felt hot, and it was more than lust. It was the anticipation of his life force pouring into her, filling her with light and life and everything she didn’t get to have.

  “And because some guy just popped out of the floor behind you and he looks really, really pissed.”

  She spun around, then all the hair on her arms sprung up when she saw who was standing there. He was tall and wiry, and still missing his right ear from the fight in which Becca had harvested him for Satan. He was wearing black leather chaps, silver-toed cowboy boots, and a ten-gallon hat with daggers neatly lined up around the brim. He leered, his gold teeth winking at her, his eyes black with hate. “Rivka.”

  “What are you doing here, Checkmate?” She churned up a fireball in her hand as sweat trickled down her back.

  “You know him?” Nick’s lips were next to her ear, his voice low.

  “It’s Checkmate Max,” she whispered. “He used to kidnap innocents and make them play chess. He’d chop off a body part for each chess piece he won from one of his victims. He made them play until they bled to death. Satan put him in charge of one of his early torture chambers. A real prize for hell.”

  “I can imagine.” He shifted, and suddenly there was a gun in his hand.

  “No, he’s already dead. A gun won’t work.” She pushed it back out of sight. “This is my world, Nick. Let me handle it.”

  Nick scowled, but he didn’t protest when she shook her head at him.

  But he also didn’t put away his gun.

  Max took a sip of the latte she hadn’t noticed in his hand, watching her oh-so-carefully over the rim of his cup. “Well, if it isn’t the Rivka who got me taken off torture duty and put in my own little cell of hell. I was a hero in hell before you stuck your nose into my life.”

  “Your torture methods were archaic. We had to keep modernizing.” And she’d never been able to stomach the fact Satan revered a sociopath who preyed on true innocents. The guy deserved the bowels of hell, not the throne. “What are you doing up here in Satan’s chambers?”

  “I don’t know. I was sitting in my little vat of acid with all my skin melted off and millions of rats chewing on my bones, when suddenly it was all gone. I was standing outside the gates of hell with a couple hundred grand in my pocket, the keys to Satan’s personal quarters, and a bevy of willing women at my feet. So, I went uptown, snagged myself a few innocents, and came back down here to play with them. And then you came sliding down the acid pit, and I realized that today really is my lucky day.” He jangled a set of keys in his fingers.

  Satan must have set him free…oh, no. Was that what he’d promised Iris? Releasing souls? This was bad. So very, very bad. It was never a good thing when idealists get involved in politics. “Do you have your soul back, or are you still a member of hell’s finest?” She’d never encountered a soul that had been released from hell before. Could she even take it back if he had?

  “Oh, I have a soul.” Checkmate grinned. “I’m a free man, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.”

  Nick waited behind her. She could feel his tension, but he wasn’t saying anything. Deferring to her leadership in hell. What a guy. She had to like a man who respected a woman’s space, even as she could feel the air heating up around them. Nick was ready for Checkmate to come at him, eager for it.

  As if she’d need his help. But before she took Checkmate down, she needed to make sure his victims were accounted for. “Where are your opponents, Checkmate?”

  He grinned and sloshed the latte. “Where do you think?”

  She studied him for a minute as she tried to recall exactly what his modus operandi was; then she looked up. A girl was hanging upside down from the ceiling by her toes, a chessboard by her face, with all the pieces on it. Her arms were free and she was gesticulating wildly, making grunting noises that barely made it through the duct tape on her face.

  In her moment of distraction, Checkmate whipped out a gun. Nick slammed her to the side at the same time she heard the crack of a gunshot and felt the shudder of Nick’s body as the bullet slammed into it. They both rolled with the impact, and Nick kept his body betwe
en hers and the gun as the bullets flew.

  There was a sudden yodeling from above, and Becca looked up just in time to see Paige emerge from the acid pit in the ceiling and catapult down to the marble. She landed on top of Checkmate. He grunted as Paige bounced off him, then she leapt to her feet and dove on top of him. “I’ll take him out, boss! I got him!”

  Becca sat back on her heels and Nick jerked upright, shoving her behind him as he shouted at Paige. “Did you kill Dani to get out of the bubble?”

