“Roger.”
“Dagger?” Jimmy continued, as if I were new at this.
I patted the back pocket of my jeans. I’d donned the tightest pair I could find, along with a well-washed white tank so see-through the shade of my skin made it appear beige. I hadn’t bothered with a bra. Why try to be subtle? I’d never been any good at it.
I’d left the turquoise and the crucifix at the hotel. No need to remind Mait whose side I was on until I had to.
“Okay then.” Jimmy rocked back on his heels, glanced at the sky.
“Synchronize our watches?” I asked.
He lowered his head, lifted a brow. “You aren’t wearing one.”
“I’m not wearing much,” I muttered, and walked into the overgrowth.
Despite the early hour, I was dripping sweat by the time I reached the church. Mait had said he was on duty in the daytime, so I’d assumed night demons only demoned at night. Since no evil bat-like shadows dived from the sky and tried to eviscerate me, I appeared to be right.
“Mait?” I called.
He appeared in the doorway so fast, I thought he might have been waiting for me. Probably just waiting for someone, anyone. If I had to live alone in an abandoned church in the swamp with only nasty demon birds and Lucifer’s Bible for company, I’d hover around the doorway, too.
“Back for de book?” he asked, gazing on my breasts, which might as well have been bare for all the good my old, white, wet shirt provided for cover.
I didn’t answer. He wasn’t listening anyway. Instead I walked toward him, making sure I put a little bounce in my step that transferred to my chest.
Ba-booommmmm. Ba-booommmm.
“Mait,” I said in what I hoped was a tempting murmur.
Jimmy’s idea of sending me to seduce someone, probably not the best idea he’d ever had. I was more of the Jump him if you want him school. But if I did that now, I’d have to follow through, and that wasn’t happening.
A few more ba-boom steps and I came close enough to see the symbol depicted by the tiny braids across Mait’s skull. A cross of two straight lines, combined with another cross that ended in a curlicue and tilted toward two o’clock, all with the same center—an X and a T—crossroad upon a crossroad. Very powerful magic.
I ran my finger along it, attempting to get inside his head, but either the gris-gris was strong enough to block my psychometry or his mind was too full of breasts for anything else.
Since I’d never considered my psychometric talent a form of magic—I’d been born with the talent; being psychic was part of me, not something I’d earned or taken or learned—I voted for the latter.
Mait snatched my wrist. “How did you get past de protection spell?”
I smiled despite the pain of his fingers crunching my bones. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Tell me now.”
Son of a bitch. I needed to ramp up the seduction. At this rate, Mait was going to know Jimmy was coming long before he arrived. I had maybe ten minutes to make Mait see, hear, and breathe nothing but me.
I tugged on my wrist and he let go, though he stayed close enough to grab me again if he needed to. I slid my fingers into my front pocket, pushing my chest out in the process.
The shirt had begun to dry in the heat, the salt from my skin causing the material to stiffen. When it rubbed against my nipples so did they.
“Mmm,” I murmured, and wiggled so the shirt shimmied some more. “I’ve got a little—”
With difficulty he pulled his eyes from my chest and lowered them. Every one of my fingers was outlined inside of the faded denim pocket of my too-tight jeans. All of them pointed toward my crotch. Mait licked his lips, and I stifled a smile. This wasn’t so hard.
I pulled my hand out just as slowly as I’d put it in. “Gris-gris,” I said, and held up the bag.
He snatched at it, but I’d been expecting that and put my hands behind my back. He got very interested in my boobs again. He hadn’t had any in a very long time.
“Ah-ah,” I singsonged. “No magic but what we make, okay?”
Sheesh, had I actually said that?
“Okay,” he echoed, and I knew I had him.
How the guy could think the woman he’d met first as a phoenix and the woman I pretended to be now were one and the same without a complete personality transplant was a mystery. Then again, considering that all the blood in his head was now in his pants, maybe not such a mystery after all.
Why anyone believed it was a good idea to lock up people all alone yet expect them to be incorruptible, I hadn’t a clue. Either the person would go stark raving mad or, if we were talking about a guy, he’d be easily compromised by a pair of great breasts in a thin white tank top.
A flash of movement caught my attention. Jimmy! Luckily Mait had his back to the room and his nose practically buried in my breasts.
“You can touch them if you like,” I whispered.