Eve pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 6 just off the highway in Upland. There was a convenience store adjacent and a grocer’s up the street. Turning off the ignition, she glanced at Alec before opening the door. He hadn’t said a word over the last few minutes, retreating into himself and hoarding his thoughts. She knew this was as difficult for him as it was for her. If she’d ever consider praying to a higher power for anything, it would be for the ability to help him instead of hinder him.
She pushed the door open and exited. Resting her forearm on the roof of the car, she looked around. Upland was inland from Orange County, which made the temperature hotter and the air drier. She missed the ocean breeze already, but Eve suspected that was part of a general homesickness for anything familiar. She was separated from her family and her best friend, she’d lost her job, and Mrs. Basso was gone. A hotel stay in a strange town only added to her feeling of being a fish out of water.
Water.
Thinking of the Nix, Eve pushed away from the car and shut the door. Alec appeared on the opposite side. Tall, dark, handsome, and brooding. He slipped shades over his eyes, hiding his thoughts from her visual probe. There was a huge gulf between them at the moment. Like the tide against the shore, they crashed together and drew apart.
“After we get a room,” she said, “I need to hit the convenience store for a soda and a prepaid cell phone.”
He smiled. “You’d make a good spy, I think.”
“I have a fondness for action flicks.”
Alec came around the trunk and offered his hand. She accepted, but the closeness was only superficial. Emotionally, he was miles away, which was why she took a room with two double beds.
“You two got any pets?” the desk clerk asked. He was a young man in his midtwenties, Eve guessed. Over-weight by about sixty pounds and a mouth breather.
She shook her head. “Just us. Please don’t put us in a room that has had pets before. I’m allergic to cats.”
“No problem.” He leaned over the counter and lowered his voice. “Someone in the area has been stealing pets and hacking them up. It’s in all the local papers. Just wanted to warn you.”
“Hacking them up?” she repeated, remembering the article she’d read earlier that morning.
“Nasty stuff. Disemboweling, removing the eyeballs . . . that sort of thing.” His tone was more gossip-monger thrilled than it was disgusted or disturbed. “I read once that most serial killers start out mutilating animals, then they progress to people.”
“So this area isn’t safe?”
“It is for humans.” He shrugged, straightening. “Not so much for pets.”
While she signed the paperwork, Alec paid the balance in cash. He stared at her from behind his shades, but didn’t say a word until they went outside.
“Something you want to say to me?” he asked as they skirted the front office and crossed over to the 7-Eleven parking lot.
“About what?”
“About the two beds?”
“No pressure.”
“Hmm.”
An electronic beeping announced their entrance into the convenience store. Out front, three cars were filling their gas tanks at the pumps. Inside, an elderly woman with big white hair manned the counter and two teens stood by the coolers against the rear wall, looking at the soda.
Eve grabbed a hand basket by the door and moved to the prepaid phones hanging on an end cap.
Alec gestured to the soda fountain. “Want something to drink?”
“Diet Dr Pepper, if they have it. Otherwise, I’ll get it in a bottle.”
“Okay.”
Alec walked away and she rounded the aisle, grabbing beef jerky, nuts, and Chex Mix. She had a vision of lying across her motel bed with junk food, soda, and a movie on the television. The mere idea of a few hours of decompression was heaven on earth. They wouldn’t head out to the masonry until night, so she had time to vegetate and make sense of life as she now knew it. With that in mind, she grabbed chocolate, too—Twix, Kit Kats, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Eve was making her way around the next aisle when the Infernal stench hit her. She sought out the source of the putrid smell and settled on the teenagers by the rear cooler. One wore a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. The other wore a Hurley T-shirt and unkempt hair. On his nape, a tattoo of a diamond animated. It rotated, displaying the glimmer of its various facets.
She gaped, unmoving. As if he felt the weight of her stare, the hooded boy turned his head toward her. Eve’s gaze dropped, her obscenely steady hands absently pulling unknown items from the shelf into her basket. She continued down the aisle, witless with fear.