  “No, of course not. I’ve been watching Becca. I know how to get around the rules,” Paige announced as she tried to stab Checkmate in the eye with her index finger, while sitting on his chest. “I burned all Dani’s love notes from the guy she lost her virginity to. She had a total crush on him, and she was going to frame them for her daughter someday. Of course, he broke her heart and drove her into the arms of this new loser, so it’s not really a loss in my opinion…” Paige choked up as she stuck her thumb in Checkmate’s eye. “She’s going to be so upset with me, but it had to be done for the greater good, you know? The pus blister wouldn’t let me out if I was an innocent, so I had to do something bad.”

  “My sister’s not a virgin?” Nick lunged to his feet, and the walls began to rattle and the ceiling began to shudder.

  Becca peered up as cracks began to appear in the marble ceiling. “Nick, she’s twenty-two. Get over it before you make the roof fall down on us.”

  “Who did it?” Nick shouted. “Who was it, Paige? Tell me.”

  A hunk of marble crashed down next to Becca’s head, and she jumped in front of Nick and grabbed his arms, trying to draw his rage into her own body. “Nick. Calm down.” The air around him was so hot she felt like it was searing her skin.

  “Some guy named Jerome.” Paige slammed her finger toward Checkmate’s eye.

  Nick’s jaw dropped. “Jerome? My best friend Jerome had sex with my sister?”

  “Nick.” Becca grabbed his ear and forced him to look at her as a huge chunk of the ceiling landed dangerously close to the bubble machine. “Reel it in, big guy. You’ll be no good to me if you get yourself squashed. And you almost broke the blister machine.”

  He shot a wild look at the machine, then cursed and grabbed her shoulders. She felt him suck at her control and her void, the same way he had in the acid pit, and she let him feed on her rigid self-control and draw it in as his own. Almost immediately, the heat emanating from him began to fade.

  Checkmate batted Paige’s hands away and tried to dump her off him. “Get off me, psycho bitch.”

  Both Nick and Becca looked over at Paige, but neither of them released the other. “Need help?” Nick asked, just as Becca was warming up a fireball to save her apprentice.

  “I’m good. Did you hear what he called me?” Paige shot a delighted smile at Becca. “He called me a psycho and a bitch in the same sentence! Too cool—” She was suddenly sent flying by a left hook to the gut, and she crashed into a pile of rubble. “Ow…” She moaned, rolling onto her side. “That hurt.”

  Checkmate lifted the gun again, and Becca threw two fireballs as Nick fired off a few rounds. Her fireballs knocked Checkmate off his feet, then she anchored him to the floor with a flaming chain of fireballs. She dropped to his chest, set her palm on his forehead, and closed her eyes. A warm little bubble moved under his skin, trying to get through his forehead and into her skin. His soul. Satan must have given it back. How was that possible? Not that she minded. Harvesting souls like Checkmate’s was the one true pleasure in her job. He deserved hell, and she was going to enjoy sending him there. “You die again, Checkmate.”

  He grinned. “Then we’ll meet again in hell, Rivka.”

  She plunged a fireball into his heart and called his soul into her left hand. The pulsating warmth filled her palm, and a sharp pain stung her hand and shuddered all the way up her arm. She gritted her teeth as she let it run through her, trying to find a place to settle. It was like having a hamster under her skin, and she hated the feeling of it every single time.

  Finally his soul settled under her right kneecap and curled up to take a nap, and she stood up, trying to shake off the creepy crawlies as numbness began to settle in her left arm. Nick was right there beside her, completely unharmed, aside from some bullet holes in his shirt. “You okay?” He touched her cheek. “Nice moves.”

  “Yeah, fine.” She grinned. “Thanks.”

  “Oh, wow.” Paige dropped to her knees next to them, a trickle of blood smeared on her forehead. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” She touched Checkmate’s forehead. “You just plucked it right out, huh?” She closed her eyes. “He feels empty. I think I can feel that his soul’s gone.” Paige opened her eyes. “Where is it? Can I touch it?”

  Becca cocked her head, amused at Paige’s excitement. Ah, the joys of being young and innocent instead of old, cynical, and bitter. “You tell me where it is.”

  “Oh…” Paige held out her hands and waved them over Becca’s body, then grabbed Becca’s knee. “It’s right here.”

