Something Wicked
Even after all he’d been through, Rick still managed to look gorgeous. His chest, so naturally tan and sculpted, glistened against his towel and the white sheets beneath him. Josie’s body stirred, reacting to his as it had before. As if no time had elapsed. As if nothing had changed, when honestly, everything had.
Good Goddess, she ached to launch herself onto him, press her body tight against his, kiss him soundly and erase all the dark ugliness haunting his eyes and the sardonic lines framing his former devil-may-care mouth. This wasn’t Rick. Not the Rick she remembered. Not the Rick she’d fallen for so hard. Not the Rick she could have loved, if they’d only had the chance.
Still, his newly hardened edges made her belly flutter. Not to mention the effects of his naked chest and that oh-so-loose, oh-so-easy-to-remove towel. She had to contain a little sigh and fight the impulse to touch him and see how her pale flesh contrasted against his natural darkness, to tangle her fingers in the hair that spiked across his chest, then grew into a narrow line that led to areas she’d once felt pressed tight against her but had never had the chance to take into her hands.
He looked askance, but when he finally allowed his gaze to linger on hers for more than a split second, she saw a shadow of regret flit through his eyes.
After taking a deep breath, she sat down on the bed beside him.
“Tell me what happened. Tell me why you left.”
He shook his head. “I can’t look back, Josie. And you need to leave. I’m not the same guy you met six months ago.”
“Tell me about it.”
He cursed.
“No,” she said, laying her hand on his, trying to ignore the way his bare flesh glistened in the dim light. “Really. Tell me about it.”
He moved to get off the bed, but Josie held his hand so he couldn’t escape. He tugged and turned, revealing a gash across his arm. The skin was pink and puffy. Healing, but with jagged edges that told her he hadn’t sought the best—if any—medical help.
He chuckled when he spied the horrified look on her face. “Just a scratch.”
“That’s what the black knight said in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur chopped his arm off.”
Surprisingly, Rick laughed. Not a hearty guffaw by any means, but more than a snigger, which had to mean something. Like he wasn’t totally lost.
“I haven’t thought about that in—”
“Six months?” she questioned.
“Longer.”
He sat back on the bed and Josie couldn’t help but notice that the edge where he’d tucked his towel had begun to loosen. Her heartbeat accelerated. The idea of seducing Rick in order to lure him back to Chicago had come to her as naturally as breathing. The possibility of finally confronting the sexual tension that had first drawn them together made her nipples tight and her inner thighs ache. She’d wanted him for so long—the man he was and the man he’d become, even if she wasn’t entirely certain yet who that man was.
With shaking hands, Josie slid out of her leather jacket, revealing the snug tank tops beneath.
He eyed her suspiciously.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m hot.”
“Then leave,” he said, jerking his head toward the door even as his eyes begged her to stay. Or was that her imagination?
Did it matter?
She smiled. “It’s hotter outside. Unseasonably hot for New York City in February. Or haven’t you left this hotel room lately?”
“I’ve left,” he muttered.
She stretched, lifting her hair off her back, then arching her shoulders so that her breasts curved enticingly. Cheap trick? Oh, yeah. “Really? When? Because in Philadelphia, you didn’t even take a hotel room. You slept in that junker you bought from that all-night car dealer.”
“You were in Philly?”
She stood and, with one quick flick, undid the top button on her low-slung jeans. She would have kicked off her boots, but she had some serious misgivings about the stained carpet.
“And in Detroit and in Boston,” she replied.
She walked closer to the window and hoped that her silhouette against the neon slats of the blinds pushed the right button. They’d been apart for so long and even then, she hadn’t known him that well. But if she could just connect with him, get under his skin, she might be able to lure him back to Chicago. To his friends. To his old life. Out of danger from both the supernatural world and his own self-destruction.
Grabbing the hem of her layered tank tops, she lifted them over her head. She was wearing nothing now but a lacy black bra and unfastened jeans with the edges of her panties peeking out from between the teeth of the zipper.
“Don’t do this,” he said, his voice more pleading than commanding.
