Jenna Black - The Devil You Know

“Can you at least answer my second question about whether you think Raphael could be back yet?”

Adam nodded. “It’s possible.”

“Then how do we keep Andrew safe?”

“For tonight,” Adam said, “I’ve put a guard on his room at the hospital. That’s why I was there. Running into you was only a happy coincidence.” He gave me a cheesy smile, and I snorted.

“Yeah, as evidenced by the fact that Dom made dinner for three.”

The cheesy smile remained in place. “Perhaps a not-unexpected happy coincidence.”

“So for tonight, he has a guard. What about tomorrow?”

“That’s the big question,” Adam said. “He can’t just go back to his apartment, and I doubt he’d be any safer staying with your parents.”

I sighed, realizing where this was going. “You want him to stay with me.”

Adam shrugged. “You do have a guest room in your new digs, right?”

“It’s not like I’d be much use as a bodyguard. Not against a demon, at least.”

“You would be if you let Lugh take charge.”

I shuddered, and every hint of appetite fled. I shoved my plate away from me, then pushed back from the table, fighting an urge to run like hell.

I had let Lugh take control of my body when I was about to be burned at the stake, but though he’d been kind enough to give me back control when everything was over, I still remembered with a shiver of panic the terrifying minutes when I was a helpless passenger in my own body. Being possessed, being helpless, had always been my worst nightmare—there was a reason I’d chosen exorcism as a profession—and though Lugh had saved my life by taking possession, it was not an experience I hoped to duplicate. Ever.

The panic continued to beat at me, and I rose to my feet. I think I would have run away if Adam hadn’t grabbed hold of my arm.

“Sit down, Morgan,” he said. His voice was conspicuously gentle. His ability to be gentle when he usually had such a hard edge to him always surprised me. The surprise lessened my panic, and I lowered myself back into the chair. “It was just a suggestion,” he continued. “But even if you’re not willing to let Lugh take control, Raphael might hesitate to attack your brother if he’s staying with you.”

I supposed that was true. Raphael might not realize that I wouldn’t voluntarily allow Lugh to surface. Besides, while there was admittedly bad blood between the brothers, Raphael appeared to have at least a modicum of respect for his king, and he might consider Andy staying with me as a sign that he was under Lugh’s protection.

“I’ll see if I can arrange it,” I said, wondering if Andy would even be willing to stay with me. We had established beyond a shadow of a doubt that I still loved him, but that didn’t mean things were ever going to be easy between us.

The enticing scents of dinner coaxed my appetite out of hiding, and I began to eat again. Dominic smiled knowingly at me, and I gave him a light kick under the table.

“Yeah, you’re the world’s greatest chef,” I said with my mouth full. “Don’t get a big head over it.” Adam chuckled, and I heard the double entendre in my words. I probably blushed, but luckily for everyone Adam let it go.

It wasn’t until after I’d eaten the last crumb of Dominic’s homemade tiramisu that Adam brought up the subject I’d been dreading since the moment I’d laid eyes on him. He got out the words “So are you going to talk to” before I cut him off.

“No!” I snapped. “I told Dominic no, and I’m saying the same thing to you. My mom and I are barely on speaking terms, and I’m not going to question her about whatever it was you dug up.”

His face darkened. “You know how important this is.”

“I don’t care,” I said stubbornly. “Even if I asked her, she wouldn’t tell me anything, I can guarantee that. And that’s my final answer.”

Adam’s cheeks flushed with anger, but Dominic laid a soothing hand on his arm. “Let it go,” he advised. “We’ll just have to find our answers some other way.”

I looked at him suspiciously. He was a hell of a lot nicer and had better people skills than Adam, but I knew from experience that he could also be a sneaky little bastard. His easy agreement suggested to me that he had something up his sleeve, but if he did, it wasn’t showing in his face.

Adam’s face clearly said he didn’t like it, but he let the subject drop. Dominic flashed me an innocent smile, and my gut knotted with worry.

It could be that he was really on my side, that there was no hidden meaning behind his words, no hidden agenda. But I knew unease would be clawing through me for the foreseeable future as I wondered if the two of them were up to something I didn’t want to know about.

All told, I suspected I should have resisted the unbearable temptation of that free, home-cooked meal.

I went home with a lot to think about, but once I stepped through the door of my apartment and turned on the light, all the things I should have been thinking about fled my mind, and I hurried to the kitchen to check my answering machine.

The machine claimed I had two messages, and I held my breath as I hit the Play button.

“If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again,” the machine said, and I hit the Erase button with a curse, waiting for the next message. “Hello!” a mechanical voice said. “I’m trying to reach—” I cursed again and erased the non-message.

It was now officially one week since Brian had last called. I’d told myself the cute, endearing messages he’d left on my machine every day were annoying. Not that it had stopped me from listening to them, mind you. When I’d been having a particularly bad day, I’d save his messages and play them over and over.

Maybe he was taking a vacation, on a cruise ship somewhere with no access to a phone. A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed hard. It was supposed to be a good thing if he’d finally gotten the message I’d been trying to shove down his gullet. Too bad my heart couldn’t seem to keep that in mind.

Missing the sound of his voice, the feel of his naked skin against mine, the taste of his tongue in my mouth, I went to bed. And lay there wide awake, tossing restlessly, my mind unable to shut down for the night.

My nerves felt twitchy, my skin oversensitive. Memories of cuddling up with Brian after a spectacular bout of lovemaking assaulted and aroused me. My hand slid down my belly toward my panties, but I jerked it away at the last moment. I knew it was incredibly silly, but I didn’t want to have an orgasm without Brian. I’d cave eventually, the physical need too strong to deny, but for the moment, I humored the part of me that still hoped I could make things work between us. If we did somehow, miraculously get back together, our reunion would be even sweeter if I’d been starving myself the whole time we were apart.

The last thing I remembered before I finally fell asleep was raising my head and glaring at the glowing numbers on my clock that told me it was three AM. Somewhere around one, I’d gotten up and played umpteen million games of Spider Solitaire to try to quiet my mind, but it didn’t seem to have worked. When I saw how late it was, I was tempted to give the night up as a lost cause, but I decided to give sleep one last shot. I should have known there was no rest for the wicked, because the minute I finally drifted off, I awakened in Lugh’s imaginary living room.

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at Lugh, who sat on his couch smiling at me, his amber eyes twinkling with humor. He’d gone with his S&M poster-boy look tonight, which he tends to do whenever I’ve had impure thoughts about Adam and Dominic, and was wearing something that was either a shirt cobbled together from black leather straps or a complicated bondage device I wanted no part of—despite the fact that the shirt/bondage device framed his nipples in the perfect, mouth-watering display, and the fact that my hormones couldn’t help taking in the golden, almost tawny color of his skin and the ripple of muscles beneath it.