The Trouble With Twelfth Grave

  He lifted a brow. “What are you going to do? Are you going to devour me, god eater? Are you going to swallow me up as though I never existed?” He leaned closer and put his mouth at my ear again. “Perhaps I’ll eat you first.”

  Every time he pressed into me, my body betrayed me, and a rush of heat flooded my abdomen. A Pavlovian response to his nearness. His scent. The fullness of his sculpted mouth. The width of his shoulders.

  It was my turn to lean closer. To put my mouth at his ear. To flood him with warmth. I rose onto my toes and whispered, “You could eat me now.”

  Surprised, he jerked back, his gaze wary. Disbelieving. “You forget,” he said, his deep voice softening, “I am not Rey’aziel. I am not Reyes.”

  Molding my body to his, I said simply, “Close enough.”

  Without warning, I crushed my mouth to his.

  He stiffened for all of three seconds before surrendering. He kissed me back, long and hard and sensuously. Then he stopped. Just like that. And stepped back. He wrapped a hand around my throat again and pushed me against the boulder, pinning me to it.

  Holding me perfectly still, he let his gaze travel the length of my body, pausing on Danger and Will Robinson, a.k.a. my breasts. With eyes glistening as though hypnotized, he flattened his hand to my stomach.

  At first, I had no idea what he was doing. I only felt a tremendous heat in my abdomen. But his efforts were of the more visually motivated variety. I looked down to see him singe my clothes, set them on fire, and watch them burn.

  Flames licked up my skin, caressing it. Ashes that were once my sweater floated away in the acrid environment, leaving only flesh in its wake. He knelt and explored every inch of my exposed stomach with his mouth, his tongue tracing exquisite lines. My skin was still so hot that the wetness from his mouth evaporated, causing trails of smoke to rise off me.

  I dove my fingers into his hair and laid my head back, reveling in the feel of his ministrations. Scorching. Blistering. Decadent.

  The flames continued upward, baring more and more flesh, and with each newly freed centimeter came a rush of pain, a slight sting when my skin met the abrasiveness of this plane. And then his mouth was there. Cooling. Soothing. Bathing me in desire.

  Before I knew it, Danger and Will Robinson lay bare. He locked his mouth onto Will’s nipple, his tongue feathering over her sensitive peak, as Danger spilled heavily into his palm.

  His thumb brushed her nipple, and a jolt of arousal shot straight to my core, as though a string pulled taut connected the two. Its tug and release vibrated inside me every time he suckled the dark pink crest. Then he switched, his teeth grazing deliciously, hardening Danger’s nipple to a small, tight peak.

  He moved one hand to the front of my jeans and began burning them away as well. The heat scorched my abdomen, both inside and out, as molten lava pooled between my legs.

  I parted them. Just a little. Just enough to give him access as my jeans were slowly incinerated. He slid his fingers between the cleft, fondling, massaging, caressing before sliding them inside, deep enough for the promise of orgasm that lurked on the horizon to rush forward, growing closer with every thrust.

  I gasped, taking in tiny sips of air as the sensual pressure rose higher and higher.

  He lifted one of my knees over his shoulder, urging my legs farther apart, and pressed his mouth to my center. He parted the folds with his tongue, sliding it between them and feathering it over my clit. My body jerked involuntarily, the titillation exquisite.

  The air in my lungs thickened in anticipation. I curled my fingers tighter into his hair, and he growled, the sound spiking my pleasure even further.

  Every cell in my body sizzled with the searing heat swallowing me whole. Every molecule of blood boiled, expanding inside me, swelling until my skin was too tight for my body.

  His own clothes burned away, the ashes floating on the wind. He locked his arms under my knees and rose, his torso sliding up mine, his forearms parting my legs even farther as my feet left the ground. Anchored against the boulder, he held me suspended in midair, his muscles contracted to a marble-like hardness, his erection pressing into the crevice between my legs.

  He nibbled my neck, trailing hot kisses to my ear, each one causing a quake of desire to lace down my spine.