She slipped her hands between her jeans and her hips, tugging the fabric down a few inches, making sure he had a good look at the black lace she wore underneath. “Don’t do what?”
Though she hardly trusted her normally clumsy self to step forward when her nerves were jangling like wind chimes in a thunderstorm, she made the attempt and succeeded. She was still three feet away from him, but a warring mixture of desire and restraint clouded his eyes. His jaw was set so tight she thought the bone might crack.
“Don’t…” Rick whispered, “try and seduce me.”
His tone faltered. The words came out half as an admonishment and half as request. And she knew very well which half she was going to listen to.
She licked her lips and closed the rest of the distance between them in three purposeful steps.
“I’m not only going to try, Rick. I’m going to succeed.”
4
RICK CLOSED HIS EYES, but Josie, who smelled of musk and sandalwood and had turned on the full force of her inner seductress, was impossible to shut out. And why should he try so hard? Hadn’t he spent the past six months dreaming about her, fantasizing about her, casting her as the star in hot, wet dreams that had left him to take sexual matters into his own hands more times than he had since he’d been a teenager?
Why attempt to resist her? With all the darkness in his life, she was a beacon of light. God knows he needed the light. Maybe a kiss, a taste, would satisfy him enough so he could send her away before she got hurt.
He grabbed her by the arms and swung her onto the bed. She squealed in surprise, but he squelched the sound with a hard kiss. Without hesitation, her angel-soft lips opened to him and he thrust his tongue into her mouth, reveling in the sweet flavors of mint and spring water.
Was it enough to cleanse him?
His mind flew back to the first time he’d kissed her in the kitchen of her apartment, where she’d struggled to find matching wineglasses and a bottle of merlot. The space had been tight, and the contraction of his insides had been tighter. He’d wanted her so badly, but he’d resisted. Josie was a mystery to him—a free-spirited woman who contradicted everything in his ordered and ordinary world.
That, at least, hadn’t changed.
And neither had the intensity of their kiss. He loved how her tongue sparred with his, how her moans grew louder when he pressed harder against her. Kissed deeper. With each slip of control, his pleasure intensified, as if she’d come here specifically to wash the darkness from his soul.
He pulled away, but she hooked her hands around his neck and drove her fingers tight into his hair.
“Don’t,” she said.
“I’m trying to stop,” he said, his voice thick and raspy from the past twenty-four hours of trying to forget. He’d smoked, drunk, showered, then drunk some more. He’d worked out, using the hotel mattress as a punching bag, working himself into a sweat that had required another shower and another round with the bottle. And still, the memory of the shadow that had tried to invade his body would not recede. How could he let that filth anywhere near Josie?
She shook her head emphatically. “No, I mean…don’t stop.”
Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t resist inhaling deeply, filling himself with her scent. So spicy. So clean. So devoid of the stench of supernatural evil.
“I can’t do this, Josie. It’s not fair to—”
“I wouldn’t have made it this far if I couldn’t take care of myself,” she insisted, her blue eyes bright with resolve. “I know what I want. I know what you want. Take it, Rick. Nothing is stopping you, least of all me.”
Her smile, so sweet yet so seductive, injected a joy into his soul he hadn’t realized until now he desperately craved. God, he wanted her. Had wanted her. From the first minute she’d stumbled into him at the police station to the charged evening he’d spent in her apartment, he’d fought against the instinct to seduce this woman he barely knew. Unable to resist a second time, he kissed her again, nearly delirious with the clean flavors of her mouth and the sweet silkiness of her tongue. Her pleasured moans goaded him while the lace of her bra chafed against his bare chest, driving him mad with wanting.
Her mouth was soft, but her tongue was demanding. In seconds, they established a wild rhythm that pumped his blood with lust. She tore at his hair, then dragged her nails down his back, raking his flesh and awakening needs he’d suppressed for months. The lamplight in the cheap hotel wasn’t the best, but when he finally managed to pull away from Josie, he saw her with surprisingly clear eyes, his vision focused solely on her instead of what might be coming at him from behind.
“You’re just as beautiful as I remember,” he said, stroking his fingers from her chin to the hollow between her breasts, then lower, lingering at the laced edge of her panties.
