Then he lifted his mouth from hers and pressed his lips against her neck, moving lower, the silver chain she wore catching in his teeth. With a low growl he flicked his tongue against her collarbones, and then his breath was warm against the half-exposed curve of her chest. She arched against him, even as she felt his hands reach up under the silk tank she wore to undo the clasp of her bra. Those hands traveled around to the front of her body, moving to cup her. She moaned then as his fingertips traced the outlines of her areolas, as if seeking to know every contour of her breasts.
Blood pounded in her ears as he bent and gathered her up. Her bed lay hidden behind several artfully placed screens at the far end of the loft; somehow he knew where to take her, knew to pull aside the coverlet of embroidered silk she’d bought in Chinatown. He undid the zipper of her skirt and tossed it onto the chest she kept at the foot of the bed. No bothering with stockings on a warm night such as this; she kicked off her flats and watched as he undid his belt and slid his jeans down to the floor. His T-shirt followed immediately afterward, revealing a chest just the way she liked it — strong, but not overly defined, with a small sprinkling of hair.
He lay down next to her, then pulled off her tank and bra simultaneously. He let out a long breath. “So beautiful…”
When was the last time anyone had said that about her? And did it really matter? Sam was here with her now, and obviously he wasn’t bothered by the freckles she hated or the fact that she thought her breasts were too small.
His hands were on her again, his tongue circling one nipple. Damp heat blossomed between her legs, and she writhed against him. She grasped the waistband of his underwear and pulled downward.
Of course he was as ready for her as she was for him. She wrapped her fingers around his shaft, feeling the strength and the heat of his flesh. He let out a low groan in response to her touch, and she began to move her hand up and down — slowly, so she wouldn’t bring things to a climax too fast.
At the same time, he reached out to slide her panties down her legs. The whisper of the silky fabric against her bare skin, combined with the feel of his tongue against her flesh, brought another moan from her throat. Then his hand was between her legs, parting them so he could touch her there, those long fingers of his surprisingly deft as they found the center of her pleasure.
Had she ever felt like this? Every nerve ending alive, every cell in her body seemingly focused on that white-hot, pulsing core of ecstasy. Felicia gasped and pressed herself against him, needing to feel his flesh against hers as the climax burst through her body, sending waves of heat through every limb.
That would have been enough for her, but it wasn’t enough for Sam. He slid down the length of her body, his tongue finding her still gasping and throbbing. She could only twine her fingers in his heavy hair, holding him against her as she rode yet another surge of pleasure, this one so intense she had to fight to keep herself from screaming. Redness flickered at the periphery of her vision, and the room seemed to spin around her.
Gasping, she lay back against the pillows as he rolled over on his back. Although part of her wanted to remain where she was, sipping the dregs of the lingering orgasm, she also wanted to do the same for him.
She slid down his body and then licked her way up the length of his cock, finally taking him into her mouth. He moaned, his hands heavy on the back of her head as she sucked, bringing him close. Not all the way — no, she had better plans than that.
“One sec,” she gasped, lifting her mouth from him, and reached for the nightstand next to her bed. There had to be a few still left in there…
The foil packet came to hand after a little scrabbling, and she tore it open. She turned to see him watching her, an amused glint in his eyes.
“If it makes you feel better — ”
She slid the condom over him. “It does.”
“Then come make me feel better.”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
He slid into her easily, despite his size. Felicia shut her eyes for a second, marveling at the feel of him moving in and out of her body, the heat of his flesh against hers. Nothing else mattered. It was only Sam and her, two beings who had somehow become one.
The climax hit hard. She rocked her hips against him, knowing he was only a few seconds behind her. His breath came in short gasps, and then he moaned, his eyes shutting in a spasm of pleasure that surely echoed the one she had just experienced. He stayed inside her for a few more seconds, then pulled out and collapsed on the bed next to her, chest heaving.
Felicia closed her eyes. She wanted to savor the last lingering trace of heat, the ghost of passion that still traced its way through her veins.
If she kept her eyes shut, she could pretend that this feeling would last forever.
• • •
Demons didn’t sleep, but over the millennia Samael had come up with a useful alternative for the times he needed to feign slumber. Now he lay next to Felicia as she slept, his eyes closed, arms folded beneath his head. His breath rose and fell in measured intervals.
This false sleep actually had its uses, since he used it as a sort of meditation. He could let his mind go blank and his consciousness float in easy darkness.
At least, that was the way it was supposed to work. Now, instead of empty calm, he kept recalling the touch of Felicia’s hands, the scent of her hair, the silky softness of her skin. He wanted her again. But the slow, calm breaths of the sleeping woman next to him kept him from rousing her to wakefulness. He could afford to allow her to rest. Plenty of time for lovemaking again in the morning.
He shifted his weight slightly, then breathed in. Her loft smelled of oiled wood and warm brick and the slight, subtle tang of the paints she used. It was a better resting place than many he had found over the millennia.