Look harmless and busy, she told herself.
“Angel.”
Jumping a good foot into the air, Eve spun to face Alec, who approached with a rapid stride. He caught her elbow and drew her farther down the aisle, away from the Infernals.
They were everywhere. How could she have forgotten that for even a moment? The weight of the knowledge was crushing.
As they feigned a preoccupation with shopping, Eve and Alec furtively watched the two young men withdraw energy drinks from the cooler and head up to the register. The clerk greeted them cheerfully and rang up their purchases. Her eyes were rimmed with gobs of mascara à la Tammy Faye Bakker and her lips were rimmed with the wrinkles of a lifetime cigarette smoker, but her smile was genuinely warm and her manner sweet.
The woman had no idea what she was dealing with.
“You okay?” Alec murmured as the young men left the store.
Eve nodded and released her pent-up breath. “They just took me off guard.”
He rubbed her lower back.
“You know,” she said. “I appreciate being able to smell them. I think I’d always be terrified if I was second-guessing everyone I met.”
Alec nodded grimly.
“I guess my nose still isn’t working right, though,” Eve noted. “You smelled them from across the store. I had to get within a yard of them.”
“I didn’t smell them.”
“Then how did you know?”
He glanced at her. “One of those boys just got his number called.”
It took a heartbeat’s length of time before she understood. “You?”
“Yeah. Me.” He urged her to the register. “Our stay in Upland just got a lot more complicated.”
Reed’s fingers were sliding between Sara’s thighs when he felt the first wave of Eve’s terror. Like ripples on water, the distance between them made the feeling faint, but it was unmistakable nevertheless.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he rested his forehead against the window where he’d pinned Sara. There were other sensations to process beyond Eve and the woman in his arms—there were the other twenty Marks under his watch, orders from the seraphim, and the occasional check-in from Raguel’s switchboard.
“Tease,” Sara whispered, her lips to his ear.
Distracted, he moved by instinct, parting her and stroking through her slickness. She moaned. He knew just how to touch her, how to pleasure her, how to give her exactly what she wanted.
Her teeth nipped his ear and he reacted accordingly. The hand he had pressed against the window for leverage moved to her throat. Reed fought the urge to hurry the business along. He had to keep her busy long enough to make their agreement worth Sara’s while. Otherwise, she could withdraw her Marks from his command before they had a chance to be put into play.
Sara’s manicured fingertips dug into his waist and her lungs labored, pushing against his chest in an elevated rhythm. Sex was one of the few times when a celestially enhanced body responded without restraint. Orgasm-induced endorphins were the drug of choice for many, including Reed.
As Eve’s distress peaked, goose bumps swept across Reed’s skin. Sweat dotted his upper lip and pooled in the small of his back. The urge to go to her was so strong he quivered with it. He told himself it was because she was untrained and therefore dangerously vulnerable. It was an occupational reaction, nothing more.
“I love it when you shake for me,” Sara purred, her nails raking the length of his back.
Reed kept his eyes closed, imagining that the silky tissues that clutched at his thrusting fingers belonged to another woman.
I-I don’t normally . . . do things like . . . this.
Eve’s trembling voice whispered through his mind. She didn’t know it—and he wasn’t certain he would ever tell her—but their coupling in the stairwell had been raw in more than just the fierceness of the sex. He had compelled her away from the crowd, but once they were alone he’d done nothing to keep her there. He hadn’t been able to, because he was too focused on her—the smell of her, the feel of her, the depth of her hunger. It had been as intimate an encounter as he’d ever experienced.
Sara liked rough sex, period. The person administering the roughness was moot. It was the thrill and the acts that she relished, not her partner. Eve, on the other hand, had been completely taken aback by her enjoyment of his handling. It had been him she responded to. No other man could have reached her the same way.
“Hurry,” Sara hissed, her sex sucking voraciously at his pumping fingers. She released his waist and pushed impatiently at her wide-legged slacks. They fell to the floor in an expensive pool around her Manolos.
