Sins of the Flesh

“How did you find me?” she asked, her voice even, though inside she was a roiling turmoil of nerves. The night was dark, the moon only a thin sliver, but her vision was enhanced by the blood she’d taken from him. She could see him clearly. The long curve of his lashes. The stubble that darkened his jaw. The shape of his mouth, his lower lip a little fuller than the upper.

“I summoned a portal. The exact thing you were questioning me about last time we met. What sort of a gentleman would I be if I didn’t grant the lady her deepest desires?”

She lifted her brows, feigning calm. “But how did you know where to exit? It isn’t as though there’s a subway stop, is there?”

His lips curved. “You showed me.”

“No.”

“’Fraid so, darlin’.” His mouth curved in a dark, sexy smile. “Happy to see me?”

Calliope huffed a sharp exhalation through her nose. She couldn’t help it. The question was so absurd. And if a tiny part of her was glad to see that he was unharmed by the fire genies’ inferno, it was only because she’d had a measure of guilt for sacrificing him in order to escape. Just because she despised his kind didn’t mean she had to sink to their level.

“Ah, think so highly of yourself, do you, darlin’? Like we aren’t the same, deep down inside?”

The same? No. They weren’t. They never would be.

He was a monster. A killer. He ripped out the heart of innocents.

She killed only when there was absolutely no other choice.

That made them different.

She went for her knife. It was not there. Somehow, he’d taken it from her.

The soul reaper stared at her, and his mouth turned in a faint, knowing smile. His eyes were like molten silver against the fringe of dark lashes, his gaze focused. Greedy. Like he meant to swallow her whole.

Awareness danced across her skin and made her blood thick and hot, her limbs heavy. She was mortified by her reaction. He was her enemy. He was a soul reaper, the darkest, most vile denizen of the Underworld, a creature that barely qualified as having slithered from the primordial sludge.

Then his lips curved even more, a pirate’s smile. White teeth bright against dark stubble.

In that second, she acknowledged the truth, because to lie to herself was dangerous. She might despise all his kind. She might be disgusted by who and what they were. But on a purely physical level, she found him beautiful. Sexy. She wanted to touch him, taste him, put her hands on his naked skin. And from the way he was looking at her, he wanted to do the same to her.

She’d wanted him that first night at the club, before she’d known what he was. She still wanted him now, with eyes wide open.

What sort of a creature did it make her that she could want what she reviled?

He moved so fast she didn’t even have time to gasp. One moment, he was in front of her, more than an arm’s length away. And then he was plastered against her, his thighs flush with her own, his chest against hers.

His fingers laced with hers and he drew her arms back behind her then turned her palms so they pressed against cold metal. She didn’t acquiesce, nor did she struggle.

Leaning in, he brought his lips to her ear and spoke so low that she had to strain to hear. “I’m going to kiss you now. And you’re going to let me.”

She had a flash of memory, the feel of his lips on hers in the parking lot before the fire genies came, and to her utter horror, she realized she wanted more than just a fleeting taste. She wanted him to kiss her hard and deep.

There was something wrong. She had more control than this. She reached for the smooth lake that grounded her, the place inside her that was ever calm. Panic swelled when she couldn’t find it, couldn’t touch it. There was only the scent of his skin and the feel of his hands holding hers, spiced with the lingering regret that she hadn’t kissed his mouth when she’d had the chance in the club’s basement.

She hadn’t wanted to then because it seemed far too intimate with a nameless man she meant to use for her release.

She shouldn’t want to now that she knew what he was.

But she did. She wanted it so badly, it made her ache.

The soul reaper did nothing more threatening than draw back to study her through narrowed eyes. But her panic escalated, as though he threatened her somehow.

Because he did. Something about him threatened the things she believed about herself.

She felt hot, out of sorts, herself, but not herself.

His hands were on her thighs, running up the outsides to her hips, holding her as he pressed forward against her, pressed her to the cold metal of the SUV’s hood.

With a sharp inhalation, she closed her eyes as he lowered his face to the place where her neck met her shoulder. She could feel the rub of his day-old stubble against her skin, abrasive, erotic. Feel the brush of his lips and then the sharp nip of his teeth.

She wet her lips. Kiss him. An insidious whisper in her thoughts. Kiss him once and get it out of your system. Kiss him once and prove to yourself exactly how repugnant he is.

His fingers skimmed the undersides of her breasts. She gasped.