  Becca froze when Nick put his hand on her knee next to Paige’s. His hand was warm, brimming with life force, and she steeled herself against it. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t feel it.”

  “Feel my other knee and compare.” He was Markku, after all. He should have some sensitivity to souls.

  He put his other hand on her left knee, his hands spanning her leg easily. She caught a whiff of his scent, a clean, musky smell that made her belly curl. He nodded suddenly. “Your right knee has a pulse. Your left doesn’t.” He dropped his hands. “That’s a weird feeling.”

  “Try having a soul in your knee. That’s even weirder.”

  He looked curious. “What happens to it after you take it?”

  “I bind it to hell. At that point, his body will pop up to be reunited with his soul in a theoretical sort of way. Lots of tears and hugging and crying. Very emotional.”

  He raised his brows. “You Rivkas. You’re all about the touchy-feely, aren’t you?”

  “Totally.”

  Paige scooted next to her. “Can I carry it? Please?”

  “Sure.” She put Paige’s left hand on her knee and told her how to pull it out. It took a moment, and then Paige yelped and doubled over as the soul jumped from Becca into Paige.

  “Oh, God! It’s alive. Get it out of me!” Paige screeched and clawed at her skin. “This is too gross!”

  Becca felt a flash of sympathy, recalling what it had felt like the first time she’d harvested a soul. “Want me to take it back?”

  “No!” Paige continued to jump around, scratching at her skin. “I’ll get used to it, I’m sure.” She screeched and grabbed a rock from the rubble and started pounding it against her thigh. “Just give me a minute while I kill this fucker and make it stop running around my body like it owns me.”

  Becca smiled as she stood up. Maybe Paige did have what it took. She certainly had the enthusiasm, an admirable tenacity. A glimmer of pride tickled her throat. “She’s pretty good, huh?”

  Instead of answering, Nick fired his gun and Becca jerked her gaze toward him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Can you get her down? My bullet goes right through the rope like it doesn’t exist.”

  She glanced up and saw that Nick had moved to stand beneath Checkmate’s victim, who was still squirming and making muffled noises. She was too high up for Nick to reach her, and he looked completely strung out. Frustrated he couldn’t reach her, worried for her safety.

  “Catch her.” Becca shot a fireball through the rope, and the girl fell with a scream into Nick’s waiting arms.

  Through Nick’s arms.

  And disappeared through the floor.

  Nick stared at his empty arms. “What the hell was that?”

  Becca walked over to the floor and toed it, then looked up. “She must have already been dead when Checkmate found her. He probably plucked her out of purgatory. On the plus side, that’ll give her
a free pass to heaven. Being tossed by a violent sadist usually gives you a lot of brownie points.” She chewed her lower lip. “I think I need to have a little chat with Satan.” Not that she wanted to jump in and give Satan advice on ruling hell, but she couldn’t sit around while he released souls that would endanger innocents. Or herself, for that matter. What was with all these threats to her life these days? It was as if the universe knew she was trying to break free and had joined together with all of her enemies to stop her before she succeeded.

  “We get my sister first.” Nick walked over to where he’d dropped the machine, taking a wide berth around Paige, who was shouting at her body and trying to order the soul into submission. “We have a deal, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” She watched him step over the rubble, his hips narrow and lithe under his jeans. He moved like a man who was more than a man. “As long as we’re holding to the deal, tell me why, when we’re both from hell, you’re Mr. In-touch-with-your-emotions and I’m…” She paused, not quite able to admit what she was like inside. “I don’t buy it’s all your healer side.”

  He shot her a knowing look that was full of empathy. It almost made her want to sit him down and pour out all her miseries, because he got it. But what would that accomplish? Nothing.

  Nick stepped over the bleeding body of Checkmate. “Rivkas are the new and improved version of Satan’s minions. Markku are indestructible, except gold, but that made it too hard for him to control us, especially because we got pissed at him for pushing us around. So he created Rivkas, who are easier to kill and control, and he made you less emotional so you wouldn’t have issues about him and his leadership. That’s why you guys are fully supported by his life force. No more forays into the world of independent living.” He picked up his shirt, with the bubble machine still inside. “Except you, of course.” He studied her. “You’re different. You do feel something.”