Riona’s eyes surveyed the room, measuring the direction and the distance.
“I won’t… look either.” Was there a hint of doubt in her voice too? “Yeah, okay, sounds good. On the count of three, then?”
“Count of three, yeah. Okay. One… Two… Three!”
A localized tsunami washed over the floor as both leapt from the tub and booked it like felons. Marc was first to reach his target, but invoked a holy hell for the ages as he found the door jammed. He guessed Riona was having the same problem, based on the frantic jingling of the metal handle on her side of the room, punctuated by under-her-breath cussing.
He heard Riona’s fist make contact with the hard laminate of the door. “What the devil?”
“Isn’t it obvious? It’s locked.”
“But who would have locked the door? Dee?”
“Dee wouldn’t do that. Maybe it was you. Maybe a panic thing you did when you found out I was in the room?”
“Reactionary magic? Like, something I wasn’t even conscious of?”
“You walked through the wall of the meat locker without knowing you could do it,” Marc countered over his shoulder, his peripheral vision catching the vague outline of her very precise frame.
“That was a case of life and death. The magic followed the motivation; I can’t walk through walls now if I try to do it on purpose. Why would I lock the doors so you couldn’t leave as a reaction to fear?”
A foreign squirm in his insides made Marc wonder if he might have developed a spontaneous parasitic infection. “Because subconsciously, you know I’d protect you from anything. Maybe you wanted to be stuck in here…” His head turned a bit more, and though Riona’s perfectly-curved assets were well on display, it was her eyes that locked on him now as she, too, tilted her head to meet his gaze. “… with me.”
Was she blushing? Or were her checks still crimson from her time in the hot tub? “Marc?”
Like the last line of a bad joke, the handle of a third door, the one that led into a hall from the lobby of the gym, began to jingle. As the door cracked, two unfamiliar feminine voices poured into the soundscape.
Marc looked to Riona and Riona looked to Marc, before both looked in desperation to the open supply closet at the back of the room. All thoughts of propriety and modesty were pushed aside as they both dove into the darkness of their last refuge. The two blue-haired grannies must not have seen them, as they proceeded into the tub like nothing was afoot.
“Fuck!” Riona’s voice was an airy shout-whisper. “Fuckity-fuck-fuck.”
“You could say that three times,” Marc agreed as he instinctively, mysteriously found himself pushing her in the dim light of the closet behind his body protectively.
“I thought I just did.”
The gym’s building plan hadn’t been drawn up with the closet as a place for anything but a few mops. Riona rolled up on her tiptoes and craned her neck over Marc’s shoulder. Through the crack in the door appeared the senior citizens in the tub, like two white raisins in a pot of boiling water.
“I can go. I don’t have anything they haven’t seen before.” Riona pressed forward, her soft body pushing with disproportionate force against his back.
Marc, however, splayed out his arms, impeding her efforts. “And just what the hell do you expect me to do?”
Riona strained for a better angle. “Unless you keep something else beneath your vestiges not found on other men, I doubt you have anything they haven’t seen before either.”
“Seriously!”
Riona groaned. “Fine. Look, there’s this one charm Ramiel taught last week, but it’s a little tricky…”
The priest saw a glimmer of his faith flash before his eyes. “What does it do?”
“Makes me invisible,” she answered. Marc looked back over his shoulder, careful not to look too far down. She nodded. “Yes, invisible. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, he said. I guess I’m not supposed to know how to do it.”
“Masking the human body from existence is against the rules of conduct the Council established for Pure Souls,” Marc whispered. “He wasn’t kidding; you’re not supposed to know how to do that.”
“But I do.”
“Yeah, damned good for us, too. Can you cast it over me too?”
He felt her dampened hair against his neck as her chin set upon his shoulder. Despite the chill standing dripping wet in a closet should have gave him, he suddenly felt flushed and dizzy.
“Yeah, it’s a bit hard, but I think I can do it. I can get us out into the main hall, and we can get into the locker rooms from the front. Only thing is, you have to hold onto me the whole time.”
His tongue was going to choke him. “Why?”
“The magic is easier to spread when I have physical contact.”
Oh, God, kill me now. “Okay.”
He felt her shift beside him. His eyes whipped in the opposite direction. “And let me get in front. I can barely see over your shoulder.”
Reluctantly, he shifted a bit to the right, letting Riona past.
“Put your hands on my…”
But before she could finish the sentence, Riona shuddered against the warmth of Marc’s chest pressed into her back and his hands softly gripping her waist, pulling her flush against him.
“Like this, Keystone?”
Oh, God, kill me now. Desire wasn’t a sin, but the thoughts rolling through Riona’s mind with Marc’s hands on her hips weren’t putting her on an express train to Heaven. His mouth lingered right next to her ear, making the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Holy hell, he was buff. Marc always dressed in modest clothes, and though she could tell he might have cut a fine figure in something more fashionable, she couldn’t have imagined just how hard his chest was or how strong his grip could be.
In a little more breathy tone than she’d like to admit, her eyes closed, focusing on the sensation of his fingertips pressing gently into her, pulling her. She swallowed a gallon of air. “Closer.”
