when he deepened the kiss and I felt the coolness of the bolt in his tongue. My body sparked to life; my heart swelled and thundered. The rush of sensations crawling across my body was maddening, beautiful and scary.
I dug my hands into his hair, not at all surprised to find it soft to the touch. Roth pressed down, hooking my leg around his waist. I gasped against his mouth. His hand slipped under my shirt, his fingers skimming over my skin, sending a rush of blood to every part of me.
I wanted to touch him the way he was touching me. Roth moaned when I wiggled, slipping my hands under his shirt. His stomach was hard, dipped and rippled in all the right places. He broke away long enough to tug his shirt over his head. He hovered above me for a moment, powerful and strong. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him shirtless, but I still marveled at his beauty. Even Bambi, who covered his arm, and the dragon rising across his stomach were beautiful to me. I wondered what he thought of me, but we were kissing again as he eased me back down, dropping a kiss against my cheek, then my eyelids while I tried to get control of my pounding heart.
Roth cradled my face then, our lips barely touching again and again. My sweater came off in a heady tug and pull. I ran my fingertips down his chest to the button on his jeans. He had the same thing in mind, because he was between my legs, and I was swimming in raw sensations. Pleasure and uncertainty spiked together. I had no experience in any of this.
For a brief moment, Roth froze above me. His eyes squeezed tight and his head thrust back toward the ceiling. I didn’t realize that he was exercising any control until it broke.
His arms tightened around me, crushing me against his chest as his hips rocked against mine. We were skin to skin in some areas, tangled together, and each breath we took, the other seemed to inhale. Our chests rose; our hearts pounded. His skin was hard and smooth under my clenching fingers. He gripped my hips, tilting me up and bringing us closer together. When he kissed me again, it was that deep, scorching kind of kiss that pushed me to the edge of the cliff. I was ready to jump off headfirst, to finally feel everything I’d always believed to be denied to me.
My fingers dug into the smooth skin of his biceps as his free hand trailed down my stomach, fingers circling my belly button and then lower, under the band of my jeans. Every muscle in my body locked up in a strange way. Not a bad way, but it was intense, too much and not enough. “Roth, I...I don’t know...”
“It’s okay,” he whispered against the corner of my lip. “This is about you. Yeah, this is totally about you.” He sounded surprised by his own words, and when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse as he pressed his forehead against mine. “You undo me. You have no idea how you undo me.”
Before I could process what that meant, his hand started to move and his wrist twisted and the cells in my body tightened to an almost painful point. I couldn’t control it. My body moved of its own accord, my back arching. A rush of sensations hit me all at once. That edge I’d been teetering on? I toppled right over as those cells seemed to scrabble out in every direction. Roth knew the moment to kiss me, his lips silencing the sounds I would be embarrassed over later.
He held me through it. Hours passed while I slowly pieced myself back together. Maybe it was only minutes. It didn’t matter. My heart thundered. I felt glorious. Alive. Better than after tasting a soul.
Our eyes met, and I smiled a little. Something fractured in his gaze as his fingers trailed over my cheek. “What I would give...”
Roth didn’t finish the thought, and my brain was still too fuzzy to figure out his meaning. He pressed his lips to my flushed forehead and slowly rolled over onto his back. I followed him, not as graceful. My leg ended up tangled with his.
Roth held up a hand, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “I need a minute.”
I opened my mouth and then clamped it shut. Flushing, I started to pull back, but his arm snaked around my waist, holding me in place.
“Okay. Maybe I need more than a minute.” His voice was tight and strained, thick.
I may have be inexperienced, but I wasn’t completely naive. “Why...why did you stop?”
“I don’t know.” He gave a short laugh. “I really don’t know, but it’s all right. Yeah, it’ll be all right.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and then I let myself relax against his side, taking comfort in the steady rise and fall of his chest. I felt his hand smooth over my cheek, tucking my hair back behind my ear. My breath hitched in my throat, and when I opened my eyes, he was staring at me in a way I didn’t understand.
Unable to hold his gaze, mine flitted down over his bare chest and stomach. The detail on the dragon was as amazing as Bambi. Iridescent blue and green scales glimmered in the natural light streaming through the window, its body rippling over the dips and hard planes of his stomach. As Roth breathed, it seemed like the dragon took a breath. The dragon’s eyes matched Roth’s, a beautiful golden hue that glowed within.
“If you keep staring down there like that, it’s not going to be all right.”
I flushed and hastily averted my gaze, but it didn’t stay away long. Rising up on my elbow, it took everything for me not to touch it. “The tattoo—does it come off you like Bambi?”
“Only when I’m very, very angry.” Roth lifted his arms above his head and his back bowed, causing the dragon tattoo to stretch along with him. “And even then, I don’t let him off unless there’s no other option.”
