J.R. Ward: Rapture

That long-missed sexual surge rocketed through him; the aggression and the need to penetrate something he knew he hadn’t felt for so long. God, the reminder that he was in fact male, not some broken, androgynous—

Ah, shit, this was good. Fuck…so good.

“Look at me,” she commanded him as she worked his cock. “ Look at me.”

He’d been so distracted by the novelty, he’d forgotten who was doing him, and the sight of her drained the sensation out of him, his emotions going impotent even as his body went to town. She was beautiful, but she was…as lush as poison ivy.

“Don’t you like this, Matthias?”

No, he did not. He didn’t like this at all. “Not in the slightest.”

“Liar. And we need to finish what we started, you and I. Yes, we do.”

Devina entered the Saks Fifth Avenue at The Caldwell Galleria Mall at close to five a.m. Stepping through the glass and into a storefront display of mannequins in pastel dresses, she posed with them for a moment, arching her back and feeling her breasts stretch the seams of her blouse under her coat.

Spring was in full swing, and that was good news for her thighs.

Maybe while she was here, she’d pick up a few things off the racks.

With a shopping tingle sparkling in her veins, she popped around the side of the backsplash and disabled the motion detectors with a wave of her hand. For a second, she thought she’d let the video surveillance cameras stay on—just for shits and giggles.

Nothing more fun than being watched—even if it was just by a paunchy human sitting behind a security desk at the tail end of a night shift he’d probably slept through half of.

She was here for a serious reason, however.

Her stilettos made a clipping sound over the polished marble floor, and she liked the echoing noise, walking harder so her dominion over the emptiness reached out in every direction. God, she loved the smell in the air: floor polish and perfume and cologne…and wealth.

Passing by the handbag boutiques that were set against the wall, she checked out Prada, Miu Miu, and Chanel. The merch looked great even in the dim glow of the security lighting, and she cracked when she got to Gucci. Slipping through the chain-link security gate, she nabbed a python bag in dark green, and then kept going.

Man, short of sex, high-end department stores were the best high there was: Thousands and thousands of square feet full of things, all of which were well-ordered, tagged, and cataloged. And protected.

A total OCD-gasm.

So she had to watch herself. She could feel the bonding happening, and if this kept up, she would be in danger of grafting a sense of ownership onto all these precious things. And that wasn’t good for anyone. She’d have to kill the humans who came in to buy them, and that was exhausting.

But it did make her think that she should get her Lenovo on and go digital with her own collections.

Next virgin that she slaughtered to protect her mirror? She was going to have to reanimate them and get them to geek-out her things.

After all, there were a lot of computer programmers out there who couldn’t figure out how to get their boney asses laid.

Cutting into the center of the first floor, she found the makeup counters clustered together, the Chanel its trademark black and glossy, the Lancôme all glass cases…and the Yves Saint Laurent, which had a lot of gold around its stand-up displays.

Flickering in behind the counter, she sprang the lock on the cupboard that was down by the floor, and as she lowered herself onto her haunches, her palm lit the way, illuminating the tiny labels on the butt ends of the packaging.

1 Le Rouge was easy to find, and she took one from the careful arrangement, flipped open the box, and slid out the shiny metal tube. Lovely, so lovely, all unscratched, never been touched. She nearly trembled as she twisted and exposed the perfectly formed column of lipstick.

The smell, flowery and delicate, made her eyes roll back.

The therapist was right: The panic attack hadn’t lasted forever in that office, and as Devina had gone about her work afterward, the separation anxiety from that tube she’d tossed had gotten plowed over with her focusing on other things. The anxiety had resurfaced, however, when she’d gone back to her private space and sat in front of her mirror, ready to go down to her wall and enjoy some private time with her children.

Cue the trouble.

Her thoughts had quickly spun out of control, images of all manner of trash compaction and oozing Dumpsters and overcrowded, stinking landfills making her want to cry.

She could have gone back for the specific tube, but she wanted to honor at least part of the therapist’s religion: It would have been very much part of her cycle to become obsessed with getting that one particular lipstick back, and execute that plan no matter what got in her way.

Except she couldn’t keep going down that road—and so she was here and not at that office, and she had this fresh, pretty new tube to replace the one that she had sacrificed in the name of self-improvement.

There were five more in her color, all stacked one on top of another in the cutest little tower. Reaching forward, she wanted to take them all as backup for her backups, but she stopped herself. Closed the cabinet. Flickered out of range.

She was proud of herself as she walked away.

Enough with the break; time to get back to work.

Returning to the window display she’d come in through, she stopped in front of one of the mannequins. The thing had a straight blond wig on and had been dressed in a flowery creation Devina wouldn’t have been caught dead in—

It was galling to wonder what Jim Heron would think of her in it.

No doubt it was right up his alley, feminine, pretty, not too revealing. Modest.

That fucker. That lying double-crosser.

Naturally, the fact that he’d played her so well in the last round only made him more attractive….

Devina frowned as the therapist’s voice came back to her. Cognitive behavioral therapy…a rewiring of the brain through experience.

The demon leaned in and fingered the fake hair, the long, straight fake hair that was the color of a canary diamond.

Sissy Barten, Jim’s precious darling, had had hair just like this. Would have loved a dress like this. Would have stood in the back and waited for Jim to approach, never forward, ever fucking virginal.

It was enough to make her want to kill them both—and with that stupid little girl, that would be an “again” thing as she’d already sliced the kid’s throat open over that tub—

Devina began to smile. Then laugh.

With a quick jerk, she yanked off the wig, stripping the plastic model bald…and headed out through the glass.

It had to be a dream, right?

Adrian had to be dreaming. Except, damn, this felt real, everything from the velvet couch under his ass to the cold beer in his hand to the heat in the club visceral and authentic.

He was afraid to turn his head. Terrified to discover that he was alone here in this noisy, desperate place filled with hollow people who were just like him.

If he were alone, Eddie really was dead.

Taking a swig of the longneck, he braced himself, and pivoted—

Adrian slowly lowered the bottle, exhaling all the oxygen out of his lungs. “Hey, buddy,” he whispered.

Eddie’s red eyes swung around. “Ah…hello.” The guy shifted in his seat. “Listen, are you okay?”

“Yeah, just…”

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“I’ve missed you,” Ad said in a low voice. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

“Just because I went to the bathroom?” Eddie smiled. “Usually I do come back.”