  Then he entered me, slowly, so slowly, his erection filling me to exquisite totality. He pulled out until only the very tip of his cock remained inside, then he eased back in, the pace agonizingly calculated. He repeated the process, ever so slowly, until the orgasm lying in wait shivered with impatience, begging to be released.

  His mouth still at my ear, he spoke, his voice deep and smooth and intoxicating. “Who am I?”

  I shook my head, unable to stop what was coming. Begging it to hurry.

  He pushed into me harder. “Who am I?”

  “Reyes,” I said between gasps.

  Bracing one of my knees with his hip, he grabbed a handful of hair in warning and said from between clenched teeth, “Who am I?”

  I dug my nails into his steely buttocks, pleading with him to move faster. “Rey’aziel.”

  He jerked my head back but didn’t increase his torturous speed. “Who am I?”

  I grabbed handfuls of his hair as well. Squeezed tight. Jerked back. Then, refusing to give in, I said, “My husband.”

  That surprised him. He tensed as his climax grew closer. I felt his as easily as I felt mine. The blood rushing through his veins. The spasmodic tightening of his muscles. The sweet sting of orgasm just over the horizon.

  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and locked my legs around his waist, clinging to him, encouraging him to let go. He braced his hands on the barrier behind us and tried to steady his breathing as his lower body rocked into mine.

  It was enough. The slow throb pulsing through my body rushed forward and exploded inside me. I cried out as hot waves of pleasure spilled out and flowed over every inch of my skin.

  Reyes wrapped his arms around me and sped up at last, increasing the euphoria already pulsating through me. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders. He sucked in a sharp breath and lost the fragile hold he’d had on his control completely.

  He slammed into me, his thrusts long and hard and deep, until his body went rigid. He shook violently as his muscles strained, absorbing the crush of orgasm, the exhilaration of desire rushing through him.

  The growl that escaped him, so primal and animalistic, caused another wave of elation to wash over me, and I clung to him, reveling in his climax.

  When it was over, he kept me close, panting into my hair, until something changed. He tensed. Lowered me to the ground. Stepped away from me. Even the hot, acrid winds of this plane couldn’t prevent a chill from surging across my skin where his body had been.

  I looked up at him in wonder. He seemed … surprised. Stunned. And a little angry.

  Why? Because he’d actually enjoyed our union? That was something we’d always been good at.

  He started to dematerialize, and before I could get the words Reyes and wait out, he was gone. Just like that.

  I stood there swimming in confusion. At least Reyes had seemed as confused as I was. Was I just seduced by my husband or something else? Which part of Rey’azikeen craved me with such wild abandon? With such delicious debauchery? Or was that my husband making an appearance?

  Then again, did it matter?

  Slowly, reluctantly, I shifted back onto the cool earthly plane.

  My two cohorts were leaning on Garrett’s black truck. They straightened, their expressions a combination of concern and alarm as they stared at me a solid minute. Then, coming to their senses in unison, they sprinted toward me, not slowing until they skidded to a halt barely two feet away, ignoring the clearly marked boundaries of my space bubble.

  When Osh tore off his duster and hefted it around my shoulders, I realized why. I glanced down to see nary a stitch in sight. My skin, covered in black soot and a fine sheen of sweat, was still smoking. Tiny ghost
like spirals wafted off me.

  I could only imagine what my hair looked like.

  I should’ve been mortified as Osh draped me in his duster, but my mind was elsewhere. Too stunned to worry about my public display of indecency.

  “Charles?” Garrett said, bending down until our faces were level. “What happened? Did he hurt you?”

  I shook my head. “He didn’t do it. He didn’t kill those people.” I looked down. “Where are my boots?”

  “Come on, sweetheart.” Garrett scooped me up into his arms and carried me to his truck.

  “Wait. Misery.” I held out a hand to her, possibly exposing Will Robinson in the process. “Misery.”

  “Your state of existence?” Osh asked, a grin in his voice.

  “We’ll come back for her,” Garrett said.

