Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(43)
Author: J.R. Ward

The situation made her think back to all the phone calls and summit talks she and her friends had had as people in school had hooked up, started to date, and then broken up. She’d always been on the periphery of the drama, standing off to the side wondering what the problem with all these otherwise normal types was.

And then this morning had happened.

Yet another ahh-right moment that she would rather not have added to her repertoire. And, boy, it was hard not to think of what that demon and Jim had gotten up to during their night of fun and games.

Which just made her even angrier—

From out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a man standing by a display of screwdrivers. He was tall, dark haired, intense-looking … and he had a halo. Just like she and Jim did.

“Sissy?”

At the sound of Ad’s voice, she looked over her shoulder, then pointed at the guy. “Hey, it’s one of us.”

Ad’s frown tied his brows in a knot. “Yeah. I know him. Um … you get what we need?”

“Aren’t you going to go talk to him?”

“No.” He leaned in and snagged two hammers randomly. “Jim’s getting the plywood. Come on—we need some nails and a saw.”

Sissy glanced back at the guy, who didn’t seem to notice her or Adrian. “How do you know him?”

“It’s not important. Come on.”

“Who is he?”

“Just a guy.”

Giving up, she followed Adrian over an aisle and waited as he scored some boxes of nails. And then it was across into saw land.

Except before Ad made his choice from the two thousand available options, he stopped and stared at her. “How did you know him?”

She pointed to her own head. “He has a halo. Like me and Jim.”

Those eyes of his shifted upward. “No offense, but I don’t see anything there.”

“Little gold circle. Like a floating string of light tied to itself. It’s right here.”

Ad shook his head. “I got nothing, but whatever. Let’s get back and start fixing that room.”

By the time they got over to the big-ass-pieces-of-wood section of the store, Jim was pushing a large rolling platform over to a bulk-items checkout—and he must have sensed her presence, because he glanced over his shoulder.

For a split second, she couldn’t believe they’d actually had sex. That experience between the sheets seemed as distant as a dream, some kind of hazy hypothetical that maybe she’d just made up.

The delicious soreness between her thighs told her differently, however. So did her anger.

As there was no reason to wait next to Jim, she went over and stood by the automatic doors. People were milling all around, each with things in carts or in their arms, all of them with concentration on their faces like they had mental lists and busy enough lives so that having to come back for something they forgot was going to be a pain in the butt.

Not one of them had any idea what had happened yesterday in that parlor—or that they were being watched by someone who was not like them.

Hard to know whether their ignorance was a good thing or not. Would they be leading their lives differently if they were aware of what was really going on?

Probably. And it made her think of a game she and her sister had played: if you had twenty-four hours left to live, what would you do? She remembered her answers having a lot to do with chocolate. Then again, she’d been twelve the last time she’d—

God, she missed her parents. Her sister. Her friends.

Her life.

For no particular reason, she glanced out into the parking lot—and that was when she saw the car that didn’t belong: A big, black Mercedes-Benz was cruising the store at a trolling speed, its sleek lines gleaming in the spring sunlight.

The windows were blacked out so she couldn’t see who was driving, but she knew.

She knew.

As she stepped out of the store, the sedan eased to a stop in front of her and the passenger-side window went down. Sure enough, the demon was behind the wheel, and the instant Sissy locked eyes with her, the happy fact that they had both been with Jim crashed onto her head.

He had serviced them both. No doubt done the same things to Devina that he’d done to her just over an hour ago.

The kissing. The touching. The licking.

The sex.

Instantly, she was back in that parlor, holding Jim as he returned from the immortal dead, so relieved and a little superior that however much the demon seemed to want his attention, he had eyes only for her. But now? After he’d taken her virginity?

He was as cold to her as he’d been to the demon.

“That fucking bastard,” Sissy hissed.

The demon leaned across the empty passenger seat. In a grim voice, she said, “Get in.”

Chapter Twenty-one

“That’ll be four hundred ninety-eight dollars and seventy-six cents.”

Jim went for his wallet, shoving his hand into his back pocket. Taking out one of his credit cards, he was glad it had been under a month since he’d officially “died.” All his accounts were still open.

Come to think of it, he probably needed to liquidate his money before his death became a reality to the banks. Then again, who exactly was going to notify them that he’d died? Long as the monthlies were paid, he could go on forever.

Not that he had forever.

“We gotta find that fucking soul,” he said as he swiped the MasterCard down the reader.

“What’d you say?”

He glanced up at the clerk. “Nothing. And no, I don’t have one of those savings-card things.”

“Well, if you’d like to sign up, you’d save—”

“No. Thanks.”

He glanced over at Sissy and lost all train of thought as he saw her: The light was streaming into the open bay, catching the blond streaks in her hair and the glow in her skin. Her body was mostly hidden underneath the baggy sweatshirt, but he knew firsthand exactly how perfect she was built.

As his cock got to throbbing, he glared at his hips. Nope, he told the damn thing. Not the time, not the place, and definitely not with how things were between them.

Closing his eyes for a second, he intended to give himself a pull-it-together-man-whore pep talk—except all he ended up with were snapshots of her naked and spread, her body arching as he worked her out at her breasts.

Not what he needed. Not what was helpful.

Trouble was, his instincts were still to get her horizontal and go NIN on her. Except how was that going to work for them? They weren’t speaking, for one thing—for another, she wasn’t going to be ready for what he wanted now. Or probably ever.