This time when she speared her fingers into his hair, the tug was gentle, teasing. Before she spoke, she swallowed thickly, drawing his attention to the necklace she wore around her neck.
Bloodstone. Smart girl. Six months ago, he might have thought himself capable of protecting her with just a badge and a service revolver. Now, he knew differently.
“I was hoping you hadn’t forgotten me,” she said.
He kissed her longer this time, slower, allowing the enchantment of her pure, feminine need to push the fear and anger that had driven him all these months further away. Just for a few hours. Minutes. Seconds.
“For the life of me,” he said, “I can’t remember why we waited before.”
“Neither can I, but don’t wait now.”
He did as she commanded, tugging her jeans off her body and allowing his towel to fall to the ground. Against the stiff white sheets he’d lifted from a nearby discount store to replace the ratty rags he’d found covering the lumpy mattress, her skin looked deliciously pink. Her lingerie, while evocative and sensual, hampered her sweet beauty more than it enhanced it. Josie did not belong in black. In every fantasy he’d entertained since the night he left Chicago, she’d worn crisp, clean white or sensuous, calming blue to match her incredibly expressive eyes.
He removed her inky bra, strap by strap, then hook by hook, until her pale breasts were free for him to touch and taste.
He did both, flicking his tongue over her nipples and then watching with keen fascination as the skin swelled and hardened. He flicked again, this time eliciting a tremulous coo from her lips.
Humming his appreciation, he took her right breast fully into his mouth and, with his hand, pleasured the other until she writhed beside him, her thighs tight. He smoothed his palms over her tense flesh until she relaxed and her legs drifted apart to make room for his wandering touch.
Figuring he wanted too much too soon, he lifted his hand, but she grabbed his fingers and guided him toward his original destination—the warm crevice at the base of her thighs. He laved his tongue in tight circles over her nipple as he dipped his fingers beneath her panties. The warm wetness struck him instantly and he couldn’t resist slipping his fingers inside her until she bucked in response.
Sliding upward, he kissed a path from her neck to her lips.
“I want you so badly,” he said, his sex tight against her thigh.
She grabbed him hard and stroked even harder. “Then…what…are you…waiting for?”
“I don’t have—” he started, but her rhythmic massage of his cock knocked his thoughts of protection into a haphazard jangle of words.
“You don’t need,” she said, her words clipped. “I’m clean and on the Pill. You?”
“Last time I checked, I was fine. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone,” he admitted.
She smiled shyly. “Choosy?”
His stomach flipped with unease. “When the only women you’re around are hanging out in shit-hole bars and could turn out to be demons in disguise, yeah. You get real picky real fast.”
Still clutching his sex, she ran the tip of her finger over the head, dispersing the pictures in his mind of any woman other than her. “If it makes you feel better, I’m all human.”
“Honey, I couldn’t feel any better than I do right now. Besides, I know what you are, Josie. An angel. One hundred percent angel.”
He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, wanting to learn her rhythms but becoming instantly caught up in the pleasure of her tongue against his. When Josie pressed the head of his penis against her sex, the explosion of sensation overrode all rational thought. He concentrated entirely on pressing slowly into her tightness, his ears trained to hear and appreciate every note of her pleasure, which she sang in one amazingly glorious sigh.
She grabbed his buttocks and spread her legs wide. The hunger of her tongue clashing with his pulled him closer and drove him deeper. Wild urges warred against his instinct to be slow and gentle, if for no other reason than to make the sensations last as long as possible. But in seconds, he was pumping hard. She took his thrusts, lifting her knees, tilting her hips until he hit the sweetest spot in her body and her insides tightened and spasmed and she wept.
One more drive and he tumbled after her. Heat flooded through him and into her. She grabbed him even tighter on his ass, pressing him as deep as her body would allow and then kissed him until the tidal wave of sensation ebbed away.
A lifetime later, his brain cleared and, despite the tiny smile tilting Josie’s lips, Rick couldn’t believe what he’d done. And yet, he couldn’t seem to resist when she kissed the tip of his nose and whispered, “Again.”
