“Pussy,” Clyde spat, letting his own cackle erupt from his throat. “Now get the fuck out of here before she comes back in and catches you here. I’m workin’ her like a snitch works the feds.”
He snorted. “You oughta know.” The demon grinned wide, the rot of his teeth making Clyde want to turn away in disgust. But he couldn’t do that. Apparently, whoever this asshole was, he’d known Clyve. That meant Clyde couldn’t take a chance the man’d figure out he wasn’t Clyve at all—and rat him out. The shit would get ugly if that happened and then he wouldn’t be here to watch Delaney’s butt. So he played along like they were long-lost buddies.
He slapped Clyde on the back again. “Yeah, yeah. Just remember, man, you’re being watched. The big boss wants this chick—bad. Don’t fuck it up or you’ll never make level four. I’ll tell Pauley you said hello.”
“Do that.”
The demon disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the foul stink of his rotting soul.
Dropping his head to his hands, Clyde inhaled a deep breath, shaking off the fear that rose in his throat like sour bile. How in the frig was he going to keep Hell from getting to Delaney? He was only one demon, and a sorry-assed one at that. Even if he could accumulate a power or two to help her, the shit he had to do to acquire them went so far against his nature, he couldn’t even think it.
He’d never forget the kinds of things those demons had laughed over around that water cooler. He’d never forget how their black gurgles of laughter had erupted when they’d talked about Delaney’s demise.
Now more than ever, he wanted to know what she’d done to have this much heat from Lucifer. The problem didn’t just lie with her crossing over souls. She’d said herself that most of the people she’d crossed weren’t the bottom-of-the-barrel souls. They were just indecisive, or needed to pass on one last message. She was their conduit for safe passage.
Something was out of whack with her claim of innocence. Something he had to make sure he found out before he had to leave her, or he’d risk leaving her to fuck knows what.
What would Satan do to her when he found out Clyde had fucked with his plans? How could he even consider crossing over knowing he’d leave her behind to face that alone? What would happen when his month was up and they came looking for Delaney’s soul?
While he’d like to believe his fears for Delaney were nothing more than humane, he knew better. He hadn’t experienced many women in his life, but he’d never experienced one like Delaney.
Right out of the gate, when he’d been looking down at her from that plane he’d been stuck on during the séance, he’d found her compelling. He’d been drawn to how utterly unaware she was that she had this fresh innocence about her. She had a sharp tongue, no doubt, and every time she used it to lambaste him for something new, he wanted to make it stop wagging by clamping his mouth over hers. And each time he was close to her he discovered something else he found attractive about her. All that red hair with darker strands of golden brown in it, for one. When was the last time he’d noticed fucking highlights in a woman’s hair? Yet the compulsion to run his fingers through it tonight and take a deep whiff of the apple shampoo she used was driving him out of his mind.
As was the soft, supple melding of her body to his and the curve where waist met hip.
To make this attraction to Delaney even less likely, she had fluky ideas, crazy notions, and a healthy sense of humor, considering her lot in life as a medium. She ate things he couldn’t pronounce that smelled like a Jersey dump, and believed in things he’d never heard of and couldn’t be swayed to change her mind about.
Yet, he found he respected that—much more than he would have if he’d known her when he was alive.
Alive . . . now that was a problem. If he’d known her in life, he might have missed her due to the fact that he’d once thought clairvoyants like her were quacks. Now that he knew her in this unlife, there was no chance this could go any further because his time would be up in a few weeks.
But then there was that kiss. Two of them, to be precise. One just as hot as the next. Her lips had done things to him. Things that had never been done before her. Her body, clapped up against his like plaster on a wall, had left him with a raging hard-on and a lust that tore at every nerve ending he possessed. It’d been a while since he’d been intimate with anyone, and he realized that could play a part in how much she turned him on, but not all of what he’d felt with Delaney attached to him had to do with sex.
He liked her.
He didn’t want her to be hurt.
He found he wanted her to have all the things she seemed to want so much.
He also found himself wondering if he were alive, with the kind of view he had on how precious life was now, if he wouldn’t want to explore her desires with her.