J.R. Ward - Envy

“Deal or no deal, demon.”

He was unbending before her, perfectly capable of denying her, not just now but in the future: Even though he was right in front of her, he was completely untouchable.

Except as he’d said, they both had something the other wanted.

“Take off your pants.” She stepped back, ready to enjoy the show. “Do it slowly—and we have a deal.”

“What the hell is he doing up there?”

As Adrian barked out the rhetorical, he didn’t expect a response from his roommate. Then again, you could drop a Lexus on Eddie’s combat boot and maybe you got an ow . More likely the angel would just blink and kick the sedan off his big toe.

Frankly, the strong-and-silent bullshit got to be annoying.

“It’s been two hours.” He stopped at the foot of the bed Eddie was sprawled out on. “Hello? You tracking at all? Or were you planning on sleeping through this round.”

The lids on that red stare lifted. “I’m not sleeping.”

“Meditating. Whatever.”

“I wasn’t meditating.”

“Fine. Psychically manipulating energy fields—”

“You make me dizzy when you pace. It’s vertigo diversion.”

He didn’t buy that for a second. “Would it kill you to get worried once in a while.”

“Who says I’m not.”

“I do.” Adrian ran his eyeballs down his buddy’s long, still body. “I feel like rolling in a defibrillator and paddling your ass.”

“What am I going to do, Ad? He’s going to come back when he does.”

Images of Nigel, the dandy, going galactically stoopid all over Jim came to mind, and made Adrian wonder if they’d need to plan a memorial service. That archangel up there might pass his time playing croquet and polo, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t rip into a guy—and Jim had left here with a whole lot of throw-down on his mind.

Maybe the bastard had gotten what he was looking for.

Adrian started up with the pacing again, but the hotel room didn’t offer much in terms of floor space. He supposed he could go down to the bar—

Next door, there was a creaking sound. Like someone had sat down on the bed. Or opened and closed something.

Reaching behind to the small of his back, Ad withdrew his crystal knife. If it was just some human breaking in to steal a laptop, he wasn’t going to need what was in his palm. But if Devina had sent over a minion or two to distract them, the weapon was going to come in handy.

Pushing the connector open an inch or two, he leaned in.

A black shirt came flying out of the bathroom. Then a pair of beat-to-shit jeans.

Boot.

Boot.

The shower started running and then there was a hiss, like Jim hadn’t waited for the water to warm up first.

Shit. He hadn’t just been to see Nigel, had he.

Reholstering his dagger, Adrian shoved the door wide, walked through and sat on the other angel’s bed.

God knew there was no reason to ditch the duds and hot-water it right after you met with the archangel. Poor bastard must have been to Devina’s—and nobody needed two guesses to figure out what had happened.

Listening to the sound of Jim washing the stank of the demon off, Adrian was weary to the point of blurry-vision exhaustion. This path the savior was on? Been there. Done that.

Lost his mind over it.

That was the thing with Devina. She got into you. Even though, in the beginning, you thought you were the one in control? Eventually, what you were making yourself do with her, for reasons that sounded entirely sane, ate at you until she was inside your skin and driving your bus. It was how she worked, and she was very successful at it.

When Jim eventually stepped out of the bathroom, he stopped with the towel stretched across his back, one arm up, the other down. There were scratch marks on his thighs and abdomen, and his sex hung low, as if it had been used hard and left for dead.

“She’s going to eat you alive,” Adrian said.

The angel who was responsible for saving everyone and everything shook his head. “The hell she will.”

“Jim—”

“She’s going to tell us who the soul is.” Jim wrapped the towel around his hips. “We’re meeting her tomorrow morning.”

Holy. Shit—“Wait, she didn’t give the info to you now?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

Ad just shook his head. “She’s fucking with you—”

“She’ll show. And she’ll tell. Trust me.”

“She’s not a reliable source. And this is not the way to win.”

“So you liked last round’s outcome better?”

Well . . . fuck.

Jim went over to his black duffel and took out a pair of fatigues. As he turned away and pulled them on, that massive back tat of his, the one featuring the Grim Reaper in a graveyard, distorted and then refound its shape.

Maybe Jim was tougher.

Which would be a slap in the balls, and something Ad would admit only over his own steaming carcass. But if the guy could hold it together . . . if he could somehow sustain himself . . . then they had the best weapon in this fight because the demon had a jones for the guy. Bad.

Jim went over to the jeans he’d tossed out of the bathroom and rifled through the pockets. When he stood back up again, he had a square of folded paper in his hands.

Hands that shook ever so slightly.

As the guy carefully brushed off the thing, even though there was no lint on it, Adrian scrubbed his face and wished a Lexus would fall on his own head: He knew damn well that had to be the article on that girl they’d found hanging over Devina’s tub—the virgin Jim was obsessed with.

Tougher his ass, Ad thought. They were fucked.

They were so fucked.

Veck woke up on his living room sofa. Which was sort of a surprise, because he didn’t have one.

As he rubbed his eyes against the cheerful spring sunlight, he was amazed that he’d taken the desire to sleep closer to the fine Officer Reilly as far as dragging the POS in from his man cave of a family room.

Sitting up, he looked out into the street. The unmarked was gone, and he wondered when she’d left. Last he’d checked, she’d still been out there at four a.m.

Groaning, he gave things a stretch, his shoulders cracking. Details from the night before filtered back, but he instinctually stayed away from the Monroe Motel & Suites part. He already felt like hell; he didn’t need to add a headache to the steaming pile of fuck-me he was rocking.

When he stood up, he had to rearrange an obscene morning erection—which gave him another thing to studiously ignore. He had a feeling he’d been wrapped up in a fairly raunchy and totally spectacular dream about him and his Internal Affairs shadow. Something about her riding him raw . . . he’d been mostly clothed; she’d been completely naked—

No, wait, she’d had her badge and her gun and her hip belt on.

“Fuck . . .” As his cock kicked hard, he put in a prayer for another round of short-term memory loss, and cursed at the porn cliché.

Then again, he could now see why guys found that shit attractive.

Given the direction his brain was heading in, he wasn’t sure that adding caffeine to the mix was a good plan, but his body needed the lift. Too bad he’d discovered he’d lied to Officer Reilly: after coming back inside from talking to her, he’d realize hern out of Folgers.

Upstairs, he showered, shaved, and put on his working uniform of slacks and a dress shirt. No tie for him, although a lot of the detectives wore them. No suit jacket; he didn’t wear one unless it was leather and of the biker or bomber variety.

Downstairs, he got his backup coat out of the closet, grabbed the key to his bike, and locked things up. As he walked over to the BMW, he was dogged by the night before, but also feeling too light: No cell to check for voice mail. No badge in his breast pocket. No gun in his holster. No wallet on his ass.