He stepped back long enough to shed his own pants. He briefly noted her black garter belt and silk stockings, then he gave a hard tug to her thong and dropped the ruined undergarment to the floor. She couldn’t shrug out of her jacket fast enough. Before she could loosen her tie, he’d shoved her back into the window, pinning her to the cool glass.
Her smile lit up the room.
There was a brief moment when Reed thought about bending her over the desk and fucking her from behind. But this way had memories he was relying on to perform over the next several hours.
With his hands behind her thighs, he lifted her. Then he paused, his gaze locked with hers. “You know what to do.”
Sara reached between them and positioned him at her entrance. He stepped forward and dropped her simultaneously, impaling her in one hard thrust. Her cry pierced the air and charged his nerve endings. With his erection clasped in slick, liquid heat, his body took over from his brain. Finally.
Using his arms and thighs, Reed moved her up and down over him, stroking deep and fast. The erotic slapping of their bodies filled the room and spurred his lust. He focused on the feel of her clenching and releasing around his aching cock, the sensation hardening him further, making him throb with the sudden rush of blood to the swollen head of his dick.
She moaned as he filled her, stretched her, the grip of her body becoming fistlike in its intensity. Physically, it was damn good. He worked her up and down his cock with greater fervency, charging forward in his drive to culmination. His balls drew up, his spine tightened, his lungs heaved with his exertions. Sara’s orgasm rippled along his length, bathing him in the creamy, fiery wash of release. Her moans only added to his pleasure. For all her angelic beauty, Sara sounded like a porn star during sex. It roused the animal in him, turning him on to a near fevered pitch.
Which was still nowhere near as hot as he’d been in the stairwell.
Emotionally, he and Sara were on different continents. Sara’s eyes were closed, her head thrown back, her thoughts her own. Reed’s mind was with Eve, his sexual energy focused on her, his soul directed toward soothing the fear he felt in her.
His rhythm faltered when he sensed her reaching back, a chaste touch, like a handhold in the darkness. Her spirit brushed across his as ephemerally as smoke, yet it rocked him to the core. With a roar, he climaxed. Sara shivered into another orgasm with a high-pitched squeal.
Eve brought him to his knees before the glass, with Sara scratching at his back and hours of servicing her left ahead of him. In the aftermath, he gasped for breath and longed for a shower. Left unguarded by the force of his release, he wasn’t prepared for the sudden piercing agony that broke his connection to Evangeline.
One of his Marks was dying.
Reed groaned in agony and pushed Sara away. His back arched, thrusting his chest forward and his arms out. Pain and sorrow radiated from him with white-hot heat. His skin glowed with the effort to contain the herald of his charge—an instinctive cry for help from Mark to handler that was occasionally so powerful it was sometimes sensed by mortals. A sixth sense, some called it. The feeling of something being “wrong” or “off,” but they didn’t know what.
“Takeo,” he gasped, calling out the name of his charge. Takeo had waited too long to call for help; Reed could feel the power of the mark draining from him. It was an aching feeling of loss that was amplified through Reed and sent outward to the firm. The death of a Mark was news that was carried through the soul and not through secular lines of communication. As the force of the herald left him, Reed collapsed forward, gulping in air.
“I have to go,” he panted.
“You cannot save your Mark.” Sara’s lovely face was flushed, her lips red and swollen even though he hadn’t kissed her. “And if you leave before we are done, you will not save her either.”
“Her?” Reed reached for his slacks.
“Evangeline.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You think a woman does not know when the man she is fucking is thinking about someone else?”
“Sara . . .” he warned, his fists clenching.
“It is too late to save Takeo and you know it. You just want to alleviate your guilt by consoling him in his final moments.” She stabbed a perfectly painted red nail into his pectoral. “I want you to live with that guilt. I want you to remember how you failed your Mark because you were whoring for your brother’s lover.”