He cleared his throat, covering a snicker. “Excuse me?”
She shifted beneath him. Though he’d softened inside her, he could feel the tiny quiver that told him she could climax again—and soon—if he only made the right moves.
“Not enough,” she answered.
He stared at her quizzically. “Didn’t you?”
“Come?” she asked, shifting again so that her nipples rasped against his chest. “Oh, yeah. But I’ve been waiting for you a long time. You didn’t think once would be enough, did you? Or am I messing up the whole angel thing you’ve got going for me?”
For a moment, Rick stared at Josie as if another woman had assumed her form or slipped into her body. But in her fathomless blue eyes, he saw Josie’s unmistakable glitter and shine. His body felt lighter, his heart larger, than they had in half a year.
Josie had come looking for him. Josie had found him. Josie had just made love to him with the wild abandon he’d fantasized about for months, and now she wanted more.
“I’m not—” he started, but with a girlish laugh, she pushed him over onto his back.
Grabbing the damp towel from his shower, she proceeded to undo all signs of their previous lovemaking so they, apparently, could try again.
When she was finished, she placed a chaste but charged kiss on his lips. Then his chin. Then in the center of his chest. When she reached his belly button, he felt a stirring in his groin that had him clutching the loose sheets.
“You will be,” she promised, swiping her tongue over the tip of his sex. “Trust me, you will be.”
THE FLAVOR OF HIS SEX in her mouth was elemental and arousing beyond anything Josie had ever imagined. Musky and hot and with a bite that reminded her of whiskey drunk straight from the bottle, she couldn’t resist plying her tongue and teeth and lips until he lengthened and hardened. She caressed his sacs, slipping her fingers far between his legs, knowing she was driving him crazy. And loving every minute.
“Josie,” he rasped. “Josie.”
She hummed her acknowledgment of her name, loving the sound on his lips, reveling in how she’d zapped his energy or, at the least, changed the course of his energy from the dark aura she’d sensed when she’d first found him into the pure, white-hot need that surrounded him now.
Wrapping her fingers around him, she allowed the full length of his flesh to play against her palms.
“Stop,” he commanded.
With a grin, she looked up at him, asking why with her eyes.
He dug his hands into her hair and, though she could tell it wasn’t easy, he pulled her up over him.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
His sex was hot and hard against her stomach. She wiggled involuntarily, hissing with pleasure at the feel of him so close, yet not nearly close enough.
“To bring you home,” she answered honestly.
“And you thought sleeping with me would convince me to come along quietly?”
She kissed him, trying to ignore the quiver of her aroused clit and how desperately she wanted him to touch it, touch her.
“I’d never want you to come quietly,” she replied, the innuendo punctuated by the way she slid on his body. She pressed her pelvis against his, but with a groan, he braced her hips with his hands and pushed her off. But he didn’t push her far. He stretched long against her, and dragged his hand lazily up and down her side, pausing to cup her breast until she arched her back.
“I can’t go back, Josie. I can’t make love to you again if you think—”
She tossed her head from side to side. “I don’t want to think, Rick. Do you? Really?”
His reply was a kiss. Long and soft and sensual so that she nearly forgot the other body parts screaming for his attention. His attendance to her lips and mouth and tongue enraptured her so completely she thought she might climax from this alone.
Then he moved to kiss along her chin and down her neck, suckling on the pulse point she was certain was fluttering at a rapid pace.
“I can’t believe you found me.” His breath was hot against her flesh.
“You weren’t easy to find.”
“That was on purpose. Not everyone looking for me wants to make love.”
“Then I guess I’m special,” she replied.
“Good God, yes. But it’s also why I have to stop. Why you have to leave.”
He flew off the bed, off of her and grabbed a second towel from behind the bathroom door. His absence instantly tore at her and she slid the top sheet over her, though she made no move to get up or get dressed.
“Don’t send me away,” she said. “I can help you.”
“You think I’m the hunter, don’t you?”
“You’re a cop, Rick. The evidence proves—”
“Evidence can be misread and manipulated,” he spit. “Did you want Mac and Lilith to be tried for the mayor’s murder?”
