by Kathy Love
“Oh,” she said a little confused and surprised, peering up at him like a sleepy child. “I can walk.”
“I know.” He smiled, and continued to carry her. He set her down and waited while she rummaged through her purse for her keys. Then when it was clear between the pain in her shoulder and her grogginess that the lock was going to get the better of her, Maksim gently took them from her and opened the door. He scooped her up again, and she marveled at how gentle he could be.
“I really can walk,” she told him again.
“I feel better holding you.”
Jo thought to ask him why that was so, but her sleepy, muddled brain couldn’t seem to manage the words. Instead she rested her head against his shoulder, allowing herself to revel in his strength.
He must have contended with both her and her keys, because the next thing she was aware of was Maksim placing her in her bed.
She groaned slightly as he released her.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked, concern furrowing his perfect brow. “The doctor said you can have some Tylenol for the pain.”
She shook her head. “Just sore, nothing that won’t go away eventually.”
“Okay. Well, please let me know if I can get you anything.”
“What are you going to do?” She imagined he’d be pretty bored in her place.
“You have lots of books. I’ll read or something.”
Jo smiled, letting her eyes close. “I don’t see you as a big reader.”
“Why not?” There was umbrage in his tone.
Her smile widened, even though she didn’t bother to open her eyes. Her lids were simply too heavy. “You seem like someone who’s too active. Someone who couldn’t sit still long enough to read.”
“Mmm,” was his response and Jo couldn’t decide if the noise was agreement or just acknowledgment.
She heard his steps on the hardwood floor, then a blanket covered her. She sighed. The warmth felt wonderful.
“Can you read here?” she asked him, peeping one eye open. He stood by the bed, the strangest look on his handsome features. Something so like adoration, it stole her breath away.
“Please stay in here with me,” she said softly. She reached out to catch his hand.
He nodded.
He eased onto the bed beside her, keeping his movements slow and stable, trying not to jar her. Once he was settled with the pillow propped behind his head, he took her hand in his, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the back of hers. The steady motion was nice and calming.
“I like that,” she said, sighing. Her eyes drifted closed again.
Maksim watched her, the constant state of concern still not leaving him. Even though her color looked much better today and the doctor had told him she would be fine, he couldn’t seem to relax.
“Are you going to read?” she asked suddenly, her words slow and sleepy. “There are some books on the nightstand.”
“Okay,” he said, not moving. Not releasing her hand.
She was quiet, except for her breathing, which was low and even, and he was sure she’d drifted off when she said, “What are we doing?”
He was surprised, thinking she was far too tired to be analyzing their relationship, but he should have known Jo’s brain wouldn’t shut off until sleep truly claimed her. And even then he was willing to bet she had dreams still analyzing everything. Very symbolically, of course.
“I’m not really sure,” he answered honestly.
Her head bobbed just slightly as if she agreed, and Maksim couldn’t help asking, “Did you love the baby’s father?”
“Jackson? I thought I did.”
“Jackson? That’s his name?” Maksim asked, wanting to know more about this dickwad who’d cheated, lied, and left Jo expecting a baby alone.
“Yes.” She laughed slightly, even that sound sleepy. “Jackson Johnson, the man with two last names.”
Maksim smiled, even though Jo had her eyes closed and couldn’t see.
“Would you have married him?” he asked, even as he wished he could just drop the subject. But he had to know.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, and the answer hurt more than he would have thought it could.
“So you had to have loved him.”
Jo shrugged, then nestled her head deeper into the fluffy down pillow. “I did love him. I just didn’t know who I was loving.”
Her words again like a sucker punch to the gut. She didn’t know Maksim either, and how would she feel about the truth about him? Did «demon» trump «married»? He suspected it did.
“I’ve had a hard time getting over him,” she murmured, then yawned.
Maksim looked at her, realizing that explained a lot about her past behavior. She wasn’t sure about how she felt, which explained her hot-and-cold shifts. She wasn’t sure she wanted to move on, that much was clear.
“Are you still in love with him?” Maksim carefully rolled onto his side, trying not to move her overly. But the only answer he received was a soft snore.
Maksim sighed, remaining still, continuing to watch her. She was still in love with him. That was a perfect explanation for her reaction to Maksim. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from Maksim or from Jackson.
He hooked a stray strand of her hair that clung to her cheek with his finger, tucking it behind her ear.
“Would you go back to him if he wanted you?” he asked in a whisper, expecting and receiving no response.
“Has he realized that he made a mistake?” he wondered aloud to himself. He lounged there for a few moments, thinking about that possibility.
Regretting his decision, but knowing he couldn’t be stopped from this course, he gently nudged Jo.
Jo blinked her eyes open, looking around, uncertain where she was. When she got her bearings, she offered him the cutest, drowsy smile.
Maksim smiled back, hating that he’d woken her, but loving her sleepy genialness.
“Jo, where does Jackson live?”
“Right in D.C. On Capitol Hill. He’s a lobbyist.” Lingering sleepiness as good as a truth serum.
A lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Named Jackson Johnson. How hard could he be to find?