He slapped her, open-handed across the face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She laughed and rubbed at the red mark left by his palm. Then she spread her legs, revealing the glistening pink folds of her sex. “Get to work, before I decide you are not worth the inconvenience you have caused me.”
“How did you get called?” Eve asked, as Alec led her quickly across the parking lot back to the motel.
“The mark tingles,” he said, “then burns. Toss me the car keys.”
She did as he asked. “Like when you lie?”
He shot her an arch glance. “I don’t lie.”
“I did. And the mark burned.”
Alec gave a wry laugh.
“It also burned when I entered Mrs. Basso’s condo,” she said. “It gave me the energy to break through the locks.”
The line of his mouth thinned. “I know. The burning of your mark is just like getting an FTA—a failure to appear notice for a bail bond skip.”
He unlocked her car door, then rounded the vehicle to the driver’s side and climbed in.
“You didn’t mention the door-breaking thing to Gadara,” Eve said, just realizing that omission.
She accepted the bag of merchandise he set in her lap, moving it to the floorboards between her feet. Straightening, Eve was arrested by a sudden rush of warmth moving through her chilled veins. The sensation felt almost as if a warm blanket had been tossed around her shoulders. A blanket that smelled distinctly like Reed.
“I wanted to see if Abel would say anything.” Alec turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the parking spot. “He’s the one who triggered your mark. That’s his job as your handler.”
Eve watched him maneuver into traffic, still processing the rapid disbursement of her fear. One moment she was scared out of her mind, the next she felt cocooned and protected.
As if he was guided by radar, Alec quickly found the two boys strolling down a side street and fell into a safe surveillance distance behind them.
“What does that mean?” she queried. “Did he know about Mrs. Basso?”
“Handlers aren’t necessarily aware of the particulars of the crime. They usually only know what class of demon the target is and which Mark in their stable is both local and qualified.”
“Well, you can’t get any more local than right next door.”
“Or any less qualified that an untrained novice.” He exhaled harshly. “Abel’s job is to assign the most capable bounty hunter to each individual hunt, even if that means the Mark has to travel like we did today.”
Eve’s hands fisted in her lap. “Once a Mark is assigned, can another one step in?”
“Another Mark won’t get the call, no.”
Reed saved him for me.
Warmth blossomed in her chest, which scared her. She was grateful to be given a chance to kill. What did that make her? Besides homicidal?
“Raguel knew nothing about Abel assigning the Nix to you,” Alec continued grimly, “which means Abel is acting on his own.”
“Do handlers work for multiple firm leaders?”
Alec shook his head. “They work for one firm, that’s it. But they are somewhat autonomous. They’re mal’aks—angels—so they have full use of their gifts. They can route assignments to whomever they wish.”
“Perhaps Reed doesn’t trust Gadara either.”
“Or maybe Raguel deserves the benefit of the doubt and my brother has something crafty up his sleeve,” he snapped. “But I guess you don’t want to think about that.”
“Hey.” Eve twisted in her seat, adjusting her seat belt for comfort. “Don’t get pissy.”
“Raguel is an archangel, Eve. His love for God is absolute.”
“I don’t buy it, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen a drop of compassion in that guy. A lot of self-interest and bullshit, but love and compassion? Not at all.”
“And you’ve seen love and compassion in Abel?” he scoffed. “When exactly was this? When he was banging you into servitude in the stairwell? Or when he blew off your training to assign you to a demon bent on killing you?”
Alec pulled the car over to the curb just before a cul de sac. The street sign named it Falcon Circle. The boys had turned the corner just a minute earlier. Eve hopped out before the vehicle stopped rolling. She continued on foot, anger and frustration riding her hard. On the left side of the road, the streets were open-ended. On the right side—the side she was traversing—all the streets were dead ends that butted up against a short field with a copse of trees beyond it.
