Michele Hauf - Angel Slayer

“Goody for you.”

“Do you not appreciate them? You are rich. Are not fine things your mien?”

She smirked, but no mirth traced the curves of her lips. “Material things are stupid. They mean nothing. That’s why I can toss a three-hundred-dollar garlic press without a blink. But if it makes you feel good …” She sighed. “I have some things to do this morning. I want to prepare another piece for the gallery this afternoon. I’m doing a show over in Chelsea. It’s my debut.”

“You are an artist?”

“Yep, been at it for over ten years. But Todd set me up with this killer computer system a few years ago, and my whole style changed. Oh man, I have to show you. Then you’ll understand why I was so excited about seeing the angel last night.”

The phone rang. Six put up her palm to signal him to wait. “Hi, Emily.”

Ashur studied the small screw mechanism on the sunglasses frames as he folded it back and forth, back and forth. So small, it fascinated him.

“What?” Six said into the phone. “All of them? You’re not—Seriously? That is so freaking cool. Yes, give me the phone number, I’ll be happy to call him.” She scribbled a few numbers and a name on a yellow Post-it note.

The sunglass arm broke off in Ashur’s grip. He glanced at Six and when she turned to see what he was doing, he shoved the broken glasses aside next to the garlic press.

“Thanks, Emily. I don’t have any replacements. You can do that? Take orders? Cool. I’ll see if I can print up some examples and have them delivered later this afternoon.”

She hung up, her face aglow. “That was the gallery owner. Someone bought all my paintings after I left the gallery last night.” She tucked the phone number in her purse.

“You must be very talented.”

“And you must be very curious.” She tapped the broken glasses.

He shrugged. “I like to see how things work.”

“Yes, well, just leave all major appliances alone, will you? And don’t lay a hand on my computer, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Computers are remark able.”

“Oh, I was going to show you. Come on. I will now reveal the deep, dark secrets of my insane little mind to you. I’ve been waiting so long for someone who understands.”

Attracted to her infectious enthusiasm, Ashur followed Six down a hallway. The silk pants she wore clung to her hips and flared out at the feet to reveal pointed-toe shoes with super-high heels. They made her legs look long enough to wrap around him twice. The feel of the fabric might push him over some precipice on which he was beginning to balance. He’d remembered lust last night, yet hadn’t time to indulge it, thinking it wise to hold off until the task of slaying Zaqiel was completed. But how could he when the muse wore a clingy top, and the faint line of her brassiere strap teased him to slip it down her arm?

“Ashur?”

“Huh?”

“I asked if you liked art. Are you okay? You seem distracted.” She stopped at a door and paused to sip her coffee. “Were you looking at my ass just now?”

“No,” he said, too quickly. “Yes.”

Her smile was wicked.

Ashur fixated on her mouth, those thick lips softened with some sort of clear polish. Her teeth were so white as to sparkle. And straight. He’d never seen that before. Nowadays, he knew, it was all an illusion. Mortals spent millions on altering their appearances in an attempt to look more attractive.

Thing is, one man’s attractive may be another man’s ugly. Everything about Six fell into the attractive category.

“Are you all natural? “ he asked.

She quirked a gracefully arched brow. “You mean organic? I recycle along with the rest of them, but I will never give up my Starbucks habit.”

“No, I mean, you, your body and face. You have not altered your appearance?”

“You mean like cosmetic surgery?”

“Yes, I learned about that last night.”

“Do you think I’ve altered myself?”

He sensed an underlying challenge—which he would never refuse. “Perhaps. Your teeth are too white.”

“I’ve had them whitened.”

“And your lips are so lush.”

“They’re all mine. Everything on this body is as is, the way God intended, except my teeth.”

“Yes, you’re like an earth mother meets sex kitten, all curves and lushness.”

She bowed her head and glanced aside. He’d made her blush, which only increased her sensual appeal.

“What about you, big boy? If you’re not human, is that the way you usually look? Like a human man? A man with incredible muscles and a killer smile?”

“These muscles are lesser than my normal appearance. And yes, this is a costume.”

“Did you steal it from some real mortal man?”

“No. For all that I enjoy the sins of the flesh, and the world, I do not harm mortals. This costume is as I would appear should I have been created mortal. You do not like it?”

“Like it? I love it. Bet it’s hard as steel and. well …” She sighed. “You said you enjoy sin?”

“Devour it. Need it, actually.”

“Oh?”

“It is what makes me tick, as they say.”

“That’s weird.”

“Your opinion means little to me.”

“I realize that. Yet my appearance interests you to no end.”

“I could look all day. What about there? Are they real?” Ashur pointed to her chest and she looked down and stroked between her breasts where he imagined it would be soft.

“My breasts are real,” she said.

“Nice. And soft?”

A lift of her brow tweaked Ashur’s smile. “My God, you don’t have much of a moral compass, do you?”

“It isn’t necessary to my survival.”

She tilted her head. Soft dark curls as tight as a spring bounced over her shoulders and down to her elbows. He wanted to crush them between his fingers. “Soft? You want to touch and see?”

She was right on about his lacking moral compass.

Tracing his finger down from the base of her throat, Ashur closed his eyes as the softness of female skin tendered at his expectations. All things in his life were hard, impermeable, adamant. Yet beneath his skin glided something like fine silk. He remembered silk, slipping beneath his touch, waving in the breeze, gliding over his mouth …

“I think that’s enough.”

Six’s voice brought him up from the dive into lust. Ashur retracted from the one place he should not go until Zaqiel was dispatched. “Very soft.”

“Thanks. I didn’t expect you’d be so … well, forward.”

“You did invite the touch.”

“Yes, I did. Something about you. Anyway!”

Dismissing the intimate interlude, Six opened the door and strode into a vast room done in white marble. Floor-to-ceiling windows faced the far side of the blindingly white room.

“This is my workroom,” she explained, setting the coffee on a clear Lucite desk and pushing a button on the Macintosh computer.

“It’s different from the rest of the place,” he said. “It’s as if another person’s living in here.”

“Kind of. My artistic self is opposite from my chumming-around-with-friends self. I don’t want any distractions when I’m painting so I made it as neutral in here as possible. No music, either.”

He tilted his head, wondering.

“It’s an artist thing. Sort of like you explained the angels hearing in colors is an angel thing.”

“So what is all this stuff? I don’t see any canvas or paints.”

“CG painting is my method of choice to create. I use a spatial operating environment.”

He only understood half of what she’d said. But he wasn’t about to let on to that fact. He touched the smooth white exterior of the computer.

“Don’t touch,” she admonished sweetly. “No taking apart my computer, big boy.”