As she hit her key fob and disengaged the Lexus’s alarm, he jumped ahead, opening her door. And just as with the start, she didn’t seem to know how to end things.
He did.
Stepping out of the way, he let her get into her seat and do up her belt and start her engine. Then, when she turned and looked up at him—
“We’re not done yet,” he said, the statement a bald demand more than anything romantic.
With a lunge, he went in for a dominating kiss, capturing the sides of her face in his palms, penetrating her mouth the same way he had back when she’d been naked and sprawled out underneath him.
She responded instantly. And as generously and openly as she had before.
She was like a well with no bottom.
To the point where he eyed her backseat. Pretty big. He didn’t know much ’bout these fancy cars, but if she sat on his lap…
A shrill round of sirens brought his head up and out of the car. On the far side of the parking lot, a pair of cop cars were whistling down the back lane at a dead run—and they reminded him that as tough as he was, the boss lady didn’t let her security guards pack, and the later it was, the more likely anybody was to get jumped in this part of town.
This woman might well be safe with him right now, but she still had a drive to get out of here.
“You’d better go,” he said, refocusing on her face. Her hair was all messed up, and he liked the fact that his hands had been the cause.
Especially considering who the other option had been.
“Yes …” she whispered.
“Go now.” Before he stopped thinking straight and started getting her into that backseat.
Duke shut the door before she could say anything else. And then for some reason, as he stepped away, he was suddenly totally and completely anxious—something he did not have much experience with.
He was better with aggressive. Much better.
And he really didn’t want to look at the fear too closely.
As she reversed out of her spot, he walked forward, staying in her headlights, staring through the bright illumination, meeting her in the eyes even though he couldn’t see them.
And then she was gone.
Duke took some deep breaths and pulled it together. A moment later, he went to look at his watch—and was reminded that his Rolex had disappeared. Taking his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans, he checked the time that way.
Damn it. Too early to leave so he had to go back in and face the music.
And gee, what do you know. Big Rob, Silent Tom, and Ivan were still kibitzing, now by Alex’s door.
Duke headed in the opposite direction, back to the interrogation room. Which proved to be a dumb idea. As he went over to that far corner and started to reattach the wires to the monitoring units, the three of them took the opportunity to line up like they were at a zoo and had taken an interest in one of the tigers.
“Don’t ask,” Duke said. “Not one of you ask a single frickin’ thing.”
When he finally had to turn back around to them, he thought, Fucking hell, even Silent Tom, who never took much of an interest in anything, was focused on him.
“She’s not from here,” one of the three—not Tom—said.
Done with his little tech job, Duke pushed his way through the other bouncers. With any luck, there’d be a couple of stragglers in the bar area who he could muscle out the front door—preferably when it was closed and locked.
One thing he was not going to do was discuss with the old ladies on his tail the woman, the hookup, or any future plans.
Out in the club proper, he was bummed. The lights had been cranked up, the chaos of a busy night showing in all the wet places on the floor, and the cockeyed furniture, and the dropped napkins—and the condom wrappers.
How romantic.
As he started to do a sweep, the brigade of boots following behind him proved that gossip wasn’t just for sixteen-year-old girls with Hello Kitty fetishes. Apparently, yoked-up muscleheads could be into it, too.
Duke spun around. “No. No. And no.”
One for each of the nosy bastards.
“You were out of sight for a while,” Big Rob drawled. “So there was a ‘yes’ in there somewhere.”
So not doing this.
As he turned away, Ivan said, “Come on, man, it’s just, you haven’t—”
The voice that cut the guy off wasn’t one he recognized. Then again, Silent Tom hadn’t gotten his nickname for no good reason: “Okay, boys, let’s back off.”
That was all it took.
Maybe the other two hadn’t ever heard him speak either, and were too shocked to keep bloodhounding their other colleague.
Whatever it was, Duke thanked God as he was left in peace—
Stopping in his tracks, he realized … his woman had never given him her name.
At least he had those digits, though.
Chapter
Nineteen
When Jim came awake in a hospital bed, all he could think was, Maybe it had been a dream. Maybe … the whole thing, from meeting Nigel and the other archangels, to the Devina nightmare, to the game itself … had just been a product of the electrocution at the job site.
A fiction created by an overload of neurological stimulation.
And assuming that were true? Well, then, Adrian was fiction, and so was Eddie and the fact that the guy had died. There were also no souls to be saved. No Heaven and Hell, either—at least not that he had to be concerned with.
He had nothing to worry about other than simple problems like paying monthly bills and whether his truck was running sound under the hood.
Shiiiiiiit, whoever didn’t think normal was bliss? Hadn’t lived very hard.
Closing his eyes, he reached over his head and pulled himself into a glorious, full-body stretch, the relief pouring through him. He was free for the first time in his adult life. Free of his shady work as a member of XOps. No longer the puppet of a cruel mastermind. And not now or ever a “savior” tasked with rescuing humanity from a bored Creator and a super-bitch demon—
“You’re finally awake.”
Jim jacked up off the pillows.
Across the room, sitting in a chair, Sissy Barten was alive and well.
Which meant they were both dead. And his reality hadn’t really changed.
“Fuck,” he breathed, easing back down and shutting his eyes again. Wonder how many hours he’d been out? Hard to know. Felt like a while.
“Are you okay?”
Bringing his hands to his face, he rubbed, hard—at least until every pain receptor in his entire body told him to CUT THAT OUT RIGHT THIS SECOND.
Ah, yes. His face had in fact gone through the windshield.
And that meant his truck was wrapped around a tree, his head had sustained a trauma, and his leg was fucked-up. It also meant that somewhere, at this very moment, if not sooner, a police officer was running the plates on the F-150 and discovering that the vehicle was registered to a dead man … who looked exactly like Jim.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” With a groan, he sat up, swung his legs around, and saw, oh, joy, that he had a cast on his left calf.
Nothing he could do about that at the moment.
Redirecting, he started to go to work on the inside of his arm, taking out the IV with practiced efficiency. “Come on—”
As alarms started going off behind the bed, Sissy shook her head. “Oh, no, I’m not going anywhere. The doctor came in with the nurse. You’ve got a concussion and…”
Jim let her keep talking as he got on his feet and tested out his left leg. Sore. Very sore. But thanks to the cast, it held his weight well enough that he could hobble around and look for some clothes. Rifling through the mostly empty closet, all he could think of was the last time he’d done this, in this hospital. That nurse had been a battle-ax, but—