“Does he have a name?”
Roth arched a brow. “Thumper.”
I laughed out loud. “What is it with you and Disney names?”
“I like the name.” He sat up quickly and pressed a kiss to the back of my shoulder, and then he settled back down, curving an arm around my waist. His hand landed on my hip with astonishing ease. “You can touch it if you want.”
I did.
Following the outline of the wing, I thought it would be rough or at least raised from the skin, but it was as smooth as the rest of Roth. I skimmed over the belly of the dragon and drifted down to where the tail disappeared under the waist of Roth’s jeans.
He sucked in a deep breath. “All right, maybe the touching thing is a bad idea.”
I jerked my hand back and peeked at him. He was staring at the ceiling, a muscle feathering along his jaw. “Sorry.”
One side of his lips tipped up. “You...you surprised me. I figured you’d be wearing white.”
“What?” Then it struck me. My bra was red. I smacked him on the chest. “I’m not a purity princess, for crying out loud.”
“No. No, you’re definitely not.” He rolled onto his side, facing me. A funny smile played on his lips. Roth suddenly looked young and...completely at ease. “You’re actually a wild little thing.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure about that.”
“You have no idea.” His voice was rough and he tugged me down so I was lying half on his chest. He wrapped his fingers around my chin and brought my lips to his. The answer was in a slow-burning deep kiss that tripped up my heart. His hand slid off my chin to the nape of my neck, holding me to him as the kisses left me breathless and dazed.
Then he lifted up and all the sensual laziness was gone from his beautiful face. My pulse jumped and a cold chill snaked its way down my spine.
Roth took a deep breath. “It’s time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
We’d left a little before midnight, parking several blocks away from the monument. A Porsche like Roth’s would draw too much attention, and I was already worried that we’d stumble across a Warden. They’d be out hunting demons...demons like Roth.
Starting off on Constitution Avenue, I wasn’t surprised by the amount of foot traffic for this time of night. Most were humans barhopping, but mixed in among them were a few with no souls. One Fiend, her wine-colored hair pulled up in a high ponytail, was hailing a cab, which struck me as odd. Beside her was a human male, and I wondered if he knew what he was standing next to.
As we got closer to the National Mall, the full moon was high in the sky, fat and bloated. Roth took my hand in his and I glanced at him. “What? Are you scared again?”
“Ha. Actually, I’m making us invisible.”
“What?” I glanced down at myself, expecting to see through my leg. “I don’t feel invisible.”
“And what does invisible feel like, Layla?” Amusement colored his tone.
I made a face at him.
Roth smirked. “The National Mall closed about half an hour ago. The last thing we need is a park ranger getting all up in our business.”
He had a good point. “We’re invisible now?”
Sending me a quick grin, he pulled me right in front of two young men who were loitering alongside the street. Under the street lamps, the ends of their cigarettes flared red as they inhaled. We walked right in front of them, so close I could see the tiny stud in the one guy’s nose. They didn’t even blink when Roth flipped them off. No reaction whatsoever. To them, we weren’t there.
Farther down the street, I finally found my voice. “That is so cool.”
“It is.”
We crossed the wide street and the tops of the sandstone museums peeked through the starry night sky. “Do you do the invisible thing often?”
“Would you if you could do it?” he asked.
“Probably,” I admitted, trying to ignore how warm his hand felt in mine.
Tight knots formed in my stomach as the Washington Monument came into view. Having no idea what was going to happen, I was expecting some kind of Indiana Jones booby traps lying in wait.
When we made it to the Lincoln Memorial, the moon was behind a thick cloud and the reflecting pool was vast and dark, still as always. Trees lined the pool, and the wet, musty smell of the Potomac teased my nose.
I waited until a park ranger moved on before I spoke. “What now?”
Roth glanced up. “We wait until the moon comes back out.”
A minute and ten thousand years later, the cloud rolled on and the silvery light of the moon was revealed inch by inch. Swallowing hard, I watched the water, wondering if we really did have the right place.
In the pale light of the full moon, the Washington Monument’s reflection started at the center of the pool farthest from where we stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The pillar sped across the pool as the reflection grew, until the pointed end reached the edge of where we stood.
I held my breath.
And nothing happened. No doorway suddenly appeared. Horns didn’t hail. Indiana Jones didn’t appear out of thin air. Nothing.
I looked at Roth. “Okay. This is really anticlimactic.”
He frowned as he scanned the area. “We’ve got to be missing something.”
“Maybe Sam was wrong or the seer was just messing with us.” The level of disappointment I was feeling sucked. “Because everything looks the same.... Wait.” I took a step forward, still holding on to Roth’s hand as I knelt at the edge of the pool. “Is it just me or does the water where the monument is reflected look sort of...shimmery?”