When his whole body pressed fully against hers, the momentary lust abated. He might be hard as steel in the chest, but there was nothing equally stiff below the waistline that she could sense. If she couldn’t even arouse a celibate man, what was the point of those D-cups she sported?
Turning her frustration into power, Riona closed her eyes and tried to replicate the sense of bounciness she felt when she experimented with invisibility under Ramiel’s direction. The tingle in the pit of her stomach told her she was pulling it off, and slowly, she opened the closet door, hoping the crashers were too engaged in their chicken chat to notice.
“We’ll go to the men’s first,” she whispered to Marc.
“Great. Go then.”
They shuffled to the door leading to the main hall without too much fanfare, but were only halfway up the passageway when Riona began to feel Marc’s grasp tighten almost painfully on her as he leaned his brow into her hair.
“Marc, you okay?” she whispered in mouse squeak.
He exhaled in a reluctant way, like a boy about to admit that he’d punched his sister. “I’m trying, but…” Suddenly, Riona felt his admission before she’d heard him say the words, the hardening evidence pressing into her back. “…before anything, I am a man.”
“It’s okay, it’s just biology.” Though, to her surprise, part of her hoped otherwise, if for nothing else, to prove that her confidence in her own sex appeal wasn’t just hot air. “Just a few more steps. We’re almost there.”
As they rounded the corner near the front of the building, Riona found and pushed open the men’s locker room door. She navigated the two of them into an unoccupied area just inside the entry before releasing the magic concealing his body. Still concealed in her own void, she waited for him to let go, for his fingers to relax and his
now very prominent arousal to pull away. He didn’t budge. She wondered if it was her imagination that his fingers dug in harder, as if trying to get a better claim on the real estate they now occupied.
“You probably aren’t as familiar with this situation as me, Marc, but the move that usually follows this one requires us to get even closer. Like, negative inches between us.”
Judging by the hardness she felt, like, seven or eight inches.
Still, he lingered, and on her neck she could feel his choppy breaths heat her flesh. His lips made contact — barely — though she knew if she ever brought it up, he’d deny it. Her inner traitor to righteousness told her to lean back, to let him have access, to encourage him, but her Pure Soul suspected there’d be hell to pay. Literally.
Finally his hands fell, his voice stumbling as much as his feet as he backed away from her. “Sorry… I… I didn’t… I would never, have never… I mean, I…”
She put her hand out to silence him as she turned, not recalling that she was still in the blind spot of her magic. “Human first, priest immediately second. No need to apologize for being human. And I’ll try not to hold the priest part against you too much.”
A graceful smile beamed across his face, and though she was invisible still, Riona felt like he was looking straight into her eyes.
“Thank you.”
She wasn’t sure for what. For rescuing him from being seen by the ladies in the hot tub? For not leaving him behind? For understanding that his current trip to the United States of Erection was just the result of their naked, wet bodies sliding together? For not expecting him to act in any way on what he felt?
“No problem.”
But it was a problem. A problem, because for a moment when his lips brushed against her, she felt intention and promise. As a Pure Soul, it was her duty to defend humanity against the temptations wrought by evil intentions. As a woman, she didn’t care if she or Marc or both of them would be damned, she wanted him.
The question was, why?
Jerry was seriously about to gag. He hadn’t seen cheese like this since his tour of the Velveeta factory back in ‘98.
“That’s it?” he scoffed, watching the little scene between Riona and Marc come to a cock-blocking conclusion in the Big Bad’s magical mirror, the original candid camera of the ancient world.
“That was a lot. They were both tempted,” Lucifer explained as the scene dissipated and swirled back into the mists. “If they hadn’t been, we never would have been able to see them in my mirror. I can only view the sinful acts. At least one of them, if not both, was having soul-damning thoughts, which made them visible to us. And a reminder, demon o’ mine, temptation is the first step to sin. If we get Riona Dade to sin, she earns herself a very distinguished place in Hell.”
Jerry scratched his chin as he plopped down in Satan’s big, red, bean bag chair. “Riona doesn’t believe sex between consenting adults is a sin. What sin was she contemplating? Last time I read the rule book, humans can only commit sin by willfully and purposefully disobeying the Moral Right Truth as they accept it.”
Lucifer’s teeth ground in frustration. “Fucking MRT. Oh, to be in the times of absolute truths again! This damned, new age, hippy shit, and the flexible morality has cost me more recruits than prohibition.”
Jerry couldn’t be sure, but he thought the temperature in the room went up a degree every time the Sultan of Sin used profanity.
Lucifer refocused. “True, she doesn’t think it’s a sin, but even Riona respects the sanctity of the priesthood. I wonder… If I could get the two of them in bed, I’d knock two Pure Souls off the map at the same time. Not really too interested in him, but I might take the priest if it gets me the witch.”
Jerry’s neck snapped in the direction of the Devil Incarnate, pacing across the room. “What good is a priest in Hell?”