  Osh ran around the truck to open the door. Garrett lifted me inside, but I threw my arms around him. My breath hitched, and I fought tears with everything in me. When Osh raised his brows—probably because the duster slipped off my shoulders—I grabbed his shirt and pulled him into the hug as well.

  They let me hug them while I fought for control over my emotions. Garrett wrapped an arm around my shoulders and Osh around my waist.

  I didn’t know how long that went on, but Osh finally pulled me out of my state of shock by asking, “So … threesome?”

  I released them at last, pulled the duster around me the best that I could, then schooled my features to show a bravery I didn’t possess.

  “I don’t know who he is,” I said, lifting my chin. “I don’t have a clue. But I do know that he’s searching for something. Hunting.”

  Garrett’s forehead wrinkled. “You don’t know what?”

  Shaking my head, I said, “No, but he destroyed Rocket’s asylum because he wouldn’t tell him where it was.”

  “Is it bigger than a bread box?” Osh asked.

  “It could actually be a bread box for all I know. Rocket called it the embers and the ashes.”

  Garrett bowed his head in thought. I looked into the black distance, searching for other meanings. Embers and ashes. That certainly sounded like the god inhabiting my husband’s body. Was it the ashes from something important?

  “The god glass,” I said, thinking aloud. “Maybe he wants the ashes from the pendant?”

  “Glass doesn’t turn to ash when it’s burned,” Garrett said.

  “True. And why would he go to Rocket?”

  Osh raised his head and stabbed me with a rare serious expression.

  I perked up, hoping he’d thought of an answer. He tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, looked in the general vicinity of Danger and Will, then said, “Can I have my jacket back?”

  11

  Never ask a woman who’s eating ice cream

  straight from the carton how she’s doing.

  —BUMPER STICKER

  There was nothing like a shower to give one perspective. I turned off the water just as a dark shadow slipped past my periphery. I whirled around but saw absolutely nothing.

  Stepping out of George, I wrapped myself in a towel and walked to my bedroom.

  “Reyes?” I asked aloud. Of course, I didn’t get an answer. Even if he were there, he wouldn’t have answered me.

  The room seemed so big without him. Cavernous and empty. Not a place I wanted to stay much longer, so I dressed in a hurry and called Garrett.

  “Hey, Charles. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. What are you doing?”

  “Feeding my box turtle.”

  After a long pause, I asked, “Is that a metaphor for something?”

  “Not especially. How are you?”

  “Better. But I need you and Osh for another job.”

  “Does it involve hunting down a god who abducts you out from under our noses, takes you to another plane, and incinerates your clothes in a bizarre mating ritual that only another god must understand?”

  “No. It involves flirting.”

  “We’ll be right there.”

  I walked to Calamity’s for a quick bite before the big night out.

  The place was hopping. Not literally because it wasn’t a dance club, but it was full and loud enough to drown out the noise in my head. Almost.

  I’d ordered my favorite food of the week: green chile chicken enchiladas. Sustenance should help the gurgling sound my stomach insisted on making when I didn’t eat for a few days. And maybe it would help me think better. I gave my brain a good racking, but still nothing. What could Rey’azikeen be searching for? What would he need on Earth and why? The questions wouldn’t stop, and now we had a time limit.

  Oddly enough, the dull roar of conversation soothed me into a more relaxed state. I watched a woman flirt with a guy at the bar who was more interested in the bartender than her. The male bartender.

  I looked on as a table of men watched a server’s ass so blatantly, all their heads tilted at the same time as she passed.

  I caught a woman pour half her drink into her date’s glass when he got up to go to the restroom. And I saw—

  God. I straightened in my chair. I needed to talk to God. He was the one putting a time limit on everything. He was the only one threatening to cast His brother from the plane. I just needed a sit-down with the Big Guy. I could buy us more time. Me more time.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” a male voice said from behind me. A male voice that I knew better than my own.