“No, of course not. But that’s not the worst thing that happened that night.”
Her chest tightened. “What, then?”
He shook his head. “I’m not dragging you into this.”
“I’m not delicate, Rick,” she said. “I came here willingly. Because I wanted you. And because I want to help you. But those are two entirely different things.”
She gasped when he slid onto the ground, kneeling beside the bed. “I can only satisfy one of your needs then. Don’t have delusions about the other.”
Josie felt a little crack near her heart, but she ignored the pain and focused only on the here and now. Did he think she’d give up only after one roll in the hay? Having him inside her, connected to her in the most intimate way possible, had only strengthened her resolve. She’d do whatever was necessary to get him back. And that certainly included more than making love, which she considered more a gift to herself than to him.
“I don’t have any delusions,” she replied, taking his hands and pulling him back onto the mattress. “And I’ll put my expectations aside if that will make you come inside me again.”
She tore away the towel, draped her leg over his hip, then moved so that his sex was once again aimed at the precise spot where she wanted him. Instantly, her body reacted, sending a trickle of moisture to kiss the tip of his hard, curved head.
“That’s all you want?” he said, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth.
She laughed and rubbed her breasts against him, igniting a flame in her nipples she knew only he could douse. “Oh, no. That’s not all I want at all.”
His eyes half-closed, she finally felt the muscles in his shoulders relax. Not much, but enough for her to work with. Enough to give her hope beyond the morning. “Tell me.”
“Why don’t I show you instead?”
5
WARMTH, CENTERED DIRECTLY between her breasts, woke Josie with a lazy smile. Was it Rick’s breath causing the sweet sensation radiating on her skin? She fluttered her eyes open at the same time she reached across the bed.
Cold.
Empty.
Gone?
She shot upright. An instant chill sent her scrambling for the sheet.
“You’re awake.”
It took a few moments for her to banish the last vestiges of sleepiness and realize that, while gone from the bed, Rick hadn’t abandoned her. Had she dreamed him leaving? Sneaking away in the dead of night? Leaving her to plunge back into search mode, only this time, she wouldn’t find him.
“You okay?” he asked.
He was sipping a caffeine drink from a slim aluminum can.
She blinked rapidly to force the moisture from her eyes, then cleared her throat. “Sorry. I had a bad dream, I guess.”
Only she didn’t remember a dream. Just running.
Rick turned back to the window. Sunlight, tinged gray from a convergence of clouds outside, testified to morning. After plopping two pillows behind her, Josie sat back and watched him, wondering. From his perspective, she’d gotten what she’d come for—the night of lovemaking he’d promised her after their first date, which had never come to pass. She knew without asking that he intended to leave her soon, to part company so she could go home to her ordinary life while he continued his quest for…what? Revenge? Justice? She really didn’t understand why he’d taken this fight against magical evil so personally. Though afraid that asking might send him running sooner rather than later, she simply had to know.
“Why are you doing this?”
He finished the drink, crushed the can and tossed it into a wastebasket beside the bathroom door, all without moving from his spot by the window.
“Someone has to,” he answered.
She frowned. “Someone is. Quite a few someones. You left before anyone had a chance to explain how things work in the magical world.”
“Anyone, as in Lilith’s sister? The one who manipulated a crime scene?”
Josie swallowed deeply, wishing she had some of the stimulating drink to kick her brain into gear. She was so not a morning person.
“Mac and Lilith are your friends. Did you want them to go to prison, maybe even get the death penalty with such high-profile victims, for doing precisely what you’re doing now? Or were you planning to testify for them in court? Tell a judge and jury that witches and warlocks exist and were attempting to take over the city?”
He snorted and turned back to the window, his stare lost between the grimy slats. Josie dragged the sheet around her naked body and scooted to the edge of the bed. “No one would believe the truth and you know it.”
“I didn’t want to believe it,” he admitted.
“Who would?” she asked. “So you left and started, what, tracking down other supernatural bad guys to make sure the whole thing didn’t happen again? How did you learn how to kill a demon anyway? It’s not exactly common knowledge and, from what I’ve been told, they’re impervious to mundane methods of execution.”