The engine shut off and the driver’s-side door slammed shut behind her, but Eve kept going. When she reached the corner, she paused and watched the two young men enter a home at the very end of the street. It was a two-story house with a deeply arched roof. The paint was a popular eighties-era scheme of light brown with chocolate trim. In the yard was a tricycle that had seen better days, and a lawn with bare patches and weed-infested flower beds. A covered car sat on one side of the driveway, while the adjacent side was stained with the remnants of an oil leak.
The day was bright and sunny, but a massive overgrown tree shaded the house and kept it in darkness. The residence was depressing, especially amid the other homes that showed signs of owner pride and attention. Alec’s prey lived in the neighborhood eyesore, and the air of decay and neglect gave Eve the chills.
“Now what?” she asked when he drew abreast of her.
“Now I wait until the time is right. I know where to find him.”
“Can you tell me how we’re expected to get anything done? You’re getting called . . . I’m getting called . . . we’re both getting called together. How much shit is God going to throw at us?”
“He doesn’t know what’s happening, angel.”
She snorted. “The all-seeing, all-knowing creator of everything is clueless?”
“He listens, He doesn’t watch.”
Eve opened her mouth to argue that point when she remembered that God hadn’t known Alec had killed his brother. He’d had to ask to find out. “Maybe you should tell him to give us a break, then.”
“Usually, a mentor’s sole job is to teach. As Raguel said, once a mentor/Mark team is created, they are inseparable until the Mark is capable of functioning alone.” Alec gestured impatiently back at the car. “In my case, God wasn’t willing to lose me as an individual unit. I told Him I would do both jobs at the same time. It was the only way to be with you.”
Eve’s pique drained away in a rush. “Alec—”
“That doesn’t explain why Abel is giving you hazardous assignments before you’re ready or why Raguel doesn’t know about it.”
“You don’t trust your brother at all.”
“No, I don’t. I have yet to see him give a shit about anything besides himself.”
“That isn’t how the popular story goes, you know.”
The look he shot her was derisive. He opened the passenger door and waited for her to get in. “I know.”
“So tell me what happened. What have you two been fighting about all these years?” She had to wait for him to settle into the seat beside her. Though it only took a minute or so, it seemed like forever.
As he pushed the key into the ignition, Alec kept his gaze straight ahead. “What do all men fight about?”
“Territory, goods, women.”
“Right.”
“Well, which is it?”
He put the transmission into gear and turned the car around, heading back the way they’d come. “All of the above.”
Raguel returned to the pent house suite of the Mondego Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, which he owned. It had been a long day and since it was only six o’clock in the evening, it was nowhere near over. The red tape involved in renovating a resort was daunting and exhausting. There were months of meetings and mountains of permits to file. Soon he would need Ms. Hollis’s input to continue. It would give them plenty of time to work together and forge a bond, a bond that would assist him in managing Cain.
Raguel briefly noted the panoramic views afforded by the walls of windows around him, before turning his attention to the desk in the corner.
“Report,” he ordered the secretary who waited there. Kathy Bowes wore dark slacks and a white turtleneck sweater, and looked every bit as young as she’d been when marked at the tender age of fourteen. She was kept close to home to keep her alive. There was more than one way to kill a demon, and some Marks were best suited to safer tasks than a physical hunt.
The secretary stood and read from a pad of paper in her hands. “Three Marks lost today. Two Marks acquired. Possible sighting of a new breed of Infernal. Uriel called and would like you to call him back—”
Raguel scowled. “Three Marks? Who were the handlers?”
“Mariel lost a mentor/Mark team to the Infernal she didn’t recognize—”
“Is that the possible new breed sighting?”
“Yes.”
He loosened his tie. “I want her full report.”
“The recording is on your desk.”
“Who else?”
“Abel lost one.”
Raguel paused, disquieted. “Who did Abel lose?”
“Takeo, a former Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza member. He was very good. Forty-seven kills.”
Relief flooded the archangel, and reminded him that he was taking a dangerous gamble. The loss of Evangeline Hollis would create an enemy in Cain that would jeopardize centuries of work. But the possible rewards were worth the risk.
