J Ward - Crave

“Can you please focus?” Jim glanced over at Eddie. “So what can we do here-”

Adrian cut in with a growl. “Oh, yeah, she’s making him another one.”

“You can so drop that food-as-porn voice.”

“Hey, when I’m into something, I go with it.”

“Try learning to cook then-”

Eddie cleared his throat. “Right. So there’s a tradeoff to protecting this place-the stronger spells will flag the site for Devina.”

“She already knows,” Jim said quietly. “I will bet my balls that she’s already found him.”

“Still think we should lie low.”

“Agreed.”

Eddie reached out. “So give me your hand.”

As Jim offered his palm, he glanced at the pair inside. They seemed insulated from the hurricane swirling on their horizon, and he had the oddest urge to make it so they stayed that way-

“Shit,” he hissed, yanking his arm back. Looking down at the sting on his hand, he found a thick cut down his life line, one that was oozing… blood… or something like it.

There was a sheen to the welling red flow, like iridescent car paint in sunlight. Funny, he hadn’t noticed anything strange back at the funeral home-then again he’d been a little distracted by his old body’s imitation of a sandbag on that slab.

Eddie resheathed his crystal dagger. “Go around and mark each of the doors. Keep in mind the image of the two of them and see them safe and at peace, protected, calm. Same as before-the stronger your image is, the better it works. It’ll form a kind of emotional barometer within the house-so that if there’s a major disturbance, you’ll feel it. It’s a low-level spell and will get you here fast if something happens-and it shouldn’t get Devina’s attention. ’Course, it won’t keep her out of there, but you can get here in the blink of an eye if she breaches the barrier.”

With his hand dripping, Jim went up the steps to the back door, keeping himself cloaked so that he would appear to Isaac and his lady friend as nothing but a passing shadow. Pressing his palm to the cold painted panels, he focused on the two of them, catching them at a moment when their eyes locked and held. Then he lowered his lids and concentrated on nothing but that image…

The world went away, everything from the breeze on his face to the creak of Adrian’s leather jacket to the distant sounds of traffic just disappearing… and then his body went as well, his weight lifting off his feet, even as he stayed on the ground.

There was nothing for him, around him, or about him but the picture in his mind.

And it was from out of the vacuum that his power boiled up.

An immense groundswell of energy channeled into the blank space he’d created and without understanding it, he knew precisely what to do with the force, sending it around the house, giving part of it away only to find that even more streamed in.

Dropping his arm, he stepped back-

Jim went statue. The shimmer in his blood was on the door… and spreading in all directions in waves, covering the panels and the jambs and moving onto the brick. Upward and out to the sides it surged, gaining ground, taking over.

Sealing the house up.

“Not bad for a first try,” he muttered, getting ready to go around to the front.

As he turned, he paused. The two angels were looking at him as if he were a stranger.

“What.” He glanced over his shoulder. The shimmery red wave was still spreading, going up and over the roofline. “Sure as shit looks like it worked.”

Eddie cleared his throat. “Ah, yeah. You could say that.”

“To the front-”

“Not necessary,” Eddie said. “You’ve covered the house.”

As Adrian muttered something under his breath and shook his head, Jim thought, What the hell?

“You two look like someone pissed on your boots. You want to tell me the problem.” Pause. Cue response… which didn’t come. “Fine. Whatever.”

“We should go now,” Eddie said as he put his knife back in the pack. “With the spell in place, we’re not a value-add. She’s got beads on all of us.”

“How?”

The two angels looked at each other. Ad was the one who answered. “We’ve all been with her. If you know what I mean.”

Jim narrowed his eyes on Eddie, but the angel just busied himelf with his damn luggage.

Well, what do you know. Devina got around.

Putting the thought out of his mind, Jim walked through the garden’s back gate and went around to the front entrance. After making note of the number and street, he took to the air in spite of an impulse to stay put.

He was satisfied with his little sealant spell, however-plus Dog had been back at the hotel for quite a while, and Jim needed to take him out. Maybe he’d get them both a pizza…

While Adrian and Eddie no doubt enjoyed a different kind of pie.

As Isaac was having his second omelet-and wondering how in the hell he was going to get through the night-Grier went to get his room ready. When they were both finished, she took him up to what was clearly the men’s guest bedroom suite: The walls and drapes were done in navy blue and chocolate brown and there were leather chairs and a lot of leather-bound books.

He felt like a total intruder.

“I’m going to change and then clean up the kitchen,” she said as she stepped out and pulled the door partially shut. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

There was a brief pause. Like she was searching for something to say.

“Good night, then,” she murmured.

“ ’Night.”

After she closed him in, he listened to her going to her room, her footfalls soft and steady. Overhead, he couldn’t hear her walking around, but he imagined her heading into that massive closet and taking off her black dress.

Yeah… that zipper inching down, showing him her back. The shoulders of the top part sliding off her arms… the material pooling at her waist and then slipping from her hips.

His cock twitched.

Then got fully hard.

Shit. Just what he didn’t need.

Going into the bathroom, he stopped and had to shake his head at his host. On the marble counter, she’d left out fresh towels, a collection of toiletries, a tube of Neosporin, and a box of Band-Aids. There was also a fleece that was man-sized and a set of drawstring flannel pajama bottoms that sent a spike of jealousy straight through his chest.

He hoped like hell they really were her brother’s. And not some slick-suited lawyer type who slept with her.

Cursing himself, he ducked into the glass shower and turned on the water. It was no business of his who her lovers were-what flavor or how many or when and where. And as for the flannel pj thing? They were clean and going to keep him from flashing his ass.

Didn’t matter whose they were.

He took off his sweatshirt and double-checked his guns. Then he pulled his muscle shirt over his head, slid his pants off and got a gander at his reflection in the mirror: lot of black-and-blues on his shoulders and chest interspersed among the network of old scars that had healed up just fine.

Hard not to wonder what Grier would think of him.

Then again, if they hooked up in the dark, he wouldn’t have to worry about-

“Fuckin’ A.” He so needed to cut that crap.

Getting into the shower, he wondered exactly what it was about her that got him thinking like a fifteen-year-old. And decided it had to be the fact that he hadn’t had sex in a year and had been in a fight tonight-both of which were the kind of things that juiced a guy up.

Really.

They so did.

He couldn’t possibly be jonesing for his attorney just because she was five-feet-nine of all woman, wrapped up in a Tiffany-style package.