“Shimmery?”
“Yeah,” I replied. It was faint, but it looked like someone had tossed buckets of glitter on the water. “You don’t see it?” I looked up at him.
His eyes were narrowed. “I do, but that could just be the water.”
With my free hand, I reached down and dipped my fingers into the water and jerked my hand back. “What the Hell?”
“What?” Roth was kneeling in a second, his eyes glowing in the darkness. “What?”
It was way too hard to explain. The water...wasn’t water at all. My fingers had gone completely through it and were dry as the desert. “Put your fingers in it.”
The look on his face said he had a really disgusting comment to follow that up with, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. Using his other hand, he put his fingers into the pool.
Roth laughed. “Holy crap, the water...”
“Isn’t there!” Amazed, I shook my head. “Do you think the whole thing is an optical illusion?”
“Can’t be. There are idiots who jump in this thing all the time. It has to be some kind of enchantment that’s reacting to us.” He moved his hand along the fake water, covering about a six-foot space until he must’ve hit the real deal, because a small ripple moved across the pool. “It’s in this space.” His gaze followed the center of the pool and then flicked up. “It’s the entire length of the reflection.”
I hoped so, because I was pretty sure the pool was at least eighteen feet deep and drowning didn’t sound like a lot of fun.
“You ready to do this?”
Not really, but I nodded as I stood. Roth went first, testing the theory of the water not really being water. His boot and then his jean-clad leg disappeared. There was no ripple or movement.
He smiled. “There’s a step, and it’s not wet.” He moved farther down until the darkness swallowed him up to his thigh and our arms were stretched as far as they’d go. “It’s okay. Whatever this is, it’s not really here.”
Taking a deep breath, I took the first step. Water didn’t soak through my sneaker or my jeans, and then I took another step and I was inches from Roth. “This is so damn weird.”
“I’ve seen weirder.”
Part of me wanted more of an explanation than that, but then I’d just be delaying the inevitable, which was my head going under whatever this stuff was. When the darkness reached my shoulders, I shuddered. It was like stepping through thick fog that had substance you could feel but couldn’t grab on to. My gaze flicked up, meeting Roth’s, and he smiled reassuringly. Out of habit, I held my breath as I slipped under.
The crashing weight of thousands of gallons of water didn’t come down on me. My hair was still a dry, wavy mess falling over my shoulders and down my back. I inhaled through my nose and didn’t choke on water. There was a wet, musty smell that tickled the back of my throat.
“Open your eyes, Layla.” Roth’s voice was close to my ear.
I pried one eye open and my jaw dropped. “Crap on a cracker...”
He chuckled as he let go of my hand. “Elegantly put.”
We were inside the reflecting pool, or at least that was what I assumed, but it was like being in a different world.
Lit torches lined the tunnel every few feet on both sides, casting flickering shadows over the damp pathway. The roof above us wasn’t really a roof, just the bottom of whatever the substance was that we’d come through.
“I’m going to hazard a guess and say we’re on the right track,” I said, smoothing my damp palms along my jeans. “Or we drowned and are hallucinating.”
Roth’s chuckle was as dark as the tunnel. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
We started down the tunnel, our footsteps echoing off the cement walls. Roth was humming what I now thought of as his song. Walking for what felt like forever, we had to be nearing the museums when we came to a spot where the tunnel branched off into two sections.
“Too bad there wasn’t a map we could’ve picked up for this,” Roth joked as he started toward the right. About six feet down, he stopped and backtracked. “This door is cemented over. So I’m going to hope that’s not where we’re heading.”
Left with no other option, we chose the tunnel to the right. Wrapping my arms around my chest, I shivered in the cold and damp air. Another block or so down the corridor, it curved to the right. Up ahead was an old wooden door. With its wide wooden planks and steel joints, it looked like something straight out of medieval times.
“Any second, a Knight Templar is going to come barreling out that door,” I said.
Roth’s lips curved up at the corner. “That would actually be kind of entertaining.”
“Wouldn’t it be? And then he’ll ask us to choose—”
A gust of wind whipped down the tunnel, lifting my hair and causing the torches to flicker in a mad dance. All the fine hairs on my body rose as I twisted around. “Roth...”
The sound of something clicking on cement rose in a crescendo, like a wave of superfast tap dancers. I took a step back, my stomach sinking to my toes. The clicking grew, drowning out the sound of my pounding heart.
“LUDs,” Roth said, hands curling into fists.
“What?”
“Little Ugly Demons,” he explained. “You’ve seen The Princess Bride, right?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Roth grimaced. “Remember those really big rats in the dark woods?”