Raguel knew that Ms. Hollis needed to find self-confidence in her abilities in spite of Cain rather than because of him. Past observations of her had revealed that she was ambitious and determined. Cain’s mentoring of her had been a curve Raguel wasn’t expecting, but he believed it was still possible for her to achieve an identity separate from her mentor.
The seven archangels were tasked with the training of new Mark recruits. They rotated the duties for the sake of fairness. For seven weeks a year, each archangel was given free rein to use his or her powers in the training process. Raguel had deliberately delayed Ms. Hollis’s training so that it would fall into his rotation. He would give her a level of attention he’d never bestowed on any other Mark. A bond would form organically. He fully intended for her to align with him so completely that she related to him more than with her mentor and her handler.
Cain responded to stress with aggression; he always had. By keeping him edgy and off-guard, Raguel would promote tension between him and Ms. Hollis. Abel’s obvious infatuation with his brother’s lover would assist with that. She couldn’t have both of them, and being torn between the two would prevent a deep attachment from forming with either one.
“Is Abel’s report on my desk, too?” Raguel asked.
“He hasn’t filed one yet. Just the herald has come in.”
The archangel frowned. Abel was unfailingly prompt with all his reports, which were voice recordings made on the scene that were later transcribed onto celestial scrolls for future reference. While some handlers required time to absorb the loss of a Mark, Abel found }solace in the act of witnessing the Mark’s sacrifice for divine consideration. Some Marks were forgiven their trespasses, regardless of the number of indulgences earned.
Raguel moved to his office. He briefly skimmed the various items that had been left on his desk for perusal and approval. He flipped through several mock-ups of advertisements for his numerous ventures, pausing briefly on two options for invitations to the grand opening of Olivet Place. It was fortunate that the tengu had been vanquished prior to the ribbon cutting. Then he picked up the disk labeled Mariel.
Something niggled at him.
“Ms. Bowes!” he yelled.
“Confirm Cain and Ms. Hollis’s whereabouts.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll see to it immediately.”
Eve never thought she would be happy to hang out in a Motel 6. Her personal preferences were much more upscale. But right now, she was looking forward to the tiny room off Highway 10 as if it was the penthouse suite in the Mondego.
She climbed out of the passenger side of the Focus and stretched. An aftereffect of the mark’s release of adrenaline was the lingering sense of physical restlessness. Emotionally, however, she just wanted five minutes to enjoy some chocolate.
Pulling the motel key from his pocket, Alec unlocked their ground-floor room and ushered her inside. The space was small, about the size of Eve’s guest bathroom. The two double beds barely fit inside, with the bed farthest from the door pushed up right against the bathroom wall and the nearest bed having scarcely enough room to fit in the window air-conditioning unit. The decor was motel classic—busy-printed coverlets that hid stains, nondescript wallpaper, and a three-paneled painting of the beach above the two headboards. A small fridge sat by the dresser and the sink waited beyond that, conveniently—though unattractively—built outside the shower and toilet area.
Alec set the keys and their purchases next to the television and pushed his shades onto his forehead. He leaned back against the dresser and crossed his arms.
Eve sank onto the edge of the bed nearest the door. “Can you pass me a Kit Kat?”
He reached for the bag. Digging inside, he laughed. “What the hell did you buy?”
She thought back to her time in the store. “I’m not sure. For a while there, I freaked out.”
Alec straightened and dumped the contents onto the other bed. Eve stood and surveyed the pile.
“Antibacterial dish soap?” He arched a brow at her. “Floral air freshener. Unscented baby wipes. Two packages of lime-flavored gelatin. Beef jerky. Facial tissue enhanced with lotion.”
She picked out the chocolate and the cell phone, arranged the pillows on her bed, and sprawled against the headboard. A moment later she was munching on what she considered to be manna from someone’s god. She plugged the AC adapter for the phone into the outlet in the base of the nightstand lamp. Then she dialed her parents’ house.
It rang three times before, “Hello?”
Eve breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of her mother’s voice. “Hey, Mom.”