And the woman beside him…
As he’d thought, her hair looked glorious spread across the white pillowcase. He saw well enough in the dark that he didn’t need the faint illumination from the street lights outside to pick out the shadings of warm copper and deep russet in those curls, or to admire the half-hidden curve of her breasts beneath the sheets. A woman of some contradictions — so proper in public, yet so passionate once he got her alone.
It somehow felt right to be here next to her in her bed. Samael didn’t follow Abigor’s modus vivendi of high-tailing it the second coitus was over, but he had to admit he tended to go home after sex when he could. Too many nights in a row of pretending to sleep inevitably got on his nerves. But for some reason, he didn’t think he’d mind as much if he were pretending next to Felicia.
He closed his eyes again and lowered his arms to his sides, taking care not to shake the bed. Felicia stirred, but didn’t wake; her eyes remained shut, flickering with dreams behind the closed lids. It would take so very little effort to lean over and kiss her, to feel her lips come to life beneath his.
He’d just begun to bend toward her when Abigor’s voice roared into his mind.
Samael! Get here now! Shit just got real!
At once Samael sat upright. He and Abigor tended to avoid nonverbal communication when they could — centuries of working together had led them to protect what privacy they could — but emergencies were an entirely different matter.
What is it?
Some lowlifes thought they’d spice up their Saturday night by shooting up a quinceañera. A fucking kid’s party, man! Got two definitely down and more on the way. Get your ass here now!
He didn’t bother to curse. Instead, he eased himself out of Felicia’s bed. No point in gathering up his discarded clothing — the fastest way to be at Abigor’s side was in his true form.
Assuming a demonic shape after a lengthy sojourn in his human body always felt like pulling on a heavy, ill-fitting suit of clothes. Cloven feet slipped a little on Felicia’s polished wood floor as he made his way to the balcony. He opened the French doors, unfurled his wings, and jumped.
The night air caught him, updrafts from
the streets below speeding his progress eastward. He didn’t question the instinct that led him to the shabby little street in Highland Park. Demons were always drawn to lost souls, like metal filings to a magnet.
Hysterical screams met his ears, a staccato wail of human agony that beat against the sensitive membranes in his head. He came to earth outside a fence with a coating of faded white paint. On the sidewalk before him lay a young man, bright arterial blood splashing his neck and upper torso. His arms were covered in gang tattoos. A pistol was still clutched in his right hand.
Close to death, but not yet all the way there. Samael knelt next to the stranger, feeling the pulses of agony and hatred and fear radiating out from him. Samael didn’t worry about the others on the street or clustered in the front yard; he knew no one could see him.
No one except the man whose soul he’d come to claim.
“Time to go,” he said.
The young man’s dark eyes bulged. “No way, man,” he muttered. “Shit can’t be happening.”
“Unfortunately, shit is happening. More to the point, it’s happening to you.”
Samael had never enjoyed what came next; millions of repetitions over the years had never made the process palatable. Still, a job was a job.
He laid a clawed hand against the dying man’s temple. At once the man began to thrash. Unknowing onlookers would only think he was suffering some sort of seizure as the life drained from his body. They couldn’t know it was the last struggle of a soul that had suddenly realized its destiny lay in a dark, unwanted place.
Souls came in all colors, from pale gold to utter black. The dying gangbanger’s soul was a rusty brownish-black, the color of spent motor oil. It writhed in the darkness, unable to escape Samael’s grip.
The demon didn’t bother to say anything else. This one needed to be dispatched quickly so Samael could return topside to provide additional backup if needed.
An eternity, and a blink of an eye. That was how the trip to Hell had always felt…a return to darkness at once interminable and yet precipitous. In the gloom, sullen winds fanned flames that never spent themselves.
One pool of blood was as good as another. Samael released his captive and watched the dark, vaguely man-shaped form plummet downward into an expanse of the viscous liquid. A scream rose from the soul just before its head was buried forever.
At once Samael lifted his face, intent on his return to that shabby suburb of Los Angeles. Powerful wings drove him upward through Hell’s roiling clouds, through unending darkness. And then he was back topside. The faded streetlights on the rundown L.A. street almost blinded his dark-adapted eyes. He blinked.
“It’s done,” Abigor said. He’d kept his human form; dark blood glistened on the sleeve of his windbreaker. He scowled. “That last little fucker bled all over my limited-edition Jordan jacket. Asswipe.”
“What happened?”
Abigor fished what looked like a leftover fast food napkin from his pocket and began wiping at the blood on his sleeve. “Told you what happened. Guess the girl whose party it was had a brother in a gang. Rival gangbangers thought it’d be a great idea to shoot the shit out of the place. I could’ve handled the first two, but then they started shooting back, and the body count started to go up. They only hit one more, though. I probably could’ve taken care of the situation after all, but thanks for getting my back.”
“No problem,” Samael said automatically, then wondered if he really meant it. Sure, it had been a dicey situation, but, as he said, Abigor probably could have taken care of things on his own. And now Samael had to try to slip back into Felicia’s apartment, crawl into bed next to her, and hope she was a heavy sleeper. A really, really heavy sleeper.
“Bad timing, huh?”
“The worst.”
