Hers.
He didn’t understand how, but he was feeling her release. Riding the wave of her pleasure, just as he plunged into her body.
“Ah…Todd! Kiss me!”
His lips caught hers. His tongue drove into her mouth.
And his hips pistoned against her.
His climax hit him, rolling over him in a furious burst of power.
When she stiffened and moaned into his mouth, he knew she felt the surge of release, too.
An exchange. Not just taking. Giving.
From both.
He held her tighter. Kept thrusting, trying to wring every drop of sensual satisfaction from their bodies. His skin was slick with sweat, his muscles trembling. But he didn’t want to stop.
Not ever.
So when the climax ended, he just kept thrusting. His cock swelled within her. Her legs gripped him tight, and she stared straight up at him with her midnight eyes.
Magic was around him. Pressing in the air. Dancing on his skin. The glow of power lit her body.
And his.
It gave him strength, a stamina he’d never had. Not so quickly. Never as fast—
So the thrusts continued. The strange link that he had with her intensified. He knew what she wanted. Knew exactly where to touch and kiss, without her having to say a word. Their breaths panted out, their hearts thundered in a mad, matching rhythm, and the furious race to climax had them locked tight.
So tight that he could almost touch her soul.
When they came again, they came together. Mouths, bodies.
Spirits.
A demon and a man.
No, a woman and a man.
A perfect match.
He held her, arms too tight, and knew that he’d go to hell for her in a heartbeat.
A sobering thought for a man who’d already fought the devil once in his life—and had the scar to prove it.
“I know you didn’t kill House.” He spoke in the darkness, when the heat of the passion had cooled, but the magic still fired their blood. “Or any of the others.”
They were in his bed. Naked. His body curled over hers, his right hand on her breast. His left arm rested beneath her head.
She turned to look at him. “Do you mean that?”
“Yeah.” He’d touched her in ways most men wouldn’t understand. Not physical. Her heart. Soul. He’d felt her, down to the core of her spirit. Cara wasn’t evil. “You’re not a killer.” He’d said the same words at the station, but he needed to say them again, now, with her in his arms and her scent on his skin.
She swallowed. “I told you from the beginning that I didn’t kill Michael.” There was an ache in her voice when she said the other man’s name.
Cara had cared House, maybe even loved him. Todd ached for the pain she felt, even as an insidious curl of jealousy rose within him.
But House was gone now, poor bastard. A death he hadn’t deserved.
He’d find the guy’s killer—because it was his job and because he liked to give victims their peace.
His fingers eased over Cara’s flesh. “I can be a hard man, Cara. My job’s important to me. Doing what’s right. Protecting those who can’t protect themselves. I take it all seriously.” For years, the badge had been all he had. He wanted her to understand him. The darkness inside, a darkness he knew she’d felt.
Her cheek rested on his arm as she gazed at him. “Why did you become a cop?”
The memory of his mother’s scream burned in his mind. “My dad was a cop. He worked for the Atlanta PD for eighteen years.” Most folks took the statement at face value and left it at that. A boy, wanting to grow up and be like his father.
Some truth. Some lie.
“But why did you join the force?” The dark eyes that stared back at him saw too much.
Too deeply.
Todd found himself telling her a story he’d never told another. Not even the grandfather who’d wound up raising him. “My dad worked undercover. Deep undercover. Months would go by and we wouldn’t see him, then when he would finally come home, he’d be a stranger.” A hard, brooding stranger who smelled of alcohol and smoke. One whose eyes had been flint sharp and whose mouth had never smiled.
“He was a good cop, though. Everyone said so.” And there had been so many plaques and medals in his dad’s room. His mom had polished them every single week, smiling that same, sad smile as she cleaned them. “I don’t know how many guys my dad put away over the years. Drug dealers. Robbers. Killers. He made a lot of enemies in his time, the kind of enemies who don’t forget or forgive when they’ve been betrayed.”
Cara didn’t speak. Just watched him.
“A guy got out one day. Tony Costa. My dad had been undercover in the guy’s crew. Busted him for selling coke and for the murders of two prostitutes.”
“And he got out?” Cara asked, surprise in her voice.
The woman didn’t understand the human justice system. “He rolled on some higher-ups. Pleaded to manslaughter for the prostitutes and wound up serving a seven-year sentence.” He sucked in a deep breath. This was the part that he hated to remember. “I was fourteen when Tony was paroled. I remember because it was my birthday. Mom had ordered me a cake and we were just leaving the house to go get it.” He’d been going to have a swimming party. The plan had been to get the cake and go back home to set up before his friends came over.
“Costa was waiting for us in the driveway. He had a gun.”
“Todd…”
“He made us go back inside. Told mom to call dad. Said to ‘get the bastard over there so he could watch.’ But dad was undercover, and mom couldn’t get him. She told Costa she could call his captain, but—” A lump was in his throat now, choking back the words. “But Costa knew a call to the captain would have cops swarming over him. So he smiled at my mom, and he killed her. The bastard shot her point-blank in the head.”
She wrapped her arms around him, turning to burrow her head against his neck. “I’m so sorry.”
He felt cold. Even with the warmth of her body pressing down against him, he felt so damn cold. “Then he turned the gun on me.”
She froze against him. A burst of wind blew into the room, sweeping over his body, ruffling the sheets and covers.
Her head lifted. “He shot you.”
Todd caught her hand. Brought it to rest against the old, jagged scar on his left side. “I tried to run, but the bullet caught me.” He’d thought he was dying when he felt the burning lash of the pain in his side. The fiery agony had stolen his breath, then he’d seen the blood. So much blood. His. His mother’s. Everywhere. “He left me there. Bleeding out on the floor, with my mother’s body only a few feet away.” He still had nightmares about that day. Still woke up in a cold sweat, wishing he’d done something to save his mother. Wishing he couldn’t still smell her blood on his skin.
“But you survived.” Her fingers curled over the white scar. “You got out of there. You lived.”
“A neighbor heard the gunshots. Called nine-one-one. I woke up in a hospital, my side stitched up, and found my grandfather sitting beside me.”
“And where was your father?” He caught the snap of anger in her voice—and the soft echo of pain, for him.
“Tracking Costa. He came to see me, once, in the hospital. He hugged me and told me that he regretted a lot of the things he’d done in his life.” His dad had been the same hard, stranger, but he’d also seemed…desperate. He’d put back on his wedding band, a ring Todd had never seen the man wear. “He told me then that ‘if you go too deep into the devil’s world, only darkness will fill you.’ It was the last thing he ever said to me.”
“Did he catch the man who’d shot you?” Quiet words in a beautiful face that was suddenly deadly.
The windows were still closed to the night. The magic wind had disappeared now. The air was strangely tense around him.
“Yeah, he caught him. Didn’t even try to bring him in. My dad shot Costa in the head and in the heart. Then he turned the gun on himself.”
Eighteen years on the force, and his dad had eaten his gun. And left him alone.