“Where are you calling from?” Miyoko asked. “The Caller ID says ‘unknown caller’.”
“Long story. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Your dad isn’t. He’s mad.”
Darrel Hollis’s version of mad was a long-suffering look. He never raised his voice, never got physical. Eve suspected his blood pressure was on par with her new Mark stats. “Oh? About what?”
“The city turned off our water and started digging up the yard. They have to fix a leak. I told your dad it was time to resod anyway.”
Eve smiled, relieved that the mark system had moved so promptly. “Tell him to look on the bright side,” she suggested. “This might save you money on your utilities bill.”
“Your dad says I’ll spend the savings on the new yard, so he’s not getting ahead.”
Her mother’s love of horticulture and feng shui had led to a desire for a curving stone walkway flanked by lush flower beds. Her dad, on the other hand, thought their straight cement pathway was just fine.
“He’ll get over it,” her mother dismissed. “Want to come over for dinner?”
“I can’t to night.”
“You have a hot date?”
Eve laughed softly. “Not even close. I have to work.”
“That’s good. A woman should always be self-sufficient—” Eve’s father said something in the background. “Your dad says congratulations on the new job.”
“Tell him thanks for me. You’re not going anywhere today, are you?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason. I’ve got to go now, Mom. Did this phone number show up on your caller ID?”
“Yes, the number is here. Just no name.”
“Okay. Call me if you need me.”
“Evie-san . . .” Her mother’s voice took on a concerned tone. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. There’s just a lot going on right now.”
“Take your vitamins,” Miyoko admonished, “or you’ll get sick. Stress weakens your immune system.”
“I will. Talk to you later.” Eve snapped the phone shut and stared at it for a long moment.
“Are they all right?” Alec asked.
She nodded and bit into a Twix bar.
“I want to stake out the masonry,” he said. “Are you up for that?”
She was up for anything that gave her something to do besides contemplate how screwed up her life was. “Why did we come back here, then?”
“Bathroom break.”
“Gotcha.” Eve chewed with gusto.
Alec’s arms crossed, causing his T-shirt to strain around his biceps in a way that melted the chocolate in her hand. As she licked her fingertips, he watched her with a guarded expression. “Are we fighting?”
Eve shrugged. “I’m just waiting for you to finish your explanation about your brother.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Okay, then.”
He exhaled in a rush. “I don’t want to talk about him with you.”
“I got it.”
She turned her head to look out the window. The sounds of the nearby highway blended with the sound of blood rushing through her veins. She inhaled and smelled the familiar scent of Alec the instant before he climbed over her and caged her to the bed.
“Hey,” he murmured, tossing his sunglasses onto the nightstand tucked between the two beds.
“Hmm?” She stared up at him, admiring the fall of dark hair over his brow. Every part of her tingled with awareness. Determined not to act as devastated by his nearness as she felt, Eve stuck the other Twix in her mouth.
Alec lowered his head and bit off the protruding end of the candy bar. A low sound of pleasure rumbled up from his chest. She watched him turn the act of chewing into foreplay, the steady clenching of his jaw a surprisingly erotic sight.
They swallowed in unison. Their lips parted in tandem. Then his tongue was stroking across hers. She shivered beneath him. Sexual tension and chocolate, could anything be more divine? Alec’s hand moved to her waist and anchored her, his hips sinking between her thighs as she opened them.
Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him closer. His body mantled hers, his warmth and strength became hers.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Eve didn’t know what he was apologizing for. His curtness earlier? Or maybe everything?
She pushed her fingers into his thick, silky hair. It felt so good to be held. A tear slipped down from the corner of her eye, then another. Tears that had been lying in wait since she’d found Mrs. Basso that morning.
Alec rolled to his back, taking her with him. He draped her over his body, whispering soothing words of comfort. In her mind, another soul touched her. She didn’t know Reed at all, but that didn’t matter. She found solace in the evanescent feel of him.
Together the two brothers gave her the brief respite she needed.