Maksim leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Jo’s mouth. She responded, her lips instinctively moving against his. But when he pulled back she didn’t speak. Sleep had claimed her again.
He eased out of bed, deciding right then that he was going to see this Jackson and find out why the hell he’d let this woman go.
Maksim stood on the sidewalk outside an office building in the nation’s capital. It was moments like this that being a demon was really so convenient. Dematerialize here, materialize there.
Unfortunately this little venture wasn’t for his own enjoyment. He needed to know what this Jackson guy was thinking. Maksim needed to give Jo the opportunity to be with the twit, if the guy had come to his senses during their separation from each other.
He walked up the steps and into the main lobby of the building. A directory greeted him, listing floors and office numbers of the different businesses in the large building. Jackson Johnson worked on the first floor in Suite 1A.
Maksim glanced around, easily finding the hallway and door he needed.
He entered a small outer office. A pretty receptionist with a chin-length blond bob and pale blue eyes smiled immediately when she saw him.
“Hello. Can I help you?” Her smile deepened in a subtle way that Maksim knew meant she liked what she saw. At one time, he would have reveled at that, eating up the attention. But now he was only aware of it in a very cursory way.
“I’m here to see Mr. Johnson.”
“Okay,” she said glancing at her computer. “Let me see. I don’t seem to have anyone down at this time. Are you sure your appointment was for today?”
Maksim smiled. “I don’t actually have an appointment, but I’m sure he’ll want to speak with me.” He kept his voice congenial, even though he was feeling anything but about the man.
&
nbsp; The receptionist nibbled her bottom lip, considering what she should do. Clearly she was new—or just not that bright. Finally, she stood.
“Let me check with him, Mr…”
“Mr. Kostova. We haven’t actually met, but tell him I’m here in regards to the Burke initiative.” He smiled again, this time pouring on the charm, although for once the act didn’t give him any satisfaction when she quickly nodded, knocked, then disappeared into the office to the left of her desk to do his bidding.
Not in the way it once would have.
As he had hoped, his request was met with immediate response.
The office door reopened right away and the blonde gestured for him to enter.
“Mr. Johnson will see you.” She beamed at him as he passed her.
Maksim nodded in response, dismissing her now that he had what he wanted.
When he entered the Johnson office, he got the impression of gray walls and black furniture with a modern flair, but it was the man standing behind the desk who held his attention.
As much as he hated to admit it, Jackson Johnson, despite his unfortunate name, was a good-looking man. Tall, leanly muscular with a haircut that Maksim suspected cost a pretty penny to look that carelessly tousled. He was in his early forties maybe, but had the kind of face that made it hard to be sure. Wire-rim glasses gave him an intellectual quality, but his smile gave him a slight used-car salesman vibe.
“Mr. Kostova,” he moved forward offering his hand, “nice to meet you.”
Maksim didn’t say anything, but shook his hand, unable to stop himself from squeezing a little too tightly. Johnson only reacted by letting his smile slip a little.
“So how can I help you?”
It was Maksim’s turn to smile. “Well, as I had your lovely receptionist mention, I’m here about Jo Burke. You do remember her? The woman you lied to and left pregnant.”
Johnson stopped smiling totally. He returned behind his desk and sat down. Clearly the man didn’t expect Maksim to be that forward and that blunt.
“I know Jo Burke,” he said. “But I think you have your story wrong.”
“Really?” Maksim raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “So you didn’t have an affair with her?” He didn’t keep his voice hushed as Johnson had.
Johnson opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. He was considering his words like any good lobbyist or political figure would. And Maksim suspected he was going to believe this guy about as much as he believed any politician.
“We did have an affair. It was nothing more than that. An affair. She was the one who kept making it seem like it was something more. I’m actually a happily married man.”
Maksim nodded slowly as if he was considering his words. Not likely. They didn’t merit consideration.
“Do happily married men usually cheat?” Maksim asked with indignation.
“Listen, I don’t really see what the point of this is. We are over. And I’m moving on now.”
“To your secretary?”
Johnson rose again. “I think you should go, and tell Jo that I don’t appreciate her sending over her newest lover to bully me. I made it clear that things were over between us.”
Maksim stood too. “Jo didn’t send me over. I had to come see you for myself. Where I come from, we don’t have spineless creatures like you. Even my kind take responsibility for their actions.”
“Where you are from? Russia?”
Maksim didn’t bother to answer. He had already said more than he should have.
“I came here to see if you had any feelings for her,” he said instead. “To see if you had any feelings for the child she’s carrying, and it’s clear you don’t.”
Jackson Johnson just looked at Maksim as if he didn’t even comprehend what he’d just said.
Maksim stared back at him, barely restraining the urge to do the man bodily harm. The truth was, the scum wasn’t worth it.
Maksim headed toward the door.
“I’m surprised she didn’t try to pawn that brat off on you.”
Maksim stopped in his tracks and turned slowly back to the ass. Oh, what the hell. Maksim raised his hand, mimicking the action of grabbing Johnson by the throat, even though he was several feet away from the man. His favorite Darth Vader trick.
Instantly Johnson’s hands went to his neck, clawing at a hand that wasn’t there. Then Maksim raised his hand higher in the air, and Johnson’s feet lifted off the gray Berber carpeting, flailing in the air.
Maksim then gestured with his hand, imitated nothing more than a negligent casting of something aside, and Johnson flew across the room, his back hitting the wall. He crumpled to the floor in a heap, still grasping his throat and gasping for breath.
Maksim sauntered over to him, standing over him. Johnson tried to back away, huddling against the wall like a frightened, helpless rat.
“Don’t think about ever contacting Jo. Because you’ll have to deal with me. And, as you can see, that isn’t pleasant.”
Maksim left feeling more satisfied than he could remember.
Being a demon wasn’t all bad.
CHAPTER 26
Maksim could believe that until he was with Jo. Then he wondered how he was ever truly going to have a relationship with a human woman. A normal relationship.
Dear God, he wanted to be normal. Never had he wanted that. And when had he started to refer questions to God? That went against the whole demon/Hell creed.
He stood at the end of Jo’s bed, where she still slept like the dead. She hadn’t even appeared to have moved in the hours that he’d been gone.
Quietly he shucked off his pants and shirt, leaving on only his jockey shorts. Carefully, he crawled into bed beside her.
She immediately shifted, curling up against him, her skin silky and warm from sleep.
“Hi,” she murmured.
“Hi,” he replied, placing a kiss on her forehead.
“Where did you go?”
So she had woken enough to notice he was gone.
“I just had to talk to someone.”
“Mmm,” she said. “Was it a good talk?” Her voice was already slurred as sleep tried to reclaim her.
“Yeah, it was very satisfying.” He pulled her closer as one of those overpowering waves of protectiveness she brought out in him washed through him.
Her hand curled on his chest, and he could feel her even breathing on his skin. To his surprise, the closeness and contentment of being with her, snug in her bed, lulled him and soon he slept, too.
When he woke again, the sun had set, casting the room in murky shadows, but it wasn’t the change in lighting that roused him. It was the hand with delicate fingers slipping under the waistband of his jockeys.
He snagged the hand before it reached its goal, which was already pulsing against his stomach in the hopes she’d reach the goal, too.
“Hey there,” he said, his voice gravelly with sleep. “What do you think you are doing?”
He felt Jo smile against his shoulder. “Nothing.”
Maksim kept hold of her hand as he rolled onto his side, his face inches from hers. “Nothing is what you should be doing.”
Jo groaned with disappointment. “I don’t want to do nothing. I want to touch you.”
Her other hand, which Jo didn’t have restrained, slid up between them and stroked over his stomach, then lower, shaping over his erection through his boxers.
He groaned. “Jo. The doctor said you need to stay in bed and rest.”
“I am in bed,” she pointed out reasonably. “And the rest is really more about my bruises. Not about the baby.”
The baby. The idea that she was carrying a life inside her was staggering and humbling. His hand released hers and moved to her stomach. He slipped his hand under her shirt and slid his palm low on her abdomen, cupping the slight swell there.
She placed a hand over his and the moment, just lying there, like that, was as intimate as Maksim could recall.
“The baby will be fine,”
she said with certainty. She wiggled closer to him and pressed a kiss to his mouth. “She managed to be fine after a fall downstairs, I think she’ll be fine if we make love.”
Make love. He’d never thought of the act in that term before. But he found he wanted to now.
“How do you know it’s a girl? Did they tell you that when they did the ultrasound yesterday?” He was directing the subject away from amorous ones, because he still wasn’t sure she should be doing something like that so soon.
“No. I just have a feeling.”
She hooked a leg over his, pulling herself closer to him still. The hand still over his erection moved, just slow, persuasive caresses. She kissed him, her lips as leisurely and coaxing as her fingers.
“You are relentless,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Mmm-hmm.” Her hand left him just long enough to tug his boxers down, freeing his arousal, which was more than happy to be set loose.
Then she wriggled her own hips, working off her panties. They came back together, bare legs intertwining. Her arms came around his neck, although he did freeze when he heard a small gasp.
“Are you okay?”
He felt her nod rather than saw it. “The shoulder is just a little sore.”
“Jo,” he said again. “This is too soon.”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
Even though he still wasn’t sure, he obeyed her. For a long time they just kissed, their lips exploring, their bodies staying pressed tight, skin against skin. Every movement pushing them a little further into their desire. Her breast brushing against him, her nipples hard, a delicious friction.
His hands stroked over the sleek skin of her back, down lower still, shaping over the soft cushion of her ass. His mouth left her peppering kisses down her neck over her chest finding the nipple closest to him. He drew the taut point into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it until she cried out.
“I love how sensitive your breasts are.”
“Mmm, a pleasant side effect of pregnancy.”
He touched her stomach then, also savoring the gentle swell of her belly. Something about knowing she carried life aroused him. It wasn’t even life he’d put there, but that didn’t seem to matter—he still felt possessive and protective of it.