“Jerry, for someone of your cunning and age, I’m surprised you don’t know better. The higher the recruit must fall, the darker the demon soul it creates. From the greatest heights, come the greatest depths.” Long-nailed fingers drummed against a leather-clad hip. “Still, I’m playing for the witch. She’s the goal, Jer. She’s the one I want. The priest, though? He could be a good backup plan. Hell, he could be a good lots-of-things.”
Chapter 9
All she wanted was to go home and just get into bed.
Riona took off from the gym with such urgency after getting dressed that she forgot to stop in to see Dee, letting him know that she was going to crash at her own place. Coming face to face with Marc after what happened (and what didn’t happen) would have been awkward with a capital “awk.” Flight seemed a better option than sight.
Until she remembered the whole reason she’d gone to the gym to begin with.
“God damn…”
As soon as she found a spot to park, she whipped out her cell phone and texted both her guys, telling them they had business to discuss. Dinner would be served, she added, hoping that, if Marc was uncomfortable as she was, the promise of meal might lure him into the open. Dee texted back right away that he’d be over at six with a bottle of pinot. Marc’s singular-lettered text , “K,” followed a few minutes later.
It was on days like these that Riona was happiest she’d given up the corporate world. For her two cents, home offices were the way to go. Statistics was one of the few professions where independent contractors had a better professional reputation than some of their full-time recruits-in-suits counterparts. Because she wasn’t tied to any firm, and because she was very selective about with whom she worked so she wouldn’t develop a reputation of being a leading-indicator-for-hire, her clients valued her opinions above her competitors’. Plus, being able to set your own hours was primo. What other job in this salary scale would let you come home at eight a.m., flop down on the couch, and fall asleep?
Outside of starring on an MTV reality show, none.
When she woke up at around two that afternoon, it wasn’t because she had enough rest. The insistent knocking on her door aroused her. Rolling off the couch, wincing from the sting in her eyes, she swaggered across the room. Lucy glared back from the hall, her eyes afire, her arms crossed.
The witch stumbled for words. “Lucy?”
Lucy’s expression remained unchanged. Riona began to wonder what form of insectus bugus was up her butt.
“What’s up?”
“What’s up?” The clicking noise turned out to be her neighbor’s heels pounding a warlike cadence against the floor. “You, me, lunch at one at the BLZ Bistro?”
“Oh, shit.” Riona hoped her hair wasn’t as oily as it felt when she ran her fingers through it. “I’m so freaking sorry. I … I was just so tired, and I came home from the gym this morning and fell asleep. I didn’t think I’d be out so long. I…”
“Shh…” Lucy’s fingers were silky against Riona’s lips. As she cut off her rapid fire apology, Riona’s eyes focused in on the plump bottom lip of the accosting woman. “I thought something like that might have happened. Look, we’ll just plan for another time. That’s the good thing about first dates, right? No matter when you do them, they’re always firsts.”
She nodded, opening the door further, hanging onto it for support. “Yeah, true. Or…”
Reaching out, Riona took Lucy’s supple wrist in her grip and tugged. “What do you say we do lunch here, now? Maybe take in a movie a la something black, white, and old, and just chill. That is, assuming you’re available.”
Lucy melted under Riona’s puppy dog eyes. “Yeah, yeah, bat your pretty eyelashes at me and convince me to stay. Okay, why not? You better be a good cook, though. I was hoping for something hot and spicy.”
Looking at Lucy’s violet eyes and full lips, Riona secretly hoped she was talking about more than food.
Five hours and two romantic comedies la
ter, two full grown women lay on the floor in front of Riona’s flat screen with empty bowls at their sides. Outside, daylight leached into the horizon, casting long shadows across the amber light that filled the modern-styled apartment.
This was the part of the first date — or any date, really — that Riona loathed: the uncomfortable, awkward goodbye. The afternoon was over, and so was the pleasant, get-to-know-you, if-I-have-any-ulterior-motives-I-won’t-be-revealing-them-now filler conversation that was the trademark of such events.
Riona told Lucy all about her work — her professional work as a statistician; how she’d grown up in a small town in Northern Mass, of her desire to get a pug or chihuahua or even a cat, but fearing a pet would tie her down in a way that would make spontaneous trips to England or San Francisco or Taipei too hard, of her love for Beatles covers, though she hated the actual recordings of the Fab Four; and of being petrified of potato bugs. In turn, Lucy explained how she felt like the misunderstood black sheep of her family, and of her father, who thought her seven brothers were the greatest thing in all creation, of her enthusiasm for punk rock and modern art (she claimed that she was an unrequited artist), and mentioned in passing her position in HR at some good ol’ boys’ firm seeking expansion.
The present lull in conversation led to a silence that was getting heavier than a wet towel on a sapling spruce.
Lucy rolled her head toward the window — “Getting late, I should probably get going. Got some work to do and...” Her eyes traced an arc back across the space and locked onto Riona’s stare, taking in the sight of a wicked grin.
Oh, so she was leaving it to Riona to make a move then? Well, fine.
As Lucy’s body began to roll, Riona dashed out her hand and pulled her back down. “You don’t need to go yet. Stay a little longer.”
Pure & Sinful (Pure Souls) Page 7