Abigor’s teeth flashed in the half-hearted light from the street lamps. “So you did nail the redhead. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Samael saw no reason to deny the fact, but he also didn’t see why he should go into any details.
Sirens began to howl from a few streets over. It figured. Do a re-enactment of the OK Corral in a dumpy neighborhood in known gang territory, and the LAPD took its sweet time getting there. Have someone’s purse snatched outside the Beverly Center, and the whole damn department would be down there like a plague of locusts.
Some things never changed.
“Any collateral?” he asked.
“Nope.” Abigor wadded up the bloody napkin and tossed it on the ground. No worries about the police collecting it for evidence; the only DNA residue they’d find would be from the man who’d bled to death on the demon’s jacket. “A couple of the bystanders got winged, but nothing critical. We’re done here.”
With any luck, that would be it for the rest of the evening. Most likely several more people in L.A. would be earning themselves a one-way ticket to Hell later that night, but one-offs were no big deal. It was the mass killings that caused the real headaches.
“I’ll be back at eight,” Samael said, referring to the hour when he went on duty. Usually the two of them met for coffee and a brief convo before Abigor went off to do whatever he did to fill the day. He was never terribly specific, but Samael knew Lakers games tended to figure prominently in his leisure activities.
At least Sunday mornings tended to be quiet. Not a lot of drug deals gone bad or gang shoot-outs at eight a.m. on a Sunday.
“Maybe the redhead will be up for round two when you get back,” Abigor offered, with a flash of teeth.
Samael hoped so. Another blissful hour in Felicia’s arms might help to get Hell’s stink out of his nostrils. But he only nodded, then launched himself into the hard black sky. Miles away, a sleeping woman waited for him, and now all he wanted was to lie at her side once more.
• • •
Felicia froze. That had definitely been some sort of unwelcome noise — not the constant background murmur of traffic, or even the low, harsh beat of a police helicopter’s rotors. No, this sounded almost like someone bumping into her coffee table.
Her first instinct was to remain where she lay and hope the burglar or prowler or whoever it was out there would grab whatever valuable he sought and then get out without ever realizing a woman lay sleeping in the alcove behind the rice paper screens. But then she felt the empty spot in the bed next to her and realized it must have been Sam who’d made the noise. He probably had to go to the bathroom or get a glass of water or something else equally prosaic.
She gave a little sigh of relief, then eased herself out of bed. Her foot met her abandoned underpants, and she paused to pull them on. In the bottom drawer of her bedside table she kept a collection of ratty tank tops reserved for sleepwear, and she grabbed one of those as well. Sure, she’d just had the best sex of her life with the guy, but that didn’t mean she felt comfortable enough to be parading around naked in front of him.
After pulling the tank top over her head, she stepped out past the screen. Then she stopped short, breath strangling in her throat and adrenaline exploding through her veins like napalm.
She had to be dreaming. She just thought she’d woken up. She must still be asleep.
For what she saw could only have come from a nightmare.
The sole source of illumination in the loft was from the lights of the city outside, and so she could see nothing in detail. Only the vague outlines of enormous leathery wings. Blurred points on the top of his head that might have been horns. And a sudden gleam of red eyes, a crimson glare that met her shocked gaze and was immediately extinguished.
Felicia opened her mouth — to what? Gasp? Scream? She wasn’t even sure. She didn’t know what she saw, because even as her mind tried to put a word to the horrific vision in front of her, it melted away. Sam stood there, holding a pair of black underpants.
“Sorry,” he said, his tone casual, as if an escapee from a Bosch painting hadn’t just been standing in the middle of the loft. “I tried not to wake you up. Just wanted some water.”
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br /> “What — ” The word came out as a sort of strangled gasp, and she swallowed. “Didn’t you see that?”
“See what?”
She supposed there was always the possibility that she’d somehow gone stark raving mad between the time she fell asleep and the time she heard the noise out in the loft. Then again, she didn’t feel crazy. Shaken, yes. Weak from the aftermath of that acid bath of adrenaline, absolutely. Wondering if she should get her eyes checked? Very likely.
Then Sam turned toward her, and once again she saw that flicker of red in his eyes, just as she had on the street outside the restaurant. The same baleful glow she’d spotted in the nightmare form that had been standing next to her couch seconds before.
Skittering fingers of dread worked their way down her spine. Her eyes were just fine. And she was pretty sure her brain was doing okay, too.
“Who are you?” she whispered. Her throat felt like sandpaper.
“What?”
“I saw — ” She paused. What exactly had she seen? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.
What she did know was that it couldn’t have been human. Still, directly confronting him now sounded like a pretty terrible idea. And the thought of letting him back into her bed was even worse. But she knew with sudden, sickening certainty that she mustn’t speak a word of what she’d just seen.
She swallowed, then said, “That is, I’m not sure I want you to stay the rest of the night. If you don’t mind.”
“If I don’t mind?” He sounded incredulous, and a bit angry, too. “Look, I’m sorry I woke you up, but — ”
Such a normal, human reaction. Why did she get the sudden feeling that it was all an act, that he was merely saying the things he expected a regular man might say in a similar situation?
Playing With Fire Page 4