  My pulse skyrocketed as Reyes stepped around the table. Even in a sand-colored T-shirt and simple blue jeans, he looked magnificent. Wide, powerful shoulders. Sinewy arms. Strong, almost elegant hands.

  “You wouldn’t recommend what?” I asked him.

  “Talking to my Brother. He’s … antisocial.”

  “Must run in the family.” The molecules in my body began to vibrate with his nearness, desiring an encore of our earlier activity more than it desired air.

  He reached down and caressed my face, his long fingers gentle.

  I lifted my chin, refusing to be baited. If he wanted to talk, he’d sit down and we’d talk. I was finished chasing him.

  A lopsided grin adorned his dark features. He bent until our mouths were almost touching, then asked, “Was it good for you?”

  I jerked awake, blinking back to awareness, slowly realizing it was, once again, only a dream. I filled my lungs and slowly released the air. How the hell was he doing that?

  “You weren’t burned.”

  I turned to see Osh standing over me. Garrett walked in the door and headed toward us as Osh sank into the seat across the table.

  “Your clothes were incinerated, every stitch of clothing gone, but you didn’t have a mark on you.”

  “I can’t explain it,” I said.

  “Can’t explain what?” Garrett asked, sitting beside me.

  “Why I wasn’t burned.”

  “Um, you’re a god?” He took a menu, pretending to peruse it, but I felt the uncertainty quaking beneath his steely exterior.

  Osh was a little harder to read, but if I had to put a finger on his dominant emotion, I’d say it leaned toward a grim kind of acquiescence. If he had to take Rey’azikeen out, he would. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d do the job that was set forth the moment I sent Reyes into the god glass.

  We ordered and ate in relative silence. Both Osh and Garrett were flirted with mercilessly, which would be good practice for later. Glances from across the room. Subtle innuendoes hidden in a smile.

  Another potential suitor even bought all three of us a drink. Very diplomatic of her considering the fact that she only had eyes for Osh, but even more so considering the fact that she was in her late sixties. If she were older, say a few hundred years older, she’d be perfect for the immortal slave demon.

  “Watch that one,” I told him, lifting my glass to her in salute.

  She did the same as a wolfish grin widened Osh’s mouth. “Why? More sex and less complications.”

  I slammed my eyes shut. There were just some t
hings one did not need to know about one’s future son-in-law.

  “Thanks for getting Misery back to me.”

  They grunted as men are wont to do. But Garrett’s emotions were all over the place.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  He plastered a neutral expression on me that fooled no one. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I’m okay. You know that, right?”

  He nodded silently, then downed the rest of his beer.

  “Okay, then.” I put my hands on the table and rose. “Are we ready to do this?”

  Garrett slammed his glass down and glared at me. “He took you.”

  Osh and I both went stock still as one might do when facing an angry predator.

  After a moment, I replied to him. “Yes, he did. But I’m okay.”

  “Right out from under us. He took you, Charles.”

  I nodded. Nothing I could say at that point was going to help his acceptance. He felt helpless. Which was about the worst feeling in the world.

  His hand gripped the glass tighter as a server eased up to us. “Would you like another one?” she asked him.

  “We can’t fight him,” he said to me.

  I thanked the server before addressing him. “I know.”

  “You’re right,” Osh said. “We can’t.” He turned a purposeful gaze on me. “But you can.”

  “No, I can’t, Osh.”

  “Not with that attitude, you can’t. You need to remember your place. You need to remember what you’re capable of.”

  “I get it, Osh. I have a history. I used to apparently devour other gods.”

  “You ate them like cotton candy at a carnival.”

  I sat back and crossed my arms. “I can’t do that to my husband.”

  “He’s not your husband,” he said softly.

  I refused to listen. I knew Osh would take this course of action. He didn’t have much of a choice, but that didn’t stop me from resenting the implication.

  “I’m not going there, Osh. Not yet.”

  “Just keep it in the back of your mind. The time may come when you’ll need to cowboy up.”

  When I didn’t respond, Osh sat back down, and both he and Garrett went